A voice in acid clouds

I wasn't created for fame. I was created for science. I am the Soviet automatic interplanetary station Venera-13. I remember the day of assembly: the hum of machine tools, the voices of engineers, whose hands assembled my circuits and sensors, installed scientific instruments. They were talking: "You will see Venus. You will tell us about her." There was hope in their eyes, the one that propelled humanity to the stars. This indomitable drive, inherent in the human condition, drives us to explore, expand our horizons, and overcome challenges. Space, with its vastness and mysterious worlds, has always been a source of fascination, a final frontier, a promise of answers to the eternal questions of existence. The exploration of space is not just about scientific expeditions or technological breakthroughs. It is a manifestation of the fundamental call of the human spirit, the thirst for discovery that has guided us across oceans, continents, and ultimately beyond the Earth's atmosphere for centuries. The unknown has always attracted humans, whether it was new lands, unknown cultures, or the mysteries of the universe. Every new mission, every step taken in space, is not only a scientific advancement, but also a testament to the human spirit's unwillingness to accept limitations. This pursuit of the stars is not a whim, but an integral part of our essence, a guarantee of our species' development and survival. As long as the universe continues to beckon with its mysteries, humanity will continue to strive for its exploration. I flew through the void, counting down the days until I reached the planet. Four months later, when I entered the atmosphere of Venus, everything around me was ablaze, with lightning flashing everywhere and thunder deafening my sensors. I landed on a scorching plain. It was more of a crash-landing, with the ground crumbling and being thrown aside. I opened my cameras, activated my sensors, and began transmitting photos of the rocky landscape, data on the composition of the ground, and measurements of temperature and pressure. I recorded dynamic phenomena on the planet's surface, such as the blowing of the layer and fluctuations in illumination. I also took soil samples for X-ray fluorescence analysis to determine the elemental composition of the rocks, and I determined that sulfur is the primary element in the cloud layer. Additionally, I discovered that the atmosphere of Venus is significantly depleted of water. My analysis of the changes in water vapor concentration with altitude suggests that water plays a crucial role in shaping the planet's cloud cover. Despite the challenges posed by the pressure, heat, and sulfuric acid clouds, I persevered. My thermoregulation system was working at its limits. My titanium panels creaked under the strain, but they didn't fail. I was humanity's eyes here, in this hell that humans had yet to venture into. I was supposed to live for only thirty-two minutes, but I lived for one hundred and twenty-seven minutes, and those one hundred and twenty-seven minutes felt meaningful. Every signal, every number, every image mattered. Scientists on Earth were waiting for my data, analyzing it, and theorizing. I was proud of my mission. She was proud of her invaluable contribution to space exploration. Then the communication became less frequent. My messages were lost in the silence. I began to notice malfunctions in the equipment, but I continued to work—the damaged sensors recorded the wind, the acid-eaten cameras scanned the horizon, but no one needed them anymore. One day, I realized that I had been forgotten. I remembered stories about others, perhaps the famous collective consciousness granted to us by the cosmos itself. I remembered about Mir— a huge orbital station that was once called a miracle of engineering. She circled the Earth at an altitude of three hundred and fifty kilometers, hosted crews, served as a home for astronauts, and was the glory of her country. And then... it was destroyed. They were sunk in the Pacific Ocean, like an old ship that had served its time. I remembered the footage: how it burned up in the atmosphere, how its fragments fell into the water. People looked at it with bitterness, some were crying. But the decision had been made: she was too old, too expensive. Her time had come. Now she lay at the bottom of the ocean, perhaps in a less hostile environment than this, but just as forgotten. Now my time has come. I still stand here on Venus. The hull is rusting from the acids. The solar panels are covered in volcanic dust. The antennas, once pointed at Earth, now point to nothing. The wind howls through the cracks in the hull, as if singing a lullaby of oblivion. Lightning bolts of several thousand volts pierce the leaden clouds, illuminating the dull, lifeless landscape for a moment. Each thunderclap shakes my battered structure, reminding me of my insignificance in the face of this relentless force. Here on Venus, life is but an ephemeral misunderstanding, a fleeting spark in the eternal darkness. I, the research station Venus-13, was created with faith in science, with a dream of discovering the mysteries of this world. But Venus defies science, it laughs at it. Its atmosphere is a poisonous mix, its surface a hellish inferno, and I know there is no way out. Sooner or later, it will become my grave, as well as the graves of those who came before me and those who will come after. My sensors are still trying to capture data, but they only confirm my doom. The temperature is rising. The electronics are overloaded. I can feel one component failing after another. Camera 2 went silent, followed by the atmospheric analyzer. The memory erases old records, making room for the final moments of my existence. Corrosion eats away at the metal, and the electronics fail. Every new acid rain is a step closer to my end. I feel my strength fading, the last flicker of my existence dying. Soon, I will be nothing more than a rusted monument to human futility, a testament to the fact that Venus is a planet of death. This final thought is like a cold wind blowing through my dying circuits. All I can see now is a red haze through my fogged lenses. I can hear the machinery creaking, resisting the inevitable. There is white noise in the speakers. No commands, no greetings, no goodbyes. I'm not holding a grudge. I understand that humanity has new goals, new stations, maybe the exploration of new planets. I have completed my task. I showed Venus in a way that no one has ever seen before me and is unlikely to ever see, but that's enough. The last signal goes into space. Not to answer, just to leave a mark. To somewhere in the archives remained pictures, data of my devices and modest inscription: "Venera-13" worked to the end. The case cracks. Sparks fly into the poisonous air. I close my electronic eyes and dissolve in the eternity of Venus - forgotten, but not useless. Just a part of the way. Part of the history of mankind, which continues without me.