Chapter 2: "Longing for What Use to Be…"

The next day, the sun rose, spreading its radiating light upon the dusty crimson sands of Mars. As the light fell upon Sireck, he slowly opened his eyes, and propped himself up, stretching. He waited a few minutes, and eventually, one by one, each of the others began to rise as well.

Breakfast went quickly. Sireck learned quickly that his teammates were definitely not morning socializers. Except for Lostan. Lostan was like many of the other members: small in stature. However, his silver hair betrayed his younger age, and his blue eyes were wide. He was whispering something to Asan, who had a darker complexion than most of the crew, and from Asan’s jade green eyes growing, Sireck could tell it was something interesting.

Sireck leaned closer to try to hear their conversation. Vidd whispered something. "Yeah, It’s freaky. I had to sleep near Ulen last night…and he kept muttering these strange things…something about this planet, or the installation. I really don’t know…"

Ulen, of course, heard nothing of this, as he was far away from the other eight.

After a while of chewing on somewhat stale food, Ulen finally spoke up. "Okay, kids, today’s your day. Let’s see if you can actually reach the facilities without your suit’s legs tripping over themselves. Let’s go…just follow my lead, and don’t do anything stupid."

Nodding unconsciously, Sireck, with the others, changed into their space suits, and Sireck placed on his helmet. Each headed for the airlock, and walked outside, onto the bleak Martian plains.

Standing before him, however, was a scene that was an eye catcher. Standing twenty meters tall, was a mobile suit, in its silver glory. The red sands of Mars had placed some of its color onto its legs, but it was a small fact.

Sireck smiled as he observed his SUMO. The ladder was already descended and he climbed up.

The SUMO was different from most suits these days, by the fact that its cockpit was located in the pelvis of the suit. This made his climb to the cockpit a lot shorter than many of the other pilots, who had to climb up to the torso to strap themselves in.

As the cockpit began to close, Sireck shot a glance over at Vidd, who was looking his way. Nodding, Sireck climbed into the machine, and closed the doors. He sat down and buckled into the seat.

As soon as the screens booted up, the thirty-ton machine was under his control. He tested the head of the machine, moving it from side to side to get a good view of his surroundings.

Ulen’s voice quickly came on, fighting back the static over the communications. "Okay boys, how’s it feel like strapped into a walking nuke reactor on a cold, barren planet? Huh. Keep your eyes out, I think I can detect a storm up ahead…"

"I can too," said Lostan, his WaDom walking up and pointing to the west. "Big storm brewing…they’re pretty nasty here."

"Why THANK you, Lostan," Ulen said, trying to put the most sarcasm he could into his blunt attack at being interrupted. "Now, kiddies, let’s move out. Just follow me and don’t fall over."

So, the nine suits took off, with Ulen’s WaDom in the lead, its fourty meter tall body towering over most of the other suits. Sireck guided the SUMO in its course, and eased back in the seat…

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It was a while, of course (almost noon on Mars: the capsules hadn’t been very close to the base, so to prevent any potential damage), until the mobile suits saw the base. Most of the base was underground, as Ulen had said, and as Sireck saw from his magnetic resonance scans. However, part of the base stuck out of the ground...a large, wide, gapping hole leading to a hangar, several airlock doors blocking the harsh outside enviroment from the safe inside of the base.

"Cozy-looking, isn’t it?" Ikal said over the coms.

"Can it, kid. We’ll get this thing open soon enough…watch out."

"Sir…don’t you think we should try to…" Asan protested.

"Shut up kid."

The WaDom walked up, and the middle part of its head dome from which it got its name opened up, revealing the head beam cannon. The cannon’s ferocious power soon came to full effect, and spat out three shots, all at the door. The first shot blackened the lifeless gray steel door. The second dented it inward. The third struck the door full force, blowing a large hole into it.

"There’s your entrance, Asan," growled Ulen, as he walked up with his WaDom and began to crush the already bent steel away to make room for the suits to enter. "You waiting for an engraved invitation?"

Shaking his head to clear his mind from watching Ulen’s impatience, Sireck’s SUMO moved through the wreckage of the door.

The inside of the facility was bleak…steel, making up everything in the facility that Sireck could see. No color was inside…just a bland gray. It looked as if it was unfinished, in a way…

"Huh…another set of doors. Let me bust these ones…" Ulen’s WaDom opened up its beam cannon again.

"Wait a second, sir," said Lostan. "I think I’ve found something…"

Lostan’s SUMO moved over to the wall. On the wall, placed at mobile suit height and at mobile suit size (in a weirdly convenient way), were a set of controls. The SUMO pointed at one, and pressed it. Soon, a hiss sound emitted, and the door opened.

"Huh. Got the first one open…" Ulen muttered, as the door opened.

The machines moved through, and stopped at a second door, which opened as the last one closed. "Airlock…cool," said Rilen, chuckling for no apparent reason.

Ulen’s WaDom nodded, and turned to Sireck. "Sireck, you’d like to be the first one to check this place outside the cockpit?"

Shrugging, Sireck cracked open the cockpit to the SUMO. The ladder extended, and he climbed down to the ground, breathing steadily inside the helmet of his suit. Reaching the legs, he let go, and his feet landed on the floor. Breathing again, he checked around, testing the floor…nothing abnormal…very silent…

"Okay, I think it’s safe. My air filter is working, and it looks like this place has some sort of power…probably a geothermal plant somewhere. It’s safe."

With those words, it only took a little time before Ulen, Lostan, Asan, Vidd, and Quisail to climb out of their suits. Ulen waved back at the Gozzos. "You guys wait here until I’ve given the signal that you can come down."

The team checked out the place. Several computer systems stood, no power coming or going from them. Several places showed dents, and a gold object was on the ground. Sireck picked it up, and held it in the light, where Vidd and Asan saw it as well.

"Bullet casing," Asan noted.

"Yeah, but if there was a fight, where are all the bodies?"

Ulen was already down the hallway, and called back to them. "Hurry up, dammit. I’m not waiting for you jerks."

Vidd, Asan, and Sireck caught up with the rest of the group, who were already checking up and down the passageways, looking at the readings on the walls, written in ancient writing.

"Any clue on what these mean?" Asan looked at them, turning his head to the side to try to determine what they were. Sireck walked over.

"Huh…These look like some of the stuff in the first part of the Black History…hold on, let me think…"

"Well, I think I figured out what these here mean," said Vidd, and he pointed into an open room and some other writing. "Hangar."

He was right, they determined, as they stepped into the room. Inside stood massive machines, known in all ages as "mobile suits". Some were of odd designs…much more refined designs than any mobile suit today. The people back then must have been idealistic about how their suits were designed…, thought Sireck.

"Well, would you look at these…they don’t look damaged at all…" Ulen was musing to himself as he stepped into the room. He clicked a button on his suit, and called the other three, telling them it was clear.

"Sir…will we be piloting these things…y’know…testing them?" Sireck asked, getting over his awe of the machines

"No. That’s command’s job to determine who tests them. Although, if they work, we’re likely to be stuck with at least a few of them…looks like there’s quite a few here…"

Nodding, Sireck walked towards one such machine. The machine looked odd. It had a four-edged flowering head, with a small single eye camera in it, turned off. The feet had large boosters coming off of them, and the torso had a saber-like object on the back, and two gun barrels on the chest. A bazooka weapon stood on a storage rack on its back. The main color was purple, but the chest was more grayish-colored.

"It’s cool…nice…the people of the pasts were idealists." Sireck mused.

Vidd walked up. "What are we going to call it? Flower-Head?"

"Hmmm…"

"I've got it. We’ll call it a Sireckian!" Vidd grinned ear to ear.

"What? Why you little…" Sireck chased after his friend, who hid under the legs of a blue mobile suit.

Ulen walked up. "Can it, children. We’ve got work. Ikal is bringing the portable computers. Let’s get some information down. Serial codes on the machines, weapons, whatever you can find in or on the machines, note it."

Ikal soon came in, followed by Solak and Rilen. The three were carrying the portable computers, and Ikal handed one laptop to Sireck. Sireck took it, and walked over to what Vidd had called a "Sireckian," and began to take notes.

The team stayed there for several hours, taking notes. Sireck checked a blue and green mobile suit, which had a bird-like head. While checking it, he saw something on the side of the mobile suit…something that looked odd.

He didn’t have time to look at it, because Rilen called him, and soon, they all left, for it took the rest of the day to reach back to base.

And so the first day passed quite quickly.


(Notes: Okay! Guess what the Sireckian is!…hints here are what are described above, and this is Mars…think hard, kids…)