"Mars Is Ours!": dispatches from the Mars Insurgency, 2525
Notes and anecdotes from an Earth-born reporter covering the Solar government's occupation of Mars in 2525, some five hundred years before the present day. Only fragments of the dispatches survive. See The Martian Confederacy and Phobos for the history of the clans.
In orbit of the moon of Phobos,
"Our subsidiary is responsible for these plots here." The old colonel gestures at a few patches on a hologram of Mars and glares at me with his one remaining organic eye. "We intend to crack down on the clan wars and secure a safer future for the Martian people, and we will deal with anyone who gets in the way of that." Looking down at the ranks upon ranks of APCs, battle tanks and armed troops below us, he certainly has the means.
The Solar government announced this controversial decision five years ago, and now it is beginning. The Martians, who have deliberately cut themselves off from all information from beyond Mars, will no doubt have heard only rumours of the invasion, passed from tribe to tribe.
"Naturally, everyone knows this war is unbalanced. You have enough ordnance to level every settlement on Mars a hundred times over."
The colonel stares at me piercingly. "Miss, this is not a war, and this is not an invasion," he says, deadly serious. "Sol Gov has authority over all extraterrestrial humans. We are establishing control over Mars to protect human life and enforce order on this planet." He flicks through a holo screen to show me horrible pictures of bodies strung up, and far worse. "Mars has been in anarchy for over a century, ever since Paul MacTavish landed. Every day children die of malnutrition, innocents are lynched without proper trial, and the clans make war on each other for resources that people on Earth take for granted. They have lost the right to their autonomy, and we will bring order and humanity back to this icy red desert, because that is the right thing to do!
"We will build schools, hospitals and biodomes for these people. We will drag them to their feet so that they can stand with the rest of humanity again. If he still lives, we will find Paul MacTavish, hold him responsible for this mess and make him suppress this dangerous cult he has grown. We will make Mars a new and better place than it is now. How can anyone have sympathy for these cruel and barbaric insurgents?"
Somewhere beneath the northern plains of Mars
They finally removed my blindfold, a primitive piece of red fabric they had tied over my eyes. One of my guides is large for a Martian. I suspect he is one of their best-fed and most intimidating warriors, and that is why he was chosen to accompany me. Despite his dark skin and partly African features, he bears the same clan face markings as the short, pale, malnourished red-haired woman who walks with us. The old races of Earth mean nothing to these people. Only the clan, and the ship that brought their ancestors to Mars, matter.
We walk down a metal corridor, and I get the distinct feeling that I am somewhere deep underground. People pass us in the shadows, and my unmarked face draws many angry glares. The only other face without clan markings that I see belongs to a prisoner in manacles, escorted past us by two warriors. His mouth is enclosed in a mask attached to some sort of air tank, his eyes are unfocused and rolling slightly, and his skin is tinged with blue.
"Who…" I begin to ask.
"Solar spy," clips the red-haired woman. "Caught on our lands. He will breathe the air of Mars and adjust, as we have adjusted. He will learn our ways here."
I feel very glad that this bunker clearly has its own regulated air supply.*At first I thought the Martians showed me this prisoner to scare me, so I could see how they tortured captured enemies. Only weeks later did someone with more experience tell me that they were probably trying to show me they were a merciful clan. Most prisoners the clans take are not treated so humanely.*
I also see many small children pass with their teachers or mothers. They look unhealthy, with glaring, darting eyes that harden in anger when they see me. Some wear false, forced smiles, but I can see the hate, and perhaps envy, in their eyes. I suspect we are in some sort of underground school or nursery, but I know they would not have taken off my blindfold had they not wanted me to see.
Some would say the Martians value their children above all else. Not in the way I have seen many licensed parents on Earth treat theirs, as fashion accessories dressed in all sorts of nonsense, fed like Olympic athletes and raised mostly by the house AI. The Martians value them as a precious, irreplaceable resource, needed to keep the clan growing in power and safety. Perhaps humanity has it all wrong, and only our ancestors knew the real value of children.
We pass dimly lit rooms where children sit cross-legged in circles, quietly chanting the tenets of MacTavish, led by an adult. The metal walls are children's pictures of the promised Mars, all bright greens and powerful warm suns in the sky.
The withered matriarch of Clan Mayflower
"You are from Earth," she says, with a small grandmotherly grin. "So am I. I was born in 2199, would you believe?"
On Earth I have met many people that old, but I have no doubt that on Mars such people number fewer than a dozen, so I act amazed to reassure her.
"You arrived on the Mayflower itself?" I ask hesitantly.
"Yes. My parents answered the prophet's call, and I remember seeing Mars from space."
Then she asks me, "How many planets has the Solar government terraformed?" Admittedly I am stumped, and she knows it. "They are not here to make Mars a paradise, child. They are here to find something."
Inside a battle-training O'Neill cylinder aboard Phobos Station
"This battle cylinder is meant to simulate the surface of Mars as closely as possible." Sergeant Clayton is an imposing figure in his heavy combat carapace, with piercing, serious eyes above a grim respirator mask. "Even the gravity is the same." We watch a squad of soldiers fight through the red, dusty rocks to assault a position defended by holograms and training drones.