You Failed Again

At first it was a calm sensation, like the first heavy step on land after a long afternoon scuba diving. Then the first stage really kicked up and lifted the massive Aerostar rocket up towards the sky. The weights on top of Jordan’s body grew massive as they reached 6,000 miles per hour in one minute, then 10,000 miles an hour, 12,000 — the weights grew — 14,000 miles an hour. Jordan thought her seat may unscrew itself from the vibration of the rocket, the entire thing could easily shake itself apart, she quickly thought.

Then nothing. The weights disappeared. In fact, everything disappeared. It was like being back by the coral. If Jordan closed her eyes it was exactly the same.

“All stages nominal.” The radio in her ear buzzed, bringing her back.

“Second stage go.”

The weights slammed Jordan back in her seat. She could hear something from Alex to her left. 18,000 miles an hour. 22,000. Her corneas flattened in her eyes. 24,000. There was no blue sky out the capsule’s window. Black. Black peppered with dots. They were either stars or Jordan’s vision was tunneling. She looked around to her crew as much as her neck would allow. What were they experiencing? None of them were frightened in previous missions. But none of their missions featured a rocket this massive. In fact, no mission had. She glanced at the triangular mission patch on John’s arm: Kronos 1: Humanity’s First Interplanetary Crew.

“Escape velocity reached. Engine shutdown.”

Once again the immense pressure was lifted and Jordan’s harness stopped her from leaving the seat altogether. “That didn’t feel like a Delta.” she said.

“No it did not. But what a ride!” Owen said and took off his helmet. His red hair was cropped, but clearly drenched in sweat.

Good luck, my daughter

“Thanks! Good luck to you, too! We’ll all need it.” Jordan replied.

Owen jumped from his seat. “No one said good luck. We’ve got Houston back home. Besides, think luck’s in the budget? Nope!”

Unbuckling from her harness Jordan felt a smile on her face. She looked around and saw the same smile on other faces. Except for Priya who remained strapped in, eyes locked onto the computer readout.

They floated around the small capsule, mostly bumping into each other and remembering what it was like to have escaped from gravity. In a few hours they would meet-up with their habitat that would keep them for the rest of the journey to Titan.

———————————–

The land sloped upward the way Jordan went, but fear strengthened her old legs and they devoured the ground in great leaps and bounds, tearing her way through boulders and small puddles of liquid methane that the prior day’s rain left behind, not caring if she splashed through the terrifyingly cold liquid. The terraforming process was far from done but their suits had served well as their own precious atmosphere away from the habitats. The voice in her radio stopped screaming. “Stay up, Priya. Gotta stay awake for me, I’m almost there.”

The land grew steeper and darker. Titan’s thick orange clouds covered Saturn’s sleek rings, smothering the only source of light. Jordan switched on her headlights. In the gravity she long ago had forgotten back on Earth, the slope would be an impossible climb without the right gear, but Jordan sped over the hill. Just paces away it leveled out, and there was Priya right near the edge. She lay curled in a ball.

“Where is it? Where is it! Priya!” Jordan slid to Priya, already she was searching her crewmate for the leak. “Why’d you have to go out in the rain, you stupid woman.” She covered Priya’s suit in dirt, watching for any of it to be pushed aside by air leaving the suit. “Priya!”

Jordan’s radio crackled, “Airvac to Jordan. We’re coming in on your coordinates, please stand-by.”

Jordan’s mouth dried like a crust; her tongue felt shriveled. Priya has been there since the beginning. Through every moment of jubilation. The prospect of Titan over Mars, the Antarctic selection process, the launch of Kronos, the founding of Valhalla, the first moments of terraforming Titan. And through it all, Priya had been calculating to the point of infuriation. How had she been caught so ill-prepared this time?

The dirt sat dormant on Priya. The air was gone.

Jordan cursed the Airvac crew when the finally arrived.

“We’re sorry. But Priya didn’t have the clearance to go out this far. We weren’t prepared to make a journey like this one.” The pilot said. The medic gathered Priya’s body and brought it on board.

“When do emergencies ever occur according to plans? You should always be ready! You were too slow!” Too new! She realized. Too young. When did they get so young? Jordan looked through his visor and saw a face she hadn’t seen in a mirror in decades, if she ever had.

“Just. Go.”

“We need to take you back, commander. We don’t have an Airvac prepped for another journey like –”

“Go! I’ve lived here longer than your father’s been alive. That’s an order, leave me! I’ll walk back just fine.”

The pilot paused and looked over Jordan at the medic.

“Please,” she said, “I need my time.”

He nodded reluctantly and returned to the long-winged craft.

Jordan watched the craft disappear in the low orange clouds.

Jesus, she whispered to herself. She was the last one. Her eyes closed and she recalled what she could of the smiles from the launch. The highest point in their lives. Still close enough to home to feel glory, far enough away from struggles to still carry a thrill.

The cool ground radiated into her suit, making her shiver. Her internal heater sped up, but she flicked it off, overriding the safety mechanism with a little hack she devised. She liked the cold. Jordan looked back up into the sky. The billowing clouds spread apart as though some giant calmly blew them away. Saturn’s rings slowly cast Jordan’s shadow behind her. She watched the rings and cried.

You failed, my daughter.

She woke up still under the orange sky. “This is commander Jordan. Who’s there?” Her old bones creaked even in low gravity as she got to her feet. What was she doing this far — Priya. Grief washed over her once again.

You failed again, my daughter.

“What? Who’s there? I haven’t failed.”

Failed again.

“No. Look at what I’ve done. Look at the world I’ve transformed! Fuck you. Failed.” She started back towards the steep hill, shaking off the voice in her had. Failed? Who could ever claimed she, Jordan Roberts, failed. She stopped short of the edge and turned back around. “No. I am a legend! I have succeeded. The first human.” Her arms flung out to the sky, “The first life form to colonize a new world. I have not failed. I have not failed.” Wispy clouds this time overtook the view of Saturn and its ring system.

Jordan felt the movement of the dirt beneath her boot. A lifetime of living in a personal space capsule could extend any normal senses, she had been a volunteer for the study on Life in Spacesuits. She felt the dirt trickle out from under her until the entire ledge she stood on collapsed. The fall on Titan was slow, but the dirt continued to cover Jordan until the sky was gone, until she could no longer move her limbs. Until the cold froze over her eyes and heart, the heater still waiting to be turned back on.

——————————-

Alina walked through the red leaves fluttering to the dewy grass underfoot. She headed towards the campus’s main auditorium. The brick tower stretched into the fall sky. Alina glided up the stairs and read the poster taped on the door: “Terraforming Mars, A Reality” and pushed it open. She took a seat near the front.

Alina sat, raptured about the ideas, planting wind turbines across the Martian landscape, bioengineering algae to excrete CO2, even using a new form of CRISPR to engineer DNA to accommodate humans to Mars, not the other way around. But through the talks and powerpoint slides, a thought festered in Alina’s head. She waited her turn for the mic during Q&A.

“Wouldn’t it be easier,” Alina asked, the auditorium half empty, “just to terraform Titan? The atmosphere’s there, less radiation, less planet-wide dust storms -” some in the sparse crowd snickered. “It just makes sense, I think.”

The speaker stepped down from the podium and walked over to Alina, studying the young girl the way an entomologist would stare at a talking beetle.

“Titan. An interesting choice.” The speaker reached out her hand.

Alina shook it. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Alina.”

“A pleasure. I am Priya.”

Again.