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

by Jennifer Willis

  Miranda held up her hands in surrender. “Yeah, there are lots of unanswered questions here. And there will be, for some time. But the positive sample came from the lava tubes at Site 16. More specifically, from the section of the largest tube where Trent slipped and fell.”

  Trent laughed. “My parents always knew my clumsiness would eventually pay off.”

  “We’ll have to put the samples through more rigorous testing on Earth, of course, and check in with more experienced exobiologists and astrobiologists. But so far everything checks out.” Miranda braced herself against the table and ran a hand over her face. She had barely slept for the past week—through the lab work, the extra EVA field trip, the radiation event, and then more lab work. Hogan hoped she wouldn’t have to order the woman to bed, but she couldn’t have her team dropping from exhaustion.

  Martin guided Miranda back into her seat. “As for how it got inside . . . Well, I’m afraid Trent helped us out there, too.”

  “Oh, hey! Busted!” Trent exclaimed.

  “It was me, too, buddy,” Martin said. “When I was hurrying you inside to start the Trojan Assault challenge? I kind of, uh, broke decontamination protocols to get you through the airlock faster.”

  “You what?!” Hogan rested her hands flat on the table.

  Martin winced. “It wasn’t intentional. I’d thought decon had already run when I reached into the airlock to help him bring in the last of the empty provisions boxes. It was stupid, and I didn’t catch it until I went back through the logs. But we didn’t expect the decontamination step was really doing anything, anyway. And I just really, really wanted to play Trojan Assault.”

  Hogan looked at the table and sighed. Her own team was responsible for brining the bacteria into Progress Base, for decimating their own bioreactor harvest, and for making everyone in both habitats puke their freaking guts out.

  But what could she do? The damage had been done, and the breach had led to the first discovery of life beyond Earth. A stupid, happy accident. Hogan lifted a hand and waved away Martin’s apology.

  “What’s done is done,” she said. “What’s next?”

  The entire habitat was buzzing. Life on Mars! And the colonists had helped to find it.

  It was the best news the colony was likely to have for a while. They had proved their importance to space exploration and discovery—kind of. Trent goofing off and falling down inside a lava tube wasn’t the most dignified means of bringing about Earth’s biggest eureka moment to date.

  But all the Ares City systems had been cleared of Areserichia aquaticus—formerly Mars bazonga—and Yusuf and Martin wrote up a new protocol for the colonists to follow, should they have similar encounters in the future. Naturally, the Mars Colony Program sent out a clear directive for the colonists to keep to their own habitat and not go traipsing about the Martian surface. Not until the next UNSC crew was onsite.

  Other than that, it was just another sol in Ares City.

  Trevor gritted his teeth as he worked the controls on the Culinmate. He was determined to reprogram the thing to accommodate a greater variety of wet and dry ingredients and to allow a broader range of temperature settings. He was only slightly nervous about breaking the machine—he still had a microwave oven and an actual stovetop to work with. But he had only four instant pots in the Ares City kitchen—one was busy with a new marinade recipe, while another was testing a rice cracker experiment—and replacing one of these with a more antiquated appliance out of Progress Base would be a big step in the wrong direction.

  The machine beeped, and Trevor waited. The Culinmate’s warming light should have come on, with a countdown timer for the transition to the mixing function. Instead, the display went dark.

  Trevor smacked the side of the machine and cursed under his breath. Couldn’t he do anything right?

  He unplugged the Culinmate and went to the refrigerator. If he was going to take a break, he could use a snack.

  The leftovers were stored in single-serving containers—for more efficient rationing and to prevent any bacterial growth from spoiling any entire sol’s work. He pushed past six containers of faux beef casserole and several servings of pseudo berry cobbler. There was never any leftover bread in Ares City. Once he’d figured out how to work with baking soda to make up for the dearth of yeast on Mars, every roll and loaf got eagerly snatched up. That was another recipe Trevor would need to replicate on camera with Trent.

  There was one serving of pickle soup left. Trevor slid the container into the microwave and waited. Everyone else had complimented him on the concoction—an inventive culinary miracle, Trevor had to admit. But Hogan hadn’t said a word.

  He cursed under his breath and tapped his foot against the nearest cupboard.

  “Bad time?” April stood in the kitchen doorway.

  Trevor slid his hands into his jumpsuit pockets and tried to smile. “Nah, it’s fine. Want me to make you something?”

  He was trying to discourage the colonists from getting used to making special food requests, but right now Trevor figured he could use the distraction.

  April stepped into the kitchen and leaned against the massive table. “I’m not hungry. I thought you might need to talk.”

  The microwave beeped, and Trevor retrieved his hot soup. April probably wanted to gush about the new discovery—just like everyone else—and what it might portend for more missions to Mars, and not just by the UNSC and MCP. Or perhaps she wanted to plan a celebratory dinner.

  “About anything in particular?” he asked.

  April laughed and tapped her hands on the table. “Yeah! About, well, everything!”

  Trevor felt her eyes on him as he stirred his soup and took a tentative taste. Too hot. He stirred some more. “Why don’t you just tell me what you want to talk about, and I’ll try to follow your lead. I don’t promise that I’ll be the best company right now, though.”

  Trevor put down his soup and went back to work on the Culinmate. He held down the “power” and “select” buttons, waited for the green “process” light to come on, and then entered a series of button pushes that still seemed like a kind of Morse code, though he’d used the appliance’s user manual to work out the sequence. Then he pressed and held the “select” button again to get the machine to accept his changes. Just like before, it beeped at him and then went dark.

  “Oh! For the love of poblanos!” Trevor spat.

  April slid around the table and stood beside him. “What’re you trying to do?”

  Trevor stepped back, shook the tension out of his hands, and then showed April the notes on his tablet. He was trying to get the instant pot to do something it hadn’t been manufactured to do, but something it should be able to do based on the unit’s specs. April frowned as she scrolled through his screen. Trevor picked up his soup and started eating.

  “I think . . . Yeah, I see it.” April put down Trevor’s tablet and rested her hands on top of the Culinmate. “I should be able to get this reprogrammed for you. You almost had it, really.”

  Trevor shrugged and paced as he ate. He didn’t like mindless eating, but he was angry and hungry and shoveling the soup into his mouth without tasting it. When he was done, he shoved the container into the dishwasher and then started munching on dry cereal.

  As April watched him eat and stomp around, her smile just made him more irritated.

  “You know, you can actually talk to me about stuff?” She started inputting her own sequence, with the machine beeping at her here and flashing a series of lights there. “I know I let you down and in a pretty awful way, but it seems like you could use a friend about now. Why not let that friend be me?”

  Trevor dropped the box of cereal on the table. He wanted to unleash a string of expletives, but nothing came immediately to mind. Plus, April didn’t deserve that. In the weeks since their landing, Trevor had come to the conclusion that he probably would have come to Mars anyway, even without being guaranteed a partner—especially considering how Melissa and Guil
lermo were falling apart.

  “Yeah, okay.” Trevor poured himself a cup of water. “You sure you don’t want anything?”

  April kept her focus on the instant pot. “I’m good. So, tell me what’s going on with you and Hogan Kay.”

  Trevor swallowed his water wrong and coughed. “What?”

  “She’s what’s got you all riled up, right?”

  Trevor caught his breath. He’d been absolutely discreet. He hadn’t told a soul what had happened inside that rover. He hadn’t committed any hint of the encounter to his digital journal. “How?”

  April looked up at him in mirthful disbelief. “You’re kidding, right? That mark on her neck pretty much tells the whole story, no matter how much she tried to hide it. It wasn’t there before the storm, and unless you guys ran into some kind of Martian sucker monster . . .”

  “I get it.”

  “So, what’s the problem?”

  The machine beeped erratically and then went dark. April smacked the side of the thing, and Trevor chuckled.

  “No, I’ve got this,” she said. “I’ll try it again.”

  “The problem.” Trevor ran a hand over his face. “The problem is that even if she weren’t leaving for good, just a couple of weeks from now . . . It’s that she sees me as some kind incompetent who needs to be rescued.”

  “I see.” April entered another long sequence of button holds and presses, then stood back and waited. “And because she’s the UNSC commander, and the assumed authority on this planet, you’re feeling disempowered.”

  The machine made a long, sustained beep, blinked a series of blue and red lights, and then fell silent, awaiting new inputs. April smiled.

  “Yes!” She pumped her fist in victory.

  But Trevor was at a loss. Could it be as simple and as stupid as a hit to his male pride? He’d thought himself beyond anything so backward as that, but April had made her diagnosis clear enough. And quickly, too.

  “I’m not a chauvinist,” he said forcefully.

  April rested her hands on her hips. “Interesting that you feel the need to defend yourself against something I didn’t even mention.”

  Trevor balled his hands tightly. He’d walked right into that one, though April wasn’t setting traps for him. She was earnestly trying to help, and it felt good to open up to someone who didn’t have any expectations of him. Not even Hogan met that description.

  “Have you considered that, maybe, if Hogan weren’t precisely who she is, you wouldn’t be the least bit interested in her?”

  Trevor dug his fingers into his hair. Actually, he had considered that. He hadn’t been attracted to April because she wasn’t formidable. She was petite and understanding and . . . Well, not weak. She was nurturing and accommodating. Those were all good qualities, but they weren’t what got Trevor’s blood pumping.

  Were his father and grandfather lesser men because of the women they’d chosen? Pretty much every woman in Trevor’s multi-generational home was a force to be reckoned with. His mother’s mother was cantankerous and sometimes downright frightening, but she was also wise and compassionate. His father’s mother was aloof and shrewd, but she was the best judge of character he’d ever met. His mother was pragmatic and hard-driving in the family business and at home, and she had a big heart—one was not at odds with the other.

  Even Trevor’s sisters were uncompromising in the goals they set for themselves—Daria had been accepted to design school just before he entered the Mars Ho competition, and Yasmin started a daycare matching service on top of being a small business consultant after her second daughter was born.

  Hogan Kay actually fit rather nicely into the pattern of the women in his life.

  “But none of that matters,” he said softly. “Not if she’s leaving. And I can’t drop everything to go with her.”

  April narrowed her eyes, and Trevor realized he’d dropped a detail he shouldn’t have.

  “We’re living in an entirely new world,” she said. “Maybe try looking at the old rules as merely guidelines?”

  Trevor wasn’t entirely sure what she meant by that. Before he could ask, the timer went off on the instant pot in the far corner of the kitchen. April got to it before he did, and she lifted the lid and peered inside.

  “Oh. Okay. Uh, what is this, exactly?”

  Trevor strode toward her. “A marinade, for starchy vegetables, when we get the farm producing. And for protein paste, I guess, in the meantime. It’s a new recipe. Experimental.”

  “Experimental, you say.” April reached into a drawer for a spoon and dipped it into the sauce. “Is it supposed to be, like, that color?”

  She lifted the spoon, full of a chunky, viscous substance that was so brightly green it practically glowed.

  Trevor was dumfounded, but April laughed. “I half expect this stuff to say, ‘Take me to your leader.’”

  Hogan was shaking. She felt a tight, painful squeeze in her chest, but she knew she wasn’t having a heart attack. She couldn’t be.

  She stared at the message on her screen. The UNSC had issued new orders: In addition to the mandate to offer a ride home to three residents of Ares City, Hogan was granted the authority to order the colonists to comply.

  The fate of eight human beings—on top of the lives of her own crew—were in her hands.

  Worse, the order hadn’t come from Yan Kingsley, but from Hermes 5 Flight Director Edward Coville. They were passing the buck down the chain of command—from the Administrator to the Program Director, to the Flight Director, and now to Hogan.

  “Use your best judgment,” Eddie said at the close of his message.

  Hogan wanted to punch the screen.

  Eddie should have retired that phrase long ago. It was etched into the history books now, in the transcripts and recordings from the ill-fated Hermes 3 mission, minutes before his own command had gone so horribly wrong. But this time, he was using these same words to urge another Hermes commander toward caution.

  If Eddie had exercised the same caution during his command, Hogan thought, Marla, Al, and Josef might still be alive.

  She wondered what it meant to him to issue these orders. She had an idea what he would have given for a second chance with his own crew. Getting people out of harm’s way was the sensible choice, but sometimes it was worth taking the risk—or so it seemed until the worst happened.

  Hogan didn’t imagine any of the colonists would willingly board the return ship. But then she thought about the discord between Melissa and Guillermo, and the recent puke fest that had benched them all and nearly killed Grigori. So maybe a few of the colonists could be persuaded to leave, to save their own skins—and to leave the colony weaker and even less likely to survive.

  But if she ordered anyone to leave, how would that play out? Would the astronauts have to bind them up inside their pressure suits and manhandle them onto the ascent vehicle?

  Hogan dug her hands into her hair, pulling strands out of her ponytail. It was up to her whether the entire Ares City colony would die, or if only part of it was doomed.

  How could she choose? The easy move would be to draw lots, or to have the colonists choose among themselves. Both of those options were a cop out. This was her burden to shoulder. Making the colonists select their own survivors seemed like an exercise in cruelty.

  But it would have been perfect for reality television, Hogan thought grimly.

  She had a couple of weeks before the return flight, but this wasn’t the kind of decision she could put off. The sooner she delivered the news to the affected parties, the more time everyone would have to adjust, and to acquiesce.

  Her breath was high and shallow in her chest. She pressed a hand to her ribs and tried to deepen her breathing, but it was a temporary relief. She forced herself to drink a glass of cool water, but that did little to help.

  “Commander?”

  She looked up from her desk and found Martin watching her from his own workstation.

  Miranda was in her lab, run
ning tests on some weird sauce of Trevor’s. The way things were going, Hogan wouldn’t be surprised if a second strain of Martian bacteria lurked in the toxic-looking sample Ares City sent over—the stuff looked like liquid satan. Grigori was making the rounds around the outside of the base, cleaning solar panels and making sure the rovers were fully charged and provisioned. It seemed like busy-work, but there was no telling when another emergency might strike. Yusuf was down in the bioreactor chamber again, monitoring the growth of the new spiruliza harvest. The Hermes 5 crew wouldn’t be onsite long enough to benefit from the harvest, but the extra food would help the colonists left behind.

  “Are you all right?” Martin looked like he was about to rise from his desk and head her way. Hogan motioned for him to keep his seat.

  “Yeah, I just . . .” She had no idea what to tell him. Should she share her orders, and try to ease the burden by asking one of her crew for help? She dismissed the idea as quickly as the notion of drawing lots. People’s lives were at stake, and no one had ever said command wouldn’t be difficult.

  “I’m just finishing up some things,” she said. “It’s strange to be coming to the end of our time here on Mars.”

  Martin laughed and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’ll mind getting back home again—full gravity, a nice coq au vin with fresh vegetables on the side. And bread. My lord, how I’ve missed decent bread.”

  Hogan thought about the dinner rolls Trevor had conjured—and conjured was the word, because the man worked a kind of magic in the kitchen. At the dinner table, he’d talked about using baking soda and a couple of other ingredients to compensate for the lack of yeast. But Hogan didn’t cook for herself even when she could avail herself of the relative luxury of the grocery store instead of choosing from a dwindling selection of fish sticks, salisbury steak, and macaroni and cheese. She wasn’t a chemist, either, and before watching Trevor work, she hadn’t appreciated how much science went into the art of food.

  “What about you?” Martin asked.

  Hogan was startled to discover she’d been writing Trevor’s name with her stylus across her tablet screen. She erased her lazy scrawls. “I’m looking forward to taking a little time off, then the next assignment.”