Winning Mars by Jason Stoddard

Author:Jason Stoddard
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction - Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction, Science Fiction - General, General, Science Fiction and Fantasy
ISBN: 9781607012160
Publisher: Prime Books
Published: 2010-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

“I do what I need to do.”

“Tomorrow?” Jere asked.

“Doubt it. I gotta go to orbit soon, to work the problems I’m trying to work down here for real.”

Ron leaned forward. “What kind of problems?”

“Crap. Where do I start? The Can’s a mess, and we haven’t even got the pods on it. Electrical is fubar, we’re having some hull integrity challenges, and they’re arguing about whether or not the air system is robust enough, to start.”

“Air? On a journey this long?” Ron said, his face drawing down into a frown. He looked at Jere as if it was his fault. Jere silently cursed himself for allowing Ron to come along.

“Yeah, yeah, the length’s the problem. Longer the voyage, the more pain to start. But we always work through it.”

Ron turned to Jere. “Let’s go film him in place.”

“What? You mean like, documentary style?”

“Yeah. We shoot it MOS as he’s doing . . . whatever the hell he’s doing, then do narration. The heroic Frank Sellers, giving his all for the cause.”

Evan nodded. “It could work.”

Frank, from the speaker: “What are you guys talking about?”

“We’re coming to see you,” Ron said.

“I don’t have time for your interviews!”

“We don’t need an interview. We’ll shoot around you, documentary style. We won’t even get in the way.”

Silence from the speaker. Jere could imagine Frank trying to find a flaw in the plan. Then: “Make it quick.”

They went to the shack near their next launch, an aged RusSpace freight rocket that was destined to become part of the Can. Jere had the cameraman take video of the grimy rocket. The only clean things on it were the Winning Mars logo and the Mars Enterprise 7 vehicle ID (some money from the Roddenberry estate, not that it mattered, the final mess might have a big ol Mars Enterprise logo on it, but it looked like a big trash can, squat and ugly and lumpy and dirty, and that’s what everyone called it.)

In the shack, Frank was hunched over an array of flatscreens. Some of them showed images of the partial Can in orbit. Some of them showed 3-D charts and graphs, like alien landscapes. One of them showed an interior shot of something with a spaghetti-mess of cables floating in air. Blobs of something like water or oil also floated in air. Two Russians wearing those funny little fur hats they liked were sitting next to Frank, wearing VR goggles and mumbling in Russian into throatmikes.

Frank looked at each of them in turn. His mouth was turned down at the edges in a perpetual frown. His gaze flicked mechanically from person to person, as if assessing each of them for signs of weakness.

Jere knew that Frank was ex-military, Air Force. He’d been on the astronaut program back in the Shuttle days but he’d never actually flown a mission. Something about the Shuttle blowing up in the 80’s. So he wasn’t really an astronaut, he was a wannabe-astronaut. Jere smiled as Frank looked at him.

“Do your shot,” Frank said, and turned back to what he was doing.

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