Mastodon Chapril

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/ScribesAndMakers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#ScribesAndMakers</a> 2504.12 — Shameless self-promotion day. Show us what you're proud of. Let's boost away.</blockquote>Mars Need Women is a hopeful yet deeply dystopian feminist SF web-novel that leans heavily into Women's right's issues thanks to a set of writing prompts on the subject. It is a woman-centric adventure story of overcoming adversity while being female, with all the warts and frustrations, not as a man in disguise. Our wannabe engineer heroine May Ri escapes a disheartening life, faced with becoming little more than a housewife because she lacks "blessings," to help colonize Mars—if you can call being shanghaied escaping and being contracted to have children a benefit. (She does get to choose the gorgeous supportive guy, though, so that's a positive.) As she learns to make martian machines, she keeps putting herself at the center of a global martian dust storm with her children as power shifts from being male-dominated. As the daughters of the Martian immigrants increasingly control Mars' future (how is spoilers), May Ri together with her five daughters shape a world (Mars) the way unfettered women might imagine it. When the men of Earth take affront—of course they do—they learn that women don't fight like men, especially when their children's lives are threatened, and their wellbeing is at stake. <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSMarsNeededWomen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSMarsNeededWomen</a> It remains free-to-read on Mastodon for a few more days:<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/114088945266387178" translate="no" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/114088945266387178</a>. If you start reading it now, a comment or a private mention will tell me not to delete the posts until the end of next week. I consider it a beta read. I'm already revising an augmenting the original story, tying up loose ends, and might add more chapters along the path to publishing it as a book. Meanwhile, I'm going to start boosting chapters for a last hurrah.See <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/alttext" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#alttext</a> for book cover description.[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#BoostingIsSharing</a> and <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/CommentingIsCool" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#CommentingIsCool</a><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gender</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writer</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#author</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/photographer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#photographer</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/chef" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#chef</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/cooking" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#cooking</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sf</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sff</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sciencefiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writing</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writingcommunity</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writersOfMastodon</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writers</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSdiscussion</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSstory</a>

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<a href="https://mastodon.au/@Heliograph" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@Heliograph</a> Thanks for posting that; I feel better about some literary choices. When I wrote my Mars novel I decided to use a single universal time for the entire planet. People can't live on the surface and most development is underground for radiation reasons. No windows. Some population is on spaceships or a station. One zone gives the same diurnal schedule to everyone everywhere. When they rarely need to use the surface, they use offset and solar terms, "like local dusk is just before lunch."<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Writer</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/SF" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#SF</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Author</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Mars" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Mars</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/WritersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#WritersOfMastodon</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/WritingCommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#WritingCommunity</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/TimeZone" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#TimeZone</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/ScienceFiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#ScienceFiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSMarsNeededWomen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSMarsNeededWomen</a>

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/PennedPossibilities" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#PennedPossibilities</a> 637 — Does your MC have a past that haunts them?</blockquote>May Ri watched from Mars orbit as Herschel Crater got nuked, having failed to knock out all the missiles with her railgun. Her eldest daughter worked in the capitol, in the domed city situated in that crater. Had. She has nightmares of the flash and a mushroom cloud rising. Sort of like in the attached vid.<a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/38985/sarychev-peak-eruption-kuril-islands" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/38985/sarychev-peak-eruption-kuril-islands</a>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#BoostingIsSharing</a><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gender</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writer</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#author</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sf</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sff</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sciencefiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writing</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writingcommunity</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writersOfMastodon</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writers</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSdiscussion</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSstory</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSMarsNeededWomen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSMarsNeededWomen</a> Credit: NASA Johnson

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote>2503.17 26/31 — Strike <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Writever" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Writever</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Mars" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Mars</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/SpaceOpera" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#SpaceOpera</a></blockquote>"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 KJC (Korea-Japan 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. <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSMarsNeededWomen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSMarsNeededWomen</a> 26[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#BoostingIsSharing</a><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gender</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writer</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#author</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sf</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sff</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sciencefiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writing</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writingcommunity</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writersOfMastodon</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writers</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSstory</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#microfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/flashfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#flashfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#tootfic</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/smallstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#smallstory</a>

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote>2503.13 25/31— International <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Writever" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Writever</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Mars" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Mars</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/SpaceOpera" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#SpaceOpera</a></blockquote>A channel blinked: a priority ping but not Reina or the other heads. May Ri tapped her book plate, instead of ignoring it. She traced the missive to the deep space network, origin Earth. Manzanar Partners: the firm had negotiated the buyout of EM Corp's debt and assets for the Sorority. To a logo screen, May Ri recorded herself waving, "May Ri here. Please state why you've pinged."A 21m 3s round trip. Intuition soured her stomach the instant she tapped Send, so she pinged Reina who camped on. Reina pinged her mother, section heads, and a few dome managers to lurk.Twenty-five minutes later, she accepted the offered duplex. It cleared, muted, to show…She recognized the pale unwontedly frail 63 year old man with grey hair and deep wrinkles, wearing a blue suit two sizes too big—not his.A Decath minister in his 30s, wearing light blue robes with white edging, stood stage left in what, thanks to the sun through stained glass that illuminated carved wood and gold, had to be a Decath church property. She did not miss the dagger in a gleaming ruby-encrusted gold sheath.Her father was an a-theist—like his daughter, who swore as she lip read because her father exaggerated his words: "Yes, she's the Princess of Mars."The feed unmuted."For shame!" her father said, voice quavering. "You have led the Righteous Men of Mars astray with your Temptations and your Evil Words! Ha—h-h-" He couldn't say the word she deduced was harlot.His eyes glanced to the minister, his handler, then her. Monotone speech: A script. The reason he was pale and prematurely old looking.Two years ago Raymond had disappeared, after broadcasting his uncensored library. May Ri started shaking."Repent!" he went on. "Accept God's Blessing as I, your father, have done, so you may ask a Forgiving God that you not be Eternally Damned." He started coughing, his hand shaking until he caught his wrist. "They want—" His chest expanded in a deep breath. "Release the Deacon of Deimos. Sign EM Mars over into the Loving Hands of the International Decath Crown and your life shall be Spared—"As if…Crying, May Ri shouted over her father. "I love you, Dadie. You hypocritical Crown trash, or whoever filth you really are: You… have… attacked… My family!" She punched her book plate, severing the link, dropping the device to clatter, certain she'd never see the man alive again.Reina's own book plate flew from her grasp as she half-tackled May Ri, having run from her office dome, hugging her so tightly May Ri couldn't breathe. "I'm so sorry!" She cried. They both cried."No," May Ri said, her sobbing stopping in an instant. Was it an oath, or maybe a hope? "One day they will be… very sorry."The deep space network lit up. It was a real international conspiracy, May Ri decided, not a theoretical one. Too much coordination, the timing making it manifest that partial national adversaries had joined forces. Lawyers filed suits declaring EM Mars Corp stolen. The International Criminal Court, for a century obviously a delegitimizing arm of the American and European states, issued warrants for May Ri's and Reina Īto's crimes against humanity, various murders, and an ethnic cleansing of Decath believers. All their assets on Earth (nil) were impounded. All assets in Mars space were immediately forfeit.As if…The North American Decath State's Secretary of State pinged Mars. Though the Onēsanue was the "Head of State" requested, an operator connected May Ri. After the light delay, the face of a man in a red silk suit displayed, before he adjusted his blue tie and smiled with big teeth at the looping greeting she'd recorded. He'd gotten the real Princess of Mars on the line. His voice squeaked, ruining the virile look his hair style tried for."Princess May Ri. Congressional appointees today voted to declare war on the Sorority. Co-President Smith is assigned to execute that declaration by the blessing of God. I'm here to offer you a chance to surrender unconditionally, before we devastate your world—"As if…May Ri asked, "Killing an entirely civilian population?" speaking over him, oblivious to how they would spin the sound bite. Rolling her eyes, she disconnected.She hadn't said defenseless. A nuclear thrust model of the starship was flight testing. Everyone had ideas. Amazing how a common enemy unified even dissenters.Two days later, the Russian Supremacy declared war on NADS, reasoning the States had declared war on their vassal.As if…Insurgent forces on the Japanese archipelago and the Korean peninsula attacked East Imperial China. The clean nukes fired in retaliation against Tokyo were accidental.As if… <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSMarsNeededWomen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSMarsNeededWomen</a> 25[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#BoostingIsSharing</a><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gender</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writer</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#author</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sf</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sff</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sciencefiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writing</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writingcommunity</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writersOfMastodon</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writers</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSstory</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#microfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/flashfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#flashfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#tootfic</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/smallstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#smallstory</a>

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote>2503.24 24/31 — Work <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Writever" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Writever</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Mars" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Mars</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/SpaceOpera" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#SpaceOpera</a> CW: Fictional Mentions of Rape</blockquote>May Ri had read that power structures (human ones) were fragile; remove the keystone, the bridge collapses. Ezekiel Stan had maintained power by intimidation and retribution. He'd taken the men he thought could beat Deimos into submission. In Elysium, May Ri found a collapsing bridge.Five days later, Stan's wife, Gwen, and May Ri got to talk. Somehow it turned into an interview. In a dome living room appointed with Earthly leather sofas, tables, and lamps, Stan's six new wives also waited, ranging from 37 to 16; three were nisei, two visibly pregnant, one nursing a fussy red-faced newborn to hush it. Gwen's eight remaining children, all girls, attended, sitting, touching, studying intently a shared book plate despite their ages. All dressed in synthsilk, including the prim and proper matriarch, who was 45, tall, thin, white, and feminine. Nobody looked happy. Randy recorded.May Ri: I'm sorry for your loss.Gwen: Sure.MR: Everybody—G: Zek made them honest women before the end.MR: You're a first contract colonist. What made you sign-up?G: [Sighs] Naïve? Heard Mars needed women in a sermon about brave men. I'd be 14 in two weeks, but rushed out into the fields to record an application. I tugged up peanuts setting flowers in the ground, got sweaty under the sun, got mud on my big sister's flimsy top and shorts and paid hell for that. The shoulder kept sliding off, and I kept pulling it back barely in time. The wind pressed the cotton against my chest. The shorts rode up into the crack of my butt when I bent over. I smiled and giggled. Father served an elite niche farm-fresh clientele; I got to be retro-exotic. I lied about my age. Ezekiel liked young. [Waves at nisei co-wives] The minister okayed my EM Corp contract when I promised to pay for church repairs. I also paid off father's mortgage. Nine months later I landed at Elysium. Nine months later I had Gabriel. Ok? Now, how did you meet Zek?MR: He tried to rape me.G: [Nods] I was a good Decath girl with good Decath folk raising me. Nobody thought to tell me what to do other than obey him. He'd lived six years on Mars; I frustrated him. Not rape if you're married, right? [Waves hand in negation, points at Randy] You love him, right?MR: [Freezes, blinks, then smiles, looking at the blue Mars-denim clad man] We make each other very happy.G: Love?Randy: I love her. MR: Yes.G: Other women?R: She's too much for me as it is!G: Men?MR: Quality over quantity.G: He was a good teacher?R: [Laughs]MR: I studied then practiced, a lot. Decided I liked it, despite the drawback.G: Five daughters? I've 10 kids. I win.MR: I love them all.G: Zek liked variety, because of me. Three years later, a girlfriend a year older than me taught me "tricks."MR: Not your fault he was trash. Don't think that.G: [Shakes head] Easy for you to say. [Her eyes widen] Ah. Rape. Right. You "caused" his "stroke." I should thank you for a year of peace.MR: The only weapon I had was decompressing the cabin.G: Yet, you saved his life?[Gwen and May Ri study each other]G: So you sold your body for a college education, I heard. Then got shanghaied and swindled out of your silver coins. Was it worth it?MR: Was going to fail at being a housewife—R: [Coughs]MR: Not completely. I like sex. I earned lots of opportunities to do what interested me. Earth made a mistake by not ignoring my gender and failing to educate me. I hope men will regret it, maybe some already do.G: Opportunities? There's little women's work.MR: Women's work. Men's work! If you can do the work, that thing between his legs makes no difference.G: Raphael [Gwen's 2nd son, 17 at his death] always hung around the crèche, helping, cleaning up messes, toileting, playing with kids, teaching letters and numbers. Women's work. When his father broke his arm, I think it broke him. He had no business volunteering for Deimos, yet he did, because "soldier" is men's work and he had learned he was a man.MR: [Growls] You understand why marriage—G: Is illegal?MR: Not illegal. Non-binding. You can act married, but you could have prevented Ezekiel—G: [Eyes shut tight] —from doing what he wanted? Seriously? You know how strong he was?MR: We will. Women will. We must. [Places a ceramic cup from the coffee table in the exoskeleton hand of Randy's paralyzed arm. Nods. He pulverizes it] Technology is gender-agnostic.G: [Thoughtful, then:] I know you are an a-theist, but one day you'll understand you've been blessed. My late husband, too many men, have forgotten that the "love, honor, and respect" part in God's vow is due men and women—but you haven't. <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSMarsNeededWomen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSMarsNeededWomen</a> 24[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#BoostingIsSharing</a><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gender</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writer</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#author</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sf</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sff</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sciencefiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writingcommunity</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writersOfMastodon</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writers</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSstory</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#microfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/flashfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#flashfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#tootfic</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/smallstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#smallstory</a>

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote>2503.09 23/31 — Ceiling <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Writever" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Writever</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Mars" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Mars</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/SpaceOpera" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#SpaceOpera</a></blockquote>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…" <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSMarsNeededWomen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSMarsNeededWomen</a> 23[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#BoostingIsSharing</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/altText" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#altText</a><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gender</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writer</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#author</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sf</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sff</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sciencefiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writingcommunity</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writersOfMastodon</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writers</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSstory</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#microfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/flashfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#flashfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#tootfic</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/smallstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#smallstory</a>

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote>2503.12 22/31 —Emancipation <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Writever" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Writever</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Mars" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Mars</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/SpaceOpera" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#SpaceOpera</a> CW: Sex</blockquote>"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!" <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSMarsNeededWomen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSMarsNeededWomen</a> 22[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#BoostingIsSharing</a><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gender</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writer</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#author</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sf</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sff</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sciencefiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writingcommunity</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writersOfMastodon</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writers</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSstory</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#microfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/flashfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#flashfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#tootfic</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/smallstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#smallstory</a>

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote>2503.31 21/31 — Sorority <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Writever" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Writever</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Mars" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Mars</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/SpaceOpera" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#SpaceOpera</a></blockquote>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?" <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSMarsNeededWomen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSMarsNeededWomen</a> 21[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#BoostingIsSharing</a><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gender</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writer</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#author</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sf</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sff</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sciencefiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writingcommunity</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writersOfMastodon</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writers</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSstory</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#microfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/flashfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#flashfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#tootfic</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/smallstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#smallstory</a>

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote>2503.20 20/31— Shelter <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Writever" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Writever</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Mars" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Mars</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/SpaceOpera" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#SpaceOpera</a></blockquote>"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. <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSMarsNeededWomen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSMarsNeededWomen</a> 20[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#BoostingIsSharing</a><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gender</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writer</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#author</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sf</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sff</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sciencefiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writingcommunity</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writersOfMastodon</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writers</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSstory</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#microfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/flashfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#flashfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#tootfic</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/smallstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#smallstory</a>

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote>2503.23 19/31 — Intersectional <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Writever" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Writever</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Mars" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Mars</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/SpaceOpera" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#SpaceOpera</a> CW: Crude Language</blockquote>"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. <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSMarsNeededWomen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSMarsNeededWomen</a> 19——— † <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Writever" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Writever</a> 2503.02 Rights Prologue <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/114092086538327781" translate="no" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/114092086538327781</a>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#BoostingIsSharing</a><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gender</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writer</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#author</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sf</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sff</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sciencefiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writing</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writingcommunity</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writersOfMastodon</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writers</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSstory</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#microfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/flashfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#flashfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#tootfic</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/smallstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#smallstory</a>

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote>2503.16 18/31 —Cook <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Writever" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Writever</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Mars" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Mars</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/SpaceOpera" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#SpaceOpera</a></blockquote>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. <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSMarsNeededWomen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSMarsNeededWomen</a> 18[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#BoostingIsSharing</a><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gender</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writer</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#author</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sf</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sff</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sciencefiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writing</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writingcommunity</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writersOfMastodon</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writers</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSstory</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#microfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/flashfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#flashfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#tootfic</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/smallstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#smallstory</a>

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Writever" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Writever</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Mars" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Mars</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/SpaceOpera" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#SpaceOpera</a>May Ri's eyes crossed looking at a pink P. Shaking her head, swearing, she tore open a second test."This. Isn't. Happening!" echoed in her new dorm room, her roommate gone. Her EM Mars-financed college life started Monday, now this? Reality. Hi! Blaming black market condoms or contraceptives was counterproductive. She rushed out, already planning. By lunchtime, arrangements made, she pinged and tracked down Raymond to the park on the 112th floor, outside his home.Her former high school classmate was pale-skinned, blond, lanky, long fingered, and had a long— "Which is what got me into this mess," she said. Their hands clapped as she grabbed his, pulling him toward the elevators."Well, hello to you, too!""I'm pregnant. We're fixing it.""Wait! What? Stop!" he wrenched her around, brown eyes meeting hers."Probably the condom—""Shh! A baby? We need to talk—""My body. You've got no say—""Like—""You'll marry me? Your father will disown you." His father's library of uncensored books dating to the 1900s got her interested in him—where she learned of past women's rights eras; probably his intent. That he proved amenable, trainable, and let her experiment sexually, solved their "urges" problem. Had half a brain, too "You? Without money? Ha.""We can't kill—"Decath. They hadn't talked about religion, especially, since, well, sex. Sighing, she placed his hand on her stomach. "Remember the moon jellies we saw at the Shed Aquarium? A glob of flesh? Not a person.""But—"She wasn't letting Decath superstition rule her or ruin her, or him, being fair. Sex being illegal was bad enough."Repeat after me: 'I'm sorry, but now isn't the right time or place for you. Forgive us.'""May Ri—"She growled. He repeated. She added, "'I wish you happiness and that your soul finds a mother who wants you.'"He repeated.She grabbed his hand, leading to the elevators. "By the way, you're paying."The private medical office in a nondescript 3rd story block mall of the 73rd floor Zocalo was clean, not at all smelly, dingy, or menacing as illegal procedure made her think. The balding man had stringy black hair, but a good smile. His stained mostly cleaned white lab coat made her think butcher, not doctor. That his male assistant wore a black distort veil didn't help. Raymond paid and stayed, looking paler than usual. With her on the table, prepped, green paper over her hips, a long handled frigid-looking steel instrument in hand, the doctor said, "Anesthetic costs extra.""What?" Ray asked, grabbing for his book plate. "I've no more cash!""Still don't take E. Besties sells script, left, a block down."May Ri yelled, "Get some!"He dashed out, the doctor chuckling. "Your husband—" a euphemism "—is funny. You're trusting he'll return?""He doesn't want to die... Wait! You didn't say an amount.""Doesn't matter. Better for you he doesn't hear this." She stiffened. Her contact had vouched that Dr. Dante was legit.He pointed at a medical plaque on the wall with a City of Chicago seal. "That keeps me from being arrested in a raid, but not you. You would be charged with conspiracy or murder depending on how far I get.""But, you're the doctor!""I'm the gun, a tool, because of that cert. You'll be the once-a-year perp-walk if today is unlucky. I survive on referrals, so don't worry. Me being certified, clean, and professional means you need to watch the vid," on a book plate on the counter.Not burying the lede, blood splashed within five seconds. She looked away, but what she thought an insensate mass of tissue made horrifying noises. "Turn that down!"He did, likely as weary of it as her. As it droned on about mortal sins, killing babies, and regretting actions, she seethed. Men, government, the Decath Ministry, and men... For missing something between her legs, she was a puppet, a slave—property?She. Was. Not!"I'm an a-theist, raised Clear Thinking by my father. My mother died when I was 5. She ceased to be, that's all. Your invisible friend is a farce; there's no 'better' place to go. Like all animals, she stopped being; this will, too. I have to take care of now, and will."Facing the vid to the wall, he said, "I'd have returned your fee if you ran, but I don't have to testify you watched."Ray handed her off to the dorm mom. A "Really Bad Period" answered all questions. And it was. Bad. Bleeding. Worst monthly cramps ever, but PainAway and a heat swatch helped. By Monday, she hobbled to class looking bad enough the handful of other women helped her. All were Decath. Nobody said aught, but there was an understanding. May Ri sensed it. And Ray's absence. <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSMarsNeededWomen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSMarsNeededWomen</a> 17[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#BoostingIsSharing</a><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gender</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writer</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#author</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sf</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sff</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sciencefiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writing</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writingcommunity</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writersOfMastodon</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writers</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSstory</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#microfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/flashfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#flashfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#tootfic</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/smallstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#smallstory</a>

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote>2503.24 16/31 — Work <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Writever" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Writever</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Mars" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Mars</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/SpaceOpera" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#SpaceOpera</a></blockquote>"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...<blockquote>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.</blockquote>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. <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSMarsNeededWomen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSMarsNeededWomen</a> 16[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#BoostingIsSharing</a><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gender</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writer</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#author</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sf</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sff</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sciencefiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writingcommunity</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writersOfMastodon</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writers</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSstory</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#microfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/flashfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#flashfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#tootfic</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/smallstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#smallstory</a>

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote>2503.28 15/31 — Feather <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Writever" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Writever</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Mars" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Mars</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/SpaceOpera" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#SpaceOpera</a></blockquote>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. <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSMarsNeededWomen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSMarsNeededWomen</a> 15[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#BoostingIsSharing</a><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gender</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writer</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#author</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sf</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sff</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sciencefiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writingcommunity</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writersOfMastodon</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writers</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSstory</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#microfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/flashfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#flashfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#tootfic</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/smallstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#smallstory</a>

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Writever" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Writever</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Mars" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Mars</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/SpaceOpera" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#SpaceOpera</a>The greenish pressure suit the man had stripped out of hung on a peg under his helmet. He'd had clothes underneath, she told herself repeatedly, trying to calm down. The sounds of the spring door on the loo and the personnel entrance banged in her memory—repeatedly.Shaking, she pulled the latter door open centimeters, then gently closed it, but recalled Reina's hair flying as she shook her head while hearing him say, "I won't pick the Onēsanue," reverberating like violence.She. Faced. Violence. When had she become a bodyguard? She hated women pushed around; she equated it with self.Cargo boxes! The task!A shorter spring door on the opposite side latched open when she pulled. She rotated the release ticker to max. Vacuum Cargo Only read the warning sign. A red kick lever read, Emergency Release. She tossed a box; it slid away.The pressure suit, an elastic jaunt without excreta connections, smelled of gym socks. Air at 9, power at 10, comms green. She preflighted it.She jerked around when she heard a thump in the loo, then noticed the deck camera. Yep, a black decal over the lens. Reina hacked cams; it was a thing.He wasn't watching her!She could run; he might chase her down, but what could she do, hide? Ask the farmers for help? Couldn't hide in the cargo room wearing the suit; he'd figure that out."Are you working?" he shouted.She tossed a box, then another down the chute, making sure she hit the sill.If she could find the husbands who'd been herded off... Would Randy and Rod protect her, protect Reina? Against this man's authority?She moaned. They were men. Of course not.What if she was wrong about him and innocently wanted a helper? She'd be tarred as hysterical, for over-reacting, her word against a man's. She threw more boxes, sliding them loudly, thinking...She donned the suit, thanking goodness she'd gotten suit-qualified. She got her legs in, threw boxes clearing the bench, slid then stacked them in the corridor, threw more boxes, got her arms in. Zipped them, zipped it all. She piled boxes blocking the personnel door (an air supply), making it look like she'd run out of space to maximally prepare to rapid-fire toss boxes down the chute like a perky overachiever trying to super-please her new boss. She twisted the helmet on, visor up, and held a box at the cargo hatch.Waiting..."Better have cleared that bench..." He backed out of the loo. He didn't wear the jumpsuit. He did wear the synth-silk Martians wore, not to scare her immediately, but what the lax fabric outlined in the shorts—all the hirsute man wore—did.His eyes went to the bench, cleared now and he smiled. Maybe because the jaunt suit color matched her jumpsuit's, he took a few steps, the loo spring door banging behind him, before he saw her, the boxes blocking him, before blue eyes saw her snap down the visor.She stuck out her tongue.Screaming expletives, he launched toward the barrier.She'd already dropped and held down the box in the hatch, kicking the emergency release. It took two tries, the spring door nearly hitting her foot as the chute unzipped in a long zzzzit! Her fist tightened on the handhold as air roared out.He yelled as she sat on the box, pushing the door all the way open with her legs.Shoved boxes flew and tumbled from the barrier, him yelling all the while. Wait...He could have dodged back into the loo or the pilot bay! Idiot man! Thinking with his hangers-on!Chest laboring against thining air, gasping, he broke through the barrier sluggishly, reached for her, and collapsed on his face. She imagined the sound of his nose breaking in the newly airless silence. He reached, then stilled. If she didn't want to kill him, she had seconds. She waited. Blood pooled under his face. She waited, closed the cargo door, pressing the chute reconnect button. The pinnace would repressurize, but she opened the personnel door, pulling air in explosively. When her outdoor air light turned green, she stripped the suit, hung it, dashed into the loo, first peeling off the lens decal.She rushed out, acting surprised he'd collapsed, turning him over. Hoarse gurgling greeted her. She left, seeking "medical" aid.She later learned Reina was embarked on a cargoon. The EM director had lied. Of course he had, but was also unconscious. He later slipped into a coma.His loss changed everything. Other directors commed in, countermanding his directives. His men got deauthorized and locked in a dome. A bored man on Deimosbase took her deposition.Two days later, the men got shipped away, their leader still in a coma. Two months later, she married Randy. <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSMarsNeededWomen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSMarsNeededWomen</a> 14[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#BoostingIsSharing</a><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gender</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writer</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#author</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sf</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sff</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sciencefiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writing</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writingcommunity</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writersOfMastodon</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writers</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSstory</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#microfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/flashfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#flashfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#tootfic</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/smallstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#smallstory</a>

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote>2503.10 13/31 — Exploit <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Writever" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Writever</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Mars" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Mars</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/SpaceOpera" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#SpaceOpera</a> CW: Fictional violence, women fighting back</blockquote>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) <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSMarsNeededWomen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSMarsNeededWomen</a> 13[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#BoostingIsSharing</a><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gender</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writer</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#author</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sf</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sff</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sciencefiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writing</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writingcommunity</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writersOfMastodon</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writers</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSstory</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#microfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/flashfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#flashfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#tootfic</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/smallstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#smallstory</a>

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote>2503.25 12/31 — Echo <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Writever" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Writever</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Mars" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Mars</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/SpaceOpera" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#SpaceOpera</a></blockquote>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..." <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSMarsNeededWomen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSMarsNeededWomen</a> 12[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#BoostingIsSharing</a><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gender</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writer</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#author</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sf</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sff</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sciencefiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writing</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writingcommunity</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writersOfMastodon</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writers</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSdiscussion</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSstory</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#microfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/flashfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#flashfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#tootfic</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/smallstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#smallstory</a>

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote>2503.22 11/31 — Manifest <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Writever" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Writever</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Mars" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Mars</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/SpaceOpera" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#SpaceOpera</a></blockquote>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) <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSMarsNeededWomen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSMarsNeededWomen</a> 11[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#BoostingIsSharing</a><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gender</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writer</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#author</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sf</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sff</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sciencefiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writing</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writingcommunity</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writersOfMastodon</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writers</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSstory</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#microfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/flashfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#flashfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#tootfic</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/smallstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#smallstory</a>

RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<blockquote>2503.21 10/31 — Empower <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Writever" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Writever</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Mars" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Mars</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/SpaceOpera" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#SpaceOpera</a></blockquote>"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 the imported 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) <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSMarsNeededWomen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSMarsNeededWomen</a> 10[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]<a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#BoostingIsSharing</a><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#gender</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writer</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#author</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sf</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sff</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sciencefiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writing</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writingcommunity</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#writersOfMastodon</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSdiscussion</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#RSstory</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#microfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/flashfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#flashfiction</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#tootfic</a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/smallstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#smallstory</a>

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