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  Synopsis

  It's the boldest conquest of our time—the colonization of Mars.

  Of the thousands who clamored for a one-way ticket to the Red Planet, only a fraction remain in the running. Now they're converging on Hawaii’s Big Island for a nail-biting competition to be the first to launch.

  Mila Todorov has prepared for this moment throughout her young life. With her revolutionary propulsion design already built into the Mars vessel, she likes her chances—especially if she can team with her all-time idol, Major Jancey Beaumont, a former NASA astronaut whose last space mission made her a worldwide hero.

  Jancey is desperate for a return to space, but the margin for error is razor-thin. Can she afford to gamble her destiny on a woman so distracting as Mila?

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Synopsis

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Other Books by KG MacGregor

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  Bella Books

  Copyright © 2015 by KG MacGregor

  Bella Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 10543

  Tallahassee, FL 32302

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  First Bella Books Edition 2015

  Editor: Katherine V. Forrest

  Cover Designer: Linda Callaghan

  ISBN: 978-1-59493-452-0

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Other Books By KG MacGregor

  Anyone But You

  Etched in Shadows

  The House on Sandstone

  Just This Once

  Life After Love

  Malicious Pursuit

  Mulligan

  Out of Love

  Photographs of Claudia

  Playing with Fuego

  Rhapsody

  Sea Legs

  Secrets So Deep

  Sumter Point

  Undercover Tales

  West of Nowhere

  Worth Every Step

  Shaken Series

  Without Warning

  Aftershock

  Small Packages

  Mother Load

  Acknowledgments

  It shouldn’t surprise you that I was frequently distracted by the research for this book. I’d go online to check a single detail and end up jumping from one link to another for the next two hours, before dragging myself back to my work. It’s fair to say space travel is my new fascination.

  Admittedly, I take considerable poetic license with the practicality of a manned mission to Mars, but the vision is hardly science fiction. There are some in the space community who believe the technology for colonizing the Red Planet already exists; in fact, experiments are currently underway on Hawaii’s Big Island to determine optimal living conditions. While NASA has the first human touching down no sooner than 2035, private entrepreneurs at Mars One dream of getting there a full decade earlier. It will happen eventually. Why shouldn’t it be a pair of women in love?

  Thanks very much to my editor, Katherine V. Forrest, who always advocates for you, the reader. And to my reading team of Jenny and Karen, who find the important words I’ve left out, and the not-so-important words I’ve left in. A special shout out to the last line of defense—Bella’s proofreaders, Ruth and Carla. They caught a few errors in this book that would have earned me a scolding from you.

  I should probably add that this book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental. Except where it isn’t.

  About the Author

  A former teacher and market research consultant, KG MacGregor holds a PhD in journalism from UNC–Chapel Hill. Infatuation with Xena: Warrior Princess fan fiction prompted her to try her own hand at storytelling in 2002. In 2005, she signed with Bella Books, which published the Golden Crown finalist Just This Once. Her sixth Bella novel, Out of Love, won the Lambda Literary Award for Women’s Romance and the Golden Crown Award in Lesbian Romance. She picked up Goldies also for Without Warning, Worth Every Step and Photographs of Claudia (Contemporary Romance), along with Secrets So Deep and Playing with Fuego (Romantic Suspense).

  Other honors include the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Royal Academy of Bards, the Alice B. Readers Appreciation Medal, and several Readers Choice Awards.

  An avid supporter of queer literature, KG currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the Lambda Literary Foundation. She divides her time between Palm Springs and her native North Carolina mountains.

  Visit her on the web at www.kgmacgregor.com.

  Chapter One

  “Ladies and gentlemen, seating in the lecture hall is arranged alphabetically. Please take your assigned seat as quickly as possible so we can begin.”

  Mila Todorov scowled at the announcement. So much for arriving early to get a seat near the front. How would she stand out among two-hundred-fifty-six candidates if she was all the way at the top of the room? Not fair at all.

  At the doorway to the hall, she was greeted by a Pacific Islander wearing a yellow shirt with the words Tenacity Project stitched above a rocket emblem on his chest. He distributed bottles of water and gestured toward a tray of green capsules, each wrapped in clear plastic. “Energy tablet. Please swallow it when you reach your seat.”

  As Mila climbed the stairs to her assigned desk at the top, the din of conversations grew more subdued, replaced by the shuffling of papers in the information packets left at each seat. Clearly her fellow candidates were as eager as she to learn the details of what was in store for them over the next ten weeks.

  Equally clear were the stakes. They had converged on the Big Island of Hawaii to vie for two seats aboard Tenacity, the interplanetary vessel that would establish the first colony on Mars—at least the first one known to scientists on Earth. The privately funded Tenacity Project had drawn over forty thousand applicants from all over the world. Engineers and physical scientists like Mila. Biologists, chemists, behaviorists, physicians. Pilots
, soldiers, teachers, architects. Athletes, artists, journalists. Even a politician or two. If this were a reality show, they could call it Dancing With the Planets.

  The finalists also included several alumni from space programs from around the world, mostly NASA and the European Space Agency, but also representing Japan, India, Australia and China. It was difficult to imagine beating out those who already had astronaut training, but Mila was determined to give it her all. She was only twenty-seven years old. If she missed out on this wave, there would be others.

  “When you reach your seat, please review your profile and confirm the information is correct.”

  She found her packet at the third seat from the end, four rows from the top. Pity the poor W’s and Y’s, who were sitting above her in the dark. Already she planned a statistical analysis by last name of those who survived the next cut. Not fair.

  Her profile photo—the same one that appeared on the badge hanging from a lanyard around her neck—was surprisingly good, considering it had been taken upon arrival in Hilo at the end of a twenty-eight-hour journey from Berlin. Long hair pulled back in a tie to hide its wilt, making it appear brown instead of dark blond. Mongolian eyes so dark the redness hardly showed. In place of a smile, she’d proffered a practiced look of sureness and satisfaction, as though she’d already been chosen to go.

  The man in the next chair raised a mock toast as he swallowed his energy tablet. Even though he was seated, she could tell he was tall—perhaps even too tall to live comfortably in a space vessel. She celebrated that fact because it meant one less contender. On the other hand, the dark yarmulke that sat upon his crown afforded him a distinctive look the selection committee would notice and remember, since everyone was outfitted in the same khaki cargo pants, black shoes and blue microfiber T-shirt with the Tenacity Project rocket logo. Not fair.

  “Good morning,” he said, extending a hand. “Isaac Tobias. I saw you at the dormitory.”

  “I’m afraid everyone saw me at the dormitory,” she replied sheepishly, recalling the stares when she’d clumsily dropped her well-worn Rubik’s Cube at check-in, scattering colorful pieces of plastic across the hardwood floor. “Not exactly how I wanted to stand out.”

  “Don’t worry about it. What they really noticed was how fast you put it back together.”

  Mila had gotten a perfect score on the analytical segment of their aptitude test, given almost a year ago during the second qualifying round. Science, technology and spatial relations were her strengths, along with anything else that sprang from the left side of her brain. Not so much with her artistic side, though she’d scored in the acceptable range thanks to her creativity with problem solving.

  “I’m hearing an accent,” he said. “Let me guess…Rumanian?”

  Most people guessed Russian, but Isaac’s ear was obviously better tuned to Eastern Europe.

  “Close. Bulgarian.” Except her Slavic accent was somewhat muted because her mother had taken her at age ten to Berlin when she accepted a position in the philosophy department at Humboldt University. “And you are from…Israel.”

  “Too easy.”

  “T-minus sixty and counting.”

  A nervous chuckle spread throughout the room at the leader’s choice of words to hurry stragglers to their seats.

  Mila scanned the hall to assess her rivals. She figured to be among the youngest. The selection committee had made clear the Mars mission was a one-way trip, and though they promised to consider applicants of all ages, the optimum range was late thirties–early forties. Her work was cut out to overcome their bias against youth, to convince them she would eagerly give up her life on Earth for the chance to colonize their neighboring planet.

  In her introductory essay nearly a year ago—submitted along with her résumé, university transcripts and a brief questionnaire—she’d described her passion for space exploration, seeded firmly at age thirteen when US Air Force Major Jancey Beaumont set off on what was to be a two-year solo mission to test the potential for long-term survivability in space. Mila tracked her orbit through the NASA website and spent countless evenings on the rooftop of their Berlin apartment building with a telescope in hopes of spotting her spacecraft, Guardian, as it orbited Earth. The thrill of seeing it pass sparked her imagination of being inside—preferably with Major Beaumont, but she hadn’t included that detail in her essay—and watching the world below.

  The major’s mission had been cut short in dramatic fashion at the start of her second year in orbit when an experimental Russian vessel lost power, leaving the two cosmonauts aboard only hours of life support. Using Guardian’s emergency thrusters for maneuverability, Beaumont left her assigned orbit to intercept the stricken craft and evacuate its occupants to safety as the world held its collective breath. With two extra souls aboard her tiny vessel, her only course of action was an immediate return to Earth.

  It was upon the major’s triumphant return that Mila decided she would study to become an astronaut. She was even more inspired when she read Internet rumors speculating that Beaumont was a lesbian, and while none were confirmed, they weren’t denied either. Of course not. The major couldn’t say for certain back then because of the American military’s puritanical rules against gays. It only intensified Mila’s interest, imagining her dashing idol having super-secret affairs with beautiful women.

  Everything Mila had done since then—physical fitness training, a PhD in astronautical engineering from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, and keeping up-to-date on space programs—was in pursuit of her dream. And now she was on the brink of realizing it.

  “T-minus thirty seconds.”

  With few exceptions, the other candidates appeared as strong and healthy as she. No surprise, since a medical exam was their third phase of preliminary testing. Mila had inherited her mother’s thin frame, along with her genetic propensity toward low blood pressure, heart rate and cholesterol. No allergies, no digestive sensitivities, no disorders of any kind.

  Where she’d held her breath was in the fourth phase of evaluation, the last one before being called to Hawaii for the competitive tests. That was the psych exam, an online multiple choice test in which she had to imagine working and living in close quarters with a fellow astronaut. For the rest of her life. Would she prefer to solve a problem this way or that? Was she a leader or follower? Did she read the directions or figure things out on her own?

  She was by nature a loner, impatient with the very sort of chitchat Isaac had initiated, and mortified by conversations that required deeper engagement, especially those requiring her to share feelings or personal information. To make the cut for Tenacity, she’d guessed at what traits they were seeking. She had to convince the evaluator she was sufficiently easygoing to live and work harmoniously with someone else, but not so gregarious she would suffer from limited human contact.

  At T-minus zero, the hall went completely dark, and in turn, silent. A low rumble emanated from the finely tuned sound system, growing louder as the towering screen brightened to reveal a space vessel clearly marked Tenacity I mounted above a massive rocket and quaking on a launch pad. The roll grew to a crackling roar and the rocket slowly climbed until a billow of orange-tinted smoke filled the screen.

  Mila closed her eyes and rode the wave of thunder that reverberated off the walls and ceiling. As the roar gradually faded, it was replaced by a collective din of excitement, as though everyone in the room was as thrilled as she to be here. She blinked to find the room dark again.

  “The extraordinary video you’ve just seen was taken three days ago at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, a low altitude launch pad in India.” A formal British accent belonging to a much older man. “Tenacity I is carrying a rover to Mars to prepare the site for a colony. Two years from now, Tenacity II will launch with equipment to construct a permanent habitat, laboratory and hydroponics garden, all underground and safe from radiation. And in four years, Tenacity III will take you and a colleague on an eight-month journey
to establish permanent residence in that habitat. At one-year intervals following your launch, two more colonists will join you. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the Tenacity Project.”

  A spotlight pierced the darkness on the stage below revealing a white-haired man, slightly paunchy with reading glasses perched at the end of his bulbous nose. He wore a dark three-piece business suit with a fat tie and matching handkerchief, and his cane hung from the edge of the podium. Mila recognized him at once. Sir Charles Boyd, the British multibillionaire space junkie behind the Tenacity Project. After selling the world’s largest food conglomerate eleven years ago, he’d turned his attention toward fulfilling the boyhood fantasy of developing a new colony on a faraway planet. Now in his seventies, he acknowledged Mars as the only realistic option for a colony that might be established in his lifetime.

  “Top of the morning to you all,” he said as a slideshow began with an artist’s rendering of a cylindrical vessel named Tenacity III approaching the Red Planet. “If you will, please examine your boarding pass. Should it say anything other than Mars, I’m afraid you are in the wrong departure lounge.”

  Mila’s breath caught at the majestic image on the screen, her eyes drawn immediately to the structural features of the forward-most segment of the ship, the section that would land two astronauts on the surface of Mars. She’d learned of the Mars mission four years ago when Tenacity Project engineers came to Delft to discuss a paper she’d written for a Stockholm conference. It laid out theoretical plans for a hydrazine propulsion system that, once landed on the surface of a planet or asteroid, could be reconfigured to extract oxygen from water, and to route hydrogen to fuel cells. Such an apparatus on Mars, where ice fields were abundant, could sustain living conditions indefinitely.

  “Tenacity.” Sir Charles cleared his throat and allowed the word to momentarily stand on its own. “Determination. Persistence. Resolve. These are the human attributes that bring our universe within reach. If it can be done, it will be done.”