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The notices have been posted. All expeditions have returned, and secured their Scout Vessels.

You should all have removed breakables from your shelves and tables, and seen to the comforts of your pets and or children.

Everyone should be orbiting a comfortable place to sustain some gee forces, although there will be sufficient warning.

All exterior ports are secured, distribution pipelines set to standby, and safety valves engaged.

On-shift pilots are standing by to monitor the launch protocol. (Our shuttle/rockets will be ganged together in their operating procedure, but it is always a good idea to have human eyes double-checking things.)

Automatic systems set to standby, including the spherical elevator car system.

Tunnel entrance to nearby domed-over crater secured shut at both ends, and intermediate airlocks. Those brave and hardy, (perhaps fool-hardy), colonists who wish to remain in the new dome have debarked with all of their belongings and supplies.

Two of our shuttle rockets will be remaining behind to service this new colony. In addition to the capacity of their solar-cell banks, they will have eight nuclear reactors to supply power for their endeavor, and I presume they will rapidly expand the area and volume devoted to growing plants.

Obviously they will have to work hard, but they will have, for a time, an incomparable degree of privacy and freedom. Godspeed, Mars Colony!

It’s time for us to rejoin our Habitats A and B, still in high orbit. (I’ve been looking forward to a few meals in my favorite Habitat A restaurant!)

Once we go through the maneuvers to link up with them, we will remain in Mars orbit for a couple more weeks, while our specially equipped shuttles retrieve more atmosphere from Mars to be used as rocket propellant.

We should have enough propellant to return to Earth, and then some, but we aren’t going there right away. First stop, the asteroids!

We just need to top off our tanks while we can. Filling stations are few and far between out here.

Everybody ready?