Mars trilogy

The planet was blanketed by the great storm. From space, to the many people arriving to its orbit, Mars looked only like a blurred ball with no features visible. It was the longest global sandstorm in the known history. It lasted for more then one martian year already with no sign of slackening.
Sax Russell, the leading terraformer of Mars was considering the sand fixing strategies he introduced in past decades. Considering how the storm hinders all terraforming efforts. In ignorance and total uncomprehension of people’s indignation at never seeing more then a meter of the planet at one time.

After six months in a spaceship, they were there. Finally. They were all running around and immensely enjoying themeselves. But there was a lot do. Many things were delivered to Mars long before the settlers arrived. So they had a lot of unpacking to do, not to mention making the temporary shelters work. Right now Hiroko Ai was trying to open a door of one of the shelters.
“Stuck,” she cried. Nadia went to help. She bashed the door several times at the right places.
When Hiroko looked at her in astonisment, Nadia said with a cheerful grin: “Engineer’s solution.”

Arkady Nikelyovich Bogdanov, one of the first colonists, was ready. He travelled all over Mars and everywhere created a big impact. Telling people controlled by earth corporations that they should be free to do anything they wished. Speaking with such enthusiasm. Building hidden shelters everywhere. Crafting weapons. All of Mars except terran police and corporate troops was backing the revolution. He knew all about the huge terran militaries, but they weren’t on Mars. The martian gravity well was overcome by a space elevator, but the shear distance was huge. He laughed madly and with a single call started the revolution.

One day Hiroko Ai, a leader of the famous hidden colony, heard young Nirgal calling: “The sky is falling!” She came out of her bamboo dwelling and saw that part of the ice from a roof indeed fell and a few icebergs were floating on a lake in the middle of her habitat. She sighed. Living hidden under the southern polar cap was becoming difficult. After a few decades of terraforming, the global temperatures were rising and the polar ice was slowly disappearing. They’ll have to do something about that. She shuddered at a thought of leaving their hidden sanctuary...

When he entered, Saxifrage Russell was sitting at his desk reading. John Boone, the first man on Mars, smiled. It looked like results and statistics from the many experiments Sax was doing as a head of terraforming.
He’s such a paradigm of science, Boone thought. He even wears a lab coat.
John was recently amused by a story he overheard. A hundred rats with hightened intelligence retroinjected their minds into a lab technician. Saxifrage Russell, a blinking conglomeration of some hundred hyper-intelligent rats.
“Here’s my investigation into the sabotages. There’s even some statistics for you to enjoy,” John said smirking.

Nadezhda Francine Chernyshevski, creator of Underhill, the first human settlement on Mars, formerly known as general Nadia from the second revolution, formerly member of the martian executive council and president of Mars to boot, was immensely enjoying her new freedom. After three m-years of being in the middle of the newly formed martian state, constantly immersed in its politics or internal bickering of all sorts, she could finally get back to what she loved. Building. Not just programming AIs to do it, as was usual, but working the machines herself. Building the martian capital. Doing real work for a change!