The evacuation chapter 3

During the 7 month trip to their final destination, my great great grandfather dwelt on their hurried departure and the goodbyes to the brave heroes, marines, space force guardians and his old base commander, brave heroes every single one of them, dead men walking, and they knew it. He was numb for days. That was when he found out my great great grandmother was one month pregnant with ,as it turned out, my great grandfather, possibly the last person conceived on Earth. It was also when he found out where they were headed- Mars. He shook himself out of his stoupor, and became excited about what was ahead, They were going to be pioneers, building a new civilization from the ashes of an old one. He couldn’t wait to get started.

on the other hand, my great great grandmother, Victoria, was not so excited. Her pregnancy was hard, and she was sick almost every day. While she spent every day in her cramped bunk, miserable and unhappy, my great great grandfather, George, was running around, speaking to everyone, finding out what their specialty was, and how he could help them. He found out that the infrastructure of the colony was very basic and primitive, that robots were there already with a very small contingent of Space Force Guadians building more structures using CGI ( computer generated imagery) a new AI technology to design buildings, and then build them with existing materials on the surface of Mars, in a very quick time frame.so that by the time the settlers arrived, there would be enough housing and warehouse space to proceed with a larger colony than they had anticipated. George found out the the buildings were all connected, and oxygen generators were installed, as were solor panels and wind turbines to generate electricity for the colony. Most of the colonists lives would be lived inside.

eventually, the trip came to an end, and they found themselves orbiting Mars. Everyone crowded around the portal windows for a glimpse of their new home. And then the slow but steady shuttle disembarkment to the surface began, until eventually everyone was down, and in the main village building, being assigned housing. The journey was over. Victoria was very large at 8 months pregnant, and put to bed immediately, with a doctor in attendance. A real bed, comfortable.

George went to work immediately, building planting boxes in the low ceiling building assigned to him as the village farm. In the corner he started a compost box, and all the food waste, generated by the colony was mixed in with some of his soil he brought and Martial soil, and turned and watered until it was rich and ready to the used. He started germination beds to start the seeds he brought, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce, squash, peas and beans. And with high end grow lights that NASA provided, they flourished. Finally, the colony had fresh vegetables to eat. It was a day of celebration.

‘During this time my great grandfather was born, the first person born on Mars. Victoria and George named him Antony, a family name on George’s side. He was a celebrity in the colony, everyone fawned over him, and as the old saying, “ it takes a village to raise a child”, was known, they did it all his childhood. One lady in particular, Anne, nursed him, fed him, because Victoria never recovered from the pregnancy and eventually passed away, the first death in the colony.

‘George and Anne spent all their free time together raising Anthony, and although they never declared their love and got married, reading between the lines of his memoirs, they had a life long affair. The colony accepted it.

‘At this point George documented the census of the American colony on Mars - 80 souls. It was a small colony, but they didn’t want too many babies, not just yet, until they were established. The Indian colony hadn’t been contacted yet, so they didn’t know how many people were there, or how they were doing. Something would have to be done about that, soon.

contact was being made with the Luna colony, by email. It was slow, from the base on the ground to the orbiting Falcon rocket, and the onward to the moon, where it was received. The lunar colony was thriving. The American Venus was 200, the European colony was 100, the Israeli colony was 60, and the Russian colony was 75. Small, but interconnected, and thriving.