In the sphere there's always been an unearthly silence, but now it seems to bare down on her, to suffocate the shallow, uncertain breaths she struggles to keep in rhythm. There's a porthole window just over her left shoulder that her eyes have been glued to for God knows how long, and outside, the red planet stares right back at her. She used to think the orange, desolate hills reminded her of training in the Nevada desert, but she knows now how far from home the terrain really is, exactly how foreign this place has become. And it's only the beginning.
She doesn't hear the footsteps until his booted feet are perched on her threshold. Gray coveralls, standard for all crew members and matching her own, his hair a ginger mess and the trademark grin showing all eighty four teeth, or at least it seems so. “We're moving out.”
She nods, climbing slowly off the metal bunk and the thin mattress atop it. Her roommate, who had been occupying the bunk above her for the last week, has already taken her regulation rucksack and headed down to the loading bay to assist the others in departure preparations. She grabs her own pack tiredly, following him out the door, her heavy boots clunking on the metal grate floor. The labyrinthine hallways are lit in red and windowless, with dark, sturdy walls. In the distance, the silence is broken by the running generator, pumping oxygen and heat into the complex. They make a left, breaking into the cavernous greenhouse, and the reason for the base originally being dubbed the “biosphere.” The air turns moist, feeding the spindly plants growing from the ceiling, up the walls, and meeting in the middle. The sprinklers spring on in their usual seven minute cycle, and they run for the next corridor to avoid a soaking. A few more nondescript walkways, and they arrive in the cargo bay, where the ten other crew members are using the hovers to load the hulking industrial mass of the Minerva with tightly packaged nonperishables, medicines, machine parts, clothes, paper goods, and other essentials. There's a panoramic window on the right wall, showing the navigation and meteorological tower, set against the ever present back drop of red dust.
The crew of the Minerva has been fortunate in that they have had the Ares Interstellar Port to themselves for the last week, as they are the only supply ship currently en route for the colony worlds. Mars is always the first stop, where new recruits get further technical training and goods on the base are replenished. She is the only new addition to the trade route this go around, and so has had the complete attention of the full time staff as she worked through the final textbooks and manuals. And it doesn't matter how many assurances have been passed your way—the thought of a month in the vacuum before reaching the colonies is a new kind of terrifying.
“Bevacqua, we're set,” one of the other crew members, a stout woman with short black hair, calls to the man she followed to the departure area. “Massiola's running pre-flight as we speak. If you're gonna secure that favorite compartment of yours, I suggest you get a move on.”
Bevacqua smirks. “Yes, dear.” He starts toward the open airlock, before turning back to her and taking in her vacant and lost expression. He smiles. “You have no idea how safe this is. Just relax. We'll be in the black in no time.”
“Comforting.”
He laughs easily. “You'd be surprised.”
She follows him into Minerva's cargo bay, up one of the cat walks to the crew's quarters. She finds an empty compartment, windowless with familiar black metal walls. A bed is thrust against the farthest wall, a listing table and LED lamp next to it. She takes a heavy seat on the mattress, adorned with a single sheet and gray blanket, both well worn. Some piece of trivia from training arrives in her frontal lobe—Minerva is one of the oldest government transport ships still in service. The newest models are much more science fiction themed, with the full arsenal of gleaming appliances and spotless panes of glass.
There's an order over the ship wide intercom that signals the beginning of liftoff, and that there should be good view of the planet once out of the atmosphere. Eager to leave the slightly claustrophobic room, she breaks into the open aired main body, and up the stairs to the cockpit, where the eleven other crew members are conversing in familiarity around the seated pilots. The view outside the front facing windows is the only way to know the ship is levitating, passing out of Mars' thin atmosphere. She leans over the pilot's chair to get a better view as they speed miles away from the planet.
“There it is,” the pilot says, her awe palpable. For just a moment, the planets are silhouetted by the fiery hot sun's rays, illuminating the curve of the first four planet's surfaces. It's full view of her small home planet, and the massive, star littered spaces that surround it. It's a frightening and immeasurable dose of relativity for the beginning of the rest of her life.
The pilot takes one last look at the view, before pushing the throttle forward, and letting the world blur into an indecipherable oblivion.