Losing Mars

by Peter Cawdron

  From the perspective of the camera, a white gloved hand reaches out, taking hold of the vessel, grabbing an anchor point beside the main hatch.

  “And... capture.” Hedy grabs a rail with both hands.

  “Easy,” Lisa says. Like her, I feel horribly distant and helpless, unable to do anything other than watch. I guess it’s even worse for everyone back in Houston, those in the Chinese embassy, the scientists in Beijing, the family and friends of the taikonauts. By the time this reaches them, it’ll be old news, it’ll tear at their hearts to watch her approach the damaged vessel. I’m not sure anyone’s breathing except Hedy. We can hear her through the microphone.

  Scott speaks in my ear. “Anderson, do you have visual? Confirm.”

  Oh, yeah. I’m not out here for the sightseeing. I’m her immediate support, whatever the hell that means. There’s not much I can do from quarter of a mile away. I respond to Scott, zooming the docking camera in on Hedy’s white suit.

  “On it.”

  Hedy’s legs fly outward away from the craft as it turns. Even though the motion of the Huŏxīng Wu is relatively slow, it’s enough for the conservation of angular momentum to simulate at least partial gravity, slinging her body outward, leaving her holding on by her arms. I doubt there’s too much apparent force, but there’s enough for her to have to work hand over hand as she enters the hatch. Somewhat ironically, it also means she can rest against the inside of the entrance, lying there for a moment as she surveys the interior of the Huŏxīng Wu. Lying on anything in space is an unusual sensation.

  “Stat check.”

  I read off the statistics from her telemetry, scrolling through the details on my wrist pad. Hedy’s nervous. She’s wanting some assurance. I get that. No one’s ever undertaken anything like this before. It’s unsettling for all of us. She could look at the figures herself, but it would be easy to overlook critical details. Stress has a way of making us cut corners, so she’s doing the smart thing—involving me and calming herself down.

  “You have twenty minutes of daylight. Your O2 is at 84%. Limiting consumable/factor is CO2. Your scrubbers are green and good for 8 to 10 hours. Electrical power is steady. Thermal regulation is good. You are GO.”

  “Comms?”

  “You’re coming through clearly in audio—five-by-five. Video is breaking up at five-by-two. Signal’s choppy.”

  “You’re seeing this, though, right?” She pans slowly with her helmet, allowing the spotlights on either side to catch the darkened instrumentation panels, seat backs and supplies. This could be the inside of the Redstone, only it’s dead—shrouded in misery. A fine coating of ice crystals cover the various surfaces, reflecting the light back at the camera like a light dusting of snow in late autumn.

  Reluctantly, I reply, “Yeah.”

  A body lies caught in the strapping of a seatbelt, slouched against the inside of the hull, having been pushed there by the momentum of the vessel as it rotates. Short sleeve shirt. Bare arms. Track pants. Socks. It’s the eyes that scare me. They’re white. The pupils are hidden by a thin sheet of ice that’s formed on the cornea. His mouth is open, with his lips parted ever so slightly. Like the rest of the craft, the taikonaut’s skin is covered in ice crystals. In thirty minutes time, someone on Earth is going to recognize him and their heart is going to break.

  “Proceeding inside.”

  “Copy that.”

  To anyone listening, the conversation probably sounds horribly sterile and uncaring, but professionalism is all that will get Hedy through this moment. There will be time for reflection later. Too much time.

  Hedy’s gloved hands reach for various holds within the Chinese vessel. The cockpit is far smaller than our craft, but I suspect that’s because the vessel is more elongated, easier to launch, and probably extends back further than the Redstone.

  “Two heart beats, right?”

  “Affirmative.”

  I understand what she’s asking. It’s not just that there’s two people somehow still alive in there, but that there’s one more body to find. She’s steeling herself.

  A light flashes on my wrist pad controls. Someone’s hailing me from Shepard but not on the open channel, not wanting to distract Hedy. I switch channels. “This is Redstone, go ahead.”

  “We’re getting flooded with data from Earth down here. They’re sending us everything, which isn’t as helpful as it sounds, but Lisa’s got the schematics for the Huŏxīng Wu along with basic flight controls, power up routines and life-support procedures. Forwarding them to you now.”

  “Copy that.”

  I switch back to the primary channel, catching vision of Hedy working hand over hand through the dark cabin like a diver swimming through the wreckage of a battleship. Burn marks scar various surfaces. There’s been a cabin fire.

  “Can you see this?”

  Legs protrude from a hatch leading to another module behind the main cabin. To me, they’re those of a mannequin, something plastic, fake, and not those of anyone that ever lived, but that’s a lie. Being confronted with the stark reality of death in the cold dark vacuum of space is too much.

  “Copy that.” But I’m distracted, flicking between her video feed and the schematics for the Huŏxīng Wu.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  Beautiful? Hedy’s term is incongruous, out of place, but I need to stay focused and guide Hedy through the craft. I bring up the schematics on my wrist pad, looking out across the darkness toward the Chinese vessel in the distance.

  “You’ll find living quarters in the next module and an engineering compartment at the rear, providing protection from solar storms. CNSA suspect this is where the surviving taikonauts have gathered since there’s independent power and life support in there.”

  “So beautiful. I’ve never—”

  “Say again? Repeat your last.”

  There’s no reply.

  “Hedy?” I switch back to her camera view only to see a kaleidoscope of colors. “What is that?”

  Gloved hands reach for a polished metal object roughly the size of a soccer ball. Rather than being curved, it’s made up of overlapping cubes, square panels set on a variety of angles, reflecting the light from her helmet. There’s a slight hum, but that’s impossible. Hedy’s in a vacuum. Sound cannot carry, but the pulse matches the shifting glimmer coming from the object. The oily sheen reflects a kaleidoscope of colors as Hedy moves.

  “Oh, Lisa. She’s beautiful. So beautiful.”

  Lisa comes on the channel a split second later, slightly out of sync due to the communication lag. She sounds extremely panicked. “Hedy, get out of there. Get the hell out of there now!”

  I break onto the channel, wanting to understand Hedy’s use of a female pronoun. “What’s the crew manifest? Are there any women on board?”

  Scott replies without missing a beat. “Negative.” Hedy doesn’t seem to hear us, as she continues on.

  “You... You were wonderful. She’s got your—”

  The screen goes white, washed out by a burst of light. From where I am, standing in the hatch of the Redstone, looking out across the void between Phobos and Mars, lightning seems to erupt from within the distant vessel, shining out of the windows, reflecting off the aluminum hatch and lighting up the debris cloud drifting in front of the Chinese spacecraft.

  “What the hell?”

  As alarming as that is, it’s the silence that unsettles me—not from Hedy, or from Shepard, but from within my own spacesuit. There’s no noise. Nothing. The silence surrounding me is overwhelming, so intense I can hear my heart beating within my chest, racing in a flush of panic. No life support. There should be air circulating, a fan whirring softly as my companion.

  “Shepard, are you seeing this? Shepard? Do you read me? Over.”

  Silence screams within the claustrophobic confines of my helmet. My wrist pad is blank. The power within the Redstone has failed, plunging the interior of the craft into darkness.

  “Shepard, if you can hear me
, Redstone is dead. I repeat. Power is out.”

  My breathing constricts. At first, it’s confusing, but with the loss of power there’s no air circulating. With each exhale, CO2 builds within the tiny space around my head. The only oxygen I have is within my lungs and the tiny gap inside my helmet.

  I’m dying.

  “Fuck.”

  My life is now measured in seconds, not years or decades—less than a minute. Panic seizes me. I’m going to suffocate in orbit around Mars. In that moment, Jen’s face comes to the forefront of my mind. She’s going to be a widow. Stranded on Mars. Abandoned. Her husband somewhere above her, circling the planet every eight hours in a spaceship that’s become a tomb. I’ve failed her. Susan was right. We should have never left Shepard.

  Frantic, I pull myself down within the Redstone, bumping into the open hatch with my lifeless life-support system. All the electronics are dead. Outside, the light fades, plummeting as we pass through the terminator, the brief boundary between day and night in orbit. Sunset happens in seconds, and whereas there was at least some light reflecting off Phobos, bouncing around the inside of the cabin, now there’s darkness.

  I tell myself, “Don’t panic.” Ah, classic advice from Douglas Adams. Much easier said than done. When there’s nothing else to do, what is there but panic?

  I push off with my legs. I’ve got to do something, anything. With my gloved hands out in front of me, I feel my way through the cabin. My lungs are burning, but here I am, swimming through the darkness.

  Swimming.

  My mind is shutting down, frantically seeking memories to cling to, desperate to hold onto something as though mere thoughts could save me. Denial is all I have in the face of death. I’m scrambling, looking for anything to grab onto as I die. My motion is akin to someone drowning beneath the ocean, struggling to reach the surface, and that causes similar recollections to cloud my thinking.

  Mentally, I’m sitting inside the shell of an old helicopter, suspended from a crane by a steel cable, swinging gently over the neutral buoyancy tank in Houston, Texas, which looks like an Olympic-size diving pool. The doors on the chopper are closed. A NAVY Seal tugs on my seatbelt harness, cinching the belt so tight I feel as though I’m melding with the seat.

  “Don’t panic. Okay? If you remember nothing else, hold onto these two words—don’t panic! Panic and you’re dead.”

  I swallow the lump in my throat, feeling the chassis sway some twenty feet above the water. Master Chief Petty Officer Rodriguez addresses the four of us sitting on a bench seat facing the front of the gutted helicopter. I’m not sure where they got this thing, but it’s been dropped an awful lot. Cracks line the Perspex windows. The instrumentation panels have been removed, leaving the hollow metal frame gaunt and empty, like the skull of some mechanical monster. Dummies dressed in flight suits, complete with white helmets, play the role of pilot and copilot. There are no rotor blades. There’s no engine, no tail boom, just the hollow interior. The doors, though, look as though they’ve come from some other chopper. Their paintwork is slightly brighter, and they’re not as worn or scratched.

  I’m sure Master Chief Rodriguez is trying to be informative and reassuring, but his words come across more like an order than any kind of comfort.

  “You will be okay.”

  I guess I’m not the only one going as white as a sheet at the prospect of drowning. There’s a NAVY diver strapped in opposite us with a buddy-breathing apparatus ready to help but I suspect he’s more for show. Given what Jen said when she did this last week, at most he’ll push us toward the surface. They want us to know what it means to be on the verge of drowning, fighting for life, seconds from dying.

  “You’re in a chopper—over water—the engine fails—the cabin is spinning wildly—the pilot calls out, ‘Brace for impact.’ What do you do?”

  The guy next to me says what I think is entirely reasonable.

  “Brace.”

  Rodriguez leans forward with his arms raised, pressing against the metal roof.

  “No. Wrong answer. Why?”

  No one responds. The Master Chief is more than just a little intimidating. “I was an EMT for six years before joining the force. You know what I saw in hundreds of car accidents? Drunks surviving impacts that should have killed them. And do you know why? They never braced.

  “When they tell you to brace in an airplane it is for a specific reason, because there is an optimal position to avoid compounding injuries. Not true in a car. Not true in a helicopter. Why?”

  Okay, there’s going to be lots of questions. I offer an answer, “Because there’s nothing to brace against.”

  “Exactly. You wanna think about your body, the way in which your head or arms are going to go, and you move in that position, but you don’t brace. You relax. If your head is about to whip forward, get your head forward to start with. Anticipate. Lessen the shock. You’re already braced. You’re strapped in tighter than a two-dollar whore. What’s going to happen to your head when we hit?”

  I’m getting the hang of this. “It's going to snap down.”

  Rodriguez points at me. “Yes.” I think I’m going to get one of those gold stars they hand out in kindergarten. “So tuck your head. Ensure it’s in place already.”

  Within the darkened confines of the Redstone, I pull myself to the storage area at the rear of the craft. My heart rate is dropping. Can’t see anything beyond shadows. Still just doing something, anything, without any real goal. No power. No life support. No time. My mind, though, is alive—flooded with vibrant colors.

  The spotlights on the ceiling of the Sonny Carter Training Facility in Houston turn the gloomy autumn day outside into a beautiful day indoors. Engineers and support staff working on the second floor offices overlooking the pool line the windows, watching, waiting for us to take the plunge. A camera crew stands by the edge of the deep blue pool, filming us from a distance. There are paramedics and additional divers on standby, which isn’t as reassuring as I initially thought. Rather than indicating they’re prepared for any eventuality, to me it seems as though they’re acknowledging the very real prospect of injury, but I get the rationale. If we’re ever in a chopper crash, this training will give us a fighting chance.

  There’s at least one diver already in the pool, but they’re well clear of the drop zone, circling out wide, ready to render assistance. At least this isn’t the craziest thing I’ll go through as an astronaut. Strapping into a rocket takes first prize.

  “Don’t panic. Whatever happens. Do not panic. Panic will kill you. Panic causes your muscles to burn through oxygen, and once we go under the water, the oxygen in your lungs and veins is all you have.”

  Yeah, not really that reassuring, Rodriguez.

  “You can hold your breath longer than you think you can. Your body will lie to you. Your lungs will scream for air. You’ll want to open your mouth and breathe in, but you must fight that. You’ve got to resist that urge. It’s panic, that’s all. It’s your body telling you you can’t survive. Your mind has to convince you otherwise.

  “When we hit, you’re going to feel a jolt that’ll knock the breath out of you, but if you’re going to survive in an actual crash it is important you do exactly what I tell you. Don’t panic.”

  Yeah, he’s really driving that message home.

  “Water is going to flood the cabin, but we won’t move. In a real life scenario, there are rotor blades still madly spinning out there. Jump out now and you’ll get decapitated, so we’re going under.

  “Water is going to swirl around your legs. It’s going to come up over your chest. The pressure is going to build quickly, far quicker than you think. It’s going to squeeze your lungs as we go deep, but don’t panic. Panic and you’re dead. Take one last breath. Make it a good one.

  “Once we’re under, Specialist McGovern is going to count to thirty.” Rodriguez gestures to the diver. “When he gives you the thumbs up, you can release your harness, equalize your ears, and exit the cabin.


  “We won’t open the doors until we’re completely submerged. Does anyone know why?”

  No one answers.

  “Pressure differential. Lots of water outside pressing in against the air in the cabin. Surefire way of jamming the lock. By waiting, we improve our odds of getting out alive.”

  I love the way he says improve.

  I’m feeling decidedly nervous and uncomfortable about this, which is precisely why NASA wants us to practice a crash landing in water. Better to go through this in a controlled environment.

  I have to know. “How long will we be under?”

  “Two minutes. Max. That’s all.”

  “That’s a long time.”

  Rodriguez laughs. “McGovern, how long can you hold your breath?”

  “Sixteen minutes, sir.”

  The look on my face must scream SIXTEEN MINUTES as Rodriguez follows up with, “The record is twenty two. Don’t underestimate the ability of your body to survive without oxygen. You’re going to feel like you’re dying, but you’re not. Not even close. That’s just the build up of CO2 fooling your mind. Just don’t breathe in any water and you’ll be fine.

  “What you’re about to experience is called the mammalian dive reflex. It’s what allows dolphins and seals to survive under water for prolonged periods of time. Make no mistake about it, we’re aquatic apes. Our ancestors have done this for hundreds of thousands of years.

  “Three things need to happen for you to survive. Your heart rate must slow, and that won’t happen if you panic. Relax and your body will do the rest. Your blood vessels will narrow, reducing the flow of oxygen to your muscles and increasing the supply to your brain. Your spleen is a reservoir of red blood cells. Once you get past that initial screaming sensation for air, your spleen will contract, releasing all that oxygen rich blood and you’ll shift into turbo mode. You’ll feel a rush. A sense of serenity. Just don’t panic.”

  It sounds all so easy.

  “Any questions?”

  With barely any pause for a response, Rodriguez smacks his hand twice against the underside of the roof. Almost instantly, we plunge. I was expecting him to take a seat, so the drop takes me by surprise. What the hell was I supposed to be doing again? My head is supposed to be somewhere. Wham! Too late. Water sprays outward from the fuselage. Waves race away from us as the chassis tilts. Cold water rushes into the cabin far faster than I expected and within seconds, it’s swirling around my waist, up over my chest and around my neck. The pressure is already building, making it hard to breathe, constricting my lungs.