Another World

I awoke to the sound of my alarm clock blaring in my ear. I had it set for 0400 hours to get a head start on my last day on Earth before I head to Mars. The first thing on my list of things to do would be to make myself breakfast. This consisted of a bowl of cereal and can of Coke. Not the best breakfast I have ever had but I only bought enough food for me to last the entire time that I was working in the newly built Barack Obama space center in Jacksonville, Florida.

I was residing in a Hilton Hotel somewhere in downtown Jacksonville. The hotel wasn’t that bad but I dislike big cities like these where there was no such thing as hospitality. Everyone had a place to be in a hurry so no one cared to politely ask you to move if you were caught in their way. This, however, didn’t manage to dampen my spirit due to the fact that I would be far away from them in due time. Seeing as I still had an hour and thirty minutes before a cab would pick me up to bring me to the space center, I decided that I would just sit out on the balcony and watch the city.

Sometimes I would compare myself to my grand parents when I was feeling a little under the weather. A lot of the time I would find them sitting out on their front porch admiring the scenery around their house. This thought brought a smile to my face and I felt as though I would be in their place someday. Usually at this time though I would be doing my morning pt, physical training, but today I felt it necessary to relax and to allow my mind to wander.

The sound of a phone ringing brought me out of my day-dream state and I walked inside to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Hi is this Lieutenant Greek?”

“Yes this is him. Who is this?”

“The cab driver called in. He will be here in about ten minutes.”

“Alright thank you.”

The man at the front desk hung up on me again. This was the second time in the past two days that he has done this and I believe that this is why I couldn’t bare to live in a city. Despite this little problem my mind moved to a more important matter: I had to get dressed. It only took me about five minutes to get into my uniform and I made my way to the lobby, suitcase in tow. After signing out at the front desk I made my way out to the street. Not long after I walked outside did the taxi pull up to the hotel.

The driver came around and threw my bag into the back. Without a word he slipped back into the driver’s seat. It was times like these that really bothered me. I had never been annoyed to the point of action but some of the people that I have run into in these cities really wear me down. A comment like this requires an equally robust counter argument. Some of the people that I find in cities like this greatly enhance my spirit and can be compared to most members of my family.

It took forty minutes to get to the space center so I had time to admire the sunrise one more time before going up into space. I will say that the view on most mornings never gets old. After all that I have seen and done, there is nothing that I will take for granted. When the sun was up my mind wondered over these five years that I have spent studying, learning, and training for this one last mission. I was planning on retiring after I finish with this year. With one last look out the window, I fell asleep.

A sudden irregular stop woke me up and I looked out the window. I could see the launch tower in the distance along with the shuttle that would take me and a few others up to the main craft. The building directly in front of me was of no particular interest. It was just like any other office building excluding the NASA logo at the top of the building and on the doors. With my luggage in-hand I walked through the building and eventually found a meeting room conveniently labeled “Operation Mars Explorer”, the name of the entire operation.

As fate would have it, I was the first to arrive and not even the head scientist who was supposed to ask us if we had any last-minute questions before we headed to the shuttle was there. It only took another ten minutes for the rest of the crew and the scientist to arrive. A couple of the other crewmembers asked if there were any changes to their stations and a couple other random questions. About half of them seemed to be worried while the rest were just wearing plain faces during the Q and A. At least I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t worried.

The crew consisted of five men. John Dixon was a short, stocky, pale man that had blonde hair and blue eyes. Brandi Clarke was average sized and had tan skin, brown eyes, and brown hair with blonde highlights. Dillon Parker was an average height with black hair, brown eyes, and had a farmer’s tan. Tyron Williams was just under the six and a half foot height limit, had black hair, dark eyes, and was dark toned. Finally I, Chase Greek, am almost six feet, dark brown hair and eyes with an average tan.

John, who was an Ensign, was in charge of the engine and all of the power suppliers in the rear of the ship. Brandi was a civilian scientist that was sent with us to study Mars’ atmosphere. Dillon, who was also an Ensign, was the ships communications officer. Tyron was a civilian engineer whose sole purpose was to keep the jump drive on board the ship working long enough to get us to Mars and back. My purpose on the ship was to drive both of the shuttles.

After the short Q and A session we were prompted to board a bus that would take us to the launch tower. It didn’t take long for us to arrive at the launch tower and I mostly kept to myself during this trip. I was thinking too much about home. The tower seemed to stretch up forever but I was never one to be afraid of heights. The elevator that was positioned in the center of the tower was big enough for all of us and our luggage with some room left over. I offered a polite smile when I saw that Brandi kept looking at me.

When we reached the top we all stored our belongings in the small compartments beside our seats. This shuttle was just like the classic black and white space shuttle. This one was equipped with a super computer capable of docking this ship to the ISS after we departed to the other shuttle. When we all got settled into our seats I keyed the communications link.

“Lieutenant Greek to ground control mission is a-go.”

“Copy that. Disconnecting fuel and power lines blast-off in ten.”

With that a counter appeared in the top right corner of my screen counting down from ten seconds. As the counter struck three I felt the whole ship shudder and shake from the rockets going off. I couldn’t hear it but I knew that the guy on the comm said the famous line “Lift off. We have lift off.” In just a minute we were already almost surrounded by darkness. I could feel the dull thumps as the fuel tank and booster rockets fell away from the ship.

With one swift motion I had the control handle in my hands and steered the ship toward the Winter’s Fury. The ship was comparable with a nail with a ring around the rear area. It had white and red stripes and seemed to be big enough for how many people we had going into the ship. It was currently disconnected from the ISS but did have a couple astronauts moving between the two. The docking door was on the right side in the center and was very accessible with the ship we were currently in.

Once the airlocks were secure we grabbed our stuff and moved onto the ship. After putting away our stuff the two engineers pulled themselves to the rear of the ship, Brandi went to her small lab located in the center of the ship, and Dillon and I pulled ourselves to the bridge located on top of the ship and to the rear. The interior was quite bland with only an occasional porthole in the sides of the ship. The bridge, on the other hand, had a large viewport which gave us a nice view of the top of the ship and where the ship was pointed.

For the next week I ran systems checks and diagnostics for various tasks. Dillon relayed our condition to ground control and, which I learned at the end of the week, Brandi was reorganizing her lab while the two engineers were constantly checking the radiation and power levels of the ship. Despite the boring actions I performed, I did find joy in watching things float in the low gravity. But time goes on and we did come to the last day of the work week.

No one on the ship was resting as we had to prepare to leave Earth’s orbit and head to Mars. We were five minutes away from the jump when Dillon decided to start a conversation.

“Sir, what do you think is going to happen when we activate the jump-drive?”

“I’m not sure. I assume that it’s going to do what the scientists say it should do. It has to, I’m about to retire.” I said which brought out a chuckle from him.

“Thanks.” He said.

That’s when the speakers crackled with static.

“Ground Control to Winter’s Fury. Are all systems up and running?”

“Yes all systems are green and running fine. Beginning warm-up cycle now.” I said and then typed in a few commands.

The ship hummed to life and the running lights came on. Once the cycle was done I keyed the microphone.

“All systems are warmed up and ready for the jump.”

“Good. We will be monitoring your location via a tracker positioned on the ship. If everything goes according to plan then you will be traveling just under the speed of light. Jump when ready.”

“Copy that. Winter’s Fury out.” I said and then switched to the intercomm. “Attention all crew, secure all loose items. We will be jumping In five minutes.”

These five minutes seemed to go by slowly as I watched the digital clock positioned at the center of my monitor. The seconds ticked by as the minute hand moved ever closer to the 12. When there was just one minute left I keyed the intercomm again.

“Attention all crew, the jump will commence in one minute. Get to your wall mount and secure yourselves,”

I was so filled up with anticipation. This is the moment that will make or break history. This will either begin the true space age or it will fail and all this time will be for almost nothing.

“Jumping in ten.” I said and counted the seconds.

When the second hand touched the 12 I pushed the throttle all the way forward and pushed the red button beside the throttle. For a split-second it seemed as though nothing was going to happen. That is until everything blurred and swirled. I was unable to keep my eyes open and I was knocked unconscious.