Seventeen Crimes

Ten

Sometime in the future:

The sensation of her stomach being completely disjointed from her body made Brie want to throw up. The pre-flight training warned of the possibility that she actually would and she had been given a vomit back for the possibility.

She never thought she would have to use it, always likening the idea of interplanetary travel to that of riding on a commercial airliner, something she did with no issue.

Brie was hopelessly wrong, and took solace in the fact that she wasn't the only one.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Trey's voice said, breaking overhead on the speaker system.

Brie looked around the cabin, using the wet cloth – also provided as part of the in-flight survival package – to clean her mouth off, taking in the details that she decided she didn't need on Earth.

The flight cabin held thirty people, seated in rows three deep on either side of the narrow aisle. Ahead of them, the door to the cockpit remained sealed. There were five rows of stiff backed chairs – there were no in-flight messages about leaving their seats in an upright position, and all of their belongings were stowed away in the cargo hold in the aft portion.

They were actually allowed to bring a considerable amount of the personal belongings; Brie followed the packing advisement, and aside from a few personal mementos of her life on Earth, brought only what was listed.

She never thought a menstrual cup and reusable pads would be so necessary on a trip to Mars, but they were both items definitely listed on the packing list.

"I would like to take the opportunity to be the first to welcome you to Mars. Per the training, it looks like our decent to the planet's surface is going to be on the long side today. We are looking at forty-five minutes before touchdown. At this time, I would encourage you to get up out of your jump seats and take a good stretch about the cabin, and tend to any personal needs you may have."

Brie sealed the bag and pressed the release button as she practiced several hundred times on Earth.

The harness that held her in place didn't let the weightlessness feel so obvious – even though her limbs seemed to have a mind of their own and wanted to float sitting there. Certainly her hair did.

She wasn't the only one who took advantage of the time.

The youngest of their crew was only months old and didn't like the weightless feeling about them. She let her wants and desires known as her mother struggled to steady both herself and her infant.

Brie smiled, grabbing a hold of the guide bars that lined what was designated as the ceiling.

And people did this for upwards of thirty months?

Suddenly, making this decision seemed even more right; she didn't know what to think of the prison ships that launched in succession several days before this ship launched. They didn't have the Martian technology that allowed for rapid jumps, and had two pilots surrounded completely by people being exiled from Earth for their beliefs.

Was she really that different?

Having waited in the line for the unisex bathrooms – there were four at the rear of the cabin – Brie really questioned herself and all that she understood.

She had her freedom after years of being in a prison cell with little explanation as to why. No charges ever came. A political prisoner without ever having raised a gun or taking a stand publicly in opposition to anyone in authority.

Yet, here was she was. Unable to return to the safe mothering womb of her world.

Brie stared at herself in the mirror for far too long.

She was no different then the people sentenced to make this journey in a span of years rather than moments – and perhaps better off.

Somewhere on the surface of Mars, in a town called Selah, her father built a family she had no idea who they were, and they had a house that she was going to use.

The family from modern Apartheid Africa sat in one row slightly ahead of her. A mother and two sons, with skin that could only be described as skin inky black and short, tight curls that ringed their heads. They spoke primarily French, but now and again, she heard pops of English as they spoke to another family from South Korea, and bits of their own language, a beautiful, lyrical language that spoke to deep and ancient truths that Brie barely knew.

Both families had tied to Mars that ran as deep as Brie's did. The whole vessel around her had ties, family that spoke well of them and sponsored their travel. And they all, just the same, sunk dangerous amounts of money into this trip.

Was Brie the same, though? A father that she sent clipped, short messages to during the time of her imprisonment, barely acknowledging that she had any sort of siblings at all – would they wait for her with open arms and warm smiles?

For that matter, was she the same as these around her, or would she have been better off on that ship, a political prisoner instead of a political refugee.

"I don't want to move!"

"Okay, Folks. If you would begin returning to you seats, we have about ten minutes before we beginning final decent," Trey said, breaking in overhead.

"I don't want to move!"

"I don't recall asking if you wanted to move or not," her mother replied, shoving the clothes into the box.

"Why do we even have to move?" Brie asked.

"I told you. The lease is up, the rent is getting too high in this place and John said we could move in with him."

"What does John have to do with any of this?" Brie asked. "I don't like the guy."

Clarissa stopped. "I'm the parent, Brielynn. We are doing this."

"What about Dad? Huh? We're moving and is he going to be able to find us?"

"If you are truly holding on to any hope of that man coming back, it ends now, Brie," Clarissa said. "He left. He walked out. He doesn't love you, he doesn't love me and doesn't want anything to do with any of us. Any of this. He doesn't have a say, he doesn't get a say and he's not coming back."

"Can you prove that?" Brie asked, unable to hide the hurt and the pain.

Her mother just bobbed around the room, effectively ending their argument without saying another word.

(1106)