After we had finished ascending through Earth's frail and weakened atmosphere, the ride became smoother and quieter. This enabled Joe to begin telling his stories about Earth's last great, yet terrible war. He told us about how he was deployed in the Middle East when thing began taking a turn for the worst. More specifically, he was deployed in Afghanistan, and he was there when the Russians attacked. He described it as the most horrifying thing he'd ever seen in his entire life, up until he saw the nuclear wasteland which is now most of what makes up the continental United States. They had tried to hold off the Russians as long as they could, but they just kept coming, and it seemed like they had an endless supply of troops to just keep throwing into the fires of combat. When I looked into his eyes, all I saw was fear, anger, and regret.
"Joe, you need not continue." I said as I put my hand on his shoulder. I only knew this look because my father also had the same look occasionally. He was suffering from PTSD. He was handling it fairly well, but it clearly showed when he began talking about his past experiences.
"Thank you." he said.
"No need to thank me. My father went through the same thing. I don't know what it is like to live with it, but I know what it does to people who have it."
"I'm sorry." he said. There was a pause, then he said, "How about we move onto a less depressing topic, shall we?"
"I can agree to that." said Alex.
"Walter, how about you go over the details for what we are going to do once we arrive on Mars?" asked Joe. I could tell that he himself wasn't very interested in hearing the details, but my father would ask me similar questions and have me explain something of complete irrelevance to him, just so he could take his mind off of what he was thinking.
"Sure." I said. I began explaining everything in excruciating detail on what we were going to do once we had arrived on Mars.
After that point, we did our best to see to Joe's needs, if he had asked for help with anything and we tried to avoid any conversation that would have some kind of depressing aspect to it, for the rest of the trip.
It didn't feel like nine days had past. It felt like we only had left yesterday, but we finally made it. We have reached Mars.
As we approached Mars, we descended in order based on which base camp we were in. All the Ships designated for the area where Base-Camp one was going to be, went down first. After they had confirmed their successful landing, we were clear to descend down into the planet's thin, fragile atmosphere.
The Industrial Mining Lasers were pre assembled before we left Earth and all that simply needed to be done was to make sure they were put in the proper position, which each of the Cargo Freighters had programed into the ships navigation computer, before launch. They have containers attached to the bottom of the ships that with the push of a button, will simply detach itself from the ship. So, they descended first to get the Industrial Mining Lasers, more or less, in place before the base camp was established. But, not long after they had descended, we too, soon followed them down to the red planet. Everyone took their seat and fastened up for the approaching bumpy ride down. Every light in the room turned off for the exception of one little red light. I remembered having seen lights like this is war movies and I realized a similar light was used for when the soldiers were getting ready to jump out a plane, to get to the battlefield from above. I then thought about Joe maybe having done something like this before and wondered if this was bring back any sour memories that might trigger a reaction from him. I looked over to him.
"Hey Joe. How you holding up?" I nearly shouted to him. He looked over to me.
"I would like to file a complaint. These chairs suck!" he shouted back to me. This caused everyone in the room to burst out laughing, even though they were gripping onto their guard-rails for dear life.
"Alright, I'll bring that up with Paul for you!"
It felt as if the turbulence was intensifying every second we were descending until finally, after one very rough hit, the ship stopped moving altogether.
"Houston, we have landed." said one of the pilots. The ship was filled with cheers and applauses. The pilot came out from the cockpit and said, "Make sure you all are suited up. We won't be able to leave them until we get the structures in place, which will take a few hours." He was right. We would be in our suits for quite some time, and if anything of them had a malfunction, that would be the end of whoever was in it. We aren't just wearing these Environmental suits because it's cold. Mars' atmosphere primarily consists of Carbon Dioxide, which to us Humans, is not very breathable. So, in short, we would suffocate to death. But, it is at least better than the vacuum of space or the moon, which is essentially the same thing, in terms of atmosphere, since the moon doesn't have one. If someone were to lose their helmet, for example, we still have somewhere in the range of a minute to get then a replacement helmet on Mars. But, in the vacuum of space and on the moon, you wouldn't have anywhere near enough time to do that. More or less to say, you would be dead with one to two seconds after exposure.
"Is everyone suited up and ready?" asked the pilot. Every one simply replied with a "Yes." or something that would have been perceived in the same way. "Alright, good. Lets check out our new beautiful home for the few years." he said, sarcastically. Most people who left were not happy about leaving, since they were not only leaving the more so, safety of the homes, but they were also leaving their families. But, they knew that everything that they love would hinge on this mission being successful. And hell, if this mission did turn out to be a complete success and Mankind once again, did flourish, then this moment would go down in history as having been the moment when Humans took to the stars, to travel to its neighboring worlds in search of resources which were essential to our survival as a species.
The light went from red to a dim green. Then, we heard the ominous hissing sound as all the oxygen in the cabin was now released into the Carbon Dioxide rich, Martian atmosphere, a very foreign, and very hostile place to us. A reddish gas and dust cloud filled the cabin. After the dust cloud had consumed me and I noticed I wasn't choking or coughing as I began to breath, I knew that I had put my suit on right. I looked around to make sure the same thing went for everyone else, and it had, at least as far as I could tell. Everyone has a low-frequency communicator inside their Environmental Suit helmets. Unlike Earth's Nitrogen-Oxygen rich atmosphere, In Mars' Carbon Dioxide rich atmosphere, sound doesn't travel as well, or as far as it would on Earth. But, it does travel much better than the vacuum of space or on the moon, which would still basically be the vacuum of space. But, since I didn't hear anyone coughing, choking, or suffocating through their headset, I figured that everyone was doing alright, so far. Everyone was breathing heavily, but with good reason, to see if they were breathing their suits Oxygen or the planet's toxic atmosphere.
Even after the entire ship had finished fill up the red gas and dust, still no one moved to go outside onto the planet's surface. I looked around to see if anyone was moving. No one did. We all just kept looking around at each other.
Eventually, I said, "Fine. I'll go first." Then, I began making my way towards the side door, leading out to the alien world. I grabbed hold of a rail next to the door, so as to not fall down face first, breaking my helmet. I first looked out into the red landscape, then starting with my right foot, I put it out and stepped onto the planet, then I let go of the rail and put my left foot out onto the planet. I was now officially, amongst the first group of humans to have ever colonized Mars, even if it would only be for a short time. "Well, what are you all waiting for, your own personal invitations? Get out here." I said. Alex and Joe were the first two to go out after me.
"Well, I must say, there isn't much out here, but I could get used to this scenery." said Alex.
"Yeah, I must say, the view isn't too bad either. I'm pretty sure that's Olympus Mons, right over there." added Joe.
"This is fairly nice. I mean, I've seen images that the Martian rovers took and it honestly didn't seems very appealing at the time, but now actually being here, it changes your opinion of the place." I said.
"Well, as much as I'd like to sit around and enjoy the scenery, we must get to work. Alright, everyone out of the ship! Lets unload the ship and give the pilots the space they need so they can convert that thing into our housing unit. We've got a lot of work to do." said Alex.
