Mars vs. Earth

“Aaarrrgh!” Jimmy woke with a start. He just had the worst nightmare he could have ever imagined. He looked around. Everything seemed to be in place.  He wasn’t on Mars. He wasn’t about to get dissected by aliens. Jimmy’s parents hadn’t awakened yet. He looked beside him. The digital glow-in-the-dark-clock told two thirty-five in the morning. Remembering that he had a math test tomorrow, Jimmy fell asleep again.

*   *   *

            “Honey, are you okay?” his mother asked. “You look like you barely had any sleep last night.”

“I’m fine, mom,” Jimmy muttered.

“You don’t look fine. You haven’t been yourself lately. Does it have something to do with school? Is it something you want to talk about?”

            School. Part of him wanted to just skip school with all the nightmares still in his mind. All of them were about Mars. Weird. Jimmy knew he couldn’t skip school. Not with the math test today. How would he skip school? If he did skip school, he’d still have to do the math test some other time, not to mention homework.

“Toast.” Jimmy said.

“Would you like butter with it?” a computer voice asked.

“Yes.”

“Approximate time until ready: 2 minutes.”

Suddenly a screen appeared in front of him. INCOMING TRANSMISSION FROM U.S. GOVERNMENT. This worried Jimmy. These types of messages only came to normal households when there really was an emergency. The screen turned to the President of the United States. He was middle aged with neatly combed black hair.

“Friends, comrades and countrymen,” the President said. “I have come to you with a very unfortunate message. The Martians’ planet is dying. The peaceful Martians want our planet and have declared war. We have no choice but to fight back. All schools are closed. Lock all windows and doors and please stay in your homes.”

Jimmy knew at once that something was fishy. When the message first started out, he had seen a Jupitarian scurry behind the president. Jupitarians were sworn enemies of Martians. The Jupitarians must have made the President say that message so the U.S. Army would attack Mars! Then, Mars would be theirs! He knew that if he told his mom what he saw, she wouldn’t believe him. No one else he told would believe him either.

But how will I get the army to believe me? I have it! I’ll use my teleporter and teleport to Mars, get a picture and then I’ll have proof! But I’ll still need a camera. . . .        

Jimmy couldn’t believe what he was doing. After all those years with mom and dad telling him not to steal, he had just stolen a camera. He was riding his 400cc hoverbike that his mother had bought from a secondhand store. And now the police were onto him.

“Stop now and you will not be harmed,” the police shouted through bullhorns.

This just made Jimmy go faster. He heard the rapid-fire action of the machine guns and saw the red and blue flashing lights reflecting off of his mirrors. Only one more block to go. Jimmy had equipped a small tank of NO2 (the fuel that gives cars get an extra boost when they’re racing) to his hoverbike for emergencies. Now was the time to use it. The engine screamed and zoomed ahead. He braked hard and jumped off his bike and then ran into the house and slammed the door. The police soon broke through it. Jimmy’s mom was screaming. He ignored her. Jimmy got to his room, quickly typed in the coordinates for Mars and hit the teleport button. In a nano-second, he was on Mars.

Jimmy was angry with himself. After all this planning, he’d forgotten a spacesuit! He quickly went over his choices. He could give up, teleport back home and hand himself over, or try to find a space station and get a spacesuit. If he didn’t find a spacesuit, he would die.

Jimmy knew he could only last about an hour in this air. He gazed around and saw a small building in the bare land. Maybe he could get help there. After a couple minutes of jogging, he soon saw that it was a space station. He quickly ran up a hill to get a better view. There were two guards planted at each door, except for the back door. There was only one guard there. That looked like the only way to get in. Jimmy decided whether to throw a rock to distract the guard or try to tackle him and beat him up. He decided to throw the rock because the guard was bigger and had a gun. Jimmy was starting to feel light headed. He had to act soon or he would die.

*   *   *

            “Get me Mars communication now!” The chief of police screamed, his big face turning purple.

The chief was spazzing out, a cop thought. What could a little boy do on Mars?

            Suddenly a face filled a computer screen. “USA Mars Central Comm. How can I help?”

“This the Earth Defense System. A little boy is on Mars. Find him. Kill him. He cannot find out what we are doing.” the chief said.

“Yes sir. Right away sir.”

“Over and out.”

*   *   *

            “I’m in,” Jimmy said to himself. He slid inside the space station after almost getting discovered at the back door. His light-headed feeling immediately went away. There were many doors, many hallways, and luckily they were all labeled. Men’s room. No. Radio room. No. Basement. Maybe, but not likely… Storage. Yes!

Jimmy quickly opened the door and was surprised at how large the room was. It was probably the size of an ice skating rink without the stands. Like the doors, the boxes were labeled too. Computers. No. Guns. Useful, but not needed. Spare Items. Yes! This was starting to be like a routine. Jimmy carefully pulled off the tape and looked inside. There it was just as if it were placed in there just for him, a small spacesuit! Jimmy tried it on and found that it was a little big, but adequate. He quickly put it on with a helmet that he found in the box and carefully re-taped it. He heard voices in the distance. He ran behind the door of the storage room. Two guards walked in.

“I really don’t see what a boy could do on Mars,” one of them said, “Seriously, besides enjoying the view, what could he do?”

“Play with his Martian friends?” the other one suggested. They both laughed. As they neared the back of the room, Jimmy ran outside the door and headed to the exit.

“Hey you, stop!” somebody said. Jimmy looked behind him to find another guard rounding the corner.

He bolted out the exit where he saw a weird looking vehicle that looked like a quad.

Great, Jimmy thought, I always wanted to ride one of those.

            He jumped on the vehicle, pushed a green start button and zoomed away.

Catch me now suckers!

*   *   *

            Gunfire. That was the first thing Jimmy heard when he left the space station.

The two guards were on his trail.

Crazy guys. What did I ever do to you in the first place?

Coming up ahead, Jimmy saw a small village where Martians lived.

Good. Jimmy thought. I’ll lose them there. What if I ….

“LOW ON GAS! LOW ON GAS!” a computer voice said.

*   *   *

            “There is a problem.”

The chief spun around. It was his advisor. He had blond hair, was around forty, and had a deep tan.

“What is it?” the chief snarled.

“If we drop the nuclear bomb on Mars, not only will the Martians die, but their advanced technology will go with them too.”

The chief was really fuming now. “Do you think that I am stupid? Do you think I don’t already know that? Do you think that Martians are smarter than me? Do you think that Martians are smarter than humans? Hnnmm? If you think that, you should get your smart mouth out of this… this… place and work with the Martians instead!” the chief shouted.

The advisor could usually hold his anger in, but now he was an exploding volcano. “Let me tell you something, you freak! I do think the Martians are smarter than  humans! I definitely think that the Martians are smarter than you! I will get my smart mouth out of here and work for the Martians! I QUIT!” he screamed.

Before the chief could realize what just happened and apologize, the advisor teleported away from Earth.

*   *   *

            Back on Mars, Jimmy had reached the town without the engine dying. The guards were out of sight. They must have given up. Jimmy was about to explore the town when he heard faint voices somewhere around the block, so he headed towards the voices and saw a human talking in a crowd of Martians.

“…believe that there is still hope.” the man continued from his speech. “If you have any ideas on how to stop this, please contact me. It will happen tomorrow.

When the Martians all left, Jimmy waved the man over.

“What were you just talking about?” Jimmy asked.

“That Ear…”

Before the advisor could finish, Jimmy saw red and blue lights flashing all over his face.

“Put your hands up and don’t turn around.”

They were caught.

*   *   *

            It turned out that it wasn’t Earth’s police that caught them, but Mars’s police. Even though Mars’s police had the same lights, they had different uniforms. They wore a red jacket and blue pants.

Jimmy and the advisor were both sitting in front two of Mars policemen. They were in a dark room lit only by a desk lamp.

“What are you doing here?” the one on the left asked. Martians had humanoid form but had only one eye, three fingers, and green skin.

“I quit my job as an advisor to the chief of the New York City Police,” the advisor said.

“And you?” the other policemen asked.

“I am Jimmy Robinson from New York City, New York.” Jimmy answered.

“Now I know who you are, but you still didn’t tell me why you are here in the first place,” the officer on the left said.

“I am here because I have important information that could save the entire Mars race,” the advisor said, matter-of-factly.

“I am here,” Jimmy said, “because I wanted to see if the Martians were really making war against Earth. Now I see that you really aren’t.”

“And what is your name?” The policemen on the right pointed at the advisor.

“James Hugh.”

“What is the important information you have for us?”

“Earth is going to detonate a nuclear bomb on Mars.”

There was a minute of silence.

“How do we know that you are telling the truth?” one of the officers said.

“Don’t you guys have a machine that can tell whether I’m lying or not?” James asked.

“Yes.”

An officer opened a drawer and pulled out a weird looking helmet with antennas sticking out and many buttons.

The officer pushed a button and asked James to put it on.

“Now say what you just said.”

James put on the helmet and repeated himself. A couple of seconds after the sentence there was a ring and a green light blinked.

“How long until the bomb explodes?”

“Tomorrow.”

The officer suddenly stood up and pressed a button on the wall. “Code Red! Code Red! Nuclear bomb on Mars! All search teams move out! Kill all who stand in the way!”

The search was on.

*   *   *

             The police located the bomb. It was pretty easy to find. Some scouts found a big hole in the ground that was guarded by a few hundred Earth policemen. A computer searched the area using radar and found an enormous bomb the size of a truck, hidden underground.

“A bomb like that could destroy everybody on Mars!” a Martian policeman said. The chief of the Martians’ police told James and Jimmy what was going to happen.

“We outnumber them by five times, so we’ll have a big advantage.” he said, “The first troop will attack here, in the front, and another will attack in the back. There are about 300 in each troop and they all together have about 900 at the most, so we should get past them easily. Then we get the bomb, put it in a space ship and send it into space. “If you’re wondering why I don’t want to disable it, it is because I don’t want to take the chance of blowing the bomb up early.”

“Sir, all troops are in order,” someone said into a loudspeaker.

“Good then, start the attack.” the chief said.

“Right away sir.”

“Now, how about a game of chess?” the Martian chief asked, smiling.

*   *   *

            The Earth chief was devastated. The Martians were set on defusing the bomb. “Send in as many troops as we can,” he said to a cop next to him. “Make everyone guard the bomb.”

*   *   *

            The fight was crazy. It was even harder to find out who to fight in the confusion. At the beginning, the Martians seemed to be winning, but as the fight went on, the humans came back and there seemed to be more and more of them as they fought on. An hour later, the fight ended. The Martians had won with only about fifty survivors. The chief, Jimmy, and James soon arrived at the hole with in a truck carrying the space ship. The last fifty survivors helped get the bomb in the space ship. The plan to save Mars was almost over. The Martian chief let out a string of curses.

“What’s wrong?” Jimmy asked.

“We can’t navigate the ship.”

“What do you mean?”

“The navigation system on the ship is dead. We can’t send the ship to space without somebody getting in there and navigating it.”

“I’ll do it,” James said. “It’s my fault this thing got started in the first place. I’m going to end it.”

“You are a very noble man. For years we will sing songs of your bravery,” the chief said.

“Bye,” Jimmy said.

James climbed into the space ship and blasted away. He was gone.

*   *   *

            “He’s five million miles away from us right now,” the chief said as he pointed to a green dot on a computer.

Suddenly the dot disappeared.

“The bomb blew up. They must’ve made it blow up early.”

A couple seconds later there was a giant wind that sounded like a big man blowing into an oversized whistle.

Jimmy silently walked out of the building and teleported back home. His mom hugged him for five minutes. Jimmy told her what happened while he was gone.

“I’m proud of you,” his mom said.

“I didn’t do anything though,” Jimmy protested.

“Without you, Mars would’ve been toast.”

“Speaking of toast, can I have the toast I missed this morning?”