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It was then that I decided it was necessary to go and investigate this strange phenomenon, while at the same time deciding that it was not necessary to wake any of the crew, as it would take too long, especially since I would have to get dressed first. So I padded as quietly as possible down the corridor to the cargo hold, put on my EVA suit, and after operating the airlock walked down the ramp, did an about-face, and headed through the darkness toward the beacon of light that was the alien ship. As I neared it, I angled toward the bow while I subconsciously released the flap of my holster, lifted it, and rested my hand on the butt of the Eagle that nestled within. Even through my thick glove I found the physical contact comforting.

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Located on the lower level of the Albatross, directly below the flight deck, the windows of the cafeteria looked forward from the bow of the ship as did the flight deck windows above.

Therefore, there was only one possible source of the light from the Martian landscape that was shining through the cafeteria windows, and that would be from the wrecked alien craft that lay before the Albatross. I slowly crossed the cafeteria toward the windows until I could glance out and down at the shipwreck. The light was indeed emanating from the wreck, through its flight deck windows as well as the portholes arrayed along the port side of the hull. It was not overly strong or bright, but it was enough for me to see into the part of the flight deck visible through the alien ship’s windows from my angle of sight. I could see a part of the flight-control consoles below the windows and part of the starboard bulkhead beside them. As I stared into the ship, I thought I saw a shadow pass across the starboard wall. It was the faintest outline of a shadow, but it was enough to give me the impression that it was the shape of a humanoid head. I continued to stare but saw no more shadows, moving or otherwise.

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Yet still more from the pages of 'Reach for Mars.'

I awoke very early the following morning and really needed to go to the head. I didn’t bother to turn on any lights as I navigated down the corridor; after more than six months of pretty regular repetition, I subconsciously knew the route exactly, even in the pitch black darkness of night. Thanks to the glow of the nightlight in the toilet, I could see what I was doing in there without the need to switch on the overheads, so my night vision was still reasonably acute when I was returning to my cabin, and therefore I easily saw the glow of light coming from the cafeteria at the forward end of the corridor.

Mindful of my attire (I wasn’t wearing anything), I padded as quietly as possible down the corridor and poked only my head through the door as I looked around. There was more than enough light for me to see that the cafeteria was fortunately empty of crew and also that the light was not coming from inside the cafeteria but through the windows…from outside the ship.

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“Hmmm!” said Nick.

I looked from Mel to Sammy and back again as I spoke.

“Honestly, it’s staring-you-in-the-face obvious why Nick was chosen to be the captain, commander, and grand poobah of this mission, isn’t it?”

“Why don’t we fly Albatross over to the crater tomorrow morning and use her thrusters to clear the sand away from the hull of the wreck,” Nick finally said.

I looked back at Nick as I considered his proposal. “Huh? You know what? I believe that might work. But wouldn’t it be a better idea to use the bow thrusters to do the clearing so we can see what we’re doing?”

“It might be!” Nick retorted.

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“Actually, that does raise a rather difficult problem. How are we going to explore that shipwreck when it is buried under all that sand and dust? It’s far too big an area to dig out with shovels; even the excavator wouldn’t be able to handle it in a useful time frame.”

“Calling it a shipwreck when it lies in the middle of a desert on a planet that has no readily available water is, to say the least, extremely incongruous!” Mel interrupted.

I glanced over at her. “It’s a spaceship, and it’s wrecked,” I replied.

Then I looked back at Nick in anticipation of his answer to my question,

Some more from the pages of Reach for Mars:

As humanity progressed, a new breed of humans evolved: men and women who dreamed of flying to the stars and wrote stories about their dreams, which we call science fiction—Isaac Asimov, Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, and the list goes on.

Their stories have enthralled and inspired generations of young children and teenagers to dream of flying to the stars themselves. Some grew up to follow that dream and became scientists specializing in astrophysics and rocket propulsion technology to try to make that dream come true.

The writers posed the question, “What if we could?”

The scientists developed the technology, So we could!

Read more at www.reachformars.com

More from the pages of Reach for Mars:

They saw groups of stars that they thought made shapes and gave them names. They  saw planets among the stars and gave them names. They used them to explain previously unexplainable events on planet Earth. They used them to navigate their way around our planet, and they even used them to predict our future (for better or worse). They invented telescopes so they could look at them more closely, which they made larger and larger so they could look at them even more closely. Today they fire telescopes into space so they can look at them really closely.