866 words (3 minute read)

Martian

The roar of the machinery is deafening. Walking down the narrow passageways with the ship’s equipment on either side, I can feel the chill of sweat dripping down the small of my back as the heat beats down on me. It’s crazy to me how far we’ve come with nuclear power, but we couldn’t do anything to help keep the engineering department cooler?

Creeping between the vents, I can still hear the bastards behind me.  I am not a large person but I can still feel the gauges and knobs reaching out and grabbing at me as I squeeze through some of the narrower sections. All this over a scuffed boot in the chow line? Cabin fever is really getting to some of these folks. I am rarely thankful for my diminutive size, but right now I’m feeling very thankful.

Last week, some fella got caught by one of the rougher crew members and we found him clogging up the waste compactor. I don’t plan on being next. It’s a rough life being unskilled labor. The first ship had all the intellectuals, the second ship had all the rich people, and now, on the third ship, we are just bringing up the muscles and the meatheads, the people starting a new life or finding new prey. Mars…is it really going to be worth all this?

“I SEE YOU!” came the call from down the passageway. No shit they can see me. This is a straight passageway, we’ve been going straight for nearly 200 meters and there is no exit for at least another 50 before I get to a main passageway will let me close a door or at least turn and run unabated. But I can’t let them get into my head.

The beads of sweat are streaming down my face, my heart is pounding in my ears and I can feel my breaths getting more labored as the heat and panic makes it harder to maintain my speed. I guess I should have expected a lower caliber of passengers on this ship when I signed up for this voyage. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to take this shortcut and it isn’t the first time I’ve been chased down it either. But it’s safer than the main halls where it feels like walking the yard in a prison. I’ve played sports, I’ve done martial arts, I’ve done a lot of things, but none of that prepared me for the constant battle for survival that would be this shit.

Like most civilized people, it’s a rule of mine to not kill people, and also a rule of mine to not get killed. I’ve done the best I can so far, and I’m still here, not in the waste compactor. So that’s good. I wasn’t necessary to the survival or the settling of the planet to go on an earlier voyage so I’m stuck here, on this ship, fighting to survive.

I know the end of the passageway is somewhere near here and from there I can escape and make my way to berthing. I’ve been working for what feels like forty hours straight and I just need to hit my rack for some sleep. Even after this past fifteen minutes of elevated activity trying to escape these thugs, it won’t be hard to fall into Dreamland immediately. I look forward to dreaming of what I’ll find on Mars. They say you dream about the last thing you were thinking about and lately, since we are so close, landing is the thing that is on everyone’s minds. I’m anxious because it’ll essentially be a crash landing but somehow they engineered this ship so that it will absorb the impact and we can use the scraps as resources for building the settlement. I’m just hoping that some of these thugs aren’t completely buckled in when we land.

The door is just within reach as soon as I get past this last narrow spot…but my jacket is caught on a protruding gauge. Oh shit! That’s Davila’s hand. It’s so much bigger than I had thought it would be. 

Had I not noticed that he was gaining on me when I was stumbling through the obstacles? How can someone his size even have fit here? All of these thoughts buzz through my head as the wall makes impact with my face. I hit the bulkhead hard and feel myself sliding down to the floor. “You are going to regret the day that you signed on to be a Martian,” Davila says.

Why? Why am I the target? Does he think this is any better on his boots than me tripping over them earlier? Why do his boots feel like they are puncturing my internal organs? Are my ribs trying to avoid the blows and sacrificing my insides? Between blows to my side, I can only mutter, “What…the…hell…is…...mayo…”

Trying to form a coherent sentence to reason with someone who is mad at the world, no, not the world, but at the universe, is impossible when you are dehydrated, panicked, being beaten, and sliding into unconsciousness.


Next Chapter: Auburn