M is for Major

Another song that kicked off this theme for me. Like A, the song tells a story itself, but I really wanted to use it. I first heard it during a car ad, which also made me interested in marketing.

She knew in a little bit she would be grateful for the layers and padding, but at the moment Tracy was sweating. Of course, that might have had something to do with nerves too.

“Starting count down.” Neil said in her ear. The engines underneath her rumbled to life.

Tracy gave a silent prayer to God for safety and to give thanks. She had wanted to go into space since she was five, and now she was going to.

Thirteen years ago she had started working for Kuiper, a company whose goal was to mine asteroids in the belt it had been named for. While she had been hired to help design the drilling machines, plans for the ship to take miners to the Kuiper Belt had been struggling with the idea of space. The plan had been to employee the smallest pilot possible. At 95 pounds and five foot and a half, Tracy had been the obvious choice. She had said yes without consulting Neil.

Granted, this was a test flight. She wasn't going all the way to the Kuiper Belt, PS734 was a closer asteroid and would serve as a good target for this test mission. Tracy was to fly to PS734, drill using every tool the ship possessed, and then return home.

“We have liftoff,” Neil said in her ear, but it was rather redundant. From her seat in the cockpit it was very evident she was leaving the confines of Earth below. She followed protocols, kept talking to ground control, and when the last of the fuel tanks had disengaged and fell away just stopped.

All the pictures and videos she had seen did nothing to prepare her. There were stars and planets and galaxies, it was large and small at the same time, it was being gifted with a thousand diamonds, of watching your cage doors open after years of captivity.

It was god damned beautiful.

“Tracy, Tracy!” Neil's voice filled her ear. She realized she hadn't answered any attempts to reach her on the radio in three minutes, that she was supposed to turn on the thrusters and head towards the moon to use it as a gravity sling.

“I love you Neil,” she said and turned off all power in the ship. To the technician's back home, it would look like a grievous malfunction. No, not back home, back on Earth.

She never realized how out of place she felt on the ground before now. Space had always been her first love, she hadn't really fallen in love and married Neil because he was a good guy, but because he shared her passion for space. After working together so long, people assumed they were dating, so they started, and after three years when they wondered why they hadn't married Neil went down on one knee. It was a mutual relationship, they were both second in line compared to the draw of the stars and the feeling of wonder they got looking up at them even after having masters in astrophysics. Others didn't understand their passion, so they hid it by pretending to be a normal couple.

Here, amongst the stars, Tracy felt as if she was home. This room of midnight walls filled with flickering candles was comforting despite knowing she would never reach most of those candle and she would probably die in it.

Neil would understand, he'd actually be pretty jealous.

But Tracy didn't care. She was home, and would spend her last air, water, and food supply just drifting amongst the stars. Maybe she turn on the thrusters next week to visit the Moon or a planet, or use all her gas to leave the solar system and be the first to seen a new sky. But now, she'd just sit in her chair, stare out the window, and cry tears of joy.