- Is it one of us? - I thought.
No, it can't be. If there was something suspicious, the Agency would have surely found it. It wouldn't allow the saboteur to board the Remedy in the first place.
On the other hand, how could have anyone intruded? The spies who guarded the dome carefully inspected everyone who entered the building, not to mention the rocket.
- How much time do we have left? - Anthony asked through the radio.
- Very little. Mars is getting slightly bigger with each second - Sebastian responded with concern.
- How?! - Arika didn't get it - Our engines have barely been compromised and we're already falling to Mars?!
- It seems like the saboteur managed to reroute us onto a collision course with the Red Planet - I guessed.
- An evil hacker? - Amber suggested, looking at Arika.
- Why are you looking at me like that? - our Japanese ally noticed.
- You're super talented when it comes to IT and hacking... - Amber replied, walking into the control room. She thought that Arika is the mole.
Using my position to my advantage, I glanced upon the monitor ahead of Arika. There wasn't anything suspicious on it. I looked around the entire cockpit, but only saw red alerts and the distance to Mars constantly shrinking.
- You know how much I did for the Agency during both the solo missions and the operations with you. Why would I betray them? I'm not money-hungry... - Arika turned around to face Amber.
- That's a good point. Most evil people want money... - Einstein muttered.
- Plus, with how much the US has been supporting Japan, turning to the dark side would make me a traitor to both countries and that's not a thing I'd like - what Arika said was true.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5gMyljCmaL
The USA helped Japan repell Chinese forces, who have been found sailing around the country on multiple occasions. Japan is strategic, as it is the core of an anti-Chinese bloc funded by America.
Amber was clearly still unsure, but before she could say anything, we heard Claudius through Anthony's radio.
- There's an intruder aboard! Someone just flew past me! - Claudius informed us.
- Where are you? - Anthony was quick to respond.
- In the corridor above the engine room! - Claudius shouted back.
Amber grinned, ready to beat up a villain. While Einstein and Arika stayed in the control room to make sure that things won't get even worse, Amber, Anthony and I made our way to the engine room to encounter the enemy along the way.
We heard some grunts and a loud bang as we headed to the corridor mentioned by Claudius. As it turned out, the enemy threw him against the wall of the engine room, causing the bang. Claudius was still largely okay, so we focused on the enemy, or I should say enemies, because there were two.
Judging by their general direction, it was obvious where they were heading: the escape pod.
One of the enemy agents had a very strange spacesuit. It was completely black with green details and a logo that seemed familiar. It was a green sphere with a black star on it. I saw the same logo on the suit worn by the assassin on Earth.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB0Bjxo2WJA
The other enemy had a normal, white spacesuit. Because they were facing away from us, we couldn't see their face. The only detail that stood out to me was the size of the spacesuit, which was small, compared to the black one. Whoever was wearing the white spacesuit was definitely young. Is it one of us?
The person wearing the black spacesuit broke his way into the escape pod with a crowbar which he was carrying. Interestingly, he slammed the hatch shut before the smaller agent could enter, therefore abandoning them. As the small agent banged on the hatch, the other enemy closed the airlock and clicked the ejection button, catapulting the escape pod into outer space, away from the Remedy.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUQc6jlqaMh
The good news was that we were able to capture the smaller agent. The bad news however, was that the whole Remedy rotated by a 180 degrees and was now facing Mars in a nosedive.
As we flew to the cockpit, we saw that the Martian surface was now the only thing visible through the front window. We were a few minutes away from a catastrophic crash.
- What do we do?! - Arika was panicking at this point. Einstein was still laser focused on the controls, trying to mitigate at least some of the upcoming damages.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2atReek5Fc
While I sat down next to Arika to assist her, Amber pried the helmet off the attacker, revealing them to be none other than our falsely sweet adversary, Dawn Baker.
She is the mole from the Perseids who was a member of the Agency for two years before we exposed her in the American Moon Base. She also took part in the Perseids' schemes aboard the Hyperspace and in BIORBITAL's biodome. The strange part was that she was captured at the end of our last mission and sent to a prison on Earth along with the other Perseids and Lim Yazhu. How is she here?
- What?! - Amber was audibly surprised.
- What?! - Dawn gave her an identical response.
- How on Mars are you here?! - Anthony grumped.
- I joined the Martians to get revenge on you for what you did to me! - Dawn spilled a bit of info.
- The Martians? Who are they? - I asked.
- Team of assassins wanting to kill you, duh - Dawn muttered.
- You're telling me that a group of aliens is out to murder us? - Claudius was puzzled by her response.
- No, dummy. We just have a cool name - Dawn shrugged.
- Keep it nice or we'll abandon you too! - Amber wanted to silence Dawn.
- Why are you revealing this information? Those so-called "Martians" will probably kill you for doing so - Arika noted.
- Well, they kind of did already by leaving me here, but I don't know why! - Dawn spoke up again, much to Amber's dismay. However, this was actually important, so she didn't respond.
- Maybe you messed up something? - Claudius suggested.
- How dare you say that?! - Dawn hissed, but a cold gaze from Amber calmed her down, sort of.
- You always messed up stuff during your time with the Perseids. Last time, you boasted about your evil plan, revealing it to us... - I recalled and Claudius nodded, as if he was about to say the same thing.
- It doesn't matter right now, because we're all about to die on this forsaken piece of junk...! - Dawn shouted.
- Maybe not. There are still a few things we can salvage - Einstein interrupted.
- Like what? - Dawn asked.
- Look, we're about to crash into Valles Marineris, but if we slide onto the surface instead of ramming into it, we may have a slim chance of survival - Einstein started explaining.
- Slim?! - Dawn was unsatisfied.
- That's better than zero - Anthony reminded her.
- We need to make a perfect manouver to land horizontally. Arika, deploy the parachutes! That can help us slow down a bit! - Einstein instructed.
Arika quickly activated a protocol that deployed the parachutes, but they barely helped. We were still in a nosedive.
- Chris, detatch the fuel tanks! - Einstein continued and I listened.
After finding the right control panel, I pressed a few buttons which ejected the fuel tanks. This made sense, because they'd explode as soon as we hit the ground. It's not like we needed them, since the Remedy will be too battered to take off anyway.
The tanks fell away from the Remedy and exploded upon slamming into the Martian regolith, blasting into pieces. I hope that we won't share their fate.
Now came the hardest part: turning our spacecraft around. We needed perfect cooperation between Einstein, Arika and me, along with zero interruptions for maximum focus. Because of this, Amber was allowed to temporarily gag Dawn, so that her complaints won't distract us.
The parachutes did come in handy, as they slowed us down slightly, giving us a bit more time to make our move. By using up the remaining fuel in our main tank, which can't be detatched, we rotated the rocket into a near-horizontal position, but the fuel suddenly ran out.
This was like a double-edged sword: on one hand, we probably won't be blown to bits upon reaching the surface, but on the other hand, we couldn't make any maneuver from now on, which means that there was nothing we could do at this point to change our course.
- Go to the back of the rocket, as the cockpit will be the first to go! - Einstein instructed us. Since there wasn't anything for us to do in the cockpit, he also left. We rushed to the engine room and held onto anything that we could. We also got our helmets so that we could breathe. In absolute fear, I caught a few glimpses of the surface before we crashed into it.
Our moves from earlier allowed us to slide for a bit before stopping completely. The force of the impact litearlly brought us to our knees. I tumbled for a bit before seeing clouds of Martian being blasted upwards because of our crash. The clouds floated above the cockpit, or whatever wreckage was left of it.100Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt9qGzexIWW
I survived the crash and so did the others, but it wasn't long before I lost consciousness and blacked out...
ns216.73.217.39da2
and then Add to home screen.