Roby was near, but there's something we didn't take into account: why was he near?
There's nothing but a barren, toxic landscape beyond Mars Base Beta. Why risk your life by simply walking away?
As Dawn mentioned, Roby probably has another plan and it's possible that it involves leaving the outpost behind. However, we couldn't be certain until we meet him.
- How much longer will this last? - Sebastian asked, having finished his snack.
- Don't be impatient; missions often involve waiting for a while - Einstein advised.
- I guess that's better than running from assassins - Claudius commented.
- Speaking of, how are Amber and Anthony doing? - I added.
- I don't know, but I can contact them... - Einstein tried to connect to the spies we had to leave behind. It took him a while to get an audible signal.
- We're running from the assassin... or what counts as running on this planet... - we heard Amber through the radio - Could you come back and pick us up? Because we... run... fo... uch long... - the response soon decayed into unreadable noise.
- I think she meant "we can't run for much longer" or something similar - Arika filled the gaps.
We didn't get to hear anything else from Amber, aside from an eerie static. Connecting to Anthony yielded the same thing. Distorted noises.
Einstein was faced with a tough decision: continue and chase down the evil mastermind, leaving your agents to the enemy's mercy or come back and risk Roby escaping for good.
One thing we know about Einstein is that he really cares about us. Our caretaker was always ready to get into action and even disobey Nigel's orders to bring us to safety. Even if he caught Roby, he'd never forgive himself for leaving his people behind.
Eventually, he chose to turn around to save Amber and Anthony.
It didn't take us long to find them. Both were still alive and so was the asssassin. Amber's eyes widened with surprise, so did Anthony's. They didn't expect to see us come back like a lifeboat. However, they were more than happy to hop aboard.
Unfortunately, the assassin was someone we couldn't ignore. Anthony and Amber latched onto the back of the rover and we tried to drive away from the attacker, but we knew that this strategy was only delaying the inevitable.
Arika came up with a different approach. After gaining permission from Einstein, she took control of the rover. She spun the vehicle around quickly, blowing clouds of dust into the air. A lot of said dust landed directly on the assassin, covering his tinted visor. Being effectively blinded, he didn't chase us for much longer.
Now, this whole ordeal took us a few minutes, which may seem like very little, but it was actually a lot of time. Enough time for Roby to be too far away to capture.
We were forced to speed up, pushing the rover to its limits. Luckily, our determination wasn't pointless. We found footprints indicating that someone went this far. While we couldn't say with certainty, those footprints likely belonged to Roby.
- Time Skip -76Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgerItqrBtg
After following the footprints for a while, we made it all the way back to the Hope. More interestingly (yet concerningly too), Roby was there, on his way to the rocket.
- He's trying to hijack our rocket! - Justine exclaimed.
- Not on my watch - Einstein stood up and slipped into his spacesuit, ready to confront Roby in person. We eagerly joined him and our entire group soon approached the leader of the Martians.
He noticed us after a few seconds and rushed to the rocket. We swiftly caught up to him. Anthony was the first person to attack Roby. My father's main goal was slowing Roby down so that we can stop him. Roby however, had no intent of slowing down, pushing my dad away.
- You can't stop me! You're in the middle of nowhere and I'm not letting you into my stolen rocket! - Roby exclaimed, approaching the hatch.
- It's not like we need your permission - Dawn was vengeful. Roby gave the order to abandon her, after all.
She lunged forward, catching Roby off guard. He quickly retaliated by throwing her away. Dawn landed by the rocket and swiftly got up. Being in an advantageous position, she aided Anthony in slowing Roby down.
Roby suddenly pressed something on his helmet and said something, but I didn't hear his words.
All of a sudden, several assassins leaped out of the rocket. It was already overtaken by the Martians.
Now, a full-fledged battle broke out. However, we were no match for the trained assassins. They made sure that we won't reach the rocket, but that wasn't enough, apparently.
The assassin who attacked me went as far as cracking my visor and throwing me away, leaving me to suffocate. I did my best not to scream so that I won't use up the depleting air too quickly.
The other Martians did the same thing to all the others, throwing my allies in different directions. Roby personally shattered Einstein's visor and tossed him onto the ground, triumphantly climbing into the Hope afterwards.
- Goodbye, Earthlings! - he teased us.
Einstein landed close to the rover and crawled to it, repeating:
- I must save them. I must save them all...
On the last bits of energy, he climbed into the rover and attatched his spacesuit to the airlock. I couldn't pick up what he did afterwards.
I leaned on my back so that I wouldn't face the ground filled with perchlorates. I gazed upon our rover one more time. As my vision was slowly getting blurry, I saw several white shapes approaching the rover. It seems like the colonists came to rescue us.
One of the rovers arrived in my vicinity. Being barely alive, I slightly waved my hand to indicate that I'm not dead yet. Whoever was driving the vehicle noticed my signal, as a revolutionary emerged out the rover and sweeped me up. As the other colonists helped me recover and I was breathing deeply, the driver, who turned out to be none other than Big Donny, made his next move.
As the other teams saved my allies, Big Donny went on the offensive. Our vehicle gained speed and rammed straight into the rocket. The magnificent vehicle fell over and didn't explode, which was a miracle. It seemed like whoever designed the Hope made sure that it wouldn't fall apart at the slightest push. A thick metal shell shielded the fuel tanks from outside influence. The fall didn't puncture said shell, somehow.
Being in a horizontal position, there was no way for the rocket to take off. Big Donny managed to stop Roby. As a revolutionary gave me a new helmet, they turned out to be the kind guy who explained who John Premium was.
In the meantime, Big Donny jumped out of the rover and made his way to the rocket, with several revolutionaries keeping him company. He forced the hatch open and found Roby with his very surprised assassins, who were completely defenseless against Donny's strength and the anger of the revolutionaries. They victoriously pulled the Martians out of the rocket.
We got to see another day. A day without Roby and his assassins hunting us. A peaceful day, even if we're technically still stranded on the Red Planet.
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