Take off

So shortly after this event I noticed something strange happening to me. My hands and legs started to glow. And then…. Fire came out of my hands. I could breathe fire too and I noticed I could fire it like a fireball and destroy metal with it. I was immediately rushed to a scientist and he told me that I had contracted an alien virus. And by alien I don't just mean it had never been encountered before. I mean the virus showed itself to have extraterrestrial origins. And it came from Mars. I became quarantined for the time being. However the scientists let me stay informed on the plan to go to Mars because of my initial involvement with the alien and the potential link to the case that my powers created.

So the scientists researched a way to make a rocket ship to Mars and a way to lead the alien creatures to extinction. It was during one long night that a scientist figured out something remarkable. That was that enough heat was applied to the core of mars: the planet would explode. However the amount of heat necessary for this explosion is far greater than any known man made invention. And that when the scientists started to worry. But I had hope. I told the scientists to give me some concrete cylinders. They did. Then I told them to give me a heat measuring apparatus. They did that too.

I gazed at the concrete cylinders. Then I focussed my energy on those concrete cylinders. I closed my eyes and tightened my fists. And then…

"Whoa!" A scientist proclaimed, "These readings are off the charts!"

"I can't believe it" Another scientist proclaimed.

When I opened my eyes the cinder blocks were completely melted. And the temperature reading. It was so high. Could it be…

"That temperature reading is high enough to destroy Mars!" A scientist proclaimed. All the people watching stood in amazement.

Shortly after that I was let out of quarantine and I joined the team going to Mars.

Four years went by. In those years I did extensive training. I had to run 5 miles every day. Lifted weights to become the strongest I could be, becoming jacked in the process. I learned how to fire a firearm daily and became top of my class in marksmanship in about a year.

It reminds me of a story from my training. I was at the firing range and the gun jammed.

"What's going on?" a crewmate looked at me. We looked at each other and when to the weapons dept. to fix the gun. The weapons operator looked at the gun extensively and found that one of the internal triggers was broken. Just then a dark mist started appearing out of nowhere. The particles in the air glowed and danced around. A face then emerged in the mist.

"It's a Martian! He's out to kill us!" A crewmate screamed. I pulled a gun from the armory and it was a flamethrower. The creature lunged at me and as he did I set him on fire. But he wasn't dead. He used his teeth, similar to rat teeth to cut my gun, and which left me with nothing but my bare fists to fight the flaming alien creature with. I punched and punched and he scratched me which caused me the bleed. I knew I could beat him with my bare fists though. I reached into his eye-sockets and grabbed his eyeballs and yanked them out. The creature screamed as it bled from its eye-sockets. "Now I got you" I thought. I punched the creature repeatedly in the stomach and he screamed. Then I pulled out a knife in my back pocket and cut his stomach open. After several minutes of screaming the creature died. I wiped the sweat off my brow. I had learned how much stronger I had become. I managed to kill one of these creatures without using a gun.

"Nice one mate" My crewmate commented.

However the fact that one of those creatures made it in our base was a problem. It meant that there was a containment breach. I went up to the control center and asked the control operators what the hell was going on. We did a full scan of the the base and we noticed a breach. We contacted construction workers to clear up the wall that had been torn down. Then we investigated around the area the breach occurred. We went through the trees, now covered in the snow of which the east-coast usually had at this time of the year. We hiked for about twenty minutes when we saw smoke. We rushed to the source. It was a crashed alien spacecraft. We investigated the site. There didn't see to be any Martians around. No signs of any recent life either. Perhaps I killed the one that once occupied this ship. We went inside and there was a flourescent green screen that appeared to show coordinates. The coordinates was to our base. It was clear the Martians had discovered our base. Then there was another sheet. It was in the Martian language but fortunately I had learned how to read it. When translated it read:

"Operation: full assault of Earth in underway. And the first step is to destroy their rocket ship to Mars. That way there is no way they can defeat us. And thanks to hacking their satellites and scanning the earth we have found their base and therefore their rocket ship. Go! destroy the base and Earth will be ours for the taking!".

My mind raced with worries. They had found our base. We needed to rush the finalization of our rocket and get to Mars as soon as possible before we get killed. We have to-

Just then several Martians jumped out of the ground. One leaped onto one of my men and bit into his throat. He screamed bloody murder as blood rushed out of his wound and he died very shortly thereafter. Before I could react an alien leaped and bit into my arm. I was lucky that he didn't hit an artery or else I would have been done for. His bite knocked the assault rifle I was holding out of my hand but I pulled my pistol out of its holster and shot the creature repeatedly shot the creature in the eye. It eventually let go of its bite and went unconscious. My men were dealing with their own aliens and they appeared to be losing. I had to do something quickly. It was now time to practice my marksmanship. I took a deep breath. I needed to land consecutive headshots quickly. I aimed my gun and swept my aim across the room - taking shots when necessary.

All the aliens dropped dead immediately.

"You're a hero!" My crewmates cheered.

"All in a good day's work." I responded. But I knew my job was not done just yet. I rushed to the base and to inform the my commanders of the incoming attack. When I burst into the control room the commanders looked at me wide-eyed, "You're bleeding! You need immediate medical attention."

"I don't have time for that." I snapped. "The Martians are planning to attack this base very soon. I saw their plan in my investigation of one of their ships."

"How soon?" One of the commanders said quietly.

"I don't know. But we have to speed up the creation of the rocket ship as fast as possible."

"But that might not be safe!" He snapped.

"We don't have any other choice." I looked at him in the eyes with a stern look.

So the scientists made the rocket ship as fast as possible. We hired many more workers. We bought new machinery. And we found optimal fast ways to build and test the rocket ship. We made new simulations to test the ship using new technologies. I personally did simulation after simulation hours every single day to test that the rocket ship was completely safe. The scientists had their worries but after extensive testing showed that it was capable of working and could get us to Mars. It could only fit a crew of five, me being one of the crewmates of course.

Finally the day came for us to take off to Mars to destroy the enemy's homeworld. I got into the spacecraft with my fellow crewmates. We all put on helmets by screwing them onto our pale spacesuits. We got into the cockpit.

"All systems go. We are good for launch." The intercom sounded.

I then felt a rumble. And then a force pulled down on me. It was like I was being squished by a refrigerator.

"Pull down on the hydraulics lever Michael" The team leader said to me.

I reached my arm up but the force pushing down on it was unbearable. Slowly but surely my hand moved towards the lever. I could then feel just the very edge of my fingertips touching the lever. And then I pulled it down just in time.

"Good work Michael," The team leader said. "We should be leaving the atmosphere any second now"

And so I felt a new shock wave of force as the thrusters kicked into high gear and the force of gravity crushed my body. I looked out the window and I could see the stars. We were in space. A sight I never thought I'd ever see.

After seven months our rocket ship was nearing the atmosphere of Mars. Yes, I could see it out the window. But then something strange came across my vision. Flashing lights approaching our ship. And fast. Could it be…

"We got enemy alien ships approaching fast" One of my crewmates called out.

"Damn it!" The captain said. "Evasive maneuvers engaged!"

The ship swerved around dodging enemy fire from the alien spacecraft. We did circles around them dodging their laser beams and luckily we didn't get hit a single time.

"Fire the missiles!" The captain commanded.

"On it." The ship's arms controller responded.

Just then the missiles shot out of our ship and homed in on our alien targets. The ships turned to run away from the missiles as fast as they could. But they weren't fast enough. The missiles collided with the alien ships and a big explosion was created. After the smoke cleared I could see that all alien ships were completely destroyed. All that was left were some scraps of metal floating in space.

It was now time to land on Mars.

"It's time to begin descent to Mars." The commander said. "Turn on the hydraulics flight operator."

"Got it!" The flight operator responded. The flight operator then pushed a big red button, pulled a lever, and adjusted a few knobs. The ship then started flying downwards to the surface. We soon broke the atmosphere of Mars and shortly after we did, our ship deployed its parachute. Once the parachute was deployed our ship started to heat up.

"What should we do, captain." The flight controller yelled. "We're heating up too much!"

"Pull up flight controller!" The commander responded. "That should do it!"

The ship pointed upwards.

"It's not enough, we're not going to make it. We're going to burn up" A crewmate responded.

"Damn it!" The captain yelled.

It was then that I had an urge to absorb the heat.As if by instinct I reached my hand out and all the heat from the ship's exterior flowed into the palm of my hand.

"Oh my god I can't believe it." One of my crewmates said. "This kid's amazing!"

Orange streams of heat made their way into my hand and soon almost all the heat outside the ship was gone. Shortly after that we landed - safe and sound.

"Good work, kid" The captain said, as if it were a sigh of relief.

As we exited our ship we noticed darkened silhouettes in the distance. We got company.