p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emI have visual. I can see the MAV!"/em/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"That was Beck. Beck was coming to get him. His team hadn't been pulling a massive prank on him this entire time, intending to leave him floating in Mars's orbit for all of eternity. Yay. /span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"This realization was followed by a nice, real, conversation. With real people. Heck, just listening to the crew talking was awesome, let alone them talking about rescuing him./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Watney sat still in his chair. For the first time in the past year and a half, nothing really depended on his actions for his own survival. That was a nice change. He wanted to unhook his restraints and meet Beck at the open window, but Lewis hadn't okayed that. So he didn't. emYeah, I can follow instructions,/em he Suck it, NASA./em/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Then the nice conversation his team was having became . . . less nice./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emJohanssen, run my distance to Watney again./em" That was Beck again. Beck was on his way to pick Mark up. Beck needed to know how far apart they were?/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"That didn't seem good./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Commander Lewis answered in place of the computer geek./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emThe computer miscalculated. Not by much, thankfully, but the MAV's about five meters farther out than we originally thought."/em/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"em"So that's seventeen meters?"/em The doctor asked. Then he swore./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"em style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Talk/emem style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);" to me Beck./emem style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"" /emspan style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Lewis was concerned now. What Beck was saying didn't sound great. Of course, Watney didn't care how concerned Lewis was. She wasn't the one that was about to die, as it seemed he suddenly was./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emI've got to push it. Vogel, wait until I get within three meters and then detach my tether."/em/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"em"What's the problem, Chris?" /emLewis insisted again./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emI'm not going to get there in time if I don't try to push my velocity a little. If I hit the end of my line at the speed I need to get out there, the clamp might break. Vogel, I'll tell you when."/em/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"em"I have told you I will not release the clamp." /emVogel said./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Don't listen to him, Vogel. Don't get anybody killed because of me."/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emIf you don't push that button when I tell you, Mark and I are both dead." /emWatney didn't like the sound of that. Dead definitely was not among his favorite words. But this was his friend coming out to his rescue. And that friend was an idiot that was willing to risk his own life for Mark's. That wasn't going to happen./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Beck, don't you dare do this. Don't be stup-"/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emVogel, now."/em Beck interrupted Watney's heroic, self-sacrificing speech./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emReleasing tether,"/em Vogel responded almost forlornly. Mark wished he could see what was going on. Instead he was stuck waiting in a giant metal tube. He couldn't even try to stop Chris from being a moron at this point, because the guy was already cut loose./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emContact . . . Hard contact!" /emBeck said. Three words. Three stupid words and Mark was ready to cry. Just a little. "emVisual on Watney!" /emThe space botanist looked up, not realizing until Beck had spoken that they were now face to face. Well, face-plate to face-plate. Close enough./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Visual on Beck!" he responded./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emHow ya doin', man?" /emBeck asked as he pulled himself into the desecrated MAV. "emActually, answer that when we're back on Hermes. We've got about eight seconds to get on our way." /emWatney reached out and grabbed Beck's forearms so the other man didn't bounce around the MAV, or out of it, and began releasing the clamps holding him into the chair with his free hand while Beck reported contact and attached an anchor between the two space suits./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emFive seconds, Doctor," /emVogel radioed./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emAnd we're outta here." /emBeck said confidently as he pushed Watney and himself out the window./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emYou better hurry up Chris."/em That was Johanssen. Calling Beck Chris. Interesting./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emHurrying." /emBeck answered. Then the rest of what was said was lost on Watney. Because he saw the near end of a long line of rope approaching them pretty quickly, being dragged along by the /spanem style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Hermes./emspan style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);" And that suddenly got him really, /spanem style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"really/emspan style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);" concerned that Beck might not be quite as good at EVA as he was supposed to be. /span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"The MMU on Beck's back ignited, and they began to move back toward the /spanem style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Hermes/emspan style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);" where they would, hopefully, reattach to the tether. Watney barely registered when Beck said,/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emWe're almost in range of the tether. Mark, you'll need to grab the line too. I don't want to get left behind here."/em/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Hey, I can understand that feeling," Watney responded with a nervous chuckle. "I think I'll be hanging on to that rope pretty darn tight, to be honest."/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emTwelve meters between you and the anchor." /emJohanssen said. She sounded nervous. Mark shared the sentiment./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"But then the tether was there, and it was suddenly a mad dash as Watney grabbed for it as well as Beck and the two astronauts struggled with the general laws of inertia to get a secure grip and it began to slip in Watney's hands and then . . . and then they had it. Both had a secure grip, and suddenly Mark was able to attach the anchor to Beck's suit in front of them. And they were safe./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Well, relatively. They were still in space./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emVelocity zero!" /emJohanssen reported excitedly./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emReel 'em in, Vogel." /emLewis said./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emCopy." /emThe winch started up then, and Mark watched the emHermes/em begin to grow as he was pulled in toward Airlock 2. He started to breath again, only slightly surprised to find that he had stopped doing that recently./span/p
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p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"On the bridge of the emHermes,/em three astronauts fought to repress the urge to jump and yell excitedly as they watched their friends being pulled back in toward the ship./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Below them, the hole that had erupted when Vogel's bomb went off remained open, though the doors from five meters aft of the airlock and beyond had been sealed in order to reestablish the atmosphere aboard the majority of the ship./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"However, between the burst airlock and the nearest sealed hatch, one small locker's door seal remained intact. While having been supposed to burst along with the majority of the ship's airtight seals, he locker's own door had remained stubbornly closed when the rest of the ship vented its oxygen. Unfortunately, three years before the emHermes/em had launched, a minuscule hole had perforated the vacuum seal on the door. The hole had widened when the pressure outside it had suddenly, violently, decompressed, but it had held throughout the explosive venting of oxygen./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"As the two astronauts neared the emHermes/em, that seal finally gave way and a small amount of oxygen vented from the nose of the emHermes/em./span/p
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p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Watney watched Vogel beckon them forward, though they both knew that had no control over the speed of the winch. The German astronaut didn't like to sit still./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"As Watney watched Vogel, he noticed the man begin to change position in relation to himself. Then he noticed that the entire airlock seemed to be moving. Then he finally realized what that implied: the emHermes /emwas slowing down. But he wasn't. That wasn't good./span/p
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p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"The atmosphere vented from the burst locker had slowed emHermes'/em velocity by one meter per second. This created a problem, since the astronauts were attached to a tether, which attempted to slow them when it could no longer keep pace with its payload. As a result, the two men began to spin along the twenty meters of tether that remained outside the ship, picking up speed as the winch drawing them into the ship acted as a fulcrum for their increased velocity toward the emHermes/em./span/p
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p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Ahead of Watney, Beck swore./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emCommander Lewis be advised, w/ememe're going to hit the Hermes. Mark . . . brace for impact." /em/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"That was a funny phrase, "brace for impact." At this point, there was absolutely nothing either man could brace against. Although Mark did have to admit that the statement had given him some amount of comfort regardless./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"As they sped ever closer to the ship, Watney felt the MMU thruster ignite again and turn; just enough so that Beck was between the emHermes/em and Mark. Before he had time to try to rectify this change, they collided. Hard./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Watney thought he felt another rib or two crack with the impact, and he hit his head on his helmet's face-plate. His vision grew dark quickly and he figured he had sustained a light concussion. His blurred vision slowly began to clear and he saw the airlock loom toward them with Vogel's arms outstretched and ready to grab them. As soon as they had floated inside the airlock, Vogel pushed them toward the inner door and move to lock down the outer./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emAboard. Airlock 2 outer door locked,"/em Vogel reported, then pulled Watney and Beck toward the inner door. "emI am bringing them in. What happened?"/em/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"em"We're not sure yet," /emMartinez responded this time. em"Johanssen and the commander are on their way to you. It looked like they hit hard. How do they look?"/em/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"em style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Not good. Watney is bleeding slightly. Possibly some broken bones, but I am not positive. Beck seems to be worse."/em/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Lewis's face appeared in the door's window, and soon the inner airlock door slid open. Vogel pushed him and Beck through, then Lewis and Johanssen started working on getting them out of their EVA suits./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Hey Commander," Watney said with a grin when his helmet came off./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Shut up," she responded and hugged him. That was weird. Lewis was a robot. Robots don't hug. Oh well, who was he to judge human contact? He figured that he would be fine with pretty much every form of contact for the rest of his life./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Lewis let him go and she began to separate the sections of his EVA suit so that he could remove it. As he shed the suit, Mark looked over to Beck and Johanssen. Johanssen had just pulled Beck's helmet off, but the man seemed asleep. emThat's not right,/em he thought, emUnconscious? He looks unconscious. /emThat was a problem for them. The doctor for the entire crew was in trouble. That meant the entire crew was in trouble. Not to mention it was Mark's fault. Again./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""What's up with him?" Watney slurred, gesturing toward Beck./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Johanssen?" Lewis asked after glancing at them./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""I don't know. He's unconscious. Bleeding." Johanssen answered. She sounded panicked. "There's too much blood."/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Vogel, relieve Johanssen." Lewis ordered. The man immediately moved in behind Johanssen and gently pushed her out of the way./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""There does not seem to be a large problem. He hit his head, but I do not think it will be a big issue." Vogel said. "I can not tell about the rest of his body until I remove the suit."/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Get to work on it." Lewis leaned toward the wall and punched the intercom. "Martinez, get down here and bring a couple of scanners with you. Hurry."/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Already on my way commander." Martinez answered./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Watney knew that people kept talking. Kept talking to him even. But his head hurt, and his vision was blurry. He decided to close his eyes for a minute. Until Lewis yelled at him that he wasn't allowed to sleep yet. That was probably right. Concussions can be bad, especially if the recipient starts to obey the commands their body sends out. Mark didn't much care though, because he still felt awful./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"He looked around himself once or twice more. Lots of people. 600% of the people he had seen in the past eighteen months. One of them was unconscious and four others were working on him or Mark himself. And then there was Watney. He didn't know what that guy's deal was. But the problem was that the doctor, the guy who got his paychecks for dealing with this stuff, was the one in the worst shape./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Martinez kept running through what was going on to Watney. He didn't care. He wanted to sleep. But he also wanted to know what was wrong with Beck. And what was the deal with Johanssen? But then he would blink and when he opened his eyes back up everyone would be in a different place in the room. Martinez would be yelling at him or slapping him or something or other. Finally, after what felt like at least two years, Martinez told him that he was pretty much fine. Well, not really. But he was pretty much as good as he could be without a few months to heal up. Or at least a night's rest. In all honesty, Watney didn't remember what Martinez had said, he had just heard the word "sleep" and decided to go for it./span/p
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p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"That didn't mean that he was going to sleep forever though. For eighteen months, Watney had been living on Mars time. And for the past hundred sols of that, he hadn't been sleeping during the night anyway. So it was only to be understood that he would wake up at some terribly early hour. Because that made sense. Somehow./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"He looked around and recognized his surroundings as the medical lab. Then he saw astronauts strewn throughout that lab. Lewis was sleeping on a table halfway across the room, Vogel was sprawled over the back of a chair against the wall, and Martinez was laying on the ground at the edge of Watney's bed. Johanssen was lying next to Beck on another examination table. So that was apparently happening. Weird./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"With a groan, Watney sat upright and looked all over the room again. His teammates were all there. Alive. Asleep. Well, verybody but Beck was asleep. That was weird. Of anyone, he was definitely supposed to be asleep./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Beck," Watney hissed, "Are you awake?" The doctor picked up his head and looked over at him./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""No." He answered. Watney glared, but realized just how useless that was because it was too dark for Beck to see his withering scowl./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""What did you break?"/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""I'm not sure." Beck paused. "Actually, I think maybe everything. You?"/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""I'm about the same." Mark took a breath, then rushed, "What is wrong with you?! You could've gotten yourself killed!" He planned to push forward in his reprimands for Beck's stupidity, but then his headache got really bad and he had to lay back down./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""I had a mission to complete. That mission was getting you out of the MAV. I completed my mission."/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""You detached your tether! And emthen/em you smashed yourself into a space ship! What was that?!" Beck made an exasperated noise before responding./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Look, Mark, I got you killed once. I wasn't going to do that again."/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""You didn't - " Watney began, but Beck continued without waiting for him to finish./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""I did! Lewis was still out looking for you. I told her you were dead. She left because I told her to. That's on me."/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Don't pull that. None of you had a choice. For all intents and purposes, I emwas/em dead when you all left. Besides, I didn't end up too far from being alright, right?" Beck didn't say anything for a while./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Well, I couldn't leave you anyway. You should've heard Martinez complain while you were gone. He was even starting to prank - " Beck started to laugh, which was quickly followed by a grunt of pain and a sleepy noise of anger from Johanssen. Watney could see by the dim floor light-strips as Johanssen grabbed Beck's arm and pulled herself in tighter to him. Beck put an arm around her shoulders./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Hey, what's that about? Did you read my email?"/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""No." Beck answered immediately, "Well, yes. But that's not really why it happened. You had no effect on it at all."/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Uh-huh. Yeah, I expect to speak at your wedding." Watney answered smugly./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""I'm not going to comment on that. You have no idea what you're talking about."/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""I think I'll start my speech with something like, 'Back when I was stranded on Mars...'" Watney started with a chuckle/spanspan style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Sleep, Watney. Doctor's orders." Beck turned onto his side in order to get away from him and, Watney assumed, closer to Johanssen/spanspan style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);". That was fine by him, he supposed. If there was an order Mark Watney was destined to follow, that order was "sleep."/span/p
p style="text-align: start; max-height: 999999px;"span style="max-height: 999999px; text-decoration: underline; background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"LOG ENTRY: MISSION DAY 689/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"That "689" caught me off guard for a minute. On emHermes,/emwe track time by mission days. It may be Sol 549 down on Mars, but it's Mission Day 689 up here. And you know what? It doesn't matter what time it is on Mars because emI'm not there/em!/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"I'll write a better log later, but I don't care right now. All of my crew are here with me, I got emsaved/em by those nerds, and I'm still alive./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"But, my ribs hurt like you wouldn't believe, my vision is still blurry, I'm really hungry, and it'll be another 210 days before I'm back on Earth./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"This is the happiest day of my life./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"That was Beck. Beck was coming to get him. His team hadn't been pulling a massive prank on him this entire time, intending to leave him floating in Mars's orbit for all of eternity. Yay. /span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"This realization was followed by a nice, real, conversation. With real people. Heck, just listening to the crew talking was awesome, let alone them talking about rescuing him./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Watney sat still in his chair. For the first time in the past year and a half, nothing really depended on his actions for his own survival. That was a nice change. He wanted to unhook his restraints and meet Beck at the open window, but Lewis hadn't okayed that. So he didn't. emYeah, I can follow instructions,/em he Suck it, NASA./em/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Then the nice conversation his team was having became . . . less nice./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emJohanssen, run my distance to Watney again./em" That was Beck again. Beck was on his way to pick Mark up. Beck needed to know how far apart they were?/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"That didn't seem good./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Commander Lewis answered in place of the computer geek./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emThe computer miscalculated. Not by much, thankfully, but the MAV's about five meters farther out than we originally thought."/em/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"em"So that's seventeen meters?"/em The doctor asked. Then he swore./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"em style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Talk/emem style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);" to me Beck./emem style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"" /emspan style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Lewis was concerned now. What Beck was saying didn't sound great. Of course, Watney didn't care how concerned Lewis was. She wasn't the one that was about to die, as it seemed he suddenly was./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emI've got to push it. Vogel, wait until I get within three meters and then detach my tether."/em/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"em"What's the problem, Chris?" /emLewis insisted again./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emI'm not going to get there in time if I don't try to push my velocity a little. If I hit the end of my line at the speed I need to get out there, the clamp might break. Vogel, I'll tell you when."/em/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"em"I have told you I will not release the clamp." /emVogel said./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Don't listen to him, Vogel. Don't get anybody killed because of me."/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emIf you don't push that button when I tell you, Mark and I are both dead." /emWatney didn't like the sound of that. Dead definitely was not among his favorite words. But this was his friend coming out to his rescue. And that friend was an idiot that was willing to risk his own life for Mark's. That wasn't going to happen./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Beck, don't you dare do this. Don't be stup-"/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emVogel, now."/em Beck interrupted Watney's heroic, self-sacrificing speech./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emReleasing tether,"/em Vogel responded almost forlornly. Mark wished he could see what was going on. Instead he was stuck waiting in a giant metal tube. He couldn't even try to stop Chris from being a moron at this point, because the guy was already cut loose./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emContact . . . Hard contact!" /emBeck said. Three words. Three stupid words and Mark was ready to cry. Just a little. "emVisual on Watney!" /emThe space botanist looked up, not realizing until Beck had spoken that they were now face to face. Well, face-plate to face-plate. Close enough./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Visual on Beck!" he responded./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emHow ya doin', man?" /emBeck asked as he pulled himself into the desecrated MAV. "emActually, answer that when we're back on Hermes. We've got about eight seconds to get on our way." /emWatney reached out and grabbed Beck's forearms so the other man didn't bounce around the MAV, or out of it, and began releasing the clamps holding him into the chair with his free hand while Beck reported contact and attached an anchor between the two space suits./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emFive seconds, Doctor," /emVogel radioed./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emAnd we're outta here." /emBeck said confidently as he pushed Watney and himself out the window./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emYou better hurry up Chris."/em That was Johanssen. Calling Beck Chris. Interesting./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emHurrying." /emBeck answered. Then the rest of what was said was lost on Watney. Because he saw the near end of a long line of rope approaching them pretty quickly, being dragged along by the /spanem style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Hermes./emspan style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);" And that suddenly got him really, /spanem style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"really/emspan style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);" concerned that Beck might not be quite as good at EVA as he was supposed to be. /span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"The MMU on Beck's back ignited, and they began to move back toward the /spanem style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Hermes/emspan style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);" where they would, hopefully, reattach to the tether. Watney barely registered when Beck said,/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emWe're almost in range of the tether. Mark, you'll need to grab the line too. I don't want to get left behind here."/em/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Hey, I can understand that feeling," Watney responded with a nervous chuckle. "I think I'll be hanging on to that rope pretty darn tight, to be honest."/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emTwelve meters between you and the anchor." /emJohanssen said. She sounded nervous. Mark shared the sentiment./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"But then the tether was there, and it was suddenly a mad dash as Watney grabbed for it as well as Beck and the two astronauts struggled with the general laws of inertia to get a secure grip and it began to slip in Watney's hands and then . . . and then they had it. Both had a secure grip, and suddenly Mark was able to attach the anchor to Beck's suit in front of them. And they were safe./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Well, relatively. They were still in space./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emVelocity zero!" /emJohanssen reported excitedly./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emReel 'em in, Vogel." /emLewis said./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emCopy." /emThe winch started up then, and Mark watched the emHermes/em begin to grow as he was pulled in toward Airlock 2. He started to breath again, only slightly surprised to find that he had stopped doing that recently./span/p
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p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"On the bridge of the emHermes,/em three astronauts fought to repress the urge to jump and yell excitedly as they watched their friends being pulled back in toward the ship./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Below them, the hole that had erupted when Vogel's bomb went off remained open, though the doors from five meters aft of the airlock and beyond had been sealed in order to reestablish the atmosphere aboard the majority of the ship./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"However, between the burst airlock and the nearest sealed hatch, one small locker's door seal remained intact. While having been supposed to burst along with the majority of the ship's airtight seals, he locker's own door had remained stubbornly closed when the rest of the ship vented its oxygen. Unfortunately, three years before the emHermes/em had launched, a minuscule hole had perforated the vacuum seal on the door. The hole had widened when the pressure outside it had suddenly, violently, decompressed, but it had held throughout the explosive venting of oxygen./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"As the two astronauts neared the emHermes/em, that seal finally gave way and a small amount of oxygen vented from the nose of the emHermes/em./span/p
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p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Watney watched Vogel beckon them forward, though they both knew that had no control over the speed of the winch. The German astronaut didn't like to sit still./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"As Watney watched Vogel, he noticed the man begin to change position in relation to himself. Then he noticed that the entire airlock seemed to be moving. Then he finally realized what that implied: the emHermes /emwas slowing down. But he wasn't. That wasn't good./span/p
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p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"The atmosphere vented from the burst locker had slowed emHermes'/em velocity by one meter per second. This created a problem, since the astronauts were attached to a tether, which attempted to slow them when it could no longer keep pace with its payload. As a result, the two men began to spin along the twenty meters of tether that remained outside the ship, picking up speed as the winch drawing them into the ship acted as a fulcrum for their increased velocity toward the emHermes/em./span/p
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p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Ahead of Watney, Beck swore./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emCommander Lewis be advised, w/ememe're going to hit the Hermes. Mark . . . brace for impact." /em/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"That was a funny phrase, "brace for impact." At this point, there was absolutely nothing either man could brace against. Although Mark did have to admit that the statement had given him some amount of comfort regardless./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"As they sped ever closer to the ship, Watney felt the MMU thruster ignite again and turn; just enough so that Beck was between the emHermes/em and Mark. Before he had time to try to rectify this change, they collided. Hard./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Watney thought he felt another rib or two crack with the impact, and he hit his head on his helmet's face-plate. His vision grew dark quickly and he figured he had sustained a light concussion. His blurred vision slowly began to clear and he saw the airlock loom toward them with Vogel's arms outstretched and ready to grab them. As soon as they had floated inside the airlock, Vogel pushed them toward the inner door and move to lock down the outer./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""emAboard. Airlock 2 outer door locked,"/em Vogel reported, then pulled Watney and Beck toward the inner door. "emI am bringing them in. What happened?"/em/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"em"We're not sure yet," /emMartinez responded this time. em"Johanssen and the commander are on their way to you. It looked like they hit hard. How do they look?"/em/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"em style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Not good. Watney is bleeding slightly. Possibly some broken bones, but I am not positive. Beck seems to be worse."/em/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Lewis's face appeared in the door's window, and soon the inner airlock door slid open. Vogel pushed him and Beck through, then Lewis and Johanssen started working on getting them out of their EVA suits./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Hey Commander," Watney said with a grin when his helmet came off./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Shut up," she responded and hugged him. That was weird. Lewis was a robot. Robots don't hug. Oh well, who was he to judge human contact? He figured that he would be fine with pretty much every form of contact for the rest of his life./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Lewis let him go and she began to separate the sections of his EVA suit so that he could remove it. As he shed the suit, Mark looked over to Beck and Johanssen. Johanssen had just pulled Beck's helmet off, but the man seemed asleep. emThat's not right,/em he thought, emUnconscious? He looks unconscious. /emThat was a problem for them. The doctor for the entire crew was in trouble. That meant the entire crew was in trouble. Not to mention it was Mark's fault. Again./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""What's up with him?" Watney slurred, gesturing toward Beck./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Johanssen?" Lewis asked after glancing at them./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""I don't know. He's unconscious. Bleeding." Johanssen answered. She sounded panicked. "There's too much blood."/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Vogel, relieve Johanssen." Lewis ordered. The man immediately moved in behind Johanssen and gently pushed her out of the way./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""There does not seem to be a large problem. He hit his head, but I do not think it will be a big issue." Vogel said. "I can not tell about the rest of his body until I remove the suit."/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Get to work on it." Lewis leaned toward the wall and punched the intercom. "Martinez, get down here and bring a couple of scanners with you. Hurry."/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Already on my way commander." Martinez answered./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Watney knew that people kept talking. Kept talking to him even. But his head hurt, and his vision was blurry. He decided to close his eyes for a minute. Until Lewis yelled at him that he wasn't allowed to sleep yet. That was probably right. Concussions can be bad, especially if the recipient starts to obey the commands their body sends out. Mark didn't much care though, because he still felt awful./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"He looked around himself once or twice more. Lots of people. 600% of the people he had seen in the past eighteen months. One of them was unconscious and four others were working on him or Mark himself. And then there was Watney. He didn't know what that guy's deal was. But the problem was that the doctor, the guy who got his paychecks for dealing with this stuff, was the one in the worst shape./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"Martinez kept running through what was going on to Watney. He didn't care. He wanted to sleep. But he also wanted to know what was wrong with Beck. And what was the deal with Johanssen? But then he would blink and when he opened his eyes back up everyone would be in a different place in the room. Martinez would be yelling at him or slapping him or something or other. Finally, after what felt like at least two years, Martinez told him that he was pretty much fine. Well, not really. But he was pretty much as good as he could be without a few months to heal up. Or at least a night's rest. In all honesty, Watney didn't remember what Martinez had said, he had just heard the word "sleep" and decided to go for it./span/p
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p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"That didn't mean that he was going to sleep forever though. For eighteen months, Watney had been living on Mars time. And for the past hundred sols of that, he hadn't been sleeping during the night anyway. So it was only to be understood that he would wake up at some terribly early hour. Because that made sense. Somehow./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"He looked around and recognized his surroundings as the medical lab. Then he saw astronauts strewn throughout that lab. Lewis was sleeping on a table halfway across the room, Vogel was sprawled over the back of a chair against the wall, and Martinez was laying on the ground at the edge of Watney's bed. Johanssen was lying next to Beck on another examination table. So that was apparently happening. Weird./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"With a groan, Watney sat upright and looked all over the room again. His teammates were all there. Alive. Asleep. Well, verybody but Beck was asleep. That was weird. Of anyone, he was definitely supposed to be asleep./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Beck," Watney hissed, "Are you awake?" The doctor picked up his head and looked over at him./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""No." He answered. Watney glared, but realized just how useless that was because it was too dark for Beck to see his withering scowl./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""What did you break?"/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""I'm not sure." Beck paused. "Actually, I think maybe everything. You?"/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""I'm about the same." Mark took a breath, then rushed, "What is wrong with you?! You could've gotten yourself killed!" He planned to push forward in his reprimands for Beck's stupidity, but then his headache got really bad and he had to lay back down./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""I had a mission to complete. That mission was getting you out of the MAV. I completed my mission."/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""You detached your tether! And emthen/em you smashed yourself into a space ship! What was that?!" Beck made an exasperated noise before responding./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Look, Mark, I got you killed once. I wasn't going to do that again."/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""You didn't - " Watney began, but Beck continued without waiting for him to finish./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""I did! Lewis was still out looking for you. I told her you were dead. She left because I told her to. That's on me."/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Don't pull that. None of you had a choice. For all intents and purposes, I emwas/em dead when you all left. Besides, I didn't end up too far from being alright, right?" Beck didn't say anything for a while./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Well, I couldn't leave you anyway. You should've heard Martinez complain while you were gone. He was even starting to prank - " Beck started to laugh, which was quickly followed by a grunt of pain and a sleepy noise of anger from Johanssen. Watney could see by the dim floor light-strips as Johanssen grabbed Beck's arm and pulled herself in tighter to him. Beck put an arm around her shoulders./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Hey, what's that about? Did you read my email?"/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""No." Beck answered immediately, "Well, yes. But that's not really why it happened. You had no effect on it at all."/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Uh-huh. Yeah, I expect to speak at your wedding." Watney answered smugly./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""I'm not going to comment on that. You have no idea what you're talking about."/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""I think I'll start my speech with something like, 'Back when I was stranded on Mars...'" Watney started with a chuckle/spanspan style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);""Sleep, Watney. Doctor's orders." Beck turned onto his side in order to get away from him and, Watney assumed, closer to Johanssen/spanspan style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);". That was fine by him, he supposed. If there was an order Mark Watney was destined to follow, that order was "sleep."/span/p
p style="text-align: start; max-height: 999999px;"span style="max-height: 999999px; text-decoration: underline; background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"LOG ENTRY: MISSION DAY 689/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"That "689" caught me off guard for a minute. On emHermes,/emwe track time by mission days. It may be Sol 549 down on Mars, but it's Mission Day 689 up here. And you know what? It doesn't matter what time it is on Mars because emI'm not there/em!/span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"I'll write a better log later, but I don't care right now. All of my crew are here with me, I got emsaved/em by those nerds, and I'm still alive./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"But, my ribs hurt like you wouldn't believe, my vision is still blurry, I'm really hungry, and it'll be another 210 days before I'm back on Earth./span/p
p style="max-height: 999999px;"span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"This is the happiest day of my life./span/p