Mia the Martian

[7]

As promised, Alena arrives half an hour later. Due to the fact that the world seems to be ending this month, every single person in the building was informed of the predicament of the rest of the globe - what's been going on while they peacefully lived in the safety of these walls.

Sydney and Darren haven't let go of each other since they heard, and Michael is always hovering around me. I don't mind - his presence calms me somehow.

With the help of Janice and the Blanchard brothers, a white sheet was stretched over one of the walls in the room where I've been fixing my ship and a projection of space now covers the wall. So far, I've pointed out the black holes to universes eighteen to twenty.

"Janice, Orion's Belt, please."

Once the three stars are in view, I point out my own universe. "The black hole is located within a relatively small distance from the middle star. I don't know much about the rest, but I do know that the atmosphere on Earth-17 is not yet fully stable, so there's that added obstacle. It is however breathable, just don't light any fires of any kind . . . and that's all of them."

I pause as I climb into my ship after handing the wristband to Michael. We've been using that as a projector since it's connected to the ship. Janice sits on the seat - wierd since she's a hologram - while I manually locate the hidden spacecrafts.

"There's a total of . . . one hundred ships."

Alena glances at Eliza. "That is definitely a better state than we were in before. Have the president contact the rest of the council and pass along the news. Head for the following coordinates. . ."

Alena and Eliza leave, Alena rapidly speaking to Eliza and firing commands. I lean out of the hole where a window used to be, and Michael leans against the side, handing me my wristband. Sydney and Darren walk over, ignoring the tape probabaly for the first time in his life.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Sydney asks me.

"Same reason your brother didn't mention anything. I didn't want you to worry. Look at yourselves, Sydney, you're both scared to the bone,  you're practically shaking."

Darren squeezes her shoulders comfortingly. Michael sighs. "So, just to be clear," he turns to look at me, "You're not pregnant?"

"Of all the things to think about . . . no, I'm not."

He shrugs. "Oh."

For the first time since we told them, Sydney's face is an expression of something other than fear or worry. "Just 'oh'?" she asks skeptically.

Michael nods. "Yeah, just 'oh'. Anyway, you should all get prepared. When Alena comes back, she's gonna want you on the ship," he tells me, "And you're not going anywhere without me, and I'm betting this company that the two of you don't plan on staying behind."

Darren nods, then raises an eyebrow. "How do you plan on getting all of us to join her?"

Michael glances at me. "The alien shall handle that."

---------------

True to what Michael said, Alena demanded that I be on the ship headed for Orion and the Fingerprint Cloud with her and Eliza. A few threats later, Michael, Darren, and Sydney were fitted with spacesuits like mine.

After Sydney and Darren left, I managed to shift Janice from the ship to my wristband. Let's just say she was not pleased with her new home and wouldn't stop appearing just to whine, so I turned her off until our ship launched. Then I linked her to the ship's console unit where she managed to annoy both pilots in the space of two hours.

Through some miracle, it was still April first when we passed through the black hole. Janice gave a long boring lecture on time in black holes and how we could've been in there for seventy years but not aged a day and all that, but I prefer to believe we managed the full journey in one day.

Janice is probably right - but hey, I'm not a scientist. I can believe whatever fairytale story I like.

It was definitely more than twenty four hours, though, because I slept a lot, and I only sleep at what's supposed to be nighttime.

And then we began our entrance into Earth-17's atmosphere.

"No! We can't! The ship will explode!"

Alena tries to calm me down, but I know more than these people. "No, listen to me. I was born on this planet, and I know more than you pesky Prime Humans. You can't try to land the ship on Earth-17. The heat from trying to enter the atmosphere is going to create more than a single flame, and once that gets into contact with the atmosphere . . . bye bye life."

"Then what do you suggest we do, Mia?" Alena asks from her seat.

I sigh. "Doesn't this ship have smaller pods? Those won't explode, they won't generate that much heat from such a close range."

Alena shakes her head. "I don't think so."

I glance out the small round window. "Then we have a thirty second frame to jump from the ship once we enter the atmosphere."

Alena's jaw drops. "The fall alone will kill you! Especially if you're right about the gravity being identical to that of Earth's."

I shrug. "Well, you can jump or you can go boom like your home planet will in a few more days."

Alena closes her eyes and leans back. Then she glances up. "Parachutes?"

"That'll be handy," Michael snorts.

"Shut up," Eliza says. "Look, parachutes."

We all look up and sure enough, there are the parachutes. As fast as we can, we hook up each person on board with a parachute, including our pilots. "Entering the atmosphere in five," one of them says.

"Okay," I say, "In five seconds, you're all gonna start jumping, and you all better be off in the next ten."

"Three," the pilot calls.

Everyone lines up by the emergency door.

"Two." Sydney has her hand on the handle.

"One." She rips the door open and jumps before thinking twice.

"Ten seconds till this thing goes boom, people," I yell.

I count to ten in my head. I'm at six when one of the people get hooked in the net. "Mia," Michael yells.

Seven. I have to help.

Eight. Got it.

Nine. I push Michael out.

Ten. I jump just as the entire ship explodes, the force of it knocking me down. The last thing I think of before I lose consiousness is that I never opened my chute.