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Mission Mars

Landing on Mars

By Hadayai Majeed aka Dora SpencerPublished 2 years ago 8 min read
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Mission Mars
Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. The ship had left the earth’s atmosphere all the booster rockets had been released. We were headed for Mars to settle into the colony that was being built there by a lot of sweat and tears. So far, over 1,000 scientists and 250 support staff representing the construction trade and engineering had begun the journey to establish this colony of people from earth only 513 just barely over half had survived the journey. There were also many days that communication between Mars and Earth was not available. Since the last communication breakdown three bodies were found in the Mars colony. The problem is that the bodies did not belong to any of the registered scientist or other support personnel who had been scheduled to travel to the planet. In fact, the bodies are of people over 100 years old. All three born in the 21st century. It is now the 22nd century the year 2189.

Captain Isla Maya the mission commander a botanist with a Ph.D. from Stanford was wracking her brain out trying to keep on schedule with the experiments that needed to be performed and the building of the colony housing and other structures. If they were to be on schedule to welcome the families of the mission crews and other non-astronauts, the strange appearance of the bodies had to resolved immediately.

Major Plato Andres the crew pathologist and his team had set up the morgue and laboratory and had completed the initial viewing of the bodies. Now they needed to complete the blood work ups and test the body fluids to determine if the chemistry of the bodies match those of humans. This will confirm if the subjects were actually human or some form of alien.

As the engineers and construction personnel unpack their travel pods and began to mark the parameters of site an eerie faint sound could be heard. A sound that was not supposed to exist in the atmosphere of the planet. The advanced headgear of the astronauts was constructed to even out the pressure so that people could work outside and not lose their equilibrium or have their brains explode. Was the strange noise coming from inside their heads? Each person who heard the sound was sent to the medical unit for a thorough examination and could not return for duty until being cleared by the medical staff. As each person was examined complete reports were compiled for the chiefs of the space command on earth with a copy kept in the mission files.

Every day the mystery of the three unknown bodies was the topic of the day. Were they brought here by aliens and if so, where are the aliens? If they are alien what happened to their community? More and more pressure was put on Major Andres to come up the answers. His team worked feverishly 14-16 hr. shifts to find the answers. One morning when the medical team was about to begin one of the subjects moved. Impossible yes not likely yes what the hell? As it moved it began to moan. At first the team believed it was just gas passing through the dead body because of all the poking and prodding they were doing to take samples and to exam the subject. Then it spoke, “Where am I?” Major Andres began to question the subject. “What is your name?” The subject answered, “I am Dr. Wells of Lake Falls, North Dakota.” What year is it doctor Wells? He answered, “Its May 11, 2039.” Major Andres asks, “what do you last remember?” Dr. Wells answers, “I was walking along my property one evening and this peculiar looking flat circular disk hovered over me for a moment. Then a bright light came from the disk-shaped object and the next thing I knew I was no longer on the ground.” The subject passed out. The team rushed to resuscitate him.

What are we going to tell earth command Captain Maya? Nothing right now we need to see where this takes us. Have you tried to revive the others? Yes, no response. We have moved Dr. Wells to the medical bay and assigned a nurse, one of the new doctors and a security team member to watch over him. Dr. Maya mentions, “I remember when I was a high school student we use to laugh at the stories about visitations from aliens on earth and how all the abductees sounded like nut cases. Now we know some of them were telling the truth. This only causes us to have more questions. There is nothing on this planet to show that there was life as we know it. Nothing! No signs of structures, although we have faint signs of lakes, we still have not found any evidence any life form lived on this planet at any time in recent history.”

While the engineering team was setting up the perimeter to begin to build the permanent family housing one of the crew falls into a soft patch of ground. Everyone begins to frantically dig to pull her out. Hurry drop the camera line! Do you see anything? There is a hollow space just about 20 ft. below the surface. The worker who fell Elisa is in a cavern where she sees several passageways. As she gets up, she is a bit weak and not steady on her feet. She manages to get her balance and begins to walk along one of the passages. The walls are textured with symbols that remind her the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt. The place is lighted by torches and there is a faint high pitch sound similar to a person singing in a very low volume. As she continues to walk the walls begin to glow and the hieroglyphics almost jump from the walls.

The crew above continue to dig thinking Elisa is being smothered by the soft ground in their hands. Not knowing she is free of it and actually walking under their feet as they continue to dig. They hear the strange high pitch sound again and a sinkhole several meters in diameter slowly opens under their feet and they begin to slowly drift down and also find themselves in the caverns. As they hit the hard ground under their feet, they see the glowing walls. Since open torches were burning there must be enough oxygen for them to breathe. They remove their headgear and begin to call for Elisa. As they walked through the maze of tunnels inside the cavern, they are in total awe of what they see. The glowing walls were telling a story a very enchanting story.

Captain Maya and the medical team were waiting for Dr. Wells to resume consciousness. The other mystery subjects begin to move similar to the way Dr. Wells had earlier. When their eyes opened, they were in shock and their vital signs went off the charts for a few seconds then returned to normal. None of them spoke just looked around as though they were in total awe of what they were seeing. When asked questions the other subjects just looked at the staff in total surprise. Now faced with another dilemma Captain Maya just sighs and says, “No one told me it was going to be easy.”

Elisa hears her name at first, she thinks she is losing her mind and then she recognizes her teammates voices. She cries out and tries to describe to them where she is located. Not knowing if they hear her or not, she just finds a rock to sit on and stays put. The voices get louder and louder. She cries out again and then she hears their footsteps. As they round a corner she stands up and is so glad to see them. Now how do we get out? Reverse our tracks one of them says. This is why we have this fancy equipment.

Dr. Wells now understands where he is and knows he is in the future. The equipment in the lab fascinates him. Dr. Andres tells him, “We wanted to wait for you to be totally conscious and stable before showing you this.” The other two bodies now totally awake however still not able to communicate are in the sick bay. Doctor, do you know them? Dr. Wells answers, "I ‘ve never seen them before.” Dr. Wells tell me about yourself, Captain Maya asks. Dr. Wells responds, “I am a retired primary care physician. Treated patients from my home office for just over 40 years.” He looks around and says, “I think of all the times I called people nuts who said they had been abducted by aliens.” Captain Maya reminds Dr. Wells, “we are not aliens we are humans from earth. You are in the 22nd century the year is 2189.”

The construction team found a passage behind the walls where there was a very steep staircase that led to the surface. Wow! This has been a journey.

Back in the lab the other two subject’s bodies they found have now just dried up. Nothing to tell them why and another mystery to solve. Dr. Wells is still communicating with the medical team, however now what are they going to do with him? The journey to Mars takes several months and there is no plan for the present team to return to earth before that time. Captain Maya has sent a report to the earth station to let them know about Dr. Wells and about what happened to the other two subjects. Now we wait for a message from earth. This may take several days because the communications are down again.

Sci Fi
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About the Creator

Hadayai Majeed aka Dora Spencer

Hadayai Majeed writes short, intriguing stories in many genres. The Joy of Islam series and Pieces of Me with Company are collections of her diverse works and those of others. Each book is unique always leaving the reader wanting for more.

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