Mars Ho! (Mars Adventure Romance Series Book 1)

by Jennifer Willis

  Mark fired his MMU again to slow his approach. He coasted toward them as Lori pressed her thick gloves against the puncture in Gilbert’s left leg. Tiny orbs of frozen blood spewed out between her fingers.

  “Gilbert,” Lori said. “I need you to keep talking to me.”

  A split-second burst from his MMU brought Mark to a halt. He grabbed the Solar-7’s retracting gears and turned himself around to face Gilbert.

  “So.” Mark adopted an artificially jovial tone. “What’s new with you guys?”

  Gilbert laughed. At Lori’s relieved chuckle, Mark felt his own anxiety decrease a notch.

  “I’m okay,” Gilbert said. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “Mark, hand me your patch kit,” Lori said.

  He reached for his adhesive gun. “I’ll do it, but I need you to let go for a minute.”

  “Okay.” Her voice was so unruffled it almost made him smile. As long as everyone remained composed, they’d get through this. “Just don’t glue yourself to Gilbert, all right?”

  “That would be a sight.” Gilbert laughed again, but then gasped when Lori moved out of Mark’s way. A fresh stream of blood poured out of his leg.

  Mark stuck the nozzle into the rip in Gilbert’s suit. It was a small, v-shaped tear, no larger than a garden pea, but more than big enough to threaten the man’s life. Beads of blood climbed up the nozzle as air continued to stream out. Mark pulled the trigger. If he accidentally glued the suit or some inner layer directly to Gilbert’s skin, they’d sort it out inside the station.

  “Come on, man!” Gilbert panted, his voice reedy over the comms. “Do it already.”

  Mark filled the puncture, then gave the rip a second coat of adhesive. The goo hardened immediately. Mark holstered the gun away.

  Gilbert inhaled deeply and let out a long sigh. “Okay. I think you got it. And now my suit is blaring at me. Surprise! I’m out of air, guys.”

  Lori zipped open a panel on the front of her suit and unspooled a fragile-looking hose. She unzipped a similar panel on Gilbert’s suit and connected her lifeline to him. She checked gauges and patted Gilbert on the chest. “Buddy breathing, like SCUBA. I’m low, too, but this should get us to the airlock.”

  Mark noted that she didn’t give an estimate on how much time they had left. He grabbed Gilbert by the shoulder. “Lori, line up.”

  She maneuvered around to Gilbert’s other side and hooked her arm through his. “We’re going for a little ride.”

  “On the count of three?” Mark counted down and worked his MMU in sync with Lori’s, the three of them moving toward the airlock quickly, but not quite fast enough for comfort.

  “We’ll be back inside in no time,” Mark started to say, but his words were cut short by the blaring of alarms inside his own suit. He was low on air. Just like the fiasco of the airlock challenge in Arizona. He laughed out loud, wondering if the Mars Ho producers had given him more relevant emergency training than they’d realized.

  “Everything okay, Mark?” Lori asked.

  “Sure.” His chuckle lingered. “It’s just that I’m out of air.”

  “Yeah, that’s hilarious, buddy.” Gilbert sounded calm enough, but he was still in danger and being rescued by a pair of amateurs. “Just get me to the airlock and save the jokes for later, okay?”

  It was tricky, coordinating the jets on his MMU with Lori’s. They lost time with course corrections when they started drifting right or left. Mark was about to let go and let Lori ferry Gilbert alone when he realized they were within coasting distance of Personnel Airlock A. He breathed a sigh of relief when they arrived at the outer door without slamming into anything or causing additional damage to person or property.

  Lori pulled Gilbert inside the open airlock, being careful not to snag their lifeline. Mark shut the door behind him and hit the button to engage the seals. He half expected a new series of alarms indicating that the airlock was broken. But the door sealed tight, and pressurization began.

  Mark turned to Lori and smiled. “We survived another airlock challenge.”

  She glanced at Gilbert to make sure he was still alert. “They haven’t managed to kill us yet—”

  A loud pop like a ruptured balloon exploded overhead, followed a half-second later by strobing red lights.

  “Warning! Warning!” a computerized voice filled Mark’s ears. He wasn’t sure if the sound was coming over the comms or from the speakers in the partially pressurized airlock. Probably both.

  “What’s happening?” Lori called over the comms.

  Gilbert pointed to a hole in the wall over their heads. “I swear that wasn’t there before.” He coughed. “Of course, I’m oxygen-deprived. Blood loss. Maybe I’m imagining things.”

  “More space junk?” Lori asked.

  Gilbert executed what looked like a shrug. “A little nick, maybe, weakening the material. Doesn’t really matter. We’re still losing air.” His movements were sluggish, and he was slurring his words.

  Lori checked her suit’s readout on her wrist. “I don’t have enough air to get to another airlock.”

  Mark knew he didn’t, either. The cargo airlocks would take too long to pressurize, and Personnel Airlock B was clear on the other side of the station. He pulled out his patch kit. “You seal it from the inside. I’ll head out.”

  Lori pooled her patching supplies with what Gilbert had left. It would have to be enough. By the time Mark stopped the airlock’s cycle and began depressurization, Lori was examining the leak and working out what size gasket and toggle bolt would fit. Gilbert floated at the end of the lifeline that tethered them together, his eyelids fluttering.

  Red lights continued flashing, but the computerized warnings fell silent.

  “You guys okay?” April’s voice came over the comms. “It took me a minute to shut off the alarms. What’s happening?”

  Mark took all of ten seconds to describe the situation to April and anyone else who was listening—probably the rest of the station, and maybe even the whole planet below by this point. No doubt Mars Ho had gone live with the crisis and was scoring a ratings bonanza.

  “I can handle it from here,” Lori said as the airlock completed depressurization.

  Registering the determination and fear in her eyes, Mark felt a numbing buzz. His heart pounded in his ears. Every nerve was on alert, but he felt heavy and slow. He could blame only part of that on microgravity and the bulk of his EVA suit. The rest was pure dread.

  He held her gaze, ignoring the airlock door. They had been here before. But now, Mark didn’t know which of them was taking the greater risk—Lori inside a busted airlock, sharing what little air she had with an injured astronaut; or himself, heading back outside while his own supplies ran dangerously low.

  “Go,” she said.

  “Seal it behind me, and re-pressurize as soon as the leak is fixed. I’ll see if I can make it to the other airlock.”

  Before Lori could protest, Mark opened the door and launched himself away.

  Breathe in, breathe out. But not too much. The first pair of gaskets and bolts Lori tried to fit into the airlock puncture were too small and slipped through the tear in the wall to become lost somewhere beyond her reach. She cringed at the thought of the fasteners rattling around inside for the rest of the space station’s serviceable life. But she needed to focus on the remainder of her own serviceable life.

  While lucid, Gilbert tried to tie them both into the emergency air supply inside the airlock, but the tanks were empty. April reported that the puncture had disabled the line and went to work trying to find an alternative they might patch into, to buy them more time. The rest of the station crew and other colonists were also scrambling to mount an EVA rescue, but their suits needed time to recharge their air reserves.

  It wasn’t looking good.

  “Really starting to hate airlocks,” Lori muttered, remembering Leah’s grumbling at the beginning of their EVA. She was startled by Mark’s answering chuckle. She turned, almost expecti
ng to find him hovering beside her.

  “You and me both,” he said over the comms from outside the station.

  “Lori? Mark? Gilbert?” April’s voice was in Lori’s ear. “How are the repairs coming?”

  “Yeah.” Mark sounded distracted. “I’m still making my way to the site of the leak. It’s going to be tricky, because it’s closer to the station, somewhere near the intersection of modules.” There was a pause. “I’ll let you know when I find it.”

  Lori selected the biggest gasket in her kit and slid it into the puncture in the airlock ceiling. Was it her imagination, or was the hole getting bigger?

  She slid in the toggle bolt, then pointed her adhesive gun at the hardware to seal it into place. She pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. She pulled the trigger harder. Still no sealant. She lifted the gun away and shook it, then cursed at the uselessness of the gesture without gravity to jostle any gummed-up works. She thought about knocking the gun against the wall, but she didn’t want to risk more damage to the airlock.

  She banged on the side of the gun with her fist. She heard a small pop and felt her adrenaline spike, but there weren’t any new punctures that she could see. She smacked the gun against her leg a few times and tried applying the sealant again. No luck.

  Lori pulled Gilbert’s gun out of the kit. She positioned the nozzle around the bolt and squeezed the trigger. She blew out a long, relieved breath as the adhesive oozed out and filled in the gaps around the hardware. Half way around the bolt, she repositioned the gun to seal up the rest. The puncture wasn’t getting any bigger, and her side of the leak was almost mended. She was nearly all the way around the bolt when the adhesive ran out.

  She smacked the gun with the heel of her hand and coaxed an extra, minuscule blob from the nozzle. She drove it against the edge of the bolt and barely covered the gap that remained. Then Gilbert’s gun died, too.

  “Uh, guys?” Lori pounded on both guns, trying in vain to squeeze out just a tiny bit more goo. “I’m out of the sealant. I’ve shored up the hole from the inside, but I can’t guarantee that I’ve covered the whole thing.”

  Her brain started working the unlucky scenarios of her failure. The temporary seal might shoot out of its mooring when they tried to pressurize the airlock, for instance, and there’d be an even bigger hole venting atmosphere into space. And what if Mark couldn’t patch the leak on his end?

  Lori heard a loud buzzing in her ears. She didn’t know if her suit was shouting at her again or if it was the overload of adrenaline. Maybe oxygen deprivation? What would that feel like? She might not even know that it was happening. She checked her wrist display. It was blinking red. 0% oxygen remaining.

  “Mark?” Lori asked over the comms. She couldn’t remember when she’d last heard him speak. She turned to check on Gilbert, floating about a meter away and still tethered to her. His eyes were closed. Was he unconscious? Was he dead? “Gilbert? Gilbert!”

  Nothing.

  “Uh, everybody? Gilbert’s not responding.” Lori waited. No reply. “Anybody? Mark? Have you been able to fix the leak from your side?”

  Silence.

  Lori’s breath rose high in her chest as her heartbeat thudded in her ears. Panic. She reminded herself to keep her breath steady, but there wasn’t any oxygen, right? She closed her eyes and tried to imagine herself on a mountaintop where the air was thin and cool, but that visualization lasted all of three seconds while her heart pounded in her chest.

  “Mark?” she called again, but the comms were quiet.

  Her wrist display glowed a steady red now. She and Gilbert were sharing what little air was left in their suits, and even that was probably still bleeding out the hastily patched tear in his suit. Could someone inside the station open the airlock without risking the station’s atmosphere? She tried to remember where the bulkhead doors were. She hadn’t studied the station schematics, and she wasn’t sure she would have understood them if she had.

  Without comms, Lori couldn’t be certain anyone inside knew that she’d done her best. And she had no idea how Mark was doing.

  Was he also looking at a red-zero life support readout, and not anywhere close to an airlock?

  “Mark?” Lori’s vision clouded as her eyes filled with tears she couldn’t wipe away. “Mark, can you hear me? Are you there?”

  She waited, sobbing quietly. There was no response.

  “Oh, gosh, Mark. I don’t know what to do here.”

  Gilbert’s face was pale. She didn’t know if he was even breathing. She slowed her own breath, and that helped her gather her wits, to an extent. She was trapped within the white and silver walls of ISS-5’s Personnel Airlock A, and was tethered to a possibly already-dead astronaut. She could cut him loose and head back outside, but she didn’t have enough air to reach another airlock.

  She was going to die a stupid, pointless death.

  “Mark, if there’s any way you can hear me . . . Oh, Mark, I am so sorry I never told you.”

  Lori didn’t want her last sight to be the inside of the airlock. She closed her eyes and let her arms and legs relax. She imagined Mark’s face. His strong jaw. His dark hair. The way his eyes cooled when he was thinking or angry, and the way they crinkled when he laughed. She stopped sobbing.

  “I love you,” she whispered. “I love you, Mark.” Her voice was louder on the repetition, just in case there was any chance he could hear her, or that her last words were being recorded by her suit. She’d said her goodbyes to her mother and her sister. But she hadn’t thought she’d have to say goodbye to Mark! They were supposed to be at the beginning of their adventure together, not already at its end.

  “Do you hear me? Mark Lauren, I love you. Even though my name would be Lori Lauren if we got married and they made me take your last name, and that would be stupid. I love you. Even though you can be reserved and aloof, and you even seem cold, sometimes. And you can be a real jackass. But so can I, right? Well, maybe I’m not a jackass, but I’ve done my share of jumping to conclusions and being stubborn and ridiculous.”

  She took a deep, cautious breath. She didn’t know what it would feel like to suffocate. Would it be suffocation, or asphyxiation? She wasn’t sure. She’d have to look that up later. Except there wasn’t going to be any later.

  She kept her eyes closed. She didn’t want to watch her vision fade to black, or to white, or whatever it was going to do.

  “I’m so sorry, Mark. I’m sorry to do this to you.” She remembered the look on his face when he’d torn the curtain aside at The Ranch and gotten his first glimpse of her. How unabashed he’d been about his own nakedness while giving her hell about her lingerie.

  “I guess I’ve loved you since the start.” She felt her smile move through her body, followed by a rush of awareness, almost a euphoria. The end must be very close now. “It’s a shame I didn’t see it sooner. I was so distracted by stupid, insignificant things. I’m sorry I wasted that time we could have had together, Mark. And I should have told you before. I should have known before now. I want you to be happy. I want you to go and explore and discover. I wish you a wonderful, wonderful life. And maybe, on a later mission, there will be another woman. Someone who could—”

  There was a sharp rap against Lori’s visor. She opened her eyes and gasped. April floated before her, in the open doorway of the airlock. She wasn’t wearing a pressure suit. April was saying something, but no sound came from her lips.

  Lori was hallucinating. This is it. “Mark, I love you and I want you to be happy. I want you to know how important it’s been to me to be on this journey with you”

  April frowned. She reached for Lori’s neck and unlatched Lori’s helmet. Lori was ready. This vision of her friend, crafted by the dying cells of her brain, would be her companion to whatever lay beyond.

  A blast of cold air swirled around her face as April lifted Lori’s helmet off her head.

  “As I was saying, your little love note to Mark is all very touching, but would you mind gett
ing out of the way so we can finish fixing the airlock? Mark’s waiting outside to come in, and his air’s pretty low. Though you’ve, uh, certainly given him a reason to live.” April chuckled.

  “What?” Lori blinked hard. She looked around the compartment and saw Yoshiko and Maya floating above, working to reinforce her patch. Gilbert’s helmet was off, his eyes still closed as Molly and Dina pulled his limp form into the station. The tether was gone.

  Lori took a deep breath, filling her lungs. Nothing hurt, but she felt a little dizzy. Was she dead or not? She frowned at April, hovering inside the inner airlock door. The outer door was sealed tight. “Wait, so you’re real?”

  “Pretty sure I’m real.” April grabbed the front of Lori’s EVA suit and dragged her into the station.

  Lori felt like she was awaking from a deep, tenacious dream. Her brain took its time catching up to her surroundings—walls of cabinets and tethers and signage in multiple languages. She was inside the space station. April was probably taking her to medical. “Mark’s outside?”

  “Maybe back inside by this point. You did a good job sealing things up. No problem with pressurization at all.”

  Lori’s head was starting to hurt, and she was a couple of seconds behind. “But the radio was dead. I was all alone. I was dying.”

  April grabbed Lori’s wrist and held it up. “You turned your speaker off. Maybe when you were banging on the adhesive guns. You couldn’t hear us, but your mic was on.”

  “So Mark could hear me? Everything I said?”

  April laughed out loud. “He could hear you. We all could hear you. So could everybody on Earth tuning into the broadcast.”

  The broadcast. Lori felt acid churn in her stomach. The corridor started to spin around her, and she reached out a hand to steady herself against the medical bay doorway.

  Before she knew what was happening, April had stripped her of her EVA suit, LCG, and MAG. Gilbert was strapped to a table jutting out from the opposite wall, and Molly was hooking him up to an IV and beginning to examine a nasty looking wound in his thigh.