Colonizing Mars Dream

Mars, recently terraformed, thin air outside the domes, barely breathable.

 

            Accident, damages the domes. I manage to make my way to a previously installed habitat, a "secret" that I knew about from a previous research effort. It was non operational; with a couple of pumps and some makeshift scrubbers I was able to get the thing pressurized for use again. It helped that there was now an atmosphere that could be used to recharge the air cylinders and eventually I knew we would figure out how to add pressurized ventilation to the system.

            The rest of the crew made their way over and spruced the place up. Once we got power to everything, and moved some of our domes over, the place looked pretty good. We figured that we should have time to make things secure before the next asteroid fall. The terraforming wasn't really finished; we were still having water delivered along with some easily recovered minerals.

            I was taking advantage of the lighter gravity with one of the bouncier crewmates when there was a bright light and static noise from the communications room. We reluctantly dressed and raced to see what was going on. It seems we'd awakened an alien presence, one that was overjoyed to communicate again. It didn't seem to have any trouble learning our language, in true science fiction fashion. I couldn't get through the throng of people to actually see what it looked like on the view screen.

 

Ad astra per technica,

FF