“Yes it is,” Lewis said.
“Nah,” Beck said. “I know I’m not supposed to go untethered, but without my leash I could get way out there—”
“Not an option.” Lewis said.
“But we could double or even triple our safe intercept range—”
“We’re done talking about this,” Lewis said sharply.
“Aye, Commander.”
LOG ENTRY: SOL 526
There aren’t many people who can say they’ve vandalized a three-billion-dollar spacecraft, but I’m one of them.
I’ve been pulling critical hardware out of the MAV left and right. It’s nice to know that my launch to orbit won’t have any pesky backup systems weighing me down.
First thing I did was remove the small stuff. Then came the things I could disassemble, like the crew seats, several of the backup systems, and the control panels.
I’m not improvising anything. I’m following a script sent by NASA, which was set up to make things as easy as possible. Sometimes I miss the days when I made all the decisions myself. Then I shake it off and remember I’m infinitely better off with a bunch of geniuses deciding what I do than I am making shit up as I go along.
Periodically, I suit up, crawl into the airlock with as much junk as I can fit, and dump it outside. The area around the MAV looks like the set of Sanford and Son.
I learned about Sanford and Son from Lewis’s collection. Seriously, that woman needs to see someone about her seventies problem.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 529
I’m turning water into rocket fuel.
It’s easier than you’d think.
Separating hydrogen and oxygen only requires a couple of electrodes and some current. The problem is collecting the hydrogen. I don’t have any equipment for pulling hydrogen out of the air. The atmospheric regulator doesn’t even know how. The last time I had to get hydrogen out of the air (back when I turned the Hab into a bomb) I burned it to turn it into water. Obviously that would be counterproductive.
But NASA thought everything through and gave me a process. First, I disconnected the rover and trailer from each other. Then, while wearing my EVA suit, I depressurized the trailer and back-filled it with pure oxygen at one-fourth of an atmosphere. Then I opened a plastic box full of water and put a couple of electrodes in. That’s why I needed the atmosphere. Without it, the water would just boil immediately and I’d be hanging around in a steamy atmosphere.
The electrolysis separated the hydrogen and oxygen from each other. Now the trailer was full of even more oxygen and also hydrogen. Pretty dangerous, actually.
Then I fired up the atmospheric regulator. I know I just said it doesn’t recognize hydrogen, but it does know how to yank oxygen out of the air. I broke all the safeties and set it to pull 100 percent of the oxygen out. After it was done, all that was left in the trailer was hydrogen. That’s why I started out with an atmosphere of pure oxygen, so the regulator could separate it later.
Then I cycled the rover’s airlock with the inner door open. The airlock thought it was evacuating itself, but it was actually evacuating the whole trailer. The air was stored in the airlock’s holding tank. And there you have it, a tank of pure hydrogen.
I carried the airlock’s holding tank to the MAV and transferred the contents to the MAV’s hydrogen tanks. I’ve said this many times before, but: Hurray for standardized valve systems!
Finally, I fired up the fuel plant, and it got to work making the additional fuel I’d need.
I’ll need to go through this process several more times as the launch date approaches. I’m even going to electrolyze my urine. That’ll make for a pleasant smell in the trailer.
If I survive this, I’ll tell people I was pissing rocket fuel.
•••
[19:22] JOHANSSEN: Hello, Mark.
[19:23] MAV: Johanssen!? Holy crap! They finally letting you talk to me directly?
[19:24] JOHANSSEN: Yes, NASA gave the OK for direct communication an hour ago. We’re only 35 light-seconds apart, so we can talk in near-real time. I just set up the system and I’m testing it out.
[19:24] MAV: What took them so long to let us talk?
[19:25] JOHANSSEN: The psych team was worried about personality conflicts.
[19:25] MAV: What? Just ’cause you guys abandoned me on a godforsaken planet with no chance of survival?
[19:26] JOHANSSEN: Funny. Don’t make that kind of joke with Lewis.
[19:27] MAV: Roger. So uh…thanks for coming back to get me.
[19:27] JOHANSSEN: It’s the least we could do. How is the MAV retrofit going?
[19:28] MAV: So far, so good. NASA put a lot of thought into the procedures. They work. That’s not to say they’re easy. I spent the last 3 days removing Hull Panel 19 and the front window. Even in Mars-g they’re heavy motherfuckers.
[19:29] JOHANSSEN: When we pick you up, I will make wild, passionate love to you. Prepare your body.
[19:29] JOHANSSEN: I didn’t type that! That was Martinez! I stepped away from the console for like 10 seconds!
[19:29] MAV: I’ve really missed you guys.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 543
I’m…done?
I think I’m done.
I did everything on the list. The MAV is ready to fly. And in six sols, that’s just what it’ll do. I hope.
It might not launch at all. I did remove an engine, after all. I could have fucked up all sorts of things during that process. And there’s no way to test the ascent stage. Once you light it, it’s lit.
Everything else, however, will go through tests from now until launch. Some done by me, some done remotely by NASA. They’re not telling me the failure odds, but I’m guessing they’re the highest in history. Yuri Gagarin had a much more reliable and safe ship than I do.
And Soviet ships were death traps.
•••
“ALL RIGHT,” Lewis said, “tomorrow’s the big day.”
The crew floated in the Rec. They had halted the rotation of the ship in preparation for the upcoming operation.
“I’m ready,” Martinez said. “Johanssen threw everything she could at me. I got all scenarios to orbit.”
“Everything other than catastrophic failures,” Johanssen corrected.
“Well yeah,” Martinez said. “Kind of pointless to simulate an ascent explosion. Nothing we can do.”
“Vogel,” Lewis said. “How’s our course?”
“It is perfect,” Vogel said. “We are within one meter of projected path and two centimeters per second of projected velocity.”
“Good,” she said. “Beck, how about you?”
“Everything’s all set up, Commander,” Beck said. “The tethers are linked and spooled in Airlock 2. My suit and MMU are prepped and ready.”
“Okay, the battle plan is pretty obvious,” Lewis said. She grabbed a handhold on the wall to halt a slow drift she had acquired. “Martinez will fly the MAV, Johanssen will sysop the ascent. Beck and Vogel, I want you in Airlock 2 with the outer door open before the MAV even launches. You’ll have to wait fifty-two minutes, but I don’t want to risk any technical glitches with the airlock or your suits. Once we reach intercept, it’ll be Beck’s job to get Watney.”
“He might be in bad shape when I get him,” Beck said. “The stripped-down MAV will get up to twelve g’s during the launch. He could be unconscious and may even have internal bleeding.”
“Just as well you’re our doctor,” Lewis said. “Vogel, if all goes according to plan, you’re pulling Beck and Watney back aboard with the tether. If things go wrong, you’re Beck’s backup.”
“ Ja, ” Vogel said.
“I wish there was more we could do right now,” Lewis said. “But all we have left is the wait. Your work schedules are cleared. All scientific experiments are suspended. Sleep if you can, run diagnostics on your equipment if you can’t.”
“We’ll get him, Commander,” Martinez said as the others floated out. “Twenty-four hours from now, Mark Watney will be right here in this room.”
“Let’s hope so, Major,” Lewis said.
•••
“FINAL CHECKS for this shift are complete,” Mitch said into his headset. “Timekeeper.”
“Go, Flight,” said the timekeeper.
“Time until MAV launch?”
“Sixteen hours, nine minutes, forty seconds…mark.”
“Copy that. All stations: Flight director shift change.” He took his headset off and rubbed his eyes.
Brendan Hutch took the headset from him and put it on. “All stations, Flight director is now Brendan Hutch.”
“Call me if anything happens,” Mitch said. “If not, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Get some sleep, Boss,” Brendan said.
Venkat watched from the observation booth. “Why ask the timekeeper?” he mumbled. “It’s on the huge mission clock in the center screen.”
“He’s nervous,” Annie said. “You don’t often see it, but that’s what Mitch Henderson looks like when he’s nervous. He double- and triple-checks everything.”
“Fair enough,” Venkat said.
“They’re camping out on the lawn, by the way,” Annie said. “Reporters from all over the world. Our press rooms just don’t have enough space.”
“The media loves a drama.” He sighed. “It’ll be over tomorrow, one way or another.”
“What’s our role in all this?” Annie said. “If something goes wrong, what can Mission Control do?”
“Nothing,” Venkat said. “Not a damned thing.”
“Nothing?”
“It’s all happening twelve light-minutes away. That means it takes twenty-four minutes for them to get the answer to any question they ask. The whole launch is twelve minutes long. They’re on their own.”
“So we’re completely helpless?”
“Yes,” Venkat said. “Sucks, doesn’t it?”
LOG ENTRY: SOL 549
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t shitting myself. In four hours, I’m going to ride a giant explosion into orbit. This is something I’ve done a few times before, but never with a jury-rigged mess like this.
Right now, I’m sitting in the MAV. I’m suited up because there’s a big hole in the front of the ship where the window and part of the hull used to be. I’m “awaiting launch instructions.” Really, I’m just awaiting launch. I don’t have any part in this. I’m just going to sit in the acceleration couch and hope for the best.
Last night, I ate my final meal pack. It’s the first good meal I’ve had in weeks. I’m leaving forty-one potatoes behind. That’s how close I came to starvation.
I carefully collected samples during my journey. But I can’t bring any of them with me. So I put them in a container a few hundred meters from here. Maybe someday they’ll send a probe to collect them. May as well make them easy to pick up.
This is it. There’s nothing after this. There isn’t even an abort procedure. Why make one? We can’t delay the launch. Hermes can’t stop and wait. No matter what, we’re launching on schedule.
I face the very real possibility that I’ll die today. Can’t say I like it.
It wouldn’t be so bad if the MAV blew up. I wouldn’t know what hit me, but if I miss the intercept, I’ll just float around in space until I run out of air. I have a contingency plan for that. I’ll drop the oxygen mixture to zero and breathe pure nitrogen until I suffocate. It wouldn’t feel bad. The lungs don’t have the ability to sense lack of oxygen. I’d just get tired, fall asleep, then die.
I still can’t quite believe that this is really it. I’m really leaving. This frigid desert has been my home for a year and a half. I figured out how to survive, at least for a while, and I got used to how things worked. My terrifying struggle to stay alive became somehow routine. Get up in the morning, eat breakfast, tend my crops, fix broken stuff, eat lunch, answer e-mail, watch TV, eat dinner, go to bed. The life of a modern farmer.
Then I was a trucker, doing a long haul across the world. And finally, a construction worker, rebuilding a ship in ways no one ever considered before this. I’ve done a little of everything here, because I’m the only one around to do it.
That’s all over now. I have no more jobs to do, and no more nature to defeat. I’ve had my last Martian potato. I’ve slept in the rover for the last time. I’ve left my last footprints in the dusty red sand. I’m leaving Mars today, one way or another.
About fucking time.
CHAPTER 26
THEY GATHERED.
Everywhere on Earth, they gathered.
In Trafalgar Square and Tiananmen Square and Times Square, they watched on giant screens. In offices, they huddled around computer monitors. In bars, they stared silently at the TV in the corner. In homes, they sat breathlessly on their couches, their eyes glued to the story playing out.
In Chicago, a middle-aged couple clutched each other’s hands as they watched. The man held his wife gently as she rocked back and forth out of sheer terror. The NASA representative knew not to disturb them, but stood ready to answer any questions, should they ask.
“Fuel pressure green,” Johanssen’s voice said from a billion televisions. “Engine alignment perfect. Communications five by five. We are ready for preflight checklist, Commander.”
“Copy.” Lewis’s voice. “CAPCOM.”
“Go,” Johanssen responded.
“Guidance.”
“Go,” Johanssen said again.
“Remote Command.”
“Go,” said Martinez.
“Pilot.”
“Go,” said Watney from the MAV.
A mild cheer coruscated through the crowds worldwide.
•••
MITCH SAT at his station in Mission Control. The controllers monitored everything and were ready to help in any way they could, but the communication latency between Hermes and Earth rendered them powerless to do anything but watch.
“Telemetry,” Lewis’s voice said over the speakers.
“Go,” Johanssen responded.
“Recovery,” she continued.
“Go,” said Beck from the airlock.
“Secondary Recovery.”
“Go,” said Vogel from beside Beck.
“Mission Control, this is Hermes Actual,” Lewis reported. “We are go for launch and will proceed on schedule. We are T minus four minutes, ten seconds to launch…mark.”
“Did you get that, Timekeeper?” Mitch said.
“Affirmative, Flight” was the response. “Our clocks are synched with theirs.”
“Not that we can do anything,” Mitch mumbled, “but at least we’ll know what’s supposedly happening.”
•••
“ABOUT FOUR minutes, Mark,” Lewis said into her mic. “How you doing down there?”
“Eager to get up there, Commander,” Watney responded.
“We’re going to make that happen,” Lewis said. “Remember, you’ll be pulling some pretty heavy g’s. It’s okay to pass out. You’re in Martinez’s hands.”
“Tell that asshole no barrel rolls.”
“Copy that, MAV,” Lewis said.
“Four more minutes,” Martinez said, cracking his knuckles. “You ready for some flying, Beth?”
“Yeah,” Johanssen said. “It’ll be strange to sysop a launch and stay in zero-g the whole time.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Martinez said, “but yeah. I’m not going to be squashed against the back of my seat. Weird.”
•••
BECK FLOATED in the airlock, tethered to a wall-mounted spool. Vogel stood beside him, his boots clamped to the floor. Both stared through the open outer door at the red planet below.
“Didn’t think I’d be back here again,” Beck said.
“Yes,” Vogel said. “We are the first.”
“First what?”
“We are the first to visit Mars twice.”
“Oh yeah. Even Watney can’t say that.”
“He cannot.”
They looked at Mars in silence for a while.
“Vogel,” Beck said.
“Ja.”
“If I can’t reach Mark, I want you to release my tether.”
“Dr. Beck,” Vogel said, “the commander has said no to this.”
“I know what the commander said, but if I need a few more meters, I want you to cut me loose. I have an MMU, I can get back without a tether.”
“I will not do this, Dr. Beck.”
“It’s my own life at risk, and I say it’s okay.”
“You are not the commander.”
Beck scowled at Vogel, but with their reflective visors down, the effect was lost.
“Fine,” Beck said. “But I bet you’ll change your mind if push comes to shove.”
Vogel did not respond.
•••
“T-MINUS TEN,” said Johanssen, “nine…eight…”
“Main engines start,” said Martinez.
“…seven…six…five…Mooring clamps released…”
“About five seconds, Watney,” Lewis said to her headset. “Hang on.”
“See you in a few, Commander,” Watney radioed back.
“…four…three…two…”
•••
WATNEY LAY in the acceleration couch as the MAV rumbled in anticipation of liftoff.
“Hmm,” he said to nobody. “I wonder how much longer—”
The MAV launched with incredible force. More than any manned ship had accelerated in the history of space travel. Watney was shoved back into his couch so hard he couldn’t even grunt.
Having anticipated this, he had placed a folded up shirt behind his head in the helmet. As his head drove ever deeper into the makeshift cushion, the edges of his vision became blurry. He could neither breathe nor move.
Directly in his field of view, the Hab canvas patch flapped violently as the ship exponentially gained speed. Concentration became difficult, but something in the back of his mind told him that flapping was bad.
•••
“VELOCITY SEVEN hundred and forty-one meters per second,” Johanssen called out. “Altitude thirteen hundred and fifty meters.”
“Copy,” Martinez said.
“That’s low,” Lewis said. “Too low.”
“I know,” Martinez said. “It’s sluggish; fighting me. What the fuck is going on?”
“Velocity eight hundred and fifty, altitude eighteen hundred and forty-three,” Johanssen said.
“I’m not getting the power I need!” Martinez said.
“Engine power at a hundred percent,” Johanssen said.
“I’m telling you it’s sluggish,” Martinez insisted.
“Watney,” Lewis said to her headset. “Watney, do you read? Can you report?”
•••
WATNEY HEARD Lewis’s voice in the distance. Like someone talking to him through a long tunnel. He vaguely wondered what she wanted. His attention was briefly drawn to the fluttering canvas ahead of him. A rip had appeared and was rapidly widening.
But then he was distracted by a bolt in one of the bulkheads. It only had five sides. He wondered why NASA decided that bolt needed five sides instead of six. It would require a special wrench to tighten or loosen.
The canvas tore even further, the tattered material flapping wildly. Through the opening, Watney saw red sky stretching out infinitely ahead. “That’s nice,” he thought.
As the MAV flew higher, the atmosphere grew thinner. Soon, the canvas stopped fluttering and simply stretched toward Mark. The sky shifted from red to black.
“That’s nice, too,” Mark thought.
As consciousness slipped away, he wondered where he could get a cool five-sided bolt like that.
•••
“I’M GETTING more response now,” Martinez said.
“Back on track with full acceleration,” Johanssen said. “Must have been drag. MAV’s out of the atmosphere now.”
“It was like flying a cow,” Martinez grumbled, his hands racing over his controls.
“Can you get him up?” Lewis asked.
“He’ll get to orbit,” Johanssen said, “but the intercept course may be compromised.”
“Get him up first,” Lewis said. “Then we’ll worry about intercept.”
“Copy. Main engine cutoff in fifteen seconds.”
“Totally smooth now,” Martinez said. “It’s not fighting me at all anymore.”
“Well below target altitude,” Johanssen said. “Velocity is good.”
“How far below?” Lewis said.
“Can’t say for sure,” Johanssen said. “All I have is accelerometer data. We’ll need radar pings at intervals to work out his true final orbit.”
“Back to automatic guidance,” Martinez said.
“Main shutdown in four,” Johanssen said, “…three…two…one…Shutdown.”
“Confirm shutdown,” Martinez said.
“Watney, you there?” Lewis said. “Watney? Watney, do you read?”
“Probably passed out, Commander,” Beck said over the radio. “He pulled twelve g’s on the ascent. Give him a few minutes.”
“Copy,” Lewis said. “Johanssen, got his orbit yet?”
“I have interval pings. Working out our intercept range and velocity…”
Martinez and Lewis stared at Johanssen as she brought up the intercept calculation software. Normally, orbits would be worked out by Vogel, but he was otherwise engaged. Johanssen was his backup for orbital dynamics.
“Intercept velocity will be eleven meters per second…,” she began.
“I can make that work,” Beck said over the radio.
“Distance at intercept will be—” Johanssen stopped and choked. Shakily, she continued. “We’ll be sixty-eight kilometers apart.” She buried her face in her hands.
“Did she say sixty-eight kilometers!?” Beck said. “Kilometers!?”
“God damn it,” Martinez whispered.
“Keep it together,” Lewis said. “Work the problem. Martinez, is there any juice in the MAV?”
“Negative, Commander,” Martinez responded. “They ditched the OMS system to lighten the launch weight.”
“Then we’ll have to go to him. Johanssen, time to intercept?”
“Thirty-nine minutes, twelve seconds,” Johanssen said, trying not to quaver.
“Vogel,” Lewis continued, “how far can we deflect in thirty-nine minutes with the ion engines?”
“Perhaps five kilometers,” he radioed.
“Not enough,” Lewis said. “Martinez, what if we point our attitude thrusters all the same direction?”
“Depends on how much fuel we want to save for attitude adjustments on the trip home.”
“How much do you need?”
“I could get by with maybe twenty percent of what’s left.”
“All right, if you used the other eighty percent—”
“Checking,” Martinez said, running the numbers on his console. “We’d get a delta-v of thirty-one meters per second.”
“Johanssen,” Lewis said. “Math.”
“In thirty-nine minutes we’d deflect…,” Johanssen quickly typed, “seventy-two kilometers!”
“There we go,” Lewis said. “How much fuel—”
“Use seventy-five point five percent of remaining attitude adjust fuel,” Johanssen said. “That’ll bring the intercept range to zero.”
“Do it,” Lewis said.
“Aye, Commander,” Martinez said.
“Hold on,” Johanssen said. “That’ll get the intercept range to zero, but the intercept velocity will be forty-two meters per second.”
“Then we have thirty-nine minutes to figure out how to slow down,” Lewis said. “Martinez, burn the jets.”
“Aye,” Martinez said.
•••
“WHOA,” ANNIE said to Venkat. “A lot of shit just happened really fast. Explain.”
Venkat strained to hear the audio feed over the murmur of the VIPs in the observation booth. Through the glass, he saw Mitch throw his hands up in frustration.
“The launch missed badly,” Venkat said, looking past Mitch to the screens beyond. “The intercept distance was going to be way too big. So they’re using the attitude adjusters to close the gap.”
“What do attitude adjusters usually do?”
“They rotate the ship. They’re not made for thrusting it. Hermes doesn’t have quick-reaction engines. Just the slow, steady ion engines.”
“So…problem solved?” Annie said hopefully.
“No,” Venkat said. “They’ll get to him, but they’ll be going forty-two meters per second when they get there.”
“How fast is that?” Annie asked.
“About ninety miles per hour,” Venkat said. “There’s no hope of Beck grabbing Watney at that speed.”
“Can they use the attitude adjusters to slow down?”
“They needed a lot of velocity to close the gap in time. They used all the fuel they could spare to get going fast enough. But now they don’t have enough fuel to slow down.” Venkat frowned.
“So what can they do?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “And even if I did, I couldn’t tell them in time.”
“Well fuck,” Annie said.
“Yeah,” Venkat agreed.
•••
“WATNEY,” LEWIS said “Do you read?…Watney?” she repeated.
“Commander,” Beck radioed. “He’s wearing a surface EVA suit, right?”
“Yeah.”
“It should have a bio-monitor,” Beck said. “And it’ll be broadcasting. It’s not a strong signal; it’s only designed to go a couple hundred meters to the rover or Hab. But maybe we can pick it up.”
“Johanssen,” Lewis said.
“On it,” Johanssen said. “I have to look up the frequencies in the tech specs. Gimme a second.”
“Martinez,” Lewis continued. “Any idea how to slow down?”
He shook his head. “I got nothin’, Commander. We’re just going too damn fast.”
“Vogel?”
“The ion drive is simply not strong enough,” Vogel replied.
“There’s got to be something,” Lewis said. “Something we can do. Anything.”
“Got his bio-monitor data,” Johanssen said. “Pulse fifty-eight, blood pressure ninety-eight over sixty-one.”
“That’s not bad,” Beck said. “Lower than I’d like, but he’s been in Mars gravity for eighteen months, so it’s expected.”
“Time to intercept?” Lewis asked.
“Thirty-two minutes,” Johanssen replied.
•••
BLISSFUL unconsciousness became foggy awareness which transitioned into painful reality. Watney opened his eyes, then winced at the pain in his chest.
Little remained of the canvas. Tatters floated along the edge of the hole it once covered. This granted Watney an unobstructed view of Mars from orbit. The red planet’s crater-pocked surface stretched out seemingly forever, its thin atmosphere a slight blur along the edge. Only eighteen people in history had personally seen this view.
“Fuck you,” he said to the planet below.
Reaching toward the controls on his arm, he winced. Trying again, more slowly this time, he activated his radio. “MAV to Hermes. ”
“Watney!?” came the reply.
“Affirmative. That you, Commander?” Watney said.
“Affirmative. What’s your status?”
“I’m on a ship with no control panel,” he said. “That’s as much as I can tell you.”
“How do you feel?”
“My chest hurts. I think I broke a rib. How are you?”
“We’re working on getting you,” Lewis said. “There was a complication in the launch.”
“Yeah,” Watney said, looking out the hole in the ship. “The canvas didn’t hold. I think it ripped early in the ascent.”
“That’s consistent with what we saw during the launch.”
“How bad is it, Commander?” he asked.
“We were able to correct the intercept range with Hermes ’s attitude thrusters. But there’s a problem with the intercept velocity.”
“How big a problem.”
“Forty-two meters per second.”
“Well shit.”
•••
“HEY, AT least he’s okay for the moment,” Martinez said.
“Beck,” Lewis said, “I’m coming around to your way of thinking. How fast can you get going if you’re untethered?”
“Sorry, Commander,” Beck said. “I already ran the numbers. At best I could get twenty-five meters per second. Even if I could get to forty-two, I’d need another forty-two to match Hermes when I came back.”
“Copy,” Lewis said.
“Hey,” Watney said over the radio, “I’ve got an idea.”
“Of course you do,” Lewis said. “What do you got?”
“I could find something sharp in here and poke a hole in the glove of my EVA suit. I could use the escaping air as a thruster and fly my way to you. The source of thrust would be on my arm, so I’d be able to direct it pretty easily.”
“How does he come up with this shit?” Martinez interjected.
“Hmm,” Lewis said. “Could you get forty-two meters per second that way?”
“No idea,” Watney said.
“I can’t see you having any control if you did that,” Lewis said. “You’d be eyeballing the intercept and using a thrust vector you can barely control.”
“I admit it’s fatally dangerous,” Watney said. “But consider this: I’d get to fly around like Iron Man.”
“We’ll keep working on ideas,” Lewis said.
“Iron Man, Commander. Iron Man. ”
“Stand by,” Lewis said.
She furrowed her brow. “Hmm…Maybe it’s not such a bad idea.…”
“You kidding, Commander?” Martinez said. “It’s a terrible idea. He’d shoot off into space—”
“Not the whole idea, but part of it,” she said. “Using atmosphere as thrust. Martinez, get Vogel’s station up and running.”
“Okay,” Martinez said, typing at his keyboard. The screen changed to Vogel’s workstation. Martinez quickly changed the language from German to English. “It’s up. What do you need?”
“Vogel’s got software for calculating course offsets caused by hull breaches, right?”
“Yeah,” Martinez said. “It estimates course corrections needed in the event of—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Lewis said. “Fire it up. I want to know what happens if we blow the VAL.”
Johanssen and Martinez looked at each other.
“Um. Yes, Commander,” Martinez said.
“The vehicular airlock?” Johanssen said. “You want to…open it?”
“Plenty of air in the ship,” Lewis said. “It’d give us a good kick.”
“Ye-es…,” Martinez said as he brought up the software. “And it might blow the nose of the ship off in the process.”
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