Summary: By CR Hodges Read by Mur Lafferty Discuss on our forums. Originally appeared in On the Premises (2011) All stories by CR Hodges All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated 15 and up for language Three-Quarters Martian C.R. Hodges The first man to walk on the moon was a hero to five generations. The first woman to walk on Mars was forgotten even before her boots plunked into the red dust. “Hey,” a husky voice said in the dark. I ignored her: the Swedish hockey team was calling to me from the sauna. “Anna-Jing.” Same voice. A large hand grasped my shoulder. I was losing my battle to recapture the fading dream. “Wake up,” commanded a new voice in a rich brogue, “now.” I took a deep breath, tasting the dust in the cool air, then slowly opened my eyes. Pulling the threadbare blanket around me, I sat up in my hammock. Kaiza, the first and likely last aboriginal Australian to teach planetary astrophysics at Stanford, gently removed her hand from my shoulder. “Trouble in Florida.” “The launch isn’t today.” I said, still groggy. Our resupply rocket was scheduled to lift off from Cape Lee in a week. We needed this one—the last launch, from Kazakhstan, had crashed in West Korea. “There won’t be a fecking launch,” said Mick, our mission commander. He gestured at the wall screen, which snapped to life. Grainy footage showed a giant rocket lying on its side like a beached whale, next to a familiar gantry. A dozen old pickups were parked beyond the shattered nosecone. Scores of horses and four oxen grazed nearby, a web of cables and ropes leading back to the rocket. A horde of men and women in shorts and tank tops, flip-flops and baseball caps, were prying metal panels from the side of the rocket. Hundreds more lay dead on the ground, interspersed with the bodies of gray vested soldiers. “Where are the pitchforks and torches?” I asked. No reply. A helicopter arrived, ten commandos zip lining to the ground just meters from the camera crew. Seventy looters went down in the first minute, but then flight after flight of arrows from unseen archers decimated the commandos. “Goodbye freeze-dried steak and potatoes,” said Mick. “Goodbye replacement mini reactor.” I pointed at the four oxen dragging a sledge with a brightly marked container the size of a large desk. “Gotta crank the thermostat down again,” said Mick. He lumbered off to make it so. The last image we witnessed before a sword crashed down on the camera lens was a line of children siphoning kerosene from the rocket’s fuel tank into buckets. Goodbye civilization. # Carrying a basket of mushrooms three times my size, I trudged back to the main module from the redhouse. As I passed the Gagarin, I searched for those first boot prints—my boot prints—but they were covered in dust. I should’ve at least gotten a shoe contract. The crew was waiting for me just inside the airlock. The mushrooms, the one food item that we could grow in near native conditions, added flavor to endless soy based meals despite being red and gritty. They were not, however, tasty enough to warrant an all hands greeting. “The Chinese sent the offer,” said Gabriel before I had my helmet off. He was our geologist and physician. “And what is the emperor proposing?” I asked. It had been three weeks of frustrating negotiations. We desperately needed provisions; they had the only rockets left. Mick shrugged and tossed me the tablet. “My Mandarin is limited to ordering up pints and whores.” “He’d pay more for a pint,” said Olga, my copilot and Mick’s former hammock buddy. Her quirky sense of humor had helped us through numerous rough patches over the years, but it was getting old. I scrolled through the long winded missive until I got to the crux of the deal. I looked up. Really up—the rest of the crew dwarfed me. Even Gabriel had fifteen centimeters on me, and he could have been a jockey. “They’re offering to send us a rocket full of supplies.” “In return for?” asked Kaiza. “Planting their flag on Olympus Mons.” “Feckin[...]
