The Ares Express

"Boosters dislodged," said the tinny voice of the Ares Express as an almighty but familiar lurch shook the shuttle. I watched the boosters, already two little toothpicks, zipping back down to Earth, where they would land on the launchpad for repairs and refuelling before the next launch.

The Ares Express shuddered as we exited the atmosphere. I stared expectantly out the window as the haze thinned around us, then gasped. There they were, winking at us almost teasingly. The stars. I laughed breathlessly. This may have been my sixth time seeing the stars, but they never failed to take my breath away.

I looked to my right and there was Aurora. She held her helmet atop her lap and her long blonde curls floated about her head, giving the appearance of a halo.

I was transported back to the cockpit of our very first mission, the way her hair, though shorter, floated about her in a similar manner. We'd only known each other a month then, but I'd called her 'angel' ever since.

Back in the Ares Express, Aurora's eyes were wide with wonder. She smiled, glowing brighter than any star, and gripped my hand.

"Next stop, Mars," she said, and I was suddenly acutely aware of the tiny box in the pocket of my spacesuit, the edges of it pressing against my thigh. I took my helmet off, bent over, and planted a kiss on the back of her hand.

"Next stop, Mars."

We'd never been to Mars. We'd been to the moon, of course; every astronaut had by the turn of the century. I blinked, and there we were, on our third space mission, checking on the Earthling refugee settlements, collecting samples from the moon's dark side, setting up camp to test its survivability for the next load of refugees. We'd deemed it suitable, and it was filled up within two years.

I blinked again and it was our last day on the moon, dancing amongst refugees of the Bay of Rainbows Settlement, Aurora, eyes half-lidded, swaying in my arms, leaning up and kissing me for the first time.

"Attention all passengers." I was back in the Ares Express, Aurora's voice floating from the speakers. "This is your pilot speaking. We will be entering hyperspace in a few minutes. Ensure your seatbelts are fastened and the straps are pulled taut. I repeat…"

I flicked the controls, rotating the joystick to position the shuttle precisely towards Mars, right now, a reddish dot up ahead. Still visible at the corner of the window was Earth— the smoggy grey planet. Squinting, I made out a glowing orange speck, cutting through the smog right before it disappeared into the haze. A beat, then an orange glow emanated from where the missile had disappeared, and my stomach dropped.

Suddenly, I was six again, sitting in the backyard with my grandmother as she told me about her childhood before the war, how she'd go into her backyard at night and look up and the sky would be a black canvas stretching from horizon to horizon, dotted with tiny twinkling stars.

The only sky I'd ever known was a grey haze— during the day, suffused with a soft yellowish glow, during the night, a suffocating blackness.

In the backyard with my grandmother, I looked into her teary eyes and said, "I'm going to become an astronaut. I'm going to see the stars."

Never did I expect to be piloting shuttles of Earthling refugees to Mars alongside my super-cool astronaut girlfriend, escaping a world-war that had gone on for a hundred years.

Aurora glanced at me expectantly. I nodded. We were ready to enter hyperspace. Which meant, I realised, my heart skipping a beat, that in about twelve minutes, I'd be pulling that little box out of my pocket and asking Aurora the most important question of our lives. My hands shook. I gripped the hyperspace handle until my knuckles turned white.

"This is your final reminder to buckle your seat belts." A smile tugged at Aurora's lips, her eyes gleaming with barely contained excitement. Despite the anxious churning of my insides, I smiled too. "We will be entering hyperspace in five, four—" she made eye contact with me; I gripped the handle impossibly tighter— "three, two, one."

I thrust the handle forward.

"Entering hyperspace."

We jerked backwards, plastered back against our seats as the Ares Express shot forward, breaking the speed of light and stretching the stars into long streaks before we ended up in a glowing tunnel of light.

"So," I sighed. We'd reached maximum speed, which meant we were no longer flattened back against our seats, and I leaned forward, resting my elbow on my armrest and my chin in my palm. "Where do you wanna go first once we get to Mars?"

"I'm not sure we'll have much time for sight-seeing between all the round trips, Celeste," Aurora chided, though a grin had spread across her face.

"I mean if we get some down time. Come on." I nudged her with my elbow. "Where d'you wanna go? Hang on—" I cut her off as she opened her mouth. "It'll be the Medusae Fossae, won't it?"

Aurora blushed, then rolled her eyes.

"I knew it!"

The Medusae Fossae— a Martian rock formation comprising of a circular crater beside canyons and hills in a zig-zagging pattern that resembled the sutures of a skull, which, despite having a completely probable factual explanation, some people still believed to be evidence of a UFO crash.

"You still think it could be aliens, don't you—?"

"It's possible—!"

"Scientists already found that it's probably volcanic deposit eroded by the wind—"

"Key word, 'probably'."

She raised her eyebrows at me, daring me to argue back. I rolled my eyes, trying and failing to suppress my grin. I loved riling her up about aliens. It was one of the things I loved most about her, her open-mindedness in the face of scepticism and hard scientific facts.

"D'you have your speech prepared?"

Aurora froze. "What speech?"

"For when we meet our first Martian?"

Aurora sighed with relief, then promptly whacked my arm. I laughed.

Beep. The stopwatch before me read six minutes. We were halfway through our hyperspace journey. I swallowed the nerves that shot through my body.

It beeped again at eleven minutes and thirty seconds.

"Attention all passengers. We will be exiting hyperspace in thirty seconds, I repeat…"

I readied my grip on the handle, my eye trained on the timer.

11:58.

11:59.

12:00.

I yanked the handle backwards.

"Exiting hyperspace."

We lurched forward as the shuttle's speed plummeted from over the speed of light to a mere five-thousand kilometres per second, the white tunnel disappearing to reveal once more the backdrop of stars in the vast emptiness, but with one difference; Mars was no longer a red speck in the distance, but a huge, red planet, complete with canyons and volcanoes, visible even from our current distance of nine billion kilometres away.

Aurora gasped and we shared a glance. Her eyes brimmed with tears.

"That's our new home," she whispered.

Again, the outline of the little box pressed against my thigh.

"Yeah," I replied, suddenly lightheaded. "It is."

"Attention all passengers. We will begin our descent to Mars in thirty minutes. Until then, the seatbelt signs have been deactivated…"

I switched the Ares Express to autopilot and unbuckled my seatbelt before pushing myself up off my seat. Aurora followed suit once she'd finished her announcement, and together, we floated to the top of the cockpit.

Without any handles to grip, my hands shook freely. I clasped them together, taking deep breaths and willing my heart to beat just a fraction slower, lest I go into cardiac arrest. A peck on my cheek and I met Aurora's gaze.

"Are you feeling okay?" She peered at me. "You look pale."

I nodded, tried for a smile. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Good."

Any trace of a smile disappeared from her face as her eyebrows knitted with worry. "Cel, are you nervous to land? You'll do fine! All your previous landings have been smooth—"

I leaned forward and cut her off with a kiss. She kissed me back, softly, sweetly, cupping my cheeks in her hands. When we pulled away, I realised my hands weren't shaking so much anymore. "It's not about the landing, angel, I—"

I took another deep breath, staring out the window at Mars, inching closer by the second. It was time. I met Aurora's soft gaze, and my heart grew to the size of the planet we were approaching. "I love you," I whispered.

She smiled, then kissed me again. "I love you, too."

"I just—" I took another steadying breath. Glanced at Mars. "We're going to be starting a whole new life, on a whole new planet, and I— um—" My hands were shaking again, and I felt slightly nauseous, but I pushed it all aside and reached into my pocket, clasping the little box. "I was just wondering if— if you'd like to do that— as…" I gulped, pulled the box out of my pocket. "As fiancées?"

Aurora's jaw dropped, her gaze dropping to my hands as I opened the little box between us.

"Aurora," I whispered. "Angel. Will you marry me?"

She stared at me, her breathing shallow, and I held my breath, every single fibre of my being tense—

She laughed breathlessly. "I thought you'd never ask! I mean— yes!" she finally exclaimed. I finally exhaled. "Yes! Gosh, Cel, yes! I'll marry you!"

"Oh, thank goodness—"

Aurora cut me off, lurching forward and practically crashing into me before winding her arms around me in the tightest hug of my life.

"Angel!" I laughed. " I can't breathe—"

"Oh! Sorry!" She pulled back, barely. I made to take a breath but was interrupted again as Aurora crashed her lips into mine. Breathless in more ways than one, I kissed her back just as passionately.

"Hang on," I said, forcing myself to pull back. Aurora looked giddy, eyes half-lidded, lips parted, panting. "Don't you want the ring?"

Her gaze snapped up to mine, wide and alert again. "Oh!" She laughed, and pulled back far enough so my that hand, wedged between our two bodies and clasping desperately onto the box, came free. I pulled the ring out of the box, then took her left hand and slipped it onto her ring-finger.

"It's beautiful," she whispered, bringing it close to her face. She gasped. "Is this—?" She stared at me, her jaw agape again. "This is moon rock."

I nodded, beaming. "From one of the samples we collected on our moon expedition."

"Cel," she breathed. Her eyes shone with tears as she grabbed my face and kissed me again. This time, neither of us pulled away. I kissed her and she kissed me and I'd never felt happier in my entire life—

"Initiate landing gear. Initiate landing gear."

Aurora and I groaned, pulling away, but the disappointment only lasted a second, because when we looked out the window, there was Mars, filling our entire field of view. My heart racing, this time, actually in anticipation of the landing, we manoeuvred our way to our seats.

"Attention all passengers. We will be beginning our descent to Mars shortly. The seatbelt sign is now on…"

I turned off autopilot, flipping the switches to initiate the landing gear, then glanced over at Aurora, who nodded. Ready.

I leaned over and kissed her one more time. "Next kiss will be on Mars." I winked.

She grinned as we put on our helmets. "I'll be hoping for more than just a kiss." She returned my wink and my heart skipped a beat.

"Ask and you shall receive," I replied. She laughed.

We touched down on Mars twenty minutes later.

"…your spacesuits are insulated," Aurora's voice said over the intercom as we made our way through the cabin, "to protect you from the cold. Remember, Mars is much further from the Sun that the Earth. Follow the people in blue. They will direct you to the settlement…"

I entered the passcode for the door, and with another glance and nod from Aurora, I pulled it open.

Red, a glaring red, stared back at me, and…

"It's hot."

Aurora frowned. "It's not meant to be—"

"But it is."

I stepped out onto the red dirt, and the heat was overwhelming—

A fire burning next to my head, the air a grey haze—

I blinked— the red dirt of Mars, Aurora stepping out after me, looking about. "I don't feel it—"

Pain shooting through my entire body, drawing a breath that was just smoke. "Aurora—"

"Cel?" Aurora was in front of me, holding my hands. Passengers disembarked around us, taking no notice. "Are you alright? You look pale—"

I opened my eyes and it hurt. Smoke, black and grey, stinging my eyes, burning my lungs from the inside. A fire by my head, another by my feet. I lifted my head off the ground, another fire, raging, engulfing the remnants of a shuttle. I blinked slowly, peering at the wreckage, my head spinning. I could just make out the words on what was left of the hull. ARES EXPR.

"Aurora—?" I croaked, squeezing my eyes shut, waiting to see her in front of me on the red planet, telling me it would be okay. But she wasn't there, and then—

And then I remembered.

Aurora to my right, her hair floating about her head like a halo, smiling at me, gripping my hand.

"Next stop, Mars."

The stars twinkling in the background, behind her. One of them was moving. It was getting closer, and moving very fast—

"Aurora—!"

The radar alarm bleeped at the same time that the missile struck our wing.

I must have blacked out during the crash.

Something hot was sliding down the side of my face. Wincing, I gripped my helmet— the glass, shattered, the metal, dented and cracked— before yanking it off my head. I brought my fingers to my face; they came away bloody.

My head buzzed. I hardly felt the pain. Aurora. I looked to my right.

"Aurora…"

There she was, about an arm's length away, like in the shuttle. Her helmet was nowhere to be seen— of course, she'd taken it off right before— before… and her blonde hair was like a halo around her head, though streaked with red…

"Aurora…"

I heaved myself up, only half-aware of the pain shooting through my arms, my back. I half-crawled, half-dragged my way towards her.

"Aurora, wake up—"

Her eyes were closed. I stroked her cheek with my thumb, she didn't move. I bent over, peered into her face, clasped her shoulder, shook her.

"Aurora. Angel. They— they shot us out of the sky. Come on. Get up. We need to look for survivors. I— I need to propose—"

The tiny box pressed into my thigh. I shoved my hand into my pocket and wrenched it out.

"The box is ruined," I said. "But the ring should be fine. Aurora?" I cupped her cheek. It was sticky with blood. "Aurora? Angel, please. I need to ask you to marry me. Aurora?"

I stared at her for a moment, and another, and another. And then I realised she wasn't stirring. I shook my head, my breathing growing shallow, before setting down the flattened ring box and hovering two fingers under her nose.

Nothing.

"Aurora?"

I pressed the same two fingers to the side of her neck. Waited. Waited.

Nothing.

"No. Aurora—"

I took her left hand, the way I had on the Ares Express— at least, in the Ares Express of my mind while our bodies had been spiralling down to Earth— and pressed the same two fingers to the inside of her wrist.

Nothing.

My mind went numb, my heart stopped. Nothing.

For a long moment, I sat there, staring at her, looking, but seeing nothing. And then I turned my blank stare to the box. I picked it up, pried it open.

There sat the ring, perfect and gleaming as in the dream. And here lay Aurora, limp and unmoving. No breath, no pulse.

My mind grew hazier by the second. Blood gushed out of my body, from my forehead, my arm, my back, and more places I wasn't even aware of, I was sure.

The taste of salt on my lips, mingled with the metallic taste of blood. I was crying. Of course I was crying. Aurora was dead.

My insides constricted, so suddenly and so acutely that I gasped and doubled over.

Aurora was dead.

My heart— tearing in my chest, ripping wide, into two.

Lightheaded, in agony, I inched closer, slipping a bloody arm under Aurora's bloody form and lying down beside her. I gripped the ring tight in my hand, so tight the moon rock dug into my flesh and something warm spread across my palm. I held Aurora equally tight against me and pressed my lips to her forehead before squeezing my eyes shut.

I willed my sluggish brain to take me back to Mars. I pictured it, standing there on the red planet, Aurora in front of me, the moon rock ring on her finger, though hidden beneath the thick gloves of her spacesuit. I willed the picture to move, the dream to continue.

But it wouldn't move, and the Aurora in my dream remained frozen in time as the Aurora in my arms grew cold.