Martinez:
Dr. Shields says I need to write personal
messages to each of the crew. She says it'll keep
me tethered to humanity. I think it's bullshit.
But hey, it's an order.
With you, I can be blunt:
If I die, I need you to check on my parents.
They'll want to hear about our time on Mars first-
hand. I'll need you to do that.
It won't be easy talking to a couple about
their dead son. It's a lot to ask; that's why I'm
asking you. I'd tell you you're my best friend and
stuff, but it would be gay.
I'm not giving up. Just planning for every
outcome. It's what I do.
Guo Ming, Director of the China National Space Administration,
examined the expansive paperwork at his desk. In the old days, when
China wanted to launch a rocket, they just launched it. Now, they were
compelled by international agreements to warn other nations first.
It was a requirement, Guo Ming noted to himself, that did not apply to
the United States. To be fair, the Americans publicly announced their
launch schedules well in advance, so it amounted to the same.
He walked a fine line filling out the form: Making the launch date and
flight path clear, while doing everything possible to “conceal state
secrets.”
He snorted at the last requirement. “Ridiculous,” he mumbled. The
Taiyang Shen had no strategic or military value. It was an unmanned
probe that would be in Earth orbit less than two days. After that, it would
travel to a solar orbit between Mercury and Venus. It would be China'sfirst heliology probe to orbit the sun.
Yet, the State Council insisted all launches be shrouded in secrecy.
Even launches with nothing to hide. This way, other nations could not
infer from lack of openness which launches contained classified
payloads.
A knock at the door interrupted his paperwork.
“Come,” Guo Ming said, happy for the interruption.
“Good evening, Sir,” said Under-Director Zhu Tao.
“Tao, welcome back.”
“Thank you, Sir. It's good to be back in Beijing.”
“How were things at Jiuquan?” asked Guo Ming. “Not too cold, I
hope? I'll never understand why our launch complex is in the middle of
the Gobi Desert.”
“It was cold, yet manageable,” Zhu Tao said.
“And how are launch preparations coming along?”
“I am happy to report they are all on-schedule.”
“Excellent,” Guo Ming smiled.
Zhu Tao sat quietly, staring at his boss.
Guo Ming looked expectantly back at him, but Zhu Tao neither stood
to leave nor said anything further.
“Something else, Tao?” Guo Ming asked.
“Mmm,” Zhu Tao said, “Of course, you've heard about the Iris
probe?”
“Yes, I did,” Guo frowned. “Terrible situation. That poor man's going
to starve.”
“Possibly,” Zhu Tao said. “Possibly not.”
Guo Ming leaned back in his chair. “What are you saying?”
“It's the Taiyang Shen's booster, Sir. Our engineers have run the
numbers, and it has enough fuel for a Mars injection orbit. It could get
there in 419 days.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Have you ever known me to 'kid,' Sir?”
Guo Ming stood and pinched his chin. Pacing, he said “We can really
send a probe to Mars?”“It's hardly notable, Sir,” Zhu Tao said. “We've sent several in the
past.”
“Yes, I know, but we could really send the Taiyang Shen?”
“No, Sir,” said Zhu Tao. “It's far too heavy. The massive heat
shielding makes it the heaviest unmanned probe we've ever built. That's
why the booster had to be so powerful. But a lighter payload could be sent
all the way to Mars.”
“How much mass could we send?” Guo Ming asked.
“941 kilograms, Sir.”
“Hmm,” Guo Ming said, “I bet NASA could work with that
limitation. Why haven't they approached us?”
“Because they don't know.” Zhu Tao said. “All our booster technology
is classified information. The Ministry of State Security even spreads
disinformation about our capabilities. This is for obvious reasons.”
“So they don't know we can help them,” Guo Ming said, “If we decide
not to help, no one will know we could have.”
“Correct, Sir.”
“For the sake of argument, let's say we decided to help. What then?”
“Time would be the enemy, Sir,” Zhu Tao answered. “Based on travel
duration and the supplies their astronaut has remaining, any such probe
would have to be launched within a month. Even then he would starve a
little.”
“That's right around when we planned to launch Taiyang Shen.”
“Yes, Sir. But it took them two months to build Iris, and it was so
rushed it failed.”
“That's their problem,” Guo Ming said. “Our end would be providing
the booster. We'd launch from Jiuquan; we can't ship an 800-ton rocket to
Florida.”
“Any agreement would hinge on the Americans reimbursing us for the
booster,” Zhu Tao said, “and the State Council would likely want political
favors from the US Government.”
“Reimbursement would be pointless,” Guo Ming said. “This was an
expensive project, and the State Council grumbled about it all along. If
they had a bulk payout for it's value, they'd just keep it. We'd never get tobuild another one.”
He clasped his hands behind his back. “And the American people may
be sentimental, but their government is not. The US State Department
won't trade anything major for one man's life.”
“So it's hopeless?” asked Zhu Tao.
“Not hopeless,” Guo Ming corrected. “Just hard. If this becomes a
negotiation by diplomats, it will never resolve. We need to keep this
among scientists. Space agency to space agency. I'll get a translator and
call NASA's Director. We'll work out an agreement, then present it to our
governments as a fait accompli.”
“But what can they do for us?” Zhu Tao asked. “We'd be giving up a
booster and effectively canceling Taiyang Shen.”
Guo Ming smiled. “They'll give us something we can't get without
them.”
“And that is?”
“They'll put a Chinese astronaut on Mars.”
Zhu Tao stood. “Of course,” he smiled. “The Ares 5 crew hasn't even
been selected yet. We'll insist on a crewman. One we get to pick and
train. NASA and the US State Department would surely accept that. But
will our State Council?”
Guo Ming smiled wryly. “Publicly rescue the Americans? Put a
Chinese astronaut on Mars? Have the world see China as equal to the US
in space? The State Council would sell their own mothers for that.”
Teddy listened to the phone at his ear. The voice on the other end
finished what it had to say, then fell silent as it awaited an answer.
He stared at nothing in particular as he processed what he'd just heard.
After a few seconds, he replied “Yes.”
Johanssen:
Your poster outsold the rest of ours combined.You're a hot chick who went to Mars. You're on
dorm-room walls all over the world.
Looking like that, why are you such a nerd? And
you are, you know. A serious nerd. I had to do
some computer shit to get Pathfinder talking to
the rover and oh my God. And I had NASA telling me
what to do every step of the way.
You should try to be more cool. Wear dark
glasses and a leather jacket. Carry a switchblade.
Aspire to a level of coolness known only as...
“Botanist Cool.”
Did you know Commander Lewis had a chat with us
men? If anyone hit on you, we'd be off the
mission. I guess after a lifetime of commanding
sailors she's got an unfairly jaded view.
Anyway. Try not to think about all those guys
wanking to your poster.
“Ok, here we are again,” said Bruce to the assembled heads of JPL.
“You've all heard about the Taiyang Shen, so you know our friends in
China have given us one more chance. But this time, it's going to be
harder.
“Taiyang Shen will be ready to launch in 28 days. If it launches on
time, our payload will get to Mars on Sol 624, six weeks after Watney's
expected to run out of food. NASA's already working on ways to stretch
his supply.
“We made history when we finished Iris in sixty three days. Now we
have to do it in twenty eight.”
He looked across the table to the incredulous faces.
“Folks,” he said, “This is going to be the most 'ghetto' spacecraft ever
built. There's only one way to finish that fast: No landing system.”
“Sorry, what?” Jack Trevor stammered.
Bruce nodded. “You heard me. No landing system. We'll needguidance for in-flight course adjustments. But once it gets to Mars, it's
going to crash.”
“That's crazy!” Jack said. “It'll be going an insane velocity when it
hits!”
“Yep,” Bruce said. “With ideal atmospheric drag, it'll impact at 300
meters per second.”
“What good will a pulverized probe do Watney?” Jack asked.
“As long as the food doesn't burn up on the way in, Watney can eat
it.” Bruce commented.
Turning to the whiteboard, he began drawing a basic organizational
chart. “I want two teams,” He began.
“Team One will make the outer shell, guidance system, and thrusters.
All we need is for it to get to Mars. I want the safest possible system.
Aerosol propellant would be best. High-gain radio so we can talk to it,
and standard satellite navigational software.
“Team Two will deal with the payload. They need to find a way to
contain the food during impact. If protein bars hit sand at 300m/s, they'll
make protein-scented sand. We need them edible after impact.
“We can weigh 941kg. At least 300 of that needs to be food. Get
crackin'.”
“Uh, Dr. Kapoor?” Rich said, peeking his head in to Venkat's office.
“Do you have a minute?”
Venkat gestured him in. “You are...?”
“Rich, Rich Purnell,” he said, shuffling in to the office, his arms
wrapped around a sheaf disorganized papers. “From astrodynamics.”
“Nice to meet you,” Venkat said. “What can I do for you, Rich?”
“I came up with something a while ago. Spent a lot of time on it.” He
dumped the papers on Venkat's desk. “Lemme find the summary...”
Venkat stared forlornly at his once clean desk, now strewn with scores
of printouts.
“Here we go!” Rich said triumphantly, grabbing a paper. Then, his
expression saddened. “No, this isn't it.”“Rich,” Venkat said. “Maybe you should just tell me what this is
about?”
Rich looked at the mess of papers and sighed. “But I had such a cool
summary...”
“A summary for what?”
“How to save Watney.”
“That's already in progress,” Venkat said. “It's a last-ditch effort,
but-”
“The Taiyang Shen?” Rich snorted. “That won't work. You can't make
a Mars probe in a month.”
“We're sure as hell going to try,” Venkat said, a note of annoyance in
his voice.
“Oh sorry, am I being difficult?” Rich asked. “I'm not good with
people. Sometimes I'm difficult. I wish people would just tell me.
Anyway, the Taiyang Shen is critical. In fact, my idea won't work without
it. But a Mars probe? Pfft. C'mon.”
“All right,” Venkat said. “What's your idea?”
Rich snatched a paper from the desk. “Here it is!” He handed it to
Venkat with a child-like smile.
Venkat took the summary and skimmed it. The more he read, the
wider his eyes got. “Are you sure about this?”
“Absolutely!” Rich beamed.
“Have you told anyone else?”
“Who would I tell?”
“I don't know, Venkat said. “Friends?”
“I don't have any of those.”
“Ok, keep it under your hat.” Venkat said.
“I don't wear a hat.”
“It's just an expression.”
“Really?” Rich said. “It's a stupid expression.”
“Rich, you're being difficult.”
“Ah. Thanks.”Vogel:
Being your backup has backfired.
I guess NASA figured botany and chemistry are
similar because they both end in “Y”. One way or
another, I ended up being your back-up chemist.
Remember when they made you spend a day
explaining your experiments to me? It was in the
middle of intense mission prep. You may have
forgotten.
You started my training by buying me a beer.
For breakfast. Germans are awesome.
Anyway, now that I have time to kill, NASA gave
me a pile of work. And all your chemistry crap is
on the list. So now I have to do boring-ass
experiments with test tubes and soil and pH levels
and Zzzzzzzzzz....
My life is now a desperate struggle for
survival... with occasional titration.
Frankly, I suspect you're a super villain.
You're a chemist, you have a German accent, you
had a base on Mars... what more can there be?
“What the fuck is 'Project Elrond'?” Annie asked.
“I had to make something up,” Venkat said.
“So you came up with 'Elrond'?” Annie pressed.
“Because it's a secret meeting?” Mitch guessed. “The email said I
couldn't even tell my assistant.”
“I'll explain everything once Teddy arrives.” Venkat said.
“Why does 'Elrond' mean 'secret meeting'?” Annie asked.
“Are we going to make a momentous decision?” Bruge Ng asked.
“Exactly,” Venkat said.
“How did you know that?” Annie asked, getting annoyed.
“Elrond,” Bruce said. “The Council of Elrond. From Lord of theRings. It's the meeting where they decide to destroy The One Ring.”
“Jesus,” Annie said. “None of you got laid in high school, did you?”
“Good morning,” Teddy said as he walked in. Seating himself, he
rested his hands on the table. “Anyone know what this meeting's about?”
He asked.
“Wait,” Mitch said, “Teddy doesn't even know?”
Venkat took a deep breath. “One of our astrodynamicists, Rich
Purnell, has found a way to get Hermes back to Mars. The course he came
up with would give Hermes a Mars flyby on Sol 549.”
Silence.
“You shittin' us?” Annie demanded.
“Sol 549? How's that even possible?” Asked Bruce. “Even Iris
wouldn't have landed till Sol 588.”
“Iris was a point-thrust craft,” Venkat said. “Hermes has a constant-
thrust ion engine. It's always accelerating. Also, Hermes has a lot of
velocity right now. On their current Earth-intercept course, they have to
decelerate for the next month just to slow down to Earth's speed.”
Mitch rubbed the back of his head. “Wow... 549. That's 35 sols before
Watney runs out of food. That would solve everything.”
Teddy leaned forward. “Run us through it, Venkat. What would it
entail?”
“Well,” Venkat began, “If they did this 'Rich Purnell Maneuver,'
they'd start accelerating right away, to preserve their velocity and gain
even more. They wouldn't intercept Earth at all, but would come close
enough to use a gravity assist to adjust course. Around that time, they'd
pick up a re-supply probe with provisions for the extended trip.
“After that, they'd be on an accelerating orbit toward Mars, arriving
on Sol 549. Like I said, it's a Mary flyby. This isn't anything like a normal
Ares mission. They'll be going too fast to fall in to orbit. The rest of the
maneuver takes them back to Earth. They'd be home 211 days after the
flyby.”
“What good is a flyby?” Bruce asked. “They don't have any way to get
Watney off the surface.”
“Yeah...” Venkat said. “Now for the unpleasant part: Watney wouldhave to get to the Ares-4 MAV.”
“Schiaparelli Crater!?” Mitch gaped. “That's 3,200km away!”
“3,235km to be exact,” Venkat said. “It's not out of the question. He
drove to Pathfinder's landing site and back. That's over 1,500km.”
“That was over flat, desert terrain,” Bruce chimed in. “But the trip to
Schiaparelli-”
“Suffice it to say,” Venkat interrupted, “It would be very difficult and
dangerous. But we have a lot of clever scientists to help him trick out the
rover. Also there would be MAV modifications.”
“What's wrong with the MAV?” Mitch asked.
“It's designed to get to low Mars orbit,” Venkat explained. “But
Hermes would be on a flyby, so the MAV would have to escape Mars
gravity entirely to intercept.”
“How?” Mitch asked.
“It'd have to lose weight... a lot of weight. I can get rooms full of
people working on these problems if we decide to do this.”
“Earlier,” Teddy said, “You mentioned a supply probe for Hermes.
We have that capability?”
“Yes, with the Taiyang Shen,” Venkat said. “We'd shoot for a near-
Earth rendezvous. It's a lot easier than getting a probe to Mars, that's for
sure.”
“I see,” Teddy said. “So we have two options on the table: Send
Watney enough food to last until Ares 4, or send Hermes back to get him
right now. Both plans require the Taiyang Shen, so we can only do one.”
“Yes,” Venkat said. “We'll have to pick one.”
They all took a moment to consider.
“What about the Hermes crew?” Annie asked, breaking the silence.
“Would they have a problem with adding...” She did some quick math in
her head “533 days to their mission?”
“They wouldn't hesitate,” Mitch said. “Not for a second. That's why
Venkat called this meeting.” He cast a disapproving glare at Venkat. “He
wants us to decide instead.”
“That's right,” Venkat said.
“It should be Commander Lewis' call,” Mitch said sternly.“Pointless to even ask her,” Venkat said. “We need to make this
decision; it's a matter of life and death.”
“She's the Mission Commander,” Mitch said. “Life and death
decisions are her damn job.”
“Easy, Mitch,” Teddy said.
“Bullshit,” Mitch said. “You guys have done end-runs around the
crew every time something goes wrong. You didn't tell them Watney was
still alive, now you're not telling them there's a rescue option.”
“We already have a rescue option,” Teddy said. “We're just
discussing another one.”
“The crash-lander?” Mitch said. “Does anyone think that'll work?
Anyone?”
“All right, Mitch,” Teddy said. “You've expressed your opinion, and
we've heard it. Let's move on.” He turned to Venkat. “Can Hermes
function for 533 days beyond the scheduled mission end?”
“It should,” Venkat said. “The crew may have to fix things here and
there, but they're well trained. Remember, Hermes was made to do all 5
Ares missions. It's only halfway through its designed lifespan.”
“It's the most expensive thing ever built,” Teddy said. “We can't make
another one. If something went wrong, the crew would die, and the Ares
Program with them.”
“Losing the crew would be a disaster,” Venkat said. “But we wouldn't
lose Hermes. We can remotely operate it. So long as the reactor and ion
engines continued to work, we could bring it back.”
“Space travel is dangerous,” Mitch said. “We can't make this a
discussion about what's safest.”
“I disagree,” Teddy said. “This is absolutely a discussion about what's
safest. And about how many lives are at stake. Both plans are risky, but
resupplying Watney only risks one life while the Rich Purnell Maneuver
risks six.”
“Consider degree of risk, Teddy,” Venkat said. “Mitch is right. The
crash-lander is high-risk. It could miss Mars, it could re-enter wrong and
burn up, it could crash too hard and destroy the food... we estimate 30%
chance of success.”“A near-Earth rendezvous with Hermes is more doable?” Teddy
asked.
“Much more doable,” Venkat confirmed. “With sub-second
transmission delays, we can control the probe directly from Earth rather
than rely on automated systems. When the time comes to dock, Major
Martinez can pilot it remotely from Hermes with no transmission delay at
all. And Hermes has a human crew, able to overcome any hiccups that
may happen. And we don't have to do a reentry; the supplies don't have to
survive a 300m/s impact.”
“So,” Bruce offered, “We can have a high chance of killing one
person, or a low chance of killing 6 people. Jeez. How do we even make
this decision?”
“We talk about it, then Teddy makes the decision,” Venkat said. “Not
sure what else we can do.”
“We could let Lewis-” Mitch began.
“Yeah, other than that,” Venkat interrupted.
“Question,” Annie said. “What am I even here for? This seems like
something for you nerds to discuss.”
“You need to be in the loop,” Venkat said. “We're not deciding right
now. We'll need to quietly research the details internally. Something
might leak, and you need to be ready to dance around questions.”
“How long have we got to make a decision?” Teddy asked.
“The window for starting the maneuver ends in 39 hours.”
“All right,” Teddy said. “Everyone, we discuss this only in person or
on the phone; never email. And don't talk to anyone about this, other than
the people here. The last thing we need is public opinion pressing for a
risky cowboy rescue that may be impossible.”
Beck:
Hey, man. How ya been?
Now that I'm in a “dire situation,” I don't
have to follow social rules anymore. I can be
honest with everyone.Bearing that in mind, I have to say... dude...
you need to tell Johanssen how you feel. If you
don’t, you’ll regret it forever.
I won't lie: It could end badly. I have no idea
what she thinks of you. Or of anything. She's
weird.
But wait till the mission’s over. You're on a
ship with her for another two months. Also, if you
guys got up to anything while the mission was in
progress, Lewis would kill you.
Venkat, Mitch, Annie, Bruce, and Teddy met secretly for the second
time in as many days. “Project Elrond” had taken on a dark connotation,
veiled in secrecy. Many people knew the name, none knew its purpose.
Speculation ran rampant. Some thought it was a completely new
program in the works. Others worried it might be a move to cancel Ares 4
and 5. Most thought it was Ares 6 in the works.
“It wasn't an easy decision,” Teddy said to the assembled elite. “But
I've decided to go with Iris 2. No Rich Purnell Maneuver.”
Mitch slammed his fist on the table.
“We'll do all we can to make it work,” Bruce said.
“If it's not too much to ask,” Venkat began. “What made up your
mind?”
Teddy sighed. “It's a matter of risk,” he said. “Iris 2 only risks one
life. Rich Purnell risks all six of them. I know Rich Purnell is more likely
to work, but I don't think it's six times more likely.”
“You fucking coward,” Mitch said.
“Mitch...” Venkat said.
“You god damned fucking coward,” Mitch continued, ignoring
Venkat. “You just want to cut your losses. You're on damage control. You
don't give a shit about Watney's life.”
“Of course I do,” Teddy replied. “And I'm sick of your infantileattitude. You can throw all the tantrums you want, but the rest of us have
to be adults. This isn't a TV show; the riskier solution isn't always the
best.”
“Space is dangerous,” Mitch snapped. “It's what we do here. If you
want to play it safe all the time, go join an insurance company. And by
the way, it's not even your life you're risking. The crew can make up their
own minds about it.”
“No they can't,” Teddy fired back. “They're too emotionally involved.
Clearly, so are you. I'm not gambling five lives to save one. Especially
when we might save him without risking them at all.”
“Bullshit!” Mitch shot back as he stood from his chair. “You're just
convincing yourself the crash-lander will work so you don't have to take a
risk. You're hanging him out to dry, you chicken-shit son of a bitch!”
He stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
After a few seconds, Venkat followed behind, saying “I'll make sure
he cools off.”
Bruce slumped in his chair. “Sheesh,” he said, nervously. “We're
scientists, for Christ's sake. What the hell!?”
Annie quietly gathered her things and placed them in her briefcase.
Teddy looked to her. “Sorry about that, Annie,” he said. “What can I
say? Sometimes men let testosterone take over-”
“I was hoping he'd kick your ass,” she interrupted.
“What?”
“I know you care about the astronauts, but he's right. You are a
fucking coward. If you had balls we might be able to save Watney.”
Lewis:
Hi, Commander.
Between training and our trip to Mars, I spent
2 years working with you. I think I know you
pretty well. So I’m guessing you blame yourself
for my situation.
Don’t.You were faced with an impossible scenario and
made a tough decision. That’s what Commanders do.
And your decision was right. If you’d waited any
longer, the MAV would have tipped.
I’m sure you’ve run through all the possible
outcomes in your head, so you know there’s nothing
you could have done differently (other than “be
psychic”).
You probably think losing a crewman is the
worst thing that can happen. Not true. Losing the
whole crew is worse. You kept that from
happening.
But there's something more important we need to
discuss: What is it with you and Disco? I can
understand the '70's TV because everyone loves
hairy people with huge collars. But Disco?
Disco!?
Vogel checked the position and orientation of Hermes against the
projected path. It matched, as usual. In addition to being the mission's
chemist, he was also an accomplished astrophysicist. Though his duties
as navigator were laughably easy.
The computer knew the course. It knew when to angle the ship so the
ion engines would be aimed correctly. And it knew the location of the
ship at all times (easily calculated from the position of the sun and Earth,
and knowing the exact time from an on-board atomic clock.)
Barring a complete computer failure or other critical event, Vogel’s
vast knowledge of astrodynamics would never come in to play.
Completing the check, he ran a diagnostic on the engines. They were
functioning at peak. He did all this from his quarters. All on-board
computers could control all ship's functions. Gone were the days of
physically visiting the engines to check up on them.
Having completed his work for the day, he finally had time to reademail.
Sorting through the messages NASA deemed worthy to upload, he
read the most interesting first and responded when necessary. His
responses were cached and would be sent to Earth with Johanssen's next
uplink.
A message from his wife caught his attention. Titled Unsere kinder
(“our children”), it contained nothing but an image attachment. He raised
an eyebrow. Several things stood out at once. Firstly, “kinder” should
have been capitalized. Helena, a grammar school teacher in Bremen, was
very unlikely to make that mistake. Also, to each other, they
affectionately called their kids Die Affen.
Attempting to open the image, his viewer reported the file was
unreadable.
He walked down the narrow hallway. The crew quarters stood against
the outer hull of the constantly-spinning ship to maximize simulated
gravity. Johanssen's door was open, as usual.
“Johanssen. Good evening,” Vogel said. The crew kept the same sleep
schedule, and it was nearing bedtime.
“Oh, hello,” Johanssen said, looking up from her computer.
“I have the computer problem,” Vogel explained. “I wonder if you
will help.”
“Sure,” she said.
“You are in the personal time,” Vogel said. “Perhaps tomorrow when
you are on the duty is better?”
“Now's fine,” she said. “What's wrong?”
“It is a file. It is an image, but my computer can not view.”
“Where's the file?” she asked, typing on her keyboard.
“It is on my shared space. The name is 'kinder.jpg'.”
“Let's take a look,” she said.
Her fingers flew over her keyboard as windows opened and closed on
her screen. “Definitely a bad jpg header,” she said. “Probably mangled in
the download. Lemme look with a hex editor, see if we got anything at
all...”
After a few moments she said. “This isn't a jpg. It's a plain ASCII textfile. Looks like... well I don't know what it is. Looks like a bunch of math
formulae.” She gestured to the screen. “Does any of this make sense to
you?”
Vogel leaned in, looking at the text. “Ja,” he said. “It is a course
maneuver for Hermes. It says the name is 'Rich Purnell Maneuver'.”
“What's that?” Johanssen asked.
“I have not heard of this maneuver.” He looked at the tables. “It is
complicated... very complicated...”
He froze. “Sol 549!?” he exclaimed. “Mein Gott!”
The Hermes crew enjoyed their scant personal time in an area called
“The Rec”. Consisting of a table and barely room to seat six, it ranked
low in gravity priority. It's position amidships granted it a mere 0.2g.
Still, it was enough to keep everyone in their seats as they pondered
what Vogel told them.
“...and then mission would conclude with Earth intercept 211 days
later,” he finished up.
“Thank you, Vogel,” Lewis said. She'd heard the explanation earlier
when Vogel came to her, but Johanssen, Martinez, and Beck were hearing
it for the first time. She gave them a moment to digest.
“Would this really work?” Martinez asked.
“Ja,” Vogel nodded. “I ran the numbers. They all check out. It is
brilliant course. Amazing.”
“How would he get off Mars?” Martinez asked.
Lewis leaned forward. “There was more in the message,” she began.
“The maneuver is part of an overall idea NASA had to rescue Watney.
We'd have to pick up a supply near Earth, and he'd have to get to Ares-4's
MAV.”
“Why all the cloak and dagger?” Beck asked.
“According to the message,” Lewis explained. “NASA rejected the
idea. They'd rather take a big risk on Watney than a small risk on all of
us. Whoever snuck it in to Vogel's email obviously disagreed.”
“So,” Martinez said, “We're talking about going directly againstNASA's decision?”
“Yes,” Lewis confirmed, “That's what we're talking about. If we do
the maneuver, they'll have to send the supply ship or we'll die. We have
the opportunity to force their hand.”
“Are we going to do it?” Johanssen asked.
They all looked to Lewis.
“I won't lie,” she said. “I'd sure as hell like to. But this isn't a normal
decision. This is something NASA expressly rejected. We're talking
about mutiny. And that's not a word I throw around lightly.”
She stood and paced slowly around the table. “We'll only do it if we
all agree. And before you answer, consider the consequences. If we mess
up the supply rendezvous, we die. If we mess up the Earth gravity assist,
we die.
“If we do everything perfectly, we add 533 days to our mission. 533
days of unplanned space travel where anything could go wrong.
Maintenance will be a hassle. Something might break that we can't fix. If
it's life-critical, we die.”
“Sign me up!” Martinez smiled.
“Easy, cowboy,” Lewis said. “You and I are military. There's a good
chance we'd be court-martialed when we got home. As for the rest of you,
I guarantee they'll never send you up again.”
Martinez leaned against the wall, arms folded with a half grin on his
face. The rest silently considered what their commander had said.
“If we do this,” Vogel said. “It would be over 1000 days of space.
This is enough space for a life. I do not need to return.”
“Sounds like Vogel's in,” Martinez grinned. “Me, too, obviously.”
“Let's do it,” Beck said.
“If you think it'll work,” Johanssen said to Lewis, “I trust you.”
“Ok,” Lewis said. “If we go for it, what's involved?”
Vogel shrugged. “I plot the course and execute it,” he said. “What
else?”
“Remote Override,” Johanssen said. “It's designed to get the ship back
if we all die or something. They can take over Hermes from Mission
Control.”“But we're right here,” Lewis said. “We can undo whatever they try,
right?”
“Not really,” Johanssen said. “Remote Override takes priority over
any on-board controls. Its assumes there's been a disaster and the ship's
control panels can't be trusted.”
“Can you disable it?” Lewis asked.
“Hmm...” Johanssen pondered. “Hermes has four redundant flight
computers, each connected to three redundant comm systems. If any
computer gets signal from any comm system, Mission Control can take
over. We can't shut down the comms; we'd lose telemetry and guidance.
We can't shut down the computers; we need them to control the ship. I'll
have to disable the Remote Override on each system... It's part of the OS,
I'll have to jump over the code... yes. I can do it.”
“You're sure?” Lewis asked. “You can turn it off?”
“Shouldn't be hard,” Johanssen said. “It's an emergency feature, not a
security program. It isn't protected against malicious code.”
“Malicious code?” Beck smiled. “So... you'll be a hacker?”
“Yeah,” Johanssen smiled back. “I guess I will.”
“All right,” Lewis said. “Looks like we can do it. But I don't want
peer pressure forcing anyone into it. We'll wait for 24 hours. During that
time, anyone can change their mind. Just talk to me in private or send me
an email. I'll call it off and never tell anyone who it was.”
Lewis stayed behind as the rest filed out. Watching them leave, she
saw they were smiling. All four of them. For the first time since leaving
Mars, they were back to their old selves. She knew right then no one
would change their mind.
They were going back to Mars.
Everyone knew Brendan Hutch would be running missions soon.
He rose through the ranks as fast as one could in the large, inertia-
bound organization. Known as a diligent worker, his skill and leadership
qualities were plain to all his subordinates.
Brendan was in charge of Mission Control from 1am to 9am everynight. Continued excellent performance in this role would certainly net
him a promotion. It was already announced he'd be back-up Flight
Controller for Ares-4, and he had a good shot at the top job for Ares-5.
“Flight, CAPCOM,” came a voice through his headset.
“Go CAPCOM,” Brendan responded. Though they were in the same
room, radio protocol was observed at all times.
“Unscheduled status update from Hermes.”
With Hermes 90 light-seconds away, back-and-forth voice
communication was impractical. Other than media relations, Hermes
would communicate via text until they were much closer.
“Roger,” Brendan said. “Read it out.”
“I... I don't get it, Flight,” came the confused reply. “No real status,
just a single sentence.”
“What's it say?”
“Message reads: 'Houston, be advised: Rich Purnell is a steely-eyed
missile man.'”
“What?” Brendan asked. “Who the hell is Rich Purnell?”
“Flight, Telemetry,” came another voice.
“Go Telemetry,” Brendan said.
“Hermes is off-course.”
“CAPCOM, advise Hermes they're drifting. Telemetry, get a
correction vector ready-”
“Negative, Flight,” Telemetry interrupted. “It's not drift. They
adjusted course. Instrumentation uplink shows a deliberate 27.812 degree
rotation.”
“What the hell?” Brendan stammered. “CAPCOM, ask them what the
hell.”
“Roger Flight... message sent. Minimum reply time 3 minutes, 4
seconds.”
“Telemetry, any chance this is instrumentation failure?”
“Negative, Flight. We're tracking them with SatCon. Observed
position is consistent with the course change.”
“CAPCOM, Read your logs and see what the previous shift did. See if
a massive course change was ordered and somehow nobody told us.”“Roger, Flight.”
“Guidance, Flight.” Brendan said.
“Go Flight,” came the reply from the Guidance Controller.
“Work out how long they can stay on this course before it's
irreversible. At what point will they no longer be able to intercept Earth?”
“Working on that now, Flight.”
“And somebody find out who the hell Rich Purnell is!”
Mitch sat comfortably in Teddy's office.
“Why'd you do it, Mitch?” Teddy demanded.
“Do what?” Mitch asked.
“You know damn well what I'm talking about.”
“Oh, you mean the Hermes mutiny?” Mitch said innocently. “You
know, that'd make a good movie title. 'The Hermes Mutiny.' Got a nice
ring to it.”
“We know you did it,” Teddy said sternly. “We don't know how, but
we know you sent them the maneuver.”
“I suppose you have proof, then?”
Teddy glared. “No. Not yet, but we're working on it.”
“Really?” Mitch said. “Is that really the best use of our time? I mean,
we have a near-Earth resupply to plan, not to mention figuring out how to
get Watney to Schiaparelli. We've got a lot on our plates.”
“You're damn right we have a lot on our plates!” Teddy fumed. “After
your little stunt, we're committed to this thing.”
“Alleged stunt,” Mitch said. “I suppose Annie will tell the media we
decided to try this risky maneuver? And she'll leave out the mutiny part?”
“Of course,” Teddy said. “Otherwise we'd look like idiots.”
“Guess that's me off the hook then!” Mitch smiled. “Can't fire me for
enacting NASA policy. Allegedly enacting it, that is. I guess Lewis is off
the hook, too. And maybe Watney gets to live. Happy endings all
around!”
“You may have killed the whole crew,” Teddy countered. “Ever think
of that?”“Whomever gave them the maneuver,” Mitch said, “only passed along
information. Lewis made the decision to act on it. If she let emotion
cloud her judgment, she'd be a shitty commander. And she's not a shitty
commander.”
“If I can ever prove it was you, I'll find a way to fire you for it.”
Teddy warned.
“Sure,” Mitch shrugged. “But if I wasn't willing to take risks to save
lives, I'd...” He thought for a moment. “Well, I guess I'd be you.”