Operation Distress

Bill Adams is the first human to pilot a ship to Mars and back, and his triumphant homecoming quickly turns into a personal nightmare. While the spacecraft coasts toward Earth on its new atomic drive, a sudden itch erupts into a spreading, reddening rash that covers his face and neck, accompanied by sneezes, puffy eyes, and an inexplicable burning in his throat. With limited supplies and a cabin too cramped to move freely, he scrambles through mirrors, Geiger counters, and dust‑trap filters in a desperate attempt to identify the cause.

The story follows his growing dread as every diagnostic tool comes up empty, forcing him to confront the unsettling possibility that a Martian microbe—something his Earth‑trained body has never met—might be at work. As acceleration builds and the ship's systems hum, the isolation of deep space amplifies each tick of his pulse, turning a routine return mission into a claustrophobic fight for survival. The narrative blends hard‑science details with psychological tension, asking what happens when humanity’s first step onto another world brings an invisible threat back home.