Sacrifice (ONC 2023)

Chapter 1

SIL! SILVIA!”

The pounding on my door reverberated through my head as I grabbed my pillow and stuffed it over my ears to block out the sound of a fist hammering against the steel of my door. Wait, Steel? The door of my room was wooden wasn’t it? It was as though my brain chose that moment to power on and finally alert me to where I was. I was on Mars! I was on Mars as the captain of the first ever human expedition. Here with my best friend no less.
I jumped out of bed, and raced over to my door, flinging it open to be greeted by the face of my lifelong best friend:

Tarquin.

He stood facing me with a smirk plastered on his face. He took a mocking bow from the waist and rose once more, saluting me and almost poking himself in the eye in the process.

“Captain, I’m honoured that you decided to grace me with your presence after standing outside your door, knocking and calling your name for the past five minutes.”

Looked Like Mars hasn't done anything to change his attitude.

I grinned sheepishly “Sorry Tarq, I was asleep,”

“I guessed.”

A chuckle bubbled from my throat at the trademark sarcastic comment after everything I say. I watched his eyes wander around the steel walls in fascination as my own followed.

“It really is sick, isn’t it?” Tarquin breathed in awe

The facility that currently housed me and my team was made from a special heat resistant steel and was constructed by the builder robots sent into the shuttle with us. It looked kind of like a star from above, one main hall and six tunnels leading off it. Four of the tunnels were for the four members of my team, including myself - left to right: Ax, Eli, Myself, Tarquin -, each with sleeping quarters and a bathroom adjacent. The tunnel to the right of Tarquin led to the docking platform for the shuttle we arrived in and the sixth and final tunnel had the door to the outside world at the end. Any of us had yet to set foot on the surface of the planet as the whole base including the docking platform was raised slightly above the ground.  I turned my back on Tarq and let the door close behind me to get ready.

The bathroom consisted of a walk-in shower that gushed hot water; none of us had a clue where the water was coming from but we didn’t care enough to ask, after 4 weeks on the shuttle we were just glad to be able to not smell again. Lined up neatly on wall shelves running up the side of the shower was an array of pleasantly scented hair and body products and I made a pledge to myself that when I next had time I would return and smell all of them! For now I settled for the matching set of shampoo, conditioner and shower gel that were scented of rose.

The steam rose from my body in wistful curls as the cool air hit my skin and I immediately wrapped myself in a towel. I didn’t know what material it was but damn it was soft. I exited my bathroom and walked towards the closet to pull out one of many identical element-resistant jumpsuits with pockets on the sleeves, sides of the stomach and on the legs. They were white to reflect heat back with black accents, made of a stretchy skin-tight material that slipped on surprisingly easily. Right now i was thanking the stars for my short, pixie-cut hair as, combined with the lingering heat that the facility couldn’t keep out, it dried in next to no time at all, meaning all i had to do was czech myself in the mirror, pull on my boots and meet the team in the cafeteria.

The sink in the bathroom had a cabinet with mirrored doors and as i appraised my reflection I noticed how different I looked; there had been no mirrors on the shuttle so I hadn’t seen my reflection in over four weeks.My stone grey eyes looked older and most of the childhood fat on my cheeks had melted away with the nutrient-lacking diet they had had us on the past month, and my face looked alot more refined. I kinda liked it.
Almost reluctantly I turned away from the mirror, now time conscious. I made my way to the sliding, steel door of my room, not before looking back over to my bedside table, and instinctively grabbing the two things sitting there, one of them was a journal, the other one a small capsule with a ring attached to a pull pin, like a grenade .
The journal had been a parting gift from my parents to document my journey, it didn’t come with a pen because it didn’t need to: the journal listened as you spoke so there was no need to write anything down. It was just slightly bigger than A5 and so just the right size to fit into my pocket easily. The Capsule was more of a paranoia fueled decision, not trusting myself to let it out of my sight; I had the strangest inkling that it would be important somehow, someday, call it intuition if you will. This particular item was given to me by the Big Boss just before the shuttle was due to take off, he had just been briefing me one last time on what to do once we landed. I was about to leave when he stopped me and placed the small capsule into my hand.
The man wouldn't tell me what exactly it was, only that if I ever made a mistake and wanted to have a second try to pull the pin. Lord knows what that meant.
I hadn't told anyone about it, not even Tarq, I had my suspicions that it was just a practical poke from the crew, and yet… It makes me uneasy to leave it where it was while we left. Decisions, decisions. In the end I just grabbed it and continued towards the exit, stuffing it into the same pocket as my journal.

Sitting just outside my door, right where I’d left them, were a pair of black combat boots with ridged soles to allow me to conquer my clumsiness and not fall over while leading my team across the surface of mars. I quickly slipped them on, fiddled with the laces for longer than I would care to admit, closed my door and began to make my way towards the cafeteria.

In the main body of the facility is a cafeteria cross living area with a few tables, a kitchen area inhabited by a robot chef, with a few sofas on the other side accented by a pile of haphazardly stacked games. It was at one of these tables that my team sat, laughing amongst themselves, each with a plate of beans on toast and a mug of coffee.
I went and got the same from Robo-Chef and went to join them.
Taking my seat to the right of Tarquin and opposite Eli, I took note that they were talking about the surface and what it would be like today when we first went out there. Not feeling any need to make an input to their conversation, I slowly sipped my coffee and let the familiar rush flow around my body, providing me with the electric energy God knew I was going to need. I felt an elbow nudge my left ribs.

“Morning Sleeping Beauty.” Traq was grinning at me mischievously over the rim of his coffee cup, which was held in his right hand, his left arm retreating from my side, but not without leaving a bruise from where his bone collided with my ribcage.

“Piss off Tarq!” I grumbled jokingly, attempting to elbow him back, but, in typical Tarquin fashion, he dodged out the way.

“Nope!” Popping the “P”,  the sandy haired idiot goes back to his beans, leaving me shaking my head and silently chuckling. Ax and Eli watch us with amused grins on their faces, Eli eating her beans and her shoulder length brown hair almost falling into her food, and Ax with a mouthful of coffee, his blue eyes swimming with amusement.

“What are you two looking at?” I joke, attempting to pout on my best serious captain voice.

“Nothing Captain!” Eli goes to salute, joining in my joke but did what Tarquin almost did this morning and poked herself in the eye on the way up, causing Ax to snort and spray coffee all over the table from where he hadn't swallowed yet.

“Gross man!” Tarq had taken most of the hit but the droplets of coffee just rolled off the suit and onto the floor, causing one of the robots, whose job I assume was cleaning, to beep at us.

“Sorry…” All three of us were trying not to snicker at Tarquin’s expense but were failing miserably, causing him to glare at us with
a twinkle of amusement in his green eyes. It was comforting: There always seemed to be a hint of humour somewhere in his emerald irises. It was also sometimes the bane of my existence, how he never took most things seriously, how he was never usually scared. Comforting and |annoying at the same time, yeah that sounds about right

“Right, now that it looks like breakfast is over,” I say, rubbing my hands together and standing up, with the others following suit, “We’ve got a planet waiting out there for us.”