A rogue storm had her presumed dead and stranded on the red planet. Left on her own, astronaut Aelin Galathynius has four years to make it to the next drop-site, some two thousand miles. Armed with her smarts and dwindling supplies, Aelin attempts to survive on an inhospitable planet, when the nearest help is only millions of miles away.
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Aelin carefully filled a container of water and walked it to her garden, pouring it over the crops and repeating the process until each little plant had been watered.
A camera had been set up in her garden so she spoke to it, still speaking as though TNSB couldn’t hear her or see her every move. “Now that everyone can talk to me, they never want to shut up.” She kissed the leaf of the smallest plant, smiling down at it and whispering a soft word of encouragement.
“They’ve even got a whole team micromanaging my crops. Which is just great,” she added sarcastically. Aelin and the botany team were not on the best of terms. “I don’t mean to sound arrogant,” she spread her arms, as if to say look at all of this, “but I am the best botanist on this planet.”
Aelin put the container down and dusted her hands, “In other news, they want me to pose for a picture. I’m debating between ‘High School Prom’,”’ she posed with her hands elbows bent and hands clasped over her stomach, “or ‘Happy College Student On A Pamphlet’,” she hooked her thumbs through imaginary backpack straps, pasting on a gloriously fake grin. “I’m not sure how it’ll all convey with my spacesuit on, but we’ll figure it out.”
Aelin laughed to herself and walked out to the kitchen area, now addressing the camera by the microwave, “Another cool thing about this communication business: email! I get a big data dump, like when I was on The Lani and stuff. Athletes, academics, musicians and even the prime minister too. But the coolest, the single coolest email I got was from my alma mater, the University of Orynth. They tell me that once you’ve grown crops somewhere, you’ve officially ‘colonized’ it.” A cocky grin overtook her features, “So I colonized Farnor. Suck it, TNSB botany team,” she stuck her tongue out before fetching her suit to take her photo.
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Asterin was in stitches as she looked at the picture Aelin had sent. The golden-haired astronaut was mid-jump, her legs bent and her arms stretched up to the sky and she could make out the huge grin splitting the woman’s face. “Oh, this is so like her,” she murmured, tracing an iron nail over the photo. “This – I can use.”
“Good,” Weylan said, already on to the next topic. He addressed Sartaq and Gavriel on the screen, “Sartaq, is your team still on schedule.”
The man looked beat, a certain bleakness in his eyes, “It’ll be tight, but we’ll make it.”
“Make sure you do.” He tapped the table, “Nine-month flight puts us at day 868. Did we get the Botany Team’s assessment?”
Gavriel nodded, “They estimate her crops will last her until day 900. They resentfully admit Aelin’s doing a remarkable job.”
“Resentfully?” Manon questioned, arching a manicured brow.
“Yes, um, Aelin has a tendency to tell them to go have sex with themselves whenever they disagree with her or question her method. Either that or she tells them she’s the best botanist on Farnor and therefore she doesn’t have to listen to mediocre scientists,” Gavriel told them, a slight wince on his face.
The director of TNSB just shook his head, “Get her in line. We can’t have any miscommunications.” He turned to Manon and Asterin, who were both badly hiding their amused grins. “Food gets there at 868, hers lasts until 900…I hate this margin.”
“And that’s assuming nothing goes wrong,” commented Manon, ever-so helpfully.
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Aelin grabbed her toolkit and wedged it under her arm as she walked to the airlock, going out to do some late-night modifications on the rover.
Something was niggling in the back of her mind, but she paid it no heed, just wanting to do her work and sleep like the dead after whatever meager dinner she could scrounge up. She was running out of ketchup and she dreaded the day that she was forced to eat plain cooked potatoes.
A yawn grew in her and her eyes watered, gods above, she just wanted to sleep.
When one was stranded on a desolate, slumber was a fickle thing. Aelin’s eyes grew heavy as she pulled the airlock handle down.
All she heard was a ripping sound going along the canvas of the airlock before she was airborne, an explosion catapulting her and the tunnel far far away.
A strangled, panicked cry escaped her as she was battered and flung around the airlock as it flew through the air and crashed, her helmet crashing into something and she heard a cracking sound, closing her eyes on instinct.
The canvas tube rolled too many times for her to count until eventually it stopped and Aelin sat up, alarms blaring in her helmet.
It was cracked.
Fuck, it was cracked, a little hole where the polycarbonate-plexiglass had been chipped free. The beeping didn’t stop and Aelin fought to keep her breathing under control as she scrambled to her feet and wrenched the duct tape free, ripping off a length and taping it across the longest crack and then another across it.
Her toolkit had spilled everywhere and she grabbed a sharp screwdriver, stabbed it into the fabric of the airlock and yanked it down, creating a big enough rip for her to stumble out of.
Aelin could hardly see past the duct tape and she spun around, desperately looking for the hab and then sprinting, tripping countless times in her mad dash.
She stepped foot in and saw… her crops, destroyed beyond recognition.
Her lifeline was destroyed and Aelin gasped, her throat tight as she staggered out. She couldn’t stay here tonight and no good would come if she attempted to fix anything now.
Making her way to the rover, tears dripped down her cheeks until violent sobs were ripping from her throat and chest. She stumbled over a pile of rocks and fell to her knees, her gloves digging into the red dirt. There was no other answer; Aelin was going to die here alone.
A scream tore from her and soon enough, she was cursing the gods, “Where are you?! Why do you fail me time and time again?!” Her throat was raw and on fire. Her voice cracked, “Somebody save me.”
But no one answered her calls, not as she stayed there, kneeling in the sand, the reality of everything crashing down on her. There was no hope left, no bright and beautiful feeling.
The gods had never been there for her. Never.
Not when her parents died in that car wreck, not when she had to protect little Elide when she herself needed protecting, not when they made her fall for a heartless and cruel bastard, who carried a chip on his shoulder, going through life thinking no one had it as hard as he did.
It was stupid and childish to think they would save her now.
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The mood in Mission Control was somber, nobody daring to speak as Nox read off the message Aelin had sent. “…crops are dead. Complete loss of pressure sterilized the soil and boiled off whatever was left in the water reclaimer…”
The only upside was that Aelin had managed to store away buckets of water and didn’t have to worry about that. “How long does she have,” Asterin asked.
“Well, she can still eat the potatoes she has. We estimate about two-hundred days.”
“Rations get her to what? Day four-ten?”
“Yes, so with potatoes, she can stretch to six-ten.”
“Prelim calculations call for a four-hundred-day round trip.”
“By day 868 she’ll be long dead,” said Manon, her face emotionless. Her eyes narrowed and she sucked on her teeth, “It’s day one-thirty-five right now, we need thirteen to mount the boosters and do inspections… which give RPL forty-seven days to make the probe. Darkness above, gods damn it.”
“How long does it usually take?”
Gavriel answered Nox, his voice defeated, “Six months.”
Weylan spoke to Gavriel, already standing and doing his suit jacket up, “I’ll let you tell Sartaq and his team.”
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Fenrys was sitting in front of The Lani’s communications computer, typing an email to Aelin. TNSB had finally given them the ok to speak with her and only Fenrys had been up to the task.
Dearest G-Money, he wrote, laughing quietly to himself, Apparently, TNSB deemed it appropriate for us to talk to you and I drew the short straw. Sorry we left you on Farnor, we don’t like you very much and we were all tired of you hogging shower times. The downside is we have to rotate through your tasks, but it’s only dirt (not real science). How’s Farnor?
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Aelin was crying as she read Fenrys’ email. Oh, how she missed them, so terribly. The day had been a long one, one where it seemed she couldn’t stop the tears even as she fixed the mess that had been made.
She didn’t think she’d ever been as heartbroken as when she was clearing out her ruined garden and dumping the dead plants outside. After she spent a few minutes mourning all her work, thinking to herself that the botany team would be thrilled she had finally failed, she got busy – covering the hole made in the hab by taping over a plastic tarp she would no longer need now that the greenhouse was useless.
The wind was making it flutter and flap, but it would hold as she replied to her friend.
My most beloved Fenny,
Farnor is fine. How’s The Lani? Cramped, with those two broody men? I accidentally blew up the hab, but fortunately, all your movies were spared which means tonight I’m going to eat plain potatoes and watch Mulan.
Everyday I go outside and look at the vast horizon, just because I can and guess what, I officially colonized Farnor.
I hope the girls are going easy on you poor boys, I know they can be rather ruthless when it comes to board and card games.
Say hello to the others and tell Lorcan that I’m gonna beat his ass if he’s still blaming himself.
After a few minutes, she read his typed reply, just two words, Will do.
Aelin did indeed watch Mulan as she ate her dinner and then, she got up, licking her plate clean and walking it to the sink before she sat down in front of her laptop once more, opening the video journal.
She wished so badly that she could be doing anything other than this, but enough was enough. She wasn’t a child and could no longer put this off. She owed it to herself and to her crew.
“Manon, it’s currently day one-thirty-six, around nine PM. I have a favour to ask of you, and I’m sending these to you, only you, because you’re the only one who will understand. Thank you for everything you did and thank you-“ her voice broke, “thank you for being my friend.”
Aelin took a second, her eyes shut as tears slipped past her lashes, “I want you to send these to the crew in case I don’t make it, ok?”
It took a lot to decide to send these, but Aelin pushed through, addressing the first one to Nesryn.
“Faliq… thank you for being you. Every day spent with you is one I cherish, because I love you so much. Thank you for getting me hooked on The Anatolia Story; it’s addictive. I’ve read fourteen out of twenty-eight volumes and I can’t wait to finish it, but I’m trying to ration them. I won’t forgive you for liking Twilight. Take good care of my goddaughter and your wife. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you guys. Every day I miss you.”
The rest of the letters went the same way, with her saying her last goodbye to her family. Every word had her throat growing tighter and tighter, until only Elide and Rowan were left. She didn’t know what to say to him, how to tell him she loved him so when she would be dead too soon.
Hot tears were streaming down her face and she looked crazy as she spoke to Elide.
“Ellie-Boo. I-“ she sobbed once and covered her mouth, “I love you so so much. To infinity and beyond,” referencing the movie that had their obsession with outer-space beginning, Toy Story. “There’s too much to say to you. You’re my person, baby girl. Without you, I would’ve probably wound up in a ditch somewhere. I want you to have the biggest wedding and a dress with enough sequins so that I can see it in the Afterworld. You are not allowed to be sad, no tears, Elide. I mean it. My funeral better be so much better than the one TNSB had – boooring!” Aelin smiled cheekily and then grew serious, the redness from her crying making the turquoise of her eyes pop. “Be happy, my darling sister. Because guess what, you and me? More than anything, we deserve to know happiness and you’re going to have to take my happy too. I love you, to infinity and beyond.” She pressed a kiss to her fingertips and touched the screen.
The letter she dreaded having to dictate was staring her in the face and Aelin stood up, walking around in circles as she attempted to order her thoughts. Eventually, she sat down, “…Rowan. I… there’s a lot to say, but I won’t ever be able to stop crying if I say everything. Basically, I love you. I don’t know how or when or even why, but I do. I’m completely in love with you, buzzard. And I wish I hadn’t been such a coward to keep it all to myself all this time. I wish that we could’ve been together and in the next life, I will find you and I will not be scared of it, ok? I will find you again and I will not be afraid.”
She couldn’t say another thing and ended the video, sitting and staring at the wall until she finally fell asleep.
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an: that wasn’t a very nice chapter huh....anyhoo! comment/send me an ask to be added or removed from the tag list! thank you for reading darlings
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