Red Planet

By Suryani Dasgupta

As I sit on the space shuttle ready for land-off I look to my left and stare into the horizon. As the countdown dawned on everyone. This was going to be my last memory of my home-planet, where I was born and raised: It wasn’t a beautiful view at all. Everything has changed for the last 50 years. Humanity is at the pinnacle of destruction. War after War, Tragedies after Tragedies: nothing is stopping us flawed beings. As a scientist I’ve done everything possible to delay this destruction but all that effort was put to waste. I still have faith in Humanity after-all we’ve achieved so much… and so much more and we could still be more, how could we put that to waste when we are about to go extinct.

This can’t be the end.

No-one will stand because their too powerful, if there’s no-one as powerful as ‘them’ then I will. I know I have great knowledge and prestige; from the moment I step foot on this world: I was destined to be great.

I knew that I needed to do something, something that’ll be able to spare us all except that will never be the answer, no matter how much we try to fix and undo what has been done. We will never change unless…

We start over.

Exactly 10 years back I was able to devise a plan, a plan to start over, this will restart everything anew even at the cost of many lives. According to latest scientific observations Mars is now habitable for surviving at the least, we’ll make that planet rightfully ours. To do this we have to make the biggest sacrifice that no-one could think of, letting go of all attachments; if we let these distractions get in the way we will surely be served on a silver platter.

War is about to begin and the people’s only desire is to kill one another so naturally there was a high demand for nuclear bombs and sci-fi weapons. You could say that I have some secret level of expertise in this… For a cheap price for your life, we were able to get ‘x’ number of labor and demands for this weaponry. My team had to manage this illegal weapon making and selling as well as preparing for the crimson planet, I could not stress enough of how brilliant this will be.

We had to test, farm, gather materials and secure every single possibility that would ensure us our safety on that planet. Using bionic-self producing ores and micro-seeds that are suitable for Mar’s soil were harvested, checked and corrected. I pressurized my team that one fault will be the hunger games on Mars.

As we were trying to purloin a rocket ship, the series of atrocities began. It was the World against Each other and mentioning all inhumane enslavement, politics, degradation: its terrible but we must turn a blind eye to it as our mission is more important.

Getting a spaceship of our own there was only 24.18% chance: this won’t do if we were trying to just push our luck. Our weaponry has been a huge hit in the black-market including governments that has taken interest in our ‘little’ armorer stop. Trying to get a deal with such high authority for a whole ownership of a spaceship, of-course we had to offer more on the table. I promised them the highest quality of our fine artillery and a place on our red planet.

For such a deal, I am pretty sure we have swept them off their feet, I carefully design a small society that these higher ups could fit in.

And the moment came, we could finally leaving. Leave it and let it burn, it was never a home in the first place.

As the rocket ship leaves the eroded land beneath, I took a deep breath. We are finally at the phase two of our mission, the environment around me was unpleasant and gloomy: without any morality this mission is pointless.

As we exit the it’s atmosphere, looking back at all ;it doesn’t look the same as it was. It was colored in an ugly color of brown and grey and you could see all the nuclear emissions from far away, going at such a ridiculous speed: the physics of time should not affect us for this brief moment. Technically speaking we will reach mars in a week for us but in actuality its four months. We cannot risk expiration of our limited materials.

As it was safe to finally take off our seatbelts and roam freely, I stand in-front of my trusted audience, “these few past years have been arduous and rigorous journey, as you all very well know I am not a man of words but of action. I present to you our new home, one there is peace, and equality: the true harmony of all! The gift for the genius!” I raise my hand passionately and it seems that I have successfully lifted up the mood, “After-all, this is what we have been trying to achieve our whole lives!”, I’ve gotten their attention, their weary eyes could only focus on me. “The moment we chose to take this life, the moment we chose to save our race, we were destined to meet no minute less or later. Us folks are only ones to achieve this during a bloody war, and to survive for so long: its our sheer will and strength combined that has gotten us here. Here is We, We start. Here is where We can finally rest our minds. Here is where paradise lies ahead of Us,” Everyone stared with keen interest, they’ve been waiting for this praise and acknowledgement for ages. “We were nothing but ungrateful brats to them: them that considered that even existing was a luxury. We cannot deny we were weak and the pain it brought to our hearts when everything came crashing down, But I believe we’ve become stronger than anyone else, truly. For every sweat and tear, We have earned this all, so I must not let you delude yourself that: the higher ups are the ones uplift us, its Us who made it.”

I end my speech my thanking those who believed in Us.

3 months later, we able to set up our food sources, buildings and headquarters, and are ready to ship for the next goods to come in, we chose the finest of teachers, doctors, artists and more that were still alive from the ‘x’ countries we thought were worth bringing. The ongoing war on Earth will soon catch wind of this operation.

Other world leaders, politicians and military will be after Us, and will be using the same weapons we made for them. As my other co-workers help with urbanizing our little red ‘city’, I and a few other trusted ones were busy making defenses, little do the ‘outsiders’ know that the new materials and substances that has been found on Mars will be more powerful than they can comprehend.

“We’ll soon be a region of our own”, I say standing proud on the pedestal alongside my people. The sustainability has been proven usefully and now they see my name in the heat of the crowd in perfect unison.

“DR.QUINT!

DR.QUINT!

DR.QUINT!

DR.QUINT!”

By Suryani Dasgupta