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

by Jennifer Willis

  “Oh, gosh.” Lori’s voice was small as she stood behind him, and Trevor felt her fingers press into the sturdy padding of his seat. “Hogan, I’m so sorry.”

  The second rover rolled up and parked. No one got out of that vehicle, either, and the comms remained quiet.

  “These three.” Hogan nodded toward the cairn. “They’re the first permanent residents of Mars.”

  Trevor closed his eyes and took a slow breath. In that solemn moment, he felt he understood Hogan on a deeper, more intimate level. She’d had to bury her friends, far from home, and she didn’t want to have to bury anyone else. He was sensitive to the other colonists, too, newly shrouded in distress and embarrassed humility, and squirming with the unexpected confrontation of their mortality.

  Trevor felt instantly unworthy of the perilous honor bestowed on him by the Mars Colony Program. He clasped his hands together and bowed his head. He couldn’t remember the words or the order of the Salat al-Janazah and wasn’t sure it would even be appropriate. His grandmothers would know, but they were an entire world away.

  He nearly laughed at that—and might have, if not for the gravity of his surroundings and company. The idea that he might have come to the Red Planet to pray was at once humbling and ludicrous and would have delighted his grandparents to no end.

  He opened his eyes and gazed at the reddish rocks just a few meters beyond the rover’s windows. He imagined the work that had gone into erecting the cairn—after the grisly business of recovering and positioning the bodies. How long had the fallen lain on the Martian surface, exposed and untended, before Hermes 5 arrived? Four years? He couldn’t remember the dates, and he felt ashamed. He wondered if the bodies had been easy to find, or if Hogan had to go digging for them after years of dust storms.

  Trevor turned and studied Hogan’s profile. She wasn’t teary or pale, unlike the colonists standing behind her. She kept her chin lifted as she regarded her friends’ final resting place with quiet reverence.

  He very nearly reached for her hand.

  “I wanted you all to see this,” Hogan said at last, breaking the silence. “Not to frighten you, and certainly not to deflate your own ambitions here. But Mars is a brutal place, and you have to respect that. I know you know that.”

  She paused and took a deep breath. “It’s important that you know this is here. That they are here.”

  They passed another minute or two in silence. Then Hogan started up the rover and headed back the way they’d come.

  7

  After the nearly eight-hour tour of Tharsis Montes and its downer of a conclusion, everyone needed to blow off some steam.

  Hogan wasn’t sure how it was decided that the populations of both habitats would descend on Progress Base for some R&R. But everyone headed straight for the UNSC recreation room once they were through the airlock.

  The space was much less cramped without the dining table and chairs. Most of the colonists and astronauts lounged on the floor as teams of two picked up the game controllers to face off against each other in virtual combat. Martin had been on the comms as the two rovers drove back, challenging the colonists to Trojan Assault—and conveniently leaving out the part about how the astronauts had spent months mastering the multi-player video game.

  The colonists didn’t know the blood bath they were in for.

  The first game—with Martin and Yusuf taking on Leah and Guillermo—was already underway by the time Hogan came through the airlock and shucked off her pressure suit, and there was a queue of other pairs waiting to play.

  Martin offered her his spot, but Hogan didn’t slip on one of the knuckle-ring kinetic controllers. She was tired and melancholy after the visit to the Hermes 3 memorial. She should have expected as much. Visiting Marla always left her circumspect and antisocial, and she didn’t do it often. But her time on Mars was growing short, and soon she’d never have another opportunity to pay her respects, in person, again.

  After indulging in a warm-ish shower, Hogan applied a little of the makeup Leah had loaned her—just a touch of color, but the change made Hogan feel like she’d turned a spotlight on her face. She wiped off the makeup. She experimented with unzipping the top of her jumpsuit to a modest v-neck and let her wet hair hang free instead of pulling it back into a ponytail.

  She hadn’t brought any jewelry to Mars. It was a purely practical concern, not that she’d been much interested in that kind of personal adornment. But as she studied her reflection, she found she quite liked the feel of her hair grazing her collarbones. She told herself she was literally letting her hair down as a means of releasing tension after a stressful day. But the thought of how Trevor might react to her modified appearance sent a thrill across her skin.

  She hugged the wall as she passed by the recreation room and the scrum hovering in the doorway. She just wanted to make it to the kitchen for a cup of tea without having to take any shit from Grigori or Miranda about her hair or the remnants of shadow clinging to her eyelids.

  And when she found Trevor rooting around in the Progress Base cupboards, she felt that electric flutter again.

  Hogan went straight for a cabinet on the opposite wall and pulled open a drawer of tea and coffee pods. She sighed as she reviewed her dwindling options. Everything was a countdown, from the mission clock in the upper corner of her computer screen to the diminishing habitat supplies.

  She selected a soothing herbal blend and activated the hot beverage machine. Trevor had moved to the other side of the kitchen and was on his knees as he reached deep into the cabinet where her crew stashed their contraband.

  “Looking for something in particular?” she asked.

  Startled, Trevor hit his head against the top of the cupboard. He grunted and rubbed his head as he sat on the hard floor.

  Hogan kept her voice casual and tried not to alert him to the fact that he was nearly on top of a treasure trove. “If you’re looking for snacks, try two drawers higher.”

  “Sorry. I should have asked first.”

  The beverage machine beeped and Hogan retrieved her hot tea. “We invited you. It’s only fair that we feed you.”

  “I thought I’d try to pull together some refreshments.” He glanced inside the open cabinet again. “There’s something shiny way in the back. Bright colors.”

  Hogan sipped her tea and watched him plunge into the cabinet again. What would he think when he found her crew’s stash? She herself wasn’t supposed to know it was there, but she’d stumbled across it just a couple of months after they landed. There would be a narrow pipe in Trevor’s way, and unused plastic bags and other receptacles. It didn’t sound like he was making much progress.

  She put down her tea and knelt beside him. She hesitated before she laid a hand on his back. “Let me do it.”

  Trevor moved over and looked at her with expectation. Hogan felt her smile turn shy. She had to blink hard to keep from getting lost in his gaze.

  “There’s a latch along the top that releases a divider . . .” Hogan reached deep into the cupboard, felt around for the latch, and pressed hard with her fingers. There was a sharp click and the divider folded away. She grabbed the lip of the box at the very back of the compartment and dragged it out and onto the kitchen floor.

  Trevor’s eyes grew wide. “They let you bring this with you?”

  He pulled out an unopened box of Twinkies, three tins of Vienna sausages, a half-empty carton of Little Debbie snack cakes and a full bag of individually wrapped sticks of beef jerky.

  Hogan stifled a laugh at Trevor’s wonderment. This was one of three stashes hidden around Progress Base, and she calculated just how pissed her people would be when they learned she’d spilled their secret.

  “I have no idea what you mean,” she said with mischief. “Personal snack items would be against regulations.”

  Trevor turned the box of Twinkies around in his hands. Then he lifted it to his face and smelled it.

  “Of course, if I were to strictly adhere to those particula
r regulations, well, I’d have to confiscate all of this.” Hogan thought about getting up to reclaim her tea but she rather liked sitting on the floor, so close to Trevor. “And then do what? I’m certainly not going to eat all that myself.”

  “Invite your crew to an illegal junk food party,” Trevor chuckled. “Featuring their own contraband.”

  “You know, that’s precisely what I’ve been thinking of doing.” Her breath hitched in her throat when he looked up at her, but then his gaze was back on the carton of individually wrapped golden cakes. “Maybe a fun way to celebrate our last night on Mars.”

  Trevor froze. He stared at the floor. Hogan had seen him do something similar in the Ares City kitchen, when something crossed his mind and everything came to a halt.

  “It’s not for weeks yet,” she said in a soft tone she seldom used with her crew. “There’s still time to get your colony set up and transfer our institutional knowledge of how to live on Mars.”

  Trevor bounced the box in his hands. “Do you think I could borrow a couple of these?”

  “Borrow?”

  “Steal. For research purposes.”

  Hogan laughed. “Martin will have a fit, but sure.”

  Trevor tore open the box and grabbed three Twinkies. He got up from the floor and lifted the box of contraband onto the table.

  “You like those things?” Hogan climbed to her feet and dusted off her backside, though the habitat’s airflow and robotic vacuums kept Progress Base virtually spotless. “I always thought they were too sweet. Artificial.”

  Trevor peeled the clear wrapping off one the Twinkies, then rubbed at the greasy residue on his fingers. “Can’t say I’m a fan. But some of the others have been grousing for months about whether they’ll be able to live without this or that snack food.” He paused. “Mostly Trent.”

  “You want to see if you can recreate it.”

  “Or, my best approximation.” Trevor pinched off a piece of golden cake and tasted it. He didn’t grimace, exactly, but the mental gears were turning as he focused inward. Finally, he looked at her and smiled.

  “Trent’s been so desperate for nacho cheese chips that he’s started calling the colony Dorito Village.”

  Startled, Hogan laughed out loud. “Dorito Village?”

  Trevor started ranging around the kitchen again, opening cupboards and pulling out containers of protein paste, condiments, and Progress Base’s paltry supply of spices. The Progress Base kitchen was more limited than the one at Ares City—no, not Ares City.

  “Dorito Village,” Hogan muttered. She picked up her tea and took a long, lukewarm drink. “I don’t think I’ll be able to call it anything else now.”

  “Commander?” Grigori stood in the doorway.

  On reflex, Hogan tucked her hair behind her ears but stopped short of pulling her hair back into her usual ponytail. “You need something, Grigori?”

  He looked her up and down and cocked his head with a smile. “You feeling okay?”

  Trevor glanced between Hogan and Grigori, and finally seemed to see what he’d missed before. Trevor smiled at her. “Hey, you look nice.”

  Hogan felt her face flush red. This was not how she wanted to make an impression, with her second as a witness.

  “Thanks,” she muttered into her mug.

  Grigori frowned at the box on the table—and at Trevor rummaging through it.

  “Hey! That’s not . . .” Grigori’s gaze flickered toward Hogan. “I mean, wherever did you find such a thing? Certainly not here in Progress Base.”

  “Give it a rest, Grigori,” Hogan barked. She was reassured by the sound of her harsh voice in her ears. It made up for the weird, appraising glance Grigori shot her moments earlier. “I’ll make sure no one touches your sausages.”

  Grigori gave her an odd look.

  “You know what I mean.”

  Grigori made a couple of mugs of coffee, asked if Trevor might whip up some Martian popcorn or “party hash” for the players, and headed back to the game.

  “Party hash?” Trevor asked.

  Hogan slurped down the rest of her tea. “Basically a big bowl of mixed snacks. Granola cubes, dried fruit, whatever’s on hand. Like those mixes of pretzels, crackers, and nuts you see at parties back home.”

  Home. Hogan winced. The word had very different meanings for her crew and for the colonists. If the word registered with Trevor, he didn’t show it.

  “I think I can do better than that.” Trevor pulled more ingredients from the shelves, finding things in the cupboard Hogan hadn’t known were in there. He scrounged a couple of cups of rice from three different containers she’d thought were empty, and a couple of sad-looking potatoes that had been forgotten behind another canister of protein paste.

  As Hogan watched Trevor go to work chopping and mixing and kneading, she felt keenly useless. She opened her mouth to ask what she could do to assist him, or if he would prefer to be left alone, but he spoke first.

  “It’s good that you can all relax and let your hair down.” He glanced at her with a smile, then sprinkled several handfuls of dried onion flakes into a mixing bowl and kneaded it into the odd mixture he was pulling together.

  “Mmm.” Hogan didn’t know how she was supposed to respond, so she made herself another cup of tea. She turned her back to Trevor to reach into the cupboard, then quickly glanced over her shoulder. Trevor blushed. She was pretty sure she’d caught him looking her over.

  She sipped at her new cup of hot tea and pulled up a stool. She was spending more time in kitchens these past sols than she ever had on or off Mars. “I’ll admit something to you, if you promise not to laugh.”

  Trevor lifted his eyebrows. He picked up handfuls of his mystery mixture and rubbed his hands together to distribute crumbles of the pasty stuff over a plate. He stuck the plate in the microwave and set it to cooking.

  “I normally don’t relax like this,” she said. “I remembered what Melissa did to her uniform. And, well.”

  “The result of vanity and boredom,” he said. “A dangerous combination.”

  Hogan pondered Melissa’s tear-streaked face as she confronted Trevor, and how she’d seemed practically desperate for Guillermo’s attention at the joint dinner.

  “I meant, it’s been a long time since I really felt . . .” Hogan paused. Why was she telling him any of this? She’d barely allowed herself to think these thoughts. Trevor was good-looking, possibly one of the handsomest men she’d seen, ever. And he was a good listener. That was the dangerous combination. “I’ve been focused on the job. Getting it done. Keeping my people safe.”

  “It must be a lot of work, to keep that up for a long mission.”

  He wasn’t wrong. It was an eight-month trip each way for the UNSC crews, using more fuel-efficient propulsion than the colonists’ Red Wing 1. Plus fifteen months on Mars. The mission made for a long time in awkward circumstances to balance being both a human being and an effective commander.

  “I’m glad you feel you can relax around me,” Trevor added.

  Hogan snorted. “Thanks, but I think maybe I’m being a little disingenuous? I feel like I’m playing dress up right now.”

  She tugged at her hair for effect.

  The timer went off on the microwave and Trevor retrieved the steaming plate of what looked like merely a crispier version of what he’d stuck in here.

  “You wanted to take a stab at being more feminine,” he said.

  Hogan nearly choked on her tea.

  “Says the man in the kitchen.” He chuckled, then stood up tall and dropped the plate on the table in front of her. “So. Here’s your hash, bitch.”

  Hogan blinked up at him.

  He stared at her for a long moment, and then broke into a sheepish smile. “Too much?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That was my awkward attempt at demonstrating that gender stereotypes aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Or something. I’d think you’d have figured that out, too, by now.”

 
He picked up one of the crispy crumbs from the plate and stuck it in his mouth. He looked away, thoughtfully, while he rolled the improvised snack around in his mouth. “Salt, and a touch of pepper. No, paprika. Do you have any?”

  No, Progress Base didn’t have any paprika. So Trevor did what he always did—he improvised. He used what spices and condiments were available—salt, black pepper, a little garlic powder, and touch of curry and basil—to take his Martian game night hash in a different direction along the flavor spectrum.

  The end result was a crispy, tangy snack food of rice and protein that was an instant hit with the gamers. The recipe was easy enough to remember, particularly because he kept having to make up new batches of the stuff every twenty minutes until Hogan finally declared the kitchen closed due to concerns about the habitat’s diminishing stores.

  In the meantime, Hogan had disappeared and returned to the kitchen with a small, portable speaker. Within seconds, low, dark sounds of early ‘20s dance music filled the space.

  Trevor returned to the Twinkie problem. He didn’t want to recreate the thing, exactly, but he was determined to figure out what made this particular snack cake so compelling. He pinched off a piece and tasted it. In his peripheral vision, Hogan stood at the end of the table, watching him as she swayed in time with the music.

  “I never did get your story.” She’d switched from tea to juice and drank from a tall plastic cup. “On the show, most of the contestants talked about why they wanted to come to Mars. You didn’t. Or they didn’t show it.”

  Progress Base didn’t have any proper flour. Ares City didn’t have much, and it would be a long time before anyone would try growing wheat on Mars. Trevor pulled down a canister of powdered spiruliza. There was a first time for everything.

  “So, are you going to tell me?” she asked. “Or, tell me if I’m in your way.”

  “No, you’re fine.” Trevor didn’t want her to leave. She’d shown him a new side of herself at the Hermes 3 memorial, and she was revealing yet another side of her personality here in the kitchen—even if he was being a bit of a wimp by focusing on the food.