So, I am not a scientist, engineer, etc. As it gets into the details of the attempt to rescue them, I just go with what seems to make sense and sounds reasonable. If I do something that you know is completely possible, you're free to let me know. I do my best to stay within the bounds of reality for the most part.

Chapter 4

Sol 19

Lewis stared absently out the window. The landscape of Mars slowly rolled by as the Hermes neared the end of its last orbit around the red planet. It was so close, yet impossibly far away. It had been just over a day since their emergency evac, and still she continually ran over the whole thing in her mind. She had submitted her report to NASA and had received their reply. They were to conduct some final tests, and complete preparations for the Hermes to return to Earth. She had tried to argue with them that they should stay longer, just in case Beck and Johanssen had survived and tried to contact them. NASA argued there was no evidence that either of them was alive and had overruled her.

"Commander?" Vogel said, quietly, trying to minimize his disturbance of her solitude as he floated onto the bridge.

"What can I do for you, Vogel?" She asked as she turned towards him with a forced smile. They were all in pretty bad spirits, but as their commander she had to at least try to put on a brave face for their benefit.

He really hated to bother her and questioned to himself whether he should have even brought this to her. "Yeah, I was just wrapping up some of the data collection and shutting down some of the equipment, and I found something odd. The weather antenna is getting some weird data."

"Weird?" She asked, trying to sound interested.

"Yeah, so I checked the logs. Normally, the antenna gets a data ping from the planet every hour with the current temperature. It is now pinging every five minutes with the number '505.' Which, of course, is impossible temperature wise. I ran a diagnostic and can't find any issues on our end. It must be a problem with the antenna on the hab. I assumed you would want to know about any abnormalities, in case it needed to be included in your next report. I know NASA is going to want every detail."

She nodded and rubbed her temples. "Yeah, you're right. They will want every last detail. We'll be in the history books, Vogel. The commander that left her people behind on Mars."

Sadness clouded his face. "Commander…," Vogel said, preparing to get her out of that line of thought.

"No, I know, I know," she interrupted. "It's ok, Vogel. I shouldn't have said that; that was out of line. I apologize."

"You don't owe me any apologies, Commander."

"'505' huh?" she said, returning to the topic at hand.

"Yeah," he replied.

"Every single time?"

He nodded. "It's very odd. If it were simple antenna damage, I would imagine the numbers would be more random, but there is a clear repeating pattern."

"Well, I wouldn't call repeating 505s a clear pattern. It could be a problem in the coding that's just causing the same number to repeat."

"Yes, but I haven't mentioned yet, there are two other numbers that appear together at random intervals."

"Which is of course possible with an error…"

"But unlikely," Vogel finished for her. "The two other numbers don't seem to have any significance either. They don't match any error codes."

"505 and what were the other numbers?"

"Umm, I don't recall exactly, I believe one of them was 082299."

Her eyes narrowed, and she pursed her lips. Then she looked at Vogel. "Show me the data report."

Vogel floated over to the chair beside her and after buckling himself in, began typing, bringing up the report on one of the monitors in front of them.

Holding the edge of the monitor, Lewis leaned in, looking over the numbers.

Vogel pointed to the screen. "There the two other repeating numbers, and you'll see they always repeat together. 505, 082299, 050906, then back to a string of 505s again."

The tears formed in her eyes first, and as they slid down her cheeks she began to laugh.

Vogel looked at her with no small amount of concern. "Commander?"

She pointed to the screen. "505 – let your eyes go out of focus and what does that look like?"

"SO….S?"

"And," she said, pointing to the other two repeating numbers. "Do you have any idea how much time I spent reading and rereading all of your personnel files?"

"By the tone of your question, I'm guessing far too much," he replied.

She nodded. "Exactly, and that is how I know that those two numbers happen to be the birthdays of one flight surgeon Beck and one sysop Johanssen."

Vogel's eyes grew wide, and he grinned, uncertain if he should. "They're alive?"

She leaned over and grabbed his hands and looked into his face, locking her eyes with his. "They're fucking alive! And you may have just saved them, Alex." She reached over and hit the button for the ship wide comm. "Watney, Martinez, I need you to report to the common room immediately." She switched the comm off and looked back to Vogel. "We need a goddamn plan."

"Then a goddamn plan we will have," Vogel said simply.

"So, how do we get them back?" Lewis asked them after explaining the situation. She walked over to the window and pointed to the red planet beneath them.

The faces gathered around the conference table staring back at her were a mixture of excitement, shame, and concern. This confirmed to them that they had left their colleagues – their friends – behind. The fact that they had little choice didn't do much at the moment to alleviate the feeling, but that was quickly replaced by the fear of wondering how the hell they would get them off that planet alive.

"Well," Martinez began, "we can't land on Mars again. The MAV was a one-way trip."

"Isn't there another MAV already on Mars?" Watney asked.

Lewis nodded. "Yeah, my first thought as well." She walked over to one of the monitors mounted on the wall, where she had already pulled up a surface map of Mars. She pointed to a spot on the screen. "Here at Schiaparelli Crater. It's there for the next Ares mission, but it's too far. I don't know how they could make it. It's distance of around 3200 kilometers."

Martinez scoffed and leaned back in his chair. "A rover's range isn't anywhere remotely near that. You'd have better luck trying to cross the Atlantic in a rowboat. The only way we could get back to the surface would be the escape pod, and then we'd be stuck there too."

"There's nothing we can do to mod the escape pod?" Watney asked.

Martinez had a look of disbelief. "That's a joke, right?"

Watney shook his head and shrugged. "Umm…"

Martinez waved him off. "No, no. Its engines are designed to slow reentry. They're nowhere near powerful enough to escape Mars' gravity. Not to mention it wouldn't have enough fuel."

"But, that doesn't mean it's a bad idea," Vogel interjected.

"How so?" Lewis asked.

"We have extra supplies on board already. Now, we add to that the supplies that would've been used up by Beck and Johanssen. Can't we load up the escape pod with those supplies that could help them and launch it to the surface. We help keep them alive until NASA can figure out a solution."

"I like that," she said. She looked to Martinez. "Can we ensure it lands close enough to the hab for them to reach it?"

Martinez considered it for a moment. "Yeah, I think so. We'll need to run some of the numbers through NASA."

"But we can't stay in orbit indefinitely, or we'll run out of food," Watney said.

"No," Lewis began, "but we have enough supplies that we could stay for a while, if NASA can come up with a rescue plan that involves us. If not, then we provide them with enough supplies until NASA can get a rescue launched, and we head home."

"The next Ares mission isn't for what… four years?" Watney asked and let out a whistle. "That's a long damn time."

"And we don't have that much food to give them," Vogel cautioned. "We could give them every scrap of food we have and it wouldn't last four years."

Watney's face brightened and he jumped up from his seat. "No, but maybe they can grow it! If we can figure out a way to talk to them, I can help them maybe figure out how to grow something."

"Is that possible?" Lewis asked.

"I'll need to check our inventory, and I'll need to see an inventory for what's on the hab, but yeah it could be."

"Too long. Too many variables," Vogel said then stood up and approached the screen. He pointed to the location of the hab. "Now, they're here. What if we landed the pod halfway between the hab and Schiaparelli? If they could get enough supplies onboard the rover to make it halfway, then they could restock from the pod on the way. Then use that MAV to rendezvous with the Hermes."

"As I said, the rover can't go that far from the hab," Martinez said with a shrug. "But we can run it by NASA, see what they say. If they scavenge the other rover for parts, I dunno maybe they could come up with something."

Vogel shook his head and frowned. "I just feel I must caution against any plan that leaves them waiting on Mars for four years. If that is the only option, then so be it. But, anything can happen in four years. The hab is not designed to last that long. If any major system stops functioning, and they can't fix it, then they're dead."

"You have a proposal?" Lewis asked.

"Beyond what I've said already, unfortunately, no," he said, deflated. "Other than that we must impress upon NASA the importance of finding a way to get them back onto the Hermes."

Martinez groaned. "Look, Vogel, I don't disagree. Getting them back on the Hermes ASAP is, of course, the best option for them and us. I just don't know how that's possible, but you know, I'm willing to try anything."

Lewis walked over to the window. She stared down at the planet for a moment. She turned back to face them and pointed to the window. "That is too damn close, gentlemen. Too close for us to give up on Beck and Johanssen without a nail-biting fight to save them. Are we agreed?"

"Yes, m'am," they each replied with full sincerity.

"Well, whatever we end up doing, how will we talk to them?" Watney asked. "Is there something we could send down in the pod that would let them talk to us directly?"

Lewis mulled it over. "Good question. We need to talk to NASA. We're going to need their help on this one."

"They're not going to like us ejecting that pod," Martinez warned her.

"If they want Beck and Johanssen back alive, then they won't have a choice," she said.

"And if they say no?" he pressed.

"We do it anyway," she replied. "Is that a problem for anyone?"

"Hell no," Martinez assured her with a broad smile.

"What he said," Watney said, gesturing to Martinez.

"Is there any way to at least let them know we got their message?" Vogel asked. "It will be easier to rescue them, if they know we're trying."

"I'm working on that," Lewis said. She motioned to Watney. "Get started on an inventory of our supplies. Figure out how much we can fit on the pod and how much we can spare. We'll ration if we need to – we need to give them as much as we can in case they really are stuck there for four years."

"On it," Watney replied, then he cocked his head and gave Lewis a half-grin. "And, if I might add a moment of levity… for all of our sakes…"

"Watney," Lewis said threateningly, her eyes narrowed.

He held up his hands defensively. "No, I'm just saying, if any two people were going to be stranded on Mars… I mean come on. It's about time those two addressed the elephant in the room. Maybe some time alone will do them good."

"My last bag of M&Ms says it's already gone down," Martinez piped in.

Watney slapped his hand on his knee. "I'll take that. I've got Skittles to put up. "I say another two days before they tear each other's clothes off. Vogel, Commander, you in on this?"

Lewis looked at the two of them, regarding them with barely contained disgust, amusement, and a complete lack of surprise that they would suggest this.

Behind her back, Vogel held up one finger and silently mouthed, "One more day."

Watney laughed and gave a two-fingered salute to Vogel.

"You do realize that one or both of them may be seriously injured, right?" she asked.

"Oh, yeah there's that," Martinez said.

"We'll, they do have the best doctor on Mars," Watney said. "Given today's news, I'm choosing optimism."

Dismissing them with a shake of her head, like a mother fed up with her misbehaving children, Lewis turned back to Vogel. "Vogel, see what we can remove from the pod to make more room. Martinez, you and I have a long-distance call to make."

"Let's go rescue some Martian lovebirds," Watney said.

Lewis nodded to dismiss them and left the room. She couldn't help but smile and feel a surge of excitement. They could do this. Cursing herself for her lack of fortitude, she suddenly turned back and popped her head back into the common room.

The three of them looked at her curiously, expecting further orders.

With a face that was all business she said, "Two cans of Dr. Pepper, and it'll be tonight."