City On Mars
As my team and I rushed to the escape pods with the escaping scientists, we saw that the facility's oxygen level was creeping towards zero. "BILL!" said Riva, "We have to split up if we want to make it out alive!" Well, we heard the man. We had no choice but to split up. We all went different directions with roughly a sixth of the scientists and engineers each. We all had to make it to the ships within a narrow time frame.
Allow me to explain what was happening before this all occurred. The scientists and engineers were preparing our ship to fly us to the other side of Mars, in order to establish the foundations of the new homes that were being built there. We already resolved the problem with air, using a filter that scientists are calling MOXIE. Not really sure what it stands for, and I don't particularly care either. Anyways, as we were getting ready, we were promptly attacked by a masked figure, who had six other lackeys with him. We're calling him, "Alchemy". Alchemy attacked us while we were vulnerable, and instigated mass destruction on the facility, and the ships. In simpler words, Alchemy came inside, and blew up the place. Afterwards, we dashed to the escape pods, and flew towards our emergency underground base, where we could send a distress signal, and regroup.
I guess I haven't introduced myself yet. Hi, I'm William (Bill) Gray Chambers, and I've been a part of a six person space life establishment team that's going to take the next big leap in humanity, and make homes for people on Mars. I'm twenty years old, and I have been working this job for 2 years. The other members of my team are Riva, Ike, Luke, Jack, and Morgan. There, now I'm introduced. We can continue with the story.
I was enraged by what Alchemy had done to our facility, our research, our ship, and our chances of making a new settlement on Mars! I mean, who did that guy think he was?
"Hey, I know you're upset, Bill. I am too," said Ike, "But the best we can do is to protect these people while we wait." I guess my anger was too profound. Whoops.
"Well, then what can we do while we wait?" chimed in Riva. "I guess we gotta help these people salvage whatever was in the facility, and try to fix it in this base." replied Jack.
To be fair, it was a pretty big area. I was sure that we could fix up whatever was left of the ship, and MOXIE with what we had in our underground base. We had a cloaking device too that we could set up later. We decided that we could go back to the facility tomorrow, and canvass the area, see if we could find anything useful. Right now, our arduous task was to set up the barrier, provide the necessary power needed for it, and then turn it online. It was a stretch, but we did it. Two points of interest during this period of time: our oxygen was dropping, so occasionally we had to get more, because our MOXIE suits were still inside of the facility (of course Luke kept complaining). The other point being the power generator wasn't turning on, until we saw what was wrong. A plastic fork was lodged inside of the machine. After that hassel, we still needed to figure out the sleeping situation. That was resolved quickly, after Morgan found a switch on the floor when he sat down to take a break from the work. The hidden door led to a panic/sleeping quarters of sorts, with more than enough beds for all of us.
The next morning, the lead scientist, Stephen James, called us to the main atrium.
"Well it's going to be the usual today," said Stephen, "We have some good news, and some bad news. Which would you like to hear first?" In my head I thought, well obviously the bad news first, then we can sugar coat it after with the good news.
"Good news," said Jack. Of course.
"Ok then, the good news is that the power generator has enough power to last us 2 more nights!"
Jack paused for a moment, and then pondered, "Wait, I thought I asked for the good news first."
Everyone laughed at that.
"Well, you'll be glad that's the good news, because the bad news is that all of the power is being directed from other essential power sources, to the power generator. This means that we do not have access to food, water, bathrooms, or the thermostat. It's gonna get real cold down here, real fast."
All of us exchanged expressions, and then Ike said "Alright, we'll go right now. Everyone, suit up!" He said that like we were in a Power Rangers or Voltron episode, or some sort of sci-fi book. We're obviously not in one of those… right? Well anyways, we "suited up", and headed to the facility in one of the functional escape pods. On the way, we discussed how we might get the parts back to the underground base.
"Maybe we can pile up all of our stuff in here?" I said.
"No, this escape pod wouldn't be able to support the weight of all the parts we may find," interjected Riva.
"I think we could all take our own ships, and take the parts back in our ships, and we could even connect our comms, " suggested Morgan.
"I think that's a wonderful idea," supported Jack, "The only thing being, what do we do if our comms stop working?"
"We could all regroup back at the base if anything goes wrong, but if the facility is nearby we could get as many parts as we can, and then head back to the base," said Ike, "We'd give each person roughly… 20-30 mins, any more and we'd go looking for them, to make sure they're okay. We should also maintain a two-way road type of deal, just to be even more safe."
And just like that, we were at the facility.
"Okay, well I guess our game plan right now is to salvage all of the usable parts. Emphasis on the usable," I explained.
"Alright!" they all said in unison.
This was the hardest part of our journey. We eventually found our MOXIE suits surprisingly unscathed, and put them on in the escape pod. Without needing to worry about oxygen anymore, we each found around 10 salvageable parts, and piled them in front of the facility. As a bonus, we also found our old power generator! We all went back to the base, and got into our separate escape pods. The task that we so brilliantly created ended up taking 4 entire hours! So much time wasted on shipping! Well anyway, all was well until Alchemy and his gang showed up knocking at our front door. Perfect timing.
"It's Alchemy!" exclaimed Jack.
"No. Seriously?" I replied.
"Not the time for arguing right now you guys!" interrupted Luke.
He was right. We sent an alert for the base to set up our defense systems, and we landed to get to our weapons. It wasn't that much of a battle. Turns out, Alchemy wasn't as much of a villain as we thought he was. He and his goons all arrived in one ship, our ship, and attacked the entrance of the underground base, which didn't really do much damage considering the fact that the entrance was made purely of blast proof metal. After he realized that didn't work, he came down with his goons, and decided to fight us instead. Poorly miscalculating the amount of people we still had, his lackeys made off with his ship, leaving him stranded with us. He immediately surrendered, and we took him in for interrogation. We found out that he was actually the second in command for the aerospace department, LeBron Pachulia, and the reason he revolted was because he thought he was better than us, and speculated that he could overthrow our research facility.
"Unhand me you fiends!" cried LeBron.
"Yeah, sure, we're just gonna let you walk after you destroyed years of labor and research, just because you thought you were better than us." I said.
"What really made you do this?" said Riva, "I know it wasn't because you thought you were better than us."
"It was because my research was taken, and I was ridiculed for being 'incompetent'," LeBron confessed.
"That's still not a reason for you to bomb a facility," said Jack, "Even if you were ridiculed, you should have reported it."
After a few moments, he said, "Okay, I understand," replied Lebron, "I'm ready to face any consequences that are given to me."
LeBron was sentenced to community service for 1 year. The scientists decided to keep the base as our new base of operations, and we would continue the city around the area. 5 years later, the city was built, and the first people were just settling into their new homes. Our group disbanded, but we still kept close, lived right next to each other actually, and lived our lives to the fullest.
