PU 69 Lasertronic Space Annihilator

On the Martian moon named Phobos a door opened, the eccentric Commander X-6, AKA Marlin, scuttled out wringing his hands in despair. "Oh dear, I do hope that magnetic storm didn't fry the circuitry in the PU-69 Lasertronic Space Annihilator. Magnetic storms are bad, very bad indeed!" The little Martian continued his nervous march to his latest super weapon. "It took me 72 long years to complete it. It will give us complete victory on the Uranus front! Unless the solar storm fried the circuitry..."

The breathless Martian stopped at his newest super weapon and told himself to breathe. He took a deep breath of trepidation and opened the main compartment door. The little Martian had to stand on his tippy toes to inspect the diamond inside of the hi tech laser. His eyes happily opened wide as he looked into the compartment, "Oh goody! The solar flare didn't fry the circuitry nor baked the diamond I stole from Wayne Industries to power it!"

The excited Martian closed the door, secured it and scuttled over to the weapon's fire control board. The happy Martian donned his safety goggles and pressed a yellow button. The laser softly hummed as a green light glowed on its tip; Marlin pressed the green button. Commander X-6 turned his back to the weapon, closed his eyes and placed his hands on his helmet. The tip of the laser grew brighter as energy cackled all around it. Suddenly the green light flickered, energy dissipated as the humming stopped. Marlin opened his startled eyes as he dropped his hands, "Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be a laser shattering kaboom?!?!"

The disappointed Martian turned around and saw smoke wafting from the power core compartment. "Oh, I was afraid of that, power failure. The electromagnetic field wasn't strong enough to handle the powerful solar storm." He scuttled over to the laser, "Drat these new super weapons. They're so naughty and complex." Smoke was billowing from a compartment. He again stood on his tippy toes, opened a little door and retrieved what looked like a shriveled piece of charcoal. "Oh dear, back to the ol' drawing board."

A feeling of dread overtook him as he gazed upon the smoking, chard power core. "Oh my, the Queen wouldn't like this. She would tell me to go jump in the river Styx..." Marlin sighed as he continued to look at the fried unit. He shook his head and tossed the useless thing away. He sighed and placed his balled fists on his hip, "There's only one thing to do..." the little alien struck a pose and lifted his right index finger into the air as he exuberantly continued, "Steal a power core from Stark Enterprises!!!"

And with that the determined Martian marched into his sleek spaceship and blasted off into space, his destination: earth, the eastern seaboard of the United States. TBC...

482 words, a few days late for the Writer's Cramp but it's the first short story I've written since being sick.