492. Happy 21st Century

This fic is over, you can read it in advance on -patreon.com/misterimmortal.

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The time spent in the spaceship was boring. There was nothing to do except exercise, eat, sleep and talk to families back home. Thankfully, the spaceship was also supposed to lay down a major communication system that would allow near-instantaneous transmission from Mars to Earth.

"Dad, I just won the world school quidditch championship, I caught the snitch and defeated Ilvermorny School." Athena was now in her 4th year, growing marvellously.

He cheered her, "That's amazing, dear. I used to play quidditch in school too. I was so good that I decided to step down and not play."

"Hehe, I know that, you are a legend around the world. The quickest quidditch game, the quickest catch of the snitch. I love it, but sadly, no matter how much I try, I can't seem to do better than you," she pouted while saying it.

Magnus smiled, looking at her face on the screen. He would have hugged her and caressed her face if he could. "My little Athena. You don't have to live in my shadow. My circumstances were different, I pushed myself beyond any would because I needed to survive, just in the first week of my entering the school some wizards tried to kill me. I made the choice for which I am still suffering from consequences. You don't have to do all that, little one, dad will make sure you never have to. Just study hard and be a good wizard, that's all you need to do."

Athena felt he didn't sound right, but she had too many things to do. She had to go back to school after talking with him and get back to studying and preparing for the 4th year ball night. So she didn't try to ask him more, "I will, dad. I will be a wizard you can be proud of,"

"I already am, sweetie." He said and saw her leave the screen. Emma sat down after that.

"She went back to school. Who knew, the little girl who didn't want to leave us now can't stay away from her school," she muttered.

Magnus shook his head, "It's not her fault, Emma. We were like that too, school is just so much fun. How are you? Do you miss me?"

She scoffed, "Huh, I have not forgotten the speech you gave two months back. So I'm less beautiful than this planet?"

He wanted to hold her and kiss her right at that moment, "No, my love, I was just trying to say things to motivate the people, you are still the most beautiful in the universe for me."

"Hmph! Like I will believe you now. I will remember this, be prepared to get thoroughly punished in our bedroom, I want that month-long vacation you promised." Her voice and words didn't match, she sounded too loving.

"That I promise. How is everyone else? Aurelia, Clementia and Max... mum and dad?" He asked further. Now Ragnar also joined as they will be talking to the rest of the family.

Like this, they spent the remaining one month too. Soon enough, the red planet came into view and with each minute it became bigger. Everyone got into their suits and prepared to deaccelerate.

"Strap yourself in, folks. We will experience just the opposite of what we did when we started this journey. The change in our velocity will be noticeable, a lot." The pilot warned them and prepared to start deaccelerating as soon as they reach the distance from which they can move safely to Mars.

"In ten seconds,"

"10"

"9"

.

.

.

"1"

"BRACE!"

In an instant, the whole spacecraft came to a near stop. Everything stopped that was one with the body of the craft, but Magnus and the whole crew were independent bodies, their momentum didn't stop with the craft. So they felt as if they were being pulled out of their seats, only the straps helped them stay in place, or else they would have smashed their heads open on the control panel.

This lasted for just a few seconds and they had trained for this in the labs already. Nobody vomited or got sick due to this. They looked out of the front screen, the red planet was pretty big, they were close enough to see all the patterns on it.

"It will take us a day to reach orbit and synchronise with the landing spot. The current Coordinated Universal Time on Earth is 9:00 PM, 29th December 1999." The pilot briefed them.

They didn't move however, this was the most important stage of the mission, they needed to dock the whole ship in geostationary orbit and then take the landing rocket to the surface.

All the members onboard were doing something, looking at the various instrument clusters, making sure everything was fine. They didn't want any miscalculations about the orbit.

Just like that, whole days passed. Soon, the moment of truth came and the pilot adjusted the spacecraft's position by using pressure thrusters. The AM engine was not useful in small manoeuvres.

"IT'S DONE!"

All okay signs got exchanged by each and every crew member. Everything looked fine. Magnus took the command from there, "Everyone, quick, off to sleep. We need to be at our best when I attempt the landing."

He and Ragnar alone remained in the cabin as they didn't need to sleep as much as the others, thanks to their superhuman body. While Magnus had nothing to work on, Ragnar was busy packing all his testing kits into his magic pouch.

"I wonder how good magic will work on this planet," Ragnar wondered.

"Better than Earth. The atmosphere of Mars is much thinner than Earth's. The average surface pressure is only about 610 pascals (0.088 psi) which is less than 1% of the Earth's value. This means that Mars' atmosphere is more open to space than Earth, hence there will be more dark matter. But be prepared, your eighty-kilo body will only weigh thirty kilos." Magnus briefed him about the situation.

FutureTek had already sent hundreds of rovers and satellites to Mars. They pretty much know about its crude composition.

"The only major threat we face on Mars is planet-encircling dust storms that occur on average every 5.5 Earth years. The last one occurred just a year ago. But good thing, they never get as strong as Earth due to weaker atmosphere." Magnus added.

"Nice, we're wizards, we can most likely survive any storm. But if what you said makes sense, the best place to set up a base on Mars is underground." Ragnar suggested.

"That's what we're here to do, brother. First, we will check out the surface, the soil, how's the underground. We need to be careful, we don't know much about this place, even less than what we knew about the moon at the first landing."

Slowly, the time passed. After 6 more hours, one by one the crew started to wake up. Magnus meanwhile went ahead to prepare the rocket that will bring them down to the Mars surface. It was similar to the reusable rocket they used for Moon, but this one was much more advanced.

They quickly ate food and got into their suits. Only four people will be going down on the first try. It was Magnus, Ragnar and the other two wizards. The only reason Magnus took wizards was that they had the least chances of dying even if something unexpected happened.

By now, most of the astronauts know about the wizarding world under a strict contract agreed by world governments and ICW. Hence, it was very easy to operate with magical items. The plan was to send only one group to the surface, then they would put a portkey and allow the remaining crew to freely come and go. The geostationary orbit of Mars was at 13,634 kilometres, it was well within the range of Portkey.

"Everyone, time your watches. I will take my step on Mars at the exact moment it is 12:00 AM Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on Earth. With that, the new century will begin," he briefed them before the commencement of the landing.

After they had done all the flight checks, they got into the attached lander rocket. It was reusable 30 times. But it depended on the atmosphere, it was reusable 30 times on Earth, here it would be much more.

There was no countdown for deployment this time. The rocket simply detached itself and started to fall down towards the Mars surface. The rocket had computers to make sure that it stayed in position.

It started to fall vertically for the landing. *WOOSH* Everyone felt the vibrations inside the small cabin as the thrusters fired up, telling them that they were close to the surface.

Then, before they knew it, they felt a loud thud and all noises started to die down. They felt no movement either.

"A-Are we on the surface?" Ragnar wondered.

Magnus immediately fiddled with the computer to make the cameras outside give the output. Yes, they could see land and a cloud of red dust just settling down.

Magnus took a glance at the clock, it was 11:55 PM. Just 5 minutes until the New Year, the beginning of the 21st century.

He quickly opened the hatch and climbed down. He didn't step foot on the sand however, he needed to time everything out while keeping in mind the delay of 3 minutes, which means he had to step out at 11:57 PM.

"The signals are up," Ragnar notified him.

Magnus took a long breath, he looked around for the first time, "It's... all red," he muttered to his crew members.

"GO!"

Magnus didn't waste a moment and stepped out, plastering his shoe mark on the surface of the red planet. The first man to step foot on Mars was Magnus Grant Emrys Pendragon, the King of the United Kingdom. A name that shall be immortalised for as long as Earth shall remain.

Knowing he had to say something, Magnus quoted what he wrote before, "Three hundred million miles away from home, this is the colossal leap for mankind. No longer are we spectators on a small blue marble, we are humans, out to conquer the cold dark Universe.

Happy New Year, Earth. Happy 21st Century, humanity."

[You can see Mars on Discord - https://discord.gg/DgHkrAn OR see them on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mister_immortal_novel]

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Special thanks to *DougErNuts* *Oluwatimileyin Olayemi* *BirdRant* *Franklin Walley* *Brennan Tubbs*