Red Hope (18 page)

Adam woke to the sound of raindrops hitting the windows on the Big Turtle.
He couldn’t believe how fast the weather patterns were changing already.

For three days they had watched the dark clouds
circling around Mars from the green bombs. For three days the skies had formed
more clouds from the moisture launched into the atmosphere from the melted
polar ice caps. And for three days they could not establish communications with
NASA. Enough light shone through the clouds for Adam and Yeva to see the
oncoming rainstorm. This was the first rain on Mars for at least two hundred
thousand years.

Adam tried to communicate with home again. He picked
up the microphone and powered it on.

“Hello NASA, this is Big Turtle transmitting from
Mars. We’ve completed the terraforming tasks and this morning it actually
rained. Can you believe that? If you receive this signal, please let us know.
Um, yadda, yadda, yadda,” he said pathetically before turning off the
equipment.

They both sat at the main table and stared out the
windows at the drizzly rainfall outside. Adam glanced over at Yeva; he had
something to say.

She beat him to it.

“A million bucks for your thoughts,” said Yeva.

“A million, huh? I’d settle for a ten second phone
call to my family. What’s there to say? It’s been silent too long. Our radios
are working fine. I just don’t get it. What do you think we should do?”

Yeva tapped her fingers on the table. She said, “We
have two options as I see it. We can bide our time here and wait until Mission
Control contacts us. Or we can pack up and head home.”

Adam was torn. He desperately wanted to see his wife
and family, but there might be a personal legal disaster at home if Mission
Control watched the entire video. He told himself it was just self-defense, but
nobody would believe him.

Yeva knocked him out of his daydream. “We’ve been
stretching our water supply, but we only have a couple of days left. I don’t
want to start eating into the return voyage reserves. We
will
have to
leave soon.  It is a mathematical certainty.”

Adam nodded.  He understood.

He looked up from the table and said, “I think
something terrible has happened back home and we just can’t see why. We’re
castaways here.”

Yeva pounded her fist on the table, “Then we should go
now! We should start the return procedures now!”

Adam questioned her, “Well what if we’re returning to
a smoking rock? Huh? What if something unspeakable has happened?”

“Yes that is possible, but we are going to die if we
stay here, so we might as well give it a try.”

Adam knew she was right. He told her so with a sigh.
His eyes showed true sadness. Was his family okay? Were his kids afraid?

Adam’s frown turned to a slight grin.

“You know, I came here for the adventure and glory,
but I would trade it all for just a few more minutes hugging my kids.”

Yeva said with an irritated tone, “Well, you can talk
about it
with
them when we get back. Let’s initiate the return trip.”

“Okay, but I have to make one more trip outside. Then
we can start the process,” explained Adam.

The rains had stopped and the Sun came out. The
combination of heat energy and low atmospheric pressure made most of the rain
evaporate quickly.

Adam suited up and exited Big Turtle through the
airlock. He walked around to the back of the Little Turtle and saw the dried
mud-covered and bedraggled parachutes lying on the ground. These chutes were
supposed to be used during the final descent into the Pacific Ocean, but had
saved the astronaut's lives during the Mars landing.

Adam shook the dust off of them and tried his best to
fold them back up. He carefully wrapped them with the hundred feet or so of
deployed cable that connected them to the Little Turtle.

He carefully climbed up on top of the structure and
put the three parachutes back into the hatches. Then he delicately reclosed
each door. This was a tricky maneuver because the entire top surface of the
Little Turtle was covered in fragile solar panels. For the last hatch cover he
had to hang on to the long-range antenna tower sticking out of the roof. That
was the only way to get leverage to close the door.

Adam purposely saved this task for the absolute last
day on Mars. Since the parachutes were crucial to surviving the Earth reentry
process, he didn’t want to find out on day one of their arrival here that the
parachutes were destroyed and they were doomed. That would’ve ended all morale
for the team even before the Mars exploration began.

Adam took a look at the horizon. He couldn’t believe
the drastic changes to it since they’d arrived. Some large fluffy clouds
floated over the still amazingly red landscape.

He looked at the two lonely graves. Then he walked up
the ramp and stepped into the airlock.

Adam opened the new checklist that would prepare the
facility for the return launch. Step one was to tell Mission Control that you
were starting the procedure. He picked up the microphone and pushed the
transmit button.

“Mission Control, this is Big Turtle. We are
transmitting in the blind here. Again. We hope that somebody there is getting
this. The remaining crew consists of Yeva Turoskova and myself, Adam Alston. We
are initiating the return phase of the mission. Estimated time of liftoff is
about two hours from now. We should be home in a few weeks. Um, that’s it.
Signing off. Godspeed to us.”

For the next two hours the astronauts went through
more checklists. Space flight is all about checklists. The green ones, the
yellow ones and finally the red ones that involve matters of life and death.

The only part of the facility that was returning home
was the part that brought them all this way:
Little Turtle
. Adam
transferred some of the remaining food from the living module to Little Turtle.
Yeva transferred what water was left. The Little Turtle contained enough water
to maintain four astronauts on the three week return trip. However, it was better
to have too much and not need it.

By mid-afternoon they did a final walkthrough of the
Big Turtle living module. They each signed the dinner table with a Sharpie;
astronaut graffiti of sorts. It said,
Yeva, Adam, and in memoriam: Molly and
Keller
.

Adam looked around and let out a final sigh.

“I didn’t like it here, but I’m going miss this place
for some reason. We’re leaving a lot of hope behind.”

Yeva put her hand on his shoulder and said, “It feels
like we have lived a lifetime here already. Let’s go home.”

The two astronauts walked down the hallway connector
to the Little Turtle and closed the door behind them. Adam opened a hatch cover
and pushed a recessed switch. The hallway connector popped off the Little
Turtle, effectively disconnecting the umbilical between the two Turtles.

Big Turtle would sit on the surface of Mars for many
years before the blowing wind and, hopefully, Earth-like erosion would tear it
down. The onboard systems would function for another month before the solar
panels could no longer supplement the battery storage and fuel cells.

Big Turtle would sit empty and oh so cold awaiting
some future traveler.

Little Turtle was once again a standalone space ship.
The two astronauts put on their space suits and helmets and clambered into the
launch seats; this left them lying on their backs facing upward. Just one last
checklist for fuel monitoring remained. They only had about one minute of fuel
for the conventional rocket engines to get them off the planet and into orbit.
After some time circling Mars, the autopilot would take over and fire the Murch
Motor MM10 engines. The Little Turtle would slingshot away from Mars onto the
long lonely path back to Earth. The engines would stay on for most of the trip,
driving them home.

Adam turned to look at Yeva.

“Are you ready?”

She grinned a hopeful smile.

“Yes, let’s go home.”

Adam flipped up the red switch protector on the rocket
ignition toggle. Then he looked at the digital wall clock.

“Starting countdown. Five four three two one.”

He pushed the toggle switch over and the ship shook
violently as the traditional rocket engines ignited blasting holes in the
Martian soil underneath. This caused a violent dust storm to swirl out from
under the Little Turtle. The old connector hallway crumpled up and slammed into
the side of the idled Big Turtle. The cross made of American and Russian flags
blew down next to the two graves.

The ship began rising up as expected. After just a few
seconds of flight it halted and lurched violently to one side as if tied to the
ground. During today’s checklist, they had forgotten to release the grounding
cable. The Little Turtle was indeed
still attached to Mars
. Adam had
missed that crucial step.

“Yeva!  Did you release the grounding cable?”

“No! I thought
you
did it when you repacked the
parachutes!”

The roar was getting louder.

“We can’t turn off these engines! We’re in serious
trouble!”

Adam knew they only had 45 seconds of fuel left for
this phase of the escape. After that, they would die on Mars along with their
crewmates. His mind was in overdrive. He rapidly thought through every
scenario. With Little Turtle pulling tightly on the cable, there was no way the
standard release method would work now.

Adam unlatched his seatbelt and jumped over to the
console. He grabbed the remote control for the mini rover.

The ship lurched and threw Adam to the floor. He
clawed back up to the window.

The ship was bouncing around and Adam was having a
hard time keeping his bearings. One arm held him to the ship and his other arm
held the transmitter.

He gave the remote control full throttle and off in
the distance he saw a puff of smoke rise up. The little rover was racing toward
them. It was hitting rocks and doing amazing hops on the way over.

With his thumb on the throttle he tried desperately to
steer the other control stick with his other fingers. It got closer and closer
and he steered it right toward the bottom of the ship hoping it would hit the
cable.

“Come on baby, you gotta help us!” screamed Adam at
the racing rover.

It disappeared from view underneath the ship and
suddenly a loud metallic sheering sound roared up through the bottom of the
ship. The rover had broken the grounding cable and the Little Turtle lurched
violently upward. The sudden jolt caused the long-range antenna on the roof to
fall over and tear off. It slid down the solar cell roof ripping several away
and falling past the window.

Adam collapsed to the floor under the intense and
sudden acceleration. He tried to crawl to his seat, but the g-forces were just
too much; he was pinned down. Yeva reached over and grabbed his hand. He
squeezed tight as the ship continued its accelerated climb out of the Mars
atmosphere. His other arm wrapped around the frame of his seat.

The side-to-side lurching had stopped immediately when
the ship was finally untethered from the planet.

The surface escape rockets were pushing hard, but they
hadn’t made it out of the Mars atmosphere yet. The ship was hitting a lot of
turbulence. A low-frequency shaking began to grow as the ship went faster. Alarm
after alarm turned on. Dozens of lights were flashing. The shaking resonated
with the escape hatch door.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Yeva focused intently on that door.

She repeated to herself, “Hang in there… hang in
there.”

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The door began to buckle.

A crease showed up violently.

Adam looked over at the black anti-gravity cube. It
broke loose from the straps he tied it down with. The cube appeared to have no
idea about the intense acceleration they were experiencing. It bounced haphazardly
around the cabin. It had so much mass that it left small dents wherever it hit.
It made a clink sound as it bounced off of a window. A crack in the glass began
to spider, shooting out chips.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

A hinge pin shot out of the crumpling escape hatch
door.

The cube slammed into the little striped door where
the
Red Hope
capsules were kept. The little door flung open and
poisonous red liquid sprayed out filling the compartment with deadly red fog.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Screeeeeech!

The escape hatch door blew off and spun out into the
blackness of space. The cabin depressurized violently sucking all of the
poisonous fog out with it. The rush of air outward was so powerful that several
of the wall panels popped inward, reacting to the suddenly missing air pressure
on the inside.

Any partially empty water bags exploded creating a
shower of ice particles like frozen rain drops. The crystals fell to the floor
as the ship accelerated under rocket power. Yeva was ripped from her seatbelt
and slammed into the console between her and the empty hatch opening. Adam held
her hand tightly to keep her from getting sucked out through the escape hatch.