Milky Way Legends: Episode 2: Mars

A story about human frailty in our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

 

       Milky Way Legends

       Episode 2: Mars

       By: Daniel T Hayes

       

2014: New Year’s Day: 29 Palms

 

A nuclear war has decimated the global human population.  Most major cities and suburbs are destroyed. After two years beneath a global cloud layer, the earth’s greenhouse effects are widespread. Endless deserts and vast jungles cover the earth. The population stands at around a million.

A marine base in 29 Palms also managed to survive, taking on the dual role of primitive hospital and orphanage to the displaced people in the area. The children, the orphans that arrived on the first day of January, were all renamed Lisa and Buzz, with a number after their name signifying only the order of their arrival. There were over a hundred children admitted in the first week following the explosions. Now there are thousands, a small city trapped in a dying yucca forest.

 

2014: January 6: 2 orphans

 

One brisk morning, a Navajo woman came walking out of the desert and into the waiting room of the 29 Palms Volunteer Peacekeeper Hospital(VPH), adjacent to the 29 Palms Peacekeeper Militia Barracks(PMB). Although she was badly burned from radiation sickness, the two babies she carried in her arms were unharmed. After various attempts at non-verbal communication, the volunteers ascertained that both of the children were foundlings. The woman did not live through the night. The babies were given names, Lisa 28 and Buzz 19, and a new home among the other survivors.   

There were five buildings left standing after the attacks, and the three outlying structures were being used for temporary housing. The former airship hangars were spacious, and the tall ceilings gave the impression of being outside. The half-functioning safety lights above crackled and twinkled on and off like stars in the sky, reminding the people below of a quieter time.    

 

2034. May 9^th: Alienation

 

Buzz had grown cold and distant in the last ten years. There was no one to talk to who was interested in discussing the practical application of quantum mechanics on solar cell capacity. And Lisa, who he had been best friends with as kids, seemed more interested in talking about herself than discussing the finer points of using radio astronomy to find pulsars and comet tails. 

He left a note in her mailbox. He didn’t want to give her a chance to talk him out of it. He often took a pack horse with plenty of food and water into the desert hills above the base to be alone.  But this time he wasn’t coming back.  

Today his destination was the southernmost tip of the Joshua Tree Badlands. He had to be far enough away from the VPH to avoid any extra light that might blur his telescope. He also didn’t want to get any interference from their radios when he scanned the skies for sound waves and other audio phenomena. He had been coming out here for over a decade, ever since his 10^th birthday when Lisa and he snuck out of the barracks. 

 

 

I liked Lisa back then, when she liked to get into trouble with me.

Better start setting up my observation center… 

 

2032: May 10^th, the next day

 

A repeating pattern! Deciphering the code…plotting the destination…  

It’s coming from Mars! What strange chirping sounds are these? It almost sounds like a bee, but no, there’s a little hiss…fascinating…a language?   

 

Buzz looked around, as if someone might be watching. He rested himself against his pack, listening in his headphones to this new and strange sound. He had been up all night and thought he might have been dreaming. 

He soon deciphered the “language”, although he wasn’t sure how. It just sort of started making sense. He sat down and began typing in as much as he could into his pocket computer.   

The information kept coming and coming, and Buzz was having trouble keeping up with the flood. He was fascinated by the origins of who was sending the transmissions. 

They were an ancient race of beings that had been travelling through space for eons, without the aid of space ships.  They used subtle currents of radiation found throughout deep space to glide from one planet to another like intergalactic flying squirrels. The Nox’iar, as they called themselves, lived throughout the universe, often settling within asteroid fields for their rich mineral content, a food source. That was where the Martians found the oldest Nox’iar colony in the galaxy. 

From the start, they viewed the Martians as a nuisance. Arriving in their gleaming ships, full of questions and probes, the Martians invaded every aspect of Nox’iar life. The Nox’iar did whatever they could to encourage the Martians to leave, giving the Martians an all access pass to what little culture they had.    

But the Martians didn’t leave. Once they had what they needed, their sinister intention became known: they would use the Nox’iar’s ancient exoskeletons as host bodies for their souls(only the Nox’iar soul dies, the body lives on to be re-inhabited by a new Nox’iar entity). In a matter of days, the entire Saturn colony was enslaved. 

The Nox’iar are now trapped within the lava tubes of Mars, requiring a human essence to set them free!

The transmission concluded and Buzz looked up from his desk. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. He had been awake now for almost two days.

The moon is new. I bet you can see all sorts of stars out tonight…

Buzz took his headphones off and stood up, stretching his arms. He exited his tent and sat outside on one of the many boulders that filled the Joshua Tree Badlands.

I must find a way to help the Nox’iar that are trapped on Mars.  They could teach me their wisdom. I could use that knowledge to help humanity regain its greatness…

 

2034. July 4^th

 

“I can’t believe I came out here looking for him,” Lisa said to a Joshua tree over 25 feet next to her. 

Only a few of the big ones survived the blasts, it provides nice shade in this heat. Did I really have to leave the air conditioning? But what else was I going to do? The hangars are filled with orphans and refugees…even after the balcony additions.

There’s no room for anyone anymore, and he’s the only one I can have a normal conversation with. I had hoped that someday…well…

I don’t care if his mood tends toward the broody side. There is nothing for me back there. No one else is like me, understands me…

The familiar rumbling and shaking of another earthquake interrupted her thoughts. Most of the American Southwest was filled with new faults following the war, when the earthquakes became a common occurrence. This earthquake was different.  

“Hmmm…” Lisa said, bending down to feel the earth.

What’s going on? The dirt feels soft and porous, much more humid than normal...I better find Buzz soon…

 

Lisa continued through the labyrinth of boulders that made up the majority of the Badlands. The afternoon was eventless.

Do I consider jack rabbits and lizards events? The sun is beginning to set.

Where did you run off to Buzz? 

Just another night of one-eyed sleep with radiated dogs circling the camp fire I guess- 

A figure emerged from the spiny Yucca forest. He was thin and a bit pale, but his smile was intact. Buzz had a backpack filled with climbing gear and was sweating profusely beneath the late afternoon sun.

 

“Sup’ Liz,” he said.

“There you are. I had to spend last night fighting wild dogs and scorpions!” Lisa said.

“Nothing you couldn’t handle, I’m sure. So are you ready to help? That earthquake unearthed an important ancient site. I’m on my way to check it out,” Buzz responded.

“I don’t think that was an earthquake. I’m not sure why I know it-” Lisa began.

“How come it took you so long to come find me? Were you helping HIM treat his patients?” Buzz said, changing the topic abruptly.

“D****t Buzz, you know it’s not like that! I just thought I could be part of the solution for a change, you know?” Lisa said, feeling cornered.

 

Please don’t be mad at me! I couldn’t just take off like that; I had responsibilities…kind of. But you wouldn’t understand that, would you? Always such a loner, never wanting to help anyone but yourself…

 

“Whatever… let’s just get up to the cave,” Buzz replied.

 

Neither of them talked on the way to cave site. It was like that sometimes, each lost in their own thoughts, but somehow, together in their loneliness, it helped.

 As they neared the new cave, Buzz turned to Lisa in a serious tone.

 

“I’ve received…transmissions. There is so little time to talk before the transference…” Buzz said.  

“Wait, what are you talking about? Transmissions from whom? And what’s transference?” Lisa said pointedly, climbing up onto the rock pile as she talked.

“A race known as the Nox’iar were responsible for intelligent life here on Earth,” Buzz said, peering over the edge of the mouth of the cave. He continued telling Lisa what he had learned while he unloaded his pack and laid out his climbing gear:

“They watched the asteroid approach and decimate the earth when the dinosaurs were living here. They watched while we blew ourselves up with nuclear bombs. They hope that we will learn how to be more peaceful,” he explained, almost ready to descend into the cave.

“Wow, that’s a lot to swallow. So what are they like?” Lisa replied, still fidgeting with her gear.

“Who?” Buzz replied, surprisingly vague.

“The aliens, what do they look like?” Lisa asked. 

“Are you ready or not?” Buzz said, tightening the last strap to his harness.

 

Seems like a reasonable question to me.

“Let’s go, you lead the way,” was all Lisa said.

As Buzz disappeared over the edge of the boulder, Lisa slowly let out the rope. Then she noticed an interesting marking on one of the boulders close to Buzz.

“Hey, what’s that?” Lisa said, pointing.

“Wha-? it looks like painting of a bird or something,” Buzz replied.

The more Lisa focused on the “bird”, the clearer it became. Almost as if her thoughts were focusing the image clearer and clearer. It was a prostrate creature outlined in fire; just then Lisa felt a warm rush of energy shoot through her body. Her grip on the rope briefly let up.

“Hey! What’s going on up there?” Buzz said, losing his footing.

“Sorry!  I was just noticing the creature on the wall and…” Lisa stopped herself. It looked like a skeletal phoenix. She started to have this strange sense of déjà vu, like she had seen all this before.

I feel super wonky. Buzz is probably as in the dark as I am. Yet I’m not completely in the dark, am I? 

Just then, Buzz hit bottom.

“I’m there!” Buzz said, switching on his headlamp and scanning the chamber.

“Alright, hold on, I’m coming down,” Lisa shouted down as she climbed over the edge into the blackness.

 

The hole that had opened up could not have been more than thirty feet deep, but the pitch blackness had made it appear much deeper. As Lisa’s feet touched the ground, she scanned around her. The walls were filled with ancient murals.  

     This is kinda’ cool, and I feel better now. Like I’m supposed to be here and everything will be okay.

 

“Look at these walls and all these primitive cave paintings!” Lisa exclaimed, trying to figure out what was going on in them. 

Lisa thought they were just primitive prehistoric etchings, as she had seen pictographs like this before in the areas around the VPM. But these were done in a different style and had subject matter without hunters and animals. It was a depiction of Mars and the solar system. The 8 planets were all there, Earth as well.

“You stay here and see what you can figure out, I want to check up this tunnel, there should be more than just cave paintings in here,” Buzz ordered.

Buzz started to feel his body hum as the alien within him slowly took control. The only outward hint of his metamorphosis was a new metallic glint in his eyes. No longer blue and white, his eyes became a solid metallic dark green.  

“How ya’ doin' in there?” Buzz yelled from down the cavern, his voice taking on a monotone pitch, making his words sound robotic.

“I think it’s some sort of history depicted on the cave wall!” Lisa yelled back, not noticing Buzz’s voice.

The paintings must be about Martians! Buzz was right!

With this new revelation, the mural began to make more sense. The Martians were one of the first to travel the galaxy. However, they preferred to stay in their own solar system, mostly Earth and Mars. 

There planet had deteriorated over billions of years; almost no oxygen left and limited gravity, Mars was a giant wasteland of impact craters and dust storms. The Martians had already searched the galaxy and had found no suitable planet capable of supporting them.     

They found an answer with the Nox’iar. A barely humanoid species first discovered living in Saturn’s rings. 

Of course! The paintings I saw on the way down. But here… on earth?

The Martians didn’t quite understand how the creatures survived in deep space, but they knew that the Nox’iar didn’t need air to live or gravity to hold their unpressurized bodies together. The Martians also didn’t know how evil the Nox’iar would become once the Martians had transferred their souls into their bodies…   

 

“Buzz, I think you misunderstood who the bad guys are,” Lisa said to herself, feeling a new power pulsate through her body. 

“No, I didn’t,” a monotone voice coming from behind her said. At the bugs feet were Buzz’s torn up clothes and climbing harness.

Lisa felt something pierce her back. She looked down at her belly and saw a giant insect claw pointing up at her. She smiled. She pulled herself off the claw and turned around to face the beast.

“I know you’re not Buzz anymore…and…I am not Lisa, am I?” she said to the Nox’iar, understanding crossing her face. 

The alien struck at her with a second claw, but Lisa nimbly dodged and in one sideways chop severed the claw from the beast’s body. 

The Martian soul within you protects your human form from most physical attacks and enhances your strength and agility.

The Nox’iar screamed a high pitched chirp and lunged at Lisa with its remaining two claws outstretched. She leapt into the air at the Nox’iar with incredible force and locked herself in a death grip with the creature. Then, abruptly, the Nox’iar hesitated, and Lisa’s mind flashed with foreign thoughts:

Yes! Lisa? Kill this thing! I’m trapped-

Buzz? How did you get in my head?

No time to talk… the darkness…kill it/me!

Lisa immediately put her fist through the Nox’iar’s greenish black head, and then punched her fist through the abdomen, spilling the guts onto the cave floor. The remaining shell slumped over, lifeless.

It is time for you to know. But first, we must get to the ship. We have a long journey ahead of us.

Lisa walked down the cave towards where Buzz had been working. She boarded the space ship and sat down at the helm.

“Hmm, looks like I’ll need to adjust the seat a little,“ Lisa said and turned the ship on.

 

2037: July 5th

 

Lisa didn’t question the voice inside her head. It was confident. It was ancient. As she sped past the moon, Lisa listened to the story:

Billions of years ago, during what Earth scientists have named the Hadean period, Earth was covered in volcanoes and great oceans of gas. Rainforests, glaciers, and oceans, however, covered Mars. But Martians, like all beings in the universe, were still prisoners to the forces of space and time, and as the planet’s twin moons drifted further and further away, the tides ceased to rise and fall. The planet’s rotation speed was also cut in half, changing the seasonal weather patterns and reducing the gravity field surrounding Mars.    

It was a difficult time to be a Martian. Earth had not yet developed enough to support life more complex than bacteria. The closest planet with enough oxygen was over a hundred light years away and inhabited. 

The “solution” was found in the Nox’iar, a race of intelligent bug creatures that had been discovered living among the asteroid fields of Saturn. These humanoid-insects flew around the asteroids, feeding off minerals and using small currents of solar radiation to glide like flying squirrels from asteroid to asteroid. Not only could the Nox’iar survive Mars’ radiated surface, but they also were telepathic. 

The Martian mind had evolved the telepathic ability early on in the planet’s history as a way to prevent wars and settle disputes. However, they had never known any other species to have this ability. After a few hundred years of experimentation, Martian scientists had figured out a way to use the Nox’iar as a “soul vessel” for the Martians. They called it that because it felt like all you took with you after the transference was your soul. One minute you were looking at your six fingers, the next you had sprouted a pair of bug wings.

However, in addition to an exoskeleton, we also found ourselves sharing the brain. At first, we thought it was just our own conscience, a little voice in our heads telling us what we did was wrong. Then some of us started having other ideas, like killing off the remaining Martians. 

The Soul Wars lasted over two hundred years, but in the end, the Nox’iar exterminated most of the remaining Martians. Those of us who were already transferred were able to live on within the beasts, quietly waiting until the time was right.

The first manned mission to Mars took place in 2011. It was there that I transferred my essence to the astronaut/billionaire Tiberius St James, and rode back to earth. The first thing I noticed was that there was no conflict between his earthly soul and my Martian soul. His thoughts were content to ignore mine, never questioning the extra information. 

He impregnated his wife in January of 2012, and their daughter was born nine months later. Tiberius, his wife Veronica, and there daughter almost escaped the devastation in their space shuttle, but a small meteor shower managed to breach Earth’s atmosphere and rip through their cockpit like a shotgun blast through rice paper. Tiberius and Veronica were killed instantly. The ship’s autopilot engaged, and sealed off the remaining compartments. The shuttle crashed near 29 Palms, and that was where the Navajo woman found you/us. 

I called out telepathically, and she answered. 

Lisa, amidst the rubble of your parent’s house, burnt badly from radiation, she took us to the orphanage at the old marine base…

Lisa let the information wash over her like a cold bucket of water as the space ship flew through space towards Mars. 

I am curious about one thing, though. How did a Nox’iar manage to invade Buzz’s body?

A side effect of the Martian transference, I believe. This ability in the hands of the Nox’iar is troubling: Buzz’s fragile human form would not have survived long. The Nox’iar must have made the transfer in the last few days. But without a space ship, the journey from Mars to Earth would take as many as ten years for the average Nox’iar. It is one of the many things we must discuss with the others when we arrive…  

 

2037: July 9th

 

After only a few days, Mars looked like a big red rock in the ship’s viewing display. Lisa orbited the planet and soon found the craters that marked the entrance to the lava tubes. Without a second thought, she piloted her ship into the darkness.

With only the faint glow of starlight penetrating the darkness, Lisa’s eyes took a while to focus. The first thing she noticed was the magnitude of the lava tube network. 

So many possibilities. Where do all these tunnels go? I could spend a lifetime down here just mapping the area. 

Indeed you could. These tunnels extend throughout the planet, to some places not even my people have explored...

Eventually Lisa arrived at their destination. The landing pad was built into the side of the main cave she had flown down. It was well lit with electric light, and astronauts...

I recognize that guy. He’s Yoshi Norito, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut that was on the first mission to Mars! 

They are all there, except your father. We never expected a meteor shower to break through the Earth’s protective atmosphere.   

The first thing Lisa noticed about the cave was that she could breathe. She was told that there was an underground system of lakes and rivers that had recently been formed as a result of the planet’s heating. However, it would be at least two hundred years before anything could be done about the Nox’iar…         

 

2236: October 30: The Milky Way

The light-drive is no longer science fiction. After two hundred years, humans have explored the Milky Way galaxy and established relations with the other intelligent life forms living there. Other beings have no interest in what Earth is doing, and view it as more of an annoyance than anything.

    

2237: August 22: Company Exploratory Mission (C.E.M.)

Day 3: The Agriculturist

 

It has been three days now since the ship crashed into the bottom of Valles Marineris, one of the largest rift valleys on Mars. Most of the crew did not survive the impact, and the rest were killed during the sandstorm last night.

Everyone knows about Mars. The Milky Way Intelligent Life Commission Organization (pilots call it Ma’ Wilco for short) had decided, after more than a hundred years of analysis and exploration, that the red planet had not, in fact, ever supported life more complex than bacteria and simple plants. 

     This particular mission was funded by the Company, an organization determined to find another tourist port like the wildly successful Infinite Oceans complex beneath the frozen surface of Europa. Everyone on this mission was here for the big pay and easy terms. 

My job was simple: accompany a team of surveyors and Company men to Mars, find a suitable spot for a new tourist complex, and report on the feasibility of setting up a hydro-fusion plant in the ice trapped beneath the surface.

     No one lives on Mars. It is common knowledge that the thin atmosphere is toxic to all the intelligent species of the Milky Way; but what emerged from Mars’ violently shifting sands last night was no species I’ve ever read about.

     It arrived just before dawn and cut through the air just above the sand, reducing the surviving members of our crew to shreds in minutes. It had four oddly shaped skeletal wings projecting from the main torso.

Maybe it uses those to keep itself stationary. 

It was travelling faster than the naked eye could follow; a sinister black-green blur shooting across the surface, silhouetted against the faint red glow of the rift valley walls.  

     The discovery of a new life-form would be worth a lifetime of paydays! Too bad the ship is destroyed and there is less than a week’s worth of food and water in my survival suit. 

And the humidity levels near the volcanoes are incredible! Perhaps I can capture some of the moisture with my suit to buy me some time while I wait for rescue.

    

The rift valleys of Mars are some of the most impressive in the solar system. Virtual reality farmers visit Mars once a year when Mars is furthest from Sol 1 to cultivate footage of the dramatic colors and topographical phenomena that occur when the planet is wrapped in extreme cold.  

 One thing these farmers record is the way sunlight warms the air on the slopes of the volcano near the beginning of winter. This warm air causes huge dust storms to billow out from the tops of the calderas. They spiral up the volcanic slope, gathering momentum and particles until rising above the rim of the volcano, and then disintegrate into the atmosphere. The storms are big enough that passing ships can see them from outer orbit.

Although there are no tracks to follow, it seems likely that the creature would live somewhere underground. I’ll check the unexplored cave systems at the base of Arsia Mons first. 

 

2237: August 23: C.E.M.

Day 4: Two Heads

 

The human won’t see me as long as the volcanoes continue their steam eruptions. 

He should have stayed near his ship. He won’t last long sitting there. Should I kill him like I did the others? I will contact the captain; he will know what to do.     

“You won’t be telling your captain anything, bug!” Lisa yelled, appearing suddenly behind the Guardian.

With one downward slice of her sword, Lisa split the creature in two. As two halves of the body lay in the Martian dust, Lisa watched in silence. They twitched, kicking up tiny dust clouds and left an angel-shaped impression in the sand.

It won’t be long now. The others will be boarding their ships.

“All clear at the mouth of the cave. I am heading to the rendezvous point now,” Lisa spoke into her helmet.

“Roger. Out.” A human voice responded.

“And you,” Lisa said, pointing at the agriculturist walking towards her, “What’s your name?”

“Wesley.” The agriculturist eyed Lisa suspiciously.

“Who are you, Company black ops?” Wesley asked.

Lisa laughed.

“You’d better come with me. Leave your survival suit, though, the Guardians will think you’re dead.   Put this on, it will protect your skin from the radiation and allow you to breathe Mars’ air,” Lisa said, handing Wesley a thin suit of a strange fabric he had never seen before.  

“I’ll explain everything on the way,” Lisa said, heading towards her ship.

 

2237: August 25 C.E.M.

Day 5: Evidence

 

“Look here,” a VR farmer said to his cyborg.  

“There is still enough oxygen, water, and sustenance in here for at least a week, ‘wonder why someone would just leave it here in the open?” he held up the suit and inspected it.

“It appears as if he just took it off and walked away,” the cyborg replied.

 

2237: August 25th C.E.M. Day 5.5: Training day

 

“All right, do exactly as I say and we should have the impressions before lunchtime,” a VR farmer named Willie said to his cyborg trainee.

“Look at that vista in front of us. Take these sensors and place them along the grid points I’ve uploaded into your brain. Do not deviate from the course points. Activate the heat dispersers after the last sensor has been placed. Release the aurora gas. Take impressions at mile intervals to make sure the gas collects all the image matrices. 

Send results back to me only if there is a problem. Collect all the sensors. Replace the sensors with VR recorders, making sure the connectors attach to the aurora cloud. Send results after each recorder is in place. Confirm record viability with standard beam protocol. Patrol perimeter of harvest for contamination, report any contaminant immediately. 

Wait for me to beam completion code, and then collect the VR recorders. Collect the aurora gas and filter for contaminants. Return to the ship and await further orders.”

“Affirmative,” the cyborg replied.

When the trainee had finished his work, the farmer and he met back at the ship.

“The second part of all this is just as important,” Willie explained.

“Sit down here in this seat here. Transfer each session separately into the microverse generator. Watch this display for any aberrations. Stop transfer immediately if this blue light goes off. Organize the sessions within the microverse so that each progression is linear and free of paradox. Run the finished progressions through the dream filters. 

Allow the progressions to bounce around in the filters for a while; you’ll know they are ready when this console turns green. Use the fuzzy grabber to pluck the fresh memories from the filters, and seal them in the cortex cells you see there. Take all the cells to the psionic chamber and store them with the rest. Return here when you are done.”

     “Affirmative,” the cyborg replied once more. 

 

2237: August 26: Weakness
 

     In his twenty five years of VR farming, Willie had never had a day like yesterday.
     First, as his ship was orbiting Mars, he noticed the entire region of Tharsis Montes was more active than he had ever seen it.  All three volcanoes were ejecting gargantuan clouds of steam into the atmosphere. Willie also observed that the planets humidity had risen 4 gig-points.  Although this was still well below what was necessary for carbon life forms, Willie was sure it would have some significance to Ma’ Wilco scientists. And then, as the ship neared the landing site near Arsia Mons, the most active of the volcanoes, they noticed the burnt tracks of a crashed ship. 

It was a Company ship.  Company ships never crashed, and they were never seen on backwater planets like Mars.  The Company was not involved in VR farming, a practice they considered “a step towards the devolution of humanity”.   A quick scan of the crash site revealed no survivors, which was also strange, considering the ship was intact except for some holes in the wings and fuselage.  Willie figured it got hit with one of the rogue meteor showers that had been circling the Sol 1 system lately.
     The discovery of the abandoned survival suit at the base of Arsia Mons pulled it all together for Willie like a kitten with a ball of yarn: 

A human could not survive without a survival suit on Mars.  Company ships did not crash.  Mars’ volcanoes were never this active.  These thoughts ran through Willie’s head as he monitored his cyborg’s progress through the viewer.

     Willie then noticed that the VR sensors were registering purity levels as high as 97%.  Those were as high as on Ganymede! Willie re-checked his sensors, hardly believing his eyes.

     He immediately contacted his ship to let Stretch know they would be going back to Ursula 2 early. 
     But Stretch was not answering.  Then he smiled; as usual, his pilot was asleep.  No need to wake him, he would hear the good news soon enough.

     After about a few hours, Willie started to notice the air in the valley filling with mist. Willie then checked the oxygen sensor on his suit, and impossible as it seemed, it was reading high enough for human. 

He waited another hour or so, checking the oxygen level meter on his arm console every five minutes. He decided to take his helmet off, even for only a few minutes.

I wonder what Mars smells like?

     As Willie slowly undid the helmet of his suit, a dark blur appeared on the horizon. Willie didn’t notice it because he was too busy with his helmet. It was a Guardian Nox’iar, intent on following orders. The Nox’iar, however, were not mindless aliens intent on destruction. They were true believers in their quest to be left alone. 

     It seems the humans have always been stumbling onto this or that throughout the galaxy. Just like the Martians, never content to stay in one place. This VR farmer just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

     With Willie’s helmet finally off, he took a deep breath of the moist Mars air. It was his last. The Guardian’s twin claws decapitated the VR farmer in an instant.  The Guardian paused to observe the headless body twitching in the sand.

     Weakness. They all have it.   

2237: August 27: Escape

     Lisa and Wesley were the last to arrive at the rendezvous point within the caldera complex atop Olympus Mons. Large clouds of steam were everywhere, providing cover for the seven space ships and there crew, the six surviving members of the first manned mission to Mars. Within their bodies were the souls of the last six Martians in the universe. They would tell their story to Ma’ Wilco once they made it off the planet and make sure the Nox’iar were banished from Mars forever.

     The group assembled didn’t know how long the steam would last, or how long before the geysers of water would take to arrive from underground. They knew they had to leave soon to fly undetected through the Nox’iar’s scanners. If they could make it to outer space, they knew the hard part would be over.

     The seven ships slowly emerged from the cloud layer atop Olympus Mons, plotting their destinations into their light drive computers. They were all going to different points in the galaxy, to make sure the word got out. 

Lisa noticed the attackers first.

     The Guardians had seen them! Hundreds of Nox’iar warrior class veterans raced up the sides of Olympus Mons. The Nox’iar could not actually fly, but they could glide effectively enough. Using Mars’ gravity and radiation, their speed was comparable to a space ship when close to the surface. 

The Guardians hurled themselves at tremendous speed from the peaks of Olympus Mons towards the escaping ships. Once airborne, the Nox’iar had only limited control, but it was enough.

     One by one, the Nox’iar managed to hit or attach to each ship. The captains, all experienced astronauts, tried to roll and bank to throw them off, but the Nox’iar’s’ claws dug right into the metal hulls, making them unshakeable. 

     One managed to attach to Lisa’s ship. Giving the controls to Wesley, Lisa put on the gravity boots and grabbed her sword. The Nox’iar was ready for her at the airlock opening, grabbing her with one of his claws and flinging her into space. 

     Lisa quickly switched her boots on and shot back towards the ship. The Nox’iar wasn’t expecting this, and was already entering the ship. With a loud thud, Lisa’s feet hit the ship. 

     “Lisa! Are you okay out there?” Wesley said, turning around in his seat.

     Only one left. Soon we will be alone once again.

     “Oh no, It’s inside the shi-“ Wesley screamed as a claw stretched toward him.

     But the claw never made it. Lisa’s sword sliced the armored claw in two. The Nox’iar turned in surprise, only to be grabbed and thrust hard against the ship’s deck.    Dazed, the bug’s antennae waved around desperately, trying to balance itself. Lisa raised her sword above the torso, and brought it straight down into the monster.

     “Thanks,” Wesley said softly, eyes wide and staring blankly at the dead bug.

     “It’s kind of my thing, you know?” Lisa responded with a smile.

     He’s an attractive male of your species.

     He sure is. Do you think he was impressed when I killed that nasty bug?

     I am sure of it.

     2038: March 1^st: Ma’ Wilco   

     Lisa and Wesley contact Ma’ Wilco and a galactic peacekeeping force is sent to Mars to help negotiate with the Nox’iar…

     ************************************************

To be continued in the next episode of Milky Way Legends: Episode 3: Saturn