Chapter 4

While the crew members onboard the Starbound 20 prepared for their imminent arrival upon Mars, Francesca went to check out what was happening in navigation. Fortunately, there weren't currently any meteorites or asteroids in their path. They had a clear route to Mars.

Francesca could almost hardly believe that this was actually happening. She could hardly believe that they would soon be upon a planet that she had only ever really dreamt of visiting. This was all very exciting to her, but slightly scary, too. She knew how much was weighing on this mission. She was aware of how much the people back home on Earth were relying on them all to find this essence for the cure against the brain-eating virus.

Nevertheless, she had to admit to being curious as to whether this was going to work. She had also wondered what they were going to find on Mars.

As a young girl, Francesca had used to eagerly watch out for both paper and video reports on all updates relating to the Mars Rover. In truth, she had been wondering whether it would ever find signs of alien existence.

Unfortunately it had never done so, but Francesca wasn't about to give up hope. She was sure that there was other intelligent life somewhere out there in the universe. There simply had to be. When she took into account just how expansive and phenomenal space was, she didn't have any doubts when it came to the existence of aliens. The mere thought of them excited her, but she knew that it was unlikely she would ever see them in her life time. Nevertheless, she was occupied enough by visiting Mars. The current space mission had occupied her mind and consumed her interests enough for her to forget about the aliens, for the most part, for now.

Unlike some of the other crew members on board the spacecraft, Francesca had only ever dreamt of doing something like this. She had never in a million years expected to actually be accepted onto the space mission to Mars. However, her father fortunately had connections, which had enabled her to being allowed to be a part of it. In the end, she had decided that it really was worth all the medical checks and training and everything else that she had to go through before they accepted her onto the mission.

How many people could say that they had been to Mars in their life time? It wasn't very many.

Francesca had always believed that meant that she was incredibly special. Of course, her parents had always told her that she was, but now she really did believe it.

She remained in navigation for a few more moments, before she heard the sound of the automatic doors open and turned to find that she had been joined by Dina, who wore a dark green suit.

As the girl entered the room, a small smile settled upon her lips. It only lasted a few moments, though, before it faded away again entirely.

"I hate navigation," Dina said.

Francesca raised an eyebrow at Dina then, which led her to continue.

"I mean...it's not my fault. I have really good aim when it comes to firing back at these meteorites," Dina said matter-of-factly.

Francesca wasn't sure why exactly, but she had a feeling that she couldn't exactly trust that. Besides, she had known Dina for long enough now to know that she wasn't the most down-to-earth person onboard the space craft. That being said, Francesca knew that Dina did occupy a love of space. Francesca was fairly sure that she would have stayed out in space forever if it was possible to do such a thing. One of the first things that Dina had said when Francesca had first met her was that she really did not like people, which was rather unfortunate.

Francesca had been determined to change this matter, but she wasn't confident that she had been very successful in doing so.

Nevertheless, Francesca had always wondered if it was possible to get on Dina's good side.

"Anyway...none of that matters right now. How long do we have before we arrive?" Dina asked, with genuine curiosity this time around.

As a friendly smile made its way onto her face, Francesca turned to look towards Dina.

"We only have several more hours, I'm sure," she said.

At that, Dina's eyes widened slightly.

"I thought we were going to be at Mars soon," Dina said with impatience evident in her tone.

Francesca felt tempted to laugh at that, but she suppressed the urge.

"Several hours is soon, Dina," she said.

Dina gave a shrug of her shoulders at that, "Maybe to you," was all that she said, before she turned and made her way out of the room.

As she ran a hand through her dark chocolate coloured hair, Dina sighed. She then turned her attention to the window nearby and stared out at the nearby stars. They were so bright up close, of course, but the windows of the space craft had been specifically designed to prevent the star's beams from harming anyone's eyesight.

"It's cold," Dina complained, as she stood nearby Francesca.

Francesca turned to her and tried to hide the amusement that threatened to creep into her expression.

"It's always cold," she replied with nonchalance.

Dina rolled her eyes at that.

"I know. Thanks for that, captain obvious," she said. "I wonder what the weather's like on Mars."

"Cold," was all that Francesca said in response to that statement. "But its climate is supposed to be more like Earth's than any other planet."

"Wow," Dina replied, as her eyes flashed with an impressed glint then. "You've certainly done your research."

"Of course, I have," Francesca said.

"I mean...don't get me wrong, I do know my stuff but I don't tend to spend hours reading up about facts like certain people seem to," Dina said.

Francesca shrugged. She thought that all of this was just common knowledge but she supposed that she thought wrong. She then returned her attention to the screen in front of her and quickly fired one of the guns at a nearby asteroid.