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Chapter 4: Red with Envy

Colonel Mark ‘Biff’ Andrews looked at the controls as the Mars orbiter slowly made its descent to the surface. He smiled as he saw green lights across the board. He looked over at his Co-Pilot, Lieutenant-Commander Nelson Owens and nodded.

“Houston, this is Archimedes,” Andrews said, ’All systems green for landing.” Owens pulled a switch and the Lander shuddered as two large rocket engines roared to life. Owens nodded.

Andrews gave a face, the last few months of the radio delays had gotten troublesome, and downright annoying. He figured that at that particular moment, Houston was receiving telemetry and voice transmissions from nearly an hour ago. He shrugged and then tapped the comm. Switch.

“Houston,” he began, “retro jets firing. Two minutes to chute deployment.” He turned and smiled at the cabin camera. ‘Look nice for the folks back home.’ He thought with a big grin. He looked over to Owens, “Say hi to your mom Owens.”

Owens looked up from his controls; his face had a look of concentration. He stared at Andrews for a minute, uncomprehending, and then smiled. He looked over to the cabin recorder. He waved, “Hi mom!” he called out, “Hi Janice! I love you!”

Owens waved one more time and went back to his controls, “one minute till deployment.”

Andrews looked at the camera once more and gave a goofy grin.

“Things are about to get interesting folks!”

Outside the window, Andrews could see the Martian landscape hurtling at them at faster and faster speeds. He looked over to Owens that still had his hand on the deployment button.

“45 seconds…”

“30 seconds…”

Andrews felt the tightness in his stomach. Even though the calm countdown was going just as they had in rehearsal and planning months ago, the fact that the day had arrived was exhilarating and frightening at the same time. He could not remember a time in his life that could compare to this one moment. He had trained his whole life for this one moment. He looked over to Owens once more, then looked at the cabin camera and flashed thumbs up sign.

“15 seconds!”

Owens’ voice was starting to sound strained and tense as he moved his hand more tightly over the deployment controls. He sighed and closed the visor on his helmet. Andrews did the same once Owens did.

“Ten…..Nine…Eight…”

The craft began to rock harder and harder as Andrews noticed that the ground was coming up faster. What was once haze colored and hidden by the atmosphere of Mars was now clear and getting closer. Andrews and Owens both held their breath for the next few seconds.

“DEPLOYING CHUTES NOW!” Owens screamed out as he activated the controls. Immediately there was a shudder as everything slowed down. Owens and Andrews both were slammed back into their seats. Outside the racing, landscape slowed with a huge jump. They were still heading to the Martian surface, just not as fast.

Both astronauts let out a collective sigh of relief, Andrews gave a tried nod to Owens and then to the cabin camera. “ETA to the surface of Mars in one minute, 36 seconds,” Andrews called out. At times he wondered what the point was of this, especially since Houston was, or would be, watching the same telemetry data and he knew that Owens could see it from his seat as well. He shrugged and looked out the window; he had better things to wonder about for the moment.

“Telemetry looks good for landing spot Alpha,” Owens called out. Andrews looked at his screen seeing the glowing red box.

“Confirmed. On board computer has control.” He replied as continued to look out the window and the view outside. Someone would have to be crazy, he thought, to trust their lives with a computer programmed by the lowest bidder.

He chuckled, just as crazy as someone that talks to themselves.

“One minute to hard deck,” Andrews called out. Owens looked at his screen and began flipping switches. Slowly you could hear the slow whining noise of the retro rockets as they started to power up again.

“Descent engines ready for breaking maneuvers.”

“45 seconds to hard deck,” Andrews called out

“30 seconds to retro firing sequence,” Owens replied. The Lander began to shudder slightly as the thrusters began to increase power.

Andrews opened his visor and rubbed his gloved hand over his now sweat drenched forehead. He watched as the counter slowly counted down to the final seconds. He gave a cursory glimpse to the camera and started to give out the latest status update, but then stopped himself. Screw it, he thought, it isn’t like they don’t know what is going to happen anyway.

“Retro firing sequence now,” Owens called out for him.

The Lander began to shudder and shake even more as the rockets came to life. Andrews stared at the screen for a second before being snapped out of his thoughtful state. He began looking immediately out the window.

“Chute release in 3, 2, and 1.”

Andrews looked out of the window to confirm that the parachutes had released, he could see them falling far behind the Lander and off over the horizon as they left them far behind.

“100 meters up.”

“75.”

“50.”

“25.”

Andrews felt the tension coming back with a vengeance. He could almost feel each meter as they slowly got closer to the surface. He started to fidget in his seat as the seconds ticked by.

“10 meters,” Owens called out; the sound of the dust hitting the Lander as it came closer to the surface began making a loud rocket as the retro rockets knocked it around the surface.

“5 meters.” The rockets started to send out less thrust. Just enough thrust to make it those last few meters with no difficulty.

There was a visible bump as the Lander touched down followed by silence as the engines immediately went silent. Neither men said anything or moved for a few seconds. After a few seconds, the only sound in the Lander was a beeping noise from the main console.

Owens spoke first, “Navi-Computer confirms hard landing on the Martian surface,”

Owens’s face grew into a big smile as he looked over to Andrews, “We made it.”

The best that Andrews could do is to nod silently while catching his breath.

Finally, Andrews looked out the window at the landscape around him. He was expecting a blood red sky; instead, he saw a rusty looking landscape with a pinkish sky. So much for those expectations, he thought, I was told to expect more than this low budget look. He looked up at the cabin camera, gave a huge smile and waved.

“Houston,” he said, “Archimedes has landed.”

An hour later Andrews was tense once more as he had suited up for his first walk outside the Lander. Owens was checking every joint to make sure that it was secure. Finally, Andrews put on his helmet and turned on the microphone.

“Owens, can you read.”

Owens flashed him a thumbs up sign and hit a button on the control panel.

“Loud and clear.”

Andrews nodded and slowly backed his way through a small round door. Once he was clear of the door, Owens slowly closed it leaving Andrews in a dark cylinder room about the size of a closet. Here Andrews waited as the air slowly was removed from the room. He crouched in there, muttering something to himself over and over waiting for the all clear.

“Board signals ready for an extravehicular excursion.”

Taking a deep breath, Andrews hit a switch on the panel next to him and turned around as a hatchway opened up. He reached out for the descending ladder and began to exit the Lander.

About half way down he turned around and looked out at the scenery around him. Wow, he thought, spectacular. He continued to descend the ladder slowly one rung at a time.

He stopped at the last rung, about half a meter off the ground and smiled to himself. Time for the history books, he mused.

He cleared his throat and said, “Man has taken a large step to make the unknown, known.”

He lost his balance and fell the rest of the way landing on his back with a thud.

“DAMNIT!” he cried out.

“CUT!!!” a voice called out from a few meters away screamed angrily, “GODDAMNIT!!! CUT!!”

Andrews looked over to see a portly gentleman in khakis who was surrounded by a small group of film crewmen around him. The faces were looked in looks ranging from fear to anger.

The portly man stormed over to Andrews as Andrews struggled to right himself.

“WHAT IN HELL WHERE YOU DOING!!!”

Andrews opened his visor and said sheepishly, “Improv.”

The portly gentleman’s eyes bulged out, “STICK TO THE DAMN SCRIPT!”

The portly man crossed his arms in disgust, ’WE PAY YOU TO ACT, NOT IMPROV.”

A wiry man ran up to the portly man’s side, “Mr. Andrews...”

The portly man spun around and looked at him, “WHAT!?”

“We have received word that they are broadcasting the entry and landing scene.”

The portly man rubbed his hand through over his face and through his balding head. “This means your fuck up, is putting us close to being in a major bind.” He spun around and stared Andrews in the eyes. Andrews looked down, unable to meet Andrews stare any longer.

Andrews spun back at the skinny man. “Call the Director; tell him to push back the EVA.”

“How.”

“I DON’T KNOW!” he fumed, “TELL THEM THEY’RE NASA AND TO THINK OF SOMETHING.”

The skinny man blanched and ran off pulling out his cell phone punching in numbers as fast as he could. Andrews spun around.

“AND YOU, ONE MORE STUNT LIKE THAT, AND YOU WILL REGRET IT!”

Andrews huffed and continued to berate him, “WE ARE PAYING A SHITLOAD OF MONEY TO GET THIS RIGHT AND NO ACTOR IS GOING TO MESS IT UP!”

Andrews looked agitated, “Why?”

“WHY WHAT!?”

Andrews shrugged, “I mean, all of this equipment looks like it really could make it to Mars. NASA spent a lot of time going over how every system would work. Instead of spending the money here, why not do the real thing?”

Andrews looked angry for a second, “To be first.”

“What?”

“Let me explain this quickly and simply so even your mind can process it. NASA has an actual mission launching in a few months. If the powers that be hadn’t heard that the Dutch were going to launch a system that would get to Mars before us, you wouldn’t be here. To keep up appearances they launched an unmanned experimental capsule to mimic you idiots”

“What’s the big deal?”

Andrews sighed in resignation, “Because the United States could not be beaten to another planet by some little piss ant country like the Netherlands.”

“Oh.” Andrews continued, “Well if I don’t say something right as I touch down, what is my motivation?”

Andrews’ face got redder. He took a deep breath before continuing,” your motivation?”

Andrews nodded, “Yeah, like Armstrong.”

“Your motivation is to get through this scene and on to the next one and the one after that.”

Andrews pointed at the Lander, “your motivation is to then get back into the Lander and do it over again until the script calls for you to return. Your motivation is to play your part until you ‘land’ and we can fake a burn up on reentry so no one is the wiser, so history will record that we had the first people on Mars.”

Andrews continued, “Then your motivation is to get plastic surgery and enough money to live the rest of your miserable life in the luxury of a king.”

Andrews narrowed his eyes, “or, YOUR MOTIVATION WILL BE THE SHARK BAIT YOU WILL BECOME IF YOU SCREW THIS UP AND IT COMES APART!!!”

“UNDERSTOOD?!”

Andrews nodded his head vigorously and snapped his visor closed. “I am motivated now.”

Andrews shook his head as Andrews walked back toward the Lander.

Andrews heard Andrews over his speaker, “Get back in the Lander we will start from the moment that you exited the airlock.” He watched as Andrews slowly climbed back up the stairs and then he turned to walk back to his chair.

“Actors.” He muttered under his breath as he sat down. The skinny assistant walked over, “NASA is going to tell the public that a transmitter went down on the Lander and that the EVA was postponed until it was working again.”

Andrews smiled and nodded his head, “Tell them understood and that we will be on schedule and script for the rest of the mission. Burn up on re-entry in about 7 months.”

The assistant nodded, but before he could say anything a second assistant spoke up, “There is a delay in shooting since Andrews noticed a crack on his visor from his fall.”

“DAMNIT!!”

Andrews looked over at the Lander and then at the first assistant, “On second thought, tell NASA that we are changing it a bit. I am going for a more dramatic ending. I plan on the astronauts being exposed to a cabin decompression by a freak meteor strike on the way back.”

He smiled to himself imagining the life being sucked out of Andrews slowly.

“ACTION!”

Willow

The only sound was the noise a willow tree makes when a breeze came.

He had grown to hate the sound.

She had been crying for some time, he supposed. Her eyes were puffy and red. Matthew felt the need to reach out and touch her face, to comfort her. But, he was the reason for the tears and was powerless to stop them.

She sniffed, “Matt we have to talk.”

He perked up, something about the tone of her voice. Something that was not right. Matthew kept silent, waiting.

Trying to get past the tears she cried out, “I can’t go on like this anymore. It has to stop.”

She closed her eyes to allow the tears to try and hold back more tears. Unsuccessful, she held a tissue to her eyes. Tracy seemed to cry even more when she opened her eyes to see her wedding and engagement rings, sparkling in the evening light.

Still, Matthew was unable to reach out for her, to comfort her.

“Why did you leave!” she shrieked, “You left me when I needed you most…”

Matthew tried to defend himself, but she cut him off.

“Do you know how many lonely nights I suffered? The nights alone in our bed!” she looked down then looked back her eyes filled with anger and sadness, “How hard it was to explain to Kasey that her daddy wasn’t coming back?!”

Stopping for a moment she went on, “How I had to get a second job for a while just to meet our expenses.” Tracy added angrily, “All because you couldn’t be responsible. Be a grown up about life.”

“You failed us.”

Then she fell silent. Grew thoughtful.

“We have to say goodbye.” She blurted out. He was stunned, the shock left me numb. Matthew started to say something but she continued, “I need to move on with my life.”

She looked up and tried to smile, “I am dating again.”

His mind stopped and he felt my heart break at that simple statement. I

t was over.

“Remember Dave?”

How could he forget? My best friend growing up and roommate in college. The man that introduced me to Tracy. My……he stopped mid thought. No, he thought in horror, not him.

“We’ve gone out a few times.” She seemed to answer my thoughts, “He makes me laugh.”

“For a little while, when I’m with him, I feel somewhat whole again.”

She started fidgeting with her rings, “I need to move on. I need to feel whole again.”

She removed her rings and held them in the palm of her hand. She tightened her fist around them.

“Kasey needs a father.”

Matthew felt everything start to get a little darker, his world began to crumble. She held the rings to her lips and kissed them.

“Goodbye Matthew.”

She gently placed the rings on the tombstone. She held her hand over it, traced the name engraved. “I’ll never forget you,” Tracy whispered then stood up and walked away.

Matthew watched, unable to do anything. His world was silent.

Except the rustling of the willows in the distance.

Matthew tried to hold back the tears as he found himself back in his car. He looked at Nick with anger and frustration, “That is not what I fucking meant!”

Nick looked more confused than ever. “I can’t explain this. I haven’t much experience in this; but still, I have no idea why this is happening.”

Matthew just huffed angrily.

Nick continued, “Maybe we should try a reality that is not as exotic, not as demanding.”

Matthew nodded slowly, “I guess living a quiet life as a worker can be happy in the right circumstances.”

Nick nodded in agreement.

Matthew sighed as everything once again went dark.