Captain Coyne

The spaceship's set up, all ready to go
The fuel tanks are filled, all ready to flow
His robot pal's downloaded all the stuff he needs to know
Houston's ready and anxious to set the engines aglow

And Captain Coyne looks at his wife
Her picture shows his former life
His spaceship launches to the sky
He wonders if he'll live or die

The mission has been going just as planned
The third one to the planet Mars, the third one that's been manned
The stars now look to him like tiny grains of sand
He pops in his fav'rite tape to listen to his fav'rite band

And Captain Coyne looks at his son
All those fun times and what they've done
His spaceship glides right past the moon
He hopes this mission gets done soon

Mars is coming up rather fast
He hopes this sight will always last
This ion engine's only been used once in the past
They said they'd fixed it after it crashed

And Captain Coyne looks at his 'bot
Its head's no more than a strange pot
He wished his son could take its spot
But NASA said they'd rather not

His comm link fails, he can't hear a word
Only quiet static is to be heard
His Geiger Counter starts clicking alot
His spacesuit starts feeling a little bit hot

And Captian Coyne looks at his home
What has now happenned is unknown
His gut tells him to turn around
He's feeling Earth's not safe and sound

As he draws nearer to Earth his skin starts to peel
He fears that his world may never heal
He wonders if what he's seeing is at all real
The cold steel joystick lump is all that he can feel

And Captain Coyne looks at his home
There is no safe place left to roam
There's nothing left, 'least not a lot
There's him, his photos, and his 'bot
He's only got enough food left for
Two to three weeks, maybe more
But what could have brought on that war?
The human race will be no more