We just passed the check-point beacon. We'd be prepping for atmospheric operations, getting ready to land, if we were going to Mars...and if Mars was still there. But it isn't. Not really. There's just a lot of rocks, an expanding cloud of dust, and the webs. Posthuman hybrids, more arachnid than human any longer, like the Podder's skipper, have taken to stitching together the larger clusters of debris. They're erecting a series of overlapping layers of Fullerene-doped silk strands, sewing a sort of helter-skelter Bedouin's tent anchored to any and every chunk of rock, ice or whatever other debris they can find. They haven't been able to salvage much. Officially. The Dholes destroyed things pretty thoroughly. They still find a few of the damned things writhing about within the deeper pockets of some of the larger pieces. There's a cadre of Ghouls stationed out here that I'm not supposed to know about. They talk to the Dholes in their dreams. There's a lot of stuff like that in the ampules the Quartermaster gave me. I wonder who he's working for, who he thinks he's working for? Why tell me about this? Mars is dead to me. Let it rest in pieces.
