skff "Red 1, this is the second of giant leaps for mankind." skff
With the second crackle of the radio, Houston's Johnson Space Center erupted. It was like a scene out of a movie.
The crew of Red 1 smiled and shook hands. They were relieved, but especially excited. Yes, Ben was the first man to walk Mars, but they'd as well be walking Mars in only a matter of minutes. Nothing in their lives compared to this.
Ben stood in awe, steps away from where the Red 1 landing module was parked. He felt as if he'd trumped Columbus, Magellan, Lewis, Clark, and every explorer he'd learned about in high school. People would remember the name Benjamin Matheson for centuries. Nothing would ever be the same.
He took a few steps forward, taking in the stretch of Mars ahead of him. It didn't look very much different from the Arizona campgrounds he stayed at as a Boy Scout. Very red, and sandy too. Like someone had taken a planet-sized metamorphic rock and blended it to a powder.
Maxie touched down on the dusty sediment, marking the last of the six-person crew. She felt tears streaming down her cheeks as her boot struck land.
"Maxie, don't cry, sweetheart," Lana said jubilantly over the intercom. "We just made history!" Then Lana choked on her words, and the tears spilled.
"Ha, typical females," muttered Ty over the joyous sobs of his teammates. Hal giggled at his remark. They could hear Houston pipe in, "Way to go, Red 1. You just made your country very proud."
"Hear that, Ben?" Ty said. "Your country loves you. I guess it's time to ask for that raise now."
"Yeah," Ben answered nervously. "Maybe after our three-month stay, eh?"
Ben woke up on the fourth day before everybody else. He marked an 'X' on his calendar, made a pot of coffee in the tent's kitchen area, and sauntered to the window. He thought of how he must look just like his mother in this moment, only instead of staring out at a backyard in Suburban Phoenix with a cup-of-joe in hand, he was looking over a red wasteland of gas and sand 225 million kilometers away.
Ben took another sip, cringed at the bitter taste of NASA instant coffee, and decided sunlight would wake him up better than shitty coffee. He donned his Extravehicular Mobility Unit (fancy name for expensive as hell spacesuit) and crept outside. He didn't want to wake anybody up; technically terrain-walks without any supervision were forbidden and strictly against protocol, but he was team captain, so what the hell?
The morning sun gleamed against his supposedly anti-glare visor. He walked forward, deciding he'd embark on a pre-emptive exploration of the site before the team was scheduled to in a few hours.
He hadn't walked more than twenty feet before his foot struck something out of place. The patch of sand beneath his boot sole was not the thin dust he'd grown accustomed to. Something was beneath it. Just as he bent to unearth the specimen, he heard Lana shout over the intercom.
"Benjamin get back here! This is against protocol!"
Ben didn't hear her. He was transfixed. There was something here.
"Seriously not cool, Ben," Ty said. "You're not allowed to be the first one doing the cool shit all the time."
"Ben, I called into Houston," Lana barked. "They're pissed. You're team leader, you can't break the rules like this. You are way too far away from the rest of us."
Maxie and Hal were donning their EMU's to follow after Ben and keep him safe. He still wasn't replying. Suddenly he disappeared from view, traveling deeper into the Martian landscape.
"Matheson?" Ty called out.
"Maxie go get him," Lana ordered. Maxie complied. She darted out the pressurized hatch, into the airless stopgap space, and through the exterior door.
"Benjamin!" Maxie shouted. He was nowhere in sight. She swallowed nervously. Houston now spoke to them over intercom, ordering a rescue team, rambling through protocol, and listing all emergency procedures.
They then heard the crackle of Ben's radio, followed by a seemingly endless moment of dead air. Red 1 eagerly hushed. Houston held its breath.
"Guys," Ben squeaked over the radio. "I found something." His mouth was suddenly dry and he mustered up all his strength to form the words. "I found a flag."
Six pairs of eyes stared down the sliver of red Ben had pulled from the Martian sediment. The SPQR was clearly visible.
"It stands for 'Senatus Populusque Romae'," Hal said, breaking the silence. "'The Senate and People of Roma'. This is a real Roman vexillum. The flag of the Ancient Roman Republic."
They stood silent for another few minutes. "Red 1," Houston crackled over the intercom, "we have historians and archaeologists in the building. They're asking to see a photograph, and have a list of steps for how you all need to preserve the flag." Several different voices took over from there, explaining how to take the snapshot but without flash, what temperature to store the flag in, where to store it, how to handle it, and so on. Hal got to work. Ben remained motionless. He was still dumbfounded by his discovery. There were so many questions, an overwhelming amount of questions. So much confusion that he couldn't quite comprehend. This lone scrap of cloth shattered every idea he had of history.
"Ben," Lana said softly, shaking him from his trance. "Ben we need you now. It's all hands on deck between preserving this thing and continuing the mission. Remember this doesn't mean we can just up and leave, we're here for another three months." His mouth remained agape. "Don't worry about the ramifications of... of this. The brains on Earth will figure this out." He knew it was a lie, that nothing could be figured out from this on Earth, but he appreciated her advice. The mission was now more important than ever. Exploring and scrounging for any more human artifacts was to be his sole mission. NASA was already alluding to disregarding the initial mission in order to probe this quandary more.
While Hal and Maxie went to work on storing the scrap of flag they already had, Ben and Ty set out once again to the spot of discovery and got to work.
After three hours of meticulous searching, Ty turned to Ben and waved him over. "It's more of the flag," he said. "Red, just like the first scrap, and just how Hal says the Roman flags looked." Ben ran his gloved fingers over it. There was no lettering, but it definitely fit the description.
"I'll run it back to camp." Ben took off, exhilarated that they'd made some ground in the search so quickly. Hypotheses of what this area could have been once upon a time flitted through his head. A landing area, a camp, an Ancient Alien UFO crash-site; the possibilities were endless. Suddenly he loved being an astronaut more than anything. The riff on Neil Armstrong's line was fun, yes, and exploring space was cool, but making history, and changing history! This is what he was made for.
Ben's sprinting failed him when stepped on a flawed rock and he fell into a crater. He landed with a thud and looked upward dizzily. He remained calm, and decided he wasn't too deep down; his teammates would be able to get him out. The sun barely reached him down here, some twenty feet below the surface, but they'd surely hear him.
The land beneath him was still hard, and as he stood up it felt uneven beneath his boots. He took a step and it crunched loudly.
Ben peered down and realized he stood atop a human skeleton.