Lovers and Lunatics (Mars Adventure Romance Series Book 2)

by Jennifer Willis

  “Sid.” Dana’s mouth twisted into a shape that caught somewhere between contempt and desire. “Let’s get right down to it, shall we?”

  Sid spread his arms wide. “By all means.”

  This time Dana did smile, but it was hard and uncompromising. “Show me your junk, space hunk.”

  Hovering just over Gary’s shoulder, Hannah choked back a laugh as she adjusted the wall-mounted camera to capture the interaction between the two captains.

  Manny was less circumspect. “Good one, cap,” he chortled as he motioned the Midden’s two remaining crew members through the hatch and into the Churly Flint’s docking bay. Gary studied the movements of Sid’s underlings—a man and a woman, both twenty-somethings. He watched for subtle maneuvers he might copy, so he could navigate more expertly through a space ship in zero-gravity.

  It took him a couple of seconds to recognize that the wide-eyed young woman was gawping at him.

  “Sid!” she exclaimed in an excited whisper as she tapped her skipper repeatedly on the back. “Sid! Look!”

  Sid turned to follow her frantic gesturing. Registering Hannah and Gary for the first time, his brows crinkled into a wary frown even as his smile broadened. Gary had to admit it was a neat trick.

  “And who have we here?” Sid tipped his head toward his rival. “Dana, aren’t you going to introduce me to your new crew?”

  “Not my crew.” Dana seemed anxious to correct any misapprehension of a true alliance between her ship and a reality TV show. Instead of feeling offended at her disavowal, Gary found his admiration for the Churly Flint chief tick up a notch.

  “Space Junkers, man!” Manny exclaimed with a vigorous laugh. “Making us all famous and everything.”

  “Sid, it’s . . . It’s . . .” The young woman stammered as she gestured toward Gary. “It’s the Face of Space.”

  Sid’s concern shifted to confusion and finally to mirth. “I’m sorry. It’s the who of what, now?”

  “The Face of Space,” she said again, emphasizing her words with a care that bordered on reverence. Her voice had risen slightly above a whisper now, and her open-mouthed awe had morphed into the grinning, teary giggles of an enthralled fan.

  Gary hadn’t expected to encounter an admirer in orbit. The extent of his exposure to other human beings on this assignment should have been limited to the three-person crew of the Churly Flint, and he’d been relieved when neither Dana nor her team appeared to care about his celebrity one way or the other.

  But this display was uncomfortable and a little embarrassing, for everyone.

  Gary turned to gauge Hannah’s reaction. She didn’t look particularly impressed, even as she positioned her body cam to frame Gary and his space zealot.

  Sid held his hand out to Gary. “Sid Sturbin, captain of the Midden.”

  “Gary Nelson.” Gary struggled to maintain a straight face as he accepted the man’s handshake. He wanted to ask Sid how he felt about running a ship named after a dunghill. But then the Midden and the Churly Flint were both salvage ships, the contracted scavengers of the new orbital ecosystem.

  At Gary’s announcement of his name, the young woman let out an excited “Whoop!” and then quickly clapped her hand over her widening grin.

  Sid gestured toward his team. “My crew. Joey Snarf. And this is Barbie Goggle-Belver.” The young woman squealed again. “Obviously a fan of yours.”

  Putting the exceptional oddness of her name out of his mind, Gary smiled at her and extended his hand. “Always good to meet a—oof!”

  Without preamble and ignoring his proffered handshake, Barbie launched herself directly at Gary and wrapped her entire, short-limbed body around his in a tight squeeze.

  “I love everything you do!” she exclaimed, too loud and too high-pitched, directly in his ear. “You’re just amazing.”

  Gary tried to extricate himself from Barbie’s four-limbed grip, but she was holding on tight. He managed to rotate himself—and Barbie—around far enough to catch Hannah’s eye in a silent plea for help, but the smirk on his producer’s face let him know that she was enjoying his predicament way too much—and was recording every second of it.

  “I had no idea you’d be here!” the girl babbled into his ear. “I mean, what are the odds! It’s the like the best lucky day ever, to meet you.”

  “Okay, Barbie.” Sid chuckled. “That’s enough.”

  Gary opened his arms wide, giving the young woman further invitation to release him, but she just squeezed harder, which he hadn’t thought possible.

  “I can’t believe it!” she gushed, as though Gary had been sent into orbit expressly for her personal delight. “This is so amazing! You are my absolute favorite—”

  “Barbie!” Sid barked. “Enough now.”

  Reluctantly, Barbie loosened her hold on Gary and slowly disengaged from him. As she backed away and took her place at her captain’s side, she smiled up at Gary from beneath lowered lashes—a look Gary supposed was intended to be coquettish but instead simply highlighted the soft, awkward fuzziness of her features. It was like her olive face and short, dark hair weren’t quite in focus. She wasn’t unattractive; she just hadn’t grown into herself quite yet.

  Sid offered Gary a subtle nod of apology, then tipped his head toward Dana, who had maintained her stance of irritation during Gary’s uncomfortable interlude with Barbie. “You’ll have to fill me in on the whole ‘Face of Space’ thing.” He paused. “After we’re done with this business here.”

  Dana held out her hand to Sid. “So. The docking mechanism?”

  “And here I was thinking you’d called over for a rendezvous just because you missed me.” Sid winked at her, and she rolled her eyes.

  “The docking mechanism.” Dana said again. “What do you want for it?”

  Gary glanced at Hannah to confirm that she was recording every bit of this exchange. He doubted the Midden’s crew knew they were on camera. It might be tricky to get them to sign release forms, especially since neither Gary nor Hannah had the authority to offer any compensation. The Churly Flint crew were receiving payment for their access and cooperation, but not even Rufus had counted on a second salvage ship.

  Gary made sure he wasn’t blocking Hannah’s shot. Better to have the footage in the can and have someone on Rufus’s team work out an agreement from the ground than to miss this interplay between rival crews. Apart from the satellite capture, this was the most interesting thing that had happened since he’d come aboard.

  But he wasn’t looking forward to the backlash from the footage of Barbie’s outburst. The team at DayLite thought he was insufferable as it was. He pretended he didn’t hear them talking about him behind his back and ignored every on-set rumor. And he knew Barbie’s enthusiastic admiration would be held against him—one more boon to Gary’s massive ego, they’d call it.

  People like Barbie helped ensure he got to keep his job, but they also made him nervous. It was always a tough spot, trying not to offend an adoring fan while being careful not to offer encouragement, either.

  “Well, now.” Sid reached over his head and grasped the bar-pull of one of the larger storage cupboards to hold himself in place. He stretched out his sinewy frame as though putting on a show for Dana. For a second, Gary wondered if this might be some kind of prank—that Sid would start stripping off his jumpsuit to You Can Leave Your Hat On.

  Instead, Sid floated slightly above Dana, all lean and rugged and smiling down at the Churly Flint captain, daring her to respond.

  Gary heard a small sound from Hannah beside him—was that a murmur of appreciation for the space hunk, or a grunt of frustration with a piece of equipment? Gary was grateful his recent botulinum treatment made it impossible to glower.

  Sid leaned in toward Dana. “I’m told that piece of hardware you’re after is an especially valuable piece of property. Proprietary tech and all that. It seems to me that anyone in possession of such a thing would have the advantage over anyone under contract on that particular c
raft.”

  With an air of poorly disguised ignorance mixed with obvious amusement, Sid turned to his crew. “Say, Joey, didn’t that satellite we saw in the Churly Flint’s grasp on the way in look an awful lot like the—”

  “Cut the crap, Sid.” Dana exhaled an angry sigh. “We both know you have the docking mechanism. I’ve already asked what you want for it.”

  “Aye, I think so, captain,” replied Joey, hanging out near the open hatchway linking the two ships. “I think that’s the very satellite that India and Pak—”

  “What do you want?!” Dana grabbed Sid by the waist and yanked him down to face her. She cut her eyes briefly toward Gary and Hannah.

  Sid laughed. “Well, if I’d known it was a matter of such urgency . . .”

  Gary was amazed Dana hadn’t yet smacked the man. It wasn’t Sid’s looks nor his agreeable manner, but there was something about him that kept his comments from being truly offensive—though he was clearly annoying Dana and delighting in doing so.

  “I mean, I know a woman has needs . . .” Sid grinned wide.

  Dana pushed him away, and he floated across the compartment. Sid laughed and caught himself on the open hatch. Before she could launch at him with either angry words or fists, he raised his hands in surrender.

  “Okay, no more beating around the bush. I get it.” He made his way back over to Dana, whose scowl lightened by degrees at his approach. “We’ve got what you want. I think we can negotiate a trade.”

  Dana waited for him to continue, then sighed and gestured toward him. “And? You know the contract is ours. You know we have the encryption keys, and that we’re not sharing. And I don’t think you’re willing to risk war on the ground over this.”

  Gary looked at Hannah. Had she heard that, too? She gave him a quick nod. She was keeping herself out of the way and not attracting attention, but she was definitely still recording. Gary got a bad feeling there was something real to his earlier suggestions of intrigue.

  Sid shrugged.

  “So? What are hoping for in return?” Dana asked. “What’s so important that you had to disable a dead satellite over it?”

  Sid’s smile was suddenly hesitant, almost bashful. “How about . . . a night with you? In exchange for what we took?”

  Gary blinked. Had the captain of one salvage ship just propositioned the captain of another, asking her to prostitute herself for something that was rightfully hers to begin with? What surprised him the most was the fact that no one else in the compartment—save for Hannah—seemed disturbed by the proposal.

  In fact, Dana appeared to take it in stride. She was still irritated, but she also was . . . softening?

  “Come on, Dana,” Sid coaxed, trying to get her to look at him, trying to get her to smile.

  “A space salvage contract is a sacred thing, Sid.” Dana voice was rough, but was melting by the second. “I can’t believe you’d interfere like this.”

  “Even though I’ve done it before?”

  The corners of Dana’s mouth quirked up. “Even though you’ve done it many times before.” She paused and looked toward the hatch. “You’ve got it with you?”

  “You know I do.” He motioned toward the open doorway. “And it’s yours. No strings attached. You can have it right now. Really, I just wanted to see you. That’s all.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Dana replied. “Manny?”

  Joey perked up. “I’ll show him where it is.” He motioned for Manny to follow as he disappeared through the opening and went back aboard the Midden.

  Sid watched the two disappear through the hatchway, then faced Dana. “So, are we good?”

  She lifted her eyebrows. “You’re done with your shenanigans?”

  “I thought you liked my shenanigans.”

  Dana laughed, and the standoff—or what Gary had perceived as a standoff—evaporated. “You took an awfully big chance, stepping into the middle of this particular contract. Holy crap, Sid. If we hadn’t been able to rendezvous, and if reattaching the docking mechanism you stole doesn’t work . . .”

  “No, no, it’ll work, Dana.”

  The captains regarded each other in silence. Gary caught sight of Barbie, hovering nearby and staring at him. Had she been doing that the entire time? He’d been too interested in the showdown to notice, and now Barbie looked like she was getting ready to approach him again, like she wanted to swallow him whole.

  He turned to his producer. “Hannah, maybe now would be a good time to go over those promos? Or whatever else you need me to do?”

  Hannah shushed him.

  “So, is your offer still good?” Dana asked.

  Sid’s smile widened, and he shoved his hands into his hip pockets. “Your cabin or mine, Captain Jackson?”

  “Mine, Captain Sturbin.”

  “Lead the way.”

  Dana’s smile dimmed when she spotted Gary and Hannah still present in the compartment, and still recording, but she didn’t say a word to either of them as she pushed off the nearest wall and angled toward the front of the ship. Sid followed close behind.

  “Brett, I’ll be in my bunk until further notice,” Dana’s voice came in over the comms. Gary had forgotten he was wearing his headset.

  “Understood,” Brett replied.

  Gary then heard a sharp click on the line as Dana shut off her radio.

  4

  With her earbuds tucked in securely, Hannah scanned through the day’s footage at double-speed, pausing to mark time codes of what she thought would be particularly useful clips for Space Junkers or Mars Ho.

  She’d wedged herself and her equipment into the sparse, upper deck cupboard that had been designated as her berth aboard the Churly Flint. With microgravity allowing her to use pretty much every square centimeter of space, Hannah was surprised how cozy the arrangement was. She had a full-size sleep sack tethered vertically along one long wall, opposite a bank of recessed drawers that easily held everything she’d brought into orbit and kept it all from floating about in her face. There were a couple of lights, including one mounted above her sleep sack that was perfect for reading and working.

  Reviewing her own dailies wasn’t glamorous or even interesting; virtually nothing an associate field producer did would meet either description. But it kept her occupied. She was surprised how mind-numbingly boring space could be, just floating around inside the same ship with no change in the backdrop of dull gray walls, and with too much free time. She imagined the look of horror that would cross Gary’s face if she said such a thing aloud.

  She hadn’t yet approached any of the crew for interviews. She’d want to sit down with Manny in the docking bay, where he seemed most at home, and maybe record Brett’s interview in the ship’s cockpit surrounded by all of the lights and control panels and with that exquisite view out the front windows. For the captain, though, maybe they’d try the galley where the crew socialized. Or the fitness room, where wall-mounted resistance machines prevented the crew from losing too much muscle mass.

  Hannah wondered what Dana’s quarters were like. Probably a good bit more personalized than her own little cubby, to offer some feeling of ownership and refuge—and probably a space where Dana wouldn’t be thrilled about being interviewed.

  The captain’s cabin would be considerably larger than Hannah’s berth, too, to accommodate visitors.

  She smiled, remembering the playful interaction between the two captains in the docking bay and how Gary had taken it all so seriously, looking like his head was about to burst off his shoulders.

  She scanned through more footage, trying not to think too hard about how much she enjoyed seeing Gary get flustered.

  Hannah hit the pause button on her control app. Did Gary have a thing for Dana? Is that where he was going with his conversation about space dating? She frowned at the rising burn in her stomach. No, she couldn’t be jealous. It was probably just those tangerines from Gary.

  Dockings like this were likely a common occurrence. It made sense that there wo
uld be a social network among scavenger ships and the six space stations. An orbiting community would help keep everyone sane. And if there were occasion for romance, even between rivals, well that should probably be expected.

  But the captains’ tryst—going on right then—got Hannah to thinking about Rufus’s first batch of notes transmitted up from The Ranch.

  Questions about zero-gravity sex made up a large percentage of Mars Ho viewer emails—followed closely by questions about how to use the toilet on the trip to Mars, what a Martian cemetery might look like, and about the dynamics of “marriage” within the confines of the fledgling Mars colony and what the political and social ramifications might be for the permanent human settlement moving forward.

  Some of the questions about sex were very specific, and—as she discovered when she logged into her communications portal for the first time since since arriving on the Churly Flint—Rufus had been forwarding them to her.

  Did randy astronauts have to bind themselves together during sex to keep from floating away from each other? Did they have to enlist a third party to hold everybody steady?

  Were women more or less likely to have orgasms in microgravity? Was the G-spot easier to find in space? Were astronauts’ penises bigger or smaller than on the ground? Was ejaculation dangerous without gravity? Had anyone gotten a concussion from masturbation?

  Did the Mars colonists get space-sex manuals?

  Seeing the captains together had made Hannah curious on the subject, too, and she’d even wondered—for the tiniest glimmer of a nanosecond—about experimenting with Gary. But only if she could overcome her aversion to plastic, even good-looking and surprisingly intelligent plastic.

  She had no idea what she was supposed to do with these emails from Rufus. Conduct an adult classroom in space? Or maybe she was being sexually harassed by the DayLite CEO.

  Hannah made a few more notes in the digital log she would send down to Rufus along with the raw footage. Then she made a mental note to ask Olivia to dig up whatever information she could find about that recording of Gary.