To Mars and Back Again [Starting | Still Accepting]

Elaine

"It's so blue," said Zai. I nearly fainted then and there as he turned and glanced at me. I was squealing like a school girl inside as I felt blood rush to my cheeks. I froze, hoping that he didn't notice my blush. But Zai was right. As I finally unfroze to look out the window, I saw a brilliant blue ball almost glowing in the bright sunlight. Even the sun was so amazing to be seen up close compared to the dimmer shadows of Mars.

I closed my eyes and caught a glimpse of one of my very few childhood memories: a flash of sparkling green all around me except to my left where I could see a similar blue to the one that could be seen from the ship's window.

I almost giggled in delight and had to quickly run to my room to stop Zai from seeing me like this. As I flopped down onto my bunk which I shared with Loesia (she got the top bunk), I grabbed my old set of Earth Playing Cards - a souvenir from my mother.

I pulled the yellowed and dog-eared cards from the cardboard box and began to mindlessly shuffle them, letting my thoughts linger on how amazed Zai looked at seeing Earth after spending so much time on Mars. That wondered expression of his accented his marvelous blue eyes oh so much, just like his smile. I sighed as I laid back. "It would be so nice if he smiled for me," I whispered, letting my mind fall into the realm of dreams.

Chris

"There it is," I announced. "The blue marble." The Earth was, in fact, quite blue--much bluer than I had expected. Then again, everything on Mars was red. The only blue I'd ever seen was artificial. This blue was different--deeper than any other blue I'd seen, and laced with white clouds, like...well, like a marble. I'd played with marbles on Mars as a kid, but none of them topped this one.

I made a quick course correction, to compensate for the Earth's gravity, and then sat back in my seat again. Although I was part of the ship's pilot crew, I didn't actually do much flying. I was mostly there to make sure nothing went wrong with the guiding system. The only time I'd actually fly would be during reentry. The ship was designed like one of those old Earth space planes--a giant wing, and a fat cylinder in the middle, with the engines and the cabins and all that stuff. When we got to Earth, I'd land it on a runway like a regular plane.

I checked over the heads-up display once, and then pressed the button for the ship-wide intercom. "Hello, everyone," I said. "Hope you're all having a nice flight...probably gotten used to the weightlessness by now...just wanted to say that we'll be arriving at Earth at about seven tonight...we'll go into orbit, do a final systems check, and start reentry at about eight...should touch down by nine. And don't worry about resetting your clocks; we're landing in the right time zone. Have a nice afternoon."

Astor

I shook my head, grinning slightly as Elaine continued to run down a hall of the ship to the girls’ quarters, for all the world a frightened bat. I mean, she was probably making noises--shrieking ones--at too high a pitch for me to hear. Zai, again. Ladykiller, that man. Me? Elaine nearly bowled me over.

Thankfully. I don't think I could rightly stand anyone fawning over me like that. Embarrassing.

I chuckle and look around the hall. Ugh, gray metal. What a reminder. My home on Mars had been pretty shoddy, but there was at least some colour. I’d wandered every hall of this place I had access and I hadn’t found anything but a sole navy stripe in the boiler room and, of course, yellow and orange and red warnings all over the door we housed some samples of the infection.

I shivered, unable to help it. I pulled my coat closer and listened to Chris’s voice ring down the hall from the intercom. I never quite found a word for her voice. Sing-song sarcasm was my best bet, but she was hardly being sarcastic, was she? After all, we were soon to touch down on Earth. Soon to be on a planet of color, of greens and blues and browns. I was reading up on geography and apparently there were a few places of deserts, one in the U.S.A. towards the west with sandstone formations and a trench they called the Grand Canyon. Maybe I’d go there. Earth people had buses. I could sell my story and get enough money for a bus ride.

I glanced down the shadowed hall again, wondering if I should go check on the books or the few animals in their airlocked little cages--sad, that--and decided I probably needed company.

I knew everyone on the ship. How could I not? I’d been alone with them for three months. I was pretty sure nobody had much noticed studious old me, same as on Mars. It had only been the adults, really, that were interested. Dr. Alana Wool, Mitchell Partridge, Dr. Francene Clement. A biologist, a journalist, and a veterinarian that loved Lovecraft. Dead now.

I looked up at the intercom and finally moved my feet. How long had I been standing here? Long enough to worry someone, if someone was around. On Earth I wouldn’t be able to slip away like that. They’d lock me up, probably. Never all that big on tolerance, the Earth people.

With that thought, I went to the cockpit, or whatever Chris was calling it, taking all the shortcuts I'd learned and tapped on the door when I arrived.

“Astor Weekes,” I said promptly, “I’m bored, but don’t want to hear Zai wax poetically about Earth. Can I come in?”

If this didn’t work out--was I allowed in the cockpit with us flying down to earth or whatnot?--I suppose I could always visit Zai. The boy was good for chatter, at least.

Reverend Lund

Age: 69 years of age

Gender: Male

Job/ Profession: Lund is a Priest to all those that know him, but he is a relentless experimenter and a believer in old, dark religions…

Appearance: He is an elderly man, who is balding on the top of his head as though he were a monk. What remains of his thin, short white hair wisps about his ears and down the back of his neck. A pair of gold-rimmed spectacles sit on the bridge of his nose. He has purple lips and golden-yellow teeth (although none are missing). Lund has an arched back and generally dressed in light grey overalls. His smile is generally smug, but he is not smug himself merely consumed by an inner-sadness he fails to recognise.

Family: No-one is aware of the Reverend’s family. He cares not for love nor friendship, and writes to his half-brother (although he tells no-one of this fact).

History: Reverend Lund was born on Earth in Denmark, Europe. He left his birth parents and immigrated to America, where he was raised by an abusive farmer. He then ran away to an abandoned church, a church he made his home. For years Lund practiced dark religions in secret, attempted blood magic to no success, and experimented on animals and human life – believing he could in some way cultivate the power between life and death. Upon hearing of a mission to Mars, Lund boarded the spaceship under a false name and assumed a position as the ship’s Priest, but remained as low profile as possible. He carried out his works on Mars and began to get excitable at a new youth that possessed him. The lack of life and presence on Earth upon their return intrigues Lund, but does not scare him… for he endeavours to be alone.

Strengths and Weaknesses: As an old man, Lund sees life very differently from those younger than him. He is not a wise man, but he is a careful man – and he is not afraid for at his age he sees death every day. His belief in darkness and false theory could be called misguided, but it illustrates his strong will. He has no physical prowess and is not good at making friends.

Likes and Dislikes: Lund admires loneliness, has a taste for darkness and faith, and enjoys experimenting on things. He is, by all accounts, quite mad compared to your average joe. He dislikes socialising and travelling. He will often drink brandy or rum, but on all accounts avoids whiskey. He is a man of few words, unless he intends to pray.

Reverend Lund

My lips pursed into a smile as the blue lights of the Earth streamed through the window of my chamber. It is now, now that we return, brought down to the land that will crumble and form between our toes and dress our feet in the damp, burned browns of Mother Nature's skins. I got up to pour a brandy and watched as the precious liquor spilled over the ice. It was my own private stash, hauled away ever since I had stepped on this very ship twenty years previous. I stretched and swigged the drink between the labyrinths of my tongue. I swallowed.

Ah, Death how you come. You tease me with your riddles, Death, but I do not understand them, for the confusion of life still bears down on me. It will never release. The brandy was finished now. The ice broke and swirled to water. The telecom buzzed. It was the Captain.

"Up on deck, Reverend," she said sincerely. "We're coming home."

I winced at the idea of home. Then I smiled. "Oh, but Ma'am, how we never left. For be it our Lord has never gone. I shall be on up, do not delay your party, Ma'am, for this return gives me no cause to celebrate."

Good bye, Death. I must go live - live amongst the Martains and the Humans in a tin box that dances among the stars. O' how I must go live! I exited my chamber and made for the lift.

Chris

There was a knock at the door. I swiveled around in my seat.

"Astor Weekes," a muffled voice called. "I'm bored, but don't want to hear Zai wax poetically about Earth. Can I come in?"

"Sure," I called.

Astor opened the door and floated in. He was upside down--rotated at about a two hundred degree angle, actually--and he tilted his head to look at me. "Seatbelt?" he asked me.

"Yup," I replied. "Keeps up where it should be." I paused to check the dashboard. "You can sit down, if you want," I offered. "Be copilot for a while."

Making a funny-looking swimming motion with his arms, Astor drifted over to the copilot's seat, spun himself around, and strapped himself down. He surveyed the dashboard quickly, and then looked out at the Earth. "Quite blue," he commented.

"Definitely," I agreed. "Looks rounder now that we're closer, too." I tapped a few buttons, and magnified the Earth on the heads-up display. "See that swirl in the bottom left-hand corner?" I said to Astor. "That's a tropical storm. Fueled by convection currents in the ocean and the atmosphere...or something like that." I was familiar with the atmosphere, but not so much the ocean.

Zai Holtzclaw|2:00pm|Day 1|Approaching Earth| (Expected arrival between 8:00 and 9:00pm)

Zai wasn't aware of how long he'd been sitting by the window, staring down at his new home. He vaguely noticed when Elaine left and that other people had been passing back and forth and sometimes he talked to them or himself, it made no difference to Zai whether they were listening or not.

"I think that line there must be a river, I bet there's a town nearby and- what are they called? Those ships that go on water, water ships, river ships. Uh, river-"

"I think they call them ships." Zai looked up to see the scrawny form of Steve Coleman standing over him. Well they were probably all scrawny by Earth standards, but Steve was like really scrawny, there was no muscle to him whatsoever because he was one of those lab kids who did all the chemical stuff. Mostly the lab people kept to themselves but Zai had known all of their names because he used to follow his mum on tours around the place and it was a captain's job to knoww all of their people. There were lots more people down on Earth so it must be very hard to be a captain there.

"Steve, hey Steve, have you seen the planet?" Zai was still trying to think of the word. He knew that there was another besides ship, one that was written in half the books, but he couldn't think of it. Maybe in another hour or two he'd be able to tear himself away long enough to look it up. Maybe it would be his son's name - by now he must have named a hundred hypothetical children.

"Everyone's seen the planet. Your mum's looking for you. She didn't sound pleased about you missing dinner- I think it was your turn to clean up."

Zai scowled. It was always his turn to clean up. There were so few of them left and most everyone did a job around the ship like pilot or maintainance, even people his age, so they didn't have to be on the cleaning rota as much as he did. But Zai had been a Martian. He hadn't been one of the space kids or the science kids, just a plain old Zai, working the fields and looking after what animals they'd had. He'd also been the leader's kid though and she'd tried to teach him stuff and Zai had learned, even if he didn't always show it.

But he wasn't ever going to be leader now and Zai couldn't be happier. He finally got to do what he wanted, instead of what he was supposed to do. And he was going to do it, just as soon as he worked out what it was he actually wanted to do.

"I'd better go see her then." Zai un-clipped his belt from where he'd anchored himself at the window and propelled himself across the room. None of that holding on to the sides for him. As soon as he came in grabbing distance of the next bar or piece of bolted down furniture, he'd just push off again in the direction he wanted to go. Three months had given him a lot of time to perfect the art of weightlessness and he was made almost giddy by the thought he might step out on Earth and then float away. Of course, he'd been told that there was gravity there, but he'd never seen it for himself. Did something exist, just because others said it did?

On his way to the bridge, Zai decided he should probably eat something. He'd grown up on short rations so he didn't feel particularly hungry (just that aching sensation he got sometimes, during the bad months) but he wanted to be fit and healthy for when they arrived on Earth.

Soaring over the metal ladder - what was that even there for anyway? - Zai grabbed the bar coming out from the wall and reeled himself in before clipping his belt in place. Only then did he look at the group of adults gathered on the bridge. Ooooh council meeting, scary. Of course Zai was an adult too, even if you shaved off the year and a half he'd lied to the database about. Zai knew how old he was really, of course, because they'd been gone twenty years. The adults liked to make a big deal about how they'd been gone twenty years and he'd still been in his mother's belly while they were cruising through space.

"Reverend, sir, does the Lord say we'll have a safe landing?" He gave the guy his best poker face while he was cracking up inside, but then he shrivelled under the glare of his mother and her steel, blue eyes. Zai refused to acknowledge that they were almost the same blue as the Earth.

"I'm sorry I missed dinner, captain." Zai put on his best remorseful face. "I'll go and clean up now if my captain wishes it?" Maybe he'd be able to convince some of the children to help him. Quite a few of the kids looked up to captain's son Zai Holtzclaw.

Captain Holtzclaw | The Bridge

It was very much like Zai to interrupt a near-critical moment. Yes, it was completely in his nature to show up at an awful time for his mother, and this was...well, this was one exception. As Zera checked her communicator for the time, she sucked back a quick breath through her teeth. A soft click rolled across her tongue as she looked at her son. Against her normal call, she shook her head. “No, Zai, I’ve delegated your evening duties to one of our less able-bodied young men.” She gave a precautionary glance to her left where one of her subordinates stood--it was his son who had been stuck with cleanup, and he hadn’t been taking his son’s illness well.

In all honesty, she wanted Zai away from things touched by the small mass of the ship. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize--and even if it did, she matched it left and right--that the pandemic would be spread as a normal disease. And many of those ways found final rest in leftover scraps of food chewed on, licked, torn apart, and backwashed. The thought nearly made Zera cringe.

“Well,” he began, pitch high, eyes wide, “what’m I supposed to do?”

“You’re going to mind the Antimatter Engines with Lieutenant Collins in an hour up until I call her for bridge duty in the final hour of descent.”

“Five hours!” Zai’s jaw was dangerously low.

“Five hours.”

He promptly put on his defeatist face. It was long, sad, and reminded the captain of Earthen puppies in the rain. Poking his lip out a tiny bit, he repeated his prompt a bit softer. “...five hours?”

The Reverend cleared his throat and winked at Zai. “Time relents for no man, Zai, no matter how much he may wrestle the arms of his clock.”

The sentiment, Zera feared, was missed. Zai took in one final huff before flashing a quick, empty smile to his mother. His teeth were lackluster--a stark difference to Zera. It meant he was consuming more. Chewing more. Exposing his body to more outsi--

Hrmph!

The captain covered her mouth as a cough burned through her throat. She forced the bad wind back down into her lungs and looked back to the stares coming from her crew. They all asked the same question. It wasn’t how or what may have made her cough. No one cared about common colds anymore. Their question was a simple How long does she have left, and for her silent answer, she pointed at the door behind Zai. “Go and get ready. I don’t want to hear about you fantasizing about Earth while you should be working, either.”

When he’d left, the door to the bridge swished closed. Her council looked at their captain, and she narrowed her eyes. “The communication report came in less than an hour ago.” Zera paused--not for a dramatic effect, nor to make them take the information in, but because she could hardly form the words. “The planet,” she said, calmly, clearly, “is unresponsive.”

Steve Coleman | Lab | 1:50pm

I sat staring at the counter. It wasn’t that I wasn’t doing anything it was just that what I was doing was all in my head. That’s how I did most of my work, I would sit for up to hours on end doing absolutely nothing, just thinking about whatever came to mind or at times a certain project that I found particularly interesting. Today I was doing the former, jotting down anything that came to mind on a pad of paper, so that I could test them later.

I looked up from my work glancing at the other scientists, there were five of us all together, each of us were doing something, either thinking like me or using the limited resources on the ship to test their theories. The door to the lab opened (well we called it a lab, it was more a large closet that we bolted some of our more portable equipment along with some chairs in), standing in the door was Captain Holtzclaw, she looked around the room before locking her eyes on Dr. Carter, the lead scientist and is 52, all the other scientist are around that age being in their prime and top of their fields when they left. “You are to report for a council meeting immediately.” the Captain said in a crisp tone “And can someone spare a moment to find Zai? He missed dinner last night and I would like him to report to the bridge.” She continued, now sounding slightly annoyed. I got up right away, it was always best not to keep the Captain waiting, and wanting to stretch a bit before going back to work anyway.

I found Zai starring out a window at the Earth, Talking to himself, "I think that line there must be a river, I bet there's a town nearby and- what are they called? Those ships that go on water, water ships, river ships. Uh, river-"

"I think they call them ships." I interrupt half sarcastically, announcing my presence.

Zai turned around to face me, "Steve, hey Steve, have you seen the planet?" He asked.

"Everyone's seen the planet.” I reply somewhat exasperated, Zai was nice but he got a little over egger about things, he was one of the only people I knew outside of the science community though so I didn’t really care. “Your mum's looking for you. She didn't sound pleased about you missing dinner- I think it was your turn to clean up." I reported, causing Zai to scowl, I got the feeling that he wasn’t really happy about the fact that his mother was the Captain.

"I'd better go see her then." Zai said resigned, he got up and pushed off, gliding across the room.

After Zai was gone I stared out the window, gazing at the blue planet for awhile, wondering what awaited them there. I had read up on earth, starting from when the Captain first announced that we were leaving mars, it was mostly technical information, stuff like how long each day was, how much temperatures varied from region and season and more complex stuff like what the names of common animals were and their biology, how weather was made (I already knew the basics from Mars weather but on Earth there was a lot more types due to the high moisture content). I pushed off from the window, breaking my train of thought before I got too lost in thought. I drifted back towards the lab, there was a lot of stuff to pack up before entry.

Reverend Lund

It was admirable watching all that flesh attempt to steer a ship, a ship hoisted in hours of time, trapped in the orbit. Sure, there would be no dangers to re-entering Earth, but the sentiment of a metal rock being driven still resides in the lands of the surreal. When the Captain broke the news that the Earth was 'unresponsive', what can one who aspires to loneliness really plead? Happiness? Surely not, for to be lonely there must be crowds to define what is not lonely, without such we're merely wanderers - and I am a Reverend, no wanderer. All the same, I smiled. A smile perhaps not of happiness, but more a smile of intrigue.

"Oh, Captain, I do say," I started, "How does one go about curing an unresponsive planet? We might as well all re-attempt the entry to Mars. At least there we should die quicker, and not all succumb to the prospect of lonely deaths."

My hand trailed along the GPS controls, a physical temptation to map into it the way back to Mars. My fingertips tickled the controls, my head bowed to the displays, and then I lifted my gaze to meet the Captain's, at which point my eyebrow rose.

"Reverend, nothing has been confirmed," she said coldly.

I shrugged and then nodded in acknowledgement of her point. "Perhaps, Ma'am, but confirmation ceases to exist when one has no-one to confirm with."

Spoiler

Sorry about the huge lack of posting, it's been a crazy week.

Zai Holtzclaw|3:30pm|Day 1|Approaching Earth| (Expected arrival between 8:00 and 9:00pm)

It was time Zai reported for work and he grudgingly pin-balled his way to the cockpit. He could be a dutiful boy, honest he could, but- there was still so much Earth to day-dream over. And mother had strictly forbidden that.

He knocked on the door and gave a mischevious grin when it was opened by Astor.

"Zai. What are you doing here?" Astor asked, in that factual tone he sometimes used. It was impossible to tell what emotions were behind the words, but Zai wondered if there might be resentment? Had Astor been enjoying having Chris Collins all to himself in the cramped space of the cockpit?

"I could ask you the same," Zai said, his grin broadening. "Better make a move fast, who knows how many handsome princes will be waiting when we land." Zai had read about princes. They came and swept girls off of their feet and married them, but they also ruled parts of the land, they were like captains. Except that their 'kingdoms' were connected together, or sometimes seperated by the sea. They didn't get a whole planet, not like mother had. Zai actually felt a rare burst of pride; sometimes it was good to be the captain's son.

"Zai," Lieutenant Collins cautioned and he gave a small scowl and looked down at his feet.

"Ma sent me to help with the antimatter engines. Said you needed another hand." He looked up and gave a shrug and a friendly smile. "We're a bit short of people who actually know what they're doing so you got me." Zai knew a bit about the engines, just as he knew a bit about everything. That was one of those things captains had to know, but anyone could have done this job as well as him. It was very obvious to Zai that Captain Holtzclaw wanted him out of the way. For five hours.

"You'd better come in then."