“Be careful down there,” shouts Rob Givens, the mission leader in his deep, bass voice.
As I step onto the rocky soil beneath the Martian surface, I do not doubt his warnings. I have already become accustomed to the cold bite of the wind, the severe discomfort of the land, and the difficulty of breathing the thin Martian air.
All these things are familiar to me since my landing, but now I can’t help but think about their true purpose. I’ll be the first human to be on Mars in two years, ever since the funding for this mission ceased. Thoughts of all that man has spent, lost, and sacrificed to explore and settle another planet flood my mind.
Now, as I look around at the dazzling, spectacular, yet threatening surroundings I am standing in, my heart begins to beat faster. It is just me, Rob Givens, and the equipment between me and Mars for the next eighteen days. To be honest, if this was the first time arriving on Mars, I’d be frantic about the situation, but I’ve been living here for the past two years.
“All systems check,” yells Rob in my earpiece. “Detecting only routine digital noises and no biological readings.”
I shrug my shoulders and turn around, facing the newly developed Martian base, HAX, behind me. The base is a large, domed, metallic building fitted into the landscape, giving a strange effect. The area around the base has been completely smoothed out and nothing but flat, natural soil can be seen in the area.
The base has been created as to avoid detection, but also to keep as low a profile as possible. The base is a permanent structure, built to last when it was first created. All through the op it will be monitored by video and audio feeds, and the data will be sent to NASA and other stations around the world.
I face back to my objective, the Martian surface, and step out onto the sun-blasted, reddish ground. Rob told me to walk a straight path away from the base and keep going, until I heard from him once more. As I walk, the wind blows constantly, and the land is completely barren. It is grayscale. It is completely desolate, but it is strangely beautiful. The sun is blazing above, giving a blue and white shine to the sky. The Martian sky is beautiful in its own way, and I suddenly feel lucky to have seen it.
I walk for what feels like hours; time seems to stand still here. It takes me a while to get to where I am going. When I finally get close enough to the edge of the cliff, I see two figures standing a little way above me.
They are the first things I see on Mars, and the first living things since the three humans who created HAX two years ago, who were both killed in an accident down in the base. The figures face in the same direction as me, although they are slightly above me as I walk towards them.
I get up to the figures, which are clearly humans. They must be. My first thought is that humans have come to Mars to colonize. This is the first real proof I have seen that humans exist in these stars. The one to the left steps forward first. He is wearing a full set of tactical orange armor, the same as the soldiers who have been patrolling the landscape. He has dark hair, which is plastered to his face by droplets of sweat.
His face has been burned by the sun, stained a rather dark brown color by it. He looks very serious and determined. He has a long blade in his hand, and has already taken out the scabbard. I look at the other one, who is dressed in all white, and looks about fifteen years old. They both look at me for a second, then start walking away.
“Stop!” I call out. “Wait! Where are you going?”
They do not stop, but walk away, as I think of what to do next. Rob warns me about these... beings. They were found roughly two years ago, when I had been on Mars for about a year. They were hiding in the ground, and were believed to be from the underground civilization, although this was never confirmed. I had many friends on Mars, who were all killed by those things.
I may have had issues with them, but they deserved a better fate than the one they got, and I was very close to them. I was all alone, until I was presented with someone to talk to, another survivor. Rob tells me that he had communicated with these things before, but I have never managed to make contact with them.
I run as fast as I can towards the two figures. They walk slowly; I am catching up to them. I notice something out of the corner of my eye as I run. It is bright, and round. I look down, and I can’t believe my eyes.
Before me is a pure white figure, almost like a big ball. It is in the middle of the once barren landscape. I dodge the creatures, and fall to the ground. It rolls down the rocks, and soon I am standing in front of it once more. It floats in the air, giving me a sense of peace. I have never seen anything like it before. It is so similar to the landing craft that brought us here, but so much bigger.
My first thought is to destroy it, but I realize that I may need it. It looks to have a similar purpose to the landing craft, but it is not. It seems to be from a much longer ago time, or possibly from a centuries past. Its outer casing is a perfect mirror. It reflects the sun, and gives off no heat whatsoever.
There are symbols on its side. It is a circle, painted on its side. On closer inspection these seem to be a line illustration of the Earth, if it had a surface. I walk around it, and a few other symbols are on its side that are clearly not from Earth. I get the interpretation from Rob, who comes from an ancient language.
“It is giving me an understanding of changes in the world. It doesn’t appear to have changed the world, it appears to have changed the world’s perception.”
I sit and try to think of what to do.