Mars Heat (Mars Adventure Romance Series (MARS) Book 3)

by Jennifer Willis

  “You should listen to me,” Leah continued. “Because I’m the best marketing specialist on Mars.”

  “And I’m the best fashion designer!” Melissa called out. “Just wait ’till everyone sees what I’ve done. You should put me on your show, too.”

  Walking slightly ahead of the pack, Guillermo grumbled something unintelligible, and April patted him on the shoulder as Melissa rambled on about how her Martian fashions were going to take the world—Earth, Trevor supposed—by storm. She was only half-way kidding. She was a gossip columnist, not a designer, though her creative tailoring of her MCP jumpsuits had been largely successful.

  Trevor caught himself wondering what the UNSC commander would think of Melissa’s modifications. Would Hogan take the colonists to task for disrespecting their uniforms? He didn’t think she’d be a fan, but she’d probably sit at the dinner table, tight-lipped, and keep her opinions to herself—just like she’d closed her mouth in the bioreactor chamber, though he’d seen the gears turning in her head.

  He started to ponder what it would take to loosen those lips, and then wanted to smack himself in the helmet. Even if he was the only colonist without a partner, she was still more or less the authority on this planet. And she’d be leaving. He just didn’t know when.

  Trevor decided to exercise more discipline in his thinking. Mars was his home now. This barren stretch of ruddy dirt and rocks was his new backyard. Or maybe his front yard. Whatever. At least there wasn’t any lawn to mow. This was the frontier in which Ares City was the only permanent outpost.

  He shifted his grip on the box and allowed his thoughts to keep spinning on the vast Mars environs and its tiny colony habitat.

  Only then did Trevor notice that Mark and Lori were the only couple walking together. They were even holding hands, just ahead of him.

  On the comms, Melissa jabbered about her planned sewing projects while Trent openly brainstormed increasingly outlandish episodes of Cooking for Martians. Whether marshmallows would still explode in a Martian microwave—but first, how to make a marshmallow on Mars. How to make bathtub gin. Martian jello shots. And then the inevitable need for a cure for the Martian hangover.

  Trevor kept his pace steady as he worried silently about the life expectancy of his little Red Planet outpost.

  It was more crowded than she’d expected.

  Hogan knew things were going to get cozy when she invited the colonists to Progress Base for a welcome dinner. It had taken some convincing to get them to agree to the change in venue, even after she’d played the “but you just got here and you must be so tired and not yet settled” card. She hadn’t outright ordered them to come to her, but it had been close.

  Now she wondered where she would put everybody.

  The UNSC base was designed to house up to six astronauts—seven at the outside—even though Mars crews were typically made up of five at a time. So Hogan and her team had to figure out how to get a six-person dining table to accommodate fourteen, and on short notice.

  Miranda and Martin pulled the table out of the kitchen/dining area into the marginally more spacious common room. Hogan didn’t like the idea of dining in the same room as the entertainment center, but there was no other space big enough inside the habitat. Then they surrounded the table with nearly every chair in the habitat—the dining chairs from the kitchen, the work chairs from the control room, and a few others they grabbed from their own living quarters.

  It was an inelegant table the UNSC had set, with no fancy tablecloth or candleholders, but with mismatched metal and plastic sporks atop folded polycloths. It was the best they could do. And, at that moment, it was the best-set table on Mars.

  “There.” Miranda pushed the last chair into place and straightened the dark blue plastic spork set before it. “We should all just fit. Now, anyone know what’s for dinner?” She looked at Hogan with expectation.

  “Yusuf’s on it.”

  Hogan hadn’t had to twist too hard to get Yusuf to volunteer for food preparation for the evening, but she had no idea what he was planning. The colonists would be coming through the Progress Base airlock in less than thirty minutes, and Hogan wasn’t sure she would have anything ready to feed them.

  She headed down the short corridor to the kitchen, passing Martin in the med bay and a dozen storage lockers set into the walls. She stepped into the kitchen and breathed a sigh of relief when she smelled something cooking, even though she couldn’t identify it.

  “Hey, commander!” Yusuf looked up from the multipurpose microwave and gave her a quick wave. His movements were harried, and she noticed the sheen of sweat on his brow.

  She also noticed the scattering of meal pouches across the kitchen counter. Some of them bulged with hot air and had thick condensation collecting inside the clear plastic. Others had yet to take their turn in the oven.

  “We are going to present all of this on actual plates, right?” Hogan asked. “Or should we have our guests come back here, take their pick of the reheated offerings and then settle in at the table?”

  The timer went off and Yusuf grabbed three steaming pouches from the microwave with his bare hands. Hogan knew from experience how hot those things could get, and she wasn’t surprised when Yusuf had to practically juggle the pouches to get them to the counter without burning his fingers. At least he didn’t drop any of the dinners.

  “We’ll get everything looking nice and pretty for the colonists, don’t you worry.” Yusuf tossed three more pouches into the microwave.

  Hogan stepped toward the counter for a better look. There didn’t seem to be a unifying theme to the prepared foods Yusuf had chosen. There were sides of creamed corn, stewed tomatoes, sliced beets, and even a bean salad. The entree pouches ranged from a single salisbury steak and a couple of macaroni and cheeses to a vegetarian wellington and a half-dozen servings of fish sticks. There was also a generous selection of ketchup, mustard, ranch dressing, and tartar sauce in clear, squeeze bottles.

  It was probably the least appetizing spread she’d seen on any mission. No wonder she hadn’t been able to identify any individual aromas.

  “I know it doesn’t look like much.” Yusuf wiped his sleeve across his forehead and reached into a cupboard for every plate, bowl, and cup the base had.

  Hogan burst out laughing. “Are you kidding? I say it looks like pretty much everything we have.”

  Yusuf looked at her with a startled expression, then relaxed when he saw her smile. “I didn’t know what they’d want, what they like to eat. And you know that Azam fellow, he’s supposed to be awfully skilled. Pretty much anything we throw together will suck toads compared to whatever he’s bringing.”

  “He’s skilled with a food printer and protein paste,” Hogan replied. She’d seen the near-miracles the man had worked with the machines in the Mars Ho biodome competition, but she hadn’t touched or tasted the results for herself. And real life had a habit of looking very unlike anything one could watch on television.

  “All prepared foods? No spiruliza?” she asked.

  Yusuf shook his head. “Didn’t get a chance for a new harvest yet, and that stuff can take some getting used to. I didn’t think we wanted our guests fleeing out the airlock after their first bite of Martian casserole.”

  The microwave timer went off again, and Yusuf transferred the last of the unheated foods into the oven. Hogan grabbed a couple of bowls and dumped piping hot mac and cheese into them.

  “I’m glad we’re doing this,” Hogan mused aloud, though she was still trying to convince herself of the wisdom of the shared meal. The colonists weren’t going to like what she had to tell them, and she wanted to control the environment in which it happened.

  There was an explosion of cheerful voices from down the corridor. So, the colonists were here already. Hogan glanced quickly to Yusuf, who was scraping the gelatinous sauce of the nuked salisbury steak onto a plastic plate.

  “Go,” he said. “I’ll finish up in here. Won’t take too long.” He pause
d. “Maybe send somebody back to help with beverages?”

  Hogan headed toward the control room. She caught Miranda in the corridor and redirected her to the kitchen. Yusuf would have preferred Grigori’s assistance. They made a nice couple and worked well together, as did Miranda and Martin. But Hogan wanted her second on hand for the official welcome of the new citizens of the Mars Colony Program.

  By the time she reached the control room, Grigori was helping the colonists off with their pressure suits and helmets and finding a place to store them—in the crew quarters, it looked like. Progress Base didn’t exactly have a spare coat closet.

  Hogan counted the arrivals—all present and beginning to mill about the astronaut workstations—and noted their body language. How Lori and Mark touched and leaned on each other as they stood side-by-side, sharing some light smalltalk with Martin. How Leah kept her hands firmly in her pockets while leaning over Miranda’s desk, careful not to touch anything, with Trent lingering beside her and murmuring remarks that made her smile. How Guillermo patted Grigori on the shoulder and laughed while April stood off to one side and surveyed the interactions from her own remove. And how Melissa flounced out of Miranda’s quarters wearing a cleverly and provocatively modified jumpsuit.

  But what caught Hogan’s eye was the airtight storage box Trevor was holding in front of him, and the man himself. While Grigori and Martin welcomed each colonist in turn, Trevor’s gaze wandered over the room until he found Hogan’s face. The barest smile touched his lips, and she felt herself beginning to blush.

  She cleared her throat, gave herself a stern and silent talking-to about authority and decorum, and strode toward Trevor.

  “You come bearing gifts?” She tried to inject some gruffness into her voice. She wasn’t sure it worked.

  “A few things I thought you and your crew might appreciate,” he replied. “Our contribution to the potluck. I can take this straight to the kitchen, or maybe set up in the dining room?”

  Hogan motioned for him to follow her. “I’m afraid we’ve not put together anything terribly fancy, just sharing our standard rations. But what the UNSC sends with us is normally fairly good.”

  In reality, the standard meals ranged from tasty to downright unpalatable, but Hogan decided to keep this to herself.

  “That’s okay.”

  Hogan felt instantly self-conscious as Trevor followed her toward the kitchen. What did her body look like from behind? It wasn’t something she’d considered much since she was a teenager. Once she’d chosen the Naval Academy over Northwestern, and then went from the Navy into the United Nations Space Corps, it had been all about uniforms. With little leeway in her personal appearance, she’d generally lost interest in playing that game.

  It made her itchy that she was thinking about these things again now. She told herself it was pre-launch jitters—though her return flight wasn’t exactly imminent, and she’d never experienced that particular issue before.

  “I haven’t had time yet to get the Ares City kitchen set up the way I’d like,” Trevor continued, his voice casual and sure. His friendly tone set her at ease. “I did try to make something special for you all, for tonight, but I’m not sure I succeeded.”

  They arrived in the kitchen, and Yusuf and Miranda looked positively relieved at the sight of Trevor.

  “The cavalry!” Yusuf abandoned his amateur plating of an impressive mound of pale-yellow creamed corn and shoved a mass of empty meal pouches out of the way to make room on the counter for Trevor’s sample box.

  “Did you manage it?” Yusuf grinned at Trevor. “I mean, no pressure, or anything. But, it’s just that . . . Did it work?”

  “You’ll have to tell me.” Trevor unsealed the box and lifted the lid. The thick, spicy aromas that wafted into the kitchen nearly knocked Hogan off her feet. Her nostrils filled with complementary scents of almond and hearty grains, and of carrots, onions, and beans. She picked out the salty edge of a rich broth, and her mouth started watering.

  Real food! Unexpected tears sprang to Hogan’s eyes, and she turned away for a moment. Okay, so maybe Trevor’s food feats on Mars Ho had been the real thing and not so much smoke and mirrors and protein paste.

  More than twenty-two months in, Hermes 5 was her longest mission to date, and she had another ten months of microwaved meals from plastic pouches to go. She hadn’t realized how much she missed honest-to-goodness cooking, and she hadn’t even tasted anything yet.

  Determined to not burst into ridiculous tears, Hogan turned back around with an excited smile. She stood in the kitchen and inhaled the warm, comforting smells of health and community and welcome. The smells of a real home.

  Trevor lifted a few containers out of the box and rested them on the table. Hogan’s eyes widened at what looked like an actual cheesecake molded into a casserole dish.

  “Do you have a refrigerator?” Trevor gestured with the dish. “And the cassoulet and couscous might need a quick zap in your microwave. It was a long walk, and I’m not sure everything stayed as warm as it should have.”

  While Miranda finished scraping at stubborn chunks of breaded fish that clung inside the plastic pouches, Yusuf motioned Trevor toward the refrigerator. Then he opened one of the smaller dishes, leaned over it to take a deep whiff, and let out a moan of sensual delight that Hogan wasn’t sure was fit for polite company.

  “Oh, my dear gods.” Yusuf’s eyes were closed as his face was transformed by the rapture of couscous. “You did it. You actually did it. I didn’t think I’d smell anything like this again, at least not until I’m back Earthside.”

  “Yeah, well, you haven’t tasted it yet.” Trevor chuckled, but Yusuf was still rapt in culinary enchantment. Trevor reached again into his magic box of gastronomic delights and pulled out a rounded dish. He held it out toward Hogan.

  “I’ll need more time to make a proper pickle,” he said with a sheepish grin. “Or to make a better attempt at one. But for now, I hope you’ll accept this small offering? Kind of a pickled salad.”

  Hogan looked at him with confusion. How had the man known anything about her penchant for pickles? She was certain that information wasn’t in her UNSC dossier, much less available online. Then she remembered Grigori’s urging her to get cozy with the new arrivals, and she started a mental list of the choice things she might bark at her second when she next got a moment alone with him.

  Trevor popped the lid off the dish of vegetables, and Hogan felt her whole body light up as the sharp sting of vinegar filled the air. “You made this for me?”

  Trevor shrugged. “I wanted to give everyone a taste of home. Our new home. Just because we’ve left everything behind doesn’t mean we’ve stopped being who we are.”

  Hogan reached for the dish and looked down into the assortment of carrots, asparagus, tomatoes, and peppers. None of it would be fresh, and she reminded herself not to expect too much from the flavor. But when she picked out a cubed carrot and placed it on her tongue, the spicy tang that exploded into her mouth left her feeling giddier than the last time a man had brought her flowers.

  Despite the close quarters, the mismatched place settings, and the varying heights of the chairs, the first joint UNSC-MCP dinner was turning out to be an easy, enjoyable success—though, Hogan noted, the astronauts clustered together in a tight knot instead of sitting interspersed with their guests.

  The conversation was light and amiable. Miranda even ducked into her quarters to retrieve a bottle of contraband brandy she’d smuggled onto the Constellation as the Hermes 5 crew prepared to leave Earth.

  But Hogan remained uneasy with the modified colonist uniforms, as modeled by Leah and Melissa. The tailoring on Leah’s jumpsuit was subtle enough—just a few strategic tucks to make the garment more flattering to her slight figure. Even the single embellishment of a clumsily embroidered yin-yang symbol on the left shoulder was a nicely aesthetic touch.

  Melissa’s get-up, however, was beyond anything Hogan felt was appropriate in an off-world ha
bitat. The woman had cut her jumpsuit legs off at the knees and then added slits up the sides to her hipbones. She’d fashioned the front of her garment into a deep v-neck, exposing considerably more of the corporate-sponsored underwear than Hogan cared to see. Melissa had laughed at the astronauts and colonists she caught staring at her chest, and then promised that she had plans to alter her underwear, too, so that it fit better with her personal sense of style.

  She also talked about the sexy, backless nightgown she was in the middle of making, and Hogan tried to remember when she’d last felt satin against her own skin. But when Melissa made eyes at Guillermo, Hogan noticed the tight grimace on his face as he looked away.

  So, all was not necessarily well in the Ares City love nest. Hogan made note of the tension and deliberately distracted herself from looking for similar signs of strain and distance between Trevor and April—the engineer who was supposed to be his mate, if the Mars Ho program page was to be believed.

  Trevor appeared from behind her, having snuck off to the kitchen to retrieve the dessert he’d fabricated from ingredients Hogan couldn’t even begin to guess at. She was pretty sure she hadn’t seen any cream cheese or sour cream in the Ares City kitchen when her team had done their inspection. How had Trevor made a cheesecake?

  How had he done any of this?

  Trevor handed her a spatula—stamped with the MCP logo. “Will you do the honors, commander?”

  Hogan glanced at the empty dish of pickled vegetables. They hadn’t been bad, as far as rehydrated carrots went. He’d been humble in his presentation, promising to try again and to do better. And she’d nearly cried, undone by something as simple as vinegar and spices.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat and lifted her chin. She hoped what she had to say next wouldn’t offend Trevor, or anyone else, too badly.

  “Why don’t you handle it.” Hogan passed the utensil back to him as she rose from the table. She smoothed out the front of her jumpsuit and waited a few seconds for the conversation to fall quiet.