illphated
The Outpost at Red Rock Junction”
By Illphated
Her name was Cassidy Lane, but folks just called her Cass.
Cass didn’t come to Mars for the glory. She didn’t sign up to terraform, to mine lithium, or to log hours in some Martian corporate compound.
She came to build something small and real.
At the edge of Red Rock Junction, where the crimson cliffs scrape the Martian sky, Cass opened the first country store on Mars. No flashy franchise. No QR-code kiosks or AI bartenders. Just a handmade sign that read:
“Cass’s General Goods & Fuel—Open Sunrise to Sundown, Earth Time.”
Out front, parked in the dust, sat her F-150, retrofitted with ion tires and solar panels. She shipped it from Texas before the last SpaceX freighter stopped service. Some things, she figured, were worth the extra cost. Freedom was one of them.
Inside the store? You’d find jerky, moonshine, solar fuel cells, cowboy hats, oxygen packs, and the occasional six-shooter. Some people laughed at the guns.
But Mars wasn’t like Earth.
There weren’t any police out here. No governors. No HOA. Just empty red plains, feral AI rovers that had gone rogue, and the shadows of settlers who never checked back in.
Cass liked it that way.
She ran the store, tuned her truck, and listened to old outlaw country records as the Martian sun set beyond the cliffs. No one told her what to do, and no one came knocking after dark unless they had a damn good reason.
Visitors came from settlements miles away just to buy a can of real coffee or share a drink under the vapor-lit neon sign. They’d stare at her F-150 like it was some kind of relic.
But Cass just tipped her hat and smiled.
“Some folks build cities,” she’d say, “me? I build outposts.”
And in a universe gone corporate, that little slice of freedom was worth more than all the crypto-credits in the colonies.
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illphated.com
Cowboys. Mars. Freedom outposts.