Missionaries

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In 1988, President Reagan enacted an official U.S. “space policy” outlined in documents that remain classified to this day. In these documents was such a mission deemed far too terrifying to disclose to humanity…

In the fall of 1989, the U.S. Government launched the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) with the intent of putting a base on the Moon and Man on Mars by 2009.

The first manned mission to Mars was launched in secret in 1990.

It was code-named ARIES…

14 APRIL 1991

Lieutenant Commander Glenn Van Allen of the ISV ARIES – one of four astronauts aboard the dual-Apollo system derivative of the Apollo-spacecraft system positioned in orbit around Earth – had become an addict of his Aliens comic book collection that he’d brought along for the mission. Now, 185 days later they had come into visual contact with the Red Planet.

The crew consisted of astronauts Van Allen and Grissom – as well as cosmonauts Sergei Echlin and Viktor Chekov. Echlin and Van Allen were the official pilots of the Martian Module (MM), while Chekov and Grissom were to be the engineers for technical difficulties.

It was officially April 14, 1991 – a Sunday – when they first sighted Mars. Van Allen had intended to be the first crewman awake and prepping the MM for deployment, but had unequivocally been bested by the Commander himself, Echlin.

“Good to see you up, Lieutenant Commander,” the Russian drawled in his thick Slavic accent – distracted by re-calibration of the communication and solar arrays. “We must continue forth with the up-to-speed alignment of trajectory systems, if we are to witness optimal landing of the MM, Van Allen,”

“I’ve told ya at least umpteen times now – Glenn is perfectly fine.”

“I realize this and apologize now. I have forgotten you, Grissom and Chekov are all very partial to my presence on this ship.”

Van Allen hadn’t been prepared for such a scathing judgment by his superior officer. In fact, the superior officer of the entire mission.

“Do what? No! No, no, no, no, no – you have completely misunderstood, sir. I’m… sorry. I’m gonna make some coffee, do you want some coffee?” He didn’t wait for a response – he exited the module as the Russian continued to calibrate the machinery.

Back in the CSM, Allen was greeted by a groggy Grissom. “Morning, Leftenant,” she groaned.

“Do you take it black or with sugar?”

Grissom grinned, “Sugar please.”

Van Allen rolled his eyes and poured her a cup. “We’ve been cramped up in this cell for too long,” He said as he handed her a cup. “It’s had its moments.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he responded as he disappeared back out of the module.

The familiar sound of a rustling crewmember prizing himself from his bunk indicated that Chekov was joining the world of the living. “What time is it? Did I miss anything?”

“Get your coffee and get your game face on, it’s about that time.”

“About time for launch?” The baritone growl of the hulking Commander Echlin bounced into the module as Chekov took his seat behind Grissom. Echlin had a coffee bottle in his hand, as he drifted over to the pilot seat and wrapped his other around Allen’s chair.

Naturally, the veteran KGB officer offered only a grunt in response to the monumentally-historic event unfolding before their eyes, even as Allen primed the main view window shutters to release, and yield before them the multibillion-dollar-view of the Red Planet itself.

Another grunt.

“It’s beautiful!” Chekov exclaimed. Grissom mouthed the word, ‘wow’ as she leaned forward.

No more than 30 minutes later, they had checked in with Moscow to confirm the habitat modules were in place, and were suited up and strapping into the MM.

And on that day, April 14, 1991 – at 11:42 AM – Commander Echlin, Lieutenant Glenn Van Allen, Specialist Sergei Chekov, and Sally Grissom became the first four human beings on another planet.

4 JANUARY 2004

Lance popped the cork and the foam spewed and spilled from the opening. It wasn’t the only one in the room doing that, as it was accompanied by at least a dozen others as the op center erupted in riotous roars of celebration and cheers.

“Merrick,” he chuckled, “come on, this is a time for celebration. Put it away,” Merrick Hudson was getting emotional, looking at a photograph he’d taken with his son two years ago. “He always liked space,” he said.

Lance Odom, the mission control chief, highlighted a rather obvious fact, “you’re the only one in the room not celebrating. We just landed the second rover on Mars in human history,” his tone became a little more serious now. “You can’t keep killing yourself like this, Mer.”

Mer exhaled and nodded.

He put the photo away and waved his fingers, “hit me.”

Lance grinned, “that’s the spirit!” He poured him a glass of champagne and Mer downed half the glass in under a second. “You’re absolutely right,”

“C’mon, I’ve been there for you since middle school. It was me who got you on the team,” he winked. Mer exhaled again as Lance refilled his glass. The celebrations had started when the first photograph of the Spirit landing site had reached the giant screen dominating the entire front wall of the room. And just like that, everyone’s day improved instantly.

Everyone’s, that is, except Merrick’s.

He decided he would fix that by taking liberal abandon advantage of the free alcohol being distributed about. He still loved his wife and her distrust of him and the subsequent deterioration of their family over the past year were really beginning to take their toll on him.

Lance and Merrick left early to retreat to his apartment in Orlando. By this time, they were both exceedingly intoxicated; Lance more so, to the point that Merrick had to help him up the stairs. It took them a good fifteen minutes to get to the second floor.

It wasn’t but an hour later that Lance had passed out and Merrick was wide awake, sobering up, and bored. He caught himself looking at his family photo again, and knew that if he didn’t distract himself immediately, he’d start slipping back into an episode of depression. This is when he remembered the other photo – the one of the Spirit landing site.

Merrick fished around in Lance’s bag for the folder, and recovered the image.

A small area of the photo near the bottom was blurred out. At first he thought it may have just been a smudge on the lens, but the more he thought about it, the more that seemed unlikely.

And the more he thought about it, the dark form at the center of the blur disturbed him.

* * * ​ 4 YEARS LATER

Merrick had signed up for AA, and was standing on her doorstep, pressing his finger on the doorbell, just a few short hours before starting his new job as launch supervisor at Cape Canaveral. It didn’t hit him until he was standing there – that he might get to see his son.

“We need to talk,” was basically all she had said.

The door opened, and he saw her. “Macy,” he said. He began to smile as soon as he saw her green eyes, her raven-black hair. She looked as if she’d aged backwards, or not at all. He was in love all over again.

“Come in,” she said. And he did so.

“Would you like something to drink?”

“Yes, thank you – um, yeah some water if you have it.”

She poured a glass and handed it to him. “I’m glad you called. I’ve missed you. I have to admit,” he added with a chuckle. “Is Brian home?”

“He’s at school,” Macy said. “I heard you’ve been getting cleaned up, and you got promoted,” she said with a smile. He nodded with one of his own, “yeah… yeah. The past five years have been hell, but I think it’s starting to look up.”

She cocked her head. “You ‘think’?”

He shrugged. “I’ve been dry for almost three-hundred and sixty-five days…” he took another sip. “But, anything can happen.”

“This is true,” she said. They decided to keep the conversation light. If there was any hope of salvaging a friendship, and seeing Brian again, it was through her. She was his only hope. And he hated himself for his failures. Before he left, he dropped a hint of maybe stopping by during recess, just to say hi to his son. To his surprise, she was okay with it.

“Hey, wait a second,” she said as he was about to leave. He peeked back into the kitchen to see her aiming the remote at the television. A straight-laced square of a newsman droned on, and as the volume increased, he discerned what the man was saying.

“…the developments have stunned the space exploration community. The image was uploaded back in November, but only recently as Wednesday morning British newspapers have been going crazy after an enhanced version was uploaded, with the Times of London reporting that NASA scientists have been ‘puzzled’ by the peculiarly life-like image, as we can see here.” His face was replaced by a photograph of the very same Spirit rover he and his team had landed on the Red Planet exactly four years earlier. “This is the original photo, and – I must caution – what you are about to see next may disturb you,” and as he said this, the photo was replaced by an enhanced region of the image.

Macy gasped. What the image appeared to advertise was a humanoid form crouching atop a rock, almost apelike in appearance. “Of course, many are dismissing it as either a rock formation, or a hoax – but it certainly has ignited the conspiracy theorist community, giving them something to talk about other than ‘inside jobs’, ain’t that right, Jim?”

Merrick’s phone went off, and Macy narrowed a gaze at him. “What’s going on?”

Merrick shook his head. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” and with this he answered the phone, gave her a hug, a kiss on the cheek, and was out the door.

Not quite like old times but close enough.

“Lance! My office!” Merrick shouted over the chaos unfolding in the ops center. People fluttered about as blurs and others were in shouting matches.

Once inside and Merrick had the door shut, he got straight to the point. “Okay, what in the actual fuck is going on?”

“I dunno, some script kiddy got a hold of one of the high-res copies…”

“I want to see the original file.”

“Yeah,” he said nodding, “yeah sure.”

“The original photo, the one with the blur.”

“The one from the landing site…?”

“Yes! And I want you to find out who the hell did this. It’s a prank, obviously. A hoax. But I want to see if he can clean it up.”

* * * ​ They cooperated with the local police to bring him in; a young man in his 20’s called Talbot. Hudson didn’t make it out of the office until after 10:30. On his way home, he got a text from Lance saying it was done, and that the image was in his inbox waiting for him at home.

Merrick decided to call Macy before doing anything else. Once he got home, he dropped his jacket onto the couch and followed closely behind. He sank into the couch cushions and decompressed for a moment, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. After a moment, he dialed her number.

The third ring passed and the phone picked up.

“Daddy?”

“Brian! Oh my god it’s been so long, how ya been bud!”

“I’m good. I made the baseball team. Mama says you’ve been on a team too. Flying SPACESHIPS!”

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “Yeah, yep. Its – uh – it’s a cool job. You could fly a spaceship some day. You know?”

He heard voices in the background. One of them sounded like a man.

“Mama says I have to go. Her friend’s here. I love you daddy.”

“I love you, son.”

“Bye,” and with that, Brian’s voice was replaced by his mother’s.

There was a heavy, repetitive knock on the door.

The knock repeated, heavier.

“I’m coming.”

As Merrick approached the door, it flew open. Three uniformed men wielding handguns tackled Merrick to the ground and flung him over, slapping handcuffs on him.

* * *

They hiked for nearly twenty-four hours before reaching the compound. Needless to say, things didn’t go according to plan. The port module descent thruster blew out roughly thirty-six-hundred feet above the surface, sending them into a tailspin, and knocking them approximately fourteen kilometers off course.

The screaming and chaos that unfolded in the confined space as they barrel rolled was dwarfed by what occurred once they hit the ground. Echlin let out a squawk before being rendered totally unconscious by the crash, which turned into a slide.

“Shit, Echlin’s down! Repeat, the Commander’s down,” Van Allen vaguely remembered Grissom shouting aside from their tin can prison bouncing and shuddering.

Plans were further complicated by the unconscious Echlin.

“He’s starting to wake up!” Allen had announced halfway into their hike. Unfortunately, his hip had been dislocated, so he still needed help to move on. Once they crested the largest hill of their journey, they saw the first glint of a reflection of their new home in the distance. Yet, during their celebrations, they also came upon the realization that Echlin’s injuries were far more grave than previously anticipated. Not only was his hip dislocated, but he had a compound fracture, involving a piece of bone sticking out of his flesh, and causing both internal and external bleeding. It was quite clear he was not going to make it.

They collected and steeled themselves for the final stretch of the journey, collected what they could carry, and vowed to return to give him a proper burial. He had given them the information needed to get the compound running, but it proved to be exceedingly difficult.

The habitat included one central module shaped like an oversized Apollo Command Module that housed three floors; the ground level consisted of seven rooms surrounding a central hub which led to the second floor, consisting of three rooms, the top floor was an emergency escape vehicle and a subterranean chamber that served as the compound operations center. A corridor leading from the main room on the ground level subsequently led to three small ‘blisters’ that served as life support, hydroponics and maintenance respectively. It took them another six hours to get all three up to par.

“To Echlin,” Chekov toasted once their job was done, and all three downed their Vodka shots and got a few hours’ sleep. The next day they refueled their oxygen supply and set out for a survey of the Martian terrain and to retrace their steps to Echlin’s body.

The land survey went according to plan, everywhere within a 10 mile radius around the compound was recorded, but what baffled the trio was that they were unable to find the body.

* * * ​

The F.B.I. went on for twelve hours. The questions involved were, “how long have you known,” “what other photos are you aware of,” and “who else was involved”.

It ended with them apologizing and letting him go. The Agent in question was one Raymond Parker. Agent Parker and himself ended up befriending one another, after the former offered to buy him a beer, “the least I could do and offer you a little explanation after what we put you through,” he’d said.

“Maybe you could help us,” he said after an awkward silence. It was Merrick’s third beer and because his tolerance had plummeted, he was considerably hammered. “I’m sorry, Mr. Parker?”

He looked over his shoulder and leaned in. “This story is a threat to national security, the one about the Spirit rover.” It took a moment for this to register with the intoxicated Merrick Hudson.

He shook his head. “Begging your pardon, Parker – but what?”

“They wanted me to keep civilians out of this. Hell, they wanted me to throw you in Gitmo. Listen,” he leaned closer. “We’re putting together a multi-national team of military and government officials, now – are you in or out?”

He sobered up a little. “I’m in.”

“Hudson, Odom, this is Commander Natia Tereshkova of the Mir-II orbital space station,” he said as they introduced one another. “I’ll be acting as your mission supervisor and welcoming you to Operation Columbus. There are several things we need to review before we begin your training,” she explained.

Lance and Merrick exchanged expressions. “Training? What for?” “Perhaps I should have informed you first, but we found some interesting things on your laptop. Things we may not have been prepared for. We believe that enemies – of both Russia and the United States – have operatives active on the Red Planet,” he said. “Washington, together with Moscow, has been monitoring these ‘events’ for the past twenty years. Whether or not there was a secret manned mission to Mars committed by a major power or a private party is unclear, but as we continue our investigation, it has become quite clear to both the American and Russian governments that there is human activity on Mars.”

A stunned silence enveloped the room. “And you want us to help you with this, I presume,” Lance inquired.

The Agent nodded. “Precisely, we’re going to run you through what we call ‘the Gauntlet’ in Star City, Russia. There, you will be trained in flight, engineering, astronomy, and – most importantly – extended isolation. Do you have any questions?”

* * * ​

The trio spent alternating shifts for the next few days monitoring the terrain anomalies. On April 21st, the end of their first week on Mars, the trio gathered for a meeting in the recreation and dining hall on the first floor to discuss their findings.

“So, are we sure that we didn’t just go to the wrong place,” Grissom inquired, referring to Echlin’s body. Chekov shrugged. “I do not know. I mean, it certainly is possible, but my notes suggest that there are significant anomalies occurring with regard to terrain surrounding outpost since our arrival,” he explained, handing her the clipboard.

“What I’ve noticed,” Van Allen began, while Grissom went over the cosmonaut’s notes, “is that some terrain seemed disturbed around that area when I went out yesterday. I would’ve collected samples for study, but I realized that would’ve been irrelevant since I would only be further disturbing the surface layer if I did.”

Grissom sighed as she handed Chekov the clipboard. “Maybe we’re just being paranoid and overemotional since we were so close to him, I mean…” she shrugged, “maybe we just lost him. I mean, this is an alien planet that nobody has ever been to. It’s different from discovering a lost island or something on Earth… this is an alien planet,” she said.

But they were inevitably drawn back to the events of April 14th, as they would find, the Red Planet would continue to remind them that nothing was as it seemed.

On a hunch, Glenn decided to return to the site he’d been previously two days ago. It was at the bottom of a large dune, and – despite what they’d concurred in the meeting – Allen still felt as though something was off about the area there.

His heart nearly leaped into his chest when he realized that some rocks had been moved, he distinctly remembered a midsized boulder about the size of his head lying amid a cluster of smaller rocks and pebbles approximately ten feet diagonally from his current location, which was now absent. Glenn took a photo with his compact camera to compare to the previous image, and began his trek back to Aries-One.

Back at the compound, Glenn entered the operations blister and uploaded the photograph. Just as he feared – the photos did not match up, and indicated a disturbance. What was scary was the simple fact that there had been no storms in the past 48 hours with enough wind speed and power enough to move a boulder of such size.

Glenn went out again the next day, this time taking Chekov with him, to return to the site of the anomaly. “So, this is where you saw disturbance,” Chekov asked.

“Yeah, notice anything unusual?” When Chekov confirmed he did not, Glenn showed him the photographs. Afterward, they searched everywhere in the vicinity, hoping for a sign, anything, that would counter or at the very least help temper their paranoia.

They found nothing.

When they returned, Grissom was assessing the photos in the control room that Glenn had taken.

“This is… chilling,” she said.

“Maybe it would be best if we stayed indoors for while?”

Grissom nodded. “Yeah, geospatial and climate readings show a storm headed this way, and it’s a big one,” she said. “Martian sandstorms – due to the low gravity I presume – can last three to nine times as long as sandstorms on Earth.”

“Yeah, a month or two on average,” Glenn noted.

Chekov sighed.

“Let’s get some sleep, we haven’t slept but maybe twenty hours combined since we got here.”

* * * ​

The Shuttle loomed like a statue of some ancient deity, with all of the majesty and dominating presence of one. A prehistoric civilization would have revered the presence of such a machine as one.

A lift carried them to the spacecraft. Once inside and fully-suited, they began the process of loading the propellant. Afterward, tanking and the traditional 9-minute countdown soon followed. In total, the process lasted nearly three hours. Once countdown began, and the launch process initiated, the 7-person crew – Merrick, Lance, Parker, Lavrov, Volkov, Kravychko, and Vukovic – took their positions.

“Propellant ready,” Kravychko announced. “Countdown procedures underway,” he finished. Volkov turned to Vukovic, the flight officer and a Serbian. “You ready little brother?”

Vukovic gave him the finger and turned back to getting the shuttle launch ready. “You Americans have a way with machinery. Did you know this,” he inquired.

“Yes. Yes, I am quite aware,” he lied.

Lance put a hand on his shoulder and leaned forward. “Into the void,” he said. Merrick replied with a shrug and a nervous, quick nod. “I’d say so, old friend.”

Before they knew it, the next eight minutes were up, and the final countdown commenced.

“Ten…”

“Here we go,”

“Nine…”

“Seven space cadets into the void!”

“Seven…”

“Six…”

“Five…”

“I don’t intimidate you do I…?” Volkov inquired.

“Three…”

“Why, because you’re a woman?”

She cackled.

“Two…”

“One…”

Volkov led out an enjoyed howl as the lift rocket kicked the earth with 53,500 cubic feet of liquid hydrogen fuel, thrusting the spacecraft through the stratosphere and mesosphere into the vacuum of space. As it did so, the rocket boosters, followed by the external tank, were shed, as the craft was pulled into the Earth’s orbit by its upward momentum. It circled the planet until Vukovic spotted the Mir-II with his naked eye.

They arrived shortly after 7:40 AM. The mission commander – Reznov – gave them a brief tour of the modules. “We were just finished station inspection,” he explained. “Each module serves an individual purpose, we have a total of fourteen. One observation, two laboratory – the central modules like you see here. three for crew quarters, two for life support, one robotic and two for storage. We have three airlocks – two for docking and one for extravehicular access,” he stated.

Each module was accessed through a narrow cylindrical corridor. The constant state of freefall took some getting used to, but when viewed as a new opportunity for physical freedom, Merrick soon began to enjoy it.

At around ten after 8:00 they gathered in the central lab module for a mission statement from ground control. What was covered by operations was more than Lance and Merrick bargained for.

“As per DARPA and Space City command, the crew of the ISV Columbus is to depart for Lunar One in T-Minus One Hour,” the man explained.

“Lunar One,” Lance inquired.

“The Lunar Station established by Moscow and Washington in 1986,” Parker stated. “State-of-the-art.”

After the meeting concluded, it was time to depart on the jury-rigged ISV Columbus to the Moon. They bid their farewells, noting upon the fact that they would be returning from Lunar One straight back to Earth, likely never to see Reznov, or the other six ever again. Vukovic and Lavrov stayed behind on Mir-II, supervising the landing.

A network of cylindrical modules tied together by inflatable corridors stretched across the incline of a squat knoll. A dune buggy bounced across the rugged landscape and, after a moment, two men in bulky pressure suits departed from the vehicle and entered the central module. Once they knew where to go, the crew departed for Lunar One.

* * * ​

Lunar One was – for all intents and purposes – a miniature (scientific) community. Outside of the main airlock, a neat little sign reading, “Lunar One – Population: 11, Est. 1986” was posted. Spearheaded by Superintendent Marsha Makarova,

“Hello, Earthlings,” the strange man joked. “Welcome to our humble abode – Lunar One, the first humans to live off-world, not to mention completely beyond the prying eyes of humanity for the past twenty-two years.”

“Twenty-three, Liam,” said a voice further down the hall. He was joined by a man in his fifties, of squat and rotund physique, graying hair and a face Lance would later remark, “looked like a bulldog’s ass.”

“I see you’ve already met Liam,” he said, extending a hand. “I am Peter Dykstra, the resident communications director. Liam here is my associate, a brilliant mind – but not the friendliest of folks.” In response, Liam offered up an irritated huff.

He shrugged and waved for the entourage to follow.

The administration module was the third-largest, behind commons and the greenhouse. It was about as large as the commons, which consisted of six sub-modules, one of which they would soon be cramped into.

“Attention, greenhouse and research laboratory off-limits to undocumented personnel. Please return immediately. Attention, greenhouse and research lab–,” and so the automatic robotic voice repeated itself, until Peter swiped his identification.

The corridor adjacent to the main module hissed open and the five were allowed entry. The fat, squat corridor connected to a cylindrical room, complete with its own vegetation and sleek technology.

“Ah, we meet at last,” exclaimed Agent Parker, springing to their defense much to the other four’s relief. For the most part, they – besides introducing themselves – sat back and let the FBI Agent do all the talking.

“Well, we’re happy to finally see you arrive safe and sound,” Makarova said before formally introducing herself. She introduced her assistant, Patricia as well as her husband Peter, and Liam. Together, they were the four-person administration team of Lunar One.

Agent Parker chuckled, and began, “well, I think we are all awaiting your announcement on the settlements, yes?” She nodded and waved toward Liam, who began work on several control panels and instruments. A screen thereafter illuminated the back wall of the spherical chamber.

“This is Deutschland-Tianjin – the complex established a mere month before the ARIES-One mission,” Patty announced. “At one point there were six operatives aboard, working for both Germany and the People’s Republic of China. They recently went missing.”

Lance and Merrick exchanged glances, and the latter exchanged one with Volkov and Kravychko.

“Tomorrow, we want you four to examine the samples we picked up in the past 48 hours. After examining this, we hope to come closer to a conclusion as to what exactly happened down there.”

Marsha nodded to Patty and Peter who showed them to their quarters. “Get some sleep,” he said. “When you wake up, you’re immediately at the workplace, and sleep is a cherished commodity in these parts, comrades.” He winked and sealed the door.

That night, Merrick caught lance looking at photos – which he revealed to be his estranged family. “That there is my brother, my ex-wife and I,” he revealed, pointing toward a chubbier version of himself and a tall elegant blonde with accentuated curves.

“Looks like we both have woman problems,” Merr said with a chuckle. “Have any kids?”

“No, thank God!”

They laughed, and continued to joke into the night. Merrick shared his stories about Brian, how they would always take a Father-Son trip down to Miami beach one day out of the month. He described his son’s first visit to the beach, his first time seeing the Atlantic Ocean. The awe that had encapsulated Brian’s face stuck with Merrick all of the years.

Eventually, Lance had told him to shut up and rolled over to go to sleep. Merrick stayed awake for another hour or so, staring at Lance’s family photo – envying the happiness eternally present within that frame. He had fallen asleep holding it tightly, but he would never know this – for when he, Kravychko and Volkov awoke – they would not recognize their waking nightmare as the room they had fallen asleep in.

* * * ​ ​ The storm lasted longer than they had predicted. Chekov estimated it would stretch over a roughly two-and-a-half month period. It ended up lasting for six months.

The trio had begun to lose track of time. They no longer knew what day it was – or, let alone, how many days they had been on Mars. This had begun to weigh on their psyches, as Glenn would discover when he and Grissom were alone in the kitchen, making sandwiches. She had been discussing with him her family and older siblings growing up, when she abruptly stopped talking.

“You said he was stealing your dolls and cutting off their hair,” Glenn said as he swiped the mayonnaise-sodden knife across the thin layer of peanut butter. Another moment went by, as he finished the sandwiches, of silence.

Glenn turned to see Sally Grissom staring at a non-particular point in the room, her eyes wild.

“Sally?”

She remained unmoved.

“Sally?” He left the sandwiches and approached her, grabbing her by the shoulders. Still – she remained fixated on outer space. “Sally – SALLY!” He shook her slightly, and then violently. “SALLY!”

Chekov descended the ladder into the main commons at the behest of such commotion. “What’s going on?”

“I dunno, It’s SALLY! She stopped moving!”

“I stopped moving,” she inquired suddenly, snapping out of it.

“Yes, you were staring at the wall. Your eyes were shaking in their sockets, but nothing else was moving.”

She cocked her head. “I do remember the room shaking, but I didn’t realize I had stopped talking. I heard myself talking; I was asking why the room was shaking.” Her expression was one of deep suspicion.

“Such a strange place… don’t you think?”

Allen and Chekov exchanged glances. “We need to find out when this storm will be over. We need to get outside of this complex,” Chekov stated, “even if it is back into the inhospitable Martian atmosphere. We’re all going a little crazy.”

“You mean, you’ve experienced this, too?”

Chekov did not answer Grissom, he returned to the upper levels without a word further.

This didn’t cut it for Allen. He decided to pursue further, the truth – to him – was all that mattered. He stopped Grissom in Navigation and Scanning on the second level.

“Hey, wait a minute,” he demanded hesitantly. “You didn’t exactly answer the question, Chekov,” stated Allen quizzically, staring Chekov directly in the eye.

Chekov sighed and stood up from the navigation desk nestled in the far-left corner of the slightly-rectangular room. He shoved his hands in his pockets, sighed and nodded.

“Yes?”

“Yes, I have experienced what Grissom–Sally–experienced just a moment ago,” he stated. His eyes rolled to their corners as Allen realized he was glancing at a point over his shoulder. Allen turned to see Grissom, just as she inquired, “Is this bad?”

There was a moment of silence before Chekov nodded. “Yes, it is bad. But hope is not gone,” he said as he shouldered a bag he had kept stuffed underneath the navigation desk.

“You know,” Allen said.

“Know what?”

“There’s something here,” said Allen, in an elevated state of emotion. He looked Chekov directly in his pupils as he said this. They both knew there was more here than met the eye.

Chekov cleared his throat. “Come,” he said, as he stepped past the astronaut. “We must assess the habitat the Commander informed us about,” he said.

“W-what for,” stuttered Allen. Chekov stepped past him and turned, “because you are correct, Lieutenant.”

Another moment of silence eclipsed the small room.

“Besides, we must get outside to temper insanity,” and with that disturbing final statement, the navigator had disappeared back into the bowels of the habitat.

They had each received an email detailing the need for a maximum of one accompanying Chekov to the abandoned structure, within the next 12 hours. They were instructed to get sleep, and rest for their potential endeavor.

That night, Allen awoke. As if on impulse, Allen climbed the ladder to the navigation desk. Once there, he activated the surveillance feed – again, on impulse. When the feed hummed to life, what he was staring at upon such an event was quite likely the most haunting visage his eyes had ever laid themselves upon – the passenger door to the rover hung ajar.

He doubled back down to the commons area to make sure he wasn’t mistaken that he was indeed the only living soul awake. When his fears were confirmed, he returned to the feed.

The door was closed.

“What the f–?”

Before his sentence of fright could be completed, he heard a deafening crash in the next room, the toilet.

He sparked up a torch, and edged his way toward the small room.

A thin trickle of light emitted from the chamber, as if there were some sort of light source. Van Allen braced himself, approached the door, and flung it open.

He was immediately tackled to the ground by an unseen force. There was a man – easily his own size – grappling in fear and hysteria, begging for help.

“Oh my god!”

“HELP!”

Van Allen flung the man into a cluster of swivel-chairs, backing against the wall and readying his torch to be used as a weapon if need be. “Who are you!? IDENTIFY YOURSELF!”

“MERRICK,” he screamed. “Merrick Hudson.”

“Where!? WHERE THE FUCK AM I!?” He screamed.

Van Allen hesitated before answering.

“Mars.”

There was a moment of silence.

“What?!”

“Mars. You are on Mars, the Red Planet, comrade,” he explained. Mr. Hudson fumbled around. “I – I…” he stammered, getting his bearings. He gulped. “I think you are mistaken, sir.”

Van Allen cocked his head. “What?”

Suddenly, there was a beam of light spilling out from the opening leading to the commons below. Angry voices could be heard filtering through along with it. Hudson grabbed Van Allen forcefully, ushering him to be quiet.

“They’re coming,”

Van Allen managed a hushed, “Who?”

Hudson wrenched the struggling Van Allen into the toilet and slammed the door, locking it tightly.

The blood red light filtered into the room, spilling beneath the crack of the door. A few moments later, there was a pained screaming, followed by a crash and striking against the walls and chairs. They remained in the confined space for a few minutes longer, before Hudson relinquished his grasp. Van Allen furiously flailed back into the room, now illuminated by the overhead lighting. He then began to scream.

Blood streaked the walls; gore was piled in lumps in various areas around the room. What appeared to be the remains of a body peppered the floors and ceiling, strewn about in a mad thrashing.

“Down the ladder, now,” Hudson ordered. Van Allen did not stop to ask, he immediately began to descend back down into the main chamber of the commons one level down, with Hudson immediately in tow. As he neared the bottom, he heard a pained gasp – but the duo were too late. As they reached the bottom, within the blink of an eye, the beat of a heart, Van Allen was strapped to the chair in the center of the room. Men in white lab coats surrounded him, and after screaming his throat sore for what seemed to be a half-hour, at last the largest of the scientist trio spoke up.

* * * ​​

Merrick blacked out for a moment. He, Volkov and Kravychko had awoken to find themselves strapped in vertically-aligned chairs behind a glass screen overlooking an operating theatre. Merrick had a brief hallucination – probably due to the stress – about meeting a man named Glenn Van Allen, apparently one of the men on the original 1990 Mission to Mars – Aries.

Of course, there was no way it could have been real, as he now realized, hanging there, strapped to the inclined gurney, watching these psychopaths hack his best friend of twenty years – Lance Odom – to pieces.

Merrick screamed at the top of his lungs, but this seemed to only embolden the crazy individual spearheading the live autopsy.

“What? Do you think that’s going to help,” he spat through a sadistic chuckle, waving his shiny scalpel about as he moved in for the kill. “You see, Earthlings,” he began, “I hope you realize that – you can’t,” he began, as he inserted the blade below Lance’s left collarbone, “trust…everyone.”

Lance’s scream was muffled by the tape enveloping the lower-half of his skull, but it still echoed loudly – an inhuman screeching noise, half out of fear, and half out of pain. The man sighed irritably, stood, and removed his face guard.

“You have really got to excuse me, this is incredibly draining,” Agent Raymond Parker barked. Merrick felt an intense adrenaline surge pulse through his being, as he attempted to wrestle free from his restraints. Liam held him down, and tightened the straps holding him to the gurney.

Lance continued to howl hysterically as the dark ribbons of circulatory fluid cascaded down his ribcage. The Agent merely sighed. “I thought we agreed,” he hissed, leaning forward slightly, “that we were all going to play by the rules, that this was no more than a family-oriented Lunar community, designed for the specific purpose of expanding human colonization efforts into the solar system, not a research facility.”

He sighed once again. “You’re going to die anyway. The Arian has nestled its way beneath your ribcage,” he said calmly, leaning into Lance’s ear, “soon – they will multiply, begin to breed. They will nest within your stomach and spinal column. You should be proud,” he said, standing up and beginning to pace, “You are the first live test subject we have contained in nearly thirty years of our endeavors.”

Merrick began to see the wormlike organisms squirming beneath Lance’s skin as the Agent began to speak. As he finished, however, Merrick noticed something the Agent did not – Lance’s muscles bulged, his gaze almost seemed to glow red with the amount of veins that scuttled throughout the whites of his eyes. And as the Agent appeared to bask within his own glory, Lance had… transformed. He began to rip apart the restraints. He began to climb out of his prison.

Before Merrick had a chance to blink, Lance – or, rather, former-Lance, had gripped the Agent by his throat and tossed him across the laboratory like a ragdoll. The next scientist he laid his blood-red eyes upon he began to rip limb-from-limb with superhuman strength. The third and final scientist destabilized into a series of gory fragments as former-Lance plunged his claw-like hand into his stomach, and began to rip his innards out before him, before also ripping him apart and scattering his remains across the now-blood-soaked room.

A wailing that Merrick came to identify as an alarm boomed throughout the complex. The locks on their restraints released and the four collapsed onto the floor. The scientist guarding them had fled in terror, and they were alone.

“Everyone okay,” inquired Merrick. They responded positively, none of them were injured – or infected with whatever Lance was. “We’ve got to find him!”

“Are you crazy? That’s not even a human anymore,” exclaimed Volkov. “How do you know? Maybe they… maybe he’s,” Merrick stuttered, shaking his head, palming his face. “I don’t know anymore.” As soon as they exited the room, Merrick noticed that the layout of this module was identical to the building he’d seen in his hallucination.

“Come on, up this ladder,” Merrick said.

“Are you sure?”

“Trust me!”

They ascended the ladder into what was – surely enough – the navigation chamber. Then it unfolded just as he had suspected, the blood-red light. The bathroom. The hiding. The bloodshed. When it was over, they exited to find it just as he had remembered it. Blood was everywhere.

“Oh my god!”

“Come on!”

As they prepared to exit the module, Merrick noticed a monitor with the text “MISSION: ARIES” displayed in large bold print on its header, below was text… that indicated the logs of the crew of the mission.

“Come on, we must go now!”

What Merrick discovered, shook him to his core.

* * * ​

Chekov was the first one suited up. They had decided upon Van Allen and Chekov going out while Grissom remained behind to monitor their progress and environment.

“So, we believe the terrain anomalies are occurring from beyond the northeastern ridgeline,” she said as a refresher. “You sure you two are okay doing this?”

Chekov fastened his helmet. “We’re sure. Ready the airlock from operations,” he stated. She nodded and shook his hand before giving Van Allen a bear hug. “Be safe,” she said, before disappearing up the ladder. They stood before the hatch before it began to hiss open and the duo then stepped through. After roughly five minutes of pressurization, they were outside in the elements of the Red Planet.

“I read you, Chekov. You there, Glenn?”

“Read you loud and clear,” he stated.

Throughout their journey, the terrain anomalies indicated a human disturbance of the environment as they journeyed further into the Martian wilderness.

Eventually, they began to see things.

“I’m picking up your camera feed. I saw it too,” Grissom said over the comm. This sent chills down Glenn’s spine, because he also saw movement. “We’re not alone here,” Chekov said.

They continued their trek through the rocky outcrops and valleys for roughly two hours, after descending into the valley on the opposite side of the ridgeline. After ascending through another valley and incline, they saw it – the abandoned habitat.

“There it is,” said Chekov. “Deutschland-Tianjin II. Echlin said it had been prepared for over a decade, but was never used.” With that, they descended the incline. The mountain range towered over the horizon, and the faint silhouette of Olympus Mons could be seen in the distance. Deutschland-Tianjin II was a small complex of a few modules interconnected by various inflatable corridors.

As they drew closer, the duo was informed of movement on the complex’s eastern periphery. “I see them,” said Van Allen. “Life forms of some sort. They’re watching us,” he said.

“Don’t let them into the habitat,” she said. They made sure to be stealthy in their entrance into the structure. Once inside, they read an absence of oxygen and pressurization. After progressing through the subsystems modules and doubling back into the first of four inflatable living modules, they discovered their first dead body.

“My god,” noted Chekov, referring to the corpse’s mutilation, as if it had been torn apart from the inside-out. The arms, torso and esophagus looked as if something had ripped out of it.

“Some sort of life form was gestating within this person,” Chekov noted. They spied another dead body in the library, also in the same condition as the first. “What the hell is going on here,” inquired Allen. Chekov then unzipped a bag he had been carrying with him, brandishing an AK-47 assault rifle.

“What the hell?”

“Just in case of emergency,” he stated, yanking the lever back. Not soon after this, they began to hear banging and scraping noises outside of the complex.

“They’re outside!”

The noises intensified, and for another few seconds they were left hanging by Grissom, before – finally – she ordered them to, “Get out of there!”

Chekov and Van Allen exchanged glances and nodded. A few moments later, they stood in the airlock, but they did not follow procedure, they immediately went EVA.

“The storm’s back,” commented Van Allen. “Yeah, I got that much!” As they passed beyond the outer perimeter of the habitat, they began to notice dark silhouettes lurching their way toward them. “Come on! GO!” Their steady stride broke into a sprint. They lurched their way through the howling winds and G-Force currents ripping across the jagged landscape. After an hour of trudging, not only did Van Allen realize he was going the wrong way – he realized he was alone.

“Chekov!”

No answer.

“CHEKOV!”

But the forms were back, and pursuing him with reckless abandon, practically galloping. For the first time during the endeavor, he began to realize they were clearly not human. He took off, running as fast as his feet would carry him in the thin Martian atmosphere. He ran until he felt his legs could not move much further, until he no longer heard the soothing yet frantic voice of Grissom over the comm.

Eventually, his eyes caught sight of a shape he thought he would never see on the surface of the Red Planet – a pyramid.

* * *

After seeing the data entries from Mission Aries, Merrick decided it would be best not to share what he’d discovered from them with the other two. But what he had learned, was that the astronaut known as Glenn Van Allen had recorded in his personal crew logs exactly what Merrick had dreamed about before awakening restrained in that laboratory.

Hours passed, days, as they spent extended periods of time in closets, ventilation chambers, and other confined spaces hiding from the chaos and horrors that unfolded around them. After much deliberation and a steadfast will and refusal to split up, the trio made it to commons.

A lockdown had been instituted, and they realized their only hope of escape would be to remain there, and initiate a distress signal back to Earth. “What do we do afterwards,” Volkov had inquired.

“Survive,” was the only answer Merrick could offer. Kravychko barely spoke English, except a few phrases such as; “You okay,” and “what’s happening?” The latter of the two was what he inquired now.

“You stay here with Volkov,” he said, strapping on his backpack with all of the engineering materials he would need. “I have this radio,” he stated, strapping it to his upper-left forearm. “I will have it on and ready at all times, and I will hear you regardless. Just let me know,” he stated. “I will get the beacon up and running and I will also try to find a weapon – just in case there are more crazies around.”

“What about that …thing,” Volkov inquired as Merrick exited the room. He ignored her and continued downstairs back into the greenhouse.

The foliage, despite being within glass containers, seemed almost as if it were an indoor forest. Merrick inched his way across the room, and began to notice sensations he’d originally thought were heart palpitations occurring throughout his body.

It was inside of him.

Merrick scurried out of the room and shut the door behind him, immediately contacted Volkov and Kravychko. “Volkov, lock the door. DON’T OPEN IT.”

He ignored further inquiries, and made his way down the central corridor back into the research module, which he was continually reminded of the similarity to the one in his nightmare. The amount of bodies and gore that littered the complex had increased, and he wasn’t sure if there was anyone still left alive inside besides the three of them.

He inched into the blood-soaked room, gazing over the monitor displaying the Aries entries and continuing up the ladder back into the control room. The door leading to the airlock was immediately peeled off its hinges.

Merrick narrowly dodged out of the way, and brought himself to bear just in time to see several of the giant bugs scuttling out of the chamber, disappearing into the nooks and crannies of the room.

Lance Odom emerged through the threshold, bellowing a voice not his own, in a language that was not English, and most certainly not Russian.

Then he heard a voice in his head. It boomed, “We are the Yakizeekzekkers, your kind will join the arrogance of the Martians in your foolish attempts to manipulate the spacetime continuum. Your particle accelerators, your starships, your colonies, all belong to me now. Grissom Van Allen, and now Lance Odom, can attest to my existence. This means your species is now the endangered one.”

Merrick stumbled backward into the capsule, and the door slammed shut right as Odom spread his inhuman appendages and released a chattering racket so deep that it shook the Moon base at its foundations.

The pod launched into the blackness of space.

He was alone.

* * *

The pyramid was made of polished black mineral that reflected Glenn’s silhouette like a dark mirror. The wide corridor led to a room that resembled the shape of the pyramid in which it was situated. In the center of the room was a miniature of the structure in which he resided, pulsating with a dark blue glow. A figure stirred in the shadows, emerging to reveal itself as a man who appeared identical to the late Sergei Echlin.

“You’re dead,” Van Allen inquired guardedly.

“I am the Yakizeekzekker Hivemind. What you see before you is a machine replicating consciousness and spacetime itself.” As he said this, between four and five humanoids roughly seven feet in height materialized out of the darkness. Their faces were humanoid, save the fact that their eyes were replaced by deep, shadowy sockets, and their faces were stretched and flattened around a cranium much larger in proportion to their features than a human head, their skin a brownish, rocky texture – as if silicon-based.

“What you see here are the last few specimens of the Martian people, I have kept them around to demonstrate that species far superior to your own have fallen to the onslaught of my children,” Former-Echlin explained, pacing around the room as he did so. “They possess a unique propensity to control time via their ability to interface with the host’s consciousness. You see – we control our reality unconsciously, via our pineal gland, and through that, their… previous… choice of prey,” he explained, motioning to the massive humanoids present in the room with them.

“They once spanned the entire galaxy, until they uncovered the Arians on Europa, and through them, me… I then began to rewrite the spacetime associated with their empire. You realize what must be done, yes?”

Van Allen shook his head.

“You have to die, Mr. Hudson. Odom, Echlin, Van Allen… they have all crossed the threshold between the two worlds. Now, it is your turn, Hudson. The past year has become an exhausting endeavor for me chasing you across this star system.”

“I’ve been here for a year,” he inquired, shocked.

“Now that you’ve encountered the Arians,” Echlin-Odom began, “you’ve been here much longer than that.”

The Martians stood motionless as a tsunami of Arians tidal waved from the depths of the darkness beyond, spilling past the towering beings and Echlin-Odom as the latter spread his arms as if bathing in a warm shower.

* * * ​

Chekov was nowhere to be found, but Hudson made it back to the Aries One complex in record time. Grissom was hysterical.

“We need to go,” he said.

“Why?”

“Power up the escape capsule, we’re being hunted.” Right as he said this, there was a loud crash.

“What is that?”

Glenn did not answer, instead urging her up to the top floor, and they began making preparations. An emergency alert system informed them that the bottom level must be depressurized from the navigation system. Glenn demanded she stay there and lowered himself into navigation.

He was immediately floored by a vice-grip and slid down the ladder onto the ground. A loud thump prompted Grissom to call out for him. After a moment, she left the cockpit and was immediately thrown against the wall by an unseen assailant.

When she turned, she saw Hudson – staring at her with blood-shot eyes.

“I am the Yakizeekzekker,” he hissed. “Echlin and Chekov send their regards,” he snarled as two insectoids scuttled out of his left nostril. She was then tossed against the other wall. More of the insects began to seep out of his clothing and scuttle across Grissom, biting her as they then retreated into the shadows of the complex. The duo scuffled, with Hudson consistently gaining the upper hand. Grissom managed to sever Hudson’s deformed left arm and temporarily disable the aggressor. But as Sally began to ascend back to the departure module, Hudson leaped upon Grissom and clung to her back, as his eyes spilled from his skull before a swarm spilled out as Sally furiously kicked at the former-human. The creature eventually relinquished its predatory grasp and collapsed onto the floor of the room, breaking apart into several chitinous fragments.

The insects poured out, revealing a pale-colored eggsack attached to a particularly large creature roughly the size of Hudson’s torso. Grissom wasted no time, as the launch sequence was initiated, and she was leaving the Red Planet. She scurried inside the capsule and sealed the door.

The capsule launched, and thirty minutes later – the horizon of Mars was rocketing away from them into the distance.

Sixteen years and 185 days had passed, and as the module rocketed toward Earth, Sally Grissom re-opened the final log in the mission report.

''“Date: Unknown

Lunar-One and Aries mission: COMPLETE.

Survivors: 1

This is Salvia Grissom, I have eliminated the voices. They wanted me to kill the Deutschland-Tianjin team. Translation of the transmission may have come too late, however. I believe I may have killed them all. Nevertheless, the organism has been dealt with.

Martian Presence: ACTIVE

- Salvia Jane Grissom”''