Hot Martian Girls

By Paul Lucas

Two centuries in the future, Earth farm boy Grayson Leganna emigates to a newly-independent Mars. Trying to make a living among its growing colonies, he ends up on a months-long mission alone with three young Martian women. The genetically-engineered ladies are slim, blue-skinned, and considerably taller than their normal human crewmate.

As the mission grinds on, tensions rise, but so do unexpected passions and romance. Mars is far from the only new frontier Grayson ends up exploring with his new companions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Lucas
• Release date: Jan 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310652677

Paul Lucas

I grew up on the shores of Lake Erie, just a few snow drifts away from Buffalo, NY. I am a life long science fiction and fantasy fan, and avidly keep up on developments in the fields of science, technology, and ancient cultures.Currently I am a freelance writer and artist, with fifteen years of experience in the field. In 1998 I had a tabletop RPG published, and in 2005 my first novel CREATURA came out. My shorter works have seen the light of day in publications such as Strange Horizons, Afterburn, Tales of the Talisman, Fables, and others. Currently I do a lot of personal commissions and ghost writing work.

Book preview

HOT MARTIAN GIRLS

By Paul Lucas

Copyright 2014 Paul Lucas

Cover Art by Paul Luca

(Characters left to right: Sojourner, Kasei, Utopia)

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CHAPTER 1

An enormous gimbaled crane lifted the crawler from the flatbed train car and slowly swung it onto the maintenance bay floor. Grayson Leganna whistled low. The off-loaded vehicle was huge and sleek, shining with the gleam of newly manufactured tech.

Bleh, the tall, blue-skinned mission commander said. We have to spend twelve weeks in that oversized phallic symbol?

Soje, don’t be like that, the engineer chided. It’s solid design. If you’re seeing something dirty in it, its all you.

Really, Kasei? You don't see a fifteen meter dildo on wheels?

Kasei bit her lip under a dirty smile. I didn’t say that.

Grayson supposed the commander had a point. In profile the crawler was a sleek flattened tube on its side, with a tapered front sporting a dark armored windshield. All outer surfaces were rounded and buffered smooth against damage from the insidious Martian dust. Even the side airlock door melded almost seamlessly into the curved white hull.

The train is a more impressive member, the third Martian girl said. The name tag on her uniform read Utopia Syrtis Wisniewski.

It took a minute for Grayson to get her meaning. The maglev train had a very similar look to crawler, for all the same reasons, but was thicker and two hundred meters longer.

Kasei smirked. So you like your toys big?

Utopia shrugged. Just rockets.

Kasei just gave a nervous little laugh, having no idea how to respond to that. Okay…

The maglev train curled around the perimeter of the enormous pressurized dome in a gigantic 'U,' having just entered through a kilometer of sectioned roughland tunnels that served as a train-sized airlock. Small automatons, looking like barnacles on a whale, busied themselves vacuuming away what they could of the insidious Martian dust from its surface. Nearby workers unloaded other cars and inspected the cargo on the bare Martian regolith that served as the bay floor. On the other side of the train, on the more polished passenger platforms, Martians and Earthers alike departed the train for whatever business they had in the Chryse Planitia colony.

Grayson had only met the three Martian females mere minutes before, as they were supposed to meet with their supervisor to witness the vehicle’s unloading. The four of them would be the crawler’s working crew for the next three months.

All of the Martian girls stood between six and a half and seven feet tall, making even the shortest one--Kasei--more than eight inches taller than Grayson.

Mars had a third of Earth’s gravity. Without so much force holding it down, the human body stretched itself out taller and thinner as it grew. In the earliest generations of colonists, that had lead to a number of medical complications, but after two hundred years of genetic tinkering, the new Martians natives no longer suffered from any low-G maladies.

Genetic engineering had also resulted in other changes. The most noticeable feature besides their height was the Martians’ light blue skin, the result of a newly engineered form of melanin. It allowed them better resistance to Mars’ ambient radiation than normal human skin.

The blue skin was also partially a result of aesthetics. The colonists had wanted to distinguish themselves physically from the Earthers they had descended from, and a completely new human skin color was a very distinct way to do that. The same applied to their pointed elf-like ears, gifted to their gene pool purely to make them look exotic by normal human standards.

The new Martians also possessed flexible organic antennae, two thin, finger-length appendages sprouting from a bony ridge on their foreheads. The antennae were a new sensory organ to allow them to detect spikes of radiation from solar storms and other hazards. It was such an ever-present danger that the colonists did not want to trust solely to machines warnings.

He’d read of other engineered adaptations, such as the polarizing nictitating membranes in their eyes to guard against the dust, and more efficient lung metabolism for the lower air pressures found in the Martians’ artificial habitats.

A middle-aged Martian woman walked up to the quartet, with a name tag identifying her as a senior manager in the United Colonies Terraforming Authority that employed them all. She wore a smaller tag declaring her as working under the local Chryse Planitia Ecoprospecting Department. I'm glad all of you could make it, she said, referring to data on a paper-thin digital clipboard in her hand. Which one of you is Sojourner Taye?

That’s me, Soje said, stepping forward. The two shook hands.

And the engineer Kasei Shiro? Kasei raised her hand.

And Extra-Vehicular Activity specialists Utopia Syrtis Wisniewski and Grayson LeGanna. That must be you two.

Grayson nodded along with the tallest Martian girl.

I’d like to welcome all of you to your mission on behalf of the colony. I’m Assistant Director of Operations Janson. If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to let me know. We want you to perform your job to the best of your ability and keep you safe. We believe easy communication among our staff is the first, and best, way of doing so.

Well, honestly, Sojourner said, I was hoping for a more, um, homogenous crew. She glanced very briefly back at Grayson, the only normal human among them.

Grayson drew his lips in a grim line. He’d been harassed occasionally by some native colonists who resented having an Earther among them. He was hoping to get away from that with this crew.

Assistant Director Hanson raised an eyebrow. Do you have a problem with Earthers, Commander Taye?

No, no, Sojourner said hastily. I might have phrased that wrong...

Soje has never said anything bad about Earthers Kasei burst in. I bet she’s just concerned with the safety of an obvious newbie.

Kasei, don’t speak for me, Sojourner grumbled.

Janson looked from one to the other. You two know each other?

We went through high school together, Sojourner said.

And grade school too! Kasei bubbled up