2503.25 — Echo (Ch/March 12) #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera

May Ri pushed everyone away, to cry, her forehead against the soft shroom wall. Everybody but Marisela, whose fist held the leg of her jumpsuit tightly. When May Ri spent herself, and turned on her tormentors, giving them grief about purposely making her misunderstand that they wanted her to return to Earth when she didn't, the suddenly exceedingly cute toddler waggled a finger up at the adults facing her.

"Yeah, that was my idea," Reina admitted without a hint of trepidation. "You were full of resentment when you arrived, but were so earnest trying everything and anything to be useful I decided to befriend you. Still, you reflexively fight changes."

May Ri proved the point by glaring at the 17-year-old.

"We all worried what we could tell you. Were you resigned to fate, Mars-friendly, or Martian in your heart?"

The others nodded, the elder Īto once again on one of vid feeds on Reina's dome wall, saying, "We all concurred with her."

"Sorry," Randolf said, "Even me." Right. He'd been a women's rights advocate on Earth. An HR rep and arbitrator on Mars.

Īto added, "Your engineering design qualification lets you accept jobs from management, and I have special jobs for you. If you were leaving, it wouldn't do to have you saying things on Earth you shouldn't know."

"I shouldn't? What? Know what?"

Silence. Circumspect, but still... May Ri began to seethe, until her daughter began to growl.

Everyone laughed, then Īto asked, "Are you Martian?"

On Earth she'd been an a-theist in a Decath nation, female, a nobody even if a man deigned to marry her to bear his sons. Hopeless. Martian as in a patriot? Maybe not there yet, but, "This is my home, full stop."

"That's a Yes?"

"Absolutely, yes."

Reina embraced her and danced May Ri around. She had to untangle herself, peeling off hands, pushing at her chest.

"Okay! Okay!" Freed, she asked, "What jobs?"

Īto answered, "The creditors' agent on the Faerie King wants two of our remaining makers, and we lost two on the Robinson Crusoe. And other things we can't make on Mars, even with makers. The other directors and I aren't sure which nation is angling to take over the infrastructure we built. The Russian Supremacy is too pat, but who knows? Did you know makers can't make makers? Or NTPU parts? Dozens of other patented things. Weapons?"

"I can understand weapons, but—" May Ri froze where she stood. ... saying things on Earth you shouldn't know. "You want me to make a maker? Th—th—that's crazy. It'll turn all the corporations against me... Us!"

"As if they aren't already against us? EM's bankruptcy may have been forced. It's blood in the water. Reina, that's a shark reference from Earth."

Her daughter looked thoughtful, then nodded. May Ri blinked, breath hitching up. "Can't make a maker."

"Maybe not you, but I like your tenacity. We can, together. We have to!" The other vid feeds lit up. Dozens. Maybe a hundred. All women. Every earthly ethnicity. A handful of nisei, two of which waved at Reina who waved back. All Martian; you could tell by how they moved on screen, how they held their heads against gravity. Three were on Deimosbase based on how they floated. "Meet your peers, May Ri."

The room filled with "Hi" and "Hola" and a few "Bonjours," beside others, dispelling a lingering sense of loneliness her grilling to discover whether she was a Martian had fomented. Some announced their dome locale. Most waved.

I'm not alone, she thought.

Reina said, "This is our echo group. You're our newest participant in engineering, along with me, Telsi, Julie, Saniya, and Rosa." They waved. "Okasan is sensei for that one. The rest in the community listen in to help or discuss the topic we're learning or the problem we're solving. Don't worry, there's some boys, too, some cute like Carlos, but not in engineering!"

Īto added, "There's over a thousand. It's our Martian upper educational system, and with the Faerie King arriving, it became critical that we included you. You see, you have an affinity for..."

#RSMarsNeededWomen 12

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2503.22 — Manifest (Ch/March 11) #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera

May Ri's ire flared. She disliked people controlling her; she'd be in the master's program at Northeastern Illinois and child-free if not shanghaied to Mars. "It's a setup?"

The elder Īto said, "Consider it a graduation present. Your design wasn't entirely innovative, but well engineered. You earned Pass-Plus. You'd get job requests, but you're listed with a return berth in the manifest of the Russian Supremacy Faerie King, arriving in 33 sols. You're the only woman of five forcibly colonized before the bankruptcy. You're a cause célèbre on Earth—"

"The daily outrage," May Ri corrected.

"—The ship's purpose is to repossess EM equipment. We'll fight that. Your berth adjudicates an Earther issue, and our accountability."

Silence descended. Nothing comparable to back home. Loneliness had this sound, the ringing in her ears was her sense of place crumbling. Back home? she thought, breathing hard, heart thumping. Wasn't here home?

"Carlos! Get down!" Īto said.

Grasping Marisela tighter, May Ri looked up as a lanky nisei frog-hopped from a perch on the wall. Reina intercepted and they tumbled together, her laughing. Native Martians wore tight pajama silk that was especially revealing on a man. Back home— Raised in a Decath nation, she looked up reflexively.

"My new husband," Reina said, rubbing noses.

"Rodriquez?" May Ri asked.

Randy sighed, "He died 71 sols ago on the Robinson Crusoe." Men died disproportionately often on Mars.

Carlos asked, "33 sols? Makes you happy, right?"

She shivered. Silence descended. Standing before Randy, she strapped Manette's carry pouch, strapping it on herself. She walked toward the door, nobody saying anything before she realized: A berth. A single berth, as in only one not three. Her babies were Randy's. He was a man, of course, her husband. He had that thing between his legs that Carlos' silk outlined; she didn't.

They weren't saying anything!

A sense of betrayal grew as sweat cooled her skin. She stood frozen, starting to freeze. Marisela squirmed silently to be put down. Her daughters were nisei.

They were Martians.

She was not. Not a Martian.

Secretary Īto added, "Unified home schooling laws let us confer a baccalaureate and credit toward a masters."

"Momie!" Marisela cried.

She held her too tightly. Sitting on a bench, energy zapped, May Ri sat her down; her look made the 3-year-old shrink behind her.

The latent horror of Reverend Peters damning her to a life as a worthless housewife surfaced, with her dream of EM Mars self-agency shattering. Back home? Would her remarried father take in a divorcée? EM had promised her money, college—but were now bankrupt.

Home?

She blinked. A lot. She didn't do crying. But—

Carlos stood centimeters away, in her face, hazel eyes considering her.

May Li jerked back, Marisela fled, and Manette woke—sniveling ramping toward a tantrum. With fine facial features and muscles that showed he took weight training seriously, she approved Reina's choice in the baby-making sense.

"What?"

He asked, "Is she Earther? Or? Is she Martian?"

May Ri kicked; Carlos jumped away. A concerned-looking Randy hovered. Angrily, she unstrapped Manette, shoving the crying infant into his arms, eyeing the door.

May Ri answered. "She's nothing. Worse... she's unwanted."

"Are you accepting the berth?" Īto asked.

"Do I have a choice?" Manifestly, she did not. May Ri moaned, blinking, eyes burning, reaching for the spring door pull.

Reina intercepted, unwonted worry causing her freckles to collide. She shoved a book plate in front of her showing her mother, nose into the camera, grey hair agitated, asking "Who said you don't?"

"I'm a woman. That's synonymous with not choosing. Always will be."

"No it won't. Am I male? Reina?"

Reina said jokingly, "I chose Carlos, Rod, Randy—though you poached him—and Roger!"

A tear ran down May Ri cheeks.

Īto said, "Choose."

May Ri whispered, "I always lose. Women always lose. You'll get your accountability adjudicated! I'll accept the berth... but if I could choose, I'd choose Mars."

Somebody batted her hand from the door pull, causing her to look up. Carlos. He stood to her right, grinning. Īto's smile grew on the book plate, mirroring her daughter's ready one. The teenage man, a year younger than his new wife, declared, "She's a Martian!"

When Randy embraced her from behind, with Manette's pouch pressing the noisy squirming infant into her, May Ri broke. Reality ceased to make sense. Her daughter, her shiny shy nisei, even hugged her leg to comfort her mother.

May Ri didn't do crying, but turned into a spring shower, nonetheless.

(Continued) #RSMarsNeededWomen 11

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2503.21 (Ch 10/March 10) — Empower #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera

"I'd like to talk to you about your mine car design," Reina's voice said in her ear after a ping, near bedtime for the girls. May Ri's stomach tightened, she even sweated, as if Mr. Cummerbund in high school had called her to his desk. Except the Onēsanue tutor was only 17, eight years younger than her—and brilliant.

Randy gave her a look.

"Tonight?"

"Bring the girls, hubby-doo, too. My private dome."

The first born nisei got her way more so than other women, was open about sex and TMI matters that would make any stuck-up Decath shudder, but visiting her home?

Never.

It interested Randy enough that he walked Marisela over, even strapped Manette in the cradle pouch over his chest. When the double spring-doors unlocked, they walked into sculpted fairyland space that displayed Reina's Martian aesthetics. Shroom blocks acted as cabinets, low tables with sunken chairs, multi-level perches upon which a true Martian could squat, pulsating hidden rainbow lighting, piles of artful epoxied regolith, and shelves of real books that May Ri rushed towards.

The exuberant teenager frog-hopped into May Ri's arms, embracing her with arms and legs. She whispered loudly into her ear, "I just learned you graduated!"

"Graduated?" Randy asked, "That's great!" Marisela hugged his leg, turning shy.

"Get off!" May Ri growled, but ended up walking where the clingy teenager pointed, supporting her bottom like a child. On Earth, impossible. On Mars, an exercise in managing inertia.

What looked like a pile of giant children's blocks proved to be mounts for randomly placed vid feeds. An old woman swam into view. Her flexed arms and the languid motion of her long grey hair said low grav.

"Secretary Itō," Randy said instantly, bowing and holding Manette at the same time. The satellite link delay let May Ri deduce she was at Deimosbase, and that the moon was on the opposite side of the planet.

"No, no, none of that, child."

"Okāsan," Reina said, waving.

May Ri summarily dropped the teenager, looking from her to her husband. "What? Am I missing something?"

"My mother," Reina explained. When May Ri asked the reflexive question, she got, "I've many fathers," which meant Itō was a matronym, which left her mother in a precarious situation, especially on Deimos were a Decath minister was in residence.

Her husband of two years Mars looked to the woman, who nodded.

He sighed. "The Itō family sponsored me because I won a woman's rights essay contest when I was 9. I studied relevant law and became a feminist organizer with their financial support out of college, before the North American Block fomented a reactionary backlash, which helped the Decath Republic Party win squeaker elections. I've written lots of articles—"

"He now writes under the byline Dispatches from Mars," the woman put in.

"I got death threats. My wife succumbed to pressure and converted to Decatholicism when we moved to Britain—"

"Wife?" She walked over and snatched up Marisela who looked ready to cry. An excuse. Patting her, she realized she didn't know him well. She felt cold.

"I divorced Cantata when she threw out her contraceptives for religious reasons—not that we'd gotten along well; we hadn't. The recession that followed the Brexit III vote led me to accept Secretary Itō's suggestion that I could help empowering women by going to Mars." Taking a deep breath, he pointed at the teenager. "I was supposed to marry Reina, but it turns out I like aggressive women who know what they want, who I thought wanted me... and I'd not have had to be abstinent for five years." He grinned as Manette woke and yawned widely, but never opened her eyes. She smacked her lips a few times as everyone held their breath for an outburst that never came.

Reina pouted. "I wouldn't have made you wait."

"Why am I hearing about this now?" May Ri asked.

"You never asked?" he tried. "I mean, for those handful of weeks directorate assignments let us spend together yearly, you're very focused on your studies and having fun together?" he asked tentatively.

She averted her gaze, admitting, if only to herself, he was right. He was fun in bed. It also explained why he treated her as an equal. Reina's family had trained him. In her chest, her heart felt like it was growing. She wasn't going to admit anything like love. Her first relationship with Raymond had burnt that to dust, but still... When she looked at him, an aura glowed around him.

That was the rainbow lighting.

"We're going to talk about all your history, and why you were going to marry Reina."

"As well you should," stated Secretary Itō. "Which brings you to why we're here."

(Continued) #RSMarsNeededWomen 10

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2503.15 — Freely (Ch/March 9) #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera, Fictional #journalism

Dispatches from Mars: 16 Psyche Disaster a Software Lock Problem?

When critical mechanical parts on the Robinson Crusoe's NTPU (Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Unit) broke, a crew of 73 that included machinists, metallurgists, mining specialists, three maker specialists, and one mechanical engineer should have been able to fix it.

Not having achieved circular orbit yet, the men of the fourth Martian mission to the massive asteroid had five days to prevent an intercept on the ambitious orbital plan that would prove too trusting of equipment thirty years in service. The intrepid self-reliant men, later tarred as stupid and arrogant by the Green Tractors Corporation, felt they didn't need to contact the Earth for assistance. Following safety regulations and allowing a proper cooldown period, they proceeded with disassembly and isolation of a part for which GTC has never provided schematics, and allegedly didn't even provide the emergency repairability cache required by most national laws. That search despite high radioactivity for the presumably misplaced cache ate up six hours of the crew's time. When their maker machines refused to make the scanned parts, or parts that could be refined in time by lathe work or manual labor to necessary tolerances, the ship's engineer reported it through approved channels.

The lunar deep space network promptly experienced an outage.

Let's unpack what looks like a conspiracy and a subsequent cover-up...

...Because corporations still design without repairability in mind for "cost" reasons, and even make it impossible to fix bugs found in logic, or add an enhancement that could have served as a lifesaving workaround in the Robinson Crusoe's case, disaster can and will happen. Not being able to freely use and repair equipment that the now bankrupt EM Mars Colonizations Corporation purchased, is a travesty of ethics. For a corporation that resides in a deeply Decath nation, it's a moral failure.

And, for what? Profit from costly maintenance and repair services only available in Earth Space? Are the 7,983 Martians, now less 73, not human? Does is their ability to only pay upon achieving profitability in a future decade strip them of their humanity? Why isn't there at least one tech available for Mars Space?

As you know from other coverage, the Robinson Crusoe went down in Panthia crater, hitting 100 meters below the rim ridge. In the end, despite applying boosts from both their landing vehicles and jury-rigged satellite boosters, all their sims had to tell them an hour before that it was hopeless. Worse, even with the cobbled-together low-bandwidth network the Martians got up, none of the all male crew got to send their families a proper goodbye.

All 73 sailors went down with their ship. They leave behind 73 wives on Mars, together with their 125 first generation (Nisei) Martian children, 24 boys and 101 girls, none over 17 Earth years of age.

#RSMarsNeededWomen 09

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Image credit: By NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU - https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/how-nasa-s-psyche-mission-will-explore-an-unexplored-world, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=117564734

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