by Dorian, Mars
"To your right is Dr. Sriniva Rao, one of our scientists in the xenology department. He’s also one of our alien resource specialists. He will be your partner during the operation."
"A pleasure to meet you," Sriniva said.
The attention came back to the Director whose face shifted from service smile to frown.
"Well, as you may know, we wanted to send a civilian team consisting of scientists and engineers only, but thanks to the Secretary of Space Defense's strong ties to NASA, and his immeasurable influence over our budget, or lack thereof, we were...encouraged to have you onboard our mission."
The guy stumbled over every second word.
Goddamn bureaucrats, Bellrock thought, choking on their own drivel.
"Well, officially speaking, I'm not a soldier anymore. It's been almost a decade since I served, which makes me a civilian just like our doc over here."
The Director leaned back into his chair and eyed him like a test subject.
"But you do actively participate in paramilitary training sessions?"
"It's a hobby, really. Keeps my body fit and my mind active. Plus, I love training my friends from the military. It's how I give back."
The Director offered a polite smile and continued his babble.
"Well, the good thing is you have served in space before, and seeing your latest health check, I can honestly say that you're in excellent physical condition, apart from your war injuries."
He looked at Bellrock's left arm but tried to be discreet about it.
"It's no secret, sir," Bellrock said, "it's how I remember."
"In any case, you only need a two-week intense course to freshen up your muscle memory."
"Bring it on."
The Director cocked his thin eyebrows.
"You mean—right now?"
"Now is the best time of the day. Besides, who knows what that alien is doing on Mars while we're shaking our balls doing chitchat."
Bellrock could swear, the office's temperature dropped by forty Fahrenheit. The Director adjusted his glasses and read some lines from his datapad. Dr. Rao suppressed his smile, sitting all smug in his chair. He still kept his mouth shut and let Watney do all the talking.
"Very well, I guess we can start with the introduction of our two-week intense workout. This will also be a great opportunity to get to know your new partner, Dr. Sriniva Rao."
Bellrock addressed his soon-to-be-comrade.
"Where are you from?"
"SoCal," the young man with the movie looks said.
"Of course.”
All techno-docs spawned from the hippie hinterland.
Bellrock eyed the man top to bottom.
"Have you ever served in the military?"
Rao shook his head with a raised chin.
As if serving was the biggest atrocity one could commit.
"Army? Airforce? Spacefleet?”
More shaking from the doctor. The kid probably only knew war from VR games. All youngens nowadays spent more time in virtual lands than in their real counterpart. No wonder the AC was so messed up.
"Hell, not even the Boy Scouts?"
Dr. Rao sent the Director a frown, which prompted the bald man to release an audible sigh.
"Mr. Bellrock, I told you Dr. Rao was a civilian."
Bellrock closed his eyes.
Humanity dealt with a hostile alien and the AC was going to send only a single soldier.
What could possibly go wrong?
16
The mission was simple.
Get fit in under two weeks, take a shuttle to the International Astroport surrounding Earth, use one of its harbored civilian ships to Mars and gauge the alien's threat level.
Simple, but not easy.
Bellrock had to do the astronaut training in a speed run, including the military water survival test to get SCUBA qualified, which involved lots of swimming with and without a flight suit. Low-game for the veteran, because he had faced harsher challenges in his unofficial SEAL training courses. On top of that, NASA made him endure low and high atmospheric pressure tests in their altitude chambers, which bored the bazookas out of him.
In the middle of a session, he even said,
"Guys, this is kindergarten crap. I've done this stuff already. I've fought on Mars, remember?"
Maybe the folks from NASA were annoyed by his complaints, or maybe they craved some passive-aggressive lecturing, because they eventually put him into a shuttle replica that performed parabolic maneuvers producing weightlessness for thirty seconds.
Bellrock threw up—more than once.
The NASA crew suppressed their smiles and continued the training.
Bastards, Bellrock thought, they did this on purpose.
Their way of saying: soldiers don't belong here.
During the course of the training, Dr. Rao glanced through the window-frames and grinned his face off, especially when another vomit volley splashed out of Bellrock. The geek guy from the SoCal Collective fared much better with weightlessness than Bellrock, probably because he had visited space stations and astroports more recently.
Didn't matter.
Bellrock pulled himself together like a Lego figure made of titanium.
The last day before the launch arrived, and Bellrock stood up like a winner going for first prize. He revisited the Director in his shiny commando-bridge office and said,
"What now, chef?"
"I'm glad you made it through the training, Mr. Bellrock."
For a guy being glad, he looked pretty pissed.
Mouth wrinkles down, voice all heavy.
"Now we'll shuttle you to the International Astroport so you can board your freighter."
Bellrock grinned.
Finally.
The mission to Mars had begun.
Distance to the alien: more than 56 million kilometers.
17
Back in his home in Falls Church, the Secretary of Space Defense, Taurus McCloud, watched the news of the NASA shuttle launch on the RNN.
They live-streamed the historic event on their mainstream feeds, simultaneously translated in Spanish and Mandarin. The blonde anchor wore a tight blue dress that accentuated her slim figure, while her bumped-up male partner stood in front of the giant 3D holoscreen and spoke as the two chosen astronauts boarded the vertically 'parked' shuttle.
"Our two heroes, veteran Norbert Bellrock and renowned Dr. Sriniva Rao, are boarding the shuttle on their quick flight to the International Astroport. The duo underwent intense training sessions to prepare for this galactic trip to Mars. I don't know about you, Tyson, but my legs are giving way."
The male co-anchor looked at her legs that were longer than an Alaskan winter.
"Well, your legs are looking pretty sturdy, Lauryn, but I can tell you my arm hairs are shaking. The last time we were able to witness such an epic launch was during the Separatist War."
He looked straight at camdrone 2.
"Ladies and gentlemen, it's going to be a long journey toward Mars, about 57 million kilometers in total. A state-of-the-art artificial intelligence will course-correct the ship and control the crew's life support system. The mission master of the operation has revealed the initial schedule. Once our two heroes enter the orbital sector of Mars, they will meet with the Newtype ambassadors at the Ares Nexus ringstation, their version of our International Astroport. Once the two interracial teams adjust their tactics and procedures, they will fly down to Mars via a space elevator to assess the alien's threat level in the Midlands area."
The man fumbled with his ear.
"The Newtype claim they have successfully contained the alien via some kind of dome shielding. Well, we'll see if that is true. Here on the RNN, we'll keep you updated on every detail regarding the mission, now titled 'Alien Assessment'."
Lauryn nodded, straightened her back and spoke with passion as she pointed toward the 3D screen.
"Look, the launch begins."
The anthem of the AC blended in, the flag blew
in semi-transparency over the screen depicting the shuttle launch. Both anchors hummed the lyrics as they gazed at the epic launching sequence.
Taurus nodded and increased the screen size with his hands.
This wasn't an informative news segment, but at least they praised Bellrock and depicted the alien threat in the right way. He switched to the other channel he loved to loathe, the infamous eQuality news, to see what their take on the project was.
Two young hosts, self-projecting as transhuman, stood behind their artificial, toxin-free transparent desk and looked like seven months of bad weather.
Aiden LaCroix, the tanned anchor wearing a tech tunic on the far left screen, pursed its lips and pointed at the screen as the two astronauts boarded the craft. S/he acknowledged her co-host and sighed.
"You know what's wrong with this holoscreen?"
JoJo nodded.
"Yes, of course, the privileged cis human gets to be the leader again, while his POC comrade gets sidelined to his left. That's a terribly stereotypical setup that doesn't belong in the 21st century."
Aiden sighed but shook her head.
She looked directly at the camdrone.
"Unfortunately, JoJo, it's more problematic than that. You see, there are two representatives of the XY chromosome self-identifying as human, and apparently no one in the Commonwealth cares about this blatant inequality."
JoJo gave herself a facepalm.
"Of course. How could I miss that?"
"Sending two cis humans and no transhuman representative is a crime against transhumanity. What's the point of assessing the so-called 'threat level' of a migrant life form if we haven't eliminated the biggest threat of our civilization—society's utter bias against non-cis humans?"
JoJo nodded.
"This is worse than the Separatist War. Haven't we learned a damn thing?"
Aiden LaCroix finished up the segment with her low-pitched voice.
"No matter who wins in the mission, transhumanity will lose in any case. Please send a message to the NASA Space Center in Houston and tell them what you think of their space team's imbalance. If we shout at the same time, we'll make a difference."
JoJo nodded with new-found energy. She raised her right hand and formed a fist.
"Remember to always punch up, never down."
"This is Aiden LaCroix and JoJo Ming from the Minority Report, the voice of the downtrodden, live from Los Angeles in the SoCal Collective. Stay linked to our newsfeed and receive the latest problematic issues from operation 'Alien Assessment'. For those in danger, PTSD-warnings will be displayed in subliminal voice-overs and soothing fade-ins. Pre-PTSD warnings can be personally requested as premium users."
The two put up their arms and jazz-handed the audience goodbye.
Taurus sighed and switched off the newsfeed.
Enough was enough.
Now the only thing he could do was to cross his fingers and have the boys do their job. The AC's, hell, humanity's survival, now rested in their hands...
18
International Astroport, 1839 hours, CST time.
Bellrock and Dr. Rao stood inside the bridge and gazed at the main section of the hangar bay. The ugly baby that would take them to Mars awaited them. Like most civilian ships in the AC space fleet, the Pilgrim Type-II was equipped with atomic engines, modeled after nuclear-submarines from the ancient WWII. The legendary Nuclear Propulsion System, NPS, was perfected in Israel, and basically consisted of a nuclear reactor that not only powered the thrusters, but also the generators for the electronics and the air circulation system.
Basically a hi-tech sub in space.
Bellrock watched the 45 meter vessel in the bay, as the Astroport crew finished the last checkups with the help of their exoframes. The civilian ship wasn't pretty—a grayish, aerodynamic dagger with a parabolic mirror acting as a light shield to protect the crew from solar radiation, four round propellant tanks, tight-ass living quarters inside, with two twin Savior II nuclear engines attached to the rear hull.
And unfortunately zero point zero weapon systems.
As Bellrock glanced through the wall-window of the bridge, he released a sigh and made sure his nearby partner heard it.
"I think it's a big mistake going to Mars without any defense measures whatsoever. I get the panic over torpedoes and rockets, but we could have at least used some kind of kinetic impactor turrets."
The doctor shook his head and flicked 'captain' Bellrock a dismissive glance.
"The Newtype would detect the turrets the second we neared their sector, which would render our agreement useless and evoke hostility for years to come. We must avoid any form of provocation on our side."
Sounded like a textbook example from the school of diplomacy, which made Bellrock wonder which side the doc was really on.
Well, it didn't matter as much as the ship's lack of armor.
Its hull-plating wasn't made for orbital warfare, which meant a single, well-targeted rocket could destroy the ship and wipe out its two-men crew. But apparently, no one at NASA seemed to mind, not even the international crew inside the astroport. They drooled at the sight of the stained freighter.
An announcement voiced by a female came through the bridge's intercom. Bellrock detected a German accent.
"Attention. Astronauts Captain Bellrock and Dr. Rao, please prepare for the boarding process of the Pilgrim Type-II in the main hangar bay. The launch protocol and pre-flight checklist will be updated on your commlinks. Please ensure that your EVAs are 100% cleared before boarding the vessel."
Dr. Rao flicked a glance at the captain.
"This is it. Are you ready?"
"I was ready the second that ugly-ass alien showed up on my newsfeed."
It never did, because there was no footage of the life form itself, but an organism that destroyed a civilian ship and its crew must have been ugly.
Uranus kind of ugly.
The doc sighed, he probably expected an answer with less attitude. Tough luck with Bellrock, he was 150% attitude and twice as much horsepower pressed into humanoid form.
"Let's motor," the captain said and acted the part.
The duo walked into the preparation room which harbored the EVA suits for their interplanetary trip. The EVA was an updated spacesuit version that replaced the ancient and bulky EMUs—Extravehicular Mobility Units, which paradoxically, restricted the mobility of a human manifold.
Dark old times.
Everything inside the locker room smelled like metal with bubblegum flavor, but that was the least of Bellrock's worries. With the help of the international crew, consisting of men, women and 'liquids' hailing from South Korea, Russia, Germany and Italy, they put on the suits in no time. Checked the oxygenators and thrusters on their back and put two thumbs up. Bellrock shook inside his suit, because now came the part he dreaded the most.
Close quarters sleep.
He dreaded it so much he looked at Dr. Rao walking up the ramp with rising anxiety. He squeezed out words with unusual hesitation.
"Can't I supervise the flight with you? You know I have a STEM degree as well."
"Do you know the schematics of a Pilgrim Type-II freighter?"
Bellrock shrugged.
"No, but I'm a fast learner."
"I'm sorry, sir, but don't worry. Mars is only millions of miles away. No FTL, which means it will be a quickie, so to speak."
Well, that was one quickie Bellrock would have loved to ditch.
19
Meanwhile, many, many millions of kilometers away.
An array of orbital stations floated in the cosmic soup. Each section was connected to the network to rule all networks: the central ringstation, named the Ares Nexus, looked like a giant, white halo piercing through the darkness of the void.
Giving light to explorers and searchers from across the sector.
Hundreds of manned ships and droids left the docking bays of the ringstation and eclipsed around the Martian orbit before entering. Inside the Ares
Nexus halo throned a hall section with capsules protruding from the walls like cylinder-shaped thorns.
Glowing, flickering, vibrating.
Magic was happening here.
A Newtype unit walked into the hall and approached pod number SO2001. A holo-warning flickered on the surface's hull.
"Do not intervene—printing in process."
He looked through the transparent pod shell and watched as three robotic arms reconstructed a human figure from its nanoprinted wireframe design. Well, it wasn't entirely human, at least according to the brutes back on Earth.
Special additions were made to the humanoid body: anti-dirt, water-resistant bioplastic skin with an upgrade to breathe in the Martian atmosphere via its bionic gills filtering system.
A bendable, graphene-enhanced bone structure that allowed the body to carry cargo three times its weight. A fresh powercell integrated into the heart, upgraded to last 72 hours with a single charge. A skintight, all-purpose armor layer that could be easily upgraded with orbital and planetary models. And a nano-optic fiber systems of veins and neurons to transport nanodroids and electronic pulses at the fastest speed available.
In short, the construction arms created a masterpiece of technology, superior to any other organism in the known galaxy. eVax grinned as the printing process came to its end. Over six and a half hours of building, and the flawless shape came into being.
Finally.
"Recreation complete," the pod said as it opened its hull.
A young woman awoke inside and peeked out the port. Her sleepy eyes adjusted to the dim, artificial sun light of the recreation hall. She looked confused for at least a nanosecond but recognized the unit standing in front of her pod. Both mind and body synced with the central network of the Newtype.
eVax grinned like a boy from Earth. Thank tech no one was watching him expressing wasteful emotions. But seeing her, he just couldn't help it. She lit up his neuron membrane structure.
"Welcome back, eLoom."
20
eLoom climbed out of her pod and felt as if she awoke from a century-long sleep. It reminded her of a human fable where a sleeping beauty was revived through the exchange of an orally-transmitted mouth fluid, or kiss, as the Earthlings had called it. To be honest, it was a wonder she even received a respawn, after all, she had wrecked her body twice in a decade, and that didn't fare too well with the Exec.