"But ma'am, what if they land here? All we have is this pathetic little colony. It's just a couple thousand people. They'll smash us to pieces" David Broderick pleaded. The woman he was addressing was a tall, slender, sternly-looking woman in her late thirties. With fiery red hair and flashing green eyes, she was a formidable sight in her leather suit and black leather boots. She was the commander of the Martian colony, and the young man at her mercy looked very small and desperately worried. Standing before her desk, he looked like he wanted to curl up in a ball and cry.
"No, David. They won't come here. We'll be fine. They won't hurt us" she said in a stern voice. "Besides, as with all invasions, we're prepared for these. We have watched the Earthlings carefully, and we know why they did it this time. We have even found the evidence. In fact, it's all laid out in a simple document in a closet. You can read it yourself. As you can see, it's very, very compelling. And the Earthlings have done the same thing, so it's a perfectly logical explanation for all of this."
The expression on the young man's face darkened. "I know of no such document, ma'am." he said in a fearful tone. The woman's green eyes flicked to one side and then the other, as if indicating a vague presence.
"Of course. I didn't say you did. No, it was my predecessor who had that little bit of evidence. But she talked about it, and we're fairly sure there's a document somewhere in her things."
"Well ma'am, I think I should like to read it. I have my doubts..."
"No David, we have it all under control. How can a ragtag group of humans possibly defeat the crushing and decisive power of the Martians? No, we've all saved our world, David. And even if they did come...well, we've grown stronger in the last few thousand Earth years. We'll have nothing to fear from them. "
"But ma'am...what if they do come? What are our defenses? Surely you don't think we'll..." the red-faced "adviser to the Queen of Mars, who was dressed in a long, shiny red coatdress, suddenly stopped speaking. She quickly glanced around her and then realized that something was coming. Something...heavy and dull.
She ducked behind the Queen's chair. "Ma'am! There's something outside! It's crashing through the residential areas...it's coming for us!"
The woman said nothing and just looked at the red-haired young man. She reached under her desk and then produced a beige-colored ball. At that moment, the ball lit up with a green light.
"We have been found. They know where we are now."
The huge ship, set to travel through hyperspace to Earth and subsequently Mars, was seen as it came down out of the sky. It was of an alien design, a bulky looking thing with spikes on one side, and markings on the opposite side. It had been in space for a while and was clearly a damaged vessel. However, it couldn't go into a normal emergency landing.
Most of the flight crew had died when the emergency beacon they were listening to went off. However, a small handful managed to survive and succeeded in piloting the ship down to Mars. The piloting trio were far from informed of what they were looking at when they neared the planet. Everything was just red. It was not a nice sight.
The four survivors were all in the pilot's cockpit. The pilot was a tall, athletic-looking man with short, blond hair and a swarthy skin tone. The next pilot was an extremely short lady with a large head and thin lips. The third was a tall, slim woman with pale skin and long, straight gray hair. All of them wore jumpsuits made of a very flexible and elastic fabric. The second pilot's was royal blue, the female pilot's was emerald green, and the male pilot's was the color of the sky on a bright, sunny sunny day.
The male pilot had just finished making a few adjustments to the gimbaled, split-pane display on the ship's dashboard. This display, a relic from the twentieth century, had been installed by the people who were aboard this ship before the others. It had weird, unknowable controls that no one knew how to use.
The male pilot now turned to the other two. "It's your turn now. You two are doing the switching. In fact, we should really be ordering food. We should be halfway through our journey by now."
"The frak do you mean that we have to switch? I'm tired, Ed. I think we should take a break" the tall, pale woman said. Her eyes were glazed over, her lips parched. The other pilot, her long, grayish hair falling in front of her face, had slumped far back in her seat. Her level of energy had sunk to new lows; now it was joined by a physical need for food.
"No. You can't pilot the ship. You're exhausted. You need food. Food or sleep."
"McKay, if you don't get back to business, I'll leave you here and go find a place to crash! I'll take the ship with me."
"As I was saying...Buck Rogers, you're the expert at the board right now. You know what you're doing. So unlock all access for me, and I'll try to find a menu screen for some food."
The pilot thought for a moment and turned to the computer panel behind him. He typed on the keyboard and a yellow screen appeared. There were various displays on the screen and several icons that were not shown to the passengers. The pilot looked at the display and was waiting for a response that was not coming.
"I can't get it to work, McKay. It won't respond" the female pilot said, leaning forward and ready to make a move.
"Try to be patient. You're piloting the ship...you have to be careful. I just made some mistakes."
"Just hurry up, Buck Rogers!"
"I am. I am" He hesitated. "McKay, what did you say just a moment ago?"
"What I just said. I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I'm not doing any more manual labor."
"No, that was just a second ago, and you said the same thing. 'Buck Rogers'?"
"What about it?"
"I just remembered something. Apparently, a movie came out back on Earth. It was a remake of a TV show from my childhood. It featured a character named Buck Rogers. He was a cowboy. He was really brave and really strong and really...tough, I guess. He handled a robot dog named Sparky. It had a head shaped like a Cylon's."
"I hate robots. I hate the people who built them even more. They're just machines. They're just built by stuffy old futurists who live in their bubbles. That was a horrible movie!"
"I mean, the show was excellent. I'm not saying it wasn't good. I'm just saying that the movie was weak."
"It was awful!"
"Anyway. I was just about to say that my name is Buck Rogers." He smiled. His smile was rather small, and it was very, very white. "I just wanted to help you out. I just wanted to get you something to eat."
"What name was that?" The female pilot asked. She was exhausted, her eyes looked unfocused...and there were new lines on her face.
"I didn't say it. I want to help you out. I thought I could get something in there."
"Never mind. I'll look it up on the screen in a minute. Weren't you going to get something?"
"What? You just said I helped you."
"I..."
"I have a better idea. I'll get you some food...and I'll get me some as well. Then I'll go back to the other pilot's seat, and you can do that last switching thing that we were talking about. I think I have it down. Then we'll be fine."
"I guess that's just fine and dandy." And the female pilot looked over at the screen behind the pilot seat and after tapping a few keys, the screen went yellow and there was a menu on it.
"There's your back menu. Find us some food. I'm sure that you'll do well. Then I'll do that last switching thing. After I refuel, of course."
"You are a resourceful man, Buck Rogers." And Buck Rogers, who had received the nickname in his childhood due to his athletic prowess, moved to the darker side of the ship and started to search through the back of the ship. He looked around for a few minutes and uncovered a wide, plastic sack on the floor from the shadows. Buck picked it up, chose a piece of meat from the sack, and took it with him to the cabin that he shared with the other pilot. He went there, ate the meat, and felt a lot better and a lot less hungry.
"We'll be fine, McKay. Things are looking up."
A few minutes passed and Buck Rogers was back in the pilot's seat. He had finished recollecting, his finger rested on a switch in the console. He looked at the screen, a symbol of a man, and pressed the switch.
