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

by Jennifer Willis

  Trevor had also seen to it that every colonist, including Hogan was given a shipment allowance of up to 5 kilograms for care packages from family and friends back on Earth.

  An accelerated launch schedule meant new flight path calculations and a bunch of other logistical elements Trevor didn’t begin to understand, but it would bring the supply shipment to Ares City four months early and right in the middle of the gap between UNSC crews on Mars. It was something significant and cheerful to look forward to, and it was worth every penny.

  April kept scrolling down her screen. “They’re sending that drone, too, so we can test it for them. I guess somebody decided we’re not so incompetent after all.”

  “You should name it after me,” Guillermo suggested. “For when you send the drone out after wayward colonists. The Costa-copter, or something.”

  Trent burst out laughing. “That’s totally what we’re going to call it!” He reached across the table and gave Guillermo an enthusiastic high five.

  “So. Any regrets?” Hogan looked pointedly at Grigori, Martin, Miranda, and Yusuf. They were scattered among the colonists rather than seated together in a tight clump.

  Trevor watched Grigori’s eyes flicker toward Melissa, but she avoided his gaze and took a healthy bite of mashed faux-tatoes instead. She sighed with delight and nodded at Trevor.

  The faux-tatoes had some actual dry potato flakes in them, but the major ingredients were freeze-dried peas and a healthy measure of spiruliza, and the result was a good bit greener than Trevor had hoped. But that hadn’t stopped anyone from digging in.

  “You mean, other than saying goodbye to all this excellent food?” Yusuf chewed a mouthful of “lamb” patty, spiced with cumin and curry and cooked up crisp with a glaze of Mars Heat, sugar, and orange extract. He swallowed and loaded up his fork with more. “How am I going to eat all that vacuum-sealed stuff again. No offense to the UNSC chefs. But, damn.”

  “You’ll eat it when you get hungry enough,” Martin answered. “As to your question, commander, no regrets here. We discovered life on Mars. We’ll be heroes back home!” He gestured around the table. “All of us. It will take some time to sink in, but let it. Before you know it, there will be so many robotic and human operations on Mars, looking for more microbes and mining, you will long for the quiet days of Dorito Village.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” Trent replied. “But at least we’ll have more customers at our taco stand.”

  Trevor frowned. He hoped Trent wasn’t seriously suggesting opening up a food cart on Mars.

  Miranda rested her hands on the table. “And Hogan? No one will forget your sacrifice. Staying here to help the colony, even if no one wanted your seat on the ship.”

  Hogan smiled at the praise. But the way she she squeezed Trevor’s knee under the table let him know that remaining with him on Mars wasn’t much of a sacrifice.

  Trevor leaned back and looked around the table. His fellows were laughing over their shared meal, and the astronauts were cheerful in anticipation of their imminent launch. The supply ship would soon be on its way. In a few months’ time, the residents of Ares City might well be living large.

  They had landed on Mars full of expectation and fear. Ares City was far from secure, and there remained a great deal of hard work and hard choices ahead. But for now, Trevor breathed in the hope and optimism that surrounded him, and he smiled when he felt Hogan leaning close.

  “Hey,” she murmured. “Do you have a minute?”

  She rose from the table and led him out of the room.

  Holding his hand, Hogan led Trevor down the hallway, away from the dining area and into the fitness room on the other side of the habitat module. She moved through the space like she was a resident of Ares City herself—which she would be by this time the next sol, after the astronauts had lifted away from Mars.

  She pulled him into the dark fitness room and toward the wide window looking out on the empty frontier of their new home. The sun was low in the sky, and the four-pronged shadow of Ares City stretched out long over the rust-colored landscape. Everything outside was fading to a dark, brown-gray.

  They stood together before the window. Trevor gazed out at the familiar canyons of Noctis Labyrinthus in the distance.

  “It’s actually kind of pretty, here at sunset,” he muttered. “It’s funny. It was almost this same sight that filled me with foreboding when we first landed. And then Guillermo ran off.”

  “Twice.”

  Trevor snorted. “And in nearly the same direction, too. Anyway, I’d thought it was an ominous sight. I think I was on the verge of getting superstitious about it.”

  “And now?”

  Trevor shrugged. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

  They stood together in silence. Hogan wished she could preserve the moment, of standing at his side before the beautiful and strange sight beyond the glass. But then she wouldn’t get to experience what came next.

  He turned to her. “You didn’t answer your own question back there. Any regrets?”

  Hogan smiled and shook her head. She tried to calm the hammering of her heart, but it was no use. “This is my last night as the commander of Progress Base.”

  She expected to feel some sense of loss, maybe even to shed a tear or two. She’d trained for years for this mission, and now it was concluding without her. There was every chance she’d never see Earth again.

  But she was still a commander in the United Nations Space Corps until someone higher up told her otherwise. And now she was embarking on a new adventure. Given the buzz of excitement building in her body, she mused that it might be the most dangerous and most satisfying adventure of her life.

  “Maybe you should go back, then? Spend some more time with your crew before they leave?”

  Hogan laughed. “We’ve been bottled up tight together for two years. I don’t think a few more minutes will make much difference.” She paused. “But, yes, I’ll head back with them to Progress Base for the night, and make sure they’re ready for their departure tomorrow.”

  “We’ll give them a good send-off.”

  “You already have. You should all stay here and watch the launch from Dorito Village. I’ll make my way back over to you afterward.”

  Trevor blew out a long sigh. “You sure you want to make that long walk back here on your own?”

  Hogan kept her eyes on the horizon. She focused on memorizing every detail of the rocky surface, gentle slopes, and jagged outcroppings of the scene outside the window, even though she’d have this same view every day for the rest of her life. This is what she wanted. This planet. This new possibility for the future. And this new partner beside her.

  “You know, when the hero rides off into the sunset in movies? In those old Westerns, that’s supposed to be a metaphor for the hero coming to the end of his journey and riding off into death.”

  “Maybe you’d like to make an appointment to stand together at the window at sunrise instead.”

  Hogan laughed and turned to face him. “I look forward to greeting many Martian sunrises with you.” She kissed him quickly. “Preferably in your quarters.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and tried to pull her close, but she pressed her hands against his chest and pushed back.

  “There’s just one thing first, something important, that I’ve got on my mind,” she said.

  The smile faded from Trevor’s face, and she could see the worry creeping into his features. She had to do this quickly, before he got the mistaken impression that she had bad news or a new wrinkle to share. There would always be some problem cropping up somewhere in this new colony, and some of them were likely to be lethal. She had to be prepared for that if she was going to pull her weight.

  But there was one need she could meet straightaway, and she’d embraced the idea with delight as soon as she realized it was something she wanted, too.

  Hogan took Trevor’s hands into her own. The fading light outside the window cast his featur
es into beguiling contrast. Hogan took a deep breath, and then she let go.

  “Trevor Ali Azam.” Now she felt the tears coming. “Will you marry me?”

  His slow, answering smile was bright enough to rival the distant sun.

  Wait!

  Before you go . . .

  I hope you enjoyed the read. If you have a few minutes, would you mind posting a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads?

  Thanks for helping to spread the word to other readers who might enjoy this book and this series, and for helping to support me as an author.

  If you’d like to hear about book news, freebies, and more, you can sign up for my mailing list at Jennifer-Willis.com.

  In the meantime, I’m going back to work on my urban fantasy series, so look for more books very soon.

  Author’s Note

  It’s a funny thing really.

  I spent quite a bit of time researching the Red Planet and the various landing, exploration, and habitation sites that had been proposed by different groups. I’d think I found the perfect place to establish the first Mars Colony Program habitat in my story, and then there would be some complication with the geography or the locally available resources, and I’d have to go back to the drawing board.

  At long last, I settled on the area of Tharsis Montes, for reasons both on and off the page in this book. With that decided, I went ahead with the first draft.

  And then I discovered that Kim Stanley Robinson, years ahead of me with his Mars trilogy, had chosen pretty much the same freaking spot for his first Mars colony.

  At the time, I’d not yet read Robinson’s books, which in itself is a travesty. But I didn’t know if I should feel vindicated and reassured in my choice of colony site or upset that I might look like a copy-cat. I elected to go with the former, and I hoped the coincidence—or the fact that Robinson and I had arrived at the same geographic conclusion after careful consideration—would lend at least a tinge of credence to the Mars Heat story.

  So, there it is.

  Acknowledgments

  The Mars Heat beta readers—Rebecca Stefoff, Laurel, Tuffy Black, and Laura Graham Hirschfeld—who read fast and furiously and gave flat-out awesome feedback in a valiant attempt to help me make this a better book. I hope I haven’t let you down.

  My many Facebook friends (and many fellow authors) who weighed in on possible names—both serious and ridiculous—for a Mars colony: Roseanne Apodaca, Will Armstrong, K.C. Ball, Sandra Beckwith, Mary N. Black, Bob Brown, ‪Mike Chinakos, Rita Colorito‬, Pamela Cowan, ‪Nikolai Danilchik‬, Chris Dawson, ‪Michael Douthit Hays‬, Warren Easley, John Elliott, Jonathan Ems, ‪Danielle Myers Gembala, Doreen Grieve, Michael Harper, Samantha Hillaire, Jim Holzgrefe‬, Madison Keller, ‪CarolLee Streeter Kidd, Jane Lasky, ‬Eric Longbine, ‪Sandra Odell‬, Meredith Gordon Resnick, Joey Rick, Diana Rico, Scamper Robinson, Patty Sauls, James Sentman, Erik Sherman, Jen Singer, Dale Ivan Smith, Laurel Standley, Eric James Stone, Meghan Stone Thomas, ‪Jeff VanderMeer‬, Wendy Wagner, Rachel Weingarten, ‪Michele Wojciechowski‬, and Brandy Wood. You guys!

  The Masked Hucksters (aka, The World’s Best Writers Group), for helping me brainstorm this book and tolerating all of my geeking out over interplanetary travel and bioreactors. At least I didn’t spread my Mars maps out all over the table.

  The late great For Love or Money Facebook group, for inspiration and commiseration and a whole lot of optimistic know-how along the way.

  Laurel J. Standley, for explaining to me I don’t know how many times how bioreactors do and do not work and for putting up with my crazy science questions.

  Mike Brotherton for introducing me to the Cosmic Train Schedule, and for the completely necessary and mind-meltingly intense Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop for Writers.

  And as always, Mike Volk, for tolerating my particular brand of eccentricity. You must be gunning for sainthood by now.

  About the Author

  Author photograph by Rachel Hadiashar.

  Jennifer Willis loves tales of magickal mayhem, unlikely adventure, and playful intrigue.

  An admitted sci-fi nerd and urban fantasy fan, she is the author of the Valhalla urban fantasy series and the MARS science fiction romance books. When she’s not hiking, knitting, baking, star-gazing, or reading like a fiend, she spends her time bringing enchantment to the world. She is also the writer behind the Northwest Love Stories feature in The Oregonian and has a byline in the Hugo Award-winning Women Destroy Science Fiction anthology from Lightspeed.

  She lives in Oregon with her dude, their dog, a couple of cats, and possibly a family of raccoons residing under the house.

  This is her eighth published novel, and the third volume in the Mars Adventure Romance Series.

  For more information . . .

  jennifer-willis.com

  jen@jennifer-willis.com

  Also by Jennifer Willis

  Rhythm (2001)

  The Valhalla series

  Valhalla (2011)

  Iduna’s Apples (2012)

  The Black Pool (2013)

  Raven Quest (2017)

  The Chaos Witch (coming 2017)

  Ragnarok (coming 2018)

  Mars Adventure Romance Series (M.A.R.S.)

  Mars Ho! (2017)

  Lovers and Lunatics (2017)

  Mars Heat (2017)

  Find news of future books at jennifer-willis.com.