They didn’t know they were already dead. Carl and Martina had been chosen to pilot the last space-ship on Mars onto the Asteroid. They were supposed to till the Helium to power the rest of the Martians home to Europa.

They didn’t they were already dead. Some fatal flaw within the wiring, some poor-man’s rigging of This or That combustible chemical dispenser was waiting for that first thrust post-orbit to vaporize Carl. To vaporize Martina. To vaporize their hopes of getting everyone home.

They didn’t know they were already dead. As the Martians stared at the faint silver glimmer that was their doomed space-ship taking flight, puncturing the skin of the atmosphere to leave for the Asteroid, they felt hope for the first time since they could remember. The entire planet cobbled together the materials for the space-ship. The entire planet’s intellect poured into reimagining a type of vessel not used for decades. The entire planet’s hopes, literally, ham-handedly symbolically, invested into the space-ship.

They didn’t know they were already dead.

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