Chapter 3: Driven

Sol 63

Peeta felt himself waking out of sleep, but he resisted. He had just had a delicious dream and he wasn't ready to let go. There had been warm golden sunlight, the sweet smell of fresh grass, teasing scented whiffs of Linden trees and wildflowers, and the laughter of children like tinkling chimes. He felt warm, loved, and...at peace for the first time since...ever. He was no stranger to using his imagination as an escape from his abusive mother, the stresses of college, or the intensive training for the Mars mission. In fact, he had painted a picture of a very similar meadow when he was in high school. But then it was about what he wanted to feel. In this dream, those feelings were real. He wanted to freeze this moment in the meadow and live in it forever. He could feel himself rising closer and closer to full consciousness. The warm golden sunlight replaced by harsh florescent lighting, the sweet smell of grass and flowers replaced with the rich earthy scent of the soil he had worked so hard to create, and the tinkling laughter of children replaced with the various whirrs, beeps, clicks, and mechanical hum of the Hab. Then, rising, he acquiesced to reality, while treasuring his dream in his heart as one more reason to continue fighting in this wasteland of death and oblivion. He scrubbed his face with his hands and ran them through his newly cut hair and stood up to get started with his day.

Things were good. Peeta was doing well here on Mars. His farm was thriving and his potatoes had grown perfectly according to plan. He had finished making water a long time ago. Nothing had conspired to kill him in weeks and Thresh's B sci-fi movies were keeping him disturbingly entertained. Yep, things were stable. It was time to start thinking long-term.

He needed to be proactive.

He still had no way to communicate with NASA and even if he could find a way to do so, there was no guarantee they could rescue him. NASA projects take years. He needed to be ready to make it all the way to Antares 4. The Antares 4 crew would be landing 3200km away at the Schiaparelli crater in about four years. If he was ever going to make it to the Antares 4 site, he'd have to figure out how to trick out the rovers for a long overland journey. Thankfully, being a mechanical engineer this project would be right up his alley.

To be gone long enough to travel the 3200km to Schiaparelli crater meant a rover would need to become a miniature traveling Hab. He'd need enough food and water, and a way to get air and deal with waste. He would have to become his own little NASA doing his own experimentation and it would take a lot of time. He had lots of that, almost four years in fact. There's too much to think of at one time, so he broke it down into manageable steps.

First pick a rover.

Peeta picked Rover 2 as his target as he felt a bond with it after spending two days in it during the Great Hydrogen Scare of Sol 37.

Second, work on power. The mission only had a 10 km operational radius, but as the astronauts wouldn't always travel in straight lines, NASA designed the rovers to go 35km on a single charge. Peeta's first step was to loot Rover 1's battery and install it in Rover 2. "Ta-da! I just doubled my fuel charge range," thought Peeta. The charge for one battery was 9000-watt-hours. So two batteries gave Peeta 18,000 watt-hours. But he wouldn't just be using the rover for an EVA, he'd be living and sleeping in it. This means that the heater, which uses 400 watts, running all day and all night, would eat up 9800 watts. That's over half of the power supply every day! That was not acceptable. Losing so much energy to heat alone drastically shortened his potential range of travel.

Peeta figured the rover was well insulated and that he if he wore extra layers, then maybe he could be his own heater and avoid running the one in the rover or run it only minimally.

Life support and computer systems needed minimal power so most of it would go toward motion.

It takes 200 watts to go 1 kilometer, so 18,000 watts gives a daily range of 90 kilometers with a top speed of 25 kph. Not that Peeta would make it that far, as terrain, hills, and powering through sand would all reduce efficiency. But still, that's a good range. Some back of the napkin math told him that it would take at least 35 sols to make it to Antares 4, so he decided to make it a round 50 sols for margin.

Now, how to power a rover on the move? Peeta would need to take some of the solar cells. By looking up specs and comparing them to what he already knew about the rovers, he figured he would need fourteen solar cell panels. Thanks to the fine taxpayers of America he had some of the most expensive and most efficient solar paneling ever made. Thank you taxpayers!

Peeta figured he'd drive in twilight as he'd only have about three and a half hours of driving each day. Then he could put the solar panels out to soak up the sun all day. They'd fit decently on the roof, thought he had to be sure to secure them well, since they'd hang over the edge a bit. As long as they were happy, Peeta would be happy. It'll be dull as hell waiting for them to charge all day, though.

Tomorrow's mission, remove the battery from Rover 1 and move it to Rover 2.

When Peeta was eleven, his oldest brother Bannock, then sixteen years old, got a new-to-him 1985 Chevy Monte Carlo. It was black with red trim and needed a lot of work. Every day after the bakery closed Bannock would work on that car. Peeta sat close by and watched.

"Hand me that wrench?" Ban asked.

"Which one?" Peeta asked.

"The 10 millimeter."

Peeta handed it over.

Ban huffed, "It doesn't fit. Try the 8 millimeter."

Peeta searched the array of wrenches and selected the correct one.

"Damn," came his brother's voice, muffled under the hood. "I think it's English units. Try the 5/16 inch."

Again Peeta consulted the array of tools before him, selected the one his brother had asked for, and handed it to him.

"Eureka! It fits."

They continued in this way. The most Peeta saw of his brother that summer was his legs sticking out from under the Monte Carlo or his backside as he bent over it. He spent those months with grease perpetually under his nails. Peeta sat by on an upturned bucket, keeping his brother company, soaking up the names of all the tools and engine parts and learning his brother's meticulous process. He always laid the parts out a certain way so he'd remember how to put them back together, occasionally sketching a rough diagram or taking a picture with his cell phone.

No matter how late it was or how tired he was, Bannock always cleaned his tools and put them away where they belonged. "So they're always ready when I want them," Ban had told him. This made a great impression on Peeta and stuck with him when he pursued engineering and later trained for Mars. The methodical process, the precise placement of parts, always cleaning up and putting things away. In a way, Ban paved the way for Peeta.

During the hazy evenings and late nights Peeta sketched. He sketched Bannock working, the car as it crept out of dereliction to being a respectable vehicle again, the various parts and tools, Bannock's greasy hands, as well as his usual fare: pictures of the bakery and breads, birds and squirrels, landscapes, his family, other people they knew, the house.

Rye never had the patience to sit and watch Ban and his attempts at rendering assistance were usually the opposite of help. He spent most of his time with friends, but was nice enough to bring out water or snacks if asked.

Two weeks before summer was over, Bannock cranked the engine and it purred to life. The clunker was given new life. Bannock turned to Peeta with a smile, "Want to go for a ride?" he asked, nodding at the car.

They cruised around the small down of Panem, then out beyond the town limits driving for a half hour before turning around to come back. It was getting late and Bannock pulled up to a fast food joint and bought burgers for them. Peeta had never felt closer to his brother than in that moment, sharing milkshakes and burgers on a sticky summer night, the old Monte Carlo that they had worked on in the parking lot, and fireflies in the field beyond.

When he was 16, Peeta's dad gave him his old Honda Civic when he upgraded to a newer model. Well, we can't all have Monte Carlos.

Sol 64

It was actually pretty easy to do. Well, taking the battery out that is. Just a matter of removing a couple of clamps and disconnecting some cables and Rover 1's battery dropped right out. Then Peeta manfully lifted it and carried it over to Rover 2. Okay no not really. That's what he wanted to happen. What really happened was the battery was heavy as hell and he had to drag it over to the other rover.

Then he had to figure out how to attach it. Peeta stood back, hands on his hips and looked between the battery and Rover 2.

It couldn't go under the rover, there was no space.

It couldn't go over the rover; he planned to stow the solar cells there.

It certainly couldn't go inside the rover.

It would have to go around the rover.

There was a long strip of canvas about 1 meter wide by 6 meters long as well as extra resin that was meant for use to repair the Hab in case of a breeched hull. Peeta used some of this to fashion crude saddle bags for the rover. He made two long strips, which he fashioned into loops. Then he added large patches on each end. With difficulty he got the battery in one side of the saddle bag, then filled the other side with rocks. Once the weight was balanced, he was able to pull the rock side down so both sides were equal. It seemed secure, but he'd find out how well it worked when he was able to take a test drive.

He unplugged Rover 2's battery and plugged in Rover 1's then went inside the rover to test things out. Everything powered up and was operational. Then he took a quick test-drive to see how the sling held, even seeking out the biggest rocks he could find. The whole thing held. Hell yeah! He pumped his fist in the air.

He contemplated wiring the two batteries together to have one continuous power source but he figured, fuck it, he was fine just doing a quick EVA to swap leads. Keep it simple stupid is the best policy. He was already misusing so many things: the Hab was a greenhouse, he used rocket fuel to make water, he turned an EVA suit into a cistern, and had abused the life-support systems of the Hab mightily. It'd be nice to not push it where he didn't need to. He'd have to swap the leads during charging, too, but that was okay with that.

Peeta spent the rest of the day sweeping off the solar farm. Soon he'd be looting it.

Sol 65

When the crew first descended to the Antares 3 site, everything was in "boxes" so to speak; they had to set the whole site up themselves. While some of the crew members set up the Hab, Peeta and Thresh set up the solar farm. They had practiced for a solid week back home on Earth. The solar farm was mission critical so they drilled the hell out of it. The solar cells were set up on a lightweight lattice that made them sit at a 14 degree angle. "Something about maximizing efficiency or energy," Peeta thought, but couldn't remember the specifics. Peeta was glad for the experience because he was a lot more confident about dismantling them.

It wasn't a problem to remove some of the solar cells for the rover. The Hab was only supporting one person instead of six. Some solar cells could be spared.

He knelt down among the solar cells. He had three down and eleven to go when he felt a burn in his sinuses. Oh, God no! He tried sniffing, snorting, scrunching his face muscles, shaking his head back and forth, but it was futile. He needed to sneeze and there was nothing he could do about it. He craned his neck to aim low so as much of the sneeze droplets as possible would miss his face plate. Ah-choo! NASA had a proper procedure for everything. They even trained the crew on how to sneeze in their space suits. NASA is nothing if not thorough.

That mini-crisis over, Peeta finished looting the solar farm.

Time to stack the solar cells on the rover.

There was a large canvas bag for rock samples on the roof. Peeta balanced on the side of the rover, tugging at it and looking it over. He wanted to remove it, but as he pushed it around on the roof, he thought, "It might provide useful cushion for the solar cells." He decided to leave it. The solar cells stacked nicely (they were designed to) and they sat nicely on the roof (they were not designed for that). They hung over the right and left sides a little bit, but it wasn't like Peeta was going through any tunnels so that wasn't a big deal.

Peeta took more of the Hab repair material and made straps out of it to tie down the solar cells. Handles already on the rover made good anchor points for the straps.

Peeta stepped back and admired his handy work. It was noon and he was done! He went back in the Hab and had lunch, then tended to his potato plants. It had been 39 sols since he had first planted them, or forty Earth days. They had grown nicely. Though they were smallish, they were substantial enough to cut in to small chunks with one eye each for sprouting. Peeta was careful to handle the plants gently and keep the greens intact. Peeta was really pleased with how well the potatoes had grown. Aside from himself and the microbes in the soil, these were the only living things on Mars. He had grown quite attached to them. He replanted them carefully. Good job guys, keep up the good work. I'm depending on you, you know.

There was this girl in his botany class that Peeta always thought was a crazy hippie, but the she insisted that talking to plants helped them grow, referencing some Korean study or practice or something. Peeta thought it was stupid, but here on Mars, he saw it differently. He had made fun of her then, and now he thought she'd laugh if she could see him talking to his plants, petting their leaves, playing music to keep them company when he left the Hab...

After all the physical labor of the past couple of days Peeta was ready to relax. He was in the mood for something different, something not a movie and not music. Some rummaging through Rue's computer turned up classic novels. Dozens upon dozens. It was all the books Peeta was supposed to read in high school, but between girlfriends, Cliff's notes, and being generally good at bull-shitting, he never needed to read them. Well now I have my chance. Where to get started? Pride and Prejudice. Guess I'll be getting in touch with my feminine side.

Sol 67

Shit.

Peeta test drove his new rover set up, but had to abort after an hour because his dudes were about to freeze solid. He had fully charged the rover the day before, donned three layers of clothes that morning and set out with the rover for a test drive. He hoped that if he bundled up he wouldn't need to use the heater. He drove about 1 kilometer away then began driving back and forth over 500 meters until he realized he was packing the sand down, making a more efficient surface to drive on. So he began to meander over new terrain, always within a short walk of the Hab. But the cold relentlessly sank into him. He couldn't overcome it so he made a beeline back to the Hab.

This was a setback.

He needed heat.

Heat sucked power.

More power diverted to heat meant less for forward motion, which meant his eventual trip to Ares 4 would become impossibly long.

Shit.

Sol 68

Peeta's water alchemy was madly dangerous and his hydrogen exorcism was a bit shy of suicidal.

Well, his new idea was worse.

Four kilometers due south was a heat source. A fabulous red hot heat source that was so hot you could fry an egg on it.

The only problem was that it was radioactive.

An RTG is a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Fuck the long fancy name, all you need to know is it's a big box of plutonium, but not the kind used in atomic bombs. Though it is plutonium-238, it is not able to sustain fission. It does become blazingly hot as its radioactive decay produces heat, which is then turned to electricity. An RTG is only about 5% efficient at producing electricity, and this one produced a lot of electricity. It was damn hot. Even with its shielding. "Perfect," thought Peeta.

NASA didn't normally send incredibly dangerous radioisotopes on manned spaceflight missions, but the Antares missions on Mars were an exception. They needed to reliably power the MAV while it built up fuel over a period of more than a year (up to 48 months if necessary). The MAV was mission critical. They didn't want to risk scrubbing the mission because of some sand covered solar cells. When the Antares crew arrived on site, they very carefully removed the RTG from the MAV and the Commander deposited it way the hell away from the Hab and the other astronauts, marking it so they'd know to leave it alone.

Peeta was going to go and get it.

This would be a good second test as he'd drive the rover over real terrain rather than near the Hab and he'd see how his solar cells handled the jostling.

He decided to name the rover missions Sirius. So nearly freezing to death was Sirius 1. Tomorrow would be Sirius 2. Get it? Sirius? Dogs?

Sol 69

Out of sight of the Hab for the first time, Peeta was stuck by the vast aloneness of Mars. He had known all this time he was alone, but out here, surrounded by nothing but endless desert, he felt it.

The RTG was easy to find. Commander Odair had buried it on top of a hill and planted a green flag on top of it so the others could avoid it. Peeta made a beeline for it, dug it up, and put it in the rover. Probably not what the Commander was going for.

"Dammit Mellark!"

In the ten minutes it took Peeta to drive back to the Hab, the interior of the rover climbed to a toasty thirty-seven degrees Celsius. There was no question the RTG would keep him warm. He had to very carefully tear out the plastic ceiling (with a hammer), and the foam insulation (also hammer) so the excess heat could bleed off. Then he took the RTG out of the rover. He could feel the heat through his gloves, it was that hot. The rover cooled and Peeta had lunch. He suited up again, put the RTG in the rover and measured how fast it heated up. This time it was slower, but still the heat climbed so Peeta removed a bit more insulation until the RTG was fighting a slowly losing battle. The RTG could heat the cab, but the cab would gradually bleed off the heat and the temperature would drop. Peeta fashioned the insulation he had removed into a big square that he could tape it to the ceiling of the rover if it got too cold. Too cold, put the insulation up, too hot, take it down. Like co-workers fighting over office AC controls.

Now he was ready for Sirius 3, which would be a repeat of Sirius 1, without the freezing bit.

Sol 70

Peeta was halfway through Sirius 3. And it was going well.

He had gotten up earlier than usual and set out with the first light of the tiny Martian sun to begin the mission. He started with a full charge then did laps around the Hab, working to keep on fresh ground. The first battery lasted a little under two hours. He did an EVA to swap the batteries then kept on driving. He stopped before the second battery ran completely out of juice. He still needed to power the rover while the batteries charged. In the end he drove 81 kilometers in three hours and twenty-seven minutes. That was great!

Another EVA to set out the solar panels. While not heavy, they were awkward and last time he had Thresh's help. It got easier, though, when he decided he didn't need to carry them, but could just drag them. The taxpayers of America would be delighted to see these expensive feats of engineering and science dragged across the crater pocked hell of Mars.

Solar cells set up, Peeta just had to sit back and wait. And wait. And wait. Well, he had time to catch up on his log and to read.

"Elizabeth Bennett is one feisty lady. She's not afraid to say what she's thinking and is willing to stand up to intimidating authority figures, and she doesn't marry a guy just 'cause he was loaded. I like her," thought Peeta.

He looked up from reading. The solar cells nearly finished charging and watched the strange bluish sunset. Back on Earth sunset was his favorite time of day. Here on Mars, if he ignored the sky, he could almost imagine he was in a south-western desert landscape. But the sky, with a small sun, different moons, and grey to butterscotch coloring gave away that he was in a totally alien place.

As soon as the batteries were charged Peeta went straight back to the Hab. He was thrilled. Sirius 3 was a resounding success!

Sol 71

With the power supply worked out, Peeta was ready to move on to the next steps of preparing the rover for a long trip.

Food and water were easy.

To deal with carbon dioxide, he'd bring along extra CO2 filters. He still had plenty of hours of CO2 filtering available. Having started with 1500 hours of filters plus 720 for emergency use. He had only used 131 hours so far leaving him with 2089 hours of filtering left or 87 days worth. Plenty for his needs. The carbon dioxide filters were all standardized so they could be interchanged between various applications (NASA learned that from Apollo 13).

Now to deal with oxygen. He would need the oxygenator for the Antares 4 trip, but he didn't need it yet. Instead he'd take a couple of extra O2 tanks. They could sit in the rover and be connected to the O2 tanks that were already there so they could equalize with each other.

The Hab would take care of itself while he was gone, but what about his potato plants? Peeta planned to dump most of his water in the ground since he wouldn't be there to water them. Then he'd turn off the water reclaimer. The water would stay present in the atmosphere making it humid as hell. Water would condense on the wall, but it would keep the potatoes watered. The other problem was he wouldn't be there to exhale carbon dioxide, which the plants needed. He already had a solution for that. Over a month ago, he had used the MAV fuel tank to collect CO2 from the Martian atmosphere. He then vented it into the Hab to be captured by the oxygenator which would make oxygen for making water. He'd repeat the process to give the plants the CO2 they needed and turn off the oxygenator.

Power, food, water, oxygen, CO2 filters for the rovers. Water and carbon dioxide for the plants. That was everything for Sirius 4.

The rover readied. The Hab prepared. Peeta was ready to make a multiday field trip. A twenty-day round trip. And he knew exactly where he was going. He'd leave tomorrow.