Mars trilogy

Nirgal was feeling sick. Coming from martian gravity to terran gravity was a horid experience for any martian native. After all it was the most dangerous thing a martian could ever do. The gravity combined with the unimaginable variety of viruses, bacteria and diseases in general meant that many martian born people died while visiting. Children of Earth fated not to survive the home planet.
And the same was beginning to happen in the outer solar system - martians were settling moons of all the gas giants or hollowing asteroids to live inside a rotating ball. Never to survive Mars again.

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.

The first martian colonists, known as the first hundred, was a strange mix of nationalities. Most of them were Americans or Russians, but many were from other countries. All of them brilliant. With such a mix, it was perhaps not so surprising they didn’t stay in one place but scattered all over the planet, bringing great impact as individuals.
When the second large group of settlers landed, they were all japanese. The second martian city ever was fated to endure through all the problems of ensuing decades, influencing history as a unified force, still inhabited by those who founded it.

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.”

In just days the first settlers will land on Mars. However, before that comes the aerobreaking. A difficult but necessary maneuver. Their ship, the Ares, couldn’t hold enough fuel to stop itself, so they had to use Mars’s own atmosphere to slow them down. It was highly dangerous - hit the atmosphere at an angle only a few miliseconds of arc lower and burn. Hit it a bit higher, don’t decelerate enough and hurtle to certain death in the outer space.
The Ares shook and trembled violently for a while.
Suddenly, it stopped.
The approach was perfect.
The colonisation may proceed.

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.

John Boone, the first man on Mars, was the first to see them. They were so small, that many could live in a corner of any house. The color of martian stone, you could see them only when they wanted. They tried to talk to the lumbering giants, whose actions and fights they couldn’t understand. Shouting in many an ear. But it was only John who listened. And when he died, the little red people almost gave up. However, it’s said it was their combined telepathic voice, that kicked the martians into creating the new order after the second 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...

The martian land was destroyed and being destroyed. Ripped apart by the terraforming. By the mining. Four billion years of almost unchanging rock. And everyone everywhere destroying it. Ann Clayborne was watching through the window. The martian landscape so old and beautiful. She was a geologist - how could she not love that land? How could she not hate all that was done to it? Infested by life, flooded, bled dry by mines... So many years of trying to protect it. And all for nothing. She put on a pressure suit. Out of the airlock. Just lie on the rock waiting...

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.