It was a Thursday afternoon in April on Mars. Last Thursday, to be precise. Autumn, when the chill air was harshest, with scattered tornadoes across the hilly plains. The burnt ombre and rust red dust drove hard into the caldera of a supervolcano. Phobos clawed at the horizon, desperately early or woefully late in transition across the thin atmosphere. In the distance, the warm tangerine yellow glows of habitat lights spilled over the edges of a crater, while verdant green lights steadily blinked atop the skeletal steel framework of a mining rig.
