But soon we would finally be able to touch down, to at last go ahead and unload our cargo, set camp and walk outside and once again get accustomed to breathing real air, instead of this recycled thing we kept calling home. To think that I would soon experience natural sunlight against the skin yet again. My fucking god, that will be so good. Pure bliss awaited my fucking god it really was about to happen.

Adrian smiled at the thought of unloading their indoor gardens, and the simple act of being able to transplant half of the annual crops outside in the soil.









For some strange reason, the mere thought of growing something as ordinary and quite dull as potatoes and their gene-edited strawberries on a completely new planet. To finally see organic GMO earth life take hold and grow in soil from a virgin ecosystem completely untouched by human hands and feet made him feel pretty giddy and beaming with hope. Yeah, it was a bit of a drained hope, a muted jolt of energy.
But nonetheless, it was pure hope and pure exhilarating joy.










It was a level of excitement like he had not felt since the day they left Earth.
And behind the exhaustion, the stress and dull relentless monotony and demands that had drained him dry he had in parts been transported back through time to his early childhood Christmas mornings.
Those long forgotten years and exhilarating moment when he would open his eyes, already knowing what day it was, tossing the blanket to the side, and putting his feet down on the cold floorboards as he rushed through the still silent house, down the open stairs with the glass rail, and into the living room with the natural conifer that they kept growing for real all year round in the big and open living room and all the presents that lay waiting for him and the others, pure life joy, gift wrapped and all in front of the big open fireplace.

The chess game
[ 'It´s a fucking hallway of repetition playing you'. the man said. They both started to laugh as the red planet kept turning outside their window.]

Yeah.
That kind of excitement was rising in him and he could see it in the faces of the entire crew too.
There was a new layer of shine and vibrancy to the voices and expression of every single one of the brave and capable people that made up his crew and passengers.











Yes, they were tired, everyone of them, and they all knew that they had started to cut things very short, they all felt it, and they all looked the part, but for every day they came closer to that enigmatic moment that was touchdown there was a new edge inside of them that grew stronger and more visibly filled their voices and eyes, the shine on their skin and hair beamed just a little bit extra with life and exhilarating anticipation.
Their voices and entire movement came back to life with renewed vigor and vibrant energy.











Just a few more days.
Just a few more days, he kept repeating that phrase inside of his own mind, it was in fact, by now stuck on endless repeat inside his own mind. Audible to no one else but himself and his ai. And he could not stop repeating it.
That phrase consumed him as it bounced around his insides.











Just a few more days and they would land this bird, discard the drones and start printing their very first base home and this colonization thing would finally be under way in a real way, in a significant and life changing way.
Long delayed, and much needed.
But now here we are he thought, and today he did not spare a single thought in his mind on life back on Earth.
He did not wonder about their abandoned garden anymore.
No thoughts on how old Erdoğan had kept clinging on to power that was not his to have while the ocean and warmth and turmoil continually built higher around the world.
No thought on the North Korean crisis or the whole sordid Trump thing that had still been unraveling as endless ripples as their ship left the docking station just outside of Earths atmosphere for the last time ever.
He did not think about the pollution or the jobless, the rising water or the greedy wars.
No, he did not contemplate about the old world at all.















In his mind, he did not obsess about that last far away earthly marble for the billionth time as it continually grew smaller and smaller until his eyes could not make it out to be Earth anymore.
No, not today, today his eyes and mind were focused on this new home, this unexplored world that lay waiting for them, that was the thing that consumed him as he looked down at the red planet that floated far beneath their ships and feet.
It´s hue of thin blue and white kept fleetingly changing in the turning light as they all traversed through space locked together in orbit around that burning star not far away.







Looking down he thought about how remarkable it all was, a far away planet that had lost its own atmosphere hundreds of millions of year ago, or so his annoying as fuck science chief had told him, and now, there it was, once again with a natural atmosphere growing and breathing organically, man-made as its origin was, it was by now an actual living, thriving even, aspect of this planet's biological ecosystem.
Deep beneath the growing atmosphere, he could see the gigantic dust clouds that formed in the torrent of air that tore the surface apart, a reminder that life on this planet was alive and livable, but not at all resembling life on Earth.
This was a new kind of life. A new wild harbor, and a new unexplored home.







And that thought was all that floated through his transfixed mind and eye this day.
The doors opened behind him and he could feel the presence of the man that entered the room, long before he took to words.
Before the man had time to speak, he let out a breath of air and said.
Yes?
We are running low, the man replied.
And the cryo?
It´s all good, nothing to report with no new incidents the last 72 hours.
The atmosphere should be livable in 8 more weeks. So cut the rations as hard as is possible, and seal the floor. We will just have to make do.
Crunch the full data set once more overnight and give me a personal report tomorrow, I seriously just can not stand that fucking science talk of Dr Richardson right now, one more of his word salad and 'I got a stick up my ass' science sentences of his and I swear my head will explode and pop right off, so give me your version once you have it all, first thing tomorrow. OK?.
I hear you, the man chuckled.
So, 8 more weeks?.












The silence fell in the room as they both found themselves looking down towards the same planetary view beneath them.
They both knew what that meant, they had seen the data, over and over and over again, and it never changed.
It was the situation that kept ticking down, not the day and date when the atmosphere would be safe and ready.
He did not even need the morning briefing, that was just their daily cycle and how they kept their sanity.











8 more weeks, fuck me, they both thought the very same thing, standing in this silent room with an alien world far beneath their feet, there was no real use for words. It was what it was. And they both knew it as well as the other.
He looked at the man beside him. The silence had been busy choking the lights out in the room for more than half an hour by now, but they were sitting down now.
And between them, a real handmade chess board in marble held both their attention during a silent game of minds.











The other man moved a rock behind a pair of pawns.
The entire board and all its pieces were as much a work of handmade art as it was a game of war and intelligence. And the handmade pieces and board caught the light of the outside world as it kept moving and breathing outside their window.
Reflecting the pulse of the stars and living planet outside in the black and white marble that was as polished as a blank mirror.







He frowned and started laughing, 'you know, I fucking hate chess!'.
The other man leaned back in his chair as he stretched his arms straight out and with a smile he confessed to fucking hating chess too, my god how he hated this game and the strange fucking way it made their entire life on this god forsaken fleet feel like they were all trapped in a cursed time loop.
'It´s a fucking hallway of repetition playing you'. the man said.











They both started to laugh as the red planet kept turning outside their window.
He moved the knight and said nothing more.
But for the first time this day he did think about life on Earth, he thought about her profile, her naked, sculpted shoulders and the curvature of her collar bones.
He thought about her long feminine hair, her sculpted arms and back, her full breasts and the way she looked dressed in nothing but that white corset.
As always, the memories of her pantiless and shaved privates, dressed in nothing but that white corset turned him on unlike anything else in life, she gave him purpose. Joy, life, and energy.











Those memories and the profound reality of the emotional and physical response in body and mind was his anchor with earth and the life they had left behind.
She was his bridge into the unknown future.
And all the rest, that was left behind, all those other things he had no more room for that in his mind, not today, not now.

He had a game of chess to win, a world to colonize and he had to make it safe and turn it into a second livable home, and she was every reason needed, every lesson learned, every hope and memory.

Writer and photography

Mike Koontz
To the daisy that is my sun and inspiration