Parker stepped off the ladder and onto the Martian surface. “Houston,” she began, “we—”

“Finally, after millennia of struggling,” a voice interrupted, “the humans leave their backwater planet and stand triumphantly on another. Aaaaand cut.”

Parker turned to see a creature slithering away onto his saucer, film crew in tow.

David Dezell Turner is an astrodynamics PhD student at the University of Colorado Boulder. When he isn’t giving directions to real spaceships, he’s writing about fictional ones. Check out more of his work at daviddezellturner.com.