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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