The heat hit me in the face like a brick wall: I don’t care what it said on the packaging but this thing was not heatproof.
“They really screwed us over with these suits. Heatproof my arse; I still feel like the world's largest baked potato.”
I grumbled as we wandered aimlessly around the reinforced steel giant towering over us: it looked alot bigger from the outside.
Eli smirked at me, “take it off, tell me how you feel then.”
“Shut up nerd.” I turned back around to face the base, hiding the glint in my eyes.
She mock saluted me, “Of course, how could I be so bold as to question Lord Grumbly Captain Silvia herself! My mistake, I should have asked for permission to tell the truth.”
I didn’t have to turn around to see the sparkle dancing in her eyes, I could practically hear her smirk!
The boys were apparently still on baked potatoes, just like all their conversations it went something like this:
Tarquin: You know Ax, I would kill for a good old spud right about now
Axel: If you call them spuds one more time I'll leave red dust in your sheets.
Tarquin: Oh come on McSerious, lighten up a bit!
Always the constant teasing, mostly on Tarquin’s end. If they're not careful, both of them will end up with a base warming gift of red sand courtesy of yours truly. I’m sure that would earn their undying loyalty and love for me, then I use that loyalty to bribe them into stopping fighting with each other! Just call me Einstein.
Breaking me out of my genius schemes, we all shared a glance, and, by some unspoken agreement, we continued away from our base - Eli says north - towards the red sand plateau and into the horizon, distorted slightly due to the extreme heat. Imagine a cool film with the main characters walking away from the camera towards a heat blistered horizon in a desert… Just a lot hotter. And a lot redder. And not as epic looking due to the fact that we all looked like silver monsters inc guys. Probably a bad comparison in hindsight.
Everything looked the same, Red sand plains spreading out in front of us as far as I could see, a few dunes dotted sporadically around to our left just visible through the suit’s limited peripheral. Mental note: made. You know, when they said,
Hey come to Mars on a super special mission for a super special purpose with a super special team, (Or something like that.)
I really thought Mars would be more ‘super special’ than this. Currently I am overwhelmed with nothing, just red dust, it’s only interesting for so long people!
As though hypnotised by the depressing skyline, my mind began to wander back to the information pages I had read on my tablet when we were back at base. If really necessary to those pages could be accessed, through the watch screen built into the left wrist of our suits, all the stuff we uploaded to the system could be accessed through the MCS: the Mars Connection System. They really needed to hire better marketing, real creative. Any photos or logs they uploaded could be remotely accessed from any system connected to the MCS.
The pages I was reading consisted of a rundown of any life we knew already existed on this planet as far as we knew based on what we had found out through rover observation. As you can probably guess, the list was pitifully short, consisting of five boring plants I can't remember the names of but all looked like they were dead or on their way. Only one really stood out to me: the Custodire bush, this particular plant was most commonly found in the sort of boring red sand plains we were on now. Since this was their environment, they had developed specialised qualities to allow them to have the optimum chance of surviving, for example, under the ground, there was a dome around their roots mane of a strong material akin to wood bark that allowed them to protect their roots in case the sand was blown away and doubled as a contraption like a turtles shell, so they retreat underground during the night to conserve energy as they can’t do anything without the light from the sun. One more quality they possessed which really interested me was their reaction to dust storms: the plant itself was incredibly sturdy so they could survive the storms, but fear losing their purple flowers, so they fold the flowers in to protect the growing seeds until they can be spread around. These plants flower all the time so if you ever see one without flowers, incoming dust storm, fear for your safety! God I sound like Eli, going on about plants and other nerdy stuff. Ugh!
I glanced down at the watch on my left wrist - I wonder if this thing has any games on it. I was about to ask Eli if she knew when a high pitched shriek came from a few feet in front of me. Speak of the devil.
“Oh my god Eli what’s wrong!” Horrific thoughts of my friends being sucked in by red quick sand or eaten by some unknown alien demon people eating thing!
“This is a new species of plant!”
You’re kidding. Right?!
“Thank the martian gods I thought you’d died.” My heart was pittering and pattering, I don't think my system could take that again! We all sauntered over to see what all the fuss was about.
It certainly looked a lot less dead than the rest of them. Its rough bark was a light blue-ish colour; it might have a name but I'm not an artist so I'm not quite sure. It had no flowers so it was basically just a blue, red dust growing twig? Who knows, maybe it cures cravings so Tarquin can shut up about bloody spuds. Might be worth shoving one down his throat just to find out. Then again, maybe not, we don’t know how many of these smurf twigs exist and I don't want the guilt of a species extinction on my hands. How would I sleep at night if I knew the next generation never got to see the smurf twigs?! The new plant wasn’t the only plant here though: we must have stumbled on a martian flower field. To some people it may be a nice place - think flower fields on Earth, but more dead and very red, then multiply that amount of red by like one hundred and you might be close to this dismal sight. Not my cup of space tea, Eli however looked like a child at a funfair. Some people confuse me but, hey ho, each to their own i suppose. What the world must look like through the eyes of a nerd: probably still just as red.
It looked like we were going to be here a while; getting Eliza away from here was going to be like nails on a chalkboard - unpleasant for all involved and around. I decided to take a closer look at some of the plants to see if i could find the funny little Custodire bush, it should be quite noticeable considering the red dunes framing the background creating the perfect canvas to notice purple flowers. As I walked through the dead bush graveyard I spotted more smurf twigs; good, I wasn't going to be responsible for species extinction if I did indeed feel the urge to shove one down Tarquins throat, for scientific purposes only of course. Noted. I was still looking around for the purple flowers when something caught my eye: a plant buried in what looked like a turtle's shell.
The realisation hit me then: I realised I had been an idiot. I sprinted off in the direction of our only hope now…
The sand dunes, screaming at the others as I went.
“Quick! Follow me! ALL OF YOU! NOW!”
Tarquin’s face morphed from cheer to worry in seconds.”
“Sil? What’s wrong?”
“SANDSTORM! RUN!”
YOU ARE READING
Sacrifice (ONC 2023)
Science FictionHumans have discovered a way to Mars and need a group of volunteer astronauts to be the first humans to see if it's safe for more of the population. Sil has dreamed of this her whole life so it's no surprise when she volunteers as captain, along wi...
