∞∞∞

  CATHARINE - La Chambre Rouge

  Broad cascades of red and crimson swags framed the arched windows of La Chambre Rouge, yet to Catharine, the windows no longer seemed as tall as they had when she was a child. Fifty kilometers away, Pavonis stood resilient—a pyramid atop the Tharsis plains, reaching toward the gods of Mars. Vibrations tinkled the crystal chandelier overhead as rockets arced over the horizon. They rang out like fairy bells while ash clouds geysered into the stratosphere, closing in on the palace itself.

  The walls lit up brighter than the sun itself and firebolts spidered across the palace approaches. Evacuation chimes screamed, and Pericles’ forces were already hammering the outer guard with shock rifles.

  Catharine stood before the tall window of Palace Trianon. A palace named for the sister she'd never truly known. Empty glass and carved crimson stone, stacked with the orderly precision that had once defined the Stratocracy. A palace built by Krrel in his image. A throne she was never meant to touch.

  Catharine steadied her breathing. Why linger?

  Her bitten nails scraped the stone sill while below, servants rushed through tunnels toward the transports, their voices echoing across the marble like fragments of a collapsing world.

  Between the ripping artillery bursts, the chandeliers flickered yet the grand arched glass trembled and refused to break. The plains before her, boiled in a firestorm of war.

  Catharine squinted at a distant explosion as the concussion rippled the glass. For a split second she imagined herself as Krrel—ordering the artillery, watching traitors burn.

  Despite her father’s indifference, Catharine wanted to return to this place one day when Pericles was extinguished. When the fighting stopped.

  Whether she ended up pawn, princess, or queen, for the moment, that choice lived in the cross-hairs between her father and Pericles, not in her own hands. This lonely place and even the approaching assault felt more familiar than the life waiting beyond these walls.

  She imagined Rafael flying her away into the stars, chasing a life of dangers and unknowns. No lady-in-waiting. No butlers. No Master of the Palace and no duty to Mars.

  A bright flash rose above her father’s fortress. The chandelier swayed, its crystal chiming like bells. Catharine braced herself, knees bent, the instinct of a soldier.

  She imagined the command, and where Pericles would assuredly attack. What if she was directing the forces of Mars? Not by ambition or the pursuit of power, but by a focused strategy. Could I? It would need to be brutal and decisive.

  Catharine looked to the hall. Time.

  From further down the hall, a scratching sound, like a chair being dragged on tile. No one should be in that wing.

  Hesitant, she stepped back from the window into the bedchamber hall, moving past the spiral staircase and the old nursery. Something unexpected caught her eye.

  At the end of the corridor, from beneath the door of her little sister’s room a bright light trembled as if disturbed by movement. A shadow shifted in the gap.

  Catharine paused halfway down the long corridor, her pulse still sharp from what she had overheard in the royal halls. Another distant tremor rolled through the marble, shaking dust from the chandeliers.

  Her wrist-comm lit up.

  Not with a message.

  Not with any Stratocracy frequency.

  Just a thin, stuttering line of symbols that should not exist in any Martian protocol. Angular, asymmetrical six-sided glyphs that shifted as if alive. A faint, unnatural greenish hue pulsed beneath the surface of the display, nothing like the channel colours she knew.

  Then came the sound.

  A low, warbling metallic distortion. As if someone were dragging a welding torch along the inside of a hollow steel beam.

  Not mechanical failure.

  Not interference.

  Catharine rubbed her eyelid. The sound felt intentional—something listening, testing the boundaries of the device.

  “What?” She pulled the comm back. The vibration travelled through her bones more than her ears.

  She reset the interface. The standard Cydonia crest flickered back into place, though the display felt hotter against her skin than it should.

  Catharine swallowed.

  Whatever that was, it didn’t come from Mars.

  And it wasn’t from the green planet the scientists whispered about either. This had nothing of celestial rhythm or orbital logic.

  It felt closer.

  More invasive, like a whisper from the space between circuits.

  “I don’t like that,” she murmured under her breath.

  Yet a strange part of her. A part she didn’t want to name felt seen.

  The palace corridor ahead was dim and a thin strip of light glowed beneath a familiar door.

  Xylia’s old room.

  Catharine tightened her grip on the comm and stepped toward it.

  “Who’s there? Show yourself! What are you doing in Xylia’s room?”

  The princess punched the door open. No one was allowed here since—-

  Nothing moved, yet every light was on, brighter than the explosions outside. Star pictures adorned the walls. Her sister’s strange geometry and mathematics were scattered across the papers on her sideboard. A blue quilt and three pillows lay fluffed under the canopied bed.

  A faint floral scent rose from the sideboard. Her sister’s perfume. Catharine’s hand jerked back as if it burned.

  The memory hit. The laboratory, Xylia’s hand in hers. When they took her stars away and made her cry.

  “Xylia.” Catharine thought out loud. “Such big dreams for such a little girl. You really didn’t belong here.” Her mother had been right to protect the royal family. Catharine stood silently. Could she be cast aside as well, at the will of another?

  Instead of being stored away, her sister’s little telescope sat in the middle of the solarium next to the panoramic window. Why didn’t I notice that before?

  Catharine’s breath tightened. This was wrong.

  A ruffle of fabric sat at the foot of the bed.

  The princess picked it up and smiled a sad smile. A broken doll.

  She knelt. The doll’s eyes were ripped out, lying like blue marbles on the floor. No arms. No legs. Straw hair shredded. Lizzy. Her own childhood doll. A wave of nausea. Flashes: white lights, her mother’s voice, Xylia’s hand in hers. Xylia, you are not here!

  She jerked her hand back, heart racing, fingertips stung. I didn’t do anything to you. I tried to help. I stayed with you. I didn’t hurt you. I didn’t. Nothing answered back. Only the air, and her own nerves betraying her.

  The structure walls shuddered like an earthquake and the chandelier above flickered twice.

  It had a blue dress to match her eyes. The doll the Queen gave me when her little sister went away. A gift for the daughter who stayed in a palace built for Krrel’s firstborn.

  ∞∞∞

  RAF - Noctis to Phoenicis Lacus

  From ten thousand meters above Noctis, the shipyards flickered like a dying forge. Raf rolled the weathered Galvex-I and watched flames crawl across the trusses below—sparks pouring from collapsing gantries as engineers sabotaged Krrel's ships before Pericles could claim them. The high-G turn pushed him hard against the metal buckles.

  An odd calm held him above the chaos. His canopy filled with black starry sky. The Big Dipper stabbed the night in perfect diffraction spikes—quiet and steady in a way Mars never was.

  If I could fly far enough...

  He huffed a dry laugh. A miner with a sore back and a stolen fighter, dreaming of the stars. A childish dream—for him, and for a princess trapped in Krrel’s dynasty.

  The display flickered. Low fuel. Always low fuel.

  He banked south, setting course for Phoenicis Lacus. The controls were stiff—the old fighter argued with him through every canyon-hugging turn. Stubborn to the end, it scraped rock faces with its landing skids, sending boulders tumbling into valleys below.

  "Blast," he muttered, pulling back on the yoke. "But tough as iron."

  He thumped the console twice in respect.

  Besides, who would be crazy enough to take a chance in the copilot’s chair? Not Catharine. She was already getting caught up in Krrel’s craziness. Adjusting the throttle, he shook his head. She held the ruby-crown too close and raised her eyebrow to the workers. He made a fist and wrenched the controls.

  Forty minutes later, the rebel repair centre came into view—a gash three kilometres deep carved into the southern highlands. Natural alcoves pocked the vertical walls, each sheltering stolen Stratocracy fighters. From above, Krrel's satellites would see nothing.

  The lift engines answered with a throaty hum. Almost defiant, then coughed out a single plasma backfire as he shifted into descent mode.

  Reaching over the copilot position, he closed the lift-motor intakes.

  He laughed quietly. Xylia would look good there, and she knew everything about the stars.

  For now, the stars remained out of reach, far above the valleys of Mars.

  The repair centre felt crowded, packed with silvery Stratocracy interceptors—hard, elegant shapes parked along the ridge. The Galvex-I looked thick beside them, like a wrestler in the middle of a palace ballet: blocky, analogue, and missing enough parts to be halfway to a scrapyard.

  The palace might end up a scrapyard, too, he thought. Maybe that was all Mars knew how to do—burn out its tools and people for other men’s wars.

  The moment the Galvex-I touched down, Raf felt the low, steady hum under his boots, as if the fighter were acknowledging something. He climbed onto the dorsal spine, fingers brushing armour thicker than anything the Stratocracy flew. The plating vibrated softly beneath his gloves.

  “Reactive plating,” a gravelled voice called up. “Ain’t a weapon on Mars that’ll dent her.”

  Twisting around, old Sarrin limped into view, grease-stained jumpsuit hanging off thin shoulders. “Saints, boy… she’s older than Olympus itself.” He rapped the hull; the metal answered with a deep, confident metallic knock. “And she’s hiding more secrets than Krrel.”

  “Even space for a dark-matter drive,” the old mechanic said, tapping the silvery hull with his wrench. “Doubt you’d find one.”

  Old Sarrin wiped sweat with a rag that smelled of oil. He was one of the last real artisan mechanics. “Nacelles for mag weapons. Enceladus magnet rail guns. This’ll out-punch everything we have here combined.” He opened an access panel. “...but we’ll burn her guts out with any of the new converters.”

  Raf clambered over the dorsal guns. “What do you mean?”

  “High voltage five-phase power supply...” Sarrin poked his head in deeper. “Saints…”

  "Something wrong?" Raf hopped down from the dorsal spine to the canyon floor, stomach tightening.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “I’d bet my hat this old gal’s configured for a quantum power supply. Yup—entanglement stabilization.” He slammed the access hatch and looked up at Raf. His long grey eyebrows rose when he patted the hull. “This one here... she has secrets.”

  “Wait here.” Sarrin jammed the oily rag in his pocket and hobbled off toward the equipment racks. His hips swayed from side to side and his knees bowed past his ankles.

  What would happen here on Mars if he left? Slaving under Krrel’s proclamations or worse, Pericles. Maybe the miners would forgive him. Maybe they wouldn’t. Mars had a long memory for those who ran.

  I didn’t cause the problems on Mars. Maybe leaving was the only honest choice.

  With the sun setting, shadows climbed the three kilometre walls, and for a minute the clatter of the repair centre grew quiet. The stars felt closer here.

  Crazy-ass power supply? Looking up, he focused on Sirius—the Dog Star. He squeezed one eye shut. Its light pulsed like a heartbeat.

  I wonder how far the quantum thing would take me. And how fast?

  Ha… probably not far enough. He shook his head then cracked his knuckle and rapped the hull with his fist.

  Shipyard floodlights lit up in sequence.

  "She's got personality," Raf said, tilting his head to survey the wires and connectors.

  “Let’s give her some more,” old Sarrin answered, plodding back with a heavy electrical contraption that looked part generator, part mad-scientist’s toy. “Arthritis is kickin’ me today, boy.”

  “I’ll help.”

  “You’re not touching this one, kid.” Sarrin stared him down, flinched from a stab of pain, then leaned in and pushed the access panel open again.

  “What is it?” Leaning in, he peered over the old man’s shoulder.

  “Q-103 energy inverter. Reliable as hell. This’ll outlast the ship.” Sarrin tinkered without looking up. “Fellow named Vireaux left it here.”

  The mechanic pointed to a deep gash on the Galvex. "But the hull’s torn up bad from the rocks. I’ll need to rig a jumper outside the hull plating.”

  Mechanized fittings along the Galvex began to whir. Panels sighed open. Hidden hard points unfolded from the flat hull, each rimmed in a cold, glowing blue.

  Sarrin smirked. “Fits perfectly, like…”

  A clean breeze swept in from the canyon.

  For a split second Raf thought of the princess. Then, unexpectedly, he imagined Xylia beside him instead.

  “Like it was made for it.” The name Vireaux rose in his chest. Squinting he tried to picture that face. Britt had said the same name and something about Enceladus.

  "Where's Enceladus?" Raf glanced at the nav screen. The image flickered once, then faded.

  ∞∞∞

  CATHARINE - The Palace

  Shadows pooled between the columns as Catharine moved through the fading light. A hundred white arches lined both sides of the enfilade, their peaks crowned by illusionist paintings in the domes above—emotionless faces staring down from faded frescoes. Evening washed the marble in a cold sheen, turning the grandeur of the palace into brittle silhouettes. The doorways stood empty—no butlers, no guards, only shadows where servants had once waited. Tapestries sagged. Music had long since died.

  Catharine paused at the fifth column, pressing herself into the shadows behind it.

  At the far end of the corridor—perhaps fifty meters distant—Major General Pericles appeared.

  His steps cut the silence cleanly, each one deliberate, each arm swing sharp as a blade. Every footfall echoed like a gunshot in a tomb.

  He set his jaw as if the palace had always been his.

  Catharine pressed into the shadows.

  Her earliest memory of Pericles was the stare—too long, too cold. The way he feigned sympathy the day her mother died, his voice dripping with opportunity. He had been climbing ever since: scheming, whispering, slithering through aristocracy like a palace snake until he stood here tonight.

  She looked past them all. Pericles should not speak for Mars.

  Two traitors approached, wearing palace guard uniforms. Each saluted. “The palace is empty, sir. Krrel’s gone.”

  Blood trickled from one guard's knife. Who did they cut this time? Catharine forced her attention back to Pericles.

  “He’s quivering in the canals with the rest of the filth,” Pericles said, his body motionless. “Bring him to me on his knees.”

  “And what of the princess?”

  “She will agree to a royal wedding, or witness her father quartered.” Pericles thumbed a ruby ring; his eyes darkened. “Tell me the troops are prepared for tonight’s attack.”

  Anger tensed every muscle in Catharine’s body; she felt her ragged nails biting into her palms. She imagined him strapped to the Tractability table—where the Stratocracy burned the truth out of traitors.

  Another squad approached from the eastern wing—six soldiers, boots in lockstep.

  She could wait no longer. Pulling back deeper behind the column, Catharine’s eyes focused on a fold in the tapestry opposite. Behind it—a servants' passage. A way out.

  She moved between the columns, crossing the domed marble parterre in silence, and slipped through the tapestry into the hidden tunnels beyond.

  ∞∞∞

  CATHARINE - Canal Syria

  Descending deeper, cooler air bled through the cobbled rocks. Staticky red soil clung to her boots and the service tunnel breathed with faint vibrations. This service tunnel—one of the oldest beneath the palace, carved along the edge of Canal Syria and unused by the Stratocracy—would lead her either to her father or to the shipyards. Catharine paused. A soft rumble carried an echo in both directions. Two strategies were already staged. Her face hardened. And if there was a third? Hers? Something no one expected? Insidious tactics to deal with Pericles and a calculated alignment alongside Krrel’s forces.

  Catharine turned toward the shipyards and followed the tunnel that sloped down under the canal to the Noctis Shipyards.

  Tucked against the fire door at the end of the passage, Jendrick Pericles shivered. His undersized uniform strained at the buttons, sleeves too short. Catharine stepped out of the darkness.

  He flinched.

  “You can’t go,” he stuttered. "Lady Catharine… I mean… Catharine." The boy’s eyes were uncomfortably revealing, locked on hers, and his smile persisted.

  “The miners saved your life, young regent,” she said, voice low and cutting. “Your father will cast you aside with his next child.”

  "After which, you will toil in the kitchens or the mines. Mars remembers."

  “My father will have your father killed,” the regent said. “Then he’ll make you my betrothed.”

  Her pulse quickened. Ice-cold anger surged through her. Catharine pressed a hand to his chest, pinning him to the door. "I skin snakes alive and cast them to Tharsis."

  The veins in his neck stood out. His eyes widened in fear.

  Heat welled in her chest. Should the power feel natural—here in this dark place?

  "Please," his voice weakened.

  “Where does your father’s army march tonight?” she asked, her hand rising toward his neck. “Choose now.” She dug her nails into his collarbone, and the words came out in her father's voice—cold, absolute, brooking no resistance.

  "The shipyards… the shipyards." He gasped for air.

  She shoved him into the corner. “You could come with me, Jendrick,” she said, knowing he wouldn’t.

  "No." He tried to hold on to pride. A free hand touched her sleeve—clammy, trembling.

  She tore a brass button from his lapel and tossed it at him, pushing his hand away. The button rattled over the stone floor. "Here. You'll need this."

  "My father will get you," he muttered, frowning.

  “Tell him I await him,” Catharine said, turning for the service tram. “He’s as afraid of me as you are, young snake.”

  “Please, Catharine.” Jendrick’s voice came thin, fragile. Hopeful in the wrong way.

  ∞

  She slipped into the unattended service tram that ran straight along the old canal line to the shipyards, where her perfume curled against the smell of scorched metal.

  “The shipyards,” she murmured. “I hope I remember how to work this.” The door hissed shut and the tram lurched, throwing her briefly off balance as it gained speed. Smoke-shrouded canal lights flickered faster as the tram accelerated.

  He’ll do what I want—the miner cares for me. He must. In the windscreen’s reflection, for a moment she saw her father.

  Clattering from the tracks drowned out her thoughts. She gripped the edge of the seat.

  “Raf… please be there…” Her breath fogged the glass. For one heartbeat, she imagined his hand in hers.

  Catharine placed her hand on the glass—but the fog had already vanished. The glass felt colder than before.

  ∞∞∞

  RAF - Observatory

  Raf stood at the junction where Canal Seven's main tunnel branched toward the Observatory entrance, fifty meters ahead through the dim passage. He folded the stolen lab coat's long white sleeves into cuffs, covering his scarred hands—a miner's hands, not a technician's.

  The tunnel was eerily quiet. Too quiet.

  Before Pericles' assault and Earth's warnings, the Observatory had been a dead place—shuttered, forgotten. Then Canal Seven had roared back to life, brought online in a heartbeat, its tunnels trembling with military transports. The miners whispered that the Stratocracy had uncovered something in the depths. Something that terrified even them.

  Ore quotas spiked. Men collapsed. Fear spread.

  Whatever was buried here... it was waking.

  The Canal Seven tunnel was void of personnel. At the tunnel's edge, a railing overlooked the level below. An empty transport shuttle sat at the domed terminus, fresh zipper-like track-marks scored the ground behind it. Heat wafted up from below, carrying the faint smell of hot metal. Could be from the motors, if they drove it too fast.

  Brushing his scruffy hair back, Raf peered around the last bend in the tunnel. Where was Xylia? She was supposed to meet him right here. At the elevator. Blast, no one here at all.

  He zipped up the stolen lab coat he was wearing and pulled the collar up to his neck. He’d expected a buzz of activity. People to avoid, but no one was in the shafts or outside the observatory entrance.

  Two empty chairs sat on either side of the double doors. Shock rifles leaned too neatly on the grey wall beside the doors.

  Where are the guards? “Hello.” Raf’s voice was a half whisper.

  He thought about grabbing a rifle, but instead picked up a sensor module.

  Standing sideways, he drove his hip into the door, expecting soldiers to rush out. Instead it just swung back, nearly knocking the box out of his arms.

  Nothing. “Xylia?” Raf peered through the door.

  “Rafael. I’m here.” Xylia sounded preoccupied.

  “Just us two? Where is everyone?” His voice echoed around the vaulted room. A high trussed dome arched overhead. Around the octagonal room were banks of instruments and computers. Two telescopes sat side by side on a gimbal. One was small, maybe a meter long. The other was massive—at least thirty metres of polished barrel stretching toward the dome's aperture. Small lights flashed along the optical tube.

  “I want to show you something, just give me a minute.” Xylia stared at a glowing grid. Within it were the Earth, Sun and Mars… and something else.

  “This doesn’t feel right—like a loose tunnel brace down in the mines.” Raf lifted a tipped-over chair and picked up an electronic tool. He placed it on the console beside him.

  A coffee cup sat next to some control levers and buttons. Raf touched it. “It’s still warm. Like someone left it seconds ago.”

  He needed Xylia to be safe.

  “Xylia?” Raf raised his voice. “Tell me the truth—what happened?”

  “Nothing— nothing, Rafael.” Her voice evasive.

  “This coffee’s still hot.” He clenched his teeth. “There were people here. Where are they?”

  “No one was here, Rafael.” Xylia paused too long. “It was empty.”

  He picked up a pair of glasses and held them up in the light. One of the lenses was cracked. He swallowed. Someone had left in a hurry.

  “Are you sure?” Raf’s voice was leading but trusting. “I want to believe you, Xylia, but…”

  “Come here, I want to show you something.” Xylia pulled him close to the display.

  “Here and here… these are gravity waves,” she said, pointing to moving blue lines.

  The holo lines sharpened.

  “If you say they are… but why are we here?” Raf looked up. “And what happened to your hair?”

  Raf pushed the coffee cup further away.

  “And by the way… when do I get my rescue kiss?” he asked, pointing at his cheek.

  “What?” Xylia made an exasperated frown, then smirked for a split second.

  “There’s white streaks going through it. Those weren't there before.” Raf brushed his own hair mirroring the white highlights. “They look kinda cute—”

  “It’s nothing,” she said, pulling him by the collar. “Look at this.”

  “That’s the sun, right?” Raf tilted his head.

  The display reproduced a solar flare where the blue lines glowed.

  “Yes, and these gravity waves shouldn’t be there.” Xylia looked serious, like she was willing him to understand.

  “Okay.” Raf pretended that what she said was meaningful. “So… what?”

  “They’re causing the sun to expand. At least I think that’s what’s causing them.”

  “So what’s that got to do with Mars?” Raf paused. “I mean that’s good isn’t it? Cooking Earth… warming up Mars?”

  Several blue lines converged on the floating solar image.

  “Something’s making them Rafael!” Xylia’s voice was urgent. “Something’s changing the sun!”

  “Blast.” Raf looked at her. “But who?”

  “I don’t know, but we can tell when it started,” she explained.

  “When? How are you supposed to know that?”

  The holo-display reversed in time, until there was one large solar flare erupting from the sun.

  “See this calendar?” Xylia pointed to the numbers. “These are Carrington increments—Carrington years. Carrington discovered solar flares back on Earth a long time ago.”

  “Huh?” Raf raised his eyebrows. There was something underneath, beside Xylia.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Look, Rafael, try and understand me.” She held his gaze. “This is Carrington Year—”

  “172.” He answered. “Is that when they started?”

  His eyes caught on a single black military boot under the console. Bloody smears led from it to an exit hatch. A pair of discarded gloves. A fresh, dripping hand print on the wall. Raf cracked his knuckles nervously.

  Within the trussed dome above, a movement caught his eye, but it was just a part uniform and guard helmet someone stuck near the telescope aperture. Probably a joke. No one could physically climb up there. Impossible. A wave of vertigo twisted his stomach and prickled his skin.

  Did Xylia do this?

  “Yes, at least the gravity waves don’t appear before then.” She smiled faintly, as if he finally understood the stars.

  “But that’s not all…” she said, rotating the holo-grid. “Look at this.”

  “What is that, more gravity waves?” The display turned Mars and Earth on its side with a blue ring cutting them in half. Raf looked at her eyes. They were captivating, bright with a focus he didn’t fully understand.

  The holo image panned back to the orbit of Mars and the Earth, this time with a ghostly intersecting green elliptical line. It pulsed slowly.

  “Yes, but it's in a nearly polar orbit.” Xylia moved her hand in a circle. A small electrical filament seemed to dance off her fingertip for a split second. “A solar year twice that of Mars. It’s so hard to see.”

  “Xylia, you can tell me anything.” Raf’s voice leaned toward the truth he wanted to hear.

  “Rafael—nothing happened. I promise.” Her voice was quick and her eyes looked serious. “Look at this orbit. It intersects Mars almost never.”

  “The green planet?” He remembered showing Xylia the childhood colouring, the way she’d had terrible tremors.

  “Is that what they were trying to stop you from seeing? Xylia—”

  Just like in the alien lab, it started again. Her eyes were changing. The pressure in the air increased around them and the hair on the back of his hand stood straight up. His tongue felt suddenly dry. He flinched but hid it from her. To Raf, Xylia looked like someone else.

  Her pupils consumed the light, spreading until nothing remained but black. Like a collapsed star.

  A vibration passed through the ground. As if Pavonis Mons was speaking again from deep below Mars.

  “Rafael—you know that I’d never hurt you—”

  ∞∞∞

  Enjoy - back soon.

  ∞∞∞

  Above Mars, Phobos shuddered.

  Britt froze mid-step as the lights flickered across the abandoned installation. Not a quake… not machinery.

  Something outside. Something big.

  At the same moment in Noctis, a sabotaged power core spat blue fire, startling the artisans who’d been gutting it. Even they paused; the ground had moved, just once, like Mars itself was listening.

  And in Hellas Planitia, Krrel’s drill finally struck the molten alloy vein. The glowing metal pulsed, brighter than physics should allow, as if something beneath the crust had answered him back.

  None of them knew it yet.

  But whatever woke in the Observatory with those gravity waves…

  …had started to stretch, slow and patient, beneath the planet.

  Soon the shipyards would burn.

  Phobos would see the first sign.

  And Mars would feel it rising.