Chap 8
The three teammates are still stunned over the fact they're alive.
"There shouldn't be enough oxygen on Mars to do this." Tosh marvels.
"We never even got close to a breathable atmosphere. Then the levels started to drop and the sensors all died. I don't understand what's going on here." Owen agrees.
Ianto is rummaging through the wreckage of the Hab. It's been devastated.
"Wattya lookin' for?" Owen asks as Ianto unearths a tangle of wire and chewed-up circuits.
"This." Ianto sighs. He tosses it aside. It's worthless. "It used to be the radio. I don't mean to piss on the parade, guys, but no one knows we're here. Don't you see? The good news is we can breathe. The bad news is, unless we can tell somebody, now we get to starve to death. The only mission left is rescue."
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The schematic Jack sent back to Earth is on the screen here as well. The ship is fucked-up bad.
"The ground crew's dead, your orbit's unstable, and you're gonna burn in less then a day and a half." Gwen informs him, as if he didn't already see that for himself.
"Let's get you home."
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The three of them rummage through the ravaged structure. News isn't good.
"We could head back to the lander, try to make something work there." Owen offers.
"It's six hours back." Ianto groans, "And it all ran through the main computer which was half-fried and dropped from a great height."
Shakes his head no. That isn't gonna help. Then Tosh, of all things, grins." Gotta think about this scientifically. There's another radio. Two kilometers from here."
"I didn't see any stores on the way over. I miss a Radio Hut?" Ianto asks with a raised eyebrow that amuses her.
"We sent it here. Twenty years before you were born. In 1997. Think where we are..." she prods.
Owen suddenly gets her reasoning, "We're right over the edge from the Ares Vallis. The Sojourner site."
They both struggle to their feet as Ianto watches.
"There was a high-density ridge ringing the valley. The algae never took there." Owen says as he checks his watch. "We still might have a chance this pass. We wait long..."
They start to run towards a ridge to west. Sun hangs low in the sky. Only an hour or so of day left.
They stand with a goofy look on their faces. Like kids at Disneyland the first time. They're standing there looking at The little rover.
"All those damned named rocks. Our first big visit to Mars." Owen mutters. The reverie is over quickly. Ianto tosses down his bag of tools. Walks over, kneels beside Sojourner (the rover).
"Sorry about this." Ianto says and he pats it once and starts screwing off the cover. Tosses another tool to Owen. They rip the panels off everything around the aerial.
"It's a fifty-year-old off-the-shelf computer radio modem on a frequency that we're not using for this mission." Tosh kneels by Owen with a hand on his shoulder to look over the parts now displayed.
"Then why are we bothering?" Owen asks.
"Cause I'd rather die doing something than just sitting there." Ianto snarks back.
Half an hour later and Ianto has cobbled together a radio from 50-year-old parts. Owen holds the solar panels at the sun while Ianto carefully removes one of his two suit-radio microphones. Checks with a meter, then solders it onto his jerry-rigged radio.
"Testing, testing..." He adjusts a tiny port as he continues to call out. A green LED comes on, flickering with his voice.
"Does it work?" Tosh is too scared to look, kneeling with her back to the two madmen.
"Well, the little green thing lights up. I don't know if it works..." Ianto speaks into the little mic "This is Torchwood ground crew, come back. This is your ground crew, do you copy?"
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Various return scenarios are flickering on different vid screens on board the Torchwood as Jack tries to keep up.
"Okay, scenario three calls for you to lock out systems 17, 22 and 40." Rhys instructs and Jack tries it.
"No joy." He resets everything. "Maybe we're trying to be way too subtle. Why don't we just jettison the damn tank?"
"Because the margins for error are so small. There's enough fuel to get you home, then if you don't sneeze. It makes us nervous." Rhys sighs as Jack has asked this already.
"You want nervous." Jck huffs.
Over in the corner, Gwen is listening to something on her headset that's blowing her mind. She starts waving three fingers frantically at the others. They don't respond fast enough for her. She reaches over and patches someone into the comm link. A new voice breaks into the conversations. The accent's Australian.
"Right, right. Commander Harkness?"
"This is a restricted, encrypted frequency. Who is this?" Yvonne demands as she starts from behind Rhys' chair.
"This is Hank Osterbee in Canberra. Deep Space Network, mate. I've got a call for you."
"A call for me?" Jack scoffs.
"Right. From the surface of Mars. I'm routing it through. Direct frequencies follow."
There's CRUNCH OF STATIC, then Ianto's voice comes through crystal clear "Commander Harkness?"
"You're alive? You're alive?!" Jack sobs as the mission control deck bursts into applause.
"We're at sixty percent. Lieutenant Hart and Doc are gone." Ianto says sadly, "Oh, and by the way, we can breathe."
"You can breathe?!" Rhys interrupts with wonder, his father's death already settled in his heart. His father's friend now his concern.
"Not real well, but yeah." Ianto answers, "Hey, Jack...We've changed our mind. Get us outta here. We'd like to come home."
If the room was at a standstill before, now it's frozen. Is there hope?