2503.14 28/31 — Veil #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera

The day the Decath pressured Marisela's grandfather into denouncing her mother's achievements for Mars, announcing he was a hostage with a knife to his throat, Mari had wanted to announce she was pregnant. Her synthsilk hid little by the time the NADS Secretary of State delivered his ultimatum, but Mari put it off again. Because of her part in "Suiting up the Nisei," then with her father's help, convincing people that women could perform increasingly unoccupied men's jobs, she earned recognition for marshaling people to causes. On vid from Herschel, having helped win a vote to build the martian-designed cargo vessels the Onēsanue championed, her mother stopped mid-conversation, pointing.

Mari hadn't known how to interpret her shocked expression. "I chose Rufus."

"I'm going to be a grandma?"

May Ri worked at it, volunteering crèche duty with Rufus since critical work took Mari all over the globe and her makers and designing didn't require travel or set meeting hours. Mari's second, a boy, was thanks to Rachel, who turned out to be biologically male to some people's chagrin, but not entirely to Mari who'd wondered about her attraction to the girl—which went out the airlock when she later found herself attracted to other women. The nisei often slept in pods, and no martian cared about biological correctness the way Earthers did. Regardless, it was a cute rando on one of the old asteroid ships (best she could calculate) who accounted for her third sansei, fulfilling her colonial duty early. Like her father, like most male imports, she visited her family a week every couple months.

May Ri missed her eldest despite the grandkids.

Manette, her second, filled the void, joining May Ri's engineering echo group as a trainee, taking after her mother. Both homebodies, they often worked together in the same dome, Mani helping iterate May Ri's railgun development before May Ri's departure, this despite having her first girl by a podmate. That meant nursing, which she was especially well built for. She became a wet nurse when she decided she liked it. Her mother thought her weird, but at 18 she was a grownup. A book plate let Mani work both jobs effectively.

May Ri's unplanned for 5th daughter, Moria, found a special place in her heart. Unlike her mother, her quiet loner girl got the luxury of doing what she wanted from the start: paint—which meant murals. The 13-year-old's rainbow-colored abstracts increasingly filled hallways and entire domes with joy, with rolling melting circles and ellipses, or fractal explosions, or… was that daisies? Auntie Reina found ways for her to travel between dome crèches, to spread her visual happiness wider.

Maureen and Miriam, the twins, turned into stalkers at puberty, startling their mother, suddenly anywhere she might be. Worse, they finished each other's sentences; they were fraternal, one with sandy and the other with dark hair, which ruined the effect. Soon they finished May Ri's sentences, often predicting what their mother would say to colleagues, or want, bringing her that. The uncanny pair studied everything, but especially liked vehicles—helios, rovers, shuttles, gunships. Not building them, but fixing and maintaining them. The mechanics loved living in no-grav and suits, but kept returning to their mother's construction unit, to "care" for her, because they of all May Ri's daughters understood their mother's demons.

The twins gathered their siblings and their father, Rufus and Raquel, Reina and her pod, the week before the Earther fleet encounter, celebrating their mother's birthday with Chicken Three Ways (eggs, soup, and fried spicy) cooked by Mani, eggy-fluffy golden challah fresh-baked by Raquel and Mari, and chocolate cake baked by Mani decorated by Moria. Even the sansei grandkids attended, kept strategically occupied and fed by Mani.

Ten days later, NADS nuked Herschel, where Big Sister worked as vice-director. The family never saw Marisela again. Reina remarked that at least after Hiroshima—nuked by NADS's secular precursor state—survivors had air to breathe.

The twins characterized it as a veil lowering across their mother's heart. The years of preparation, the building, the launching, the trips to 16 Psyche, the provisioning—it went from protecting Mother Mars to revenge at all costs, even if it cost of her life.

Nobody could guarantee success, regardless of vehemence. More importantly, their mother had taught them emotion interfered with getting the job done.

The twins won their berth on the SS Bradbury by merit, and kept it over May Ri's objections because the Onēsanue insisted. They hoped it would give the mission commander a reason to live. #RSMarsNeededWomen 28

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

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2503.27 /31 — Voice #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera

May Ri's daughter Marisela barged into her book plate on a priority director level key. "One of the warships reignited its torch!"

May Ri had been caught in the gym, running. Her sweat cooled immediately. "Not happening!"

Reina camped on. "We've gotten a channel 16 distress call:" A man's voice, warbly due to filters, cried, "Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is the NADSS Bonhomme Richard attempting Mars orbit with forward ship section lost. I require…" Reina added, "LOS."

"Still boosting," Mari confirmed.

May Ri buried her face in terrycloth. "Spinlaunchers?"

"Most report 'Regenerating.'"

"Whatever's ready, target it."

Reina said, "We need to attempt a rescue."

"Bad idea." Very nisei.

"They're transmitting on the deep space network."

"They're staging this. Worse idea."

"Take precautions?"

May Ri remembered a broken condom over 20 years ago…

The cargo ship sported a railgun and a docked tug. She didn't pilot. The NADS warship had achieved a highly elliptical orbit as if aimed by eye, and would soon thunder past Mars. No-grav had delighted her once, but the thumping feeling of pooling blood made her stomach clench, heightening her worry.

She'd failed to make the Earth fleet disappear without a trace from Earth's POV. She recalled who'd murdered Raymond and her father as she studied the truncated stack of cylinders, strap-on tanks and cargo trucks, above a reactor plate and a badly dented engine bell.

As reported. Truthful.

The railgun hummed through the ship superstructure. Unnecessary, but May Ri had made it a feature to ensure people knew they held a sword. Deadly force was a game to men, never to women.

She'd convinced Reina anything could be recorded, rebroadcast, and used against them. If they had radar or a lens, Earth would see a vid of a Sorority "warship" approaching, backlit by the growing disk of the planet of war. Couldn't be helped. May Ri shivered, despite the warm enviro suit. Her fingers on the board, constantly readjusting the targeting, literally itched. They ached to push Launch. Aware she watched a wounded wolf, her heart raced.

So easy to end her misery.

"Go, Helen," she instructed over laser comms.

"Ack." The blocky silver tug retroed toward the kilometers-distant threat.

Later: "Not sure how anyone survived that. Must be an engineering pod with the lit portals. Infrared shows it's not cooling to ambient. Ask?"

"Ask."

"Bonhomme, this is Search and Rescue. Can we assist?" rang over channel 16. "Wait, what's that?"

"What's what?" May Ri cried.

Her vid feed lit up. Doors on the strap-on trucks jettisoned, tumbling away from the hulk, a tiny cloud of sparkles (bolts) reflected ruddy light. More doors sprung away.

Her ship shuddered seemingly before she pressed the button. The recoiless action pounded metal and her joints. An electric Thwat! resounded through her magnetic boots. Again and again.

The view of the warship receded at high-gee as Helen retroed away. Small black spring-loaded missiles, smaller tactical short-range types, lit up even as steel bars tore through bulkheads and ripped cargo trucks, bashing off twisted debris, jerking and rattling sections of the hulk. May Ri saw the lit engineering section's portals explode outward. Little comfort, that.

Later she'd think she'd screamed inarticulately, but she hadn't. The pilot reported seeing spittle spraying her visor.

Targeting solutions against stealth missiles flashed past her eyes; she accepted repeatedly. The high tech machine-gun fired manically, vibrating her flesh, rattling her teeth, as it heated rapidly toward mechanical failure whilst her ship rotated toward the planet.

She swatted poison needles flung into the face of Mars. Debris of a missile shot past her ship unnoticed.

— 2 —

Marisela froze when her mother's voice shouted over the speakers. "They've launched missiles. Take cover!"

Raquel, who worked Alt Comm also, dragged her from her workstation chair, scraping open her arm against a corner. She shoved her down a hall filling with people running for the bomb shelters. Her mother had been so confident, but she'd always thought her Earther cynicism overblown, so not nisei. When Raquel dragged her past a bleeding man who'd been shoved against a wall, she flashed on her spacesuited father stabbed and bleeding onto the red martian sands outside Elysium. This time, all she could do was run.

Run faster.

Run farther.

Run deeper.

The deep thud made her stop. It traveled faster through rock than through the compartmentalized air of a domed city built of regolith concrete and archecultured schoom brick. She never felt the heat blast.

— 3 —

"Two got through. They nuked Herschel." #RSMarsNeededWomen 27

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

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2503.17 26/31 — Strike #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera

"Premature" seemed to be a male thing, in politics as in sex. The "clean" fallout from the Chinese strike on Tokyo crossed to the Hawaiian Islands. State media called it the start of the Small World War.

May Ri saw it differently: Males posturing and playing WAR, performing for an audience of the powerful, of presidents and prime ministers, of the wealthy who tugged the reins of a spooking horse, and of the vocal fraction of the believers and prophets who oversaw holy missions that whipped the growth of congregations to build spiritual wealth. Spit on the ordinary folk, like Gwen Stan had been before her decision, like May Ri herself with hope beyond being a housewife, like the nisei and sansei of Mars.

May Ri didn't play male games like War and Mercy. Men threaten your kids with a weapon… you kill them. Her female philosophy. What you get after millennia of being the weaker gender: an understanding of what men do to you if you let them.

NADS had warned them!

Don't posture if you can't punch, yet two solar conjunctions with Earth passed; the Sorority took advantage of both, and every day between. Meanwhile, Earth nations ate other nations. Democracies were born; the JKC (Japanese-Korean Confederacy) barely survived as the dust settled. NADS held delayed elections; the Forever Free party won on the strength that Mars' Princess would "kill the entire civilian population" of the States. Her words, twisted.

Approaching Mars opposition, NADS and the UN launched a fast fleet. They converted five old freighters plying the Lagrange colonies and lunar runs. They loaded missiles, leftovers from the fun and games. Faithful Decath men would show the heathen Sorority what Armageddon looked like.

All gleaned via feeds on the deep space network. Hundreds of nisei monitored Earth's nations of mostly, at best, frienemies, correlating, verifying, deducing what was real, what might be hidden, and what was diversionary. Not much of the latter, it seemed. Earth powers as a whole thought the Sorority a "country bumpkin" state. Considering Mars hadn't evidenced Martian maker tech in their one sale, and had decided it was of no use to trumpet their achievements, maybe it was a realistic deduction.

May Ri jerked her fried chicken drumstick when Mari pinged her from the capital in Herschel Crater. "We're approaching point of no return. Can you look now?"

"Physics," May Ri said, licking her lips then wiping her hands, but her daughter was having none of it.

"Can't defy physics, right. They're still running silent for Mars orbit."

"Trajectory?"

"Unchanged."

May Ri sighed. "You want to contact them?"

"We should try! Backup spinlaunchers show nominal."

May Ri pinched out the view. Radar and telescopic feeds showed five torches in formation, gasfire blue, expanding them to show green trailing and red forward trajectories with orbital predictions. "We could be wrong about the boost on their missiles. Any delay might let them fire them. They're not a peace mission or missionaries."

"Momie!"

"If—"

"If I lived on Earth I'd understand how to trust Earthers. I remember Ezekiel Stan ordered Dadie's murder." Her eyes narrowed and her sweet voice sharpened.

"Ok."

"Wait." Quieter, "Broadcast comm frequencies. Ask to talk."

May Ri finished her garlic whipped cauliflower, scooping with her drumstick. Time counted down in a corner of her book plate. No more reviewing her v17 railgun design.

The feed patched in suddenly. May Ri got to wipe her face with a napkin on camera as an officer on a ship's bridge spoke, "—what we want? Seriously?"

May Ri said, "That's your opening negotiation bid?"

After short light delay, the man shook his head, barely stopping himself from a facepalm.

"We want your immediate and unconditional surrender, or we will demolish all your infrastructure and your capital domes in our first strike."

"Killing civilians, check. We don't have a military." Per se. "I'm broadcasting this over the deep space network."

The man stuttered for a second. Men liked to negotiate in private so they could preen and posture. "Surrender, now."

"Any better offer?"

"No."

"May I ask you if you'll surrender?"

The man's mouth opened, then he chewed on a laugh. "Sure! Answer's, 'No.' Here's what we expect when we reach orbit…"

May Ri said, "I tried," and reached for a chocolate soya dessert, listening as the man droned on and on while the countdown went to zero. She heard a bang on the feed, then three more, then a staccato. People looked around, the man jumping when his feed froze on the last frame.

Torches winked out, one flaring explosively, as the fleet intercepted the 7th of 9 bands of spinlaunched boulders. #RSMarsNeededWomen 26

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

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