Martian Marmalade Incident

The Martian Marmalade Incident

Jonno Virek was not a breakfast snob. He could stomach freeze-dried toast, protein bars the consistency of insulation foam, even tea that resembled engine oil. But there were limits, and those limits had just been thoroughly breached.

The Peregrine Queen’s galley smelled of burnt citrus and disappointment. Jonno stood staring at a shattered glass jar that had once contained a very expensive shipment of Martian marmalade. Sticky orange sludge clung to the walls like an alien lifeform, slowly sliding towards the floor.

Mara Linskey, spoon in hand, regarded the mess with a calmness Jonno envied. “So,” she asked drily, “what precisely was your plan when you put that near the microwave exhaust vent?”

Jonno rubbed the back of his neck. “I was trying to warm it up.”

She sighed, setting the spoon aside. “Love, Martian marmalade contains compressed CO₂. If you heat it too quickly, it’ll expand. Violently.”

He glanced at the jam trails dripping from the ceiling. “I noticed.”

Mara stepped closer, reaching up to wipe a blob of orange from Jonno’s cheek. “I’m pretty sure it’s still edible,” she teased.

Jonno scowled, though amusement tugged at his mouth. “Don’t even think about making me taste-test that.”

Cleaning the galley took hours. The stuff was spectacularly adhesive, clinging to every rivet and switch. Mara ended up rigging a makeshift scrubber with a sonic toothbrush and a length of scrap pipe. Jonno tried to help, but quickly discovered the sticky preserve had bonded to his boots.

Eventually, they had cleared most of the wreckage. Mara, practical as ever, rationed the surviving half-jar into a sealed container, swearing they would never let it near a heating coil again.

“I might enter it in a weapons trial,” Jonno muttered, scraping a last patch off the bulkhead. “Stickiest substance in three star systems.”

Mara laughed, dropping the final smear of orange goo into the bin. “You’d win first prize.”

They settled down afterwards with fresh bread and something safer — recycled strawberry jam from Triton’s supply run. Jonno savoured the peace, the warm sense of sharing something normal with Mara, even if normal in their world was a relative term.

She caught him gazing across the table. “What?”

“Just…” He smiled. “Every time I think we’ve hit peak weird, the universe invents something worse.”

Mara raised her toast in a half-salute. “To weirdness.”

He clinked his cup against hers. “To weirdness.”

Later, in the quiet of the ship, Jonno made a final log entry. The Peregrine Queen was ready for tomorrow’s job, hold restocked, systems repaired. Somewhere out there, another station was probably awaiting a fix for their air scrubbers or an escaped cyber-sheep. But tonight, there was nothing to chase except sleep.

He glanced over as Mara came to join him, her smile warm, the ship’s soft hum steady around them. Together, they could handle anything — even homicidal breakfast spreads.

Come back next week for another cosmic adventure with Jonno and Mara!