A New Home

A New Home(Ivanna Tjiputra) A New Home
I tried to breathe, inhale, exhale, repeat it all over again and I open my eyes. Everything is floating around me, my head aches and I remember what had happened. Hold on a second, why am I alone? Where’s Nathan? Where’s Mark? Where are the others? ‘’Mark! Nathan! I’m here!” I shouted as loud as I could, but no answer. I swing my hands back and forth trying my best to move and try to find my friends. Wow, everything is so messed up. Before our rocket had a crash and landed here on the red planet or should I say, Mars. Yeah I know, things are pretty complicated now, I and my two comrades decided to head here after researching and collecting as many information as possible about life in Mars. Back, forth, back, forth, and then I saw those suits, white suit with a glass helmet along with it. ‘’Mark! Is that you?!’’ I approach him and saw that it is really him, I think he’s okay. I stayed there and wrap my arms around him for awhile waiting for his conscious state. He moved, he’s floating further but I grabbed him and he open his eyes, ‘’Thank goodness, Mark are you okay?’’ he coughed, ‘’Elizabeth! Sorry my head hurts and everything just turns black, how long I’ve been out?’’ I smiled, glad that he’s okay, ‘’only for several minutes’’ Just when Mark’s about to say something a voice called out. ‘’Elizabeth! Mark! This place is something!’’ Nathan approaches us. ‘’yes, this place can make a living! Mars sure have changed.’’ I said. I take out my gravity cellular phone and a huge screen appears right in front of my face. ‘’Connecting access’’ it keeps on loading but no answer. Please answer, please.



‘’Hello?’’ a voice speaks. Thank goodness! ‘’Albert! It’s me Elizabeth!’’ I shrieked. ‘’Elizabeth! Are you alright? How are the others? Did u arrive safely?’’ he sounded panic and somehow it’s hilarious. ‘’whoa calm down buddy! We are all fine, we had a little bit of crashing but everything’s fine now’’ I heard Albert sigh in relief. ‘’ Hey Albert, why is the red planet seemed to be habitable? ’’ I asked. ‘’oh yes, Mars has changed lately. 2 months ago I went there with my crew and used the REMS to calculate the newest weather systems, local hydrological cycle, destructive potential of UV radiation, etc to check the newest progress of Mars and guess what, the microorganisms make up 95% of Earth’s biomass. The sun’s heat that reaches the red planet is slowly decreasing too.’’ I gasp, this means that ...’’we can live here?’’ ‘’we’re still not sure of that Elizabeth, but who knows?’’ ‘’okay thanks Albert got to go!’’ ‘’okay and please contact me for updates, I’ll be here!’’ I say goodbye and hung up. I had a plan and I’m sure that the plan will work perfectly, I told Mark and Nathan about my plan and they agreed. My plan is to inject synthetic greenhouse gases into its atmosphere, we also have long pondered terraforming Mars, melting vast stores of ice in its polar caps to create an environment suitable for us humans. The gas that would work the best would be fluorine and it could be made from elements readily available on Mars and we are working on it. It’s been 4 months since we landed here and I had to admit that things are working perfectly, our oxygen tanks are still fully loaded, and our gadgets and web screen are working just fine.


The gases are done and we tried taking off out suit to check if we’ll be alright. ‘’wow, we did such a great job! We don’t need those suits anymore!’’ Mark moaned in awe. ‘’I know right! It’s been awhile since we move freely.’’ ‘’the air’s great don’t you think?’’ I glance at them, they’re still stretching out. ‘’Yes Elizabeth and this is only possible because of that knowledge inside you’re tiny brain.’’ Mark winked at me. ‘’oh come on, your brain is nothing compared to my tiny brain!’’ ‘’guys we got a job to do! Come on!’’ Nathan shooed us. Our job today is to provide water for Mars because no water could be found here. The Polar Regions contain vast stores of water ice and carbon dioxide pr dry ice. We are planning to melt the poles because it might thicken the atmosphere, which like a blanket would insulate the surface and eventually create a more Earth-like climate. It took us 5 years and 3 months to complete it all, Mars is now officially habitable. I and Albert never lost contact; we keep each other up to date and speak of many progresses. ‘’Are you sure it’s alright to bring people there?’’ Albert at the other line of the call asked. ‘’Don’t ever doubt me Al, u know me.’’ I sound pissed. ‘’okay calm down girl, I trust you.’’ ‘’thank you Al.’’ ‘’I will be there for b=about 2 hours more so wait up.’’ I hung up and run home. Oh! Have I told you about my little green house? It’s a perfect home for three. I, Mark and Nathan had been living there for months now and everything is simply well. I announce the good news to them and they jumped for joy. ‘’BOOOMMMMDUARR” the three of us fell and furnitures are collapsing to the ground and the ground keeps on shaking. What was that?! We all ran outside to check what’s happening.


‘’A meteor! It’s a meteor, I can tell from the shape and the light of it!’’ Nathan shouted. ‘’ What?! ’’ Mark sounded awful. I was so shocked, how could I forget about the meteors? What am I suppose to do when Albert is coming any minute now? I screwed up. I can see the meteors keep on landing and crash, we keep on running and hiding until Mark spoke, ‘’wait, I have an idea.’’ ‘’hurry and tell us!’’ I demanded. ‘’ the atmosphere/ozone layer can burn up rocks as they fall in and global warming causes meteors to fall in. near our greenhouse, we had some leftovers plastic glass windows which are not used anymore, Albert told me to bring it here to Mars in case some meteors would fall, he said it will not be damaged because it can’t’’ ‘’so, we build them up and float them up in the sky to prevent them from landing here!’’ I was so happy that we found a solution to this problem! The meteors stopped crashing and we found the opportunity to build up the transparent windows up above. Albert and his crew arrived shortly and he was amazed of the things we had done. People are slowly being transferred to Mars; they can choose whether to stay or to visit. I had to say that things are perfect and the plastic windows are working well, in spite of the huge meteors that crash right to it, they don’t break, it doesn’t even leave a single scratch. People enjoy seeing the meteors crashing the transparent windows because it sheds like fireworks and crystallizes. It disappears into the air like dancing stars. the three of us rebuild our greenhouse into something better. we improve the design and make it larger so that Albert could live with us. we build hometowns, road and streets too even malls. people said it's good here and very comfortable for living. this new home will be something i cherish the most because i and my friends build it together we put our efforts and hard work into this. and it turns out that our new home is not so bad at all.