Lost On Mars

by George Robbins

  Running at top speed an under the hot desert sun, Donnie noticed the ground he was on. Far on his right was the main rocket they brought from earth. But there was a slight difference this time, it seemed the Khaghin civilians had totally destroyed it. The rocket had been reduced to scraps.

  “Over there!” Donnie looked back at female Martian and pointed to the rocket scraps.

  Meanwhile the truck was after them at an unimaginable speed.

  Donnie and the female Martian got to the metal scraps. The scraps were large, about seven feet taller than they were and were scattered randomly across the red desert. This kind of formed a maze, making it a perfect hiding position for both of them.

  The truck pulled up ten feet near the scraps, the Khaghins stepped out of it. The Khaghin in charge put his hand on his waist, glanced around the metal scraps, with his smile fading into a frown. He sighed deeply whiles the other two stood beside him with their laser rifles clasped in their hands.

  Donnie and the female Martian heard the deep sigh of the Khaghin inside the scrap maze. They stood side by side, laying their back on two separate metal scrap.

  “You are outnumbered―both of you, the alien and our own lady from Mars―the lower rim to be specific!” they heard the khaghin in charge shout. “There is no way to escape here alive. Admit it lady, you of all Martians should know that no one has ever escaped execution since its beginning. You two won’t be the first or the last to do it!!”

  Donnie, swallowed in terror, felt his fingers shivering. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop it. Sweat slicking down his chin, knowing his chance of escaping the red beings is somehow impossible.

  “Come out both of you, before we get in there― don’t make this difficult!”

  Donnie turned his head and stared at the female Martian. She whispered “I will be back. Stay here”

  Donnie furrowed his brow. “Where are you going? You are going to get us killed”

  “Staaay here” she stretched the words. “I know what am doing” She turned and ran off, disappearing further into the scraps.

  Lowering his head, Donnie sighed. He noticed a weapon, similar to that of earth’s. Donnie squatted and grabbed it. He scanned it and realized what was in his hand.

  “This is Gardner’s pistol. The one he killed Julius with” Donnie frowned at the thought of it. He looked up into the sky. “It might have fallen after the explosion. But I just know I found you at the right time” he straightened up himself and continued hiding behind the metal scrap.

  The Khaghin in charge instructed the two Khaghin to proceed into the scraps.

  “Kill them on sight” he muttered to them. They nodded and took off into the scrap maze.

  Everywhere was quiet, till a loud monstrous scream of a Khaghin pitched through the maze.

  “That must be the Martian lady causing that” Donnie thought as he clutched on his pistol tighter. He peered at the edge of the scrap and nobody was around. He began moving away from his hiding position. He unexpectedly walked into a curve where one Khaghin was walking away. The Khaghin’s back faced Donnie, therefore couldn’t notice Donnie behind him.

  He ran towards him and slammed his head into a metal scrap. The Khaghin fell to the ground, his laser rifle falling far from his side. He quickly sat up and glared at Donnie.

  Donnie’s eyes widened as he looked back at him. Without hesitating, he pulled the trigger and the bullet went right into the Khaghin’s skull.

  The gunshot echoed through the desert. Donnie was still with his gun pointed at the corpse of the Khaghin. He couldn’t believe he just killed one of the strongest beings on Mars.

  The female Martian slapped his shoulder from behind. Donnie turned with a gasp, pointing the pistol towards her suddenly.

  “Hey! It’s me―put that thing away from me”

  Donnie sighed deeply, with a hunched back and slowly lowered the pistol.

  “What is that?” she pointed at the pistol in Donnie’s hand.

  “A gift I brought from my planet―earth” Donnie replied, a grin on his face.

  “Is he dead?” the Martian lady asked, looking down at the dead Khaghin.

  “Yeah”

  “Wow― that’s a powerful weapon you brought. I don’t think you came here to kill Martians? Did you?”

  Donnie raised his eyes up at her. “I never thought I would ever come and meet beings on this waste planet― let alone kill one”

  “Language― this planet isn’t waste”

  Donnie straightened his back and shrugged.

  “I killed the other Khaghin too” She showed the laser rifle to Donnie and went ahead to pick the next one on the ground. “Now let’s go get the other one out there”

  The Khaghin in charge, upon hearing the gunshot was trying to get back into the truck.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you” the female Martian spoke whiles pointing the laser gun at him

  The Khaghin swiveled slowly towards them. Donnie pointed the pistol at him.

  “Now what do you have to say?” she asked.

  The Khaghin smirked. “Don’t think you are heroes here. No one can escape the Khaghins. You know it, I know it, they know it” he looked at Donnie. “But you don’t know it. The Upper Militia will find you wherever you run to. Unless you try escaping out of this planet, which is―” the female Martian created a hole in his head with the laser rifle before he could finish his statement. The Khaghin fell dead onto the red sands.

  They stood there silently for a while, looking down at the dead body.

  “I never knew you were that tough” Donnie said, still looking down at the dead khaghin.

  “You just met me. You know little about me” she replied. “Am Arida-ail. Call me Arida for short”

  Donnie looked at her, smiling. “Nice to finally meet you Arida”

  Donnie pushed his hand forward and this time, they shook hands.

  “Is that shaking of hands an earth thing?”

  “Yeah―we do that when we meet people for the first time. I mean, nice people”

  Arida shook her head, whiles walking towards the truck. “Get in the truck”

  “And where are we going from here? Those red beings will be after us very soon”

  Arida grabbed the door handle and opened it. She looked back at Donnie. “The only place we can hide from them―the Lower Rim. That’s where we are going”.

  CHAPTER six

  Back at the Upper Rim Militia Base, the chief of defense and also the leader of the entire Khaghin clan stood alone, both hands at his back and gazing at the setting sun.

  “What has kept those men so long?” he yelled. The soldiers stood behind him with awkward faces, trying to say they have no idea.

  “This has never happened before. Come on, all of you, get in your trucks. We need to check what’s going on!”

  All that while, Arida and Donnie were making their way to the Lower Rim’s gate―the only gateway into the Lower Rim. Arida held the steering wheel, driving all the way through the desert.

  “How did you get here?” she asked.

  “Capture and sent here on a mission by my country’s national space agency. Came with friends though”

  “And where are they?”

  “Dead”

  Arida turned her head and looked at Donnie glumly. “Sorry for your loss”

  Donnie sat silently, gazing at the wasteland through his side of the window.

  “Are you the first Lower Rim Martian to break the rule of boundaries?”

  There was a brief silence, and then Arida replied, “Many has done that before me, but none of them ever survived. The Khaghins of the Upper Rim don’t want any civilian from the Lower Rim to know the surface is breathable again, after thousands of years. That’s why they don’t leave survivors. Only the Lower Rim Militia knows about it―and its top secret. They won’t allow the civilians to know”

  “This planet has a lot of is
sues than humans know―”

  “You humans, why are you so concerned with our planet? I have read and heard of drones being sent here to examine the planet. What do you want with our planet? Aren’t you happy with yours?”

  Donnie turned away from the window and looked at Arida. “We do that to know if there is life elsewhere, apart from earth. We want to know if we are alone in this universe or not”

  Arida chuckled. “Don’t ever think you are alone in this universe. There are vast number of planets with the existence of life out there. You just don’t have the advanced technologies to explore the universe―the Lower Rim has it all. It will be the most advanced city you have ever seen in your entire life”

  “You seem to know a lot about your planet and the universe. I know an average Martian can’t know all of that. What aren’t you telling me? You told me before―I just met you and know little about you”

  She quickly pointed straight. “Look! We are finally here―the prime gateway”

  Donnie smirked, knowing she had just done that to escape the question he asked. He looked through the windshield and saw the Prime Gateway―four large poles converged to form a pyramid, a long pole about 30 feet was mounted at the tip of the converging poles.

  Donnie’s eyebrows raised, his mouth opened as he gazed at the huge monument, kilometers ahead of them.

  The leader of the Upper Rim Militia, also the chief Khaghin and his guards had followed the tire tracks of the previous truck they sent, till they got to the metal scraps that had formed into a maze.

  The chief Khaghin squatted next to the three corpses of the Khaghins he sent to execute the prisoners. His guards had searched the scraps and brought them.

  He rubbed off sweat from his forehead and looked over his shoulders. “How could this happen! We need to find those two and make them pay for what they have done to these loyal Khaghins” he straightened himself and glanced around the desert. “They can’t be far from here. They have no place to run to”

  One Khaghin pointed to the tracks their tire made on the desert sands. “Chief, look at what I found!”

  The chief Khaghin walked towards him and also looked down at the tracks. He followed the tire tracks with his eyes till he could see it no more, further into the wasteland.

  “Good! Everyone, ready your weapons. Let’s make them pay”

  In the next few minutes, they were on their way, following the tire tracks.

  Arida and Donnie stood under the Prime Gateway, trying to open the large circular gate under their feet.

  “Argh! This is difficult than I thought―the code have been changed. I have entered all the codes I know and none of them is working”

  Donnie stood near heaps of sand bags, about four feet tall. He continued to gaze at the wastelands. He turned around after hearing Arida complain. “Try and think of something― those red beings of the Upper Rim Militia would be here very soon, if am not wrong. I bet they won’t play any games with us this time around”

  “They will definitely be here if we don’t get this thing opened right away”

  Donnie sighed and grabbed the pistol from the grip of his belt. He walked towards the code switch and stopped three feet away from it.

  “Back on earth, we shoot code switches to get easy access to wherever it requires us to enter a code―even though I only see that in movies”

  He shot through the code switch and destroyed it. They could feel their feet shaking. They moved away as the circular metallic gate began parting into two. Cold winds rushed outside and blew around them.

  “Whoa, I can see it’s very cold in there” Donnie said.

  The gateway had completely parted. They moved forward, stood at the edge and looked through it. It was like looking down on a city from the skies― they stared at the city’s skyline. The city down there was full of lights.

  Donnie was completely awed as he had his gaze fixed down the city. “This is very beautiful. Never seen anything like it my whole life” he looked at Arida, who also had his gaze fixed on the city below them. “But I got one question. Are we going to jump or what?”

  Arida shrugged and took her gaze away from the city. She walked towards one pole forming the pyramid and pulled two jetpacks pinned to it.

  “They are always there to get Martians in there. Especially the ambassadors, also called the representatives―put that on, you will need it” She handed one to Donnie.

  Suddenly, they heard shuttering engines. They turned to see five trucks coming their way.

  “Those Khaghins don’t know when to give up” Arida said as she rushed to their truck to pick a laser rifle. She opened the gate and pulled the rifle from the seats. Arida hid near the truck and started shooting at the Khaghin trucks.

  Donnie raised the pistol to his squeezed eye, aiming it at the Khaghin driver of the first truck at a far distance.

  He pulled the trigger and the bullet went straight into the driver’s skull. The truck lost control after the driver’s quick death. It drifted suddenly and fell on its side, flipping over and over and over till ever Khaghin in it was torn into pieces.

  Arida threw her head back in shock and looked at Donnie with a brief smile. “How did you do that? Is there anything you are also not telling me?

  CHAPTER seven

  After the fall of the first truck, the other four kept on speeding towards them.

  “I don’t think we can hold them all―come on jump!” Arida gripped the shirt of Donnie and pulled him till they fell into the gateway. They were already in the skies of the lower rim, falling at a high speed.

  “How am I gonna fly this thing?” Donnie yelled through the high pressure winds that was hitting his face.

  “Push the red button on your left side!”

  Donnie looked down at the left side of the jet pack and there it was, but before he could make a move to touch it, he screamed in pain when they fell on a Martian airship. It looked exactly like an earth Zeppelin with four stripes of white lights on its sides.

  Donnie held his right knee. “I just hurt myself. How didn’t we see that?”

  “The clouds!”

  Arida turned and laid on her back with the winds blowing her ponytail to one side. She panicked, shock transforming her face upon seeing all the four trucks falling from the gateway and coming straight down at them.

  “Donnie, look up!”

  Donnie turned quickly. He was startled, staring up at what was coming at them. “Are they mad? What do they think they are doing?”

  “Committing suicide” Arida responded hastily. “Let’s get off this thing―it’s going to explode when those trucks make contact with it!”

  Donnie watched Arida roll her body off the airship, he followed without hesitation and was back in the air once again.

  The jetpack jerked him up immediately he pushed the button.

  “Whoaaaa!” he screamed with joy. “Am I dreaming or this is just a movie? This is so incredible!!”

  He suspended in the air with the jet pack’s engine purring at his back.

  “Hey! Come on―I don’t wanna die in your dreams” Arida shouted under his feet. Donnie glazed down at her. “And there comes the Martian” he shook his head and flew down to where she was.

  As the trucks connected with the airship, it exploded with a loud booming sound, causing a bright orange mushroom in the evening skies.

  Every Martian down the city saw the bright explosive lights and also heard the loud booming sound. Screams filled the whole city as they ran around trying to find a safe place to hide from being hit by the falling residue of the explosion.

  Donnie and Arida were already down and flying through the city’s street.

  “Hey lady we got a problem!”

  “Another one?”

  “The same old ones― the red beings didn’t die in the explosion. They are right behind us”

  “What!” Arida turned her head and saw all fifteen Khaghins after them, a
lso in jetpacks.

  She slapped her face, crinkling her nose. “Ah how stupid of me. I should have destroyed the remaining jet packs at the Prime Gateway”

  The chief Khaghin led the Khaghin guards, his face drawn with anger. “Shoot them down!” he commanded.

  They pulled out their laser guns and began firing at both of them.

  “Did you see that!” Donnie looked at Arida with enlarged eyes immediately a laser missed his head.

  “I left the laser rifles back at the gateway!”

  “What! Do you mean we are going to die?”

  Arida narrowed her eyes. “I mean shoot them with your earth weapon, the gift you talked about earlier”

  “Oh that?” Donnie remembered his pistol. Whiles reaching out to it, they bumped into the city’s police force, their jetpacks flickering with blue, red and white lights. Donnie looked back as they sped past them. He slowly turned his stare to Arida and gestured a thumb behind. “Who are those?”

  “The city police― another force under the Lower Rim Militia, unlike the Upper Rim Militia. They are after us too― all of us”

  After several minutes of twists and turns through the city, the cops had increased in numbers.

  They spoke a Martian language through a microphone in their helmets whiles they pursued them.

  “What are they saying, miss Martian?”

  Arida rolled her eyes and shook her head. “They said, we should all pull up or they would have to unleash lasers on us”

  “Seriously?”

  The Khaghins continued firing lasers at them, the cops now included. They shot many cops to the ground.

  “Those red beings won’t stop at anything to get us” Donnie pulled out his pistol.

  He turned his whole body to face the khaghins, aimed at the edge of the chief khaghin’s jet pack tank and pulled the trigger.

  The chief khaghin’s face changed with shock, looking at Donnie. The bullet connected with the tank and exploded every last of them and the cops to the ground.