December 24th, 2100
Interplanetary War, Year 3
Hadus City – Mars
It's been three years since the first gunfire cracked through the black silence of space—out at the border where two worlds once stood side by side as allies. Earth and Mars—brothers in arms, once united by shared technologies, dreams of expansion beyond the solar system, and the hope of building civilizations among the stars—are now bitter enemies, locked in cold-blooded conflict, their skies no longer filled with promises but with plasma trails and debris from shattered warships.
My name's Lionel. I'm thirty years old. Patrol Officer, Unit 2, Hadus Metropolitan.
Not the biggest city on Mars—not like New Olympus with its sky-tier arcologies, or Martini Primus with its ivory towers gleaming under artificial suns. But Hadus... Hadus was stable. Quiet.
At least... it used to be.
I was born on Earth—Southeast Asian Sector. Nothing remarkable about my family, except for my father. A political dissenter once branded a "regime destabilizer." They called him a traitor. But to me, he was just a proud man—a veteran who held onto his ideals of peace and unity between Earth and Mars. Twenty years ago, when he was exiled to Mars, I was ten. My mother had already passed. We had no other choice but to follow him—my older sister, myself, and a man too stubborn to break.
Now I'm thirty, still single, still wandering the half-lit corridors of the city like a ghost in synthetic flesh. I live in a compact unit on the 10th floor of Kenloch 2, a residential block in South Hadus—one of the few areas where people still laughed without looking over their shoulders.
My job? Policing. Nothing glorious, mostly routine. Some nights are rough—smuggling busts, illegal android fights, surveillance sweeps. But overall, it's decent. Stable pay. Health coverage. A badge that still means something to some people. I don't chase fame. I don't want to be a hero. I just want normalcy. And on most days, that's exactly what I get.
War? Sure. Everyone here knows it's out there—up in orbit, at the asteroid fronts, near the Phobos defense lines. But few really feel it. In Hadus, war is a newsfeed—3D holoprojections beaming from city squares, silent explosions of warships in distant voids, blue plasma lashes slicing through the vacuum. It's spectacular. Beautiful. Detached.
The city itself? Still ticking. Maybe more security checkpoints. Maybe more "routine inspections" in the dead of night. Maybe the occasional whisper of a spy disappearing. But life moves on—because what else is there to do?
Tonight's Christmas Eve.
I took the early leave shift. Not because I care for tradition or because I believe in the old stories from Earth, but because I wanted to visit the last piece of family I've got—Rose.
She lives a few blocks down, same district. Another vertical block of durasteel and plasma glass, watching the cold Martian winds scrape the dome above like invisible fingers on a drum.
Rose is thirty-three. Chief nurse at Hadus Central Medical. The kind of person who always had a solution. Calm, resourceful, and kind to a fault. She's the sort who can stop bleeding with one hand and calm a crying child with the other. That calm glow in a city of flickering neon.
Her most striking feature? Her hair—deep crimson, almost glowing under artificial lights. A legacy from our father. In this metal-gray world, it was a signal flare of something real.
Seven years ago, she married John—a stoic chef from the Northern Fire Belt. Built like a freighter, quiet as a dying server node. At first, I couldn't see it—Rose, the spark, and John, the stone. But then I saw how they looked at each other, how silence spoke more between them than words ever could. That kind of love? It's rare. It stings a little, but I respect it.
And then there's Jeanne—their five-year-old daughter.
If sunshine had legs and wore little Martian boots, it'd be Jeanne. A firecracker in human form. Bright eyes, endless questions, and a laugh that cut through even the thickest Hadus fog. She calls me "Uncle Lio" and makes me play silly games or tell stories from the "olden days" of Earth. I pretend to protest, but let's be real—I'd do anything for her.
It was around 4:30 PM when I clocked out. Before leaving, I stowed my gear: the forcefield rig, my kinetic baton, sidearm, smart cuffs, and the facial scanner—all locked behind a level-three vault in the precinct's armory. I changed into civvies: black thermal cotton shirt, dark blue fur-lined coat, brown utility pants, and my carbon-weave boots. Functional but stylish enough for a walk through Hadus' public sector.
Outside, the Martian air—artificially balanced and scrubbed through ion filters—was cool. Not cold like Earth's winters, but cool enough to tint your breath and flush your cheeks. The city's dome refracted the holiday lights in a soft, glimmering sheen—turning every step into a dreamscape of color and steel.
I was adjusting my collar when the office door slid open behind me with a hydraulic hiss.
Minh stepped in—rookie officer, Vietnamese, barely twenty-two. Bright, sharp, still naive enough to believe good intentions could solve everything.
"Oh? Heading out early, Officer Lionel?" he teased, flashing that youthful grin.
"Even cops need time off. It's Christmas," I shrugged.
"Visiting your sister again? Man, you really are a classic siscon."
I glared playfully. "Don't make me write you up for verbal abuse."
"I'm just saying—you're thirty, you got gray starting to peek out, and still no wife? Dude, you're a walking antique."
I rolled my eyes. "Worry about your own love life. What happened to that girlfriend of yours?"
Minh shivered dramatically. "She finds out I'm doing overtime again? I'll be sleeping with the cleaning drones tonight."
We both laughed. Laughter in the shadow of war. The kind you cling to because it's all that stands between you and madness.
After waving goodbye, I stepped out onto the main street.
Neon signs buzzed overhead, bleeding light into the transparent shell above the city. Hadus' dome stretched over us like a crystal skin, glimmering with embedded solar fibers and static defense grids. The stars outside looked impossibly close—silver needles piercing a velvet sea. It made you forget, for a moment, that you were a foreigner on a red wasteland.
I walked through the South District plaza—a dense network of suspended walkways, vendors, and holiday stalls. The air hummed with synthetic choirs. Vendors shouted over the hum of plasma grills. People pushed past each other, laughing, carrying boxes wrapped in foil and synthetic ribbon. Augmented trees sparkled in impossible colors. Kids darted between adults, chasing holographic reindeer projections.
The giant Christmas tree at the plaza's heart stood two stories tall, its branches a lattice of chrome and fiber optics, pulsating with light. At its base, couples kissed under drone mistletoes while children chased light patterns on the floor tiles. For a second, I felt that familiar sting again—that phantom weight in the chest.
I walked faster. Didn't want to think too much.
Twelve minutes later, I reached Ikaris Tower—Rose's building. Fifteen floors of clean, polished durasteel. Security drones floated by the entrance, scanning silently. I nodded at them as I passed.
Inside the lift, soft ambient music played—a tune composed to calm nerves during vertical travel. The sound was almost eerie in the empty capsule.
At floor fifteen, the doors parted with a mechanical chime. The hallway stretched before me—dim, with motion-sensor lights that flickered on with each step I took. It was quiet. Peaceful. The silence of synthetic walls and triple-insulated windows.
And then—I stopped.
Rose's apartment door stood out like a splash of joy on a grayscale canvas. Decorated with glittering ribbons, a handmade Santa hologram cut from recycled film, and a glowing wreath with "Jeanne" written in LED cursive. Whimsical, full of love. I could picture them—Rose lifting Jeanne up, giggling as they arranged everything.
I stood still, smiling faintly.
Then I reached up and knocked.
Knuckles on steel.
Three soft thuds.
Behind that door, there was warmth.
And yet, tonight… something felt off.
Something in the air—a hesitation.
A scent beneath the holiday perfume.
Like static.
Like the calm before the orbital storm.