“You’ll be up there for 18 months and then we’ll come to retrieve you and your findings.” I replay the recording again and again through the speaker embedded in the dashboard of the ship. Alarms blare all around me, signalling the impending crash as I hurtle towards the dusty planet. Months of travel has led me to this moment and a single error damned it all when the explosion of the left engine threw the shuttle off course. Over and over I play the voice. Not a single inch of my body listens to my ceaseless commands to move, forced into the seat by the high speed whilst crimson buttons flash, desperate to be pressed before the imminent collision.
Entering the atmosphere of the spinning copper world sets my ship ablaze and thick tendrils of suffocating smoke drift into my lungs like curling fingers, amalgamating with the sharp tang of jet fuel that spurts from the flaming engine. The last thing I hear before the shuttle makes contact is the deafening boom of the second engine blowing and the smack of my skull against the seat just as my vision swarms with black.
I awake suddenly to a stabbing pain in my leg. Crushed beneath a hunk of metal, the limb itself is stuck but seemingly unbroken. Grinding my teeth from the effort, I haul the chunk of shredded aluminium up just enough to slip my leg out of the way before it reunites with the ground with an earth-shaking thud. Looking around for the first time since the landing, I gasp at the sprawling, dusty landscape encircling me. The starkness of the towering mountain range outlining the horizon is exacerbated by the miles upon miles of empty stone plains covering the surface of the planet like and enormous rocky blanket, Interrupting the serenity of the silent planet, the remains of my ship are scattered across hundreds of metres, thrown apart by the impact of the collision. The chaos of my shuttle’s skeleton almost shields the flash of colour darting behind one of the further fragments from my view.
Scrambling to my feet, I stumble towards the nearest piece of my ship, risking a glance around the solid metal as the throbbing in my leg intensifies. Throbbing that mirror the terrible thumping of my heart. I am not alone here. Something is on this alien planet with me.
Just as I turn my head to observe my surroundings and conjure up a plan, the flash of colour returns. This time not hidden but standing unwavering before me, and entirely human face peering down surreptitiously upon the sight laid before them. Not an alien face. No, not an unknown face. But utterly and unmistakingly human.
Vision blurring with tears, I stretch a trembling hand towards them and ask; “Are you for real?”