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.