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The Martian court had lost contact with the Terran colony several millenia ago. This was to be expected—Terra had no endemic infrastructure to enable interplanetary communication so once the technology was damaged or worn out there was no way to fix or replace it. It was only about a hundred years ago that they started receiving messages from the small-ish, blue planet. The Martians had no way of interpreting them, the technology that Terra was using was so ancient, something must have happened to cause them to lose their technological achievements. And trying to send messages back was fruitless, based on what little technology Terra had. By the time the Martians were able to make their sensors interpret what Terra was transmitting, there was one very clear message.
The Terrans had colonized their natural satellite.
The King of Mars decided that this was the point when the Terrans were ready to learn of their origins. How proud they would be to discover their ancient and noble Martian history. He sent his right-hand man, a Martian called Paq, to go ahead of him and observe the colony.
Paq, for what it was worth, found the job utterly useless. The Terrans hadn’t even figured out artificial gravity yet, much less that they weren’t alone in the system. He couldn’t help but think that the whole thing was a bit premature for a “first contact” situation.
And it didn’t help that there were Venerean spies near the colony site.
Paq spotted them two sols into his mission. They seemed confused by the colony and constantly muttered things like “How did they get there?” and “What will she say?”. Paq wasn’t too terribly concerned with the reason that the Venereans were there, but he was concerned with keeping them from interfering with official Martian business.
It was T minus 30 minutes from the King’s arrival that he walked into the Venerean camp.
“How now, spirits.”
The Venereans jumped. The one in yellow trained a rifle on Paq, but the one in pink (their leader, Paq assumed) turned it away.
“Martian,” the one in pink said.
“Quite right,” Paq said. “What are you doing here?”
“We are preparing for the Queen’s arrival,” she said.
Shit. Paq thought. “The Queen. The Venerean Queen. The Queen of Venus, that queen?”
“…Yes,” the one in pink continued. “She had sent a train of colonists to Terra several millenia ago and now that they have started to reach out amongst the stars themselves, she has decided to come and reveal herself to them.”
“Impossible,” Paq said. “Terra is a Martian colony. The King is passing here, you cannot allow the Queen to come near.”
“The King?” the one in pink exclaimed.
“Wait a moment,” another Venerean in blue stepped forward. “Unless I am mistaken… are you not Paq, right hand of the King of Mars?”
“Got it in one,” Paq said.
“If you will excuse me, sir Paq,” the one in pink said. “If you would observe the colony, you would find that there are descendants of Venereans as well as Martians.”
“What?”
The one in pink handed him a set of binoculars and he looked towards the colony. What looked to be a Venerean was arguing with several Martians, one of whom seemed to be in command. In another chamber, a Venerean was pleading with another Martian, who seemed utterly disinterested.
“How could this happen?” Paq asked. “His Majesty claimed Terra for himself.”
“Because that means anything to Her Majesty.”
“…Fair enough, but he is going to be here any moment—”
“Um, he’s here now,” the one in blue said.
Two rockets were descending onto the satellite’s surface.
“And our Queen,” the one in yellow said.
“Would that he were gone,” the one in pink said.
The rockets descended in clouds of smoke and dust. Paq lifted his arm to shield his eyes. The thrusters on each were cut and with a loud hiss, the doors opened. From one came the King of Mars, dressed in red, with a train of servants and scientists behind him. From the other, the Queen of Venus, in peach and cream, with her own train standing guard.
“Ill met by moonlight,” the King said. “Proud Titania.”
“Ill met by moonlight,” the Queen returned. “Jealous Oberon.”