I Love You to Mars and Back

by RunOn

Believing he has perished in a sandstorm, Peeta Mellark's crewmates abandon him on the surface of Mars. Meanwhile, recent college grad and grunt in SatCon, Katniss Everdeen discovers that Peeta Mellark is alive. As he struggles to survive, she falls in love with the astronaut, but he doesn't know she's alive. What will happen when he finally returns home? THG The Martian mashup.

5. Driven

Chapter 5: Driven

Sol 79

Soft, pale light bathed the interior of the rover. Peeta's eyes fluttered open in the growing light of the Martian dawn as the tiny cornflower blue sun crested the horizon and lit the alien world anew. He sat up and put on his watch then ran his hands through his hair and rubbed his face.

Biscuits, he thought. He missed biscuits. Buttery, flakey, hot right out of the oven.

And bacon.

Nice crispy bacon with some snap to it. Rye liked it floppy. Peeta thought that was gross. Rye would even eat the floppy fatty ends off of other pieces of bacon. Peeta thought that was revolting. Ban didn't like bacon at all. Peeta sometimes wondered if Ban was adopted. He missed his bothers.

He missed so many things.

He missed everything.

He reached up and stretched, or tried to stretch and shift around in the little nest he'd made himself to sleep in. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. The inside of the rover was about the size of a van. Plenty of room for an ordinary EVA, but he'd been living in it for eight days. Sitting and driving. Sitting and reading. Sitting and watching B sci-fi movies. Sitting and eating. Lying down in the cramped space and sleeping.

It was becoming claustrophobic. He couldn't wait to get back to the wide open space of the Hab. And his potatoes. He hoped they were doing okay. He had left Rue's folk music on for them. That left him with only Finnick's boy bands. Goddammit Finnick!

As usual, he had slipped into a regular rhythm and routine. Every morning he woke to the Martian sun as the sky changed from black, to slate, to a dark rose, and finally to light gray or butterscotch depending on how much dust was in the air. He had to admit, that amidst other unsavory aspects of his morning routine, this part was actually pleasant. Then he checked his oxygen and carbon dioxide levels right away. He washed his face, brushed his teeth, and shaved. Again, even on short supplies, this little routine made him feel more human. He didn't want to come out of this looking like fucking Robinson Crusoe. Then he had a breakfast packet and some water. It was crucial to eat first because what followed next could earn a place in Dante's Inferno.

He was living on a planet that had pretty much nothing to offer him, and everything to take, one that seemed to be forever at odds with him. That made him cautious. He was striving against this unforgiving world that was ready to destroy him if he strayed from the knife edge of safety. He had no certainty of resupply. It meant he had to make every single thing he had last. Meant, well, that he saved...everything, and that included his own piss and shit.

Peeta had worked hard to make that damned water, nearly blowing himself up even, he wasn't going to waste it. So, instead of peeing and letting it boil off in the Martian air, he saved it in a bin. When he opened that bin each time he needed to piss, the rover smelled like a rank truck stop bathroom. He'd put it through the water reclaimer when he got back to the Hab. He saved his shit too. It was precious manure for his crops and he was the only source. He had gotten practiced at crapping in a bag. If the bin of piss smelled bad, just imagine what it was like after he did the other thing.

Once he was finished with that lovely routine it was time to go out and stack the solar cells on the rover's roof and hit the road. He laid them out all organized in a line when he first started the trip, but that had devolved to just dropping them wherever.

After securing the cells, he hopped back in the rover, turned on crappy boy band music and drove at the blistering speed of 25 kph. Warp speed. Engage!

He was comfortable inside the rover. The RTG was working fabulously as a heater. Peeta wore a pair of cutoffs he made from a uniform and a thin t-shirt. As expected, he kept the piece of insulation duct-taped to the hull until the cab got too warm, then pulled it down until the cab got too cold. Up, down, all day. At night, it was cold enough outside that the RTG's heat bled off sufficiently so he didn't have to get up to pull the insulation down. That was a mercy. Sleep was crappy enough without having to wake repeatedly to adjust the insulation.

After about two hours of driving, he got out and switched the batteries. Then he had another nearly two hours before the second battery ran out of juice and he stopped for the day. Then he set out the solar panels and just waited. He was done for the day. It took twelve hours to charge the solar panels. Peeta had classic novels to read (he was half way through The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes now) and movies to watch, but he also spent a lot of time thinking.

This trip was like a small scale model of what he'd have to do to get to Antares 4. There was no way this set up would get him there. This trip would be a little over twenty sols. He had to be prepared for that trip to take up to fifty sols. He needed the water reclaimer, the oxygenator, more food, more water, more power. This rover was maxed out as it was. How was he going to pack the rest of all that stuff and still have room for himself. He had time to figure it out, but sometimes it was a little overwhelming.

Eventually it got dark. Peeta got tired. He slept in a veritable rat's nest of food packs, water tanks, an extra O2 tank, piles of CO2 filters, box of pee, bags of crap, and his personal items. He had made a bed out of a pile of the crew's jumpsuits and his own pillow and blanket. He essentially slept in a pile of junk every night.

Peeta sat in the rover and looked out into the gathering twilight and watched the stars appear. The stars were absolutely brilliant here with little atmosphere to block or scatter their light. He looked for a certain bright spot...it should be...there! Right there! Earth. Home. He felt a tug of longing on his heart, like an invisible tether still anchored him to Earth spanning all those millions of miles. It was so far away. One hundred forty million miles was such a long distance that it became an abstraction in Peeta's mind.

He imagined what his family would be doing. He counted the time on his fingers, it would be February soon. There'd be Valentine's candy on the shelves. Everything would be decked out in pink and red. The Mellark family bakery would be making heart shaped sugar cookies with pink sprinkles and cupcakes with red, white, and pink frosting. Rye's birthday was in February. He'd be 29. Peeta couldn't wait to give him hell when he turned 30 next year. Now, he wouldn't be there to do it. Well there's always 40.

He nestled down amidst his piles of junk and went to sleep absently rubbing his watch band with his thumb.

Sol 80

He was getting close. By his reckoning, he was about 100 kilometers from Pathfinder. Navigation had been tricky. There weren't exactly any gas stations to stop at and ask for directions. He planned to use digital maps and follow prominent features or landmarks. But the Hab was in the flat plain of Acidalia Planitia. There were no goddamn features to look for or navigate by.

Next, Peeta tried making a compass with a needle from the med kit and using electricity from the rover to make an electromagnet. But Mars doesn't have a global magnetic field. On to Plan C.

Peeta relied on Phobos. The moon, Phobos, made a circuit of the sky twice a day. It moved from East to West. Using its known position, Peeta could make a pretty good guess of his where he was and whether he was headed in the right direction. Peeta wasn't sure if following the god of Fear was the best thing, but it was all he had.

On the third sol after leaving the Hab, Peeta entered a valley, which he named Odair valley, for the charismatic leader of the mission. As the current Commander of the mission and the King of Mars, it was his prerogative to name shit. Three sols later, he exited the valley and was once again in a featureless expanse relying on Fear to be his guide. But today he came up on a small crater, not much more than five kilometers across. It didn't even have a listed name, but it was on the maps. So finally, Peeta had something to navigate by. He was on target with where he needed to be. He named the small crater Lighthouse of Alexandria because it finally helped him know where he was and guide him the rest of the way.

Now that he found the Lighthouse of Alexandria navigation would be much easier because after the small crater, there was Hamelin crater, and after that, a pair of hills, known as Twin Peaks, would guide him straight to Pathfinder.

It was the end of his driving day, so now he had twelve hours to kill before it got dark and it was time to go to sleep.

Sol 81

He was so damn close, but ran out of juice with only twenty-two kilometers to go. So close he could taste it. With Lighthouse of Alexandria behind him, Hamelin crater next to him, and the Twin Peaks in the distance, he had all the landmarks he needed to get to Pathfinder.

When he first started out, the terrain was pretty flat and the rocks weren't that big so he didn't have to slow down much. The rover had a good clearance, so he was able to drive right over the rocks. Now, he had to pay attention. The terrain was rockier and some of the rocks were big enough that he had to drive around them. It was becoming a chore and it slowed him down.

He set out the solar panels in a haphazard fashion as was his current habit. It was nice having at least one thing that didn't need to be done exactly a certain way. After setting them out, he walked to the rover then turned on his heel and walked back the other way. He'd been cramped in that smelly box now for days. And then he just stood there. He wasn't ready to get back in the rover, but there wasn't much else to do out here. He decided to do a circuit around the rover to see how it was handling this long journey. It seemed to be in good shape. Normally, a rover would just do quick, out and back EVAs, but he had been long-haulin' it across Mars. He couldn't help but be impressed with how well his modifications worked.

Then he started walking circles about a half kilometer away from the rover. He just needed to be out. He started skipping. Literally skipping. He felt like a little boy, but skipping was the fastest way to move in Martian gravity. It felt good.

He kicked a rock. That rock hadn't moved in millions of years, and likely wouldn't move again. He was the first to kick that rock. That was a pretty neat feeling. He was the first to even be here. Everywhere he stepped, touched, he was the first. Get out of the rover? First guy to be there. Climb a hill? First guy to ever climb that hill. He turned around to look at the rover, he was the first to drive so far on the surface of Mars. First! First! First!

He was rarely first at anything. Third son of a baker, came in second to Rye at the Texas State Wrestling Championships until Rye graduated, then he was first at that.

He was the sixth man on the Mars crew. The fifth to leave the MDV. The seventeenth to walk on the surface of Mars. He even had it tattooed on his shoulder. The whole crew got tattoos. Clove De La Rosa almost chickened out. She was afraid the needle would hurt. The girl could throw a knife fifty feet with deadly accuracy, but was scared of a friggin' tattoo needle. Peeta made sure she didn't back out. He reminded her that she had survived the centrifuge, the vomit comet, and had fixed a simulated computer failure while being spun around upside down. She was still uncomfortable with the needle. Peeta promised to go first and then hold her hand through hers. And that he'd bring her any baked good she wanted everyday for the next month. With his encouragement, teasing, cajoling, and bribing he got her in the tattoo chair. His hand was sore for a while, but Clove got her tattoo and the whole team had their "numbers" on their right shoulder blades. She was number fifteen.

Now, he was the first to live on Mars for more than thirty-one days. The first to grow crops on Mars. He turned a full three-hundred and sixty degrees taking in the expanse all around him.

He was the first person to live completely and utterly alone on another planet.

He missed his crew. What he wouldn't give to talk to them again. To anyone, really. About anything. For five minutes. Just five minutes.

However, he had been continuing to keep up his log. The log was like a conversation. A one-sided conversation. It was scientific, even if rather candid at times. He wondered if he should maybe go back and edit it, but he didn't know how. Even if he did die on this God-forsaken planet, they'd know what he had to say dammit!

And tomorrow he'd be the first to recover a Mars probe. He might actually get to talk to someone before he died.

When he got back to Earth, he'd get a number one tattooed on the other shoulder. He fucking earned it.

Houston, TX

Katniss was nervous when she noticed that Peeta did not return to the rover. He seemed to just be standing there. What are you up to Mellark? Why aren't you going back in your rover? The next image showed him next to the rover. Why is he just standing around? Is there a problem with the rover? The cells? He was out further from the rover again. Get back in the rover. Please. He was now about a half kilometer away from the rover. Get back in the damn rover, Mellark! She twisted her braid, waiting as each image came in and he was still meandering around on the surface of each passing minute her nerves mounted. I mean it Mellark, I'll tell Haymitch. Not like we can really do anything about this, but I just want you to know I'm really, really, really mad at you right now.

She decided that stressing over Mellark wasn't going to help. She soothed herself thinking he had been probably cooped up in that rover for a long time and just needed to stretch his legs. Honestly, it was surprising it had taken this long. She decided to go to the break room and pay a visit to the vending machines. They had recently refilled them. Katniss had no problem getting a sprite and cheese popcorn, her favorite snack.

She walked back to her desk hoping for a change, but he was still out there, apparently on top of a hill. Katniss paced, chewing her thumbnail worriedly. She was afraid he could get into trouble outside of the rover. He could twist an ankle on one of those rocks! Or fall and tear his spacesuit! This new location was much rockier than Acidalia Planitia where the Hab was. And he was clambering around like a little boy in a play ground.

Finally the imagery revealed he was on his way back to the rover and then he was nowhere to be seen. Katniss surmised he was safe and sound inside the "Mellarkmobile" as some of the directors called it. About damn time. Katniss breathed a sigh of relief, a little surprised at just how worried she was about her charge. She lowered her head to her desk thoroughly exhausted. Don't you ever scare me like that again!

Sol 82

I did it! Peeta could have jumped up and down for joy if he weren't in the rover. I did it! I did it! I did it! He suited up faster than ever and ran over to the lander. This whole harebrained scheme of his worked! The alterations to the rover worked! His navigation worked! And here in front of him was the lander. He knelt in the sand and marveled as he reached out and touched it. He had to feel it, to make it real. Although it was nothing but a 200 kilogram broken radio right now, he had a good shot at fixing it. And if he fixed it? He'd be able to communicate with NASA. He might even get rescued! He was unbelievable happy. He'd been running on just a little spark of hope. The hope he could survive to Antares 4, but with the lander he felt that spark in him surge into something stronger.

The lander had been folded into a tetrahedron that was covered in balloons to cushion its landing on Mars. It bounced and rolled, came to a stop, and deflated the balloons. Then the tetrahedral shape opened up here on site. The part of the lander Peeta wanted sat in the middle of the three solar panels that had unfolded after landing.

The lander was half covered in decades-worth of windblown sand. Peeta was back to the very familiar practice of digging. A quick search revealed the location of Sojourner. Peeta tucked the tiny rover in the airlock of Rover 2 and went back to work on the lander.

Peeta needed to pry the hinges off the lander's panels to get to Pathfinder in the central panel. NASA is all about weight. So things like probes and landers can't take much abuse. When Peeta took a crowbar to the hinges of the panels, they popped right off! The panels were too heavy to lift and move away with torn, sand-filled balloons attached. He went back to the rover, got some strips of canvas and twisted a simple but strong rope. He tied one end to a panel and the other end to the rover. He put Rover 2 into reverse and with its exceptional torque he was able to pull the panel away like a redneck pulling a stump. He repeated this procedure for each of the panels. He then dug out the bottom of the central panel and cut away the balloons.

Now to get the damn thing on the rover. He wished he could just lift it. It was heavy, sure, but in Martian gravity, he could have lifted it. He had been lifting hundred-pound sacks of flour at the bakery since he was a teenager and multiple sacks once he got older and stronger through wrestling. But there was no way that was happening in this awkward spacesuit. Plan B, tie a rope to it and haul it up to the rover's roof. Scrap that, the lander might be broken, but he didn't want to make it more broken. Plan C. Oh God, Plan C. Build a ramp. Out of rocks. And sand.

He'd get to that tomorrow.

He had already tucked Sojourner into the rover's airlock, so he hopped in himself and then passed through into the rover. He was done for the day and he wanted to get to bed early. He had a hard day's work to do tomorrow.

Sol 83

He actually set an alarm. He wanted to get up early today. There was a lot of hard physical labor ahead and he needed as much time as possible to do it. Today he'd build a ramp out of rocks and sand just like the ancient Egyptians did to build the pyramids, only he didn't have a legion of slaves to do it for him. He got through his god-awful morning routine (well, only the last half was really awful), then suited up.

The first few rocks were easy. He thought it would be a piece of cake. Until a half hour later he was bent over panting. The rocks were heavy and they built up. They just kept feeling heavier. There was no way he could finish the ramp if he was already this tired. So he upped his oxygen. Not a good practice long term, but this was kind of important.

With some experimentation he found thirty degrees was the steepest angle he could manage safely. He had to get the ramp to reach over two meters to the rover's roof. With a thirty degree angle he'd have to extend the ramp at least four meters away from the rover. It took several hours, but he did it. He stomped up and down the ramp to test how sturdy it was. It was funny him trying to stomp as he just stomped anyway. On their first hiking trip together, Marvel told him he walked like a rock. A few passes up and down the ramp, Peeta was confident it would hold. Then he dragged the lander up and deposited it on the roof. He smiled. The ramp worked like a charm. He even used it to stack the solar cells in their now tall single stack. A thrill went through him as he lashed everything together, securing it to the roof.

He was about to pull the rover away, when he considered the ramp, and wondered what would happen when he removed the support of the rover. It would collapse. And the large rocks could damage the rover. "Damn," he muttered under his breath. He got out again and pulled the ramp down. It had taken most of the day to build it, but only an hour to dismantle it.

He was exhausted and sore when he finally laid down to sleep in his rat's nest. But he was also almost foolishly happy. Tomorrow he'd begin driving home with his two hundred kilogram broken radio.

Sol 90

Mars has weather, but it's not at all like Earth. On Earth people check the daily weather forecast so they know if junior needs a jacket or a parka that day or if they need to take an umbrella to work. Mars temperatures are fucking freezing every single day. And rain? Never happens. Hell, there are rarely ever any clouds. On the few days there were clouds, Peeta was grateful for the battery storage at the Hab because the solar cells don't perform nearly as well with cloud cover. Snow actually does happen, at the poles.

And seasons. Earth at least had warm and cold seasons, even if the changes were mild. For Peeta, growing up in Panem, TX, winter wasn't shockingly cold and snow was pretty much rare or never happened. But there was a hot summer and mild winter, seasons changed. Elsewhere there are beautiful fall colors. A few years ago, Peeta flew with his then girlfriend, Glimmer, to New England to see the spectacular fall colors. They stayed in a Bed & Breakfast in the North Country of New Hampshire for a weekend. They couldn't stay long, but it was indelibly imprinted on Peeta's memory as one of the most beautiful experiences of his life, even if it was now tinged bittersweet by memories of Glim.

There are seasons on Mars. Cold. Colder. Damn cold. And how-is-the-air-not-solid-yet-cold. To a human it was just one endless winter.

Autumn and winter on Mars brought windstorms and their associated dust storms. They were the most definite form of weather on Mars, showing up on the heels of summer's dust devils. The strong ones kicked up dust and really strong ones could give a sand blasting. Like the windstorm that caused Peeta to be abandoned on the planet.

Thanks to the quiet non-weather, Peeta was able to retrace his own rover tracks for several sols, after that, he had the hills and the Odair valley. Once he was out of the valley he was back to navigating by Phobos. Persistent light winds had scoured his older tracks from the surface of Mars.

He wished he had built little stacks of rocks on the way down. In the vast expanse they'd have been easy to spot. Like the ones he and Marvel had used when hiking sometimes. Marvel liked to go hiking for fun, but also to build endurance for the mission. Peeta couldn't remember what they were called, but in the absences of trees and painted blazes, there were rock piles that helped mark the path and guide the way. "Oh, well," Peeta thought, "live and learn." He knew the Hab beacon reached forty kilometers, so as long as he got within that radius of the Hab, he'd be able to follow the beacon home.

Peeta was always considered an optimist, but he wasn't foolish. He'd known from the beginning just how slim his chances were. He'd been wrestling against the odds since he woke up face down in the red Martian sand. But now, he was truly optimistic that he could get off this planet alive.

In fact, with this in mind, he began taking rock and soil samples with each EVA. Switch battery cables, take a rock sample. Set out solar cells. Another sample. Another EVA. More samples! At first it felt like a duty, but then it got fun. Peeta looked forward to bagging rocks. It felt good to just be an astronaut again. Not a reluctant farmer. Not an electrical engineer. Not a long-haul trucker. An astronaut. He missed it.

Sol 92

Today, while driving, he got a blip. He was still one hundred kilometers away from the Hab so he had no idea how the signal managed to get that far. The blip was only two seconds, but it was reassuring. He was headed in the right direction. He'd be home soon. This long drive and long boring-ass days were wearing on him. He was an astronaut and long-ass trips were his business, but that didn't make it easier. He logged. He read. He watched Thresh's movies. He took rock samples. He walked a bit after setting out solar cells. Just a couple more days and this would be over.

Sol 93

He got a solid signal from the Hab today. He was only 24,718 meters from home. He'd be there tomorrow. Hell, he could walk from here.

All this sitting and lying down had screwed his back up pretty good. He wished Rue were here. She'd be able to fix it. And give him a heath lecture to boot. Why didn't you do your stretches? Are you taking your vitamins? Drinking enough water? How are your bowel movements? You need to eat more fiber. More fruit. More vegetables. Take better care of your body, Peeta...Normally, her lectures made him roll his eyes. He'd welcome a health lecture now.

One of the toughest training experiences for the Mars mission had been the three-day "Missed Orbit" MAV test. They had to practice for the contingency that due to a second-stage failure, the MAV didn't get high enough in orbit to rendezvous with the Hermes. In that event, NASA would remotely operate the Hermes to lower its orbit to meet with the MAV. It could take as long as three days. The six-man crew was crammed together in an ascent vehicle meant for a twenty-three minute flight. The first day, it was easy to pretend they were on a car trip. By the end of the second day the stress was showing. They needed space that they wouldn't get for another thirty-six hours. They were tired because they got shitty sleep. The MAV wasn't designed for sleeping. There wasn't much to keep busy with for all those hours.

Now, with the Pathfinder trip for comparison, a few days in the MAV was nothing, but at least he could get out of the rover to do the battery changes and set out the solar cells and even take short walks.

Peeta was looking for a way to dissolve the tension, and found "Instructions for Proper Docking and Mating Procedures" in the simulator's computer and began to read. He read it in a sensual tone, as if reading a romance novel. Commander Odair was the first to catch on to the unintentional nerdy innuendo and giggled. He was the only man Peeta knew that giggled. Then the others caught on quickly after that. When he finished they took turns, finding interesting sections, and reading them to each other in funny voices. By the end they were laughing hysterically.

Eventually the fun was over and they dozed fitfully.

On the third day of the MAV test they were "feeling cramped" and what that really meant was "they were ready to kill each other". They had one last night to get through and three days of being cooped up and two nights of shitty sleep wasn't helping at all. They tried the manual thing again, but jokes just aren't as funny the second time around. Peeta had a new idea, but he had to wait for the overnight shift to come on. The overnight flightsim controllers were a little more laid back than the daytime crew. He needed to ask them for a huge favor.

Peeta wanted to make a phone call.

At first they said no, but Peeta turned the charm all the way up and they put his call through on speaker phone.

A cheery customer service representative answered on the first ring. "Thank you for calling Whitney Brothers Chrysler, Jeep, and Mazda! This is Vinia speaking! How may I help you?"

Peeta winked at the crew then schooled his features. "Yes, I hope you can help me out here. I'm calling to make a complaint," he said with an affected accent that he didn't sound American, but you couldn't tell what country he was from.

Vinia replied, "Okay, I'd be happy to help you. Can you tell me the nature of the complaint?"

Peeta answered, "Well, I just bought a new Jeep Wrangler Rubicon from you guys and it's a piece of crap."

" Oh, my. Is it manual or automatic?" Vinia asked.

"Automatic. I've driven a manual all my life, but this automatic is crap." Peeta made sure to sound indignant.

"Okay, automatic. And what seems to be the problem, sir?" Her voice was still perfectly sweet. It sounded like she was typing in the background.

"Well, I bought the car two days ago and it worked perfectly in the day time, but at night it won't drive. Won't go anywhere."

" Well, that is unusual." Vinia conceded.

Peeta worked to suppress a smile. "Yes, I get in, I put it in "day mode" it works fine. I go out with my friends, it gets late. I put it in "night mode" and it doesn't work. Now I'm stuck on the road. I can't get home."

Vinia's voice echoed through the small chamber. "I'm sorry sir, I don't follow you. You say "day mode" and "night mode", but I don't see where these are features of the Jeep Rubicon..."

"Basically what happens is during the day, I put it in 'D for day mode'."

Vinia broke in. "Sir?"

Peeta continued, "And then tonight I put it in 'N for night mode'."

The crew was dying trying not to laugh out loud. Thresh's vein was popping out on his forehead. Rue covered her mouth her big brown eyes filled with mirth.

Vinia tried again. "Sir? You realize 'N' is for 'Neutral' right?" She began chuckling. "And the 'D' is for 'Drive'?"

Peeta sighed dramatically. "Ah, well you see this gear box is wonky."

Vinia laughed in earnest now. The crew was still trying to hold it together.

Peeta continued, "Because, yesterday, I was sitting at a light, and this guy in a truck was looking at me. And he was challenging me with his eyes. I could see he wanted to race. So I put it in 'race mode'."

The crew lost it.

"And hit the car behind me."

The overnight controllers lost it.

Everyone was laughing now, and the customer service lady had gotten that this was a joke, but she was good natured about it.

Once she calmed down, Vinia said, "Oh, you made me laugh so hard. That's the best laugh I've had in a while!"

Peeta grinned. "You're very welcome!"

"You've made my night. I wish I had a recording of this." Vinia lamented.

"Well, you've made our night too." He smiled. "Thanks for playing along. I'm Peeta Mellark and my crew is with me: Commander Odair, Thresh Somers, Dr. Rue Atwood, Pilot Marvel Reardon, and our Sysop, Clove De La Rosa. We're astronauts from NASA and we're doing this test and we've been crammed together for three days and they won't let us out until the morning. The crew was ready to kill each other until I talked the night crew into letting us call you. You're our savior, Vinia."

"Oh, really? You're the team that's going to Mars?" Vinia asked.

"Yes."

"Wow! Can everyone hear me?"

Peeta looked around. "Yes."

"Hi everybody!"

"Hi!" The crew answered in unison.

"Well, keep up the good work guys. I'll be watching the launch and will be sure to keep up with the mission."

Commander Odair wiped the tears from his eyes and broke in. "Thanks Vinia. We appreciate you. You've helped us get through this difficult test and make this night a little more endurable."

"Well, you guys have a good night. Let me know if you have any more troubles. And for what it's worth, the '1' and '2' don't stand for 'warp speeds' okay?"

Peeta laughed. "Thanks for the tip! Goodnight, Vinia."

The call disconnected. The crew slept fitfully for a third night and were let out for a hefty and well-deserved breakfast the next day. They had made it through what they believed was the worst possible experience that could happen to them.

Peeta would give anything to be crammed in the MAV for three days with the crew again. He missed them so much.

He hoped he could get Pathfinder working again.

Sol 94

His drive today was just one short hour and he was finally back at his Little Hab on the Prairie.

He disembarked from the rover and when he got inside the Hab he ran circles and waved his arms and jumped around like a little kid. The Hab that felt constricting as he planned out his potato farm now felt cavernous and huge!

He fired up the oxygenator and the atmospheric regulator, and checked air levels. Turned out there was plenty of CO2 for the crops without him breathing for them. It was kinda intimate when he thought about that. That he breathed for them. He did an exhaustive check of his potatoes and examined their green leaves and stalks. He gently took a quick swipe of the soil to look at the potatoes growing underneath. They had fared well. "Look how big you've gotten!" Peeta cooed at them. He knew it was silly, but it felt good anyway.

Then he poured the stored pee in the water reclaimer and dumped his bags o' crap on the ground. The smell made him gag, but once he got the crap mixed into the soil with a shovel, the smell mellowed a bit and was just tolerable.

He had dumped most of his water in the ground when he left which made the Hab very humid. Humidity can trash electronics so he did an exhaustive set of diagnostics on everything. It was boring, yet so important. So much of what he did was boring or involved waiting. He could be waiting for four years. He might as well get used to it.

He was tired from driving, and exhausted with the whole journey he had been on the past twenty-two sols. He'd give anything just to curl up on his wonderful bunk and sleep, but he still had a lot to do.

He returned the solar cells to the solar farm. Then he had to get Pathfinder down. There weren't a lot of good rocks to build a ramp, but he didn't need them. He found one of the MAV's landing struts worked perfectly as a ramp. Then he had to decide what to do with Pathfinder. Take it in the Hab? Leave it outside? Ultimately he decided to keep Pathfinder outside. 1. It was too big to get in the Hab anyway, and 2. The Hab's canvas was made to block the dangerous radiation from the sun, and that same material would block any signals sent by Pathfinder. So, outside it would stay.

The worst thing he had to do that day was get back inside the rover and drive again. He no longer needed the service of the can of radioactive death that was the RTG, so he needed to bury it again. He decided the site where Commander Odair originally buried it was perfect so that's where he went. He drove the four kilometers due south, found the hill with the green flag just the way Odair and later himself had left it, and buried the RTG in the ground.

That night he enjoyed sleeping in his own bed. It was the best sleep he had had in many nights.

Sol 95

Today was all about repairs. Peeta decided to work on Sojourner, which he nicknamed Sojo, before going outside to deal with the lander. He deposited Sojo on the worktable. "Let's get you cleaned up little lady," he said. He carefully cleaned the solar panels and the rest of the small, microwave-sized rover. He pried open the panel covering the battery. He removed the battery to check it, but it was dead. His deft fingers moved nimbly as he checked out all of the rover's moving parts and electronics. Finally, he set a flexible lamp to shine right on the solar panels. It was time to go outside. "Time to go check on your daddy," Peeta said to Sojourner.

Outside, Peeta piled up leftover parts from the MDV to make a makeshift worktable and ramp. He dragged the heavy-ass lander up the ramp on to the workbench. He forgot his tool kit. He stomped back into the Hab to get the toolkit, glanced at Sojo and the plants, turned on music, and left again.

With the tool kit, he was able to remove the access panel to the lander easily enough. He marveled for a minute thinking of the people who had put it together decades ago. He was the first to touch Pathfinder since it was loaded in the launch vehicle on Earth in 1996.

He poked around a bit before removing the battery and taking it inside the Hab. It was a 40 amp-hour Ag-Zn battery with an optimal voltage of 1.5 Volts. He checked the battery with his electronics kit, and as expected, it was dead. He could shuffle across carpet and hold more charge. This was actually good news because it meant that Pathfinder died because the battery died and hopefully not from some massive electronics failure. Plus now he knew that the lander needed 1.5 volts and he just happened to have voltage controllers in his kit. So he connected the voltage controller to a power line and ran the power line out of the Hab to Pathfinder.

Now, he had power to Pathfinder, but he needed a way to heat the electronics. It's important to keep electronics above -40 degrees C, but today was -63 degrees C. Too cold. He didn't want to use the native heaters because they've been frozen on Mars for decades. He was afraid if he fired them up he'd fry the whole thing. Instead, he went over to the gutted Rover 1 and removed it's environmental heater, hooked it up to the Hab's power, and placed it in Pathfinder, where the battery used to be. Pathfinder now had power and heat. It was time to just sit back and wait. And hope.

Sol 96

He felt like a kid on Christmas and bounded out of his bunk in the Hab as soon as the lights began to brighten. He had slept fitfully, eager for morning, for the moment of truth. He rushed through his morning routine and almost didn't shave, but he'd regret that later, so he did it. He yanked on his EVA suit and was out the airlock in record time.

But the lander's high gain antenna hadn't moved. His face fell. He was disappointed, but didn't despair. Maybe it needed more time. He had only just fixed it yesterday evening. Daytime was the better time to send and receive signals.

The antenna's position was important because if it moved, it would mean that it had contacted Earth. No movement meant no contact. No one's exactly listening for a message from Pathfinder back on Earth. His only hope was that SETI or the Deep Space Network would pick up Pathfinder's signal. If they catch a blip from Pathfinder, they'll tell JPL, then JPL will triangulate the signal, find it's at the Antares 3 site, that it's him and they'll tell the lander where Earth is and the lander will move the high gain antenna toward Earth.

The antenna hadn't moved. There was no action at all. So far. But it was too soon to give up hope. Peeta was nothing if not one hopeful bastard.

He went back inside the Hab to continue waiting.

Meanwhile he checked up on little Sojo. A whole night and day in the nice warm Hab and had bright lights shining on its sparkling clean solar cells and it was not looking lively. It was likely that the batteries could no longer hold charge, the same problem Pathfinder probably had. Or it could be running some sort of extended self check or waiting for a signal from the lander. Only time would tell.

He still had other things to keep him busy in the Hab. He tried to distract himself while he waited.

Pathfinder LOG: SOL 0

BOOT SEQUENCE INITIATED

TIME 00:00:00

LOSS OF POWER DETECTED, TIME/DATE UNRELIABLE

LOADING OS...

...

...

VXWARE OPERATING SYSTEM (C) WIND RIVER SYSTEMS PERFORMING HARDWARE CHECK:

INT. TEMPERATURE: -34 DEGREES C

EXT. TEMPERATURE: NON FUNCTIONAL

BATTERY: FULL

HIGAIN: OK

LOGAIN: OK

WIND SENSOR: NON FUNCTIONAL

METEOROLOGY: NONFUNCTIONAL

ASI: NONFUNCTIONAL

IMAGER: OK

ROVER RAMP: NONFUNCTIOANL

SOLAR A: NONFUNCTIONAL

SOLAR B: NONFUNCTIONAL

SOLAR C: NONFUNCTIONAL

HARDWARE CHECK COMPLETE

BROADCASTING STATUS:

LISTENING FOR TELEMETRY SIGNAL...

LISTENING FOR TELEMETRY SIGNAL...

LISTENING FOR TELEMETRY SIGNAL

SIGNAL ACQUIRED...

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