Excerpt: Last Haven

He watched the red sky above, swirling with clouds from the distant duststorm. It was a rather stunning sight. Reds, oranges, and yellows marbled through each other, indicating a coming wind. The vista was occasionally broken by a streak of white lightning.

It had taken centuries, but man had eventually conquered Mars. The ability to reach the red planet had come none too soon. Earth had been going through a gradual change. Normal climatic cycles were being accelerated by not only polution and a depleted ozone layer, but the sun was aging. It had grown exponentially in size, engulfing Mercury and turning Venus into a barren desert. Earth was becoming dangerous to known life.

Humans had begun the gradual migration towards planets further away. In an effort to survive, explorations among the meteor belt and further continued as the population exploded on Mars. Between biodomes, terraforming and, now, the aging sun, the red planet had slowly become hospitable. But the environment was only half the story.

The young man gazing skyward was a refugee. His parents had managed to stow away on a freighter leaving Earth, seeking a better life on Mars. Earthers were looked down upon now, as those with the funds to leave had already done so, leaving behind anyone who wasn't 'worthy' enough. But Mars wasn't without those struggling to make it day to day. Stowaways and refugees... people who spent every last dime to come to the red planet... they lined the streets and alleyways of the domes, the modern equivalent of an ancient metropolis. This young man was one of them... a street rat seemingly doomed to live out his days as a petty thief, scraping the gutters for sustenance and life.

His parents never saw Mars. Surviving the long journey in a cargo hold was dangerous and many refugees never reached their goal, whether found and executed by ruthless pilots, or just slowly whithering to their deaths from lack of food and water. Like so many before them, they perished on the journey, the exposure from such a long journey with none of the normal safety precautions of a passenger cabin a merciless killer. He was alone, and, now, he preferred it that way. No one to look after, no one to answer to... he was free to do as he pleased... so long as he didn't get caught.

Maxwell Cornwallis was no one's pawn.