The Colony

Liftoff: Houston TX, USA

Twelve people, six women, six men, were strapped into the Hermes. They represented a cross section of nationalities, interests, and specializations, setting out for a single goal: colonizing Mars. There was no going back now. The anxiety was palpable in the small passenger compartment. Only one had been to space before, but they’d been training for this moment for years.

“Thirty seconds,” boomed the speakers on the launch pad. Some of the colonists prayed in their seats. Others, like Tara Dayton, expedition leader, just steeled themselves for the g-**** that would come.

“Thirty seconds, roger,” responded Eric Alain, expedition pilot.

“Fifteen seconds, main engine ignition,” came the announcement. Hermes started to shudder as the rockets ignited. It was just the launchpad clamps holding them on Earth now.

“Good luck everyone,” said Dayton through the Hermes intercom system. Her hands trembled in her suit gloves.

“Five seconds, engines throttling up,” came Alain’s voice. The roar of the rockets hit a crescendo. The ship vibrated like it was going to tip right over, “the clock is running.”

“Clamps released and we have liftoff of the shuttle Hermes on a six-month mission to Mars,” came the announcement. The increasing g-forces squished the crew into their seats.

“Ten thousand.”

“Twenty thousand, throttles to 98%.”

“Five… G,” groaned Min Li in the copilot seat, reading out the data. The entire launch was automated from the ground, the pilot’s role being little more than making the decision to abort if necessary. His eyes flicked between the telemetry and the red ‘abort’ button. The shuttle roared through the upper atmosphere. The sound of the atmosphere around the shuttle faded to silence, leaving just the noise of the engines and the constant radio updates.

“Ten seconds to main engine cutoff.”

“Ten seconds roger,” acknowledged Alain, “crew, prepare for the jolt.” The acceleration stopped, exactly ten seconds later with a sudden jolt. For a few priceless seconds, there was total silence.

“Booster separation confirmed, secondary ignition… now.” The booster system designed to fling the Hermes out of Earth’s gravity detached, leaving the small bullet shaped shuttle hurtling through space.

Wham! The g-forces slammed the crew back into their seats as the secondary rockets lit. The second burn was short; just long enough to meet up with the rest of the vessel for the voyage.

“Fifteen seconds to engine cutoff.” The crew were pinned to their seats. The short secondary burn was significantly rougher than the first. It had to be; to get to the colony ship they needed to be going very fast. The engines cut exactly as planned, but this time there was nothing but the silence of space when the engines cutoff.

“I have the lock-on,” said Alain. Assisted by Li, the flight crew started lining up the Hermes to dock, a process that would take twelve hours.

“We’re now the fastest humans ever,” commented Li to the rest of the crew. Li was the only representative from the Chinese Manned Space Program on the mission. Her role for the voyage, like Alain, was a single-use one. She would help pilot and land the Hermes on the surface. Once on the surface, they would become two of the general workers of the new colony. Alain reached over and rubbed Li's shoulder through her suit. She smiled back at him, making a connection with her eyes.

“OK everyone, we’re on the way,” said Dayton to her crew, “all the nations, companies and people of Earth are behind us now. It’s just us and Mars. Everyone not involved in docking can ditch the suits,” she added, unbuckling her five-point harness. “Houston, this is Hermes Actual,” she said, keying her headset to the radio. “We are now on schedule for rendezvous with the mother ship.”

“Well done, Hermes,” came the voice of the CEO of Green Mars Corp, their primary sponsor, “make us proud up there. Godspeed.”

“Prometheus Actual, roger that,” said Dayton, beaming with pride.

Alain remained on the flight deck monitoring his sensors, letting Li join the others in taking off their suits and exploring zero-gravity for the first time. The cramped compartment of Hermes didn’t allow for much room to move, let alone explore. Every inch of space was being used for storage, the ceiling above the crew compartment wasn’t high enough to stand in, if one could stand in zero-g at all.

“Now this… this is amazing,” came the heavily French accented voice of Gabriel Alphonse, expedition medic. He was one of two French astronauts on the Hermes, along with Eric Alain. He had his intercom pack in his hands and was spinning it around in front of him watching it hang there unnaturally.

“I should have cut my hair,” laughed Ilsa Kellerman, the German medic who was sitting next to Alphonse. She had taken her helmet off and her long blonde hair seemed to explode from her head in all directions.

“Yes, yes you should have,” said Alphonse with mirth. A gagging sound came from the corner of the compartment.

“Don’t you fucking dare Raynor,” came the loud, aggressively American voice of Lyndon Carson.

“I… huuuugh, I do not feel…”

“Pass him a fucking bag guys,” said Carson to the people beside Raynor. They did, moments before he started to spew.

“Ugh fuck-ing gross Raynor,” said Carson contemptuously.

“Lyndon stop being a dick for one second,” said Colby Lee, one of the other Americans and the head of the science department abord Hermes. “He’s clearly sick from the zero-G, give him a break. It’s not his fault he’s huuuugh…” Lee caught a whiff of Raynor’s puke and gagged.

“Told you.” Snapped Carson. Rayner, and Carson, along with Ramona Wagner, were the three-person botany team. They considered themselves the core elite of the settlers; the mission relied on their abilities, and they knew it. The crew compartment of the Hermes shuttle was cramped. There wasn’t anywhere but their launch seats for the crew to go to. Freed of their suits, they settled back into their seats. Dayton tried to lean back in her seat, but found herself floating above it; the novelty of zero-G. She wished she could appreciate it more, but like everyone else, she hadn’t slept for close to twenty-four hours. She yawned and stretched.

After all the waiting, the training, the sleepless nights, the sacrifices, they’d made it this far. The days in Greenland had been long and trying. Twenty had started the training, twelve remained. The rest had washed out before Greenland. As she looked around the cramped capsule, she thought about all the people left behind.

“There’s really no going back,” she said to herself.

“Hm? Nope,” said Sam Hayden, reclining in the seat next to her, his voice cutting through her daydreams.

“Guess it’s just us then Sam,” she said, smiling at her teammate. Hayden, the youngest member of the team at 29, was part of Dayton’s science team. She’d found him at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“Heh, bring it on,” he said, with a smile. Dayton was glad Sam had made the cut; they were a long way from Earth and Hayden was easily the best-looking guy on the shuttle. Tara pushed such thoughts away; mission first. Always.

Min Li was still had lingering concerns as the shuttle hurtled its way to the rendezvous. Between the hack that nearly cost she and Alain their lives, she had been on guard for problems. Furthermore, it hadn’t been long since the latest Taiwan Crisis, and the tensions outside the Greenland base had soared. What if it happens again? What if there’s a war? At least she has Eric she thought. He was still in his space suit, staring intently at the screens in front of him. Li went to stand up but floundered with a giggle instead. She pushed off the floor and drifted over to the co-pilot seat and strapped herself in.

“All systems nominal,” said Alain as Li got situated. Eric, she knew, was a consummate professional. His jaw was clenched, eyes constantly scanning the readouts. His steely focus on duty and flying mesmerized her. “I need out of this suit,” he grunted after a time.

“I have the controls,” said Li in response, taking over what was, in fact, just monitoring systems.

“You have the controls aye,” he responded. He seemed to escape his professional trance, looking around the cabin and absentmindedly scratching his five o’clock shadow. The crew was mostly resting by now. Bits of launch suits floated around the cabin. Some of the botany team were chatting quietly. The smell of vomit still permeated the cramped capsule.

Colby Lee floated in front of the small porthole in the capsule side. The cosmos had fascinated Lee since she could remember, and being among them was a dream come true for the American astronomer. The Earth shone below them, slow receding.

“Thus we leave the world God did grant us,” said Hans Hermann from beside Lee in his seat.

“Oh, I thought you were asleep Hans,” she said, turning to look at the dozing German. “You know I don’t believe in all that.”

“Yes yes, you do not, but he does in you, believe.” Lee rolled her eyes at him.

“You’re exhausting Hans.”

“Sank you,” he chuckled, closing his eyes again.

Lee thought about what an odd man Hans was. A religious zealot going to Mars? Bizarre, yet there was something she found something interesting about him His easygoing faith, pure and total was a source of inspiration to Lee, even if she didn’t believe. She stopped trying to make sense of it. There would be time enough for everything on this trip, and in the meantime, what other astronomer gets to see what she could see?

Ramona Wagner tried to sleep but couldn’t understand how the others were so successful at it. Her nerves had kept her awake the night before and she was going on 48 hours without sleep. Her body and mind screamed to her for rest, but it eluded her. The feeling of weightlessness was very strange, even though she was strapped to her seat. With the belts loose, she felt herself float there, not fully in contact with the seat. It was strange and it made her head spin a little.

“At least I didn’t throw up,” she said to nobody; Schwartz, her friend and lover, having vomited was now asleep. Silence was the only response from the dozing botany crew. The readout above the pilots’ stations showed the distance from Earth widening and her anxiety rose a little in her chest.

“You OK Ramona,” asked Ilsa Kellerman. The tall blonde German hovered above her seat in front of Wagner.

“Yes, I am well. The journey… We’re really going to Mars.”

“Yes, we are. Soon Earth will be a little blue dot in the black sky.”

The little shuttle hurtled through space. In twelve hours, the twelve-person crew would be docking with the colony ship. There was no going back now.