2503.12 22/31 —Emancipation #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera CW: Sex

"So, let me get this right," May Ri said. She sat in a small supply dome cleared for the purpose, a light glaring overhead, a table, two chairs, a chamber pot, and a vid, currently blank but recording. She scrolled her book plate. "Dug… not Doug… not—"

"Douglas," the dirty haired, dumpy import snapped, ankle chained to the floor. Her age. She'd researched how police ran interviews in Randy's library, but between the textbooks and police procedural novels, the latter was the most helpful.

He had had a second child, a son, after a 14 year contraceptive hiatus, never having visited his daughter, only his wife. She did not like him. "You took Howy, H-O-W-Y—?"

"Yes. My son."

"—From the crèche to form your own, to homeschool him?"

"…"

"With these guys?" She listed 20 men, returned from Olympus Mons.

"And their sons." Seven, of 35 total kids.

"Over the objections of your wife?"

"My son. My wife. What don't you get about 'Obey,' woman?"

She let the book plate clatter. "So you beat her?"

He crossed his arms. She read, God-given right. After five minutes silence, he slyly asked, "Ever read The Book?"

"The one full of obscene stories, wild sex, war, genocide, bloody executions, vindictive men brutalizing women for their property?" She nodded, thumb down.

"No. Scripture."

"Yes, that one." Study thy enemy. During school prayer, right? "The riot you started killed a boy named James."

"Went to a better place, a-theist. The women aren't teaching the Decath blessings per charter—"

Seven hours later, she returned to a room reeking of a latrine, weirdly thunderstruck: "Where'd you get the idea for a boy-only crèche?"

"Reverend O'Neil gave a sermon..."

—2—

Yuki Īto touch-walked into Reverend O'Neil's office, mostly floating, elegantly, her cotton tabi (toe) socks letting her anchor to the desk easily. She wore an Earth-imported yukata. White, with fluttering orange, red, and gold autumn maple leaves tied with a black obi sash, the little-used garment felt soft and symbolic. Feminine, yet powerful. She had grey hair; his had thinned to white floss that showed scalp. The last Decath Minister in Mars space was fifteen years older than her. Gone was his red hair and ronin's lecherous smile from when fate had stranded them on Deimos, alone.

Without contraceptives. Before the "bone issue" that left them and six others only able to live in Deimos' microgravity.

"Secretary Īto—" The smell of a mocha in a ceramic liquigrip waft in as she docked it on the imported mahogany desk and he stared. The Decath were all about wealth. For them. Not Japan, which NADS, a Decath country, had helped East Imperial China "annex" when she was three.

"Reverend." Yuki sank to the chair, then sipped her hot barley tea. Cocoa was no longer extinct, and coffee was a staple that could be spin-thrown from Mars—thanks to May Ri.

He finished, "I told you never to visit me again."

"Oh?" She tapped her temple, then sipped.

He sighed, took up the cup two-handed Japanese-style as she'd taught. Sipped. He smiled faintly. "Okay, what?"

She sipped.

He sipped.

A meter wide window ran from floor to ceiling to floor across the dome, displaying Mars like a faux painting in all its ferric, ferrous, and ferrosoferric Lowellian glory. Monorail lines not canals crisscrossed the equator, invisible to the eye, of course. She spotted Isidis Planitia. "A beautiful prison," she said, adding, "Time!" reaching for his vid.

"For what?"

"Wait." Nisei. A townhall, a podium, a speaker…

"The Harlot Princess of Mars!" His breath hitched. Behind her, "Our indiscretion," Reina.

"…The Sorority Charter we voted for prohibits slavery contracts. You cannot give the right to another to force you to obey. You cannot be made property. Because of recent abuses, and a history of abuse against women, today we voted to abolish marriage." A crowd of nisei roared approval. "No man may own a woman, enjoin her, force sex, assert right to her property. Her children are hers to raise, never his. This vote annuls all Martian marriages. Sex ceases to be illegal, but consent remains mandatory. Be civil, Martians, and… have fun!"

"Not Decath marriages!"

"Contact your diocese." Yuki directed men to remove his comm devices from his beautiful prison.

—3—

Randy, 55 today, lay spread-eagled. May Ri knelt between, with a two-handed grip. He asked, sweating, then really sweating, "What do you mean I should think of bedding another woman—? Don't squeeze!"

"What I said. Think about it. If it helps. If it gives you… ideas." She squeezed.

"You're already more than I can handle, Princess!"

She grinned evilly, freeing her slave—temporarily. "Good answer!" #RSMarsNeededWomen 22

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2503.31 21/31 — Sorority #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera

Seeing her daughter on stage—her arm splinted because an arrow had fractured her ulna, squatting like frog, smiling and chatting privately with Raquel and Rufus in the audience—made her stop at the door of the stuffed auditorium. Nisei in towns across Mars had reacted hearing of the ambush rescuing the women of Elysium. Cargoons got dispatched to neighboring Decath domes even before requests arrived. Some had been commandeered from timid dome managers by nisei pilots driven to end the suffering they'd witnessed, but had been powerless to remedy.

Decath and the word "divorce" didn't mix, but mix it did, had the last week. At Shiaparelliburgh, red blood mixed with red sand. It could not stand.

Reina stood beside her, nursing her son. Manette hugged a toddler, Reina's Felice, while May Ri's twins waved a worn pink pony toy to keep her quiet while May Ri's unplanned-for fifth little girl worried her favorite hand-me-down might yet break. The Onēsanue waved May Ri inside.

She'd pinged May Ri. Said, yes, May Ri should bring her work in progress. She was needed.

This audience...

It quieted and parted as she walked in, the tip-taping silvery spidery maker keeping pace with her. 300 humans taxed the ventilation, but nisei and sansei packed cheek to jowl never tired of physical closeness. Only the imports, the issei with a red triskelion Mars tattoo of a contract colonist on their forearm, stood apart. Refugees sat embraced by daughters and sons of different mothers, learning they were no longer alone, no longer unloved, if by sheer force. May Ri thought of the crèche system, and the culture of shared-mothering it fostered: Intelligence valued at a young age, no harassment about being yourself, the not ever being forced into gender roles, the knowing helping another was helping one's self...

Her sense of having a comparatively barren childhood percolated up from memory.

Blinking tears, she saw people of all shapes and colors, clothed in a rainbow of synth-silk. Thousands more filled vids lining the hall. May Ri checked her hair, pushed a lock in place, felt conscious of the maker clicking and ticking, dog-like in its obedience. Reina handed Joyous to Manette.

"What's it making?" the firstborn of Mars asked, the Big Sister of all native Martians.

"Attitude thrusters."

At 29, her bronze hair had darkened to red. Freckles emphasized smiling grey eyes, "Why?"

Spinnerets hissed; 79 manipulators formed metal cones. "We own the V7.0 starship IP, so if Elysium won't let us fly theirs, I thought I'd build one."

Addressing the crowd, Reina said, "Like we own the IP to build this thruster, we own the Mars we built with years of effort at the cost of our fathers' lives." She smiled. "Everyone, meet May Ri and her Five Daughters, the Princess of Mars. On our behalf, in her name, she bought the corpse of EM Mars, and with it, our slave contracts. We own ourselves, the remaining ships, our domes, even Deimosbase. We, nisei and sansei, mothers and fathers, own Mars. Our nisei vote outnumbers all male imports. We govern this world!"

A set of vids to the left flashed, the women onscreen replaced by the weathered, burnt-into-her-memory, shouting face of Manager Ezekiel Stan of Elysium, now in his 60s. A moderator swiftly muted him. The audience broke into angry conversation, glaring his direction.

"Princess? Do you cede your ownership of Mars?"

"I— Do I? What?" She hit the off button on the spider, blinking. Well. Actually. She'd signed the "paperwork" for the transaction she negotiated for all the 16 Psyche ore collected over the early years, refined martian metals thrown into orbit, and space machinery built in the half-year after the deal was struck.

Her name, Mars' fortune. As owner on paper, she outranked the directors!

She looked around her. She saw friends, peers, a world that accepted her—a woman. All else was meaningless in the face of that! She said, "I'll cede ownership, but to whom?"

Reina paused, nonplussed. Mari knew her mother overthought things, and tittered, then so did the twins. When Reina laughed, the entire room—no Mars—laughed with her. "I thought of a new charter, but not a name. How about The Nisei of Mars?"

"Um," May Ri said. The nisei nodded, but their second generation sansei kids caught the discrepancy.

"Right," Reina said, tapping her chin.

May Ri studied the native Martians. They shared a characteristic beyond squatting like frogs: Lacking interest in gender roles, most looked androgynous. Many men styled themselves like women. Birth rates, affected by gravity and iron intake, left men as barely 1/5th of the population.

May Ri's eyes widened. "How about The Sorority?" #RSMarsNeededWomen 21

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2503.20 20/31— Shelter #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera

"Ow!" May Ri cried, tightening a screw under the maker, startled into hitting her head.

"Sorry," Reina said, "It's important! Mother won't send the cargoon, but the nisei need to flee Elysium. Their mothers are in danger and are insisting on shelter."

Taking multiple wives— The Decath patriots were implementing it literally with a mass wedding vid-downlink. They'd announced they'd confiscate by force any vehicles landing at their docks.

Mari, squatting beside the spidery device, said, "We women are better prepared than the imports think." Mari, now 17, had implemented universal suit training, secretly in some places.

Reina stood listening, nodding, while gently shaking her little infant son Joyous. He was ebony-skinned like Adrian, not the crème shade of Felice, who seemed to take after Carlos. The nisei hadn't objected to multiple wives; no, they'd reinterpreted. Reina, the Escalante Dome manager and Onēsanue, approved the plan and started pinging women.

With one Martian time zone, 2 am was early morning local, with bright green skies. The cargoon settled into shadows cast by a rocky black crater wall, rotors at idle. Mari in an exoskeleton, a medic, and an assistant jumped to the red sands, having made suit-comm contact with refugees half a kim outside the docks. Suited up in the cockpit with the pilot, May Ri lowered her binocs to point, saying, "There!" Mars green suits. Adults, kids, infants in rescue balloons. Relieved, she added, "According to plan. 10 o'clock."

"Ack!" Mari replied.

Movement caught her eye. She panned left, scanning upslope. Focused. Made no sense: Two men holding bent sticks vertically? Horizontal sticks? "Arrows!" she shouted. "They've got long bows! Your 8—"

They fired.

Mari screamed.

Pointing furiously, May Ri yelled at the pilot, "Get them!"

"With what?"

She shoved the throttle forward.

The pilot lunged, getting them airborne, stating, "No weapons."

"He shot my daughter! Run him over!" May Ri had resisted letting makers make weapons. Long bows! Good idea, she admitted.

"What!?"

"Do it!"

The helieo pitched forward, banked left. With the thin air, them shooting sunward, the men didn't immediately notice.

"Lower! Lower!"

When the pilot flinched, she clapped a gloved hand over his. The bowman ought have dived aside, but she heard a thump. Front hyper nacelle. The second man scrambled to a rock outcropping. Collision avoidance braked them, lifted them. The pilot spun them around, looking. "Where is he?" the nisei cried.

"Mari?" Her skin cooled. "Anyone see him?"

Not Mari: "Pulling himself up on your running board."

"Pitch us!" May Ri cried.

The helieo waggled. Then: "He's up!"

And could climb into the cabin!

She rushed rearward, heart racing, stomach clenching. She had no time to don the exoskeleton. In cross-section, the cargoon was }O{ shaped, the upper a VTOL and rotor downdraft shield, the lower landing skids. Handholds, yes, but not easy to shift as the helieo waggled and pitched. A hammer slid and clanked a bulkhead. She grabbed it. The spring doors, timered open, could be opened from the outside. With Mari down, the man could fight the refugees boarding, or would fight her if inside.

"Where?"

"Three meters to the door."

Handholds at the door. Ok. Swing out? Hit a hand? Snow his visor?

"He's close!"

Fist tight on the hammer, the other grasping the hatch bar, she braced a foot and made like a flag as the wind changed. She swung the hammer.

They belly-whomped.

Caught him reaching.

Tall, his arm warded her attack, but kept him from grappling her. She swung again, the hammer grazing his suit. She kneed him and curved the trajectory up at the visor at the same time; the weak hit barely left a white dent. As he jerked away, she kicked his chin, then swung for his other hand.

He jerked it back—letting go.

"Pitch us!"

The ship slammed her into metal, then flung them both. She cried as her wrist wrenched. The downdraft caught him, swatted him down like a toy to the rocks.

Bruised, despite the suit, wrist screaming, shoulder sprained, she swung back in. They boarded the refugees. The medic treated the arrow in Mari's right arm, cutting open the suit in the pressurized cabin.

May Ri hovered, despite the blood, despite the women, some crying.

Mari growled. "Momie!"

Back in the cockpit, she mused she'd get charged with two more murders. Reaching for her book plate, she punched in ¡PanDORA! backwards, thumbed the screen in three spots, and released her software lock on the maker base system she'd designed. It could now make Martian weapons.

They had opened the box, not her. She hoped not to regret her actions, like the mythical woman. #RSMarsNeededWomen 20

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2503.23 19/31 — Intersectional #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera CW: Crude Language

"No! Worse," Raymond answered, "May Ri was an animal in constant heat! If I didn't satiate her, I'd get clawed—sometimes she'd claw me anyway. I should never have walked away from her! Look at this scar...!"

That was in answer to Randy's question, after he'd found May Ri chatting with her first lover, over a 13m light delay, however inadvertent it was. Stepping in front of her with a kiss, he'd asked, "Was she always so athletic and insanely inventive in bed?"

Boy talk...! Over the still-up little-used open deep space network.

Crosstalk was how Princess May Ri of Mars and her Five Daughters, formerly a Mars kidnapping sensation, earned her title (it wasn't her friendship with the Onēsanue) and her second infamy. The two men and her reminiscing inspired Raymond to scan and send his entire uncensored paper library over the open network during idle time, which led to how May Ri arranged the first Lunatic trade transit to Mars, in order to deliver a cargo of refined asteroid metal and martian machinery to Earth space.

May Ri sat hands steepled across her mouth touching her nose, watching the vid, barely breathing. A telepresence of a dozen nisei women representatives joined with five Directors (which made a quorum including Īto), together with the hispanic male Captain of the Pride of Selene from his stateroom office desk. A stylized pale white and grey full moon hung behind him.

Animated red, green, and grey sprites chased one another in a Mars globe outline.

Wait...

Wait...

After multiple hop light transit times of 4m 40s Mars-Earth-Lunar Republic, decrypting multiple keys, fortunes in E currency bouncing back and forth...

Document icons turned green. They opened. Most were E-signed Princess May Ri on Behalf of Nisei Mars.

May Ri thought, Couldn't I have been the face of Mars for my engineering contributions? Noooo. She asked, "What's it mean? It's done? Do I have to sign anything else?"

"The banks and creditors signed off," the captain acknowledged, giving a quick salute. "Consider this our final handshake. Now, I take my cargo to its new owners."

Secretary Īto explained, "We've officially bought the debt and remaining assets of EM Mars Corp. As agreed, I move to vote to dissolve the corporation—"

One of the hundreds of lurker sprites bloomed into a new male face on the vid. He was a sixth Director—accompanied seconds later by two others, and Former Director Ezekiel Stan, manager of Elysium. He shouted, "Not so fast! Per our charter, and the Decath codicils, I dispute that you have a majority of the population to move to vote..." He meant male population, despite the nisei outnumbering the imported men.

The trade ship captain said, "We break orbit in 32 minutes. Enjoy your freedom." His link faded out.

Three days later, she received notice that the City of Chicago PD had a warrant out for her arrest for 1st degree Murder and Infanticide by Abortion and 79 counts of Illegal Sexual Activity by an Unmarried Woman, cc'd to all the Directors of EM Mars Corp. She tried pinging Raymond but got an incorrect address error. A memo promulgated by the new Elysium Consortium of Domes (ECD) suggested she be stoned to death.

A month later, May Ri killed a man with an exoskeleton gauntlet†. He had beaten his wife half to death and was caught while kidnapping his daughter (now 13) whom he had never visited. The witnesses, the mother and daughter, insisted it was self-defense and accidental. Elysium issued a warrant for the Aggravated Assault and Murder committed upon their dome citizen.

Five days before the Pride of Selene entered lunar orbit, a cargo vessel at the International Earth Docks was hastily reflagged with the blue-white-red registration of the North American Decath States (NADS) and loaded secretly. Two days later, it fired missiles on the Lunar Republic Orbital, destroying their patrol ship tug and damaging their search and rescue shuttle. NADS announced it was annexing the "breakaway" state. The Pride of Selene declared it piracy when later boarded.

The Decath minister on Deimosbase agreed to an ECD request granting, per his interpretation of scripture with due consideration to the diminished population of men on Mars, that men be allowed and encouraged to take multiple wives. Alarmingly, the remaining starship shuttle in Mars space (two were deployed on asteroid mining missions), was rebased to Elysium Township, in compensation for never receiving a monorail connection or makers to build spinlaunchers—restricting human orbital access to the Decath domes. #RSMarsNeededWomen 19

———
† #Writever 2503.02 Rights Prologue https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/114092086538327781

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2503.16 18/31 —Cook #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera

It was Randolf's birthday. His third since the attack. He was disabled.

Could Randy have returned to Earth soon enough, he'd not have been paralyzed. The knifing cut nerves. Marisela's gluing had prevented bleeding, but interstitial blood applied pressure, killed tissues. Delayed surgery and first aid affected recovery. This was Mars. Men died disproportionately. Only men were doctors.

The nisei, when not thwarted by Elysium, worked to change that.

May Ri used her engineering design skills to make him feel more able bodied. Today—after letting him sleep in—that meant hanging pulls, mattress handholds, and a bed wedge. Kind of selfish of her because nothing would convince her to be sex-deprived without a fight. Making him confident ensured her satisfaction (well, more than just satisfied as it happened), which in turn worked for him, causing him to drift off into a happy sleep afterwards.

Most days they ate at the Commons, but today she cooked vegetable soup. Raquel, who worked the farms, insisted if she wanted fresh, she had to pick fresh. They roamed the acres and acres of green fields set to specific Earth months and climes. She cut Napa cabbage, pulled parsnips, carrots, and leeks, shucked corn, snipped basil and herbs. The 14-year-old even "dressed" a chicken for her, but didn't make her watch or listen. She splashed it into a pot to boil for hours.

Reina, Carlos, and Adrian brought fresh-baked bread, the yeast fragrance melding with the spicy meaty soup aroma in the humid kitchen alcove. When Marisela (who went by Mari now!) arrived with her pod mates, Rufus and Raquel, carrot cake, sparkle candles, and her little sister—who walked holding her hand—the 4-year-old immediately promised to behave herself to join "the adults."

May Ri didn't understand the nisei term pod, other than it was a very nisei-type friendship that was likely more, but she had decided her daughter deserved being trusted amongst other Martians. Nobody had trusted her when little, so she was going to trust now. The mothers in the crèche watched the twins. Mari had hit her growth spurt, and though three years younger than her friends, she was their height.

And excited.

When her Dadie returned, on a crutch, she was pointing with a thumb that he'd missed the big box behind the sofa, bouncing, which he noticed and ruffled her hair. With Secretary Īto and her onigiri meal joining via vid-downlink, May Li served bowls and Randy tore bread. They celebrated.

Chewing, behind a hand he said, "Your spinlaunch maker build-test completed successfully today."

May Li stood reflexively, splashing soup. "Really?"

That meant machinery and supplies spin-thrown along the projected monorail line retroing safely, then building track-makers that became a length of track that in turn built the next segment, ad infinitum. The problem of transporting from the factory and steel mill, solved.

"Next year we ride to Isidis Township!"

Not to closer Elysium. Nobody wanted to encourage the ridiculously religious domes. The nisei, now the majority of the population with more teenagers than imported men, had vetoed Elysium—not that they had actual power, but the board of directors absent mandates from Earth wasn't disputing them.

Spinlaunchers, one of her projects, already orbited refined metals for Deimosbase, and orbited parcels from 16 Psyche. V3.0 would be powerful enough the throw 16 Psyche's ore into high eccentricity Mars orbit. A better version that could throw to Earth-Moon orbit wouldn't go over well, May Ri thought. She broke out the berry wine and tumblers. Though Randy didn't drink, they all toasted. Mari dutifully diluted hers 1:4 and let Manette sip.

Presents were an Earth thing, not a Mars thing. Martians lived communally. Nisei always said Your presence is all the presents allowed. Today was special, though. Mari, giggling, forgetting she was grown up, skipped to the box and rolled it to her Dadie.

Confused, he asked, "What's this?"

The girl returned, as precocious as ever, or maybe she was making a Nisei-centric point: "You always make Momie happy, so she made this to make you happy."

Everybody said, "Awww." May Ri felt her face warm.

He opened it, revealing a bunch of blue denim-covered flex-shroom pipes and harnesses. May Ri punched the control, and it unpacked itself with a soft hum. They'd revived a century old idea of exoskeletons for mining and heavy construction, which women wore to replace missing men in open jobs. It made for safer work for women, and men.

This one was lightweight and stylish, designed for inside wear. She had a pressure suit version in the works, but would surprise him with that tomorrow. #RSMarsNeededWomen 18

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2503.24 16/31 — Work #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera

"I've made new friends," May Ri's little girl said brightly over vid-downlink, waving her favorite, worse-for-wear, pink pony toy. "I'm fine." Dozens of nisei girls and boys bounced and hopped behind her to greet Marisela's mother. The image stuttered. An echo group worked furiously on a maker to build a new sats before they lost them all. Marisela added, in a barely quieter child's whisper, "The other fathers are real mean meanies—"

"Not my Dadie," said a 10 Mars-year-old girl, but otherwise nodded. The kids housed, realizing en masse it was secret stuff.

Marisela finished, whispering, "—the moms keep everyone here so they can watch over us." (In the crèche domes.) Louder, "Momie, tell everyone we're really friends with the Onēsanue? Please!"

"We are," May Ri affirmed, to which the kids cheered.

May Ri felt her gut wrench. When she'd suggested Marisela accompany Randy on assignment, it had been a battle. He wasn't against training the girl, or thought that a girl would be denied a man's job.

No.

Former Director Ezekiel Stan had won election as Dome Manager at South Elysian Township. Elected solely by the men. Women hadn't voted, at all—had been intimidated, everyone figured—despite being 2/3rds of the population thanks to the growing number of widows.

The man who'd tried to rape her eight years ago had recovered his health, and marginal power. She muttered under her breath, "Should've left him in vac."

No wonder Randy kept being assigned to arbitrate disputes at Elysian, especially between spouses! Stan professed to be Decath, and was blessed by the minister on Deimosbase. Hypocrites! It made the remaining Directors waver.

Reportedly, the man didn't remember "the accident." Secretary Īto, Reina's mother, had seen the vids. She'd kept Randy's marriage details and all vid out of the public record. Privacy. He might not know who May Ri was. What Īto didn't know, since Stan's management kept vac-safe control, was how the Elysian nisei and mothers fared, other than the contact Randy was allowed arbitrating between spouses, or interviewing chaperoned women. EM Mars Corp had a Decath charter; protecting propriety was interpreted as Elysian's right.

In the end, it was the ugly face of Mars that Marisela might inherit that made the choice for them. With her father, ten suits, and weeks of training others, Marisela would work "teaching" suit safety to "help" qualify nisei who had the knack at Elysium City.

All near Marisela's age had the knack, and the desire. Management excluded girls, though.

"...I just teach the girls in the crèche domes with the spare suit. No dadies." Marisela tittered evilly.

"...Yesterday, Rufus' twin Raquel went outside."

"...Ran out of boys today. Nobody's checking the visors! Can't men count?"

"...The girls won the boy-girl soccer game."

On day 17, May Ri's call failed at their regular time. Management restricted in-base addresses to the office, which made her call back later. When she got, "Routine Maintenance. Call back tomorrow," she ran shaking to Reina, who spooked worse. Secretary Īto sent a cargoon from Gale crater.

They might never get the full story, and Elysium couldn't (wouldn't?) find the culprit...

Lured outside at dusk, a man in an enviro suit stabbed Randy multiple times, then slashed Marisela, ripping her suit before running. Safety drills triumphed over panic as the girl glued herself—wound then suit—then glued Randy's worst injuries as he went unconscious. Leaking too much air, she stuffed him in an emergency balloon, then dragged him unsure he lived, crying, blaming herself having fun, to the dome. A comms-down didn't apply to inter-suit channels, only range. When Raquel, practicing with her brother, answered, the mothers smuggled them through the docks. That she sat on her father to apply pressure had staunched the bleeding. First aid stabilized him, barely. The cargoon arrived late night; with comms down, they walked in, demanding resupply. Suit comm alerted them and they sent a medic. By early morning, the men on the cargoon smuggled 6 women, 21 nisei, and the two out.

Reina jumped ahead of Marisela's mother, grabbing the child, hugging her crying, while the slightly dazed girl (May Ri could tell) comforted the Onēsanue. Other nisei—and the new nisei, one waving a pink pony toy—all piled on, giving their hero support, allowing May Ri to tend to Randy who'd never completely recover.

Stan raged about nobody reporting in for treatment, found no evidence, claimed no witnesses, lied saying it was fabricated, and manipulated.

It felt like a turning point. May Ri saw old power grasping to control women. She vowed to help the nisei change that. #RSMarsNeededWomen 16

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2503.28 15/31 — Feather #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera

Today May Ri tested. Things she invented. A daughter she gave birth to.

The Meadowbrook rickshaw climbed the sandy hill strewn with rocks, the huge hoop wheels and isolated suspension rolling over obstacles with aplomb. She drove the tractor legs with her reins, to minimize jostling the cart, and got to the solar array minutes earlier than by taking the road compressed into the Martian regolith.

Marisela hopped out instantly, rolled upon landing to her feet, and rushed the blue and black panels. Though shy, she had taken to suit-qualification... like a duckling to water—a phrase the 4 Mars-year-old wouldn't understand, but her mother did. She stopped before touching, looked expectantly at her mother, her eyes gleaming in the coming sunset inside her glare-free helmet. May Ri's maker v3.2 made spacesuits, something they'd had to import from Earth—Mars was never meant to be isolated from EM Mars Corp. Bankruptcy changed things, maker manufacturing locks only making it worse.

At May Ri's nod, her daughter climbed the array, giggling, full of energy. Mars-refined metal platforms were simple tech, even gimbaled ones; the array wasn't fragile, only the sweepers and cables. Marisela had trained and given promises.

She was an inspector!

The girl's suit was a first production suit, and the only one sized for a child. Colonial planners hadn't thought through the implications of kids. May Ri patted the emergency balloon as she vaulted out of the tall cart and plopped down on the sand.

"What about this?" Her monkey girl pointed out a bent wire feather wiper over a windblown deposit of red five aisles in. May Ri noted it on the wrist-mounted book plate. The regolith crunched under her shoes. The wind whistled faintly, mixing with the hum of the comm. A massive dust devil spun in the distance, which was why they were here—not for testing the cart, tractor legs, or the pink-striped Mars-green suit her daughter wore.

Danger of a planetary dust storm was no joke. With a doubled population and dome construction, array efficiency was paramount; the anti-static feathers were her idea to replace fans.

Men prospected for Thorium, but aeolian monzonite deposits were rare. Finding the mineral deposits on 16 Psyche proved difficult, but the effort searching for them and the Robinson Crusoe disaster had brought them the dented maker her echo group dissected. At the slow orbital speed required for an asteroid, the ship had flipped and disintegrated, leaving rather gruesome remains of the men and partially intact machinery scattered over kilometers of cratered rusty metallic rock.

May Ri felt proud of her maker derivative. V4.1 had built a compact thorium reactor prototype (another restricted device). In a dust year, a working reactor would prevent starvation.

Mars grit and dust clung to everything, compromising moving parts. Together the two identified five repairables and reattached a cable. In the dusk, illuminated by bluish noctilucent clouds, May Ri drove the cart along the "paved" road. Marisela swayed and hummed happily to herself.

At their dome, May Ri got her chance at exuberance: Randy had returned days early. She jumped into his arms, but knocked him over.

Marisela said surprisingly dryly, "Momie's going to be making funny noises tonight." She quickly hid behind May Li's legs when she stood, peering apprehensively with green eyes as Randy smiled at her. It had been three months since his last visit, a lifetime ago to a kid.

Taking a deep breath, May Ri knelt and and pointed at her daughter. "This is Marisela, a brave little girl who today completed her first Mars surface expedition in a plus-plus fashion, the first suit-qualified girl to do that, helping her mother at the Array."

Randy scooted over. Pointing at him, she said, "This is Randolf, an illustrious Martian arbitrator and HR wunderkind, an all around loving fellow, and your Dadie."

He reached out a hand.

Marisela's reddened face screwed up in an expression May Ri couldn't predict, but when she reached out her little hand to his big one, she burst into wild giggles. They shook in the handshake ritual du jour, laughing, before she warned, "Momie loves you, so you keep her happy."

Martian nisei, besides being hoppy little frogs, were surprisingly open. Precocious. They had no Decath ministers to shame them, girls and boys lived and slept communally most days, and fathers were absent. Nobody bothered—or had time—to teach gender roles, so no nisei acted as either.

May Ri approved. Which meant...!

"Marisela is suit-qualified. Take her on your next assignment to teach her your job." With ever fewer men, Mars needed women doing men's work. #RSMarsNeededWomen 15

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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2503.10 13/31 — Exploit #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera CW: Fictional violence, women fighting back

Angry to the point of trembling, May Ri gathered in the auditorium with the other women with "non-essential tasks," as ordered over the loud speakers. She, Randy, Reina, and Rod had been waiting for the Deimosbase Decath minister to call to marry them when an emergency in a far off colony separated the men from them. A man past 50—with a gold braid patch on his helmet-less form-fitting Mars-green pressure suit— marched in trailed by his all male goons as May Ri characterized them.

She knew she was right when he said, "You are Mars' improperly exploited resource. Today we are redistributing that labor." That caused a massive cringe amongst the women amidst a growing roar of desent.

He yelled, "Quiet!" shutting them down.

When a selection criteria was, "Are you married?" a bristling May Ri found herself backing the teenager into a wall, trying to hide her.

"You!" the man motioned Reina to the exit.

May Ri put her arms out. "Not happening!" She glared into blue eyes.

The man—who turned out to be the Head EM Director and an original colonist—backhanded her.

In Mars gravity, she flew against the wall and slumped, seeing stars. He bent over Reina—May Ri's fall had knocked her over—offering a hand. When May Ri's eyesight quit swimming, face burning and tasting blood, she launched herself head-first at his gut. She still had Earth muscle. He deflected her, but her leg hit the big man's hip and they tumbled together. She landed no punches before he wrenched her upright, arms locked behind her.

Chuckling, he said, "I like determination—"

She jerked, stomping at his foot. He shoved her cheek and nose into the wall, pinned her arms, and pushed a hand into small of her back, preventing anything but sputtering.

"Fights back. I value that. Sexy. Are you married?"

"You interrupted our ceremony."

"Ah." He chuckled more. "About Reina—?"

"You know her name!"

"I won't pick the Onēsanue if you calmly come with me."

May Ri found herself swearing and cursing in her head. She spat blood, which dripped down the wall, noticing the other prey had slunk away from the predators. His goons watched silently at a distance. Reina looked pale, shaking, sitting limbs akimbo, hands on the floor. Red hair flew as she shook her head vigorously.

May Ri shouted, "Did you hear that promise?"

Women's murmurs proved they did. Heart ricocheting off her sternum, she said, "Fine."

Minutes later, the man dragged her by her wrist with a long stride she could barely match. Spring doors guarded all the domes against vacuum breach, but the crèche had windows, as did the farms. Women worked in each, some men in the farms. Nobody in the halls. She thought about crying for help, but thought of Reina whilst palpating her bruising face.

Was he simply redistributing her labor to another job?

Equating the, "are you married," question with Decath purity standards, she whispered, probing, "I've been with other men."

"Experience makes you more qualified," he returned.

Could her stomach knot up worse?

Best to seem docile, she thought, to hope for weapons. He was an EM Corp manager, bound by the charter. Theoretically. Was she over-reacting? The corporation had run out of money; all Earth transits with supplies and people, cancelled. The term corporate reorganization came to mind. Was the Martian board of directors reorganizing?

She recognized the docks as she let his pace slide her into a doorframe. She saw the circular glass corridor that surrounded a Martian "tarmac." Rovers and motels, with flatbeds, were parked to the right—three orange dust-coated helios, with multiple stacked blades and lots of hyper-nacelles, sat at priority. Jetways connected to two passenger cargoons and one long distance pinnace. He shoved her through the spring door of the latter, following. It jostled like the flex tube it was, with his massive form clumping behind—bouncing her, she thought, to intentionally panic her.

Rushing, she grabbed the spring door. Stuck! It didn't even rattle.

He plowed into her, flattening her against it. With a snigger, he unlocked it. When it opened, still smooshed, she stumbled flat onto the deck. The spring door snapped back with a bang as he clamored over her. Vac-safe cargo boxes littered the inside. With no preamble, he unzipped his pressure suit.

She sucked in her breath, scrambling bruisingly into a bulkhead.

He had a jumpsuit underneath. Scoffing, he said simply, "Remember Reina. See that bench? Toss the boxes down the cargo chute." He stomped to the loo, shutting it behind himself.

Sweating, heart racing, she thought, Now what?

(Continued) #RSMarsNeededWomen 13

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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