Cargo to Callisto

In a crimson‑tinged Martian night, a quartet of ruthless Aarnian fugitives slips away, forcing the planetary patrol to launch an airtight net that seems impossible to breach. On the banks of the Great Canal, a mixed‑heritage family—Joe, his half‑Martian wife Sarah, and their friends—find themselves thrust into a tense scramble after a mysterious broadcast warns of the shape‑shifting criminals’ ability to possess unsuspecting bodies. The narrative blends the gritty realism of frontier life on a colonized Mars with a creeping, otherworldly menace that makes even the familiar landscape feel unsettling.

As the group gathers around a battered skimmer, the eerie warning forces them to confront a new reality: anyone boarding an interworld liner may soon be subject to invasive psycho‑screenings. Their uneasy camaraderie is tested by fear, suspicion, and the looming threat that the Aarnian predators could already be among them, hidden behind ordinary faces. The story captures the uneasy balance between survival, trust, and the unknown in a frontier world where danger can slip through even the tightest nets.