Pokémon Mars

Chapter 11: The Voice

After an hour of breathing pure oxygen in the preparation chamber, the new astronauts left Ironville once again. Martian sunsets were blue, but its days were as red as the rust-shaded soil stretching as far as the eye could see. The rover juddered over the rocks strewn everywhere. Aggron swept them off the road. Beyond the road, many rocks couldn't be moved. They were glued to the surface for hundreds of years. It was only a few minutes until the astronauts saw a wild Stakataka, its 150 eyes glowing around the rock formations climbing every hill, but Callerya recognised it immediately in the daylight.

Eden drove off the road. They followed the tracks of other rovers to the cemetery. They were within two miles of a gate – and hospital – there. Though none of them said it, they were all curious about the place that Damson talked about so often that Firmino mentioned it.

That ride was as bumpy as last night's experience. Some of the rocks were taller than their tyres, but the only way forward was to drive over them. They complained about the Ares program whirling its astronauts around in a Robo Rayquaza at the edge of Earth's atmosphere – which they called the 'Vomit Ascent' – but they appreciated that training for their stomachs then.

A bus, mostly filled with wealthy space tourists, rumbled by. Cameras flashed inside. The tourists were all eager to photograph real astronauts on a real rover, especially those who recognised them from the news.

Thalassa's and Eden's Metagross flew after them. Like the first Metagross on Mars, as long as they were fed, they had no trouble surviving in the hostile conditions. Thalassa's Porygon2, Eden's Beheeyem, Mercury's Rotom and Nyx's Aegislash could also survive out there. Thalassa held Porygon2 close. Rotom buzzed excitedly around. Not all Rotom got the chance to visit Mars. As usual, Mercury's shutter never stopped snapping. If he came to Mars for anything other than his father, this was it. Beheeyem couldn't keep up with the rover, so Eden kept it in its Poké Ball. Nyx was hesitant to release Aegislash. She knew it could survive out there, but it scared her. Aegislash encouraged her. It was curious, so eventually, she released it.

Most of the ornate fence around Ironville Cemetery was knocked down by the dust storm. The Stakataka trampled another part. Only funeral attendees and disabled people were permitted to ride rovers inside the cemetery, so Eden parked outside. There were two other rovers and a Charjabus there. The bus departed as they all helped each other out of the rover.

This was the first time most of them walked in low gravity. The cemetery was a good place to practice. Its paths were smooth and mostly flat, but there was a slight hill in the north if they wanted to practice climbing.

There was a priest in the chapel by the gates. He peered out to check who they were, but returned to his book right away. Their headsets were set to only talk amongst themselves. It was impossible to know how the other visitors, unrecognisable in spacesuits, felt about their visits; though one man didn't appear to be mourning. He was only out for a run.

Another priest, identified by the Arceus symbol on his spacesuit, said a final prayer for a box full of urns, containing the ashes of the Rattata found in mailboxes. Jin couldn't resist peering in to the other open graves. They all contained the ashes of Pokémon. So they were the Ares program's biggest victims, but why? It was common knowledge that most couldn't survive outside the bubble. That was known before robots even landed on Mars. Poké Balls were always scanned on the way out of Ironville – even Firmino's were – so the guards would know if Pokémon never returned. Did people kill them because they were afraid of them? If the group had known that, they wouldn't have brought so many that could only survive in Ironville. Nyx grimaced.

'This isn't an ideal new world at all...'

Jin scanned the names and dates on the dusty headstones. The first graves of people were the astronauts of Ares 1, most of whom died of old age by then. The remains of the crew of Ares 3 were also buried there. That was what they would have wanted: to reach Mars.