"Dust storm?" said Thomas MacKensie.
"Yes, Tom. A bad one. You and Stacy need to batten down the hatches as soon as possible, because you may be there for a while," replied Li Chen, mission director for the first Mars landing.
Thomas sighed and clicked off, then went back to the sleeping compartment to wake up Anastasia (Stacy) Ivanova, the moody Russian cosmonaut who accompanied the geologist on this exploration of Valles Marinaris, the Grand Canyon of Mars.
"What the fuck do you want, Tommy?" Stacy said sleepily, and Thomas filled her in. "Shit! That's all we fucking needed," she replied, "Now we'll be pushing it to get back to base so we can get the fuck off this goddamn rock."
Stacy pushed past him and went back to the cramped bathroom to shower. Thomas and Stacy had not gotten along at all during the mission, and he suspected that his old pal (and former bunkmate) Maggie Dunst for setting him up like this. Either that, or she wanted to get her bisexual hands on that hot Japanese botanist, Yuki Ai, that he had been eyeing for months now.
They got into their hard suits, went through the air lock, and out onto the surface of Mars. They were right in the middle of a wind tunnel, and they had only a few hours to cover the windshield, antennas, and other exposed equipment so that the blowing dust would not damage the rover beyond repair.
While Stacy was the official cosmonaut on the mission, Thomas was in charge because of his astronautic experience with NASA, and the political whims had placed him in charge. This had led to an almost constant spat between the two during the two weeks that they had travelled to the Martian Grand Canyon.
They made it back inside after eight hours of exhausting work, and already the wind was gusting up to hurricane speed. They vacuumed off their suits in silence and put them back in the rack, then went back to start dinner. During all of this, Thomas noticed something peculiar about Stacy during the work outside, especially late in the day: she seemed scared.
As they were eating dinner, the main force of the storm hit, with winds well over 200 miles and hour. Despite the low air pressure on Mars, Valles Marinaris was like a giant wind tunnel, and the rover was rocking like a ship at sea in a storm. Thomas looked over at Stacy and saw that she was white as a sheet. He wanted to say something, but figured that she might snap at him, and he didn't want to lose the chance at some peace and quiet (despite the dust storm) in the rover).
He went back to the driving area and tried to call in a report, but the blowing dust was interfering with the signal to the satellite. Stacy came up behind him in the seat and put her hands on his shoulders and began to rub them. "What's the matter, Stacy?" asked Thomas.
Instead of answering, she took him by the hand, got him to stand up, and kissed him on the mouth. His mouth was gapingly open when she pulled back, and he asked her why she did that.
"Because I am scared, Thomas, and I am worried that we cannot make it back to base in time to make the launch window. We may very well wind up stranded on this planet, and I have been panicking all day long.", she replied, then she kissed him again. Once again, she pulled back, out of breath. "Please make love to me, Thomas. I have a crush on you, and I don't want to die here on Mars without at least one night of passion with you."
