Arnold's Adventure: A Life On Earth

Chapter 3: Fleeing To Earth

The ship's engines spluttered and churned.
The ship 'bessie' looked like a pyramid painted completely black. The pyramid was about half the size of their house.
Graham pulled a lever on the dashboard bringing the ship to life lighting up green lights throughout the pyramid in a circuit pattern like flowing green veins.
Inside it were Graham, Arnold and Adrian. The room had three walls. One wall was where the door was, one wall was where the gigantic bunk beds were, and the last was a wall full of flashing buttons and levers (the dashboard).
Great big metal poles lined the centre of the ship.
Graham pressed a few buttons and they abruptly took off. Flying higher and higher, Arnold looked down through the glass floor to see that they were being propelled higher and higher until suddenly Graham pulled a lever which Arnold took a guess was the breaks.
“you might wanna hang on to something you two” Graham informed Arnold and Adrian.
Adrian grasped a nearby pole which was freezing cold. Arnold held on to Adrian, hugging him tightly.
Graham pulled a yellow lever, which made the entire ship shudder and shoot up quickly. The ship speaker announced
“stabilisers deactivated”
Suddenly the radio turned on.
“Must've been from when the ship shuddered” Arnold thought
The radio started playing 'We'll meet again'
I love this song said Arnold and Adrian at the same time
“We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day” they sang along in time with the radio
Graham stood pressing buttons calmly before he pulled the yellow lever back down again.
The ship came to an abrupt halt as Adrian and Arnold fell to the floor.
The radio switch to the news channel.
“Mars leader 'Henriclor' has declared parlay and the ships above the atmosphere have stopped shooting, we will hear more momentarily as the leader of mercury arrives. Could this be the end of mars?” The radio said before it cut out.
“ships above the atmosphere?” said Graham as he hurried to the screen on the dashboard. His face turned pale as he swore loudly. Arnold came over and looked at the screen. He saw mars, surrounded by thousands of spherical dark grey ships with blasters aimed at mars.
“how are we gonna get through this” he said aloud “if we even try we'll get blasted to smithereens”
Graham smirked and said “you're going to want to get down”
Arnold ran over to Adrian and pulled him to the floor before grasping hold of a nearby pole.
Graham pulled a blue and green lever before running to a nearby pole and grasping on to it tightly.
The ship alarms sounded as sparks flew out of the dashboard, the ship rocked violently and the poles were changing temperature rapidly from freezing to boiling.
Arnold let out a squeal of pain.
The ship abruptly stopped rocking and sparking sending the trio flying to different ends of the ship.
“you alright lads?” Graham asked
Adrian and Arnold both nodded dissily.
“de-materialisation process complete” The ship speaker informed.
“what does it mean de-materialisation?” Arnold asked curiously.
“de-materialisation is basically just sending the ship into ghost mode. We can go through solid objects and we're Invisible” Graham explained.
The walls had turned a kind of turquoise green colour and the pipes were filling the room with the steam the were producing.
Graham pressed a purple button and the noise of air fans could be heard above.
The steam was cleared out of the room within seconds.
Graham piloted the ship through the fleet or mercuric starships until they were out of their range. He then piloted them a little further until they could see earth in the distance.
The earth was radiating orange dust clouds from the planet.
Almost like blood seeping from a wound the orange skys of earth were leaking into space.
“dad, are you sure we can survive here?” Arnold exclaimed worriedly
“Don’t worry I know a friend” Graham replied.
Graham pulled the yellow and blue lever back up.
The alarms sounded again however this time the speaker said “gravitational planetary pull detected. Handbreak failing. Directing ship to the nearest gravity source.”
Sparks flew around. The ship was rocking around like crazy. Arnold grabbed hold of a pole and grasped tightly. He looked up to see that Graham and Adrian had the same idea.
The ship was falling faster and faster until suddenly. THUD!