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

by Jennifer Willis

“This has been a lovely evening,” Hogan began with a genuine smile. “And I don’t mean to bring it to an end quite yet. But there are some things we need to discuss, while we’re all together, and we should just get it out of the way.”

  Trevor stood still beside her, the unused spatula in his hand. His brows knit together as he waited for her to continue, and a weight sank in her stomach as she looked into his eyes. Her throat felt dry as she motioned toward the cheesecake. “Please, go ahead. What I have to say shouldn’t be that bad.”

  Her crew gave a polite chuckle, but the colonists remained silent. They put down their sporks and shifted uneasily in their seats.

  “Obviously, we wanted to welcome the new permanent residents to Mars.” Hogan smiled around the table. So far, so good.

  “The first permanent residents,” Melissa replied with a raised glass, and the other colonists followed suit.

  Hogan’s smile tightened on her face, and she saw the tensing shoulders of her crew. These residents of Ares City were a far cry from the Red Planet’s first true permanent inhabitants. But that was an argument for another time.

  “We want you to know that we are, for the most part, at your disposal. You should feel free to ask questions—about how the equipment works, about Mars in general, about anything you might be curious about. Where your well-being and safety are involved.” She paused. “Where your survival is an issue. Because . . . we have some concerns.”

  “Okay, this is getting pretty dark,” Trent joked, but the resulting laughter around the table was lukewarm.

  Trevor leaned past Hogan to serve slices of cheesecake onto freshly washed dinner plates. Her breath loosened in her chest, just a bit. She appreciated his timing. Before she could resume her remarks, Mark spoke up, his voice crisp and even.

  “You’re worried about our skill sets,” he said. “Or lack thereof. Before you go any further, I’ll tell you we’ve been over all of this quite a few times on our journey here. We know we’re not prepared. We know this first outing of the colony program wasn’t run with sufficient oversight—something that’s potentially criminal, according to the courts, and something that’s a proper scandal within the United Nations itself. We know we’ve landed here with poor preparation. That the odds aren’t so much in our favor.”

  Hogan cleared her throat. She’d expected more resistance. She’d expected denials and protests, maybe even some name-calling. But while the colonists’ smiles had faded, she saw determined resolve mixed with apprehension in their faces.

  She’d dreaded this conversation, and their very landing, for months. Now that these people were here—seated around her table inside her habitat—Hogan felt her irritation with the Mars Ho program soften and deepen into real fear for the hapless colonists.

  Trevor set a hefty chunk of faux cheesecake on the table in front of her. “We’re prepared to make the best of things. We want to do our best.”

  Hogan stared at the cheesecake. It looked creamy and indulgent, but her stomach was knotted too tight to consider even the smallest bite. She glanced into Trevor’s dark eyes and blinked at him.

  “It’s not going to be easy,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

  Trevor’s answering smile was grim and resolute. “We’re not under any illusions that it will be. And it’s why we’re so grateful that you’re here. To help us along, and maybe make sure we don’t accidentally kill ourselves out of sheer stupidity.”

  “Who’re you calling stupid?” Trent protested with a wide grin, his fists raised for mock battle. That got the table laughing again, but it didn’t do much to loosen the millstone in Hogan’s gut.

  Lori laid her hands flat on the table. “The point is, we’re glad you’re our neighbors. Frankly, it’s a relief to hear that you’re open to helping us find our way, and that you’re within emergency evacuation distance in case something goes really wrong.”

  The colonists raised their glasses again, this time in a toast to Hogan and her crew. But Hogan had to wave them off.

  “I don’t think you understand,” Hogan said. “Normally there’d be a more parallel schedule between astronaut and colonist arrivals at our respective habitats. But with the strange timing of your launch, due to the colony race with competing nations . . .”

  “You mean the Chinese,” Guillermo cut in. “You’ve a gift for diplomacy, commander. A fine representative of the United Nations.”

  Grigori hid his face behind his napkin as he laughed. Hogan shot him a hard look.

  “Anyway, what we’re trying to say is that we won’t be here forever,” Hogan said.

  “Right, because another Space Corps crew will come to replace you,” Trent said. “We get it. You guys rotate in and out. We’ll try not to get too attached.”

  “Yes, there will be another crew, and it looks like they may be coming to this particular habitat, too,” Hogan replied. “So there is that.”

  “Wait, they might go someplace else instead?” Melissa gripped the edge of the table and leaned forward, giving her fellow diners a generous view of her cleavage. “Somewhere far away? Like, too far away to call for help?” She looked to Guillermo and then to Mark and April.

  “Isidis Planitia,” Miranda offered, deliberately looking away from Melissa’s breasts. “On the other side of the planet.”

  There was an explosion of crosstalk—a noisy combination of simple, constructive questions mixed with wild speculation about worst-case scenarios. With a lift of his eyebrows, Grigori dug into his cheesecake and ignored the queries directed his way.

  Hogan was dumbfounded. Had the program sent these people here without a full briefing of the UNSC presence on the planet? Or maybe that information was one more casualty of the mission-compromising travesty that was Mars Ho.

  She raised her voice to be heard over the hubbub. “There’s a very good chance the next crew will come here to Progress Base. They’re making the final decision now, and there’s no use getting upset about that here tonight.”

  She gestured toward the table to encourage everyone to enjoy their dessert. Grudgingly, Trent and Melissa picked up their sporks. The other colonists, Trevor included, leaned back in their chairs and waited for Hogan to lower the boom.

  “The main concern right now is that we’re leaving in just under six weeks. Well, forty-one sols.” Hogan was startled by the sudden, loud gasp from Melissa. She pressed on. “And the next crew won’t arrive for another eleven months after that. So you’ll be on your own.”

  Hogan watched sober reality settle on the colonists’ shoulders and press them visibly down into their chairs. She resumed her own seat and picked up her spork. Now that she’d delivered her bad news, her stomach unclenched.

  She took a small bite of Trevor’s cheesecake and felt her mouth come alive with flavor. There was a hint of strawberry layered with slightly sour heavy cream, and she couldn’t help the small moan of delight that escaped her. She turned to Trevor with a smile of surprise and appreciation, but his face was stone as he sat watching her.

  6

  Trevor sat on the examination table in the Ares City medical bay, a space about the same size as the Progress Base rec room. He hadn’t slept well the night before—only his second night on Mars—after spending the hours following the joint UNSC-colony dinner scrubbing every dish, appliance, and utensil in the Ares City kitchen while he tried to keep his brain from calculating the odds of the colony’s survival once Hogan and her team left for Earth.

  Forty-one sols, Hogan said. Now forty sols and counting.

  While Trent, Lori, and April remained vocally optimistic about their situation, there was much cynical, resigned grumbling from other quarters of the colony. Trevor’s own opinion and outlook were somewhere in between, but his body was tense and his stomach was sour. The colonists needed to make the absolute most of the time they had left with the professional astronauts as their only neighbors.

  The first action item in the UNSC’s mission to make sure Ares City wouldn’t implo
de under the weight of its own incompetence was a full medical check for all of the colonists—a more thorough evaluation than the cursory looking over they’d gotten two sols earlier.

  Ares City had Trent and his experience as a veterinary surgeon, but Hogan Kay offered her medical team to ensure every last checkbox was properly ticked off. When Ares City reluctantly agreed, Progress Base sent Miranda over to assist Trent in his examinations. Trent at least seemed satisfied with the arrangement.

  Trevor worked on keeping his hands and face relaxed during the poking and prodding he received, over and over again, from both Trent and Miranda. He didn’t think balling up his fists and grimacing would do much to boost Trent’s confidence. Although Trent had practiced basic check-ups on the Red Wing 1, he wasn’t entirely at ease with human patients and he covered his trepidation with instructions like, “Okay, now turn your head and bark.”

  Trevor was the last of the men to be examined. Trent was nervous about the upcoming gynecological exams, and he seemed to be deliberately prolonging Trevor’s check-up.

  “I mean, it’s not the easiest transition, to go from being all shy and awkward, pretty much a social outcast, to looking at vaginas all day long,” Trent muttered as he peered into the recesses of Trevor’s left ear for the third time.

  Trevor laughed. “All day long?”

  Trent retracted his scope. “Well, okay. Maybe just once a year, for about an hour. But it’s still, you know, not exactly what I’m trained for. I mean, you’re not a Great Dane or a gerbil, are you?”

  Trevor frowned as Trent peered into his other ear. Trevor was beginning to feel rather like a guinea pig. Finally, Miranda came to his rescue by way of a reassuring pat on Trent’s shoulder.

  “I think you’re done with this patient, doctor.” Miranda smiled.

  Trent started to protest, but she motioned Trevor off the table and out the door. He was zipping up the front of his orange jumpsuit when he nearly collided with Leah in the hallway.

  “You’re next?” he asked.

  “Figured we’d ease him into the ‘lady exams,’” she offered. “You know, start him off with a body he’s familiar with.”

  Trevor was supposed to laugh, and he tried to oblige. But then he made his way quickly back to the kitchen.

  After months in close quarters, Trevor remained uncomfortable with the not-legally-bound pairings. Lori and Mark were tightly bonded; there was no interfering in that relationship. Leah and Trent also seemed solidly matched, though issues and irritations cropped up between them from time to time.

  But they all had to deal with the frequent bickering between Melissa and Guillermo, and Trevor was uneasy with the way Melissa had started looking at him. Not that marriage would have made all of these problems disappear, but he remained convinced that a deeper and more permanent commitment would have gone a long way toward encouraging Melissa and Guillermo to work through their difficulties and come to a quieter peace.

  But someone somewhere had decided marriage wasn’t necessary on Mars. Maybe it was to allow the new Martians to design their own legal codes and social structures, or maybe it was some scandal-minded reality show producer wanting to leave the door open to emotional drama.

  Whatever the reason, Trevor wasn’t entirely surprised to find Melissa waiting for him in the kitchen. He lingered in the doorway and dithered about whether to invent an errand that would require his presence in one of the other modules. Melissa pretended to hunt around for something. She opened the same cupboard three times without observing its contents.

  He was just turning away when she looked up and caught him. She was wearing another one of her modified jumpsuits, though this one wasn’t quite as revealing as the outfit she’d worn to Progress Base. This jumpsuit had been transformed into a sleeveless zippered dress with a knee-length skirt.

  She straightened the skirt against her body as she turned to one side and then the other, modeling her new dress for Trevor.

  “What do you think?” she asked with a bright smile.

  “It’s nice.” It wasn’t a lie. Melissa had a talent for tailoring, and her garment appeared both comfortable and functional. But then she looked up at him from beneath lowered lashes, her mouth puckered into a sultry pout. She was fishing for more.

  Trevor moved past her and made his way to the nearest cupboard and his stash of manufactured flavorings. “Help you find something?”

  “Uh, yeah, I mean . . .” Melissa stammered.

  He wished she would just grab a bowl of granola and leave him in peace. Instead, he felt her move in close behind him.

  “I’ve just got this craving, you know?”

  “Craving.” Trevor kept his tone flat. The sooner he could satisfy her snack-fix, the sooner she would be out of his kitchen. “For what, exactly? Coffee, perhaps?”

  “Yeah! That’s the thing, right? I don’t know what for.”

  “Aren’t you due for your medical exam? You don’t want to be late.”

  “Maybe you could recommend something?” She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed herself against his back. “Because you’re just so yummy looking . . .”

  Trevor shuddered at her touch. It was an involuntary reaction, and it wasn’t a particularly flattering one. He gripped her slender wrists to extricate himself from her embrace, and she fought him. Gently, he maneuvered away from her and took a step back for every step she took toward him. Finally, she stopped.

  “I’m not trying to hurt you, you know.” Her huff was one of both frustration and flirtation. She batted her eyelashes at him even as the corners of her mouth pulled down into a frown.

  Trevor leaned back against the wide table and crossed his arms over his chest. “Whatever issue you’re having with Guillermo, you’re not going to solve it with me.”

  Melissa’s face twisted into a sneer and she stomped her foot on the manufactured flooring. “This is all so not fair! Just because we both got stuck with duds doesn’t mean we can’t shake things up.”

  Her face softened and she stepped slowly toward him. She touched his arm and walked her fingertips up his bicep. “Nothing’s set in stone here. We can still make a different choice to find some happiness.”

  Trevor pushed her hand away. “Guillermo is my friend. So is April. So are you. And nobody in here is a dud.”

  Her face lit up with expectation and she started tugging on the front zipper of her dress, but he quickly raised a hand to stop her.

  “Melissa,” he said firmly. “I’m telling you no.”

  Hogan hadn’t planned on stopping by the Ares City kitchen. But Miranda was making good progress with Trent and his medical exams and Hogan didn’t want to get in the way. She’d made a cursory tour of the colony’s grow unit—which Lori and Mark were getting organized for soil preparation prior to planting—and peered into a few of the colonists’ personal quarters, just to see how the other half lived.

  She was astonished by how much room and how many personal amenities they were each allowed, compared to the accommodations at Progress Base. The Ares City quarters were spartan relative to the coziest studio apartment in New York City, but for space flight they were downright luxurious.

  Hogan imagined herself living out the remainder of her days in one of these beige rooms with a full-size bed of her own and a shared bathroom down the hall. They probably had real sheets and towels, too. She thought about how she might personalize the space with digital poster images and maybe a houseplant if she could steal a weaker seedling from the grow unit. She could add a splash of color with a throw-rug, if she could requisition such a personal item on a future supply ship.

  And then she thought about the tight squeeze she’d face on her return flight to Earth. Her mission wasn’t about personal comfort or inefficient aesthetics. Hogan turned away from the colonists’ quarters.

  She could have sent Grigori over with Miranda. Even Yusuf would have made more sense, as he could work with the colonists on their own spiruliza bioreactors. But it was on
ly the colonists’ second full sol on Mars, and there was time yet to attend to every little detail of readying the colony and its residents to stand alone and fend for themselves. The colonists needed to try—and fail—at some tasks on their own.

  But now she was second-guessing herself. Had she invented an excuse to see Trevor? She did want to thank him again for his efforts at the dinner—a sentiment that had gotten swallowed up by the gathering’s existential turn.

  Or maybe she wanted to pull Melissa aside and find out more about her tailoring services. After observing the men’s reactions to Melissa’s jumper at dinner—and hearing more than she cared to from Martin on the subject—she wondered if a tiny, barely noticeable Martian make-over might be a good idea. Something sexy, but subtle. Nothing that would interfere with her command, but maybe something that one particular Martian chef might notice.

  But Hogan felt palpable relief when she couldn’t find Melissa. She was being ridiculous. Frivolous, even. Her job was to keep people alive, not to create love triangles and insert herself into the Ares City drama.

  So she steered herself toward the kitchen. She heard Trevor and Melissa’s voices as she strode down the corridor, and she paused and considered turning around. She could make out only a few words, but she definitely heard anger and surprise. She arrived in the doorway to witness Melissa bursting into tears. When Melissa looked up and saw Hogan, her face blushed a deep red and she pushed her way out of the room, brushing past Hogan with murmurs of apology.

  Definitely no make-over for Hogan, then. She stepped into the kitchen. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

  Trevor looked flustered, and his breath was shallow and high. He turned his back on her to inventory one of the cupboards. “Just a misunderstanding. Nothing serious.”

  It looked serious enough from where Hogan was standing, but the people of Ares City were not her crew and their interpersonal matters weren’t her business.

  “I wanted to thank you personally, for last night.” Hogan rested her hands on the shiny metal table and watched Trevor’s back as he gathered a half-dozen small containers into his broad hands. She liked the way the red-orange fabric of his jumpsuit complemented his warm skin, and how his dark hair was just long enough to curl over the top of his collar.