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 5-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 cut-off in 15 seconds.”
“Much smoother 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 4,” Johanssen said “3… 2… 1… 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 12 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 intensely 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 11 meters per second…” she began.
“I can make that work,” Beck said over the radio.
“Distance at intercept will be-” She stopped and choked. Shakily, she continued. “We’ll be 68 kilometers apart.” She buried her face in her hands.
“Did she say 68
“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?”
“39 minutes, 12 seconds,” Johanssen said, trying not to quaver.
“Vogel,” Lewis continued, “how far can we deflect in 39 minutes with the ion engines?”
“Perhaps 5 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 20 percent of what’s left.”
“All right, if you used the other 80 percent-”
“Checking,” Martinez said, running the numbers on his console. “We’d get a delta-v of 31 meters per second.”
“Johanssen,” Lewis said. “Math.”
“In 39 minutes we’d deflect…” Johanssen quickly typed, “72 kilometers!”
“There we go,” Lewis said. “How much fuel-”
“Use 75.5 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
“Then we have 39 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 to speaker 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 42 meters per second when they get there.”
“How fast is that?” Annie asked.
“About 90 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 used all the fuel they could to close the gap in time. They don’t have enough 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 biomonitor data,” Johanssen said. “Pulse 58, blood pressure 98/61.”
“That’s not bad,” Beck said. “Lower than I’d like but he’s been in Mars gravity for 18 months, so it’s
