“Actually, there is. Let’s do it right. Take my hand.”
Vera took Dedrick’s suited hand in hers and turned to Sabrina who took hers. The four of them were now standing in a circle, hand in hand as Dedrick began.
“We, the people of Earth, have come to Mars on this Earth day of December 17th, 2025, in the name of all mankind. We come in peace and in humility, but also with great courage and strong spirit. May this day mark the beginning of a new era in man’s exploration of the universe, a historical moment in the human colonization of Mars and the worlds beyond.”
Two hours later, the strange convoy was driving slowly around a rocky bend when the Mars First station came into view.
“There! Look! Our new home. Isn’t she beautiful?” said Dedrick excited.
“Wow! So it is. And it’s about time. We only have another hour or so of daylight left. We still have to detach the landing module off the rover, and I don’t know about you guys, but I’m exhausted.”
“Did you listen to anything at all in training those past eight years? We’ll setup the module tomorrow. We’re to leave it on the rover for now and get the habitats ready for our first night on the red planet. That’s our priority.”
“Yes, boss!” replied François to Dedrick with a military salute and a smirk on his face.
The sky was even redder when they finally reached the station. An occasional wind draft was lifting orange dust from the ground around them as they stepped out from the vehicle. Transporting the module on the rover’s bed had made the short trek a very long one, only able to go a mere six kilometers an hour on the flattest portions of the uneven terrain. Of course, once François had realized he could go faster on foot, he had simply taken off ahead of the convoy. But a few minutes later, Dedrick and the girls had convinced him to stop wasting precious oxygen and get back inside with them.
From a distance, the glittering white station was standing out like a sore thumb against the Martian landscape. The three modules comprising the entire habitat had been set up by the two rovers more than a year earlier. The small white pods, each only a few meters in diameter and spaced a couple of meters apart, were lined up in a straight row, their backs to a small Martian hill. Their only obvious features were the dark porthole windows, two per pod, and the brown streaks along the small jet outlets, left by the rocket boosters when the modules had landed. They were all identical to the one they had just flown in through space. Tomorrow, they would add the extra habitat to the small outpost.
“Ok, guys. Here we are. Vera, François, go check on the condition of pod one and two and activate the secondary life systems. Sabrina, you come with me,” ordered Dedrick.
The four of them got to their respective duties. Once inside, Dedrick contacted Earth to let everyone know MF1 and its crew had landed without a glitch, and all the station’s monitoring systems were checked thoroughly. They were busy another hour or so before finally retreating to their sleeping quarters for the night.
Tomorrow they would add their landing module to the row of habitats and connect it to the other pods. The real work would then begin. Mars First, the first habitable station on Mars, also included two greenhouses, already setup perpendicularly to the pods, partially buried in the Martian dirt mound behind the outpost. That’s where they would now sleep. It made sense, the green plants would generate a good portion of their needed oxygen, while filtering the carbon dioxide the team released. All they had to do now was to grow them.
A few hours later, the new colonists finally laid down on their respective beds, and exhausted, quickly fell asleep. It was their first night on the red planet.
In the distance, a small dust storm was brushing up along a narrow corridor in the cliffs of Candor Chasma. Deep inside the canyon walls, in a large underground cave, a small purple light began glowing.
Chapter III
Martians
A few interesting events had taken place on Earth since the four had landed on Mars several weeks earlier. NASA had announced its intention to send a first manned mission to Europa, one of Jupiter’s largest moons, within the next five years. Many scientists and highly respected experts now talked of the eminent opening of space travel and the future of space tourism. Several new private companies had also entered the “Race to Space” arena, working on their own projects, hoping to capitalize on this new trend.
Back on Mars, the small group was keeping up with Earth’s affairs as much as they could, but their time away from their individual responsibilities was restricted. What made their solitude much more bearable, however, was their personal communication time with loved ones back home. Every night, each member took their turn in front of the webcam to send personal messages to family and friends back on Earth. The quality of the calls was surprisingly good, even with video, but the signal lag between the two planets was annoying, to say the least. Anything said on Mars took a little over twelve minutes to reach Earth this time of year, and the reply took just as long, making real-time conversation impossible. You simply had to wait.
Dedrick was a few minutes late when he finally sat in front of his computer. He awakened the touch screen, entered his password, and pressed on the “new message” video icon. A window opened, and the video message automatically started playing.
“You are a real hero, my son! Everyone is talking about you here.”
His dad was talking loudly, a proud smile on his full face.
“We miss you terribly, sweetie. How are you doing, up there?” asked his mother.
“How’s that greenhouse working?” asked his dad.
“Oh, your Aunt Sonya said yesterday’s sermon at church included a few words from Father Kuznetsov about the ‘travelers to another world.’ She said it was very touching, and they all prayed for you. She asked me to wish you all the best,” commented his mother.
“Funny, she never seemed to care much about me until this Mars thing…” thought Dedrick.
“We miss you terribly, sweetie,” she repeated. “Are you eating enough?”
“Come on woman, of course he’s eating fine. They’ve been training for this for almost ten years now. Don’t worry, they know what they are doing. Right, son? That reminds me, I ran into Colonel Kuznetsov yesterday. He said you’re a brave man and you’re doing your country proud. I told him we always knew you were destined for great things. And I am very proud of you as well, son.”
“Is that all that matters to you? Your son, our son, is lost on another world and all you care about is what Colonel Kuznetsov thinks? You should have never enlisted him in this crazy mission in the first place. It’s all your fault if he’s up there, now,” she cried.
“What are you talking about, woman? Can’t you see how important this is? What Dedrick is doing is helping all of mankind. And his name will be remembered many generations from now. The first man to set foot on Mars, Dedrick Sokolov- our son, my son.”
“Who cares? First man on Mars? What good does that do me, now that he is so far away?” she finished, sobbing.
Watching both his parents argue on the screen was hard enough, but being unable to reply or stop them due to the lag time between messages was pure torture.
After a few more back and forth, they finally wished him good night and said they would await his reply impatiently.
“Hey Ma, hello Dad. How are you? You both look well…”
That wasn’t quite true. Lately, they appeared to have aged significantly. Both in their sixties now, Dedrick realized he had not seen them in person for over a year already.