Free Trapped - Mars Born Book One by Arwen Gwyneth Hubbard Page A

lost we might not be able to find the HabRov before our oxygen ran out. And with Cradle 200 kilometers away, there wouldn’t be much they could do to help.
      “Anyway… Wash up, and help me with backing up the data, okay? I want to have it finished before we get back.” 
      I felt my hands shake. How oblivious could she be? “Seriously, Rumer? Nooo. I’ll do it tomorrow on the ride.”
      A pout dampened her face and she crossed her arms, “Emory, the colony is counting on us.”
      I rolled my eyes, “It’s just silicates. Clay that we already knew was there.”
      “You’re so thick! Do you really think this is just about the silicates?”
      “I get it, we’re “big girls” now, you don’t want the council to think we can’t handle ourselves.”
    “It’s not about us! You and I, we mean something to everybody else. We’re the first Mars Born.”
      Not this again! She thought that just because we were born a few weeks premature, that that made us special. Our colony was the first to get its 1G Ring going, so it was the first to have children. Because of complications with our pregnancy, Rumer and I were born early, making us the first people ever born on Mars. She let it go to her head.
      “Yes it is! It’s all about you!” I started to push past her, but movement caught my eye. What was that…   Holy shit! Someone was outside the window.

      There in the evening light, jumping up and down was a suited figure. It waved at us.
      “Look!” I grabbed her, throwing my hand towards the window.
      “Hi! Can I come in?” he signed through the window.
      Rumer and I exchanged looks. People didn’t just wonder around on the surface of Mars. They had to have shelter, a supply of oxygen, food, protection from the extreme temperatures and radiation. Suits could only hold a few hours worth of oxygen at a time, 10 hours at most.
      Where had he come from? I wondered. Our colony was the closest habitat we knew about for at least 500 kilometers.
      “Ares!” Rumer muttered, then signed back, “Come around to the back.”
      “Do you know him?” I asked and put my helmet back on.
      Rumer, who had not fully taken her suit off before radioing back our accomplishments, pulled on her boots and gloves, “No. I have no Idea who that is!” she said, grabbing her helmet.
      I went to the window as she fastened it, and checked to see if the stranger had gone around to the rear of the HabRov. He had. When I turned back I saw Rumer remove her hand from the first-aid box on the wall, and place a small gun in her suit’s hip pocket.
      Are we in danger from another person? We couldn’t be. Not here on Mars.
      “He could be in trouble, we can’t not help. But, we have to be careful,” Rumer warned me.
      I nodded while we stepped into the airlock. It was faster to leave than come back in. No de-duster on the way out.
      I wonder if he is Mars Born? I thought as the airlock door let us through and we crept across the length of the HabRov.
      “Hi! Thank you!” the figure signed when we opened the back hatch, ushering him inside.
      We lead him to the rear of the cargo hold and into the airlock. He stumbled a few times and I had to catch him during the de-dusting process, otherwise he would have ended up face first in the wall.
      Rumer waited until after the stranger and I had both removed our helmets to take hers off, never moving her hand from her hip.

      “Thank you for letting me in!” rushed out of him in a lightly accented voice, his hands forming each word in unison with his speech. “I am Taavi. I’m really glad to have found you. Where are you from?”
      Yep. He was most definitely a Martian, like us. He looked too young to be from Earth. Probably not that much younger than us, and we were the oldest Mars Born there were. Furthermore, he signed too fluently to be from Earth. Most people born on Mars had limited to no hearing, so MSL (Martian Sign Language) had