My name is Major Hardy Cochran. This will be the last entry in the Captains log of the intergalactic expedition originating from planet earth. Earth, whose natural resources and beauty have been raped, pillaged and abused to the brink of the destruction and the extinction of the planet.

The mission, code named DESTINATION MARS, was an attempt to discover the feasibility of setting up and maintaining a colony of humans on another planet in our solar system. Mars was the best choice. Our objectives were simple, first to arrive at the planet and determine if it could in fact sustain life. Second was to build habitats and have them waiting for the colonists who would follow in the years to come.

Our communication antenna was destroyed in a Martian desert storm and we have not been able to send or receive messages in several years. The ships that were to follow, shuttling the homesteaders never arrived. I can only assume that the world leaders assumed that we failed and perished and found a second choice, or that all of planet earth’s resources have finally been squandered and our home planet has died. My crew is all gone and I am the sole survivor of a mission that from the beginning was doomed to fail. Yet if you are reading this log, then you are either not from our home planet or you need to know what has transpired.

Either way I feel it is my duty and obligation to start at the beginning and record my life’s journey which brought me to this untimely and uncertain end.

I was born in a small town in rural America on a world which was already sick and dying. From a young age I felt I was different in many ways from my friends and school mates. I truly believed I was destined for a life which would lead me far from the mud soaked fields and hard labored life of my farming community.

All my life I remember hearing talk about a mission to Mars and setting up a colony there. From the moment I first heard the story I knew I had to be a part of it and so every waking moment was spent on learning all that I could about anything that might be useful on such a tremendous and monumental venture.

I was different in other ways as well. I never understood or desired to be around the girls at our school. When other boys were sitting under bleachers trying to look up the girls skirts I was wondering if my penis was ever going to grow and how did it measure up to the other boys my age in school.

Growing up I told myself I was overly shy, but I knew it was so much more. This became blatantly apparent to me as I awkwardly stumbled into manhood, and began to experience the stirrings of sexual desires which did not conform to the strict religious code of the community in which I lived.

My best friend Ron lived on the farm next to ours. Crops had already begun yielding less and less as the world’s air quality dropped and the sun’s rays which were so desperately needed for crops to thrive were slowly being clouded out by the industrial waste pumped into the air. Producing food had become a grueling task and a thankless job that no longer rendered any satisfaction or pride. Being a farming family wasn’t a choice it was a mandate by the government and a way to fulfill your civic duty to the masses.

Ron came from a family of five brothers and I was an only child. Ron spent all his time on our farm trying to help my family make it work, while his brothers helped his parents. We pooled our crops together and somehow managed to keep the government happy and food on our tables.

On one such day it was late in the evening and Ron and I had finished a long day’s work. Ron was unusually friendly and seemed overly interested in me. I didn’t think much about it other than being a little flattered. I had secretly admired Ron for a long time for the way he looked.