Marking! I'll be writing later today after I go to work
HERE WE GO!! huge post. 1558 words.
Looking in the mirror, I barely recognised the person staring back.
When you've been lost, stranded on an abandoned and forgotten space station for months with your only way off broken beyond repair, you tend to age well beyond your years. But I never got that joy. My story ended far sooner.
They said they'd come for me, but they never did. No one ever would.
It was the year 2160, not long after man had built the first permanent station on Mars. The logistics of the trip were simple: six of us were to go to Mars, spend six or seven months there, and journey back. We'd be the first official human crew to live above Mars. We made the trip there and unloaded the cargo to the station just fine, or so we thought. We didn't know as much about the surface as we thought.
We didn't realize they lived
beneath it.
The first crew of three, myself included, had gone to the surface. We'd come back, and all had seemed well. No signs of anything living, trace signs of water. While welcome, we knew of bacterial colonies living on Mars, so we avoided the surface water and condensed our own. It was safer, anyway. The station was made to supply water, synthesizing it from the air itself. The bacteria on the surface could have unknown effects on the human digestive or immune systems, and we weren't about to be the guinea pigs unless we had no other choice in the matter.
It wasn't the second launch, nor the third, when things went wrong. It was the eleventh. Ten times, the teams returned.
And then they did not.
The eleventh launch started like all the others. The four scientists going packed their gear, put on their radiation suits, and left on the lander. Shortly after they landed, we lost all communication. Then the chanting started. It was indistinct but it was a cry of war, that much was immediately clear. The language did not seem to be English. It came through all our speakers, it came through anything that could make sound, and it echoed in the enclosed rooms of the station.
I did not understand the words then, but I would know them by heart soon enough.
Not long after we lost contact with the rover, my partner went to go see if he could determine what had happened. I stayed behind. He took the spare lander. I made him leaves the key to the station. The moment he left, I changed the key codes, for good measure. I knew what was out there.
Aliens.
I was the last one left. The rover had just lost communication with the station. Once again, the strange chanting sounded. It rose louder than before, thundering through the station and I could make out the words this time:
Sondr! Sondr ose nami uyu ta sonfre ta solll ao ose frice ao w marii fich eil sondrcheso!I knew I was next, if I dared leave the station.
That night, as I slept, my dreams haunted by nightmares, I felt a rocking in the station. Not the rocking we'd felt for the last two weeks due to the gravitational wobbles we'd been experiencing in orbit around Mars, the ocean-like waves buffeting us with gentle gusts of atmospheric wind. This was the rocking of an invasion. I drew tighter into my sleeping bag, the fear keeping me from leaving. Once, I saw a light. Out of fear, I fainted.
I awoke with little memory of the night before, but the words still echoed in my mind. For some reason, they were not as alien as I remembered. The chanting had haunted my dreams. It had haunted my nightmares.
I glanced down. I'd grown thinner, I realized in my two weeks aboard the station, thinner than I'd been even during the long flight here. And I felt braver, brave enough to go check out the damage. I put on my suit and checked for leaks before exiting the airlock.
The destruction lay around me. There was debris trailing from the ship that had brought us here and was supposed to take us home in six and a half months.
That's when I saw it. My eyes went wide. They were still here. I didn't have time to process it fully, before I was back inside the ship, radioing Terra Firma.
"Aliens!" I cried to oblivious Houston. "They're here. They took the others. I'm not joking!!" I said in response to their quiet laughter. "They're actually here!!"
"Ignore him," a thickly-accented Brazilian voice said. I jumped. I had no clue who had said it. There had been no Brazilians with us, but the voice was clear, with none of the distance static of Houston. It was nearby. "He's gone crazy."
I started to protest, only to be knocked out from behind.
When I awoke, I was surrounded by humans. But how?? Last I remembered, I was on Mars. The other humans had been taken and probably killed by the Martians. But... they weren't called Martians. They were called Cathani. How I knew this, I didn't know.
"Scientist Scottie," a voice said through the intercom. "Please report to your duty station."
That was my call... wait, who and what? I tried to go back to bed, but couldn't. It hurt to think about it. Reluctantly, I headed out the door.
Everyone looked up at me. I looked down at them. I realized what they were. They had already assimilated with us. Short people... were Martians. They'd learned to flawlessly blend in with our society.
As my feet led me down the unfamiliar halls, I thought I heard the chanting. Then I felt the rumbling. No one seemed fazed.
I stopped before a door. I slowly pushed it open.
Before me, shackled to the ceiling, were my five fellow scientists and astronauts. I ran to them, only to see the aliens aim a gun at my chest.
"Stop, or you all die. Wait, and one of you will live."
I froze in my tracks.
"One of you will die now." The alien with the gun guestured at me. "Choose."
All of my friends had merits. We had all been chosen for good reason. But the choice wasn't that hard, or even a real choice. Shortly before we left, I'd discovered our engineer, Richard, had been cheating with my wife. His eyes pleaded no, but mine shone with anger as I pointed at him.
With a sizzle of read, a single scrap of fabric fell to the floor, marking his last known location. The other aliens, hundreds of them, applauded with hoots and hollers.
"Another!" the Cathani with the evaporator shouted. Another?? I couldn't think straight, so I pointed at the first I saw. I chose Martin, our biologist. Ever since he had asked to dissect my deceased cat, I had disliked the guy. I had personally been against him coming in the first place, but his skills were the best of his field, and no one else in his division had passed the astronaut training. Fittingly, though ironic, the only thing left of him was some sort of scalpel.
"You know the drill!" the lead alien said. I pointed again. Three friends left. Maybe I'd be allowed to spare two? Just in case, I picked my least favorite of them. It was our medical doctor, Alana. She stared at me with pleading eyes. I shrugged apologetically as she was blasted. This time, it was a scrap of hair that floated to the floor.
The last two stared at me. One was our communications officer, Rodney. The other was our botanist, Mercy. The alien aimed his gun at my chest. I pointed at Rodney. I knew the communications systems enough without him. Nothing remained of him, save a necklace with a coin on it.
Mercy stared at me in shock. The alien aimed at her, and stared at me. "No." I said. "Four is enough." I reached over and unlocked the shackles, and grabbed her hand, running out the door. I thought I knew my way out, but I wasn't sure.
The aliens poured out shortly after us, screaming for our blood. We were not meant to escape, but I was sure going to try. We headed out as fast as we can. Our feet barely touched the floor. After several turns, we found ourselves at a dead end, with a vertical shaft above us narrowing near the surface. It had to be at least 60 feet up.
We fell back against the wall in defeat. I hoped we'd be able to make a final stand, but they had evaporator guns, and we had nothing: no weapons, no protection, no anything. The corner where we were was rapidly heating as the Martian day began.
I could hear their chant from afar, long before they reached us:
WAR!! WAR BE UPON THOSE WHO OPPOSE WHO DARE TO BE CLOSE TO THE REALM OF MY DESTRUCTION!!
As they came rushing down the hall, evaporators leveled, I noticed the reflective end of the gun. Looking in the mirror at the end of the barrel as he leveled it at me, I barely recognised the person staring back.
But I knew what I wasn't. I wasn't going home.
RESOURCES:
Nasa.gov on going to Mars
- only part of a massive prize group.
