I looked at the countdown clock in the corner of the Driver's screen, showing the time until the nuclear blast. It read twelve fifteen, next to it was another clock labelled 'Blast Zone Exit Time'. Alarmingly it was reading fifteen thirty. I noticed Christine following my gaze. "Shit Brenda, we're not going to make it!" she yelled," What's happened?" Gift Of The Red Planet - Part 5 by Alys

I folded my arms across my unconstrained breasts to try and reduce their mad movement as we bumped over the scrub at a crazy pace.

It was only a few minutes since the tank had smashed into our base. The warning of the tank commander of our imminent annihilation had seemed all too plausible, given our previous discussions, so without thinking of any other consequences we had all jumped aboard.

"You OK?" asked the elder of the two soldiers who had smashed their way into the base a few minutes earlier.

I nodded my head in reply as I was forced to leave my boobs to their painful bouncing in order to grab a handrail, to stop myself being jolted against a bulkhead

"Do we have to go so fast?" asked Yuki from the relative comfort of a small metal seat in the front of the vehicle.

"Sorry," replied the driver, sitting next to her," we need to get back to the regiment before they notice we took a little detour. I'm Brenda and that's Christine."

Suddenly the mad swinging of my chest was lessened as the tank changed direction and resumed a more even pace on what felt like a paved road

"We know who you all are of course," added Christine in a husky voice.

"What's this all about then?" asked Bella a little uncertainly," I hope this is not some trick and I didn't know there were any women tank commanders."

"There aren't," responded Christine," and it's what I said, they're going to nuke the place in about an hour, everyone is being evacuated."

"Except you three, of course," said Brenda.

"Why?" I asked.

"We don't really know, we got the order half an hour ago to leave," replied Christine," although the rumour is that the generals are worried that whatever changed Alexa is going to get out and turn all men into women."

"I wonder why they think that?" asked Bella to herself while looking directly at me.

"I'm.. so sorry, guys," I said.

"So why have you rescued us then?" asked Yuki," aren't you worried about your husbands or boyfriends?"

Christine and Brenda looked at each other and laughed.

"Not at all, hon," responded Christine," in fact we're both hoping to catch whatever happened to you, Alexa."

"I don't understand, you know that it doesn't affect women," I responded, feeling puzzled.

"That's why it'll affect us," commented Brenda cryptically.

"You're not women?" asked Bella.

"Oh no, we are women, but most people don't see us that way," replied Christine," they'd call us transsexuals."

"So we're breathing in as much infection as possible from you Alexa," said Brenda, smiling.

"How come you're in charge of this tank then?" asked Bella.

"It's a long story, I'll give you a summary," replied Christine.

As the tank bumped along the road she told us how she had been born a boy and named Christopher. She had fought her feelings of otherness all her life and had finally joined the army to suppress her feelings of wanting to be a woman. Eventually she had found the strain of hiding her real self too much and had started going to transgender bars in nearby Las Vegas. She had eventually met Brenda and the two had managed to get transferred to the same tank.

"We are both saving up to transition when we leave the army," added Brenda.

"But maybe being in contact with you will speed up the process a little," said Christine, smiling and touching my arm in a friendly gesture.

"So you can see why we couldn't leave you to fry," added Brenda.

There was a few minutes of silence as Brenda and Christine busied themselves with some routine checks on the tank computer. Bella, Yuki and myself looked at each other as we tried to make sense of the situation we were in. Had we jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. What were the real intentions of the two transgendered women?

"Listen everyone," said Yuki, breaking the silence," things are not quite that simple."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You're no longer infectious, nor is there any agent remaining in the air and water of the base," she blurted out.

We all looked at Yuki in shock.

"I mean I tested your breath as you slept," she continued," and there was no trace of the agent in it, although there seemed to be something in your blood."

"What does this mean?" asked Christine, a little curtly," has this been a wasted journey for us?"

"Maybe, maybe not," Yuki said, uncertainly," you certainly wouldn't be affected by breathing in the air around Alexa, although I would guess that a sample of her blood could transmit the infection."

Any further discussion was interrupted as the tank camjector suddenly projected the image of a man in his late thirties sitting in a tank.

"Green leader to green group, please initialise encryption code delta," said the disassociated head.

Brenda typed on her keyboard a string of numbers and letters. The image flickered and then re-stabilised.

"We have a code red base breach of base security. I repeat a code red breach," announced the regiment commander," Region executive has initiated fifteen minute countdown to sterilisation protocol sequence. I repeat fifteen minute countdown!"

We all looked at each other in alarm.

"In other words you bozos," yelled Green leader," you got less than fifteen minutes to get your sorry asses out of there!"

"Shit, Brenda," said Christine," put your foot down!"

There was a sudden surge of acceleration as the tank moved forward at twice or three times its previous speed. The jolting was soon as bad as earlier.

"We've got to stop them!" I shouted to my fellow astronauts, above the noise of the tank engines.

"Stop who?" asked Bella.

"The army, nuking the base," I explained," the fall-out, it'll blow towards Las Vegas, didn't you see the windsock before we left, there's what looks like a thirty mile an hour wind."

"But how can we stop them without giving ourselves away?" asked Yuki.

I was stumped for an answer. We could contact Hollis, the Mars Corps CEO and tell him to get President Hassam to stop the nuclear strike. But even if we could convince the slime-ball he would most likely get the army to blow up our tank just in case. I racked my brain trying to think of a sympathetic figure with enough influence to stop the devastation.

I looked at the countdown clock in the corner of the Driver's screen, showing the time until the nuclear blast.

It read twelve fifteen, next to it was another clock labelled 'Blast Zone Exit Time'. Alarmingly it was reading fifteen thirty.

I noticed Christine following my gaze.

"Shit Brenda, we're not going to make it!" she yelled," What's happened?"

"Dunno, we seem to have lost some power to the front engines, maybe we got some bushes into the air-filters when went over the scrub-land to rescue these guys, maybe blocking them a little." Brenda explained.

"Damnation! This is not a good day!" Christine exclaimed," I wish I'd never seen the three of them, bloody astronauts."

"We're all toast now," she continued, angrily," unless you have an idea how to stop the nukes."

"We are sorry if your rescue of us has been futile," responded Bella as calmly as possible.

"Don't give me your false piety," said Christine, bitterly," we did this for something you can't even give us now. Brenda, if we chucked them out would we make it?"

I looked alarmingly at Bella and Yuki.

"Nope," replied Brenda, after she had done some quick calculations," the reduction in weight only gives us about an extra thirty seconds, we're still short by more than two minutes."

"OK, I guess we'll have to try and dig ourselves in and hope the blast goes over us," said Christine," we can lie down and listen to the infernal music."

"Wait I have an idea," I said, abruptly as Christine's reference to music had reminded me of someone.

"What?" asked Yuki.

"We can contact Norah, her programme is on now and I'm sure she can get through to the President," I explained," quick, Yuki give me the portable."

She took out her hand-held camjector and handed it to me. I quickly recorded a message to the talk-show host I had met the day before, before handing it back to my fellow astronaut.

"Can you change the background, so no-one knows we're in a tank?" I asked.

"Sure," she replied," I'll insert some scenes from the base. But how can we send the message without the army detecting it and finding us?"

I had an answer.

"Christine I'm hoping that you have drones fitted?" I asked.

"Sure, why?" she responded.

"Can you attach the camjector to it?" I asked.

"Easy," she replied.

I took the device from Yuki, set it to loop transmit and handed it to the tank commander. She opened a hatch in the side and quickly inserted it in a compact storage module on the drone. In another thirty seconds the small airplane was launched.

Brenda patched in the output from the drone while grabbing the signal from the Norah show. For the next three minutes we watched the two side by side. My message was just finishing its fourth repetition when the image from the drone was replaced by static as an army missile destroyed it.

"They got it," I said dejectedly.

"Of course they did," said Christine," what did you expect, they weren't going to let you broadcast without responding."

"I just hope the message got through," said Bella," not much time left now."

We all looked at the countdown. It had reached the last minute and now showed fifty nine seconds.

"Quick Brenda!" ordered Christine," get us into sand!"

We we thrown about as the tank abruptly changed direction and seconds later came to a shuddering halt. Then the vehicle started vibrating and shuddering as the mechanical shovels began digging us in.

As we slowly sank we watched the image of Norah interviewing a round the world disabled yachtswoman.

"It looks like she didn't get the message," said Christine.

"I'm so sorry, everyone," I said as tears began to flow down my cheeks.

The timer had reached ten seconds when the TV personality suddenly turned away from her guest and announced.

"We'll be back in a flash, don't go away."