RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.10 BACK TO THE NOSSA VESSEL

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.10 - BACK TO THE NOSSA VESSEL

By M.J. Heiser

You realize in a startling moment of clarity that none of the crap that’s happened to you since you woke up in Malloy’s locker is any of your business. What is your business is the stuff that happened on the ship. You have to get back to the NOSSA vessel, ASAP, get to the bottom of these shenanigans.

President Womack is just going to have to deal with your reluctance to play hero today.

You march with purpose to the wall that somehow conceals the transporter the Janitor King used to bring you both to this weird office on Mars. You show no hesitation in manipulating the control panel – after all, you’ve just proven to be a whiz at hacking through interplanetary computer defense programs. You smile to yourself as the wall of white light and energy appears in front of you, and with a single-minded determination, you move into the light.

Unfortunately, Whiz Kid, you maybe should have taken an extra minute at the control panel. After all, the last person to manipulate it was the Janitor King, and he had it set to transport one Earthling and one Martian. You overlooked that one control, and it’s leading your body through unfortunate contortions through space and time.

You never make it back to the NOSSA vessel. Instead, for the next several months leading to your gruesome death, you’re going to have to deal with being stretched, pushed, pulled, and contorted like so much organic-material taffy – and you’ll spend every day of that time wishing you’d just played the hero.

THE END

Oops...RETURN TO CHAPTER 10

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.9 KILL THE KING

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.9 - KILL THE KING

By John Elrod II

As tantalizing as the king's offer is -- and tantalize mightily it does -- you simply cannot be party to his plans. How on Earth are you to convince him to let you leave -- well, how on Mars are you to convince him? He's told you things nobody is supposed to know. He obviously finds you expendable. On top of that, where are you? I mean, where are you exactly? Anyone with brain-one would realize this is not a situation where refusal to cooperate is an option. Unfortunately, you don't seem to have a brain at all.

"Have you ever heard of a Chinese finger trap?" There's an ever-expanding smirk of coy glee slinking its way across your face.

"A what?" His face is mangled with confusion.

"Never mind. You know, King, you turned this wall over here," you motion in the same general direction as he had before, "into a window, right?"

Befuddled, he responds, "Yes... Listen, I'm really going to need an ans--"

"Yeah, in a minute." A tiny monkey maniacally bangs two cymbals against one another in your head; you've clearly devised your master plan. "First, what does the adjoining wall behind you do?"

Forgetting for a moment the urgency of the situation, the king's interest has been piqued. Though the Martians have far surpassed humans in technological advancement, disease eradication, and general civility, humans still hold a monopoly in an area Martians cannot invent, discover, or unravel: cognitive dissonance.

"You know," he wobbles as he inspects the wall as if seeing it for the first time, "I've never really thought about it." His face no doubt recalls the one you wore only a few moments ago.

Coming to the realization that he doesn't particularly care what the wall does, he turns to confront you.

"HAAAAH!" You let loose a joyous grunt for the ages as you hurl the once innocuous data cube with all the might you can muster. Before the king can even know what hit him, the deceptively deadly crystal cube meets his spongy face. He falls to the floor with the cube snugly lodged in his brain as a pungent, viscous goo pools and quickly congeals on the floor.

"Looks like this pawn just knocked off the king," you gloat in your best action hero mannerism.

Little do you know that concealed in your victory is the checkmate of defeat. Your master plan failed to take into consideration the lack of doors this optical illusion of a room affords. That lapse in judgment notwithstanding, you should really take another look at his royal corpse.

His body appears to be ballooning. "Are you bigger than you were? Why are you bigger than you were?!"

You grab everything not bolted down and begin launching the items one-by-one into each successive wall. It's no use; nothing you can throw is having any effect on these walls-from-hell. You grab for his desk but are repelled by the sight of his bloody expanse having coagulated into the back of it.

"It's eating through shit!? What the hell are these things?!" You charge the opposing wall, pounding your fists. Over and over, you inflict absolutely no damage whatsoever to the wall, but your hands quickly become nothing more than sandbags of fractured bone. The pain is immense, but the panic has overtaken you. As the gelatinous mass nears, you're suddenly calm. You pivot to face your doombringer. This acceptance of finality is coupled only with a rueful disdain for your lack of forethought as you're unceremoniously devoured.

THE END

Oops...RETURN TO CHAPTER 9

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.9 THE PROOF

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.9 - THE PROOF

By J.A. Souders

You decide that since the janitor/king was the one to order the assassination you’d better follow. Maybe you can talk some sense into the guy.

He leads you into his “office,” which you realize is nothing more than a tiny little broom closet. You stifle a laugh. Of course it’s a broom closet. After all, he’s just a lowly janitor now.

The door shuts behind you and the Martian turns. You can tell by the tiny smile on his strange face that he finds you amusing. However, before you can ask what’s so funny, he pulls on a broom handle on the opposite wall. Another door opens revealing a bright white light, like the kind they’re always talking about in old science fiction movies.

He continues walking, leaving you no choice but to follow. He leads you into another, much larger room resembling what you always assumed the office of a CEO would look like.

He goes to sit behind the glass desk and gestures for you to take the seat in front of him. You do so and patiently wait for his so-called “proof.”

He only continues to stare at you until you say, “Well, spill it already. Where’s this proof?”

He spreads his hands out in front of him. “All around you.”

You look all around you, but see nothing that proves anything. You arch a brow at the Martian. “What the hell are you talking about?”

The Martian chuckles. “Such a silly Earthling. Do you really see nothing?” You only continue to stare at him. He sighs. “Very well. Here.” He tosses you what looks like a crystal cube. It’s about the size of a Rubik’s cube you had as a child.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a data crystal. All of our technologies are on this cube. If you help me, I’ll give you every secret of our people. What you see in this room is only the beginning of the secrets we’ve hidden from you.”

“It looks normal to me.”

“This room is not part of the space port. It is actually in what was once my palace. The light we passed through was our transportation device.”

“Prove it.”

He gestures toward one wall, which shimmers and then turns clear as glass to reveal the lush landscape that could only be the southern hemisphere of the Martian territory -- and on the complete opposite side of the planet than where you thought you were.

“H-how do I know that’s not a trick?” you ask.

“Step outside.” He gestures again, and a door appears in the glass wall. A breathing device appears in your lap. “I’d give you a pill that will help you breathe in our atmosphere, but I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t take it.”

You shake your head, then slip on the equipment and step outside. You’ve never been to this part of the planet, but you know instantly that this is the real thing. You return to the room and the door shuts behind you. The wall becomes the silk wallpaper, as before.

“Okay. I believe you. You mentioned you’d give it to me if I’d help you. Help you with what? The murder of the president?”

“In essence, yes.”

“No. No way.” You stand up. “There are no secrets you have that could make me help you.”

“What about peace between your world and ours --would you help me then?”

“I don’t understand,” you say. “By killing the president you won’t have peace. It will only start a war.”

“It will if they think I had anything to do with it, but if they find out that the assassination was carried out by their own general, and that you, with my help, tried to prevent it? Now that, that is cause for peace. Don’t you think?”

“Okay, so now I’m really confused. You’re trying to kill the president, yet you want to help me prevent it?”

“Well, yes. Because once the president is dead, the truth comes out, and you’ll be a hero. My people will push for you to be the next president. Your people will join in the nomination, and you will hesitantly and humbly accept. Then you’ll push for our world to return to the way it was before your people came and turned it to -- this. Your payment will be all our secrets. All you have to do is agree to follow my orders and lead my people and yours the way I would.”

“So you’re saying that you want to make me president, and that will bring peace to our worlds?”

“Yes. Your people would never accept a Martian ruler, but they will accept you. And they will love you because you will be a hero. My people will accept you because you will treat them as I did -- with respect, for them and their heritage. What do you say?”

“What happens if I don’t choose to help you?” you ask.

“I’ll return you to the space port and you can continue whatever it was that you were going to do.”

Do you...

A. Accept his offer to bring peace to both your worlds?

B. Make him return you to the spaceport to look for the ball players again?

C. Kill him by hitting him with a data cube and run? (You have all his secrets anyway.)