Guinevere woke up, seeing the same space above her head she had seen for months.

Except this time gravity pulled her down upon the sleeping unit.

She sighed.

To have all these years behind her compressed into memories to give her this one moment of happiness!

She rolled over and flipped her legs out, her feet naturally falling to the floor more slowly than on Earth but faster than on the Moon.

She knew today would be a good day, unpacking the last crate just so they could turn around and load the exploration vehicles which had landed on Mars months earlier.

Guinevere rubbed a chemical sponge over her body, combing two drops of moisturising conditioner through her close-cropped hair.

She slipped into her one-piece jumpsuit, stepped into her workboots and walked over to the doorway where her self-contained breathing outfit, ruggedised for the Martian environment allowed her to move from her landing pod to the temporary outdoor workspace set up to complete tasks on today’s agenda.

After she dressed, Guinevere spoke into the comm mike in her helmet, which also vibrated a secondary unit attached to her jaw that picked up the more accurate nuances of her voice for emotion/personality analysis by the automated computer system that tracked everyone, fully human, part human/part cyborg, or fully cybernetic organism.  “Team One Leader ready to depart.”

Voices echoed back into the hearing device installed beside her inner ear, every member of her team reporting on time and ready to act.

Precise as an algorithm to start the day.

How long this would last, she did not know.  They planned for many contingencies but not every possibility.

Last night, one landing pod spun off-course and crashed, a crew diverted from this morning’s tasks to investigate, hoping to find survivors as well as salvageable gear.

Guinevere stooped into the small airlock, pressed a button to stabilise the atmospheric pressure and waited for the outer door to open.

A few hours and she’d be on her way to see if the microorganisms released by a top secret probe had survived, died, or more importantly, thrived!