Hello Everybody! I just want to give a quick shoutout to every single one of the fans of this story. Despite the fact that I hadn't updated in months, and despite the fact that my last chapter wasn't one of my best, you guys still turned back up in huge numbers and supported it as if it hadn't skipped a beat. Reading your reviews made me so happy and I'm glad to know someone out there is still listening!

In the next two chapters, I mostly hope to give more insight as to what each character is going through and thinking. There probably won't be much dialogue.

Chapter 15: Cleanse the System (Part 1)

Jeanette's POV

There wasn't any way to avoid it: you were going to step on bones at some point if you were going to get to the center of that room. The place was littered with them. Some made up mostly-intact skeletons. Others were scattered across the floor. And some of the bones were so crunched up and torn apart that they were completely unrecognizable, even to myself who had read several in-depth books on human biology.

We hadn't seen or heard any signs of living aliens, but that didn't mean we weren't all on edge.

Alvin and Theodore were panting heavily as they tried to navigate their way through the sea of bones.

"I can take a turn for one of you two," I said to them sympathetically.

Theodore looked at me as if considering my offer, but Alvin answered for both of them: "We're fine," he huffed.

Eventually, we had made the painstaking climb up to the top of the giant glass table. Every step we took left a deep paw-print in the thick dust that covered the table. Alvin and Theo took the earliest opportunity to carefully set Simon down, creating a cloud of dust around him, and then began to hunch over with their hands on their knees, gasping for air.

I walked over to where Simon had earlier brushed off some of the dust at the center of the table, followed by my sisters. I put my right hand down where his had been, prompting the entire table to come to life as a computer screen. Everyone gasped, except for Alvin and I who had seen this before.

"Run system diagnostics," I commanded out loud.

The computer had a delayed reaction to what I told it, but then seemed to load for a few moments before responding with, "diagnostic results are ready. Would you like me to state them out loud?" in the same voice as the motherboard of our own ship.

"Yes," I said.

There was once again a delayed reaction before she said, "power is at a critical 21%. Station's temperature is currently at -2 degrees fahrenheit. Current living inhabitants are 0 out of 131. Current air-tight breaches in following buildings: greenhouse. Sentry guns A, B, C, D current ammo count: 0 rounds. All military vehicles accounted for. Omortson space shuttle not found on radar."

My eyes widened. "Where was the last known location of the space shuttle?"

Another delay as the machine was comprehending what I said. Then a loading screen. Finally, we were given an overhead view of the Omortson station. Suddenly the screen began scrolling to the right, just past what looked like a giant red mountain, until it rested on the opposite side of it.

Alvin looked at the table thoughtfully. "That's the mountain where we found the eggs," he said.

"Reason the the shuttle being at this location?" I asked out loud.

"Unkown."

"Damn it," I cursed.

"So it's just on the other side of a giant Martian nest," Brittany muttered.

"Ok," I said confidently, "here's what we have to do: we have to get this station back up and running again. This place is going to have to be our hideout for a while. That means Alvin," I turned to the eldest Chipmunk to give him specific directions, "you need dust off every single last solar panel. We need maximum power."

Alvin's jaw dropped. "How many are there?" he asked me.

Suddenly, the computer piped up, "there are exactly 36 solar panels. Each one is exactly six feet long by ten feet wide. Each one is currently returning less than ten percent of potential power."

Alvin didn't look happy. "I'm going to be out there all by myself?"

"I'm afraid so," I responded to him, shrugging. "Theodore, I'm going to need you to work on unpacking the rover. Everything, including the weapons, food, and medical supplies needs to be in this room ASAP."

Theodore, who looked like he was still catching his breath from carrying Simon the last trip, could only nod at me.

"I'll be searching this whole station for anything we can use to keep ourselves alive." I turned to speak to the table, "can I have detailed blueprints for every aspect of the station please?"

After a few seconds, the computer obliged.

I scrolled through each of the maps of the military base that the computer had produced for me, including each building, each floor, air vents, wiring, etc. "I'll be using all this to put together a plan of defense that's gonna hold off the Martians if they discover us." I then turned to Eleanor. "Ellie, you stay here, and tend to Simon and Brittany as best you can."

"Wait a minute!" Brittany objected. "I can help too! I'm coming with one of you!"

I looked her up and down. "I'm not entirely sure that's a good idea, Brit," I said as politely I can.

"I promise," she said, "I'll be fine. I don't want to just sit here for hours."

"Are you sure you're thinking about the baby?" I warned. I looked to Alvin for a little help but he only bit his lip.

"Strenuous exercise on pregnant women can sometimes lead to birth defects and sometimes even miscarriages," the table piped up out of nowhere.

"Can someone shut that thing off?" Brittany hissed. "It's creeping me out that it's always listening to us."

The screen acted as though it was comprehending what she said, then went black.

"Look," Brittany turned back to me. "I'll be fine. And the baby will be fine. I just want to be helpful."

I shrugged. "If you insist. In that case, you're coming with me."

She smiled as if satisfied.

"In the case of emergency," I continued, speaking at everyone, "I need everyone to get back here as quickly as possible. Even if we are attacked."

Eleanor shot me a confused look. "If we're attacked wouldn't we want more than one way in or out?"

"No," I replied sternly. "On September 11, 1297, Scottish rebels who were outnumbered over 2-1 defeated a strong British army at the bridge by the town of Stirling. They did this by forcing the Brits to cross the bridge two at a time in order to attack them." I pointed up at the small opening in the blockade. "If the Martians find us, then we're going to use the same basic strategy to survive."

Theodore's POV

My muscles were sore. And I had a lot of trips back and forth between the rover and the control room to go.

I was told at least three different things before I had left. Eleanor asked me to get medical supplies first. Jeanette said to start with the weapons. Alvin warned me that food had better be ready by the time we got power and heat running in the base again.

I stared at the huge pile of supplies packed into the back of the rover through my glass helmet, not bothering to take it off because I wasn't planning on being there for very long. As I looked it over, dumbfounded, wondering where to start, tears started to well up in my eyes. All I wanted was Dave, and planet Earth. Why did I get greedy and agree to this trip? Why did we get greedy. We were doing just fine the way things were. We weren't sweating it when it came to money. Why?

I sniffled and tried to cut the crying at a single tear or two. It was time to be tough again.

I finally decided that I wasn't going to worry about what type of supplies to carry first. All that mattered to me was that it was the easiest to grab off the top of the pile. Having decided that, I slung two rifles over my shoulders, crouched down stacked a big box of dehydrated food on top of an even bigger and heavier first aid kit. I squatted, slid my fingers underneath the bottom box, and stood up lifting both boxes with a giant exhale.

I gritted my teeth as these boxes were already tough to carry. This was going to be a long and painful job. Leaning backwards to make the load easier on my arms, I shuffled into the decompression chamber, then eventually into the garage. I trudged through yet another decompression chamber and back into the long dark hallways with the giant green lockers.

By the time I rounded the corner to be aimed at by two of the sentry guns, I was already sweating. Why did Jeanette assign this job to the most out of shape 'Munk? Probably because she didn't want to do it herself. I rolled my eyes as I kept pushing my tired legs forward. I was already bracing myself for the toughest part.

And when I finally did walk up to the base of the giant blockade, it was all I could do for a moment to stare it up and down, thoroughly intimidated, wondering how I was gonna scale this with no hands. I finally just took a deep breath, lifted up my foot, pressed it against the best option for a foothold I could see, lifted myself up and caught myself with my other foot on the next highest edge that was sticking out of the wall. Don't get me wrong; a giant pile of random metal pieces would normally be an easy climb for a chipmunk, even me. But giving me all of the extra weight to carry and not being able to use my hands made it very tricky and very painfully exhausting.

I struggled for air as I continued to push upwards. When I finally made it to the hole near the top, I set the boxes down inside and sat down to take a rest, with my feet dangling over the edge. I was taking fast and deep breaths, dearly wishing I could wipe the sweat off of my forehead. If only I didn't need to have my helmet on.

Finally, I caught my breath and forced myself to keep going. Almost there, I told myself.

Somehow, hunching down to not hit my head while at the same time avoiding jagged edges that could poke holes into my suit turned out to be the most strenuous part of the whole trip. At the other end of the tunnel, I was able to see Eleanor, still sitting on the table, staring down at my motionless older brother, Simon. He was still on the stretcher, and it looked as though he hadn't moved a muscle since I had last seen him.

Eleanor suddenly looked up and smiled and waved at me. I waved back and began to carefully climb down the wall of metal parts.

After that, and navigating through the three foot-high sea of human remains, I finally was able to climb up to the table. I set down the boxes first and then both guns that were around my shoulders with giant sighs of relief.

Eleanor suddenly looked kind of put off when she saw what I had brought with me. "What happened to 'medical supplies first'?" she asked scornfully.

"You weren't the only one who told me something like that," I muttered, unable to lift my hands from my knees as I was so tired.

She rolled her eyes, lifted the box of dehydrated food off of the first aid kit, opened the kit and began shifting around the contents with her hands as if searching for something. She finally pulled out some gauze and some tape and walked over to Simon with it. She crouched down, lifted his head and carefully began removing the tape and blood-soaked gauze that had been covering his empty eye socket. The sight of it made me want to be sick, but she didn't seem fazed. She gently placed a new piece of gauze over it, which instantly began soaking in blood. Eleanor unwound and ripped off a long piece of tape more harshly than she had to, in order to remind me that she was frustrated. She finally began wrapping it around his head so as to keep the gauze in place.

I sighed and walked over to her as she finished up. I placed a hand on her shoulder, prompting her to freeze, then ease up and look up at me longfully.

I lowered my head and pressed my helmet against hers so that our eyes were as close to each others as possible.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "Thank you for getting me these things."

"I love you," I said.

Hearing this, she took a deep breath and suddenly broke down and began to sob.

"What is it?" I asked her.

She struggled to answer me through her sobbing. "Th-theo baby," she finally managed to say. "I don't think we're ever going to get off of this planet. We shouldn't have dumped that cyanide water."

Hearing this from her put a lump in my throat. What she was basically saying was, "we should have committed suicide painlessly while we had the chance." She didn't have any kind of hope that we'd get out of here.

"First of all," I said, "no matter what happens I'm glad we didn't take those pills. 'Cause it meant I got to spend even more time with you. And every second with you is precious to me."

Her face cheered up just a little.

I stood up and started walking towards the edge of the table. "And if I have anything to say about it," I continued, "I'll be spending time with you until we've both grown old."

And with that it was time for me to get back to the rover. One trip down. At least ten more to go.

Brittany's POV

The Marines' sleeping quarters was like a scene from a horror movie. It was dark, forcing Jeanette and I to pull out flashlights. It was essentially a series of long hallways where bunk beds lined up on both walls. The sub-zero temperature had a drastic effect on the place; frost had covered almost everything, from bed sheets and pillows to the wooden desks to the framed pictures and other items on top of those desks. It was haunting to think that this was where an entire squad of people had once slept together, and now they were all dead.

I stopped walking by one of the beds that had caught my eye. I hopped up onto the bottom bunk, and then turned and jumped onto the desk that sat right beside it. On top of it was a framed picture that was kind of hard to make out because of the frost, as well as a pair of dog tags.

"Brittany!" My sister, Jeanette, scolded me. "What're you doing?"

Ignoring her, I picked up the dog tags and shone my light onto them. "Velazquez," I said out loud. I then turned to the picture. I rubbed my forearm on the glass of the frame, trying to wipe away some of the frost. After which, I could make out the picture a lot better. My light revealed a beautiful young woman crouching on a well-kept lawn in front of a pretty but small yellow house. She was posing with a well-built man with a thick beard as well as two young kids. It looked like something out of a catalogue or something.

But which one of these two was the Marine? I thought to myself. Having to know, I opened up the drawer below me.

"That's enough!" Jean protested again. "You can't go digging through dead peoples' things, Brit."

I rolled my eyes. "I just have to know if 'T. Velazquez' was a guy or a girl. That's not disrespectful, is it?"

She looked unsure as I began shuffling through the clothes in the drawer. At first it was hard to tell, as the clothes looked pretty unisex. I finally checked one of the tags, which said "women's medium" on it. That settled it.

But as I carefully set the shirt down, I was surprised when my hand hit something hard with a clank. There was something underneath her folded clothes. Confused, I began digging through the drawer until I finally got to the very bottom. "Uh oh," I said.

"What is it?" Jeanette asked.

"Looks like Mrs. Velazquez had a little bit of a drinking problem," I said smugly as I attempted to lift the fifth of Crown Royal whiskey that I had just found.

Jeanette scoffed at me. "That's it. Stop this right now! We've got work to do."

I shrugged and closed the drawer, after which I hopped down onto the floor where Jeanette stood impatiently.

We moved on, eventually making it out of the sleeping quarters and into the armory. The weapon stash itself was locked behind a large wall of solid steel mesh that had a gate smack in the middle that required a key. Fortunately, there was an opening underneath the gate that was just tall enough for us to crawl under. Once we were on our feet inside of the stash, my sister looked back at the mesh wall thoughtfully. I could see the gears inside her head turning.

"What is it?" I asked her.

"I wonder if we could move this mesh somehow. Like in front of the sentry guns?"

I looked at her in confusion. "How the hell are we supposed to do that?"

"Not sure yet," she said quietly, obviously in deep thought. "I think it could come in real handy, though."

After a few seconds of staring at the edges of the huge mesh wall, she finally turned my way and tried to change the subject.

"Have you thought of any names for the baby?"

I was still a little uncomfortable talking about this, but I figured I might as well go along. "No, not really. I figured that would kind of be a group effort." I forced a chuckle as I was obviously referring to Alvin.

She raised an eyebrow at me. "Have you spoken to him about all of this?"

"N-no not really," I said nervously. "I think it's something we both kinda want to avoid. At least until we get back to Earth." I paused for a moment before saying, "that is, if we get back to Earth."

"I don't want to hear that kind of talk," Jeanette huffed. "Avoiding the subject isn't going to solve anything. And pretending it's not even there is worse."

This struck a bad cord with me. "Who are you, my mother?"

"I…" she was clearly taken aback by how harsh I was. "I'm just trying to help, Brit. You're going to start showing soon. And I think you should try to take it easy as much as possible."

I looked down at where my stomach was, imagining this already uncomfortable Mars suit becoming even tighter and less comfortable as the baby inside of me grew. I finally looked back up at my sister and pointed a warning finger at her. "We're dropping this," I said sternly.

She rolled her eyes. "Fine."

We then began searching around the armory for a bit. It was pretty well organized, but it was still tough to find what we were looking for. Everything in there was designed for a full-grown human being and wasn't much used to us. We were after one specific thing though.

Finally, Jeanette piped up from the section across from me: "I found it!"

I dropped what I was looking at and ran over to her. She was standing right next to a pile of boxes, each one as big as the two of us combined. They each had in big bolded letters the words, "SENTRY GUN AMMO".

Will our favorite Chipmunk crew get the Omortson base back up and running? Will they be able to hide out or will they be discovered? Will Brittany and Alvin finally come to grips with their parenthood? Will ANY of them make it back to Earth Alive?

Stay tuned to find out! Thanks so much for bearing with me this far… I promise the payoff will be worth it!

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'Till I hit ya with the next chapter, I hope you have a great rest of your day!