“We will be landing in 5 seconds. Please fasten your seat belts. 5…4…3…2…1...” announced the lead astronaut. The other astronauts took a deep breath. Chills ran through their skins and nerves. They didn’t know whether it was due to the excitement of reaching planet red or the probability that they won’t reach back to earth, back to their family.

“Wow,” exclaimed the first astronaut who stepped on Mar's surface. “This planet really lives up to its name. The famous planet red on solar system.”

All the astronauts stepped out of the rocket onto the ground. They beamed in excitement. As far as their eyes could see it was only red.

One of the astronauts, Bill, felt an eerie feeling in the atmosphere. “Umm, guys. I don’t feel so good standing out here, exposed.”

“Why Bill? Afraid aliens would come and snatch you away?” All the other astronauts laughed. Bill had an uneasy feeling settling down in his nerves.

“You know why it’s called the red planet?” asked Sarah, the intellectual one of the group. “Because it is red?” answered Dave, the captain of their group. “You know for a group leader, you sure are silly. I wondered how you reached here. As for the color of this planet, it’s because of iron oxide prevalent on its surface that gives it red color.” The group again broke into laughter.

“Umm, can we go in?” questioned Bill. “The suit's nagging me. It feels itchy against my skin. I want to get out of it.”

“Yeah, we should go in for now. After few hours, we will explore the surface,” declared Dave.

After few hours of napping, eating, relaxing, Dave ordered them to get back into their suit. “Stick together, understood?” “Yes, sire” chorused the group. While Sarah boomed “Aye, aye, silly goose.” All of them laughed out loud.

​

They all strode out the ship and walked for quite some time.

“N…now, we need to search for a cave or sort. The o…officials gave us one important task. We promised to bring back samples of rock and s…soil. We need to fulfill that p…promise,” said Dave who was panting.

Noah, the silent one of the group, panted “B…but first can we go back and rest a bit? I am s…so tired.”

 “I am a girl yet you all are panting like anything. By the way, are you sure you all are boys?” questioned Sarah. She knew it would hit their ego and they would have no choice but to travel further.

Dave straightened his back and huffed out loud. “We are proud men. We are not boys,” answered Bill.

“I see a cave right there. Let’s go,” said Sarah. All the boys wanted to protest against her but their ego was going to get bruised if they did. So they quietly followed her, carefully quietly panting so that Sarah didn’t hear them.

Once they reached the cave, they puffed out loud. They were all amazed. In front of them lay a large space ship. It was too humane to be considered an alien ship. Dave and his team slowly walked towards the ship. They inspected its coating from afar.

​

“Guys, come here,” said Sarah. “What is it?” questioned Dave.

Sarah pointed to the symbol crafted on the space’s front. “It’s the NASA’S” said Sarah. They were baffled. “What?” Dave shouted out in frustration. Echoes of it were heard for quite some time.

They were all stunned and silent until Bill broke the ice. “What it means is that we are not the first astronauts to be here? But wasn’t our operation meant to be the first? Were our name not to be mentioned down the history?” His questions left a lot of doubts in all of their minds.

​

“Dave, did you know this?” inquired Sarah. Dave who was kneeled down looked up to Sarah and said “Trust me Sarah, I didn’t know this. The head of the operation, our officials, clearly said to me that we were the first to come here. I told all of you the risks before coming here, didn’t I? If they knew we were not the first, surely they could have told us. What would they have to hide?”

“Let’s see what more we can find.”

All of the members began exploring the cave. Their chest was now heavy. They felt betrayed. The only reason they came here and took the risks was thinking that they would be famous and that their kids could benefit from them being famous.

​

“Ahhh…” The ear piercing scream of Sarah broke them all from their train of thoughts. They all ran towards the source of scream. What they saw shook them to their cores. A single human skeleton was being plastered on the wall. They all thought it may be the astronaut that landed before them. 

“L…Look at the w…w…walls” stuttered Billy.

“Go back or die,” Noah read it out loud. All of a sudden the cave started chanting go back or die in a horrific chorus. The voice was strained and it gave them chills. All of them ran back to the ship. Sarah reached first at the ship. She tried reaching out to the officials but all signals were jammed. When all of them reached back to the ship safely, a voice boomed through their ship.

“Go back or die,” it sounded as if someone was forcing out those words. “Why?” boomed Dave. It was 2 minutes of silence before a familiar voice boomed from the other end.

“Dave, Sarah, Bill and Noah, it’s me, Robert Kent, one of your officials. Go back to the cave, bring back some rock samples and return home safely.”

“B…but there was a human there already, a ship too. You betrayed us. We were not the first to land here, were we?” shouted Bill in frustration.

​

A sigh left the officer’s mouth. “It was a hologram, the ship and that skeleton. We had a bug planted in Dave’s space suit’s pocket. The bug acts both as a camera and as a hologram projector. We saw the cave and its walls. And thought it would be perfect to set in our plans. We wanted to know whether you would be able to collect samples of rock even when you all were scared. It seems like you all could not. You failed the mission.”

“What exactly would have happened if we were able to collect samples despite going through all those?” asked Sarah.

“Good question. We were going to send you all on another mission named ‘Operation Jupiter’. To land on there and collect some soil samples. It would have been bigger than this mission. You all could have been more famous than this.”

​

All of them were shocked. They couldn’t believe they missed out the opportunity. “Let it be now. We will find other astronauts to lead the other operation. For now, go back to the cave and collect some rock and soil samples. Than return back safely. I assure you the ship and the skeleton doesn’t exist anymore. You all should have trusted us when we said you all were the first to land on there.”

Begrudgingly, they all went back and as assured, there were no ship or skeleton. They collected rock and soil samples and went back.

​

Months later, all of them were interviewed. As expected, they all became famous. But after a year or two they all were forgotten as ‘Operation Jupiter’ made a bigger success. They heard the officials tried the same technique on the members of ‘Operation Jupiter’ as they did on the members of ‘Operation Mars’ but they were not fazed. They were now to lead “Operation Galaxy.” The biggest space operation in the history.