it's been sitting there for 30 years. as he approaches, the solar panels turn and track towards his light. it's still waiting. sits on six over-built legs. sample return vehicle launches off the base. liquid fuel tanks, sample return container the size of a large trash can. we hear -
gallagher steadies himself. picks the radio back up. he's just babbling to keep himself sane for a little while.
when he goes on -
gallagher sits there. and sits there. alone beyond imagining. hope gone. just staring 1000 yards out into the distance. not looking at anything. waiting to die. he's given up. and then. he shakes himself out of it. just feels foolish he's let himself go this far. gets up. done with feeling sorry for himself.
she comes down the hill. twelve, sixteen, twenty-foot strides. doing forty or fifty miles an hour easy. and all but silently. gallagher hasn't yet responded. and then she's all the way to him. she rears up to strike and - and gallagher, in his skivvies, bursts up from where he's buried himself in the sand, avenging, entrenching tool high over his head, already swinging as amee wheels back around and. he chops off both her eyes. sidesteps as she rushes him blindly and backhands her in her electronic marine cranium from behind. whatever he's hit, the jolt stiffens his arm, throws him off. the tool stays embedded. she runs headlong into the cosmos. smashes, stumbles, falls. and before she can get back up to her feet. he wraps the sleeve of his shirt around his hand, rescues the entrenching tool and deals a death stroke to the silver arachnid.
gallagher watches the second hand come around, takes a deep breath, and.