The Alien Artifact 8 Read Free Page A

the Mars operation, and he realized why they had
chosen him, and had realized the dangers!
    Everything on the shuttle appeared in order, and it was only being influenced by something clearly
below, somewhere, and he wondered if it was a natural phenomenon,
and if it could be a danger to flights over that region. He was
sure it was forcing them to land – or was it their imagination, and
some force like gravity, and he wondered if there were disturbances
like it on the Earth.
    He saw that
they were having a hard time controlling the speed of their
descent!
    How could
anything take control of such a powerful shuttle, and at such a
distance? What form of technology was behind it? Could they use it
in warfare? Was it a form of military technology? Could they
figure out a way to block and stop it?
    Surely there
had to be a way to obstruct it or just weaken it?
    One of the crew
called out, “It’s not increasing in power!”
    He realized
that some of them were holding back information about it, and he
considered if he should try and get it!
    The pilots
tested and did what they could perceive and he realized that it was a
more interesting trip than he had even imagined! Nothing anywhere
seemed enough to understand it, and he was sure none of them had
anything to properly explain it!
    There had to be
something irregular, visible, and solid behind it, and he wondered if he could
get it if he had long enough and the right means !
    “ We’ve still lost all
contact with the
base ! ” Campbell confirmed loudly , as he examined his equipment .
    He
noticed as it got lower to the ground the crew started avoiding looking at each other, with occasional horrified glares, realizing they that they were going to land
soon and they might not
be any longer in control of their
fate!
    “ I
don ’t get this! ” one of the
pilots uttered, as he looked up startled . “It is
as though something kicked in there and has started landing it, and
I cannot discover why and why it is going to a
different destination than we were set to land ! ”
    “ Is there
anything visible there?” Cronenberg asked curiously.
    “ Nothing
visible! I t seems to be carrying
out some form of alternative plan – to land
us! ”
    The
shuttle shifted down low, but still at a regulated pace, almost as though it were being overwhelmed by something .
    Occasionally the crew started monitoring what was happening
about them as it happened, and Cronenberg realized that they liked to handle things rather than ignore
them, and they were not
fully confident of surviving!
    Even the most
professional pilots on the Earth would have a hard time finding a
landing site below, and they were allowing it to land them
there.
    The shudders
from turbulent energy
surges made them jerk forwards and backwards, making them all go
silent and stop silent conversations, and they started putting on
their spacesuit helmets.
    At times he felt as
if he were drifting down to a hideous death!
    It plummeted and suddenly
administrated what
was a n almost perfect landing, but smashed hard into
something, and h is eyes bulged brightly, and he barely believed the destructive forces lashing
out at the
shuttle.
    When he
realized that they had avoided dieing, when it stopped, flames
bursting out, and an alarm blared out, and a sudden explosion
smashed it with tremendous force !
    Then as he caught
sight of something in the
obscurity out in the
distance, through a window , he heard them all trying to
escape and realized that the shuttle had acquired serious structural
damage and fuel was
leaking out and had ignited .
     

Chapter 3
     
    The Crash Site
     
    After the astronauts had jumped onto the
Martian soil Cronenberg and copied the others lifting out oxygen
tanks and he rushed away from the crash site with them, and he had
a strange sensation and thought that he was somewhere far more than
an uncharted desolate region of Mars!
    It was as though they were entering somewhere
else, and making the first step for