Seventy-Seventh Entry

March 15^th, 2037

1535

Dear Space Diary.

Today has gone from bad to worse. My ticket home may just have been irreparably damaged.

Oh, and Mary might be dead. That’s bad too.

To be honest, I’d feel more beat up about that if it wasn’t for the whole betrayal thing. I trusted her! I know we hadn’t known each other for very long, but by reading her blogs and spending so much time with her… not actually her skeleton, I felt like we’d made a connection. Some kind of creepy, skeletal imposter connection.

I guess she’s known me for less time. Either that or she just didn’t like me very much. I did kind of give her a hard time I guess. And I was pretty mean to her.

...Damn it, I am pretty beat up about it. Why did you have to die Mary? You were the only friend I had that wasn’t a robot or a rock, and was actually capable of acknowledging my existence.

…You better not be dead. Otherwise I’ll kill you.

…You know, again.

1542

Getting close now. Or at least I hope I’m getting close. Otherwise those are mighty big flames. Which would mean my spaceship was very much on fire.

I would prefer my spaceship to not be on fire.

1545

…that’s quite a crash.

Assessing as best I can after the fact, it looks like the ship was travelling mostly sideways when it came down.

It came from over there, bounced off the top of that hill there, went THROUGH that hill there, before finally coming to a stop… here. In the middle of that great flaming inferno.

Which presumably was not there until after it landed.

Amazingly, the ship looks like it’s in one piece inside all the flames. What off Earth do you build these things out of, NASA?

That’s a question for later. We can while away the hours of my flight home discussing many such fascinating topics.

But right now, I have to do… something.

Hmm. The flames are concentrated towards the back of the ships, where the engine is. The door is actually mostly flame free. And there was a fire extinguisher under the dashboard if I remember correctly. Because fire in space is bad.

Worth a try I guess.

1548

Ow! That fire is hot!

…It’s really not my day for well-turned phrases, is it?

The spacesuit is very well padded, but even through the gloves I can feel the intense heat coming from the door when I near the handle.

This is going to hurt.

1550

I hate being right. Still the door is open. Mary is… well, she’s not moving.

Dragging her out of the ship. Then the extinguisher.

1552

COUGH COUGH

The smoke is playing havoc with the suit filters. I have to get out of here.

Got the extinguisher.

1553

It’s heavy duty. Just aim it at the fire, press the button and –

FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

…where’d the fire go?

That’s a good extinguisher.