2503.09 23/ — Ceiling #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera

She stood at a workstation, finally catching up her projects, the vids of dozens of Mars makers letting her supervise construction of everything from avionics to a zorothopic reactor tuner, while talking to her nisei teams that made the innovations possible.

"May Ri!" It felt like a shout. It was a worried normal voice, albeit in her ear. She jumped aside. Reina startled.

"Couldn't you've pinged me?"

The lithe Onēsanue held a hand over her likely racing heart, like May Ri did. "Too—" Grey eyes surrounded by freckles glanced at the two-way vids. "—sensitive." After farewells, Reina showed her book plate. Silently.

"Wait? Is Elysium fueling their starship?"

Reina nodded, flipped her book plate, and showed it again. May Ri flicked through anonymous reports.

Spies.

It was bad enough they had to work with the Decath discontents, helping them adjust in the loving domes (not May Ri's term, a nisei one). She thought, Marriage ceased to be legally binding. W-T-F? Have a good relationship! Romantically pretend you're married. "Feel" God's word. Whatever! Men like sex, too; can't they see the benefits!?

She read the summary. "'Re-education?' Wow, what a loaded word. Some fascist Decath patriarch was reading his copy of Raymond's uncensored library—and got the idea why the 2025-oligarchs banned them, huh?"

"Somebody leaked our plans for the crews of the asteroid ships next week."

May Ri chuckled at the irony. "No, deduced them. I'm no genius. Likely the strongarm tactic they'd do— Wait! If Elysium takes over Deimosbase—"

"Exactly. Can a spinthrower knock a rocket from the sky?"

"And they call me the Bloody Princess! No. It shoots payloads to fixed locations. Chaotic movement through air, let alone predicting a powered trajectory, makes it useless. The railgun can't be retargeted, so don't ask. Besides, that vehicle is our access to orbit."

May Ri asked to see the refueling feed. She scrolled the dashboard, rabbit-holing links, finally finding an interesting link under Starship Comp Manage. "Firmware?"

Reina beamed. "Earth developers didn't get the real Mars. When we met—" at thirteen "—my mother had me writing interfaces for martian sensor packs."

May Ri punched the link as if she would break the screen.

"Let me." She tapped in a code… revealing their peaceful solution.

May Ri sat on the terminus of the Gale crater monorail spur to Elysium, boots dangling five meters above the rusty regolith, awaiting the local dawn which brightened the east a strange blue, ignoring her stomach growling about not getting lunch. Cargoons idled at ready behind her, but nobody joined her. Mari would've suited up, but she'd excluded her from the raid.

"Final countdown," came over the comm.

Due to Martian conditions, EM's starship model was two-stage-to-orbit. Disabling the vehicle fifteen hours prior would have made Elysium isolate their network and reload softs. Instead, Reina incremented the separation timer. They'd miss a timely sep. When they fell under their orbital ceiling and got sep, they'd be forced to emergency land, stranding their "Soldiers of God." May Ri planned a rescue… in a few weeks.

"Lift off."

May Ri had the best seat! She lifted her binocs as a miniature sun crested the crater wall, rising, sparkling, leaving a trail dyed orange by the real sun rising beyond a crater-hidden horizon. Another countdown whispered in her ear… "Engine cutoff."

May Ri clicked the stopwatch. The diamond in the sky dimmed, but the pale contrail followed, thinning. The starship reflected orange and yellow. The arc of the sky made it seem it still climbed, but cresting the zenith with a minute to go, it would soon fall below ceiling—

The ship flared.

May Ri juggled the stopwatch, lost it over the edge, grabbed her binocs… "Did they bypass the timer—?"

"No," said Reina's voice over the frenzy of others, on a private comm.

May Ri realized the magnitude of the flare. Not sep. No benign peeling off of three boosters. It brightened, quickly blinding. One flare, five, then twenty. A string of pearls in the heavens, snapped off a mythical deity's neck, strewn angrily across the sky. A swarm of fireballs, another flare, two, then red comets that looked that way due to the increasing friction of re-entry.

"Oops," said Reina. "Should've run more sims."

May Ri pinged Elysium reflexively, not thinking she might be rejected. Surprisingly, Stan's wife answered, "E—Elysium—"

"Patch me into Ezekiel!" she shouted.

The woman burst into tears. "He was on the flight!" With 69 other men, three nisei, two her sons. "Is this the Princess?" Her voice lowered, broke as she sniffled. "Please. I think we need some help here…"

#RSMarsNeededWomen 23
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing

2503.12 22/—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

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

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