Boot camp sucks while you're there, but you look back on it fondly. Highly recommend it. Anyway, next subject.

For those of you still out there who were following this story as well as those of you who have never seen or heard of it, I put an insane amount of effort into making this the most thrilling chapter yet. If you're interested, please catch yourself up by reading the previous chapters. You won't be disappointed.

After that long wait, back to the story!

Chapter 22: Backs to the Wall

Jeanette's POV

With one hand clutching my shoulder as tightly as possible, I sprinted my sweaty self as I followed Alvin, who led the way with little confidence. All four of us were hustling, pursued by what sounded like every Martian in the entire mountain. My muscles felt physically squished, my body felt breathless, and the air in my Mars suit tasted thin and was only getting worse.

None of us had a weapon. Or any way to defend ourselves at all. "Don't look back, baby!" I heard Theo encourage Eleanor behind me.

Without warning, Alvin skidded and took a sharp left. I almost overshot the turn as the other two caught up to me and began to run side by side with me. Air was erupting out of the hole in my shoulder as I went, gasping. I was almost out of time.

Alvin continued to lead us, slowing down periodically to look over his shoulder and make sure we hadn't fallen behind. Neither of the other three of us dared look back, as it sounded like the Martians were literally on our asses. Alvie waved us on, encouraging us, pointing around a quick divet in the tunnel. We sped past him, as he allowed himself to be the last one around it. We took one look at what we were suddenly surrounded by and collectively gasped. It was the nest, but it wasn't like we last saw it. Smoke fogged up the whole place, as the charred remains of alien eggs smoldered and sat scattered around the ground in blackened pieces.

Alvin was the last one inside and, knowing there was no time to lose, ran right past us without missing a beat. We all followed him through the piles of smelly burnt shells and rocks, charging ahead as we made our way towards the ditch. Alvin was the first one there, as he slid effortlessly over the edge into the bottom. Followed clumsily by Theo and Ellie. All three instantly turned around and worked together to help me down.

The second my boots hit the red dusty ground, we all ducked and crawled under the base of the mountain and poked our heads out the other side. It was day, although it was difficult to tell. Dust clouds hung overhead, spread throughout the entire sky from horizon to horizon. The wind was ferocious, picking up red dirt in miniature tornadoes that were spread out through the entire landscape. Mars went from looking bright and vividly red to grey and brown.

The ship was just a few dozen yards or so from where we stood, gazing up and down in amazement at this gigantic white and blue metal spacecraft. In design, it looked almost identical to the Caesar except on a much bigger scale. Clearly designed for humans. As I stared with my jaw loose I thought to myself, "how in the hell am I gonna fly this thing out of here?"

"Come on!" Alvin called out to us as he pulled himself up over the edge with a hop.

Snapping out of our trance, we all followed suit, and in a dusty red frenzy we struggled out of the ditch and began an all out sprint for the ship.

With a sudden gust of wind and heat and the ground-shaking noise of a huge combustion, the engines of the American space ship came to life. Brittany saw us coming.

I held my shoulder tighter than ever before as I ran, trying not to swing either arm as much as possible. An alarm began going off through my helmet: "WARNING! OXYGEN LEVELS BELOW ONE PERCENT! WARNING! OXYGEN LEVELS BELOW ONE PERCENT!" I took one last deep breath and decided to hold it the rest of the way. Thin dry Martian dust kicked up behind us as we desperately raced for what was definitely our last hope.

No one dared to look back, even as we came upon the long chain metal ramp that lead up to the cargo bay. All we could do was climb for our lives. And that we did, ignoring pain, dehydration, exhaustion, and the heat inside of our Mars suits. I knew my time was almost up. But it couldn't be, Simon told me it wasn't my time yet. I couldn't prove him wrong, I just couldn't. I was determined that I was going to make it out of this.

Alvin was the first one to the top of the ramp and into the hangar bay, and he instinctively hopped up onto a piece of pipe directly underneath a blue button and waited for the rest of us to make it up. Theodore was the next one inside, followed closely by his love, Ellie. I was a good few paces behind them, panting with every step I took, forcing my physically worn out legs to keep moving until I finally stumbled and fell forward into the cargo bay with a skid.

Alvin wasted no time in hitting the button, prompting the giant ramp to lift itself off the ground and begin filling in as an airtight door to the cargo bay. Just before it was completely closed, my suit hit zero percent. The alarms got louder, as everything began to get colder. My ears throbbed and my head pounded. As soon as the door shut, the whole cargo bay area began to oxygenate with thick jets of steam gushing in from all different corners. My heart was racing, I was so cold I felt like I was gonna pass out. My vision was getting blurry. Finally, the steam stopped as I desperately grabbed at my helmet and began twisting until it finally came off with a pressurized pop that sounded like the uncorking of a wine bottle. Finally exposed to real air, I rolled onto my back and began gasping and choking for air.

Alvin, Eleanor and Theo all crowded around me. "You alright Jean?" Ellie whispered after she also took her helmet off.

As I wheezed and wiggled my fingers and toes to try to warm them up all I could do was struggle to nod.

"We don't have much time," Alvin piped up.

Struggling to maintain my balance, I forced myself onto my feet.

Suddenly, the awful screeching of the Martians made all of our hearts stop beating.

Brittany's POV

The engines were still powering up, and I just wished that I could speed the process up because they could hear it. The whole ship began to vibrate intensely, making it extremely difficult to keep my balance as I literally stood on top of the control board. I tried to guide the stabilizer as the power of the boosters climbed higher and higher, pushing the human-sized lever with all of my might. My breathing became heavy as I struggled, and as the temperature inside of the cockpit rose.

Sweat began forming above my eyebrows as I finally managed to fully throttle the stabilizer. With no time for a breather I immediately rushed over to my actual station; the motherboard computer, to start the autopilot for take off.

"Motherboard!" I yelled over the grumbling of the boosters reaching full power. "Engage autopilot procedure for takeoff!"

The screen took a few long moments to load, before it simply said aloud to me, "Sorry, unable to complete request."

I looked at her, confused. "What?" I decided to try to repeat myself. "Engage autopilot procedure for takeoff!"

"Sorry," she began again.

"GOD DAMN IT!" I screamed over her disgustingly calm voice as she gave me the same exact message she had before.

It gave me the loading screen again as I looked at it in confusion, trying to figure out why she wasn't responding to me. "I'm sorry I can't be more help, Brittany," she said.

My eyes widened. "What?" I squeaked out.

"Would you like me to repeat my last statement?" she said in almost a smug tone.

"N-no!" I retorted.

"Why so upset? Why can't you just accept inevitability?"

"Shut up!" I yelled in a threatening voice, as the engines continued to roar below me.

"I'm afraid this is the end of the line, Brit," she said, ignoring me. "You're going to die on this planet. And although it will take some time, eventually no one, not even your adoptive father, is going to miss you."

My heart sank. NASA was five steps ahead of us.

"You were selfish in your old life. Selfish with your career, with your sisters, with the one who loved you, who fathered the child that's in your belly right at this very moment. You didn't truly care about any one of them, they knew it and you knew it deep down. And now every last one of you is going to die."

I had had enough. With as furious a fist as I could physically summon, I punched the power button, putting a small dent in the keyboard. "Goddammit you bitch!" I screamed at her as the screen loaded for a moment and then powered down into blackness.

We were on our own.

As if on cue, the four others began popping up out of the hatch and into the cockpit. I looked at them all in despair, wanting to cry, knowing I had to give them the news. "Autopilot is secured," I reported, looking at the ground in defeat. "NASA thought of this before we did."

Alvin swallowed nervously before arguing, "then we'll have to pilot this thing ourselves."

"It's the same systems as the Caesar," Jeanette agreed.

"Yes," I said, "except exactly fourteen times the size of the controls we're used to."

Ignoring me, Jeanette turned to the others and commanded, "everybody to your stations! We have zero time to lose!"

Everybody obeyed the order, including me. With no motherboard to sit in front of, I ran my pregnant body over to the main control station, ready to help Jean and Alvin pilot us out of here in any way I could. They were gonna need it.

Eleanor's POV

We were gonna have to manual mode this thing; no autopilot, no cameras, no feedback systems, nothing. Just us five and our training. Jeanette took her place at the helm, front and center. Alvin and Brittany stood by the lever which controlled the vertical boosters. Theodore claimed the starboard thrusters while I took the port thrusters, breathing heavily.

I took one nervous peek out of my side of the cockpit windshield and saw something I didn't want to see: the first few Martians clawing their way out of the tunnels from under the wall of red rock through the ditch.

"Here they come!" I warned Jeanette.

"The boosters aren't warmed up enough yet!" she groaned.

"There's no time!" I yelled as more and more aliens scratched through the ditch and began sprinting towards the ship.

Exhaling through gritted teeth, she turned to Brittany and Alvin and ordered, "Punch it!"

They wasted no time in putting literally all of their strength into pushing the lever forward which was bigger than both of them combined. Through grunts and panting, the lever finally jerked forward way faster than I know for a fact it was designed to. The ship jolted to viciously that it knocked us onto our unbuckled backs and began lifting upwards with intense vibration.

We all picked ourselves up. Almost off the bat, we could feel the ship tilt a bit to the starboard side. Jeannie instinctively grabbed the giant helm and with a long hard grunt she pulled it towards the left until it was corrected. The ship continued to climb in altitude as the vibrations and rocking began to chill out a little bit. But not for long.

Another sudden jolt sent us streaming towards the port side, prompting the collision alarm to go off. "The f-"

But Alvin was interrupted by Captain Jean. "We got one on us. He's probably climbing up our starboard wing."

All I had time to do was put all of my weight into the switch for the port side thrusters, as we were on a collision course with the face of the mountain we had just worked so hard to escape from. The thrusters were on full throttle; I held my breath, having done all I can do. Our hurl towards instant death began to slow as the ship continued to rise towards the sky. The ship strayed so close to the steep red rock that the engines were cooking it and charring it and turning it into black rock. I gritted my teeth, and gripped the panel beneath me, bracing for impact. But it never came.

The thrusters did their job, and the ship began pushing away from the mountain side as it steadily rose through the atmosphere. I took this moment to breath a sigh of relief.

We could faintly see a Martian climbing up the face of the mountain, look over its shoulder, see us slowly floating away, pounce towards us, miss the ship, and fall to his probable death as we were at least a mile high.

"Theodore! Eleanor!" Jeanette barked. "I need you two to be sharp!"

"What's going on?" Theodore croaked.

"It's not good," she replied, shaking her head as she gripped the helm tightly. "All this rocking back and forth, we're being too inefficient. If we don't hold her steady then she won't accelerate fast enough and the boosters could crap out on us."

I gulped and took a strong hold of the thruster switch.

"Theodore when I say port, hit your switch," Jean instructed. "Ellie, when I say starboard, I'm talking to you. You guys got that?"

I said nothing, simply staring intensely out my side of the cockpit, ready to respond to my sister's commands in an instant.

But a red furry paw with razor sharp claws flung itself in a flash into the windshield just inches from my face. I yelped and backed away a bit. The Martian dug its claw into the glass as best it could, creating a faint cracking noise, before struggling to hoist itself up and throw its other paw higher up into the windshield. At this point it could pull itself high enough, despite the extreme force of wind pulling him down, to make eye contact with me. As soon as he did he let out a visibly pissed off howl.

This whole time, Jeanette never flinched. "Starboard Ellie! Just a hair!"

While still staring into the eyes of the alien who was struggling to keep himself in position, I pushed the throttle switch for just a quick moment before I quickly jerked it back.

"Perfect!"

The ship starting shaking again, which could only mean one thing: we were about to leave the atmosphere. And I think the alien could sense it too, as the temperature outside as well as the air density were rapidly dropping, he began to panic. He swung his lower paw behind him and back into the windshield as hard as he could, barely making a dent. Unable to dig his claws in, his top paw began to slip. With a noise that sounded like nails on a chalkboard, he and his lone paw slid slowly down. He paused just long enough to make eye contact with me, unleash one last desperate screech, then lose his grip on the glass altogether and begin his fall back towards the Martian dust.

Alvin's POV

I just wished we could have worn our seat belts. The ship rocked violently as we pushed through the edge of the Red Planet's atmosphere, fighting us every chance we got. The size and power of the thing overwhelmed us, specifically Jeanette, as we did what we could to keep her stable. We were definitely gaining altitude, but were we accelerating fast enough to break into the boundaries of space?

"Hold on tight, Brit!" I yelled to my love as she had both arms wrapped around a handle of the booster lever, doing all she could to stay on her feet through the heat and vibrations.

She lifted her head. Her eyes locked onto mine, and there was a nervous hopefulness in them. What if this was it? We had done it?

As if on cue, the ship began to calm itself and the rocking slowly ceased, and it got a lot quieter to the point where Brittany finally felt safe in letting go of the lever. We all looked around, at each other, out the cockpit windshield. It was almost pitch black outside, with just a faint glow of light bouncing off of the planet below us. We all had wide eyes and shocked expressions, breathing heavily, trying to recover and let our heart rates fall back to normal. A sly smile finally crept across my face as I stared at Brit.

"I told you we'd make it out of there," I whispered.

With tears of joy forming in her eyes, she ran towards me and leaped into my arms, embracing me in a relieved hug. And I squeezed her tightly back. Full on crying into my shoulder, she whispered, "I love you."

"I love you too," I said back, wholeheartedly. It felt like the first time I had said that phrase where I truly knew what it meant.

Theodore and Eleanor met right in front of the helm for their own celebratory hug and kiss.

Jeanette sat, feet dangling awkwardly over the edge, not really acknowledging any of us, pretending she was still recovering as she stared at the huge captain's seat obviously trying to hide the rollercoaster of emotions that were going through her head.

I sighed, scratched the back of my head, and began walking her way with Brittany trailing right behind me. As we approached her she dodged eye contact. I went around her back and stood directly to her right, hovering over her sympathetically. "Jean?" I muttered.

She took a moment to fake a smile and look up at me. "We did it," she responded.

"Yeah, I guess," I said shrugging. "We would all be dead if it weren't for you."

This made her artificial smile disappear. She went right back to staring over the edge of the control board that she was sitting on, eyes fixated on the actual floor of the cockpit. "I wasn't able to save everyone though." She sounded like she was struggling to hold back tears.

I sighed. All choked up, I managed to blurt out, "You still have your sisters, and you still have me and Theo," just as my brother and Ellie walked over to join us.

She took a moment to say anything back, finally muttering, "I just wish it was me instead of him."

"Stop it," I retorted, tears beginning to form in my eyes. "We're going to get justice, Jean. We're going to go back there and make them pay for what they've done. For all the bullshit they put us through. For trying to start a war with Mars. For Simon's death. I hope they are aware that at this very moment, their five worst nightmares are all en route."

Jeanette sighed, stood up, faced the four of us, and threw her arms around me in a hug. The other three quickly joined in, pressing themselves tightly against each other, holding on, thankful for all of us being there alive.

Sorry for the short chapter after a long wait! I just had to get this out to you guys as quickly as possible! And sorry I gave none of you any notice on my early ship out for boot camp but I also basically got no notice.

With that being said, I hope everyone who read this enjoyed it. If you did be SURE to leave a review letting me know what I'm doing well and/or what I need to improve on. Constructive criticism is always welcome. And if you haven't already, please hit the follow/fav button to get notified every time I update.

I'll get the next chapter out ASAP! (No, the story's not over yet…)