2503.05 — Mirror #Writever #Mars #SpaceOpera
Walking out of the cafeteria, May Ri got a ping. Her book plate read, "You've got a berth. Report immediately." When she touched her ear, Chip, her Mars T.A., shouted, "May Ri, where are you?"
Another scheme to collect his commission? "I've three more years to my degree and I'm tracked for the masters program, so No to the berth."
Her last word echoed. She saw Chip's shaggy head bobbing in the thin crowd as he ran her way, followed by a brawny brown-haired guy in a greenish jumpsuit with a EM Mars triskelion patch.
It matched the tattoo on her forearm.
"Look, look," Chip said, showing his book plate while glad-arming her down a side hall. She struggled when the EM goon clamped an aromatic wet rag over her nose and mouth.
Waking weightless and nauseated—stuffy head pounding, being floated somewhere—despite grogginess, she eyes-closed punched someone, spinning away to bounce off a wall. The click of cartilage, the thump off a bulkhead, the blare of a warning horn, and "Rig for ring spin!" rang in her ears. A tech clapped a bag over her mouth before she vomited up her last putrified meal, while enduring the blonde's glare as blood beaded around her nose. May Ri glowered back. Sitting on the wall, dragged on her butt, her inner ear then her innards, informed her it was now the floor.
Calming down, she noticed soft pastels of the ferrous, ferric, and ferrosoferric colors of Mars on the ceiling, new walls, and spin floor: greenish, pale red, and slightly black. When the tech said, "This one's combative," May Ri saw a grey-haired woman in a ferrous colored uniform approach. She sported a tiny gold braid embroidery patch and a bored expression.
"I was kidnapped!" May Ri shouted, jumping up, nearly losing the weighty barf-bag as she clunked the ceiling with her head. The woman caught her and handed off the bag, placing her on her feet, then let her complain until she lost steam and felt the cold ventilator breeze ten minutes later. She asked, "Are you the captain?" then thought, She's a woman!?
"His wife. I command third shift. What do you want me to do? Turn the ship around?"
It struck her. She was in transit to Mars.
Her kindly eyes were caramel brown. "Engineering student? I get it, but because of a financial disagreement this may be our last transit out for years. Your contract allows managers to make decisions based on your prior choices." She pointed at May Ri's triskelion tattoo that showed the faces of Mars on it. "That's a Yes if we cannot otherwise guarantee fulfilling your contract."
May Ri shivered. Reality had a knack for beating her bloody.
"We will transit back, but insisting on returning means breaching your contract, paying back scholarships, and facing your Decath sponsor to explain why you didn't take the blessing granted you." A glance at a book plate; she frowned. "Reverend Peters? Guess you're from Chicago, too."
The one who'd told her she was undeserving of even being a housewife. Had he approved her application as Mars colonial fodder to get an a-theist off Earth?
"Few Decath ministers choose the high ground. A few recently died. Just saying. Look, other than apologizing to Anne—she's in your cohort—no hard feelings?" She offered a hand, then scrolled her book plate. "Says here you've earned prelim suit qualification. I've exterior maint that needs doing. Since you've missed out on your degree, a space qualification would rank you up. Wanna try...?"
May Ri didn't seethe for long. A woman, especially, couldn't fight the male dominated system. Five days later she found herself outside, tethered, magnetic shoes clamped to the spine of the ship. Behind, aft, she saw the black radiator plate beyond which lay the nuclear rocket. A totally reflective, totally misnamed Starship shuttle stood as a fat needle at the bow. A clip from an ancient vid called 2001: A Space— something had featured in EM Mars propaganda. The five rings looked like that, but silver. The stars, though: Static, unmoving, except as reflected in the rotating rings. Enthralling.
Still...
She regarded herself in the mirror-sheened stainless steel cladding of the transit vehicle. Her tools? She could easily mischaracterize them as a mop and a wash bucket (they weren't), and herself as an exhausted housewife with a sweaty brow (it was) left home to do worthless work. Yet... she could properly characterize it as removing rocket burn debris and polishing out micro-meteor gouges. Most of all, she was doing it in a spacesuit, not Mom's kitchen apron.
"Kind of exciting," she said.
"May Ri?" a comm duty officer asked.
She smiled. "Nothing." #RSMarsNeededWomen 05
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#BoostingIsSharing and #CommentingIsCool
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSstory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory
%