Across the Universe

Christina is the first person on Mars, but she wasn't supposed to be.  She was supposed to be the fourth disembarking from the ship in a mission by the International Aero-Space Organization.  She's the only survivor of a crash landing on the Martian surface, and now, she has to survive on her own.  She needs to operate equipment she had minimal training to operate.  She needs to run botanical experiments she has no comprehension of.  She needs to carefully maintain her food and water supply.  The worst part: this was a two year mission.  There's no turning around.  There's no rescue.  At Mars' distance from Earth, any transmission she sends will take a minimum of half an hour to reach its destination.  She's completely and utterly alone.  Until she receives a mysterious transmission.

She doesn't know where it comes from, and she can't understand the language.  Her first thought is that someone from another country has made it to Mars also, without IASO knowledge.  However, the fact that she always loses contact at daybreak and resumes contact near nightfall disproves that theory.  Is her mysterious visitor on a ship in orbit?  On one of the moons, or more improbable, on another planet, communicating by improbable means?  As Christina and her friend slowly learn to communicate with each other, Christina comes to realize the unimaginable.  This is an alien, she's made first contact, and through the most unlikely circumstances imaginable, they have been bound to each other by fate.   They are solar systems, or possibly entire galaxy's apart, and yet they are two women, from two different worlds in a near identical situation: astronauts hopelessly stranded on the nearest planet to their homeworlds.

• Food and water are carefully rationed to make sure you have enough to survive, but it may be possible to add to your food supply through the botanical experiments.  If you can't find a way off Mars, you may need to be to able to grow food to survive.
• You will need to establish line of sight in order to maintain communications.  You need to be in constant contact with Earth so that mission control can continuously advise you.  Also, this will help you maintain contact with the alien.  Without line of sight, you will have long periods each day in which you cannot communicate with Earth.  Establish line of sight by taking the Mars Explorer vehicle and installing antenna relays across the planet.
• Christina will need to learn to communicate with the alien.  Learning each other's names will be simple enough.  Teaching Christina and the alien each other's languages will be harder.  Even without knowing each other's languages, communication isn't impossible.  Christina will need to be creative.
• You're both in this together.  Worlds apart, as distant as two people could possibly be, you're both astronauts stranded alone on two barren worlds, and you can talk to each other; not prerecord messages, but actually talk to each other.  Sometimes, just knowing you're not alone can mean the difference between life and death.

JOIN OUR DISCORD!

https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/537635703&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true