After a little over a week in space, the A2070 transporting Sophie and the 126 remaining players of the Electoral 2072 competition was in sight of the red planet. The voice of Captain Judy came on the intercom. "This is Captain Arrigoni. We are about to begin our deceleration." Her voice was reassuring. "While our corporate representatives would like me to pretend like this flight is nothing more than a long intercontinental flight, and keep in mind this wonderful crew has done their utmost to reinforce that perception, the truth of our circumstances is not quite so simple. We apologize for the incident with the Light Drive earlier today. It sent us spinning around for a while. These are the facts: we are fine, we will soon arrive at our destination, and we are moving very fast. You were given a glimpse of Mars as we spun around an hour ago. The ship has stabilized, and we have completed the preliminary tests on our end. We are ready for what we call the deceleration phase."

The finalists were all legitimately nervous except a groggy Sophie in her large seat.

"First, let me address the elephant in the room. We lost one passenger to a strange condition. We have notified his family. Unfortunately, there is not much more to do at this time. The doctor feels it may be a blood clot; a strange space-induced stroke. Medical science acknowledges there are problems with long-distance travel and we are, want it or not, space pioneers. We do not take this matter lightly, and we do feel compassion. The family has set up a donation page at the Red Cross; online donations are very generous. If anyone has any pain or discomfort, please contact an attendant immediately." The Captain took a deep breath and continued.

"We will need cooperation and full attention for what comes next. I think everyone has already been briefed ad nauseam about this procedure. Our expected time of arrival in orbit is in eleven hours and nine minutes. Let me explain what will happen. We have turned the ship around so our Light Drive, at the stern of the ship, now faces mars. A large orbital laser in mars' orbit will light up, sending a blue beam our way and once it touches us will push our Light Drive, decelerating us. We all know light ordinarily does not push back on a mirror, but this one will. The laser will hit the central axis of our Light Drive, and its force will slowly begin to decrease our speed by about 10% of an earth gravity. We will all feel the push.

"To the non-scientists here, and that means most of us, this should feel like sleeping with a stack of books on your chest. This will last several hours. Trust me; it is normal to find the deceleration uncomfortable after such a long stay in weightlessness. While moving around is not permitted during the rotation, once the lights are turned off, you will be allowed to get up from your seat. Our attendants will help. You can also lie down with your feet facing toward the fore of the ship. In that position, the gravity will push blood back to your legs.

She paused then continued.

"There are two lasers in orbit of mars, and one only is needed. Each alone is sufficient to slow us down. Once decelerated and in orbit, we will take about an hour to glide to the landing pad at the base of the hotel where everyone is ready for us with a glass of champagne." She had rehearsed what came next about a thousand times. "Mars is currently in its summer. The temperature is nice and warm. Summer lasts over 170 days since a martian year is twice as long as a year on earth.

"The temperature on the ground can get as warm as zero degrees in the sun, but at night, it drops to minus 79 degrees, cold enough for a banana to become brittle and break like glass. There is a faint atmosphere right now of about one kilopascal or three percent of a normal atmosphere on earth's Mount Everest. The gas atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide. Yesterday there were signs of a two-kilometer-per-hour wind on the ground. In a low gravity environment like mars, that's enough to flap a flag.

"Your clocks have been adjusted to a martian day, which is only forty minutes longer than a day back on earth. Having the same day length is the most useful feature of Mars. That is why we have been using cabin lights to maintain this day cycle, as we traveled here. We should land around eleven in the morning local time. As always, on mars, it should be a cold, sunny day." Judy was not smiling in the cockpit. "Give us a couple of minutes, and we will begin. Buckle up."

She opened a line to mars. "Ground base, we are ready for the laser, please confirm." There was an unusually long delay in the response.

"Confirmed," said the voice. It seemed hesitant.

"Anything wrong? Is Milly the CNN journalist better informed than me?"

"Just proceed with final stages of alignment, we are looking into issues with some secondary systems." In space travel, communication was key. Each time there was a conscious decision not to inform, it generally was a bad sign. Judy had her marching orders, and she would align this ship, so the Light Drive faced the laser in orbit of mars.

She resumed on the ship's speakers. "We have the green light to lock our rotation to the arc-millisecond." A moment later, the captain continued. "Mars is less than a million miles away. Before we can activate the Light Drive to decelerate slowly to orbital speeds, we must align the ship on its axis. The laser which propelled us to this point will now push on our rear to slow us into a stable orbit.”

Sophie did not really care. She felt like these adults were just playing with expensive toys. What the captain said next was a greater cause for concern.

"We also ask that during this entire procedure, you remain absolutely immobile. If you are looking out the window when we begin, stay that way. No fast gestures, no drinking, no talking." Sophie was puzzled. "The faster we align this vessel with Mars, the faster we can engage the Light Drive and land."

"Is this serious? Let me go to daddy," said Sophie to the attendant. Several of the passengers looked her way.

"Yes, Sophie, opening thrusters in space is like walking on ice. The pilots must feel this ship. It is not uncommon for the best pilots to overcompensate and get a ship tilting off balance in every direction." Sophie got it; they were nervous. "You saw what happened hours ago."

"Sophie, I have a cold tea for you. It will help you sleep." The hostess handed the girl a pouch. Sophie liked the slushy drinks. In space, everything was in pouches, so you just needed to crush the plastic with your fingers to turn the content into frozen ice. The pouches were meant to be eaten as well; that wasn't as fun.

The captain's voice continued. "Some of you will see mars if we over-rotate, please fight the urge to go look. You already saw it earlier today. I remind you that we are aligning ourselves through what amounts to an open end of a straw to allow a spout of water sent from Mars to pass through the straw. We don't want to get wet, that's all."

The attendant asked Sophie to stay in her seat. The girl could not connect with her father anyway. His vitals were stable, but his mental activity was very weak. At least the sickness had not killed him. Sophie found the entire landing exercise long and rather boring. A co-pilot passed by her and was standing in the back with a red suitcase covered with warnings of all types. The co-pilot opened a small hatch on a side door and confirmed to the pilot via intercom that he was in his secured position. In case external thrusters failed, he would screw a bottle to release a gas in a last-gasp hope of reestablishing trajectory. Primitive was the only word that came to Sophie's mind.

On time, the thruster opened and the seconds ticked away.

Sophie saw the stars move just a bit, then like a rock, she fell asleep. The flight attendant was relieved. The woman grabbed the pouch and saw Sophie had drunk most of it. The sedative had worked. She gave Dr. Shin, peering from the infirmary, a thumbs up. Sophie did not need to see the landing. The government had agreed to send her to mars with one caveat: that she remain in her seat for the entire landing and under the Captain's orders, the girl should sleep.

"Mars, the young girl is asleep. We are now in position and sending our vector right now."

"Vector received. Confirmed."

"Ready to begin deceleration."

"We are not ready down here. We are having problems with the laser. Please take this time to review the procedures relating to using the nuclear thrusters to decelerate. You might have to use them." Only the Captain was able to assess the importance of what they had just said. Judy kept her composure.

"What type of problem?" she asked calmly. There was a silence, and a different voice spoke up.

"Captain, the laser satellite in orbit of Mars failed this morning. We are now working to get the redundant satellite online. We are experiencing technical difficulties."

"Seems like the journalists were right. What is the problem? Terrorists, as they say?"

"We can only confirm that there are serious problems right now. Nothing confirmed."

"Can you please explain?" She remained calm. Good pilots were trained to react with calm to dangerous situations.

"The primary laser is out of the equation. The redundant one seems to be working with the exception of its modulator. That part is offline."

"What does that mean?" asked the Commander. These people were being careful with what they were saying. "We need the full breakdown to properly assess the situation from here," said Judy. For a Commander in a crisis situation, the words were not kind.

"Forget the primary laser, its orbit is too high. The second laser is still unfinished. It orbits lower and has orbital trajectories where it will not see you. It is coming in line in a matter of minutes. The primary beam of the secondary laser, about two hundred kilojoules, was designed to slow down the Airbus A2073; the next model transport. It's much too bright for your ship. The targeting system works, so it can hit your drive. The modulator is what reduces the power to help gradually decelerate you. If this beam hits you for the moment, it will feel like an anti-riot water hose is hitting you. We need the power of the beam to be lowered to 20% of its current value. We're working on it, but changing hardware on a system in orbit is problematic."

"Thank you." Judy and her crew knew what this meant. The ship designer believed in redundancy. On each wing were ordinary rocket thrusters using a fusion core. The fuel was a bag of tritium-deuterium pellets, but in space, if one wing engine pushed with more force than the other, without air to correct, they would need to empty their small side thrusters to keep the ship aligned. Irrespective of what would come next, her options were limited.

Wang, her co-pilot, was surprised. He was an engineer with deep knowledge of the Light Drive. "There are at least a hundred ways to drop the efficiency of a light beam by that much. I don't get this."

"What do you mean?" asked Judy.

"Modulation is nothing more than filtering. Put a tissue or an opaque glass between our nose and the source. We need a pair of shades in front of the drive receiver, and we have modulation."

Mars answered, "Wang, we have a hundred experts on this down on earth. None of these solutions work for the moment. Two-hundred kilojoules is not a small light. It will melt anything you put in the middle. Trust us, this is priority one. We have it."

Wang said in Judy's ear privately. "This is bull. Something else is going on.” Wang continued on the intercom. "Nothing is easier to do than dropping something's efficiency. What about a software change? Why don't we modulate the intensity of the beam on our end?" said the co-pilot. "I'm the onboard engineer; I was there when they mounted the Light Drive in this ship."

"When you say 'modulate' on our end, what do you have in mind?" Judy asked her co-pilot.

"This is only light we are talking about, but a lot of it. There is an open space between the plate of the drive and the transparent plate in the hull. It's used to clean the plate. I just need to layer something partly translucent in that space, no?"

There was a flood of communications between mars and the ship. Earth seconds behind tried to keep up, and finally a voice replied.

"Mr. Wang, this is not the Apollo 13 mission. While with your Captain's approval, you are authorized to move ahead with the preparation of your solution as a backup. We must proceed with landing the plane on the nuclear thrusters. We have spoken at length with Pr. Sandberg, and he confirms that onboard modulation will not work." Wang and Judy knew Sandberg was the father of the drive.

The captain took back the line. She spoke softly.

"Ground, I must ask if the possibility of sabotage has been taken into consideration."

"It was. This is one of our leading hypotheses. We will know better once we get a closer look at the satellites. We have a crew flying up there right now from the ground."

"Mars," said Judy. "If we assume this is sabotage, these people went to a lot of effort to have us start our thrusters. I am reluctant to fire them without a full inspection."

"Captain, time is short. Thruster deceleration is slower, and ignition must begin within twenty three minutes in order to give you a chance of decelerating enough for a landing. What are you proposing?"

"Well, if this is sabotage and they can put two satellites in orbit of Mars offline, they must have a way to interfere with my nuclear thrusters. Why is there partial function only on the secondary beam? Saboteurs would have also taken this out, would they not?"

"Given that construction is ahead of schedule, technically it should not be operational at all."

"Good."

Judy was upset but worked hard to contain herself. "We took off with a single laser operational?"

"Yes."

There was no reason to continue this discussion. Judy was now furious looking. Mars felt like it had to explain. "We wired it up remotely. We spent hours making the coils heat up. That is why we can't modulate this beam. Half the lenses aren't even on the satellite. Trust us, having the beam now is a miracle on our part."

The Captain continued. "Ground, unless you can confirm that my thrusters won't blow us up, I feel like Wang's solution may be best. Please advise."

"Captain, the law is clear. This is your vessel. The call is yours."

Judy turned to Wang. "What do you think. Can you make this work?"

He did not answer.

Captain Arrigoni opened a communication channel with Mars.

"Electoral Center."

"Yes," a male voice replied.

"Marilyn?"

"No. This is Georges."

"Where is Marilyn?"

"Really?" The voice was furious. "She is not . . . available for the moment. After years of pushing her around, you guys finally got what you wanted. So enjoy not having her around."

"Mr. Vouvelakis? Marilyn’s creator?"

"I prefer father. Yes.”

"We need a little help here. I am carrying the players, and the thrusters . . . ."

"Are you that stupid?" The man was not holding back. "Humans refuse to heed her warnings when she gives them. If she has not contacted you, it means you are in no danger, that’s how she rolls now. Did she contact you?”

“No.”

“Then fucking get off this channel and stop wasting my time. According to her you have the tools to resolve the situation. Listen, I am busy here. Should I leave a message?"

"Yes, tell her to call me as soon as possible."

The link went down as abruptly as it went up. Judy expected almost any response but this one. She had a difficult call to make. There were voices on the intercom. Wang was waiting anxiously.

This could be a simple malfunction.

Hundreds of lives were on the line.

At this point, Judy's running watched vibrated on her wrist silently. Judy was a runner and always carried her GPS. It buzzed after each mile. It buzzed again. She looked down at the screen and saw the Electoral logo. It then blinked out to be replaced by a message on the little display. There was a picture of Marilyn Monroe with a short message: "Trust my past winner. Love, M."

Judy was Marilyn's biggest fan. She trusted the digital creature with her life. She smiled internally and knew instantly what Marilyn meant. Below her feet was the solution.

"Wang, go prepare yourself in the drive room. Don't touch anything on the drive yet."