Beyond the Limits. Katherine Garbera

most of you privately. But I do want to say publicly that from this point forward every day—even your down ones—will be some sort of training,” Dennis said.

      “They could have mentioned that earlier,” Velosi said under his breath. “But let’s face it, we know you don’t get a day off in space.”

      “So true,” Izzy said.

      “Many of you have met the candidates who have joined us from the international and privately funded space programs like Space Now, but until today you didn’t have the chance to see each other in action. While the emergency situations occurred at the three locations where we had staff—the training facility, bunkhouses and the ranch pasture—you all were challenged in different ways.”

      Thor stepped forward. “We felt it was necessary to see if you all could function as a team without us making you into a team first. These exercises were very successful and we have identified the candidates who have already made a strong impression.”

      Dennis spoke again. “As you know, you are all qualified and have unique skills, but the first mission will be the one where we anticipate the most unforeseen problems, and that is why we have been training, testing and slowly building that first crew. The subsequent missions will be built on new knowledge.”

      “We are going to divide you into two teams of twelve and each of you will be challenging yourselves within the group and against the other team,” Thor continued. “You will select a leader for yourselves and you will start to work completely with that team. You will eat together, do the ranch chores together, train together... In effect, you will be a unit.”

      “Dr. Tomlin has a bowl with twelve red and twelve blue markers. Please come forward and select one to determine your team,” Dennis said. “Blue team, you will be rotating to the ranch for two weeks for intense team building, muscle building and general skills. Red team, you will be in the facility for two weeks in the new rocket simulator that has just been installed.”

      Izzy felt a tingling in her stomach. The mission was becoming more real. From the moment she’d arrived in Cole’s Hill, she knew that the end goal was the way station in orbit halfway between Earth and Mars, but it had seemed so far away. Now that they had the rocket simulator that would mirror the actual vessel that would take them to the location where they would assemble the way station...she was getting excited.

      She looked around for Antonio and noticed he stood with a group of astronauts from the EU. He caught her gaze and winked at her. She just shook her head. She was glad that she’d had her little lapse in control where he was concerned before this announcement. She hadn’t had time to change when they’d come back from their ride, but she was determined to keep her distance from him.

      She was happily going to tuck Antonio back into the box marked off-limits and focus on the Cronus missions. Not that she hadn’t been before, but now that the missions were getting closer, she knew there was no room for error. And sleeping with Playboy had definitely been an error.

      But it was in the past. Maybe they’d be on different teams and they’d hardly see each other.

      Please let us be on different teams, Izzy thought as she walked up to the bowl behind Velosi and drew out her marker. It was blue. Velocity’s was red. He shrugged and walked over to the red group. Izzy did the same, joining the other blues.

      She chatted with the candidates on her team, trying to appear as if she wasn’t paying attention as Antonio moved closer and closer to the bowl to make his selection. She looked deliberately away from the selection line and yet couldn’t help glancing back as his big hand reached into the bowl and pulled out the blue marker.