Blasting aliens on Mars wasn’t how I thought I’d be spending my week. But here I am, ducking laser blasts and rolling behind crimson boulders as fire rains down from the skies. The Martian surface is rough and unforgiving, but not half as unforgiving as the screaming insectoids launching themselves at me with plasma claws. I was doing alright—dodging, returning fire, one-man resistance unit and all that—until a tremor shook the ground beneath my boots. Thought I was done for, until a lucky rockslide took out the entire swarm. One minute I’m surrounded, the next, a boulder the size of a bungalow crushes them into a slurry of alien paste. Cheers, Mars.
I limped over to a larger rock formation to try and radio Hawknest. “This is Jamie Anderson—repeat—Anderson to Hawknest. Requesting evac. Or tea. Or both.” Static. More static. Great. I leaned back against the rock, watching the two suns melt into the Martian dusk. No choice but to wait it out. The adrenaline faded, my eyelids grew heavy, and before I knew it, I was drifting off to sleep.
What I didn’t notice was the mechanical shuffle of Zelda’s cubes creeping closer. Silent. Methodical. A cold metal sting to the neck, and then—darkness.
Woke up to chains clanking, a stench of oil and ozone in the air. Concrete walls. Alien glyphs. I was in Zelda’s base. You know the one. And there she was. Zelda herself, all bone and rage, leering down at me. “So, the son of Gerry Anderson has finally come to play,” she croaked. Yung Star gasped and clapped like a delighted maniac. Cy-Star floated over with childlike awe. “It’s really him! It’s really the Creator’s offspring!”
She dangled me over a pit full of snapping Martian piranhas—gnashing teeth and slime as thick as engine grease. “Prepare to meet your doom, Jamie Anderson!” she shrieked.
But I wasn’t going out like this.
“You can’t kill me, Zelda,” I said, voice surprisingly calm considering the circumstances. “I’m not a puppet. I’m a human. Flesh and blood. And I’ve already lost someone...”
I told them about Dad. About Gerry. About dementia slowly taking away the mind that created their world. About how Moid—yes, their own Moid—had recently died too, after realising he was voted the creepiest character on British kids’ telly. Not even Zelda could argue with that.
Yung Star began sobbing. “Poor Moid... I always thought he was... beautifully eerie.”
Cy-Star floated down, eyes dimming. “He was... our friend.”
Even Zelda paused, wrinkled features softening for a brief, brittle second. “You’ve reminded me, Jamie Anderson... of something I’ve tried to forget. Loss.” And with that, she released the chains. I fell—onto a foam mattress, not into the pit. (Typical Zelda drama.)
Later, we gathered outside the base for a funeral of sorts. Mars was quiet, the red dust swirling around our strange assembly. Zelda stood solemnly beside me, Cy-Star, Yung Star, Sram, Yuri, even Lord Tempo (who only spoke in future-tense riddles, as usual). She spoke with gravitas. “Moid was more than a mask. He was a reflection of our darker selves... and now he joins the Creator in Heaven.”
She looked at me then, eyes blazing but... warmer. “Your father lives on in your heart, Jamie. Never forget that.”
I nodded. “When I get back to Earth... I’ll have one hell of a report to file.”
Meanwhile, on Earth—back at Hawknest—Sgt. Major Zero was hunched over a copy of the Daily Cosmic, eyes scanning an article about Moid’s demise. “Didn’t expect to see that in the obits,” he muttered.
Dix-Huit hovered beside him, puzzled. “What happens if Dr Ninestein finds out about Gerry Anderson?”
Zero tapped the page with a stiff metallic finger. “He’ll remember. Just like we all do.”
And somewhere, perhaps only in fantasy, perhaps in the softest corner of dream, Dr Ninestein stands alone. He’s whimpering—not out of fear, but out of memory. The Terrahawks are behind him. They’ve all remembered Jamie. They’ve all remembered Gerry. And in the hush that follows, they whisper the truth: He was the one who created us... and he will always be our God.
End log.
