Mission to Mars

Mission to Mars

By

Claude Truveau

"Initiate cryogenic rehabilitation," orders Captain Billups, Flight Director. Apollo 29 was launched 8 months prior in an exhilarating liftoff, successful in every way, and was now fast approaching the red planet.

Major Carl Hansel and Lieutenant Sherry Steele had been in crypto sleep caskets since a week after launch, after ensuring the flight plan was on track. With a month to go before reaching their destination they were now awake in their individual pods.

The Team at the Cape were thrilled as 9 hours later they received a written communication from Hansel that both of them were up and feeling good, and ready to begin the next phase of their journey.

Hansel and Steele are both married to different partners, who understood and accepted the specific details and expectations of the mission. They were to propagate life and raise a child.

A previous mission was able to reach Mars in only 4 months, dropping off a habitat for colonization. This habitat now active, working properly, and awaiting the arrival of Hansel and Steele. The plan is to have them live within the habitat for 5 years, conduct various scientific experiments, with their most critical function to raise a child who will carry the torch forward.

"I believe we are on point for cohabitation processes," noted Seargent Atkins. Atkins is the psyche consult for the propagation function of the mission. Atkins manifested and implemented a training protocol for Hansel and Steele to ensure the most optimal formula for intercourse. This included proper positioning prior, during, and post coitus.

All of the training sessions were witnessed by the team, with footage saved and reviewed to increase the odds for success. In the experience of Hansel and Steele, their sexual exchanges had become perfunctory and a duty-bound part of their overall assignment. They had relations over 100 times in the year leading up to the mission. Their training had become stale as toast. It was almost regrettable, but necessary as they both would attest.

Hansel received the communication from mission control and said to Steele, "I guess the gloves are off Steele. Let's get to work."

The plan was to impregnate Steele a month prior to landing, and have a successful birth before a year was completed in the colonization portal. This way the pregnancy and birth of a newborn on Mars could be studied for future generations to come. It was all very exciting and compelling for the world. Live feeds were planned and the United States was to be considered the proud parent of Baby M.

The capsule was designed to combine two individual sleeping pods enabling a coupling process. Hansel went about setting up their space which took only a few minutes. Hansel and Steele then gathered together for a pre-implementation meal. It was their first attempt at ingesting nutrients since being awakened only hours prior. "These specialists down there don't waste time do they," mentioned Steele.

Hansel agreed. "Let's get some food in our bellies, and then see what we can do about getting a seed planted inside of yours."

The whole deal was somewhat crass and while they both knew what they were getting into when they applied for the mission, they both acknowledged every movement they were to make would be recorded and studied for the rest of their lifetimes.

"I have something I brought along, Hansel. It's a surprise. Let me grab it." Steele made her way to the storage cabinet.

They had been enjoying their reconnection over their meal, even though to both of them it seemed like it had been only a nighttime since they last sat together. The crypto sleep cabinets enabled suspended animation from the moment they had been secured. A huge leap of technology that helped to enable this mission.

Steele returned with a small black duffel bag and put it on the table. "How were you able to bring a duffel bag on the mission?" Hansel was intrigued. They had both been limited to one small item only.

"I told mission control it was a science experiment from my son for his 8th grade class. They gave me clearance for a bit of a larger carryon. What did you bring?"

"I brought the ashes of my grandfather. If he was only alive today." Hansel looked upward.

"Well, I brought something completely different. Would you like to see?" Steele opened the bag.

Hansel was intrigued and interested. He sat with avid attention and slowly took in what he was seeing. "I had no idea."

Time was suddenly of the essence and they both were aware they needed to activate the next process. They finished their nutrition break in the galley and headed to the sleeping pods. "I guess we need to get er done," chimed Hansel.

Steele was a warm and engaging person. She had a lot of friends, a loving marriage, and two children who were in grade school. She was 32 years old and had been an astronaut for 5 years.

Hansel was mid 40's, had a wife of 15 years, and one child in middle school. Hansel was a computer nerd as he would describe himself. He had been an astronaut for 8 years.

Dozens of compatibility studies had been completed with the two and they had come to know each other inside and out over time. Their vulnerability with each other and the flight team was an unusual and compelling aspect of the mission. They had become somewhat like actors performing a love scene. It had become more than rote, eventually. It was what it was.

Great care had been taken with regards to the general population at large who would be a part of the news thread and photographs of their exploits. Privacy curtains had been installed on their sleeping pods as every move they were to make on this mission was subject to viewership.

Mission control, and the world, were awaiting the next communication from Apollo 29. A picture file had been sent from the capsule and had taken 8 hours to be received. The time lapse was palpable, but so far since Hansel and Steele had been reactivated, communication had been reserved solely for typewritten messages. The first picture was only minutes away.

Atkins stood next to Billups, and the world was on edge. Slowly the file downloaded and a photograph began to fill the IMAX screen at mission control. In attendance were the families of Hansel and Steele. The tension palpable. A huge, color picture, was unfolding before their eyes.

A collective gasp filled the room when the download was complete. Billups looked at Atkins with wide eyes. "Oh my god. Is Hansen, okay? What the hell?"

Atkins considered what he was seeing. Took a deep breath. And stated plainly, "That there is a spreader bar. And those over there are armbinders. Steele is wearing a leather slut ID collar. He has a mouth muzzle. See in her hand, she has a paddle. And if you look closely on the lower end of the picture, I'm fairly certain that is an Impaler locking CBT ring with spikes. Ma'am."

-The end