Her hands shook slightly and she programmed the last few controls. It was approximately nine minutes till take off and the crew both in the shuttle and in ground control were doing their final preps.
Months and months of training preceded this mission. She knew her duties inside and out yet was still having to swallow her nerves upon approaching the real experience. Floating in a swimming pool or spinning in circles in a G-force simulator were not going to add up to the actual excitement of taking off, going to space and trekking on Mars. Part of her was screaming to unbuckle herself and run screaming from the shuttle. The other part couldn't wait to get going.
Of course it hadn't just been the last twelve months or so of actual space training. It had been years and years of experience leading up to this. She'd nearly been booted out of the Navy when her jet crashed as a result of a bad instructor. Luckily for her she'd proved the fault was not hers and he'd been given a dishonourable discharge. Even luckier was that no one had died in the accident.
Afterwards she felt like she needed a break. She took leave from the Navy and joined the fire brigade. She'd started there in public relations dressed as a giant apple. Apparently this enormous fruit was supposed to put children's minds at ease as she talked to them about the perils of playing with fire. It was all going fine until one winter's day she was accidentally leaning against a heater air vent in a classroom and her giant apple caught fire.
After that incident they moved Fire Officer Chris Kelly to administration; a job she couldn't loathe more if she tried. But, on the upside, she got her own office and a lovely view of the Santa Monica beach and particularly the volley ball courts where the police officers would play the life guards.
One lunch break she decided to get a little closer to the action. The hot, sweaty, toned and tanned male bodies were just a little too much for her to resist. She sat down on a bench and watched.
When the half time whistle blew the police were in front by five points. One of them jogged over to where she was sitting. She swallowed a huge lump in her throat and he came right up to her.
'Mind if I get between your legs?' He asked.
'What!' She screeched, jumping to her feet. She'd always felt passionately about women's issues, especially those such as sexual harassment. Her blood boiled and her hands were balled into fists. She was just about to punch him in the nose when…
He held his hands up in surrender. 'Calm down. I just wanted to get my bag.' He reached under the seat where she'd been sitting and grabbed his duffel bag.
She turned a bright shade of red. He just wanted his bag.
The officer took out his water bottle and took a long sip before putting his bottle and bag back under the seat.
'Victor Del Toro.' He introduced himself and held out his hand.
'Chris Kelly.' She shook his hand, then tried to be discreet and she wiped off the transfer of sweat from his palm. She didn't succeed.
Instead of getting offended however he'd simply laughed and ran back to join the game.
Later that day she'd been leaving the firehouse and found him standing by her car. Not that she saw him at first. He and her car were shielded by a whopping great black pickup that ended up being his. It was then he asked her out, and to her surprise she found herself accepting despite her concerns about the road-worthiness of his vehicle. He took her to dinner and they'd talked and talked until the restaurant closed. She found out he was the newly appointed sergeant in the Santa Monica police. He also told her that the previous sergeant had strangely disappeared one night. He'd gone home and never returned to work and despite extensive searching, there were absolutely no clues, oh, except strange holes in the beach in front of his house. A homeless man that collected tin cans had theorized that it was the work of aliens trying to access secret government information.
The next few months were mainly spent juggling between working, sleeping and spending time with Victor and the more time she spent with him the more she realized he was a great guy, but not someone she could see herself with for life. And he hadn't taken it well.
The last she'd heard of him was that he was engaged to a woman whose younger brother he'd saved from a gang.
'T minus 31 seconds.' Ground control relayed through the cockpit and their computer network started the automatic launch sequence.
She looked over at her commander and he gave her a reassuring smile. He knew it was her first time as a pilot but he had complete faith in her abilities. He'd seen her work in the flight simulators as well as other areas of training. She was one of the better astronauts he'd had in his command.
Their mission was to fly to Mars and deliver supplies as well as two new astronauts to the research base that had been set up on the planet. There was also a cave that the established researchers had come across he wanted to explore. It was why they were also brining a super powered moon rover along.
T minus 10, 9, 8, 7; the three main engines ignited. The commentary of the rest of the countdown was barely audible over the roaring engines. They watched the numbers on their screens count down to take off when the solid rocket boosters ignited and they were away.
They accelerated quickly, enough so that they did not see the smoke and flames billowing around the launch pad as they took off.
Soon they were travelling comfortably and several minutes later the engines backed off and a minute later than that, they shut down all together as they travelled at 8 kilometres per second and escaped earth's gravity.
Chris watched the external tank separated and burned up over the Pacific Ocean.
Despite the technological advancements in space travel the shuttle would still take 50 days or so to reach Mars. Better than the 100 day trip of previous years. They would spend approximately 14 days on the planet with the other scientists and refuel. They'd discovered a way of turning the rocks of Mars into the fuel source SFF; Space Fossil Fuel. It was also cleaner and lighter so the rockets and shuttles were faster and lighter than any previous design. It had been a major breakthrough. For the last few years a mining program was being put into action to bring raw material back to earth to be put to other uses besides powering spacecraft.
Not that Chris really minded either way. She was here for the adventure, not the science.
'For god sake Kelly, hurry up. I know the days here are longer but that doesn't mean you get more time to get ready of a morning.' The commander impatiently sat in the moon rover and yelled at her through the microphone in his headset.
Chris ran to the rover as fast as her gravity boots could carrier her. 'Sorry, couldn't find my helmet for a minute there.' Inside the bubble village they lived in there was plenty of air, but little gravity. Chris usually took great delight in taking off her helmet after a mission and watching it float around her quarters. Of course, then it usually ended up in some bizarre places.
'Where was it this time? The fridge again?' The commander said as he started the rover towards the decompression chamber of the bubble village before they could take it for a spin on the rest of the planet.
'No it was in my locker.' She replied and strapped herself in for a bumpy ride. The commander might be a responsible driver back on earth but they didn't have boulder size pot holes there…well, not on all roads.
'Isn't that where it is supposed to be?' He asked.
'Yes sir, that's why I couldn't find it.'
The commander simply rolled his eyes.
'Commander.' Chris called into the darkness. It had been five minutes before his radio crackled out of range. He'd gone down into the cave and there had been funky radio signals ever since. It almost sounded like someone was whispering to her.
She stepped a few feet inside the cave. 'Commander?' She called again. Her only reply was the echo of her own voice inside the cavern. Chris switched on her flashlight and followed the footprints in the dust. They twisted through several different tunnels and just when she thought she was completely lost the footprints stopped. They didn't lead anywhere, they just finished. A chill ran up her spine. Something was not right.
She looked around her. There were a few different tunnels leading from where she was, and wait, was that a light she saw?
'Commander!' She yelled.
'Chris…' She heard her name weakly echoing back to her.
She went towards it. It became louder and louder the further she went towards the light.
The Commander stood there in front of a campfire. Chris approached warily as she knew fire needed oxygen to support it. He turned to face her, his shield down, as she approached and to her horror he took off his helmet.
'No!' She screamed. But it wasn't the commander. A man, or so it seemed, stood before her. Light brown hair falling slightly over his eyes that were so, what, reassuring? There was something about him, besides the green skin.
Chris checked the pressure gauge on her air tank. Was she hallucinating?
'Chris?' The Commander's voice came from behind her. She turned quickly and her boss was standing there looking puzzled at her in the torch light.
She looked back and the mysterious green man and his campfire had disappeared.
'Chris, what is going on?' Her boss demanded an answer.
She just stood with her mouth hanging open and looking back at the darkness. 'Didn't you see him?'
'See who? I saw you rush past me. I called out but you didn't answer.'
'I saw him. He was standing by a fire and he had a space suit like ours. He took off his helmet and his skin was green.' She babbled.
'Green hey? I think we should get you back to the surface and back to base camp. Sometimes it can get a little lonely in space, especially in the dark. I guess you get used to it but your mind can play some great tricks on you.'
Chris sighed and followed the Commander as he retraced their steps back to the moon rover. She didn't care what he though, what she saw was real.
After many reassurances that she was okay, the Commander finally let her go back down into the cave but never saw the green man again. She never saw anything of interest lately. No water on Mars, no plants, no signs of life at all. Nothing, until...
'Throttle on full, wing flaps up, you're right to ascend pilot.' The Commander read out some of the vital signs of the shuttle to her as they launched back into space for their trip home.
Scientifically it had been a success. Those in the know had collected many a boring rock to bring back to earth for study and the shuttle was loaded with more rocks to make into SFF.
Chris was concentrating hard on flying off the planet when she saw a fire burning on the planet surface outside her window. 'What the…?' She said under her breath. Next to the fire was a figure in a space suit. Again, he took his helmet off, his green skin visible by the light of the fire.
Chris shook her head and looked back. Everything was gone. Again, he'd disappeared and taken his fire with him.
She couldn't believe it. She'd never be allowed to fly a space mission again at this rate.
'Go home Chris.' She thought to herself. 'A long bubble bath and a long chat with a civilian doctor and you'll be fine.' She resisted the urge to giggle evilly.
Home again.
She'd had a bubble bath and had seen the doctor who said it was most likely a strange reaction to the lack of gravity.
Chris sat at her kitchen table eating rather bizarrely shaped pancakes she'd made and pondered the morning paper. There was a report about the space mission and another about a lost puppy.
She turned the page and nearly choked. Victor was in a picture that took up nearly the entire page. But it wasn't him that shocked her. The man from Mars was there as well.
'Man Found After Months Missing' the title of the article read.
Apparently bush walkers had found Sergeant Tc Callaway of the Santa Monica Police Department. He'd been camping in the bush after being abducted from his home. Tc Callaway had told his colleagues that he was asleep only to awaken to someone holding a smelly rag over his face. He passed out and when he came to he was alone in bush land, not knowing where he was. He relied upon the skills he learned as a child when he was a boy scout. He built a fire and plastered his skin in the sap of the Aloe Vera plant to avoid sunburn and mud to fight off mosquitos. He was able to build a fire to boil water to drink and found a fruit tree that was being used as a banquet for various other mammals.
Chris couldn't believe what she was seeing. To make matters worse, the newspaper hadn't been printed correctly. Victor's side of the photos was in red while Tc's side was in green.