Destination Mars

Hi mum,

I know it’s a bit old school me handwriting a diary for you like this. By the time you get it you won’t have heard from me much for a couple of years - the data packets are super expensive to send back from Mars, and they’re pretty unreliable anyway. We can’t post things regularly, and it takes a long time to get to you when we do, but once this is filled up I’ll send it to you.

Sorry I left without saying goodbye. I knew you would be angry and I didn’t want to argue about it. Good pay is hard to come by on Earth - you can make $50k a month on Mars and there’s nowhere to spend it. After a couple of months I will have paid off my ticket and have plenty to send back to you, you’ll even be able to get that hip replacement you need!

It’s not as dangerous as you think either. I have no illusions about the company caring about us, but I know they care about the mining equipment we’re carrying, and they wouldn’t risk it getting damaged.

After doing the employee test they signed me up as an assistant flight engineer, which is great because I get a bump in salary. If anything goes wrong apparently that also means I’m the co-pilot, which is a bit of a joke as I only had a week’s training and have no idea what I’m doing, sure it’ll be fine though.

The crew is alright, they’re not my ideal travel companions but the company’s psych evaluation does a pretty good job of keeping out most weirdos. The Captain’s a character, he’s an old timer, and a massive alcoholic - they say you can’t get any booze or drugs up here, but he’s definitely got his system worked out. At least it will make the trip a bit more fun for us - it's going to be a slow seven months getting there. The rest of the crew are new like me, and have no experience in space - everyone’s a bit nervous and waiting to see what happens before opening up to each other.

We launched yesterday - after getting into orbit, we docked with the resupply station, and stocked up for the journey. We had some brief naps in shifts, but this is the first free time I’ve had to write anything. Space is as beautiful as everyone says, and so is Earth - that first moment when you get high enough that you see the curve of the Earth is amazing. I’m glad I finally got to see it, if you ever get a chance you should try and get up here too, even if it’s only once. I'll shout you a trip once I get back.

We’ve got a lot of work to do en route, so I don’t know if I’ll have much free time, but I’ll write you more once we’ve landed on Mars.

Lots of love,

Izaac

Sarah closed the small black notebook. It had been dropped off by a drone, in a metal container along with some other things belonging to her son - a flask, some clothes, a set of pencils. So like her boy to start something and not finish it, giving up writing after only one entry. She hadn’t seen or heard from him in 18 months - she would have paid his ticket price to make him stay on Earth. But why send this to her now? Was he on his way back already? She got an email.

Information contained in this message is subject to a Mars Transport Corporation Non-Disclosure Agreement, please read carefully as you may expose yourself to legal action for violating this agreement.

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Sarah opened the message.

Good Afternoon,

We regret to inform you that Isaac Nguyen had an end-of-life experience at 12.04pm 13/02/2072 Sinus Meridiani Mars Time, during an unsuccessful descent to the surface of Mars, aboard the Mars Transport Corporation Ship Abraham.

You are being notified as you were listed as next of kin by our valued travel-partner Mr Nguyen.

As per our refunds policy outlined in Section 13b (Trip Incomplete) of the travel-partner contract, the ticket value of $20 000 after tax and costs incurred has been refunded to your account in lieu of Mr Nguyen.

As no recommended insurance policy was purchased, no further liability will be accepted by the MTC. For further information, please contact help@mtcsupport.

All intact belongings that are not property of the MTC have been dispatched to the specified address via the Inter Planetary Postal Service. If you have not received your package within 8 months of receiving this message please contact the IPPS directly to make an enquiry.

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Sarah started shaking. Tears filled her eyes, and she felt a pit forming in her stomach. She’d told him not to go. She read the email again through her tears, hoping she’d misread it, but it was all the same. She screamed at the screen, trying to will it to change, to stop it from taking her son from her.

She didn’t know how long she’d been crying when she heard her email notification go off again. Maybe they’d made a mistake - it had been so long, he was meant to get there nearly a year ago. Surely if he’d crashed they would have notified her sooner. It must be a mistake - they’d just sent an automated email to the wrong person. This would be them again sending a message to clear things up. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. There's no way they would send billons of dollars of equipment there just for it to crash land - not to mention recruiting and training twelve crew. He was okay, she just had to wait and she would see him again soon. She cleared her eyes, took a deep breath, and checked her email.

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