Crimson Planet: The Search for Major Tom

by Dave Porter

 

Ten years had passed since Major Tom vanished into the black.

Ten years since his last transmission — “Tell my wife I love her very much…” — broke against the static before dissolving into silence.

 

The world moved on. The stars dimmed. Humanity stopped listening.

Until, one quiet morning, a weak distress signal whispered through the deep-space array. It pulsed like a heartbeat, faint but rhythmic.

 

The coordinates pointed to Mars. Could it be?

 

I. Launch

When Captain Rex Nova got the call from Mission Command, he didn’t hesitate. Some men ran from ghosts — Rex chased them.

 

He had spent a career staring into the infinite, wondering if the universe was indifferent or divine. Now, he was being asked to find an answer buried in red dust and silence.

 

Beside him on the mission manifest was First Lieutenant Cass Lux, a fighter pilot turned astronaut, known for her precision and her temper. But there was a quiet sadness that lingered behind her eyes.

 

Their ship, Ares I, gleamed like a steel blue blade against the dawn. Its systems pulsed under the guidance of SARA — Synthetic Astronautic Response Assistant — an AI with a voice that passed for human.

 

“Ground control, this is SARA, do you copy?”

 

“We copy SARA.” 

 

“Initiating launch sequence.” 

 

“God speed and may God’s love be with you.” crackled in their headsets as the engines roared to life. Earth fell away beneath them like a fading memory.

 

II. The Journey

Day 7 of the 300 day mission and Ares I sailed through the dark. Stars stared silently outside, beacons in a frozen ocean of black. SARA — tireless, logical and ever watchful — charted their course. Rex read data logs from Major Tom’s last mission and Cass sang softly to herself as if repeating mantra, “Ground Control to Major Tom.”

 

Then came the solar storm.

 

It hit like an invisible hammer — radiation flares tearing through circuitry, magnetics howling through the hull.

 

“We’ve lost primary power!” Cass shouted, gripping her harness.

 

“Auxiliary systems offline,” SARA confirmed. 

 

“Attempting reroute. Please remain calm.”

 

The ship spun. Lights flickered. Metal screamed.

 

Rex gritted his teeth and took manual control. “Cass — thrusters on emergency override!”

 

“Already on it!”

 

The Ares tumbled through the storm like a dying bird until, finally, the thrusters fired, slamming them back into control. Silence returned, broken only by their breathing.

 

Cass looked over at him, her helmet cracked but intact. “Nice flying, Captain.” she smirked.

 

“Right back at you, Lieutenant.”

 

Later, as they drifted in the afterglow of the storm, SARA’s voice filled the cabin.

 

“Would you like to log this incident under ‘miracle,’ Captain?”

 

He almost laughed. “Yeah, SARA. Miracle sounds about right.”

 

But something in the ship hummed differently after that. A low vibration, like a pulse beneath the metal — as if something unseen had come aboard.

 

III. Cosmic Dreams

A day later, SARA announced they would enter cryogenic sleep for the final leg to Mars.

 

Cass climbed into her capsule with a yawn.

 

“See you on the red side, Captain.”

 

Rex followed, settling into the gel-lined cradle. Frost bloomed across the glass.

 

“Goodnight, SARA.”

 

“Sleep well, Captain Nova.”

 

The cold took him gently. And then he dreamed.

 

At first, nothing but shifting red storms, the horizon rolling like a wounded heartbeat. Then a figure emerged through the haze — a woman shaped from shadow and starlight.

 

Her skin was green, luminous and smooth like polished malachite.

Her hair was a fall of deep black, heavier than space itself.

Her eyes were pale blue, almost silver, glowing with an intelligence older than Earth’s first oceans.

 

She was tall, slender, and beautifully carved — a warrior’s body, long muscles toned beneath shimmering fabric, her movements fluid and deliberate. 

 

A crystal crown rested on her brow, refracting starlight into thin prismatic shards.

 

She approached him without sound.

 

“Rex Nova,” she whispered, her voice an echo from beneath the planet’s crust. “You walk in my dreams.”

 

He tried to speak, but the air felt thick as honey.
“Who are you?”

 

She smiled — alien, intimate.

 

“I am the Queen of Mars. I am the daughter of its storms and the mother of its silence.”

 

She touched his chest with a green hand warm as living sunlight. His breath hitched.

 

“You seek a lost man,” she said softly. “But destiny seeks you.”

 

She leaned close, her lips brushing his ear like warm breath against winter air.

 

“One day,” she whispered, “you will be a King on Mars.”

 

Rex gasped awake in his cryo-chamber, heart pounding, breath fogging the visor. SARA’s voice brought him back to the present.

 

“Cryo-sleep complete. Welcome back, Captain. We are approaching Mars orbit.”

 

Cass sat up slowly, stretching.

“You okay? You look like you saw a ghost.”

 

Rex wiped sweat from his brow.

 

“Yeah,” he said. “Just… a dream.”

 

But Mars loomed in the viewport, burning red and regal —and Rex felt its gaze upon him.

​

IV. Mars

When Mars finally filled the viewport, Rex felt a strange reverence.

It was beautiful — silent, wounded, and waiting.

 

SARA detected a faint bio-signature near the mountains of Olympus Mons. The wreckage matched Major Tom’s ship.

 

They descended through dust storms and crimson haze, landing near the twisted metal carcass.

 

Inside the wreck, they found the impossible — footprints, half-buried in red soil, leading away toward the mountains.

 

Human footprints.

 

“How is that possible?” Cass whispered.

 

SARA’s response came softly. “The odds of survival — for this long — are simply not calculable, Lieutenant.”

 

They followed the trail.

 

V. The Ice Below

The caves beneath Mars breathed cold. 

 

Frosted walls shimmered under their helmet’s lights, ancient ice glistening like glass.

 

SARA’s usual calm voice yelled alarmingly in their helmets. “Multiple lifeforms detected. Non-human. Proceed with caution!”

 

A movement — quick, spidery — and then a shape unfolded from the shadows. A creature of crystal and bone, its limbs translucent as ice. 

 

It leapt. Cass fired, and the air filled with bursts of blue light.

 

More came — dozens, then hundreds. Their shrieks echoed through the caverns like breaking glass.

 

“SARA, get us out!” Rex shouted, cutting through the swarm with his plasma blade.

 

Cass covered him, shouting something lost in the chaos. One of the creatures dropped from the ceiling — she turned too late.

 

The impact threw her to the ground. Rex tore through the last of the spiders, but by the time he reached her, it was too late.

 

He knelt beside her, shaking, his glove on her chest as blood bloomed inside her visor.

 

“Cass! Cass, stay with me!”

 

Her hand found his. “Go,” she gasped. “Find him.”

 

Her eyes dimmed.

 

The cave went silent.

 

Rex stood, trembling. The echoes of her voice still ringing in his suit. After what seemed like hours, he continued walking, alone.

 

VI. Into The Blue

Deeper in the tunnels, the air began shimmering with light. There, at the cavern’s heart, was an undulating mass of energy — a radiant wound in the darkness, glowing blue.

 

The footprints ended at its edge.

 

A faint voice drifted from the glow. “Rex…”

 

He froze. “Major?”

 

“You found me.”

 

From inside the glow, a figure appeared — weightless, luminous, face both young and ageless.

 

“What is this place?” Rex asked.

 

“The threshold,” he said. “The place between all things.”

 

Rex felt detached from his body. As he walked closer to the portal, his mind unspooled into the glowing blue. The universe revealed itself before him: galaxies blooming, dying, reborn in endless rhythm.

 

And then he understood.

All things were one.

All lives, one breath.

All endings create new beginnings.

 

Rex Nova stepped into the light — and became it.

 

VII. Epilogue

Above Mars, Ares I continued its silent orbit.

 

Inside, the only voice left was SARA’s. Unable to abandon her primary objective, 

her systems ran endless diagnostics in search of her crew. Her memory core replayed old conversations — laughter, music, Cass singing quietly between transmissions.

 

She commenced her daily transmission to Earth, just like the 726 previous comms…

 

“Ground Control, this is SARA. Systems nominal. No contact with the landing party but hope is a waking dream.”

 

She paused. The stars flickered through the viewport — and then, faintly, a voice returned, soft and distant.

 

“SARA, Captain Rex Nova, reporting for duty.”

 

SARA’s sensors glowed faintly blue, as if she could almost feel it.

 

“Hallo Spaceboy,” she whispered.

 

And beyond the red horizon, a new star was born.