[ WP ] We finally get men on Mars and they discover an old Soviet flag placed down decades ago . The Soviets won the space race but for whatever horrifying reason did n't say anything .

`` I would n't believe it if I did n't see it with my own eyes'' 
 
 `` Commander Nguyen?'' 
 
 `` I... I'm sorry. Mission report: we are not, I repeat, not the first humans to have landed upon Mars.'' 
 
 The radio transmissions exploded as if all the voices on Earth rose as one. Who could blame them? A moment ago, there was celebration ringing through the integrated audio system in my helmet - we were the first to the Moon, and now to Mars! The medley of confusion and anger rattled my sleepless skull and I tried to imagine the hysteria as my message was live broadcast across Earth. I turned my volume down. `` Houston,'' the chatter stopped, `` I have in front of me a Soviet Union flag. Video feed is being transmitted.'' 
 
 I know they will not receive the video for about 14 minutes, and even then may have trouble discerning what I see. Riveted to the soft red rocks in front of me is the unmistakable Hammer and Sickle and'CCCP' of the old Soviet Union, but I hardly noticed that anymore. In a crevice underneath, beneath the rivet driver used to affix the large, faded flag was a human body. 
 
 `` Ares 3, please repeat.'' 
 
 `` Houston, I have in front of me a USSR flag affixed to the rock wall. I have found the tools used to rivet the flag into the rock... and the body of the astronaut that appears to have operated the tool.'' I did n't hear the commotion following. The human body in front of me pulled all of my attention. I leaned in. 
 
 `` The astronaut was human, and appears to have died of a self-inflicted wound to the brain.'' I did n't know how else to say that he had used the rivet gun upon himself. The rivet has pierced his suit's face shield and left a hole in his frontal skull that cracked like the glass of the shield itself, lodging itself against his parietal skull and into the rock. `` They, as well, are affixed to the rock with the same rivets as the flag.'' 
 
 `` Commander Nguyen,'' I recognized the voice of NASA Director Avery `` what can you tell us about this man?'' 
 
 Silence. Avery's voice quieted the vocal chorus that had been constant since we landed fifteen minutes ago, and it unnerved me greatly. For the first moment I realized I was a small human on a large alien planet 230 million km and 200 days from home. I looked around through the gaps in the fine dust that the wind floated into the air to see nothing familiar. For the first time on this voyage, I was scared. Scared of the nothing, scared of not making it home, scared of ending up like this man in front of me. 
 
 `` Yes sir'' I managed, and focused on the suit of the body. There is no crest, no identifiers, a blank suit of piecemeal protection. I turned the body to get to the backpack and heard an audible crack of skull bones giving way under movement. 
 
 `` Deep breaths...'' I whispered to myself, battling waves of nausea. The pack was wired haphazardly into an external battery that lay under the astronaut's suit that I had not seen before, and the pack was still partially functioning. `` The astronaut appears to have re-wired his pack to a battery originally intended for use with the rivet gun, and the pack has been strategically damaged to essential life functioning.'' 
 
 Why would this man cut his oxygen and heat only to shoot himself? Comms have been damaged too... wait... not entirely. Comms broadcast has been damaged, but recorded storage has not. `` There appears to be recording in the pack. I am going to remove the audio jack from his helmet and try to broadcast the recordings.'' 
 
 `` Deep breaths...'' I steadied myself. One quick twist and both helmet and head broke free of the body, suspended in midair. My stomach seized and churned, my throat dried, my back arched, my head ran in a cold sweat, and my eyes welled. 
 
 `` Deep breaths...'' 
 
 Slowly, the pressure on the back of my throat lessened. Holding back the vomit had taken all of my training and will-power. I coughed and continued on. 
 
 I looked back upon the body and saw the microphone cable hanging from the severed head down to its body as if making one last attempt at staying whole. I detached the cable from the helmet and plugged it into my radio. After some fiddling with the buttons on the astronaut's pack, I found the proper controls and rewound the recordings. 
 
 `` Houston, I am ready to broadcast.'' 
 
 `` You are a go, Commander Nguyen.'' 
 
 [ Transmission begin ] `` Holy shit!'' the recording was faded and crackling, `` I'm still alive!'' 
 
 `` Complete mission, 30042'' another voice said sternly in a mild yet unmistakable Russian accent. 
 
 `` Okay, exiting the lander. It's kind of dark out here, where am I supposed to set this up? [ silence ] Okay, life support normal. [ rustling noises ] [ occasional popping noises ] Okay, the flag is up on these rocks here. I'm returning to the lander. [ loud rumbling noises ] WAIT!! NO!!!! [ more loud rumbling noises followed by silence ] I... they... [ heavy breathing ]... FUCK!!!'' [ transmission end ] 
 
 [ Transmission begin ] `` They left me here. They fucking left me here. I should have known it. One year strapped in chains from Earth to Mars. I should have known. They... I... My name is Akash Sarkar, American fighter pilot of the US Navy and POW of the USSR. It is, likely, [ deep exhale ] 1984. I have been a POW for about three and a half years since ejecting from my F-117A Nighthawk after taking heavy fire over the Afganistan border. They said I could go home when the mission was done. I should have known. [ long pause ] I am married to Michelle. I love you baby. I have a son named Rohan, named after my father. [ sobbing ] I'll never see them again... they'll never know... [ transmission end ] 
 
 [ Transmission begin ] `` I will die here. I have come to terms with that. It has been a few hours since the lander took off without me, likely by remote from the Reds, dooming me to this planet. I'm their lab rat, their Laika, their fucking space monkey. They were seeing if it was possible to land, possible to live, possible to have enough fuel and food to survive the trip. I saw others from the prisons brought to do the same things, though I'll bet many of them died before liftoff. Every launch, even the `` unmanned'' launches, has POWs on them. They were all their experiments, as I am. I guess I'm the lucky one - the first man on Mars! Chances are, the Ruskies will claim they bolted the damn flag to the rock out here and I'll still be POW MIA. Well fuck them. The first person on Mars is an American. I checked my gear... they want to erase me. I've cut the Soviet emblem off my suit and shot it with the bolt gun into space. It would be too much to try and cut out the flag from the rock - that thing is made of sail material and has metal wire or something running through it. I've checked the battery and the life support, and I have a very good charge, but I'll run out of oxygen before I run out of power. A slow cold death. Another thing I noticed was that the comms were set to erase all of this recorded data when power reaches minimum level. A sort of last minute data dump. It is my goal, now to ensure that this does n't happen. I am going to rig the battery they gave me for the bolt gun to my suit, since it has a much higher charge than my suit. If I do that, and I only ran standby power on the comms, I may be able to keep power to the comms enough to keep the data safe for tens of years. They counted on me trying my damnedest to live out here and running my suit out of power, but I am OK with death and I only care that my memory will live on. [ transmission end ] 
 
 [ Transmission begin ] Success! I broke open and broke apart my suit heating unit, and I was able to step-down the battery pack to match my suit's voltage. I have plenty of power once I break apart the other life support systems. I'm almost ready to die. I hope someone finds this. I hope the comms have held up to to the elements and that I did n't fuck up the batteries. I hope that my family is still alive, and that they know that I love them. Michelle, you were the best thing to happen to me. We met at sixteen, she was pregnant at seventeen, and I enrolled in the Navy before Rohan was born. [ long pause ] He will be five soon. I hope that he lives a happy life. I hope he knows his father loved him. I can close my eyes and hear his laugh. It's so quiet out here. I was born in what is now Bangladesh. My father was a professor there and always encouraged me to look to the skies. He was fascinated with the moon landing. I wonder what he would think if he could see me now. His son, the first man on Mars. He was killed in the War of Independence. I was eight. My mother, sister and I ended up in a refugee camp. Food and water were scarce and we were crushed together like sardines. It was no surprise when one of us came down sick, it just so happened to be my sister. Chanya died a month to the day after my father. We were granted asylum in the US a day later. I derived much of my hate from that month in 1971. I got in fights, I smoked, I drank. It was easy to do as a youth in Los Angeles. That was before Michelle, before Rohan. They made me realize all my mother had done for me and all I must do for them. I gained citizenship. I enlisted. Now I ca n't do anything, but damn if I did n't change my life to try. I love them. I miss them so much. If you find this, please tell them I love them. Tell them my dying thought was of them. [ sobbing ] I have to... I must sign off now. I have to destroy anything that would take any power from the comms. I have to make sure this survives. I've already charged the bolt gun's air tank for one last shot, and I'm gon na make it count. If they see the flag they are damn well going to see me. [ long pause ] I... Lieutenant Akash Sarkar US Navy signing out. [ transmission end ]
