The First Sol – Elena Markova’s Arrival (Part 2)

Vostok Outpost – Sector Epsilon, Mars Mining Zone Mars Year 69, Sol 90

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Six weeks ago, Elena Markova could barely walk on Mars. Now, she was part of a maintenance crew deep inside the Vostok Outpost mines. But fitting in wasn’t enough at Vostok. You had to survive, too.

The composite glove clicked into place at the wrist ring. Her fingers tensed briefly under the dark gray flexible fabric, then relaxed. With a smooth, practiced motion, she pulled the strap across her wrist and felt the suit’s micro-hydraulic fibers aligning with her movements.

There was pressure in the Vostok service sector—a cold, thin atmosphere, breathable, but barely. The work suit protected them from dust, steam bursts, and the constant thermal shifts, but it still let them crawl, slide, and work through the narrow shafts.

Elena Markova

She tested her range of motion with bent, deliberate steps. No more wobbling, no more overcautious movements. Mars had taught her: every step had to be intentional. It wasn’t gravity pulling her down—it was the lack of it that demanded constant attention.

Almost unconsciously, she ran the edge of her glove across her forehead. As if she could wipe away sweat that wasn’t there. All it did was smear the grime, like always. When the work got intense, nobody wore helmets in the low-pressure zones, even if regulations said they should.

Cold white light leaked through the seams in the ceiling panels, catching the fine dust in the air and scattering it like sparks. The walls were heavy metal plates, coated in thick gray insulation, rust-burned in places where moisture had condensed and frozen during the temperature swings.

Across the corridor, a few figures moved around a drill head awaiting repair. They wore the same composite protective suits used in all the internal zones—lightweight but reinforced at the knees, shoulders, elbows, and chest. Those armored pads took the hits from rough surfaces, sudden knocks, even the occasional microfracture. Heating wires ran between the layers, keeping their core temps stable in freezing sectors.

The suits were flexible enough for crawling through tight ducts, but tough enough for quick external repairs too—just snap on the lightweight helmet and the portable breather unit. Most people at Vostok wore them everywhere—canteens, workshops, even off-shift. It was a style choice, really. Some threw a jacket over it. Others didn’t bother.

Elena recognized them: Oleg, Alexei, Irina—her crew. They were pulling cables, loosening connectors. The space echoed with soft metal clinks, tool taps, and the dull pulse of the ventilation fans.

With a final tug, Elena adjusted the tool pouch on her hip and headed toward them.

A crackling voice snapped through the corridor.

"Let’s go, Markova. That drill won’t wait forever."

Misha Volkov. Metallic, impatient, but not unfriendly. Elena had come to understand his rough tone masked someone who’d had her back from day one. He noticed things. He cared—more than most.

She stepped into the humming, narrow corridor where the air was thick with dust and the metallic tang of machinery. Her stride was steady now—quick, quiet. She was no longer the off-worlder stumbling through Mars gravity. She was part of the team.

Volkov grabbed the support handle and yanked the drill head back, every muscle tight with effort. The structure groaned, but moved—reluctantly, obediently. The system registered the start of a maintenance cycle and hissed as the pneumatic cylinders began to fill automatically.

But on Vostok, whenever possible, they did it by hand.

The outpost’s gym rarely saw workers like them—blue-collar, grease-stained, silent. The real lifting happened here, in the dust-filled service shafts. If they ever wanted to go back to Earth, they had to keep the muscle. Not memories of machines.

Elena scanned the tablet—status bars all green. For now. Still watching the display, she reached for the locking lever on the support frame.

“Hold,” she muttered. “You’re clear.”

Irina was already moving, kneeling beside the generator, loosening the clamps on the filter module. The metal trembled faintly under her gloves—a sign the drill outside was still humming, alive. She popped the latches one by one. Fast, but careful.

“Status?” Volkov asked, short and sharp.

“Shit,” Irina replied under her breath, dragging out the heavy, dust-clogged filter. “I’m not cleaning this. We swap it.”

Meanwhile, on the other side, Oleg was wrestling with the pressure regulator. He tore the connectors loose with raw force. His tools struck the housing with blunt, hollow thuds.

“These cables are fried,” Oleg growled over his shoulder. “Alexei, bring new ones!”

Alexei was already moving, yanking a handful of cables from his pack. He tossed them to Oleg and dropped to his knees, scraping corrosion off the old connectors.

Their movements were second nature. Elena had been working with this crew for weeks now—dozens of maintenance ops behind them. While Oleg cleaned the pressure sensor, her gaze drifted toward the intake slit on the filtration system.

Something was off.

The filter modules weren’t getting airflow head-on—they were being hit at an angle, almost from the side. The dust didn’t disperse evenly; instead, it slammed into a single strip across each surface, leaving thick, gray streaks. She squinted, trying to see if there were pre-filter layers deeper in—but the interior was too shadowed.

Within minutes, every filter, connector, and sensor was back in place. Irina and Oleg both leaned back, raising their hands in the usual silent signal: done. Alexei stepped away as well.

Volkov responded by unlocking the stabilizer lever. Bracing himself, he started muscling the frame back into its original position. The drill head began to lower slowly.

Then—something inside jerked. A sudden sideways lurch knocked it off balance.

“Stop!” Irina shouted, but it was too late.

With a sharp crack, the pressure sensor jutting from the side of the housing snapped clean off—like a dry twig.

Silence.

“Son of a—” Oleg hissed between his teeth, jumping to inspect the damage.

Volkov strained against the support frame, locking his body to keep the module from sinking any further. Muscles bunched under his composite suit. Elena glanced at the tablet—flashing warnings lit up the screen: Reboot sequence imminent.

“Ten seconds to restart!” Irina shouted.

Elena dove for her bag. In one motion, she pulled out the backup pressure sensor. She snapped the broken stub off with her glove and slotted the new unit into place. The angle was bad—Volkov wasn’t holding the head quite right—so she had to find the alignment by feel alone, fingertips searching blind.

“Done!” she yelled, jumping back and raising both hands like Irina and Oleg had earlier.

Volkov didn’t hesitate. He released the frame.

Elena dove for her bag. In one motion, she pulled out the backup pressure sensor. She snapped the broken stub off with her glove and slotted the new unit into place.

The drill head slammed down with a heavy clunk, settled, and the module thudded gently as it locked into position.

On the tablet, the new sensor’s indicator blinked green. A second later, the drill module began to hum again—it was back online. The echoes faded. Only the soft rumble of machinery remained. Oleg stepped up to Elena and gave her a wordless pat on the shoulder.

“That was sharp, Lena,” he muttered. “If we’d had to abort the restart, we’d be looking at a 24-hour shutdown—and we’d all be scratching our asses writing reports.”

He adjusted his gear and turned back toward the module.

Elena just nodded. Her heart was pounding, but she didn’t show it. This wasn’t a place for celebrating yourself. Mars didn’t applaud anyone—it just let you keep working.

She rose without a word and stepped closer to the intake slit. Just as she suspected: the pre-filter layers were missing—nothing there to catch the larger debris.

No wonder they rot out every month, she thought. Bad angle, no pre-filtration—guaranteed filter death.

She was just about to turn back to share her observation when the access hatch hissed open. Another crew pushed through, heading toward the next drill head. Judging by the massive components on their shoulders, it looked like a full replacement job. Behind them, the supply bot beeped in frustration, scuttling along empty.

Elena recognized them—loudmouths. Always hanging around the canteen, always talking shit. She avoided them there, but there was no sidestepping them here.

She stepped back toward the wall instinctively, suddenly aware that half the new crew had locked eyes on her. One of them—a shirtless man somehow sweating in the cold shaft—stepped closer, drill rods slung over his shoulder. She remembered his name: Kolyakov. She never forgot the names of men she knew she'd eventually have to deal with.

“Well, well, Blondie,” he sneered. “You want me to wipe that dirty little forehead of yours? Come here—uncle’ll show you how to wash up properly.”

He moved in, one hand reaching toward her face. Elena slapped it away.

“Back off, you pig.”

The drill rods clattered to the ground. Kolyakov’s face turned red as he stepped into her space.

“What’d you say, you squinty-eyed little bitch?!”

She backed up, defensive—and ran right into Oleg standing behind her.

“Back off, you pig.”

All four of them were on their feet now. Kolyakov’s crew saw the shift, dropped their loads, and started forward.

Then everything stopped.

Volkov was already there, pressing the barrel of a 20-kilo impulse driver straight into Kolyakov’s mouth. His expression left no room for interpretation.

The tool—nicknamed “the poker” by the miners—did exactly what the name implied. If Volkov activated it, the electromagnetic pulse wouldn’t just knock out Kolyakov’s teeth—it’d likely realign his whole jaw.

Everyone on the outpost knew Volkov. They also knew where he came from. Kolyakov raised both hands and backed off, his crew following in step. Misha Volkov shadowed him all the way to the door—without saying a single word.

Irina stepped beside Elena, who was still frozen in a defensive stance, and rested a hand on her shoulder.

“They did the same thing to me,” she said quietly. “You landed with the best crew.”

Elena gave a silent nod. She’d learned not to show emotion.

At the far end of the service corridor, near the airlock doors, stood a glass-and-steel booth welded together from spare panels—Chief Engineer Lyudmila Vetrova’s downstairs office, as everyone called it. It was barely more than a boxed-in observation post, but everyone knew that little door led to one of two places: shift sign-off—or straight back to hell.

The crew walked the corridor in silence. Damp dust clung to the metal grate under their boots. Elena’s shoulder ached from the weight of the tool pack. Volkov carried the quiet tension of a man one breath away from detonating. Irina’s face was stiff, unreadable—like the sealed airlock ahead.

Oleg was the first to speak.

“We’ll do the talking,” he murmured, nodding toward Alexei. “The Chief likes the boys. Has a thing against women.”

Alexei grinned but stayed quiet. Elena kept her eyes forward, pretending she hadn’t heard. But she couldn’t lie to herself—she knew exactly what they meant.

As they stopped in front of the door, the ceiling lights buzzed and flickered overhead. Inside the office, the silhouette of Lyudmila Vetrova moved behind the glass. The reflection of the dust-covered, helmet-toting crew distorted across the surface, warped by the sterile lighting—like they didn’t belong here, even from the other side.

The door slid open, and for a moment the world inside and outside blurred: metal, dust, sweat—then plastic-paneled walls, clinical lighting, a narrow desk, and behind it, Lyudmila Vetrova.

She’d been waiting. Her hair was tied back, her face unreadable, her movements measured. One hand gripped a digital notepad, the other clutched a coffee cup like it might make the next few minutes tolerable.

As the crew filed in, she looked up and forced a smile.

“What have you brought me today, boys?” she asked in a sing-song voice, then scanned them like she was counting how much grime each pair of boots had dragged in. She very deliberately ignored Irina and Elena.

Oleg broke the silence.

“One filter, two sensors, three snapped nerves,” he said with a shrug. “Nothing, a glass of water and a sedative won’t fix.”

Vetrova’s smile stayed stretched across her face. She didn’t laugh. Didn’t scold him either. Just scribbled something on the pad and skimmed the display.

“I’ll want a report on the pressure sensor failure,” she said, still addressing the men like they alone were responsible for everything that happened in the sector.

Her gaze moved across the team—then paused, just slightly, on Elena. Something flickered at the corner of her mouth. A smile, maybe. But it didn’t touch her eyes.

“Besides...” she said softly, almost to herself, “I heard there was some... hmm... disturbance at the drill heads this afternoon.”

She wasn’t referring to the report. The tone, the pause, the glance—it was aimed squarely at Elena. Everyone in the room understood it: this wasn’t about equipment anymore.

“It’s unfortunate,” Vetrova continued, her voice syrupy, “when a team’s dynamic shifts because of a little lady. But then—” she sighed, trying on the tone of someone playing reasonable, “—this isn’t the kind of place where Cinderella gets to turn the heads of hardworking men. Please, Markova, keep the flirting in the canteen.”

Oleg cleared his throat, then gave a sheepish grin.

“You know how it is, Lyudmila. Us miners are a rough bunch around women.” His voice was casual, but his eyes were already searching for an escape. “This wasn’t ‘Cinderella’. Just the usual shaft heat. You know that yourself.”

The room dropped a few degrees.

Irina straightened, folded her arms, and spoke in a quiet, cutting voice:

“The little lady saved the shift. And if anyone brought conflict into that shaft, it wasn’t Elena. Maybe if the Chief Engineer paid closer attention to her own crew—especially the women on it—she wouldn’t be blaming them. She’d be protecting them.”

Vetrova’s face didn’t move. But her eyes hardened.

“Then let’s dig deeper,” she said, barely above a whisper, glancing down at her pad like it held the chapter title she needed. There was no anger in her voice—just the cold, precise edge of someone about to carve cleanly through the room.

“Another pressure sensor snapped. Seven filter cartridges straight to the trash. The system wasn’t maintained—it was replaced. Because someone decided cleaning wasn’t worth the hassle.”

Lyudmila looked up. She wasn’t smiling anymore.

“I don’t know how clear this is to you gentlemen, but Moscow hasn’t exactly been generous lately. They’ve been sending... well, one nearly empty supply ship. And this woman.”

She paused.

“You don’t need an engineering degree from Moscow to do math. At this rate, we’ll know exactly when this mine shuts down. And when it does, you’re going back. Homeless. Or gang meat on Earth.”

Elena slowly lifted her head. Her eyes were dark, sharp. A stillness fell over the room like it was holding its breath.

“If you pulled your head out of your ass, Chief Engineer,” she said quietly, each word like a blow, “you’d notice all those lost parts are because of badly designed airflow.”

For a second, the words just hung there. The crew froze. The atmosphere tilted—like a filter chamber left too long, ready to rupture. Vetrova didn’t move. Her gaze locked on Elena, cool and watchful. She didn’t rush her reply. Just studied her like a faulty component—one to be reinstalled or discarded.

“So, it’s not enough you pull attention from the men, Markova,” she said at last, voice sharp as a pry bar against a steel edge. “Now you question your superiors, too. Not exactly the secret to a long life out here.”

“Now you question your superiors, too. Not exactly the secret to a long life out here.”

She slapped the pad onto the desk.

“Get the hell out of my office. If Ivanov yells at me about losses again... I’ll know who to name.”

Elena’s body went tight. Then, without a word, she turned and walked out.

No one looked at anyone. Volkov followed silently. Oleg shrugged. Alexei shut the door quickly behind him. Irina gave Vetrova one hard look, then headed after the others.

In the corridor, the only sound was the scuff and knock of boots on the metal floor, the crew walking in silence back toward the airlock. The overhead lights still flickered—only now they seemed colder. The shift was over. The dust had settled. The machines were quiet.

But the tension stayed in the walls.

---

This short story is a standalone narrative set in the same extended universe of the Mars Chronicles, featuring some of the same characters in a parallel storyline. While it can be read independently, it adds depth to the broader Mars settlement world. If you're interested in exploring more from this universe, you can find available chapters from ICARUS here: https://www.themarschronicles.com/blog/categories/book