Hello Everyone… so I guess I have some explaining to do.
Basically, I didn't have access to the internet for a while so I wasn't really able to do any writing. If you guys are still out there and still wanting to refresh your memory and keep getting updated on this story, then the good news is I should be back permanently and will be able to regularly post again.
If you're just now getting introduced to the story, thank you so much for reading this far.
No matter your situation, I sincerely hope that you read and enjoy this chapter and if you do make sure to leave a review to let me know.
Chapter 14: No Room for Error
Jeanette's POV
We all sat in fear, able to hear the horde of Martians approaching our ship from inside the rover. They hissed and screamed at each other as they got closer and closer. We were unable to see them, as Motherboard was still in the cockpit, but we knew they were all headed in our direction.
"Everybody just keep calm," I warned my crew. "And be ready for a fight, if it comes to that."
We all had our Mars suits on, in case anything went wrong or if we needed to make a quick exit from the rover.
The massive army was now very close. They seemed to be reacting more violently, more angrily to the sight of the Caesar. They were much louder.
"Everyone stay low and don't make a peep," Alvin hissed at everybody through gritted teeth.
I took a deep breath. "It's almost time."
A few moments later, the sound of the marching horde stopped almost instantly. Every muscle in my body clinched. Where were they.
Suddenly, a violent scream erupted from outside. A scream that was instantly recognizable as coming from the queen herself. She was letting us know that she was here.
Knowing it was time, I pressed the button and ducked as low as I could with everybody else. The cargo bay ramp opened up and began to drop to the ground below. As soon as it hit the bottom, another annoyed hiss from the queen prompted her minions to begin flooding the ramp and climbing up into the cargo bay. Dozens were swarming through, ignoring the rover because they hopefully did not know that's where we were hiding. They began banging against the door into the main part of the ship and eventually broke through it.
The whole ship began flashing warning lights and sirens, as the oxygen instantly escaped all parts that were not sealed off. More and more of those creatures filed through the cargo bay, until finally no more were climbing up the ramp. They had all forced themselves into different rooms within the ship to search for us as well as the queen's offspring.
I waited a few moments to be sure before I finally whispered so Alin, "now."
He wasted no time in pulling himself up and into the driver's seat and buckling himself on. All the meanwhile we could hear those filthy creatures tearing up the Caesar from the inside. The ship itself was beginning to shake. Alvin turned on the rover's engine and as quickly as he could put it in gear.
He let the front tires roll onto the ramp before flooring the gas pedal. The rover zipped down the ramp before shaking as the tires collided with the ground. Those of us who were inside of the rover were saved by its suspensions.
We could see the Martians that were waiting outside the ship through the dust that got kicked up around us, including the queen herself.
Alvin slowed the rover to a stop. The queen glared into our eyes through the windshield, surrounded by 25 or so of her pawns. They began to carefully approach us, circling around the vehicle to not let us by.
At the optimal moment, I turned to Alvin. "Get us out of here."
He stomped down on the gas pedal once again, keeping the rover aimed directly at the queen. Despite the speed and power of the vehicle, the queen didn't flinch, but instead stared us down as we charged towards her. At the last moment, her subordinate who was closest to her jumped in our path to take the worst of the blow for her. This was the opening we needed, as Alvin jerked the steering wheel and took us full throttle through the hole in the wall where the one Martian used to be.
Just when we thought we were clear, the whole rover shook with a thud and a clank that came from our roof. The queen had dove and landed on top of us, and was holding onto the top of the rover in rage so as to not let us escape.
It was now or never. From my home-made remote I was holding, I input the code 1972 and pressed "Confirm".
Alvin's POV
The cockpit of the Caesar was the first part of the ship to erupt into flames, followed just a split second later by the lower sections. The explosion systematically made its way down as low as the cargo bay, and then to the landing legs that were helping to hold it up, as I had smeared the whole thing in a flammable and reactionary gel.
The whole ship went up in flames within seconds, with every Martian who forced themselves in going up with it. As it structurally blew apart, its different parts flew in all different directions and what was left of the main ship slid down the side of the mountain that it had been resting on with a loud screech and landed on the Mars dirt with a destructive collision.
The Queen looked back at the destruction and yelped in horror. She jumped off of the back of the roof and started sprinting back towards where the flames were still consuming the remnants of the our old ship.
I didn't dare stop the rover, not even for one second to look back. We all knew that there was nothing living left. Her child, and all of her minions that were inside the Caesar died instantly in that explosion.
This was confirmed a few moments later when, even as we had sped away from the scene as fast as our vehicle would carry us, an angry, hate-filled screech erupted behind us. It was the Queen again, letting us know that there was no saving us anymore. There was no more diplomacy, no more mercy. If she found us again she would kill us.
It wasn't until like a full minute later that everyone finally began to ease up. We had put a great deal of distance between ourselves and the queen and what was left of her army.
"Is everyone ok?" Jeanette piped up.
No one said anything, which I guess indicated to her that everyone was ok.
"What about the supplies?" she pressed.
I could see in the overhead mirror that the huge stash of food and ammo had been messed up a little from getting thrown around during our escape.
"Theo, could you make sure nothing's too damaged," Jean said as she leaned over to check on Simon with Eleanor.
Brittany trudged up behind me, threw her arms around my chest, and just stood like that for a few seconds. "Are you ok?" I asked her.
"No," she responded bluntly. "How far are we from the station?"
"Not far. Are you hurt?" I asked her, more concerned about her health than anything else in the Universe.
"No," she sighed. Then she said, "my stomach hurts."
My eyes widened as I realized what she was getting at. "How bad?"
She looked me in the eyes and said, "the baby's fine, I think. I'm pretty sure it's just a stomach ache."
I grabbed her hand with my right hand, keeping my left hand on the wheel and one eye in front of us.
"Nothing's damaged, Jean," Ellie said.
"Simon looks fine too," Jeanette breathed a sigh of relief. "Are we being followed."
I whispered in Brittany's ear, "could you check radar for me?"
She nodded and let go of me, turning to the radar to my left as I navigated us through a deep crevice in the surface of the Red Planet.
"I don't see anything," she said out loud.
"Good," Jean replied.
"We're coming up on the Marine Base," I said aloud.
You could feel the collective sigh of relief come from everyone, even though we weren't in the clear yet.
I, for one, wasn't letting up on the gas. Who knew how much time we had to get ourselves into this base, dig in and hide? There was way too much to do for us to start relaxing now.
The rover turned the corner of a ledge, to reveal through the windshield the giant War Headquarters that Simon and I had explored earlier. The Marine base still stood tall through the bad Martian weather; the dusty winds, the sandstorms, the fierce dirty red clouds. The American flag was still flying, though it seemed only to be hanging on by a thread. Everyone moved to the front of the rover to stare through the cockpit as we rolled towards the dauntingly massive base, with its multiple surrounding buildings. Solar panels covered in ash and dust were still scattered all around. I only began to brake when we closed in on the garage. Our rover slowed to a stop just outside the entrance.
I put her in park. "Helmets on," I barked, almost as an order. "I'm going to need everyone's help."
Everyone did as I asked, fitting their Mars helmets over their heads. With the exception of Simon, of course, who remained unconscious. I also rose from my seat and twisted my helmet into my suit, creating an airtight seal.
Without saying anything, I led the way into the decompression chamber of the rover, which was only big enough for three of us at a time. Brittany, Eleanor and I exited the vehicle first, then waited patiently for Theodore and Jeanette. It was hard to stand straight, with the wind that was steadily picking up.
As soon as Theo and Jean joined us, I marched towards the garage door with haste. The others followed me until I stopped underneath the code input pad. It was way too tall for me to reach, as it was designed for humans to use. "I need two of you to throw me up there," I said.
"What?" Jeanette said in confusion.
"Here," I said, turning to her. "Come here." She stepped towards me until she too was directly under the pad. "Ok, now get down on one knee and cup your hands."
She seemed to understand where I was going with this right away and did as I asked.
"Ok, now I need Theo."
Theodore came forward and got down on one knee, facing Jeanette and cupping his hands just as I had instructed her to do. I wasted no time stepping onto his intertwined fingers and using them to lift my other foot up and step up onto Jean's hands. I bent my knees and stared up at my target: the code pad, readying myself.
"Three… two… one… go!"
They both shot up, with my timing my jump perfectly, launching myself upwards towards the pad. My eyes widened as I actually overshot it. I hit the wall just above it, but managed to hold on and skid down. I barely was able to grab onto the top of the input pad in order to keep myself falling all the way back down. With sweat beginning to fill my fur, I painstakingly pressed each button: 1-7-3-8. Then I pressed enter.
The entrance began to slide open with a rattly rustiness that made me cringe. I dropped down, rejoining my crew members who were all anxious to get the rover inside and close up shop. As if that alone would provide some safety.
Theodore's POV
The rover rattled to life, and was quickly put into gear and thrusted into the inside of the garage. Alvin quickly put her in park as the rest of us were fitting Simon's Mars helmet around his unconscious head. His bloody bandage wrapped around his empty eye socket made me shutter. The rover's engines hummed till they were shut off, and Alvin had made his way back to us.
Together, he and I lifted the stretcher that Simon was resting on. He was carrying the side where his feet were sitting and I had the side his head was on. The girls were the first to go through the decompression chamber and exit the vehicle, while my brothers and I were last to step foot onto the cold hard garage floor.
"Where to now?" I asked out loud.
"We need to get to the control room," Jean responded.
Alvin nodded. "This way, follow me!" He began pushing myself and the stretcher forward towards a big hatch. "And be careful," he warned.
After going through yet another air purification chamber, which I was honestly surprised was working given the condition of this place, we were inside of the marine base. With myself and Simon's head still leading the way, we trudged through a hallway surrounded by giant green lockers.
"They all belonged to one of the soldiers," Alvin murmured, kind of stating the obvious.
"They couldn't have known what they were up against," Brittany said.
"At least they were sent here to actually win," Jeanette said, rolling her eyes. "Unlike us."
As we came close the the end of the hallway, Alvin said to me, "Now take a right at this corner up here."
"My right or your right?" I asked.
"My right."
"Oh, oka-" but I suddenly jumped and gasped just as I was about to turn the corner, as right at the other end of that hallway two giant guns came to life and pointed themselves robotically right at me. In my panic I lost my grip on the stretcher, and Simon's head came crashing down to the ground. His helmet thudded and cracked slightly behind his left ear. My eyes widened at everything that had just happened. The guns had not shot at me, but I was still in shock from dropping my brother. I quickly picked him up again and looked back at the others who were staring back at me with equally wide eyes.
"Oh, God Theodore!" Alvin scolded me.
Jeanette and Eleanor rushed over to make sure Simon was still ok. After examining his helmet, Jean determined that it was still air tight. Eleanor could only hope that the fall hadn't made his concussion any worse.
"Those are automatic sentry bullets," Jeanette murmured at me. "They're all out of bullets, just for future reference."
I gulped and nodded, and we moved on. Alvin continued to lead us towards wherever the control room was. About a minute later he said, "take a right up here. Your right. There are some more sentry guns there, so don't get scared and drop our brother again."
I glared at him and only responded with, "got it. Thanks."
It wasn't long before we arrived at the blockade that Alvin and Jeanette had been speaking about. It was a giant wall of welded-together metal objects like chairs, tables, polls, wires, and lots of other random garbage.
"All the way up there," Alvin said, pointing to what looked like a small hole close to the top of the blockade. "That's the tunnel that the Martians carved through the wall. That's what we gotta go through to get inside."
"How are we supposed to get Simon all the way up there?" I exclaimed.
"Oh relax," Jeanette hushed me. "We'll all help out. We just have to climb and keep him steady."
I rolled my eyes as Alvin and I stepped towards the wall, to the point that we were standing right next to the base. Following his lead, I began to climb. Slowly, making sure to keep Simon's stretcher level. The others climbed underneath us, supporting our unconscious brother as best they could.
We struggled to make progress this way but overtime we finally had gotten close to the opening near the top. One little slip and both me and Simon would fall to our probable deaths.
Alvin was the first to step into the tunnel, with me carefully trying to balance the stretcher while the other end was being carried inside. My arms were fiercely burning from lifting this dude for so long. But it was well worth it.
I carefully climbed through the opening behind Al'. It was just wide and tall enough for us to crouch down and trudge through. It wasn't smooth, though, as there were dozens of jagged edges sticking out in different directions. We had to be extremely not only with Simon but so that we didn't poke a hole in our own Mars suits. Even though there was oxygen, it was below zero degrees inside of the station.
"Now Theo," Alvin muttered to me, "at the other end of this tunnel you're going to see a floor totally overflowing with skeletons."
"Ok?" I said, raising an eyebrow at him.
"So don't drop Simon."
I rolled my eyes. "Shut up, Alvin."
But finally, we did come to the end of the tunnel. And nothing could have really prepared me for what was down below us. Bones were literally stacked on top of each other, all across the floor. It was a relatively small room, but it looked like at least three score people lost their lives in here. And at the center of it all was a giant table.
"That's where we need to get to," Jeanette said, pointing at the giant table. "That's the main computer. We gotta get on the same page and we have got to get our act together."
And with that Alvin and I lost no time in starting our climb down to the ground, as we were both obviously anxious to be able to set his heavy ass down.
And that is the LONG awaited return chapter of Lost in the Stars. Once again, I want to apologize for the several month-long wait but I hope it was worth it. I'm pretty hell bent on finishing this story no matter what.
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