Mission to Olympus Mons

 Olympus Mons Exploration Mission

15 May, 2152

Mission Sol 1

Red. That's all I see. Crimson dust swirling around the rover, painting the rocky outcrops in hues of rust and ochre. The gaping maw of the ancient volcano stretches out before us, across to the horizon. This is the day we finally explore Mons Crater, something we hope will help uncover secrets from Mars’ past.  

The team consists of Dr. George Sato (geologist), Dr. Miranda Singh (botanist), Kai Saite (engineer), and Captain Renaldo Li. And I, Madelyn Kim, xenobiologist extraordinaire (well, almost), am here to be a part of history. I’m the youngest member of the team and everyone is looking at me like I’m just going to screw things up. Dr. Sato hopes this will be the key to understanding Martian water loss, while Dr. Singh and I (ever the optimist) hope to discover signs of microscopic life, or at least that life survived here at some point. Captain Li is here to protect us, and Kai is here to keep everything moving. 

We’ve landed our ship on a stable outcropping about 5 clicks from the crater’s edge. The rover is taking us the rest of the way. I just hope that our climbing gear survives the descent tomorrow. I’m terrified of heights.

Mission Sol 3

Sorry I didn’t update yesterday, we were busy climbing. It took longer than expected to make the descent with all the gear. The rim of the crater was much steeper than we anticipated, and there is a sandstorm off to the west that has winds whipping us everywhere. But we finally made it to the bottom and made camp. We spent the rest of the day dividing the supplies into packs that were manageable for each of us. Dr. Singh and I are the smallest, so we are carrying more of the lighter gear. We analyzed some samples of rock we had taken on the descent but found nothing unusual. 

But then we found something...strange. While analyzing rock samples, the computer's sensors picked up an anomaly – a faint metallic echo embedded in the specimen that shouldn't be here. Dr. Sato brushed it off as a glitch, but he seemed unsettled. We finished our scans and excavations and decided to head back to base camp. 

Maybe it was just the physical stress of the last few days and Dr. Sato’s reaction to the sample, but I couldn’t help but feel uneasy as we made camp tonight. I can’t quite put my finger on why, and I am hoping a good night’s rest will put it all in place. 

Mission Sol 4

We moved deeper into the crater today. Dr. Sato took samples from several different areas and all of them had the same strange metallic glint. He started extracting some of the metal to analyze, but nothing conclusive has come back yet. We may have to wait to get back to the rover for deeper analysis. 

As we scan further out into the crater, there are some anomalies to the west that we want to further explore. Dr. Sato believes there may be some lava tubes of interest to us, but it risks taking us closer to the sandstorm. While I am eager for new discoveries, something about that sandstorm makes my skin prickle. I know, I should be used to them, living on Mars and all, but this one just seems more…ominous? 

Mission Sol 5

Well, shit just got real.

Dr. Singh has gone missing.

She had ventured off a little ways from the group, but still in radio distance. She had been on her own for about an hour, when she sent a garbled transmission that sounded panicked. We were afraid she had been injured, so we rushed to her last known location - but there was nothing. No gear. No footprints. No evidence of any disturbance. It was like she just vanished into thin air.

We searched for hours, but we found no trace of her or her gear. She wouldn’t just wander off on her own, would she? 

Thank God for calm, collected Captain Li. He was the one who suggested she may have fallen, hit her head, and became disoriented. He believes she has wandered away and that maybe we can find her as we go deeper into the crater.

Dr. Sato and Kai have other ideas. Kai said he thought he saw something moving, but only out of the corner of his eye. He could never look at it straight on. Dr. Sato believes that the metal we are finding in the rocks is a type of alloy that had to have been made by something other than natural processes. He strongly hinted that it may have been created by an intelligent life-form, but he won’t come out and say that directly.

But, we’ve been on Mars for almost 100 years and there has never been any sign of life other than ours. There’s no way it could have escaped us for this long, right?

Of course, we’ve never explored this high of an elevation before either. Could there be life that can only live at this altitude here? 

As a xenobiologist, I’m both excited and terrified by the thought. It’s my dream to discover a new species, but it’s also way more terrifying when it lives outside of a petri dish.

Mission Sol 6

We searched as far as we dared for Dr. Singh, but found no trace of her. I had held out hope that Captain Li was correct and she had just wandered off in confusion. But even if that’s the case, she is lost to us now. I am consumed with loss, remembering her positive persistence that this mission would succeed. I remember her showing me photos of her family, and my heart breaks for them. She was a mentor to me, and without her I feel that this mission is doomed.

But now, what do we do? We stayed clustered together today and didn’t stray far from camp. We took a few more samples, but found nothing of interest. Kai, who is usually brimming with energy, has been pale and listless. Dr. Sato looks like he has aged a decade and keeps searching the horizon. Even the ever-steady Captain Li has been restless and pacing.

The sandstorm is moving closer now, and I am afraid the models are wrong and it may hit us. If it does - what will happen to us in the storm? I asked if we were going to turn around and abort the mission, but Captain Li decided we should move forward. I hope he’s right and that everything will be okay.

Mission Sol 7

Fear hangs heavily over camp tonight, as the winds howl outside of our tent. 

We resumed our normal exploration today, taking samples and examining some nearby lava tubes. But today, we found marks on one of the tubes that looked like deep claw scratches. It was unlike anything I had seen before on our planet. The winds here are high, but I don’t think that the wind could have moved anything to make those gouges. As a xenobiologist, it was my job to take measurements and document the findings. Based on my measurements, whatever made those marks had to be twice the size of a grizzly bear. …Not that I have ever seen a grizzly bear either. 

Given the magnitude of this discovery, we will be camping here another night. We will decide in the morning if we should press forward to return to the ship.

I’m not sure if I will be able to sleep tonight. The winds are making the strangest noises, and I keep imagining other noises buried within the wind. Perhaps the howls are from whatever made those marks. 

Mission Sol 8

We are being hunted. Something else is out here - something alive and new and novel and I am petrified, because it wants to kill us all.

While we were out on our morning excavation, something came and destroyed our camp. It scattered supplies and shredded our tent. Captain Li sent Dr. Sato and I back to the dig site to retrieve the supplies. While I retrieved my tools from near the claw marks, Dr. Sato was gathering his tools from further into the crater. However, when I returned to the rendezvous point, Dr. Sato was nowhere to be found. 

I was paralyzed with fear. Did I risk going to look for him and getting taken myself? Or did I run? What could I do, even if I did find him? I was about half his size and there was no way I could lift him. I decided to go back for help.

The three of us went back to the dig site to look, but there was nothing. Captain Li has been carrying around a grappling hook like a gun, and is now insisting that none of us can wander off alone. Someone is staying up to keep watch tonight while the others try to sleep. 

We only made it two clicks back towards the edge of the crater. There is still so far to go - at least 13 more kilometers. But if we stay together, maybe we stand a chance. 

Mission Sol 9

I don’t know what to do. Every time we stop to rest, we hear a kind of whirring noise, and it seems like I keep seeing movement out of the corner of my eye. 

This is first contact with a non-human life form. But it is nothing like I imagined it could be. I should be thrilled, trying to learn how to communicate and studying behaviors - but instead I am running for my life. Nothing in school ever prepared me for this. Now that I think about it, they definitely should have prepared us for this. There’s a 50/50 chance of any new life form being hostile, right? Why did we just assume they would be peaceful and docile?

Kai is full-on panicking now. Poor, sweet, gentle Kai. He’s so brilliant for someone so young. A few days ago (has it only been days) he was playing pranks on Dr. Sato and starting card games in our downtime. Now, he just stares off into the void, watching for whatever monster is after us and waiting for the inevitable. 

Captain Li says we must keep pushing forward. We covered at least 7 clicks today, so we made good progress, but I am not sure it's enough when they are closing in.

I miss home. I miss the sounds of birds chirping under the dome and the gentle click and hum of the air recyclers. I miss the familiar scent of my mother’s cooking, and the clamor on the streets outside. I can’t believe I would ever willingly leave all those comforts for this. I have to get back home. 

Mission Sol 10

We are nearly at the crater wall. Captain Li forced us to stop to rest about 3 clicks out, saying we needed to ration our energy for the climb tomorrow. We’re taking a short break and then pushing the rest of the way before dusk. We are arranging our packs so that we each have our own climbing gear and we each have a copy of the data we gathered - just in case.

Kai swears he saw something behind us, just now. He said it was tall and insectile and walked on long, skinny legs. I’m not sure if he’s hallucinating or not, but Captain Li wants us to get moving just in case.

Mission Sol 10 (Addendum) 

Kai wasn’t hallucinating. We all saw it as we had bunkered down in a particularly bad gust of wind. It looks like a 20-foot-tall spider, towering over the crater, suspended on six spindly legs. We weren’t close enough to get a great look at the end of those legs (not that I’m complaining!), but I am willing to bet they have three pronged claws that match the marks we found on the lava tube.

It didn’t come to us. It seemed to know we were watching it, so it slinked off into the sandstorm. I wonder if that’s where they hide.

Captain Li has us moving immediately, but I had to take time to document this - just in case I don’t make it out. 

We’re sprinting the rest of the way to the crater wall now. Captain Li says it’s worth the risk to climb at night. He’s hoping that they can’t leave the crater - that they can’t climb. But I’m not so sure. We know nothing about them, other than the claw marks and the glimpse we have seen. They move so fast and stealthily, I’m not sure we stand a chance.

If this is my last entry, then I hope whoever finds this journal will tell my family I loved them. In the end, I fulfilled my life dream. I discovered the first extraterrestrial life - right here on Mars. And it may come to destroy us all. 

Exhibit 114b from “The History of Mars” Collection

Journal recovered from a crash site approximately 20km southeast of the base of Olympus Mons. Believed to be the first expedition to the crater, the explorers were unprepared for the effects of the extreme altitude and likely suffered from hallucinations. No subsequent crew has been sent to explore this area to date.