Beneath the Red Sand

3 || Chapter Three

When the explosion is over, we cautiously stand. Debris of varying sizes litters the Martian landscape, and some burnt, twisted metal rest on the red sand mere inches away from the group. One shard narrowly misses someone's foot. The debris, and a patch of scorched earth where the shuttle had once been, are all that remains.

My head throbs, like someone is pounding against my skull with a hammer, and I wish I could massage my forehead with my hand to ease the pain. It will be such a relief to get to the habitat and take off this helmet! Blood still trickles down the side of my face, its flow unchecked. The injury will need stitches. A sob catches in my throat as I take in the wreckage.  There's almost nothing left now. Next to me, someone screams in agony, a petite lady with shoulder-length black hair and dark almond eyes, while her husband holds her back from rushing to the remains of their friends, their coworkers, maybe even a child lost in the crash.

Maybe someday, someone will use the metal and other scraps to make a monument to those who lost their lives here. Years from now, centuries even, people might walk out here to a beautiful park filled with flowers and trees in honor of the landing site. They'll tell stories about this day, but they won't grasp the true horror of it.

"How did this happen?" I ask. Dad tries to pull me into his arms, but I step away from him. When he lets his arms drop to his sides, I ask again, "What made us crash land?"

He frowns and shakes his head. "I wish I knew, honey. Going into this mission, we knew the landing would be a major technical challenge. The scientists responsible for figuring out the logistics thought they had it solved. No one expected this."

Despite his grief, he looks relieved that he wasn't one of those scientists. None of this could have been his fault.

"Apparently they didn't." I frown. Back when we launched, something struck the shuttle during liftoff. All the ominous creaks and groans afterward, as the cryochambers put us in stasis, made me expect the spacecraft to tear apart any moment. Couple any resulting structural issues with a difficult landing to do under the best of circumstances, and I guess it's no wonder we crashed. Still, I want to know what exactly went wrong.

Mom gives me a warning look to silence anything hurtful I might say next, and I raise my hands in a placating gesture. Can't she cut me a little slack when I'm cranky and in pain? I glance away from her, off toward the habitats, watching for the transport. It can't come soon enough. I want to get to the colony. Behind us, I hear a faint rumbling and turn to see the sky turning from butterscotch to a reddish color. Is a dust storm coming?

"That convoy needs to hurry." A note of worry laces Mom's voice, and I can tell she's followed my gaze to see the same thing I have.

A few minutes later, I spot our transport, three green metal rovers with tall tires, rolling down the dune toward us. The convoy moves at a snail's pace, jostling from side to side as the rovers barrel over rocks and scatter dust everywhere. The debris doesn't strike the ground like it would on Earth. Instead, it drifts back to the surface like showers of floating sand. Given the ominous sky in the opposite direction, even redder now than before, Dad orders the group to move out to meet our ride. I don't hesitate to obey. "Get all the critically wounded to medical Rover 1," Dad adds.

"Most of the time, we'll have to cover the glass windows to keep out the radiation when we drive around out here. But this once we'll leave them uncovered so you can see the trip to the colony," our driver says over the music he's blasting. He bops to the music, a good dance beat I'd love to listen to under most circumstances. Right now, though, I wish I could turn off my headset for some peace and quiet. He's trying to cheer us up, but his effort falls flat. Maybe this is how he deals with tragedy, but it's not helping.