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

  And they’d all kept a close eye on Guillermo. He hadn’t shown signs of anxiety or claustrophobia by the time Red Wing 1 inserted into Mars orbit, but now they were cooped up in a computer-driven rover and having issues getting inside their new home.

  “It’s just a little hiccup. We’ll get it sorted.” Mark’s tone was calm and cool. His was always the first and last voice of reason whenever a problem arose. He was out of his seat and hovering over April’s shoulder as they whispered together.

  Lori moved over to sit beside Guillermo.

  “Just a little trouble with the airlock.” She laughed, keeping her voice light, and Trevor admired her for it. “What is it about us and airlocks? But we always come out all right.”

  Trevor looked out the window and watched another unsuccessful docking attempt. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine that everyone in the rover was having flashbacks to that awful airlock challenge on the first day of the Mars Ho competition, or the impact event on the space station that had nearly turned deadly.

  As the bridge pulled away, Trevor caught sight of the problem. “Hey, has there been a dust storm here lately?”

  April’s fingers flew over the dashboard’s touch controls, and she frowned at the central display screen. “Yep, that’s it. We’ve got a dirty seal.”

  “Somebody call housekeeping!” Trent exclaimed brightly. Guillermo laughed.

  The top of Trevor’s head brushed the rover’s ceiling as he stood and pulled on his gloves, locking them into his pressure suit. It felt good to have his feet beneath him and bearing his weight, even if every step felt like walking inside an inflatable bounce house.

  “Right.” Mark stowed his tablet in his personal bag—the same Mars Ho-branded duffel they’d each been lugging around since they entered the reality show competition—and reached for his own gloves. “Gloves and helmets, everybody. We’re going in on foot.”

  “Can’t we just send somebody out to, you know, clean off the hatch or something?” Melissa was at Guillermo’s side, practically pawing at him as she sought to keep him calm. Unfortunately, her efforts were having the opposite effect. Guillermo tugged at his suit’s lock ring around his neck and swallowed hard.

  “So, like, the rest of us can just wait in the rover, right?” Melissa added.

  Trevor pulled on his helmet as Mark’s answer came over the comms. “It’ll be faster this way. Just a minute or two outside, and then we’ll be safely inside Ares City. Plus, we get to put boots on the ground! Nothing to worry about.”

  Melissa’s eyes were wide as she turned to Guillermo, who looked even more alarmed now that her worried gaze was on him. He patted her shoulder and climbed to his feet.

  “It’ll be fine,” Guillermo said, mimicking Mark’s tone. His hands were steady as he pulled on his gloves, though he fumbled with his helmet as he tried to get the thing to seal into place.

  Trevor stepped toward him, and Guillermo lowered his arms and let Trevor rotate his helmet into its home position and then activate the airtight seal. Guillermo smiled as his suit’s life support kicked on. Trevor gave his shoulder a quick squeeze, then picked up his own duffel bag and headed toward the hatch at the back of the rover.

  They’d go through the rover’s airlock two at a time, with pressure maintained inside. From the head of the vehicle, Mark nodded to Trevor. “We’re good. Go ahead.”

  Trevor opened the inner door and stepped inside the airlock with Lori entering behind him. Even with their bags it wasn’t a tight squeeze, but they’d have to get the rover’s wide docking bridge up and running if they wanted to offload their supplies into the habitat.

  Lori lifted her eyebrows in amused anticipation as the compartment quickly depressurized. “Ready?”

  Trevor smiled. He wasn’t sure what other response to give. Who would ever truly be ready for Mars?

  The light on the outer hatch turned red. Trevor took a deep breath and opened the door. The rust-red expanse of his new planet was laid out before him.

  Trevor wasn’t sure what was true color and what was the filtered effect of his helmet protecting him from short-term radiation exposure. He climbed down the short ladder and felt the crunch of Martian dirt beneath his feet.

  Just like that, he was the first colonist to officially set foot on Mars. In the dim light of the dry, barren environs, he almost felt like he’d landed in the high desert of Eastern Oregon.

  He wished he’d prepared a few words, something memorable and pithy like Neil Armstrong’s “One small step for a man” on the moon, or Sophia Lee’s “Humanity’s first step onto a new world; Earth’s first step into a new future,” when she became the first person to walk on Mars.

  But Lee had been on practically the other side of the planet from where Trevor stood, and he hadn’t planned on being the first of his group on Martian soil. He let the moment pass without comment.

  He felt a hand on his elbow, urging him away from the ladder.

  “They’ll be coming through pretty quickly.” Lori adjusted her duffel bag on her shoulder and gestured toward the landscape. “Is it everything you hoped it would be?”

  Trevor gazed toward the jagged features of Noctis Labyrinthus rising and falling in the distance. Somewhere out there was the UNSC’s Progress Base habitat they’d passed, about a kilometer away and half-buried like the modules of Ares City, but Trevor couldn’t spot it.

  His eye was drawn instead to the gentle sloping—or what looked to be a gentle sloping, at this distance—of Pavonis Mons; the vast expanse of dirt; and the scattering of rocks and boulders. The terrain cried out to be explored, and Trevor smiled at the stirring in his blood. After 130 days inside a pressurized can, the urge to stride forward with purpose—and to run and shout and do cartwheels—was almost overwhelming.

  “The Sirens of Noctis,” he whispered.

  “What was that?” Leah leapt off the bottom of the ladder and landed about a meter behind him. “What did I miss?”

  “Just waxing poetic. It’s nothing.” Trevor turned his back on the rover and headed for the nearest module of Ares City. Even half-buried, the structure soared over his head. He ignored the chatter over the comms about the view and oxygen levels as the colonists cycled out of the rover. He curved around the side of the module and was rewarded with the sight of a pedestrian airlock. “Over here, guys!”

  He had to clear away about a half-meter of sandy dirt that had collected at the bottom of the door. The UNSC astronauts were supposed to have toured Ares City before the colonists’ arrival to make sure everything was up and running and essentially habitable, so the storm must have been recent.

  But Trevor wasn’t used to exerting himself in light gravity. The resistance machines on Red Wing 1 had done only so much to prevent muscle atrophy. By the time he scooped the sand away from the door, he was out of breath and sweating inside his suit. He felt his life support system lower his ambient temperature and increase his air circulation.

  With a grunt, Trevor pulled open the outer door. At least this airlock looked big enough to accommodate them all at once. They could enter together, eight colonists getting their first glimpse inside their new home at the same time.

  “No! Wait! It’s okay. Guillermo!” Lori shouted over the comms.

  “Just let me help you inside!” Melissa exclaimed. “Stop pushing. Come on!”

  Trevor bounded around the side of the habitat and saw three colonists in pressure suits trying to grab hold of a flailing fourth—presumably Guillermo—who was trying to fend them off. Guillermo lost his footing and fell to the ground, scattering coarse red dirt. Lori, Melissa, and Trent circled around to help him up. But once Guillermo had his feet beneath him, he was off and running, straight for the Labyrinth of Night.

  2

  “And now it looks like one of them is running off by himself.”

  Hogan Kay sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. The United Nations Space Corps commander didn’t need her second-in-command to verbalize what she was already thinking:
The first Mars Colony Program residents had finally landed on the Red Planet, and they weren’t the least bit prepared for the harsh realities of their new life so far from home.

  “Probably agoraphobia, after being inside that transit ship,” Grigori Aminev continued as Hogan and her team huddled around a workstation screen inside the Progress Base control room. He switched between several views of the colonists’ movements from cameras stationed around the base and scattered across their immediate environment. “I didn’t think that kind of thing happened anymore, once they started screening and training for it.”

  But this group hadn’t been properly screened or trained, had they? Hogan squeezed her eyes shut. They’re going to die here. On my watch.

  “Commander?”

  Hogan opened her eyes. “Yes?”

  “He’s heading our way. Running at a good clip, too.”

  “Let me guess,” Hogan said. “Guillermo Costa?”

  The other three astronauts under her command—Miranda Wells, Martin Lefebvre, and Yusuf Naidoo—laughed nervously. They’d watched the Mars Ho episodes that had been beamed their way in their daily data dumps from Earth—first with delighted astonishment at the program’s absurdity, and later with sinking dread as the reality set in that the contestants on the screen were headed their way.

  Now the colonists were here, and the UNSC crew would have to take turns playing babysitter.

  Miranda lifted her hands. “Fine, I’ll go after him. There’s no telling how much air he’s got left, and if he’s hyperventilating—”

  Hogan backed away from the screen. “I’m coming with you. Grigori, keep me updated. See if you can establish a communications channel with the colonists.”

  It was a long shot that they’d be able to make useful radio contact with the new arrivals. The colonists’ comms would be tuned to their own frequency and once Grigori found their channel, who knew what level of disorganization and frantic chatter would reign?

  If they were lucky, Hogan and her team would grab this guy before he hurt himself or anyone else, get him inside the Ares City colony habitat, and pump him full of enough sedatives to let him sleep off whatever panic had hold of him.

  Right out of the gate, the arrival of the first colonists on Mars was shaping up to be a major pain in the ass.

  “I’ll grab my kit.” Martin headed for the medical unit.

  Within a few short and efficient minutes, Hogan, Miranda, and Martin were suited up and cycling through Airlock B. Hogan had lost count of how many forays she’d taken outside the UNSC habitat since the Hermes 5 crew arrived at Progress Base not quite fourteen months earlier. But this was her first rescue mission.

  Progress Base was just under a kilometer away from Ares City, where the new colonists were supposed to have the best of everything. Hogan’s team had inspected the habitat a few days earlier to ensure the new Martians would arrive to a home that was fully electrified and pressurized. They’d poked around at the appliances and other facilities out of curiosity. It would be a sparse life for the colonists, at least at the start, but Ares City looked more comfortable and better appointed than Progress Base—and Hogan had heard her people grumbling about it on the walk back.

  The short distance between the two habitats was no accident. This southern pocket of Tharsis Montes was one of several dozen sensible locations for a colony settlement, and had gotten first choice because of the UNSC base nearby.

  Hogan, Miranda, and Martin jogged across the reddish dirt toward the flailing colonist who looked to be veering off toward Noctis Labyrinthus. It made a kind of sense to flee toward the plateaus and plunging canyons—something that might look half-way familiar or reassuring compared to the mildly graded plains surrounding it. Pavonis Mons, farther distant, would also have been an attractive target.

  “Looks like he may be slowing down,” Martin’s voice came over the comms.

  “Which could mean he’s calming down,” Miranda replied. “Or he’s panicking even worse and about to try to rip off his helmet.”

  “Let’s step it up, people.” Hogan broke into a near sprint, awkward in a pressure suit. But her training had prepared her for nearly every eventuality. A fellow explorer in trouble outside the habitat was central to at least sixty different scenarios she’d tackled back on Earth. From what she’d seen of Mars Ho, Guillermo Costa and the other colonists hadn’t gotten any training at all.

  The astronauts crossed the distance easily and were quickly within range of the colonists. And indeed it was Mr. Costa thrashing about as he evaded capture by the others—by one colonist in particular, Hogan noted.

  She saw Guillermo’s eyes go wide when he spotted the three UNSC astronauts in their gray and blue pressure suits—a sharp contrast to the monochromatic environment and the colonists’ cream and orange suits.

  Hogan slowed to a stop, with Miranda and Martin on either side. “Let’s give him a little room, since we’ve not been properly introduced.”

  Guillermo came to an abrupt halt and stared at Hogan. It looked like he was shouting, but the colonists were on a different comms channel. She almost laughed when she saw the mix of confusion and near terror on Guillermo’s face and wondered if he might think they were a trio of honest-to-goodness Martians coming for him.

  “I’ve got them, commander,” Grigori’s voice came in from Progress Base. “They’re on fourteen-five, if you want to switch over to them.”

  “Got it. Martin? Miranda? Switching to fourteen-five.” Hogan opened her channel on the colonists’ frequency and was nearly knocked backward by the barrage of voices shouting to be heard at once.

  “Guillermo! It’s okay!” one female voice complained. Hogan guessed this was from the colonist Guillermo seemed most intent on avoiding—Melissa Subirà. “Just take my hand. You’ll be fine.”

  “Don’t crowd him.” Hogan recognized the voice of Mark Lauren, supposedly the leader of the group, as he approached from the back of the colonial scrum. He was calling for calm and quiet, at least, though no one seemed to be paying him any attention. Two additional figures—Lori Ridgway and Trent Jennings—crept toward Guillermo from either side.

  “Guillermo, if you would just . . .” Melissa’s voice was drowned out momentarily by someone else giving a random weather report. “Everything’s going to be just fine. Just come back to the shelter.”

  “Will you just give me a minute? Okay?” Guillermo actively tried to push Melissa away. “Can you please give me some space here?”

  “Look, can we just head back to the habitat?” Another woman’s voice, probably Leah Yew. “We’ll just get inside and—”

  “Hey! Who invited these guys?” Trent Jennings pointed at Hogan and her team. “You’re not here to surrender, are you?”

  Hogan couldn’t help but laugh. Trent had been one of her favorites on Mars Ho, with his ridiculously bad jokes and general awkwardness. Now present on Mars, he didn’t disappoint—and his sudden, strange announcement had gotten his comrades to cut their chatter.

  Hogan took a step forward. “Hey, there, folks. I’m Commander Hogan Kay of the United Nations Space Corps, and these are two of my crew, Miranda Wells and Martin Lefebvre.” Miranda and Martin lifted their hands in succession. Hogan tried to sound both friendly and authoritative, but she could hear the irritation bleeding through. She forced a smile onto her face.

  “We hadn’t planned on barging in on you like this. Thought we’d give you some time to settle into your new home before we came knocking on your door.” Hogan paused. The colonists were all staring at her, some with open mouths beneath their visors. It was a surreal scene—a small collection of humans in pressure suits standing around and exchanging tense pleasantries on an empty Martian plain. She reinforced her smile.

  “But we saw that you might be having a bit of trouble?” Hogan let her question hang in the air, but no one responded. “So, we thought we’d come on out and see if we could help.”

  Melissa broke the silence. She wasn’t used to the one
-third gravity after months of weightlessness, or maybe she was having trouble maneuvering in her pressure suit, but she executed a fairly aggressive lunge directed at Hogan.

  “WE’VE GOT IT UNDER CONTROL!” Melissa shrieked over the comms. She stumbled and fell to her knees in front of Hogan, then struggled to regain her feet. “I know what I’m doing. I can take care of Guillermo if you would all just butt out already.”

  Hogan wasn’t entirely sure that last comment was directed at her. She was also caught off-guard by the shift in the crisis. Guillermo appeared perfectly calm. It was his mate, Melissa, who was on the verge of a full-scale freakout.

  Martin took a step toward Melissa while Miranda edged closer to Guillermo.

  “You’ve been traveling a long while,” Martin said. “Why don’t we take a walk back to your habitat? We’ll just come along and make sure everything’s okay.”

  “I said I don’t need you!” Melissa shoved Martin away, and Hogan had to catch him before he could fall. “If you will all just get out of the way and let me do my job, I’m perfectly capable of taking care of everything myself. Please!”

  Guillermo took a few more steps away from her. Miranda grabbed his elbow and held him still.

  Hogan wondered if Guillermo’s apparent agoraphobia was instead an attempt to get away from Melissa. The smile vanished from Hogan’s face. She stepped forward.

  “And yet, all evidence to the contrary.” Part of Hogan was satisfied by the spark of fear she caught in Melissa’s eyes. “Sounds to me like you’ve bitten off more than you can chew just now. I suggest you allow my team to escort you back to the colony habitat, where we’ll get you all inside and get everyone settled down.”

  “Hey!” Trent called cheerfully over the comms. “That sounds like a fine idea. You know, first permanent Martians and all? Let’s go check out the new digs, maybe watch a movie, have a snack . . . Cheese puffs, for instance. Something crunchy. How does that sound?”