"Hello, Earth.... Hello, Earth.... Interstellar Flight One.... Interstellar Flight One.... For your press.... Repeat.... For your press...."
There was only one thing to say: "We're coming Home!"
That single sentence crackled its way across the vastness of space.
The Ship sped on. Its forty-nine people worked and slept and played, as their fathers before them, and their fathers before that. But their hearts were glad with a new gladness.
"We're inside Mars!"
Johnny Nine settled back in the pilot seat, aft in the Ship, above the tubes.
"We're inside Mars!"
No one heard him. He was alone in the cramped pilot quarters.
He threw in the forward jets, unused for almost two hundred years, cut in the forward jets to break their fall. Prayed.