Martian Intafada part two

Seigo Miyauchi, called by everyone on Mars by his nickname Seigo-dono, was furious and getting angrier as he sat at his very functional shiny steel desk reading over security reports. As the head of security on Mars he commanded not only police but the military forces as well. This meant that the only person over him was the governor, it also mean that the end responsibility of all security matters fell on him.

He had been on Mars for 2 years and while at first everything was running smoothly, for the last six months more and more equipment had started to disappear. It had started with a box of drill bits, a case of screws some wall spray and then it had gone on to bigger items, CO2 scrubbers, an entire shipment of grow lights and now these fools were saying that they had lost three boxcars. All Seigo-dono could wonder was how on red Mars do you lose just one boxcar, not to mention three boxcars.

And now he was looking at the accident reports and there was a spike in the number of workers dying this month. There had been a steady increase in the number of accidents over the last 4 months and last month there had been an explosion which killed 45 workers. All of them burned beyond recognition, so one of the doctors had to use medical records to identify the bodies.

He had talked to Governor Okamoto about this, but Okamoto did not want to hear anything that even resembled bad news. No, Hoshi Okamoto only wanted good news, which he could use to lure Japanese colonists to Mars, who would then build his great and prosperous Mars colony. Okamoto also simply reminded him that as he was in charge of security, that it was his problem to solve.

Seigo-dono thought about going to Ryoji Noguchi, The head of mining operations on Mars which was the whole reason they were on Mars, as it was the mining equipment that was disappearing but thought better of it. Ryoji was a pain who even Seigo-Dono thought overworked the workers. Seigo-dono had even once said, ’that if the workers revolt it will be because of Ryoji.’

Seigo-dono paused for a moment his chain of thought swerving for a moment. What if the workers are stealing this stuff to build a hidden base or colony. He shook his head, no, far more likely they had a hidden khat farm in some cave they had managed to pressurize. Of course just to be on the safe side he would request more men and have the number of guards on the weapon lockers increased.

If there was a workers rebellion brewing it was very low key. The only men he had lost were 3 soldiers whose patrol had disappeared in a dust storm last month.He gulped down some ice water. Perhaps I should make sure I and all the other officiers always have on our side arms.