Danger Magellan's Invasion of Earth

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

"Merfludz," Danger said as he hit several buttons in a row. "Merfludz, merfludz, MERFLUDZ!"

"Cynbellic language detected," Blaze chimed in. "'Merfludz' has multiple English translations, all of which are far too profane for polite company."

"I thought that you might know a few foreign swear words, Danger," I said.

"That's not worth dwelling on right now," Danger grumbled. "We've got to ready the Eclipse's weapons before these ships destroy us."

"I didn't know the Eclipse was armed," I said.

"It's only lightly armed," Danger said. "I wish I had picked a ship with more weaponry, but this will have to do for now."

I peeked out the window and saw that the Martian ships were coming closer. However, Danger's claims that the ships were going to destroy us seemed unfounded. It didn't look like any of them were planning to shoot us, even if they were a little too close for comfort.

Danger slammed on a glowing red button at the center of the dashboard. Then, he fiddled with the controls some more and hit the button again. "Prepare to die, you Martian scoundrels," he said.

"Is this really necessary?" Raquel asked.

Danger didn't respond, but the way his eyes lit up when he saw the ray of light that had shot out of our spaceship hit a nearby flying saucer told us everything we needed to know. The saucer flew apart, destroying it and everything inside of it. A small piece of the damaged ship hit another ship in the fleet, knocking it off course.

A maniacal grin spread across Danger's face as he suddenly maneuvered the Eclipse downwards. He then flew upwards and hit the red button again. Another ray of light shot out of the Eclipse's cannons, destroying three more Martian ships.

Once the Martians realized what Danger was doing, they struck back. One of the Martian ships fired at us and hit the back end of the Eclipse. "One of the fins is gone," Danger commented as one of the many lights on the dashboard went out. "We're doomed."

Danger swerved away from the fleet, but the same ship that had fired at us was just behind us. I held onto my harness as Danger flew in circles, trying to outpace the Martians. Danger fired several more times, but he repeatedly missed. I looked towards my companions, and for the first time since we had left Earth, Arthur looked genuinely terrified.

Another Martian ship fired, and the ray of light barely grazed the side of the ship. "We're not going to make it for too much longer," Danger said. He pressed a few buttons, and the seats realigned themselves for entry into the Martian atmosphere.

Danger sped the ship up and steered it towards the Martian surface. I held on tightly, but during our descent, I couldn't help but notice a few twinkling lights coming from Mars. Then again, I was probably hallucinating, but all of this had been far too real to have just been a hallucination.

All of a sudden, the Eclipse turned around, and before I knew it, all of us were upside down. "Danger, are you sure this is how we're supposed to land?" Raquel asked.

"No, actually!" Danger exclaimed. "I fell asleep during that lesson in Pilot's Ed.!"

All of a sudden, the Eclipse came to a stop. Danger opened the ship's door, and sure enough, the ship had done a nosedive into Mars' surface. Danger handed spacesuits to the rest of us. "You'll need these," he said. All four of us put on our spacesuits, climbed out, and then took a minute to take in our surroundings.

We appeared to be in the middle of what was a feeble attempt at a park. The park was surrounded by black fencing, and it contained a walkway through the planet's red soil, along with a few twisted trees with bright purple bark and no leaves. A few small humanoid beings with gray skin were strolling through the park, but most of them stopped to gawk when they saw the Eclipse.