The U.S.
President sells NASA's assets, the moonbase, the lunar platinum mines, and the U.S.
space station to the Chinese to relieve a devastated economy. USMC Colonel
Jackie Miller longs for General's stars. The president offers the promotion if
she can return the unwilling engineers and settlers to Earth before the Chinese
arrive to move in.
Matt
Newcomb is Captain of Team Alpha, the first US explorers on Mars. Team Beta,
the replacement crew, just arrived. Though Matt would like to reconnect with an
Alpha engineer, Iris, his college sweetheart, she still can't trust him from
before. He also wants to stay and establish a colony, but he must return his
team to Earth next week. Then, someone sabotages both expeditions' flyers,
marooning everyone. The president promises an unreliable, drone supply ship
that might fail, so both teams plan for a long-term survival. They launch
expeditions to find water and methane for fuel, and they attempt to grow crops.
Meanwhile, Iris secretly carries Matt's child.
Matt
receives a message from the moonbase. The military is coming to forcibly
transport engineers and settlers to Earth, so now Richard Nickelose, a space
station engineer is bringing four-hundred men, women, and children to Mars in a
ramshackle ship with the Marines chasing right behind them. Then, Matt learns
Iris is pregnant.