As they made their way to the opposite side of the cavern, Xander’s eyes were trained on the far walls. They’d entered this place not too long ago. It had been during the cross-over between Second Winter and First Spring, when the cold pressure in the air pinched your skin and made your eyes water. There had been an entrance, somewhere – maybe they could go back. The Humans might have moved on from that target. If he could get them back into that area, and then maybe the one beyond, they might have been able to find the routes to the ice cap again. They’d be able to drink, if nothing else.
‘We’re all going to die here,’ Kia gasped, and Xander saw tears brimming her eyelids as he looked back at her. A lump formed in his throat, raw and pulsing, and he knew he had to get them out, no matter what.
‘I won’t let that happen,’ he said.
His eyes adjusted to the new light level as the ceiling was torn open again and again. Xander scanned the wall, searching intently for any gaps, until his eyes finally landed on a slightly lighter opening in the crimson rock. Nodding towards it, he caught his sister’s eye and they both hurried closer, Aunt Brenda moving behind them so that she could follow her niece and nephew.
Once they arrived at the opening, she leant against the wall, resting herself momentarily as Xander moved in to investigate. The opening led to a long, fairly narrow passageway in the Martian rock, and it seemed to be moving ever so slightly upwards. Satisfied – especially as yet another explosion hit the underground city – he gestured for his sister to enter and she helped Aunt Brenda inside. Between them, they helped her move further and further down the tunnel, until the explosions and screaming became quite distant.
‘I’m scared, Xander,’ Kia whispered, her meek voice echoing in the dark, enclosed space.
‘There’s no time to be scared,’ Xander said, squeezing her hand once again, ‘we have to walk. We have to be quick. They won’t find us here, I promise.’
Scarcely believing that he had finally found an exit, Xander quickened his pace, not caring that his bare feet were being cut to ribbons by the rocky ground or that his rebreather was squeaking and groaning with the strain of his harried breathing, or even that the oxygenator was nearly making his arm go numb with the strain of carrying it. His brain was focused on one thing: moving forwards.
‘What’s that?’ Kia asked after they’d walked for a while. A speck of light had appeared far ahead of them, so intense that nothing could be made out within it.
‘That is our escape,’ Xander said resolutely, hurrying them all up. They jogged towards the exit, panting from the weak atmosphere let out by the oxygenator and Xander’s struggling Atmo-mask.
Holding a hand over his eyes, Xander felt a weak gust of wind trail over his body as he breached the uneven opening and fell out onto the surface of Mars. His body bounced against the ground, aided in its easy fall by Mars’ low gravity, and for a moment, all he could feel was the comforting embrace of the sandy ground. He let his hand release the oxygenator, blood rushing back to his fingers, and he felt Kia let go of him. Stretching forward, he tried to gain some traction on this new ground, and his fingers brushed over a soft texture – fabric, of some sort.
Opening his eyes, he gasped and shot backwards, nearly skidding over the ground. ‘No!’
The Blue and White 