Five minutes later Lorinson turned to his weapons officer. “Weapons Officer Rephus, destroy the main communications array on the hull of their quaint little craft.” Lorinson ordered.
Rephus smiled, this was the part he liked best, operating the ship`s main weapons, its Phasers. He now targeted the main communications array on the outer hull of Mars Colony One, and locked on to it, his fingers moved across the computer screen and touched the fire controls that immediately came to life; he then instructed the computer to fire a one-second low energy burst at the target. The secondary Phaser aboard the Constellation sent a short bolt of energy between the two vessels, and it hit the communications array, destroying it instantly in a brilliant flash of light.
Within the space craft Mars Colony One, everyone not sitting down, or laying down on their space cots, was thrown violently against whatever solid object was in the way, bringing forth a multitude of oaths, as the destruction on the outer surface of their craft caused the ship`s computer to register the destruction.
“What the hell!” Astronaut Johnny Pearson exclaimed. “Bob, we must have been hit by one hell of a meteorite, have we been holed?” he asked his co-pilot.
“No Johnny, there has been no drop in our air pressure, but our communications are now definitely out, see here.” Astronaut Bob Willey replied while pointing at the main computer screen before them. A short message had appeared on the screen. ‘Communications is no longer available; it has been disrupted at the main communications array. Repairs to the system are necessary, if you require this facility.’
Meanwhile on the Magentan space cruiser Constellation, Captain Lorinson spoke to his Science Officer again. “Science Officer Malin, please take control of the Earth ship`s computer, ensure that Earth does not know when we operate the airlocks on their vessel, or of our sonic attack on their crew. Then replace the current health data stream of the Earth ship`s crew with the recording you made, we do not want Earth to worry unduly about the fate of their people. Tell me when you are done.” This data was sent to Earth via a secondary communication`s array that was linked up to the computer on the small craft.
“Yes, Captain, I am taking over their computer system now.” Malin replied, and began his planned invasion of the Mars Colony One`s computers. Earth would register his intrusion as a power surge, however, apart from that Earth would only learn what Malin permitted them to know. Moments later Malin called across to his captain. “It is done Captain.”
Captain Lorinson now turned to another of his bridge officers. “Weapons Officer Rephus, please have the intercraft sonic weapon send a twenty second burst across to the Earth craft.” Lorinson ordered.
Weapons Officer Rephus tapped his computer screen and a message appeared on the screen. ‘Warning sonic weapon is now ready for use.’ Rephus smiled when he read the message, it was a particularly nasty weapon, but one that did not have to destroy the enemy`s hardware to bring them to its knees, Rephus now instructed the computer to operate the weapon.
The computer immediately sent him a warning message on his computer screen. ‘Warning the intercraft sonic weapon will operate in five seconds.’ The computer screen then began to count down to zero.
Rephus was an impatient man, and he wanted to swear at his computer for telling him what he already knew, but with so many senior men on the bridge, he dare not, not in front of the Consul.
The sonic weapon was in fact a computer program that used the victim`s own computer to send out a blast of sound at a certain frequency, one which the humans aboard Mars Colony One were about to experience.
On Mars Colony One, every speaker in the ship suddenly came to life; a deafening screaming high-pitched noise filled the entire craft with a mind numbing sound. Even the speakers that Willey had turned down exploded with sound at full volume. The eight-person crew screamed out in pain and clamped their hands tightly over their ears in a desperate attempt to keep out the noise. Their faces twisted in pain, unfortunately, they found it impossible to stop the noise from filling their head with its message of agonising torture, unable even to look for the cause, all they could do was scream.
On the Constellation, Weapons Officer Rephus wondered how the crew were bearing up aboard the small enemy vessel, his computer had been pre-set to fire a twenty second burst of agonising sound at it, now it would be a living hell aboard the small interplanetary craft, and as Malin controlled their computer, he also controlled their speaker systems.
Science Officer Malin looked up at Lorinson. “Captain, my scans show that they are all unconscious.” Thanks to Malin`s prior work Earth never learnt of the sonic attack, back on Earth their own computers were telling them that apart from the radio silence, all was well aboard the small craft.
Consul Phairlis smiled in satisfaction, for everything had gone according to plan, the next part of the operation could now begin.
“First Officer Tarlson, please arrange to have the transfer tunnel connected between the two craft.” Captain Lorinson ordered.
The space cruiser Constellation now manoeuvred until its main airlock was opposite the smaller one on Mars Colony One. Then the transfer tunnel moved out from the side of the larger craft towards the smaller craft. Once in position it clamped around the air lock of the Earth ship. Captain Lorinson now contacted his head of security.
“Send the boarding party across Commander Petravein.”
A dozen men armed only with stretchers moved across the transfer tunnel, and after opening the airlock at the other end, they boarded the small craft. They now began to bring its crew back aboard the large space cruiser, the crew lying unconscious upon the stretchers; allowing the next part of the plan to begin.
The eight members of the crew of the Earth craft were brainwashed, and within a short time, they were fully under the control of the aliens, and with no memory of the agonising sonic attack.
**********
Back at the Lyndon B Johnson Space Center in Houston, the operatives within the NASA mission control Center quietly panicked when they lost radio contact with the Mars Colony One spacecraft, although an outsider would never have known. Most of the other instrumentation aboard the craft was still working, constantly sending back data via a secondary system, it told them that the craft was still intact, that the air pressure was normal, and the computers and other systems were working. Their own instrumentation told them that the problem was to do with the main communications array, making contact with the crew impossible. However, they noted that the computer system that kept track of the individual crewmembers had not gone off line; the crew still seemed to be in perfect health. A few of the other minor systems had stopped sending their data; however, they put it down to the power surge that they noted only moments after the initial problem began.
NASA knew that the crew aboard the Mars craft had trained for just such an emergency, and would be putting this training into operation right now. If they could repair the fault, they would regain contact with Earth, otherwise the men and women of NASA would have to wait anxiously until the crew contacted them from the back up communications centre waiting on Mars, aboard one of the supply vessels. It meant more work for the crew but not too much, the descent in the Mars Lander was always going to be controlled by the two astronauts aboard the ship, the time lag between Earth and Mars was simply too long to allow Houston to be able to control the landing of the craft successfully.
**********
The crew of Mars Colony One returned to their small craft and went to sleep; they awoke the next day to find that they could remember nothing of the last twenty-four hours. However, their mind conditioning meant that they disregarded this important fact, in any case, they appeared to be fine now, and so they went about their duties oblivious to their new allegiance. Malin returned control of the craft`s computers back to them, and all Earth noticed during this change over was a half second flicker on their monitors.
The next day Astronaut Johnny Pearson was sitting on the bridge when a pain shot thro
ugh his brain, he fought back a scream, and just for a second he saw the figure of one of the grey aliens dressed in a white laboratory coat leaning over him. He struck out at him, but his arm sailed through the alien, and then the figure disappeared, he was once again alone on the bridge. Breathing hard, he looked around to see if any of the others had noticed the episode, thankfully they were all too engrossed with other things. He wondered what NASA would have said if their communications were still operational, they would certainly have asked questions about his increased heart rate, and the sweat that had broken out all over his body. He was asking questions of himself, what the hell had happened to him, would it happen again at a crucial point in their landing upon Mars.
Anne Ross woke that night screaming, her screams waking all the others aboard the spacecraft.
“Anne it was just a nightmare, you`re ok.” Maria Michelides said to her, she was the first person to enter the ultra-small cabin that Anne slept in, and the last to leave when they realized that everything was all right.
Anne held on to her friend`s arm, and when they were alone she told her friend of her nightmare. “Maria, it felt so real, I saw these aliens looking down at me, they had fixed some sort of a device around my head, and all I could hear was this high pitched ear shattering noise.”
“You read far too much science fiction Anne; from now on I would stick to the real thing.” Maria advised her, but she could not hold back a smile. “Little grey aliens, you are lucky that you are already on Mars Colony One, because they would not have let you within a mile of it, if they thought you the type to see little grey aliens.”
“Maria, why did you say that they were small and grey?” Anne asked quizzically.
“Aren`t they always small and grey, in all of the abduction tales?” Maria replied with a half-smile playing around her lips. “Why, is that how you saw them in your nightmare Anne?” Maria asked with a little giggle escaping from her mouth.
“OK, Maria, and yes they were the usual greys, I guess I just need to get out of this sardine can and go for a nice long walk,, even if it is in a space suit.” Anne replied with a laugh.
**********
The next two days went by quickly, now their whole attention was on the red planet that filled the view screen. Then came the time for them to move into the Mars Lander, this was potentially one of the most dangerous parts of their whole journey, the landing on Mars.
However, the Mars Lander did successfully land on Mars, with just the hint of a thump and a wobble as it hit the ground. After system checks the two astronauts immediately hiked across to the first of the supply vessels, surmounted by a gigantic parachute that had settled right on top of it. It took them thirty hard minutes to set up the communications centre, and then they contacted Earth to set Houston`s minds at rest.
The next task was for the crew to set about their business of readying the living habitat that comprised the sleeping quarters, the galley, the main living area, the stores and finally the shower and toilet area. The scientific laboratories were set apart from the habitat, for safety reasons, connected to it by a flexible tunnel.
Multi junction solar power cells provided the power to the colony; they constantly recharged a number of large rechargeable lithium ion batteries that provided the colony with ample power during the Martian night.
During the first Martian night, the Magentans brought up a small special operations command craft, one specially designed to create an artificial crater in the surface of whichever planet, moon or asteroid it was to land. It then landed within the crater, and the crater and the starship were covered with the Martian soil to hide it away from any inquisitive eyes. The Magentans used this craft as a base to control the humans and their contact with Earth.
The Mars Colony Two Lander arrived on schedule, and without any problems occurring to their mother ship`s communications array, however as soon as they arrived on Mars, the colony began to experience some interference with their radio communications. Solar flares was the cause, according to Earth, as some were erupting on the surface of the sun at that time. In fact, it was the Magentans who were causing the interference, and this now allowed them to use their sonic weapon again, this time against the Mars Colony Two team, who were then brainwashed, all the members of the colony were now under the control of the aliens.
The Mars team never realized what had happening to them, or what was happening to them in the here and now, their eyes failed to register, or just disregarded, the headsets packed away amongst their personal possessions, headsets that were in fact part of the mind scanning technology used by the aliens. They did not even realize that they put them on each night and stored them away each morning. Once a day, when they retired for the night, each of them had more and more of their personal memories identified by a mind scanner and recorded. The alien clones created aboard the Endeavour, exact copy of the members of the Mars Colony team, would make use of the data.
Astronaut Johnny Pearson certainly never dreamed that anything was wrong; his mind dwelt only upon the wonder of being part of Mankind’s colonisation of another world. It was while he was away from the habitat that his feeling of wonder ended for him. He was inside one of the two vehicles that they used to travel in when they needed to go beyond the horizon, the vehicles resembled a large Snow cat, but one whose interior was fitted out to resemble that of a camper van, and was called a Mars Cat by the team. He was on the way back to the habitat with three of the teams scientists; they had visited Olympus Mons, one of the large shield volcanoes on Mars. With him on the trip were Doctor Marlin Prentis, a geologist, Doctor Anne Ross, a botanist, and Doctor Alex McIntosh, a biologist. They had stopped for the night and Ross and McIntosh were already in their cots asleep, for it had been a tiring trip. However, the connection from the solar panels to the large rechargeable lithium ion battery was faulty. Pearson was the only one who was able to fix this particular problem, and he was almost finished, laying on his back while he tried to manoeuvre his hand around a support.
“I just need to finish up reconnecting the battery Marlin, and then I am going to sleep.” Pearson said.
“Ok, Johnny.” Prentis said as he pulled out two more sleeping cots, he also wanted an early night, so as to be fresh for the morning`s work.
Pearson reached for his screwdriver and looked across at the scientist, Pearson was normally careful around live electrical objects, however this time his attention was caught by a bright light in the sky.
“What on Earth is...?” Pearson cried out in pain, he had inadvertently touched the live positive terminal on the battery, and it now reminded him to be more careful by zapping him with 120 volts.
Pearson`s head moved up and away from the battery and collided even more painfully with the edge of the only table in the room, he screamed out in pain once again and slumped to the floor. He was not unconscious though, merely stunned, and he rubbed his head with his uninjured hand to try to alleviate that pain while blowing on his injured hand to try to lessen the pain there.
“Are you OK, Johnny?” Prentis called out as he scrambled from his cot.
Pearson got up from the floor and walked over to the small sink, there he turned on the tap and put his burnt finger under the cold water that poured out in a trickle. He had forgotten the bright light in the sky, which was in fact Jupiter, all he now thought about was sleep.
“Ah, that feels better.” Pearson sighed before answering Prentis. “I am fine Marlin, I think; it was my own fault for not paying attention to my work. Go back to bed while I finish fixing the battery, only this time without the electric shock.” Johnny replied, and five minutes later, he too was climbing into his cot.
They awoke to find the sky above this part of Mars exceptionally clear; it heralded an easy journey back to the habitat. They finally sighted the habitat just as the sun was setting, and as they neared the habitat Pearson stopped the vehicle and sat in the driver`s seat stunned, for now the sun was setting, one of the aliens was out and about. The ali
en was in a Magentan space suit, which was remarkably similar to the ones Pearson and Prentis used earlier that day. Therefore, it had taken Pearson a moment to realise that the person in the suit was small and grey.
“What`s up Johnny, why have we stopped?” Prentis asked quizzically, he was sitting up front with Pearson.
Pearson looked across at Prentis to ask him if he too saw the alien, but as Prentis made no sign of seeing it, Pearson asked his question in a different way. “The old habitat seems different tonight, I am not sure just how, just different.” Pearson said while looking hard at Prentis for some sort of reaction to the alien.
“No, Johnny, it looks to be just the same old dusty place.” Prentis replied. Pearson did not reply to his colleague`s answer, he was far too puzzled. ‘Am I having a hallucination?’ Pearson thought. ‘Is this some kind of Mars madness that will slowly but surely affect the other members of the team?’ The other two members of the team certainly had not mentioned seeing the alien.
Pearson parked the Mars Cat in its regular parking spot, and after putting on his space suit followed the others past the alien and into the habitat via the main airlock. Pearson could not help staring at two more aliens, who were inside the habitat, and now they noticed his stunned staring eyes, locked upon them as he walked through the airlock. Pearson shrugged off his space suit as soon as he was safely within the habitat, but for the moment, he dared not voice his alarm at what he was seeing, for he knew that his fellow team members would definitely call for the doctor. His indecision did not last long though; Pearson soon came to his senses and looked around for Doctor Marshall, the medical doctor who kept the team healthy. He finally saw him as the doctor walked into the main area of the habitat, and Pearson followed Doctor Marshall into the small clinic, because he needed to speak to the doctor about his ‘hallucinations’ urgently, for what else could they be?
The two aliens followed Pearson into the clinic, unseen by anyone else, including Pearson as they were directly behind him. Doctor Marshall had just sat down behind his desk, he looked up expectantly as he saw Pearson enter and close the door, Pearson almost choking himself as he suppressed the urge to laugh as he saw the two aliens who had followed him in to the clinic.