Ask me how to coax proteins and chemicals into a lovely arrangement for curing radiation poisoning? I’m there. Drop me in the avionics world and ask me what that button does? I drool on myself.
I didn’t much notice all the gadgets anyway, because Mars filled the cockpit window and I couldn’t look away. A giant dustball spinning in the void, a wholeother planetthat I had dreamed of but never expected to see. It looked soreal, for lack of any other eloquent term. Like my home planet, and yet, it looked nothing at all like the place I’d lived my whole life.
And my husband was down there.
“I thought you’d like to see it,” said Captain Durich, amusement all over his face as he watched my slack-jawed staring. “You’re not supposed to be up here, but what the hell. No one should miss the view on their first trip to Mars.”
“Thank you,” I said, voice quieter than I’d expected. “That’s- It’s incredible.”
“I think so every time,” he said. “It never gets old.”
He let me gawk for another couple minutes before he said, “Go strap in, huh? It’s about time for a closer look. I need to burn the orbital engines to get us into position.”
“How long until we land?” I asked.
“This ship’s got another shuttle onboard to take you down. It leaves in another half an hour. Three hours, you’ll be on the surface.” He grinned. “Exciting, huh?”
Yes. Yes, it was. And if I’d thought the previous two weeks taught me about impatience, they were nothing on the three hours that stood between me and taking the Trigeneris to Jackson’s hospital bed.
30MAN ON MARS
I did notblack out on the trip down. To this day, I cannot tell you if I’m glad for that or not, because re-entry left me with a puckered butt that might never fully unclench. Colonel Graf, who had done this before, kindly told me it scared her every time, too, and she’d gone through the training that prepared her for it.
Me? I went in blind. Literally, because I squeezed my eyes closed and wondered notifI would ever feel the ground beneath my feet again, buthow fastI would feel it and for how long. The pancake probably feels the pan before it ends up flat.
Safe to say I was not a fan of re-entry. One star. No peanuts on flight.
Mars has less gravity than Earth does. About thirty-eight percent of Earth’s gravity, if you’re curious, which still felt heavy after two weeks in weightlessness. Trained personnel on the ground helped us regain our balance and the use of our legs while we gangled around like drunk storks in the landing bay.
I begrudged every second. With each step I took, I demanded that my legs hold meright nowand behave themselvesthis instant, because I had ajob to do.They didn’t care what I wanted. They just gave out at random, presumably because they thought it was funny and had a terrible sense of humor.
I’d always seen myself as running to a window to stare out onto the Martian vista with awe and excitement when I landed. Now I bounced and tumbled around a landing bay, impatient to run deep into the base and see the man I loved.
Mars Base Bravo occupied a niche in a crater in Arabia Terra. They told me, as I learned how to walk again, that the fighting was far from this particular installation. They’d brought the worst of the wounded to the safest of the bases, and while we couldn’t call anywhere on Mars trulysafe, the fighting seldom ended up in this area.
Unless the enemy wanted to hit us where we lived. Then they might chance the thick defenses and adapted artillery batteries for an F-you strike. But they probably wouldn’t. It’s fine.
We had built up an impressive base here, though. Parts of it still utilized a sturdy canvas-type material to create tent-like rooms and partitions, but the exterior and some of the areas within used solid materials. The entire facility had filtered air, climate control, and proper plumbing in designated areas. Anyone who entered the base did so in a series of airlocks, which blasted the dust off their gear so particle scrubbers could remove the soil.
The place really did look like a blend of military facility and futuristic, science-fiction installation. One minute, my gut would tell me I stood inside Fort Carson, or any of a hundred bases like it. The next minute, I felt like I’d stepped a hundred years into the future, and any second, an alien would burst out of someone’s chest.
You’ll have to believe me when I say I did not, under any circumstance of curiosity, want that last one to happen. I would not at all have been disappointed to miss that. No, not me.
Eventually, after an eternity of feeling like a toddler for the second time that month (the first being potty training, part two), one of the bay personnel offered to escort me to the medical wing. I retrieved my precious treasure box of Trigeneris and followed.
They had built up their medical facilities in the heart of the base, away from outer walls that might take damage or tactical areas that could warrant intense enemy attention. A few people spared me a glance as we hurried by, probably because my loaned fatigues hadn’t worn in and I moved like a newly arrived idiot instead of someone who’d already acclimated to the place.
Doctor Flannigan waited for me outside the door of the medical bay, beneath a sign that readMedic. They had solid walls in this section, instead of the canvas maze, and he leaned against one with a hard-won patience. He offered me a thin smile. “Sebastian Sadler. Welcome to Mars.”
“Thank you. I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d stop by.” I held up the small cooler I’d brought from a lab in Boulder all the way to the dustiest boulder in the solar system. “Three doses of Trigeneris. My brother gave me extra, and put out word with the press. I hope the trial program will start up again now.”
“So do I.” He waved off the helpful soldier who’d brought me. “I wanted to meet you out here, son, because I wanted to give you a moment to prepare yourself. He’s not a beautiful, sleeping prince with his eyes closed while he waits for the hero du jour. He looks like hell.”
I nodded. “Thank you. Expectations are a bitch. Mine are appropriately grim, I promise. I spoke to the scientists and in-house doctors for Van Horn, and they gave me both reports and case studies on previous patients. I’ve got a pretty good idea what I’m up against.”
“That’s good. Because I’ll be honest with you, I don’t. Not fully.” He huffed a breath that seemed annoyed at both the situation and at himself. “I’ve taken time while you traveled to read through the more in-depth studies on Regeneris and what’s out there on Trigeneris, and I’ve got some concerns.”
“Let me guess. You’re worried about the waste byproducts created by both the double dose of Regeneris and the Trigeneris as it works,” I ventured.