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You pour yourself your own cup of coffee and sit down next to Aelita.

"Aelita, that´s a interesting name. You know where it originally comes from?" You ask her.

Aelita responds, "no, I just thought it was a ordinary name." 

"In the 1920´s - just after the revolution - there was a hit movie called Aelita. It was about a engineer, who travelled to Mars and meet the Queen of the Martians - called Aelita."   

"Oh? Is that so?" Aelita asks with a voice of interest.

"Since the movie became such a smash hit - remember that people back then had never seen such a futuristic film before, parents started naming their daughters after that Martian Queen. Soon Aelita became regular name in Russia. And here you are - a cosmonaut - on a red planet, just like Mars." 


The conversation kinds of dries up after that. You sit there, sipping your coffee, feeling the time drift by, until suddenly Aelita pulls her phazer out of her utility belt and puts it on the dining table. "Ever used one of these in action Mikhail?" she asks.

You look at the weapon. It´s a standard Red Army phazer that all cosmonauts wear. It´s white, oval-shaped on the handle and barrel with a trigger just like on normal pistols. 

"As a medic you really shouldn´t take such interest in firing phazers Aelita," you sternly inform her, brushing the question away in a authoritarian manner.

"I-I´m sorry," Aelita says and puts the phazer away. You have a change of heart through - and decide to answer the question. 

"To answer your question, yes Aelita, I have had to pull my phazer many times."

" Extraterrestrial?" She asks, clearly curious.

"Yes..." you say with a nod, "and Americans."


You suddenly hear an alarm ringing, it signifies that the airlocks have been opened.

"Their back!" states Aelita and runs off to great them. You calmly follow her - arriving to find all four of them in shock. They just stand still looking at each other with worried faces. Sergey is holding a flag in his hand, but it isn´t the Red Banner, it´s the American flag.


...


"We found it mounted on the top of that rock where we were going to place our flag," Sergey informs you and Aelita. "I removed it - and placed the Red Banner in it´s place." 

The five of you stand in the meeting room - none sit down. The American flag is laid out across the table. There is no mistaken it. Red stripes and white stars on a blue background. It is the symbol of the capitalist America. In your ten years you´ve never encountered a situation like this before. You stand there staring at it for a long while. 

"This is... A bad situation," Kerim states the obvious.

"No, really - you think so?" Yamuna sarcastically retorts.  

Whoever is the first human to arrive on a planet and put ones flag there is its rightful owner. Planets are marked in a database if they belong to either the USSR or the Americans. The database is shared without secrets, and is updated as soon as the claim is made. The entire system is designed to prevent events that can lead into international conflicts such as this. This is a crisis, a situation you´ve never encountered or even heard of before.


"Aelita," Sergey says.

"Y-Yes," the black-haired youth replies.

"Go to the cockpit. Get on the communicator and report to base what´s happened here. Ask what our orders are," Sergey commands.

"Yes professor!" Aelita says and salutes the projects leader. She then runs off - towards the cockpit.


You sigh heavily. "So, can anyone tell me what might have gone wrong here? Anybody?" When nobody replies to your question you say, "well, could you at least tell me why you removed the flag and returned it here?"

Sergey takes a deep breath. "This planet, planet Malinovyĭ-T361, was not listed as an American planet in the database. Since it is not listed in the database, it is not an American planet. Thus, I proclaim this planet a colony of the Soviet union."  

"Well what if the Americans are still here? We don´t know how many they are - or why they´re here in the first place. The capitalist could even have built a military base on this planet - you don´t think they´d take offence that we pull their flag down?" you question Sergey.

Sergey groans lightly, as if annoyed at having to think about it. "Perhaps," he simply states, "let´s just wait for Aelita to give us the response from base. 


You can hear the young cosmonauts running towards you before you can see her. 

"Commander! T-The communicator - it is broken!"

"What!?" Sergey shouts in surprise with an undertone of anger.

"There is just a buzzing sound coming from the communicator when I try to call base-command!"

"Sounds like atmospheric interference," you quickly say to diffuse any sudden emotions of panic among the crew. "I´ve experienced it a few times when landing on unvisited planets. Just never on one with such a calm weather as this." 

"So what do we do!" Yamuna says - looking for answers. "Can´t we just fly back into space and contact them from there."

"We only have enough fuel for a straight journey back home," you quickly counter, "If we decide to fly off into space - then we wouldn´t have enough fuel to re-land and return home after that. Base-command might want us to continue the mission or investigate the situation, which we wouldn´t be able to do once in out space, we would be forced to perform the space-leap home." 

You feel the need to chose an option on this issue.


*[[Malinovyĭ: "We should stay here on Malinovyĭ and scout the area to find the American base"]]

*[[Malinovyĭ: "We should stay here on Malinovyĭ and return to the rock to look for clues about the American´s whereabouts"]]

*[[Malinovyĭ: "We should stay here on Malinovyĭ and continue the mission as planned"]]

*[[Malinovyĭ: "We should take off into space and report this to base-command]]

[[Category: Malinovyĭ - The Red Planet|Y]]