Olympus Mons

I will never forget the day Rancor scaled the summit of Olympus Mons. Our Martian sun, though smaller and dimmer than the shining brilliance of Earth, tenderely kissed the horizon and radiated the simmering red that would become so famous.

Or do we dance with infamy? Do our feet hit the floor with ill-intent? It was Rancor, standing against that radiant red sky, who planted our flag on the top of our Martian world. It was Rancor, his breath fogging the glass of his Earth-made helmet, that gazed into the billowing black smoke of the early terraformers and saw something more than a place for Earth to pillage without thought or consequence. I remember that he turned to me and his black eyes flared with the fiery reflection of that red sky, and I stood in bewildered awe before the first true Martian. Not Hadfield, whose Earth boots were the first to be dusted red by our Martian clay. Not Plyskov, whose terraforming giants first drilled into our Martian bedrock and darkened the sky.

No, it was Rancor, who on the summit of Olympus Mons screamed at the blue jewel in the sky and declared this planet for us, demanded those on Earth that Mars was no longer a thing to be used and discarded so that they may live out their greedy lives. That we, the first Martians, held more value and worth than we had ever been afforded.

When we can back down from the mountain, he gathered us under that red sky. The great Rancor stood apart, the low Martian sun throwing his body into an imposing silhouette, and when he spoke his voice cut through the Martian air like the stinging whiptails that split his back apart when he tried to save his father. As he gazed at the throngs of people standing before him it seemed to us as if he looked into each person, saw the turmoil swirling beneath the surface and with each word he raised us up out of the muck.

"Their best and brightest tore through this land, our land!

*OUR LAND!* We called back to him and pounded our fists against our suits in unison, the Rancor way. The Martian way.

"They scoured and penetrated the heart of this planet, our planet!"

*OUR PLANET*

"Do we not toil? Do we not sweat, and bleed, and ache, and bend, and break? We do not break for them! We do not bleed for them! We but break for her, our Mars!"

*OUR MARS!*

"We are for us, for our wives and daughters, our husbands and sons, our mothers and fathers, our minds, our hearts!"

*OUR HEARTS!*

"Yet we are placid, we are cowering, we are at the mercy of Earth, and for what? Why do we betray the very thing that makes us who we are? For food? For water? For oxygen? We beg and scrape and snivel for what no human should ever have to beg and scrape and snivel for! Are you Earthlings?"

*NO!*

"Who are you? WHO ARE YOU?"

*WE ARE MARTIAN!*

"Then let us be at their mercy, NO MORE!"

And with that Rancor the First, the True, the Great, tore off his helmet and drew Martain breath.

Our world stopped. We stood there as Rancor laughed and cried, taking in the Martian air. They lied to us. Trapped us in their prisons of steel and glass. He stripped off his Earth-made suit and with it any remnant of loyalty to the blue jewel in the sky.

I knew, there and then, as red Martian dust swirled around him and the hundreds of thousands that stood around me stripped off their suits and helmets, that freedom had come to Mars.

Our war with Earth had begun.