The Alien Artifact 8 (3 page)

When he
realized that they had avoided dieing, when it stopped, flames
bursting out, and an alarm blared out, and a sudden explosion
smashed
it with
tremendous force
!

Then
as
he
caught
sight of
something
in the
obscurity
out in the
distance, through a window
,
he heard them all trying to
escape and realized that the shuttle had
acquired
serious
structural
damage
and fuel was
leaking out and had ignited
.

Chapter 3

The Crash Site

After the astronauts had jumped onto the
Martian soil Cronenberg and copied the others lifting out oxygen
tanks and he rushed away from the crash site with them, and he had
a strange sensation and thought that he was somewhere far more than
an uncharted desolate region of Mars!

It was as though they were entering somewhere
else, and making the first step for mankind to something!

He did not know what their next biggest
problem would be!

Was it even dieing of starvation? Or was
there something there after all, which had brought them there,
which was getting ready to kill them all or what?

They never had any communications with the
outside world and the shuttle was damaged beyond what they could
repair and the last of the fuel was burning away, and they were
lucky as the shuttle had been designed right and it did not have a
fatal explosion, but they never knew if what had taken them there
would allow them to leave, be found, and allow them to live!

The next peculiarly that they saw was the
strangely tinted night sky, and nobody could recall seeing anything
like it but they had not been outside the base at night that
much.

Yet he was sure it had not been there when
they had landed!

There was sand and rocks everywhere,
unhampered by humans, and it was very dry and he watched the
astronauts return and get fire distinguishers and help control and
put out the flames, while others removed equipment and things they
needed outside the shuttle, and he watched their speed increase,
and slow when the flames started going out, and their reactions
when it was annihilated, and they started moving back in the
shuttle and fixed its lighting and heating.

They eventually all started resting and went
to sleep to conserve energy supplies, and left everything for the
morning.

Cronenberg woke early, after sleeping too
long, and examined the outside world lighten up as the sun rose
above the horizon, and he watched the other astronauts slowly
awaken, eat, and start work checking the damage.

“
There’s
some
form of powerful energy influence,” Rosenberg
announced, after checking things, “and it
’
s still stopping us scanning
what
’
s out
there!
”

“
Just as it was on the
airplane?
”
he replied.

“
Well, it
seems to have altered – and we could have found another
encounter
–
and
it’s
tremendous!”

“
What could it be?” he moaned,
confused, and wondered if he had known something of it before the
shuttle had come down.

“
It could be that on the shuttle we
were not able to properly check anything as it was so far away and
there was too much disturbances! Now that we have landed we are
detecting it and it is also more powerful this close
...
”

“
Is it
near us?”

“
I don’t
have a clue where it is! It could be anywhere! I will try to get
the information on it!”

He handed
him some readouts and Cronenberg stared at them with amazement,
gasping, and muttered, “
What the hell could create
such power? It’s colossal!
”

“
It’s
also like
someone is playing around with something out
here! Has anyone got any science or military establishments or
anything at all out here?
”

He considered it for some time and was amazed
that someone could build something like it there, but he could not
grasp what or why it would be put there.

“
Nobody has been near here as far as
I’ve heard!”

“
But it could be
confidential?”

“
Yes! But why would it be built out
here? Why would they be using anything or experimenting on
anything?
”

“
Perhaps they are using or creating
something too dangerous to be activated in an inhabited
zone!
” he replied
firmly.

“
That would explain it being so
secretive and at an uncharted region but it does not explain
anything of its use!
”

He kept going, curious in what the scientists
would make of things if he pushed them further.

“
How did they manage to hide something
of its size and power though?” he moaned. “Nothing seems to add up
here!
”

“
They
surely would have to have technology beyond anything we’ve heard
of!”

Cronenberg stood still, staring out at the
Martian landscape through the front shuttle window, unable to grasp
it!

“
What could create such power and what
is its use?
”

“
It could be someone using a natural
phenomenon or something? Like someone harnessing and manipulating
energy in the planet
’
s core or something?
”

Nothing added up though, as it was only used
to control the shuttle and take it there, and they could easily
have hidden away, and never be found, and they would be found out
eventually.

He could not realize what it was and realized
that the real solution to what it was would be far more
unbelievable and crazy than what they would come out with, and he
wondered if he could get what it was, and it could be far too
ridicules for them even to assume existed.

The night before when it had taken control of
the shuttle he had detected something of unknown origins, and it
had been like that when it had made a full appearance.

Yet there clearly was no evidence of anything
and only someone making a ridicules mistake would add anything to
what had been said, and he filled in his account of what had
occurred on the flight, and going by what all the crew about him
indicated it was a crazy occurrence and they never had any proper
facts anything was there.

“
To
discover whatever i
s here we’ll need more reasonable
and solid clues!
” he
finally announced, especially to Rosenberg, who seemed to be the
most interested and knowledgeable on it.

They eventually
left the shuttle through the airlock wearing their suits with extra
oxygen tanks on them, and they started to go further out from the
shuttle to a nearby small hill with a view of the surrounding view,
where they blankly viewed the surrounding area, and Cronenberg
looked back and down at the shuttle, which resembled an airplane
brought down in a desert region like the Sahara, surrounded by
bright reddish sand and rocks in bright sunlight, in a cloudless
white blue sky.

The surprising
thing was his spacesuit’s high temperature and the surrounding view
combined to give the impression of it being incredibly hot, instead
of incredible cold and at the Antarctica of the world, and he even
considered if any of them were capable of making some form of
mistake because of it.

The adrenalin of the crew was visibly rushing
through their veins, overwhelming them, as they checked their new
surroundings, and most realized where they were, and he thought he
saw the Earth in the sky.

All around them they examined things like
they were strange new phenomena, and he wondered what they thought
they were discovering.

Even though they had been exploring areas of
Mars, especially about the base, they had not been to an unexplored
area like it, and they moved over to an area where it looked like a
cold region like the Antarctica, and they looked for ice and
water.

“
Look at all this!
”
Campbell explained, picking
up a strange rock, and none of them could recall seeing it before,
and he then looked as if he recognized it.

“
What do you think brought us down
now?
”
he
asked, curiously. “There’s nothing out here!
Nothing
can grow!
”

They all discussed it and it was apparent
none of them properly knew, and they started examining the
landscape and giving facts and their thoughts of it, and Cronenberg
and Rosenberg examined the best map they had of the region and
discussed it, and they all then discussed what to do.

Rosenberg pointed at the highest hill, buried
away in the landscape, in a southerly direction, in the direction
of the southern pole, where they had been traveling to, and he
examined why most of it was covered up and saw small sand hills in
front of it, covering up most of it, and what was below.

“
There’s a better chance of finding
water there!” Rosenberg announced.

The more Cronenberg examined what was there
the more he thought it was a good place to go and he announced that
he would like to go and check there.

It looked familiar to him, as a place with
something, and he was sure it was where the shuttle had been
going.

“
It
’
s as though it has formed differently, by
some means, by something else ...
” Campbell mumbled, looking at it through his
binoculars.

“
Could be a fault line?” Rosenberg
replied.

They all examined it and avoided replying,
and Cronenberg wondered if they agreed or disagreed!

Chapter 4

The Haunted Hill

Cronenberg leapt onto his feet when a strange
explosion shattered his sleep and he stared out into dark Martian
night!

They had wrongly calculated the distance and
time it took to get to the hill, and they had only been able to
leave late in the evening, and it had become dark on the way and
they had rested and had fallen asleep below the hill. The long day
and march over small hills in the thick heavy spacesuits, marching
through deep regions of sand carrying large amounts of equipment,
including oxygen tanks and supplies, had tired them, and they were
unable to do anything but sleep anyway.

Cronenberg was staggered when he considered
what the noise was, as it had sounded like an artificial explosion,
and he stood trying to explain how it could be there, and he
wondered how the atmosphere could even carry the sound through it,
and he realized Mars was different, and it might even be some form
of volcanic disturbance from below, blasting up through a vent.

The other two astronauts, Rosenberg and
Campbell, who had accompanied him either ignored it, or were
asleep, or had not heard it, and he examined them through their
dark helmet faceplates but could not see what they were doing.

When a second explosion blasted out he stood
shocked, as he had just started to ignore the first and had
considered it to be his imagination, and the powered rifle blast
exploded into the empty silence staggering him, and the explosion
sounded so powerful he believed it had some form of powerful
explosive in the bullets!

The other two astronauts at first never
reacted or even moved and he finally spotted Rosenberg opening his
eyes, and watched him looking startled and realized he had also
heard it and had been trying to ignore it.

“
What the hell was that?” he finally
asked, as he stood.

“
It sounded like a gun!”

“
We don’t have any guns on Mars
though?”

“
There’s nobody out here
either!”

Rosenberg yawned, and replied, “It has to be
something else!”

Rosenberg went back to where he was sleeping
and tried to go back to sleep.

Whoever was there had to be crazy or up to
something and he realized he might even get the answer to what had
brought them down there and decided to investigate it.

He silently crept away, and tried to creep up
on whoever it was to observe them and realized that if there was
someone there that they surely had to have left traces of
themselves, as there was sand everywhere and there had to be
footprints or something.

It felt silly looking for someone there, in
such a desolate place, where nobody should be! He could not realize
who was there and just accepted that they might be trying to do
something! Perhaps it was the shuttle they wanted, as it was
priceless and its technology highly confidential on the Earth.

It had to be located in the coldest and most
remote place on Mars, and its southern pole! Even in the summer the
place was deadly cold without the spacesuits!

As far as he was concerned there was nothing
to be there for! The hidden coldness around him at times made him
cringe, and he, almost blindly, rushed on to where the sound came
from, and for some reason when he reached a specific region he
realized it had to be where the noise came from.