Mission Day 124 / SOL 1

The crew had to be a little bit nervous as they boarded the MDV, Mark thought. He certainly was. It wasn't really that he doubted the abilities of their pilot, or the safety of the MDV itself. He didn't. The feeling was something more akin to how he'd felt as a kid, boarding one of the hypercoasters at Cedar Point. That feeling in the pit of his stomach, as the train had crested the hill, and it looked like an awfully long way down. Nobody has ever died on the surface of Mars, he reminded himself. It was a surprisingly comforting thought.

It was going to be a wild ride, down to the surface; they all knew it, as the spring-loaded mechanism pushed the MDV away from Hermes.

And it didn't disappoint.

Grateful for the crash webbing that held them firmly against the restraints, they were in rolling freefall for what seemed like hours, as the MDV skipped across the bumpy Martian atmosphere at 28,000 kph, jolting and jarring the tiny craft. Mark was pretty sure he'd never been this terrified in his entire life.

Nobody has ever died doing this, he reassured himself. It's perfectly safe; absolutely. His inner cynic took the reins; sure, it was totally a non-lethal decision to get into this tin can with no windows and strap in for a ride to a barren, inhospitable planet where they were all guaranteed to die if Martinez didn't manage to set them down within walking distance of their pre-supply.

This is insanity, Mark thought. His knuckles were white and clenched around the restraints.

What the hell was I thinking?

"Nailed it!" gloated Martinez. "Eight meters," he bragged.

"Looks like it was closer to nine," Johanssen said, trying to sound unimpressed, as she checked the readout. But she couldn't quite hide her smile, as Beck began the process of unstrapping the crash webbing so that they could suit up for egress. In less than an hour, they'd be walking on Martian sand.

After years of training and four months of travel, the last few minutes were almost insufferable. They were finally here! They were all smiles and adrenaline-charged, raring to go. Mark was only slightly annoyed when he realized, belatedly, that he'd left his personal media drive back on Hermes.

"Close enough, Major, for Air Force, I guess," Commander Lewis smiled in approval as she made one of her rare jokes.

Thanks to Martinez, he and Vogel had less than a hundred meters or so to walk to their first pre-supply probe. They'd be in charge of setting up the solar farm.

Mostly, this consisted of drilling holes into the hard-packed Martian ground, and assembling the frames that would allow for the optimal angle for each panel. It was a dull-to-boring task, made exciting by the setting and the backdrop.

To the east, they could see Beck and Commander Lewis laying out the different sections of the Hab, and sorting out the wall supports that looked like a bunch of tent poles, for assembly.

Martinez and Johanssen were busily fetching all of the supply probes, and towing them back to base with Rover 2.

Once the Hab was sealed and inflated, Commander Lewis had the unenviable task of removing the RTG from their general vicinity; Mark glanced up from where he and Vogel were drilling to anchor the guy lines, as she drove off in Rover 1. Martinez and Johanssen began moving pallets of equipment into the airlocks.

By nightfall, the crew had assembled a working Hab, and they ate a late dinner together before lights-out.

November 13, 2035

"Sure you don't want to know?" the sonogram technician had asked her, smiling. "I could write it down, seal it in an envelope for you, if you change your mind?"

"Not going to change my mind," Mindy smiled, a little sadly. It wasn't fair for her to know everything about the baby, not when the baby's father didn't even get to know that there was a baby at all. Mark had been on her mind more than usual, today; it was the first day of the surface mission.

"Well, okay," the tech had smiled, "if you're sure. In that case, you'd better give me this one back," she'd shuffled through Mindy's latest stack of sonogram images and removed one. "Because this one, right here, just gives it all away," she'd grinned, as she quickly slid it into a folder that was labeled with Mindy's name.

Dr. Fite had made an office appointment for the following week to discuss the results, and he'd assured her once again that the baby was developing normally. She and the baby were both as healthy as could be.

Which was good to hear, because Mindy had been doing her best. It wasn't easy juggling a full work schedule and trying to eat right, and sleep, and get enough exercise, and not make herself crazy worrying about everything. At least Dr. Fite approved of how she was handling everything.

Someone thought she was doing a good job.

Unlike her mother, who had been predictably horrified at Mindy's announcement.

"But what about the father?" she'd asked. "Who is he? You said you weren't dating anyone!"

Mindy hadn't been sure how to answer that one.

"It doesn't really matter, Mom, he's umm…" she tried to think of something truthful to say without identifying Mark, "he travels a lot, for his job."

"What, is he some kind of long-haul truck driver?!" Her mother sounded, if possible, even more horrified.

"Something like that," Mindy smiled, despite herself.

"So you slept with some stranger, who was just passing through, and got pregnant, basically?"

"Pretty much," Mindy agreed, helplessly, trying not to laugh at the absurdity of it all. "It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing. I don't know when we'll be in touch again, so I'm planning on raising the baby on my own. It'll be fine."

Her mother didn't reply.

"We'll be fine, Mom. Me and the baby. Don't worry. I've been making plans, and I'm not completely-" She tried to sound reassuring, but there was only the sound of a muffled sniffle, on the other end of the line.

"Oh Mom, don't cry," she said, and tried to lighten the mood. "It'll be okay. I thought you wanted to be a grandmother?"

"Not like this," she'd replied, her voice harsh with disappointment. "You're making a big mistake, Melinda." Mindy felt her own eyes well up with tears at how much her mother was obviously hurting. "You've chosen the wrong path. This is not the way I raised you. You're making the worst mistake of your life."

"Well, if you ever manage to get over so judgemental, maybe you'll see that this isn't the end of the world, it might even-" Mindy found herself talking to the empty air again.

Her mother had hung up.

Mindy hadn't called back. Who needs that kind of negativity, anyway? She'd come around, eventually. And if she didn't, well; Mindy would still be okay. She was doing fine. She'd probably call her again in a couple of weeks when she'd had a chance to get her head wrapped around the new reality. It had taken her a little while, too, after all.

She could be the bigger person, here. She should set a good example. Cut her mother some slack. She meant well.

Maybe she'd give Mom a call on Thanksgiving.

She pulled into the employee parking lot for the evening shift, smiling to the guard at the gate, who cheerfully waved her through.

Mindy wasn't smiling for long, though; once she'd taken a seat at her desk and seen the horrifying intensity of that storm. Like something out of a nightmare, two hours later it had changed direction and was headed straight towards the Hab. It had seemingly come from nowhere, creeping up on the surface mission at an unprecedented speed. It was like nothing they'd ever seen; it kept growing and strengthening, too, as the afternoon progressed to early evening.

What if they have to scrub the whole thing? she thought, in disbelief. If this storm didn't let up, and very damned soon, it was a real possibility. It wasn't looking good; every subsequent report just showed higher wind velocity. It was getting dangerous down there.

Very dangerous. The uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach became more and more sharply defined by the minute.

The storm was still picking up speed.

By four o'clock, it was completely evident that Ares III was about to be scrubbed.

They'd have to abort; they were past the point of no return; they'd surely call it, any minute now. That wind wasn't letting up, and conditions were simply too dangerous. They couldn't expect the MAV to even stay upright in that kind of wind. At this point, they'd be lucky to make it out, alive. Her hands were frozen, motionless over the keyboard as she heard CAPCOM's announcement that the mission was officially scrubbed. The MAV had already launched from Acidalia Planitia, and was on its way to rendezvous with Hermes. She sighed, feeling a mixture of disappointment and relief.

Oh, man, she thought, poor Mark. What a shame. But at least they'd made it out, safe.

Wish me luck, he'd said.

Only six days, and his Ares mission was over, in an emergency evacuation.

Some luck.

Coworkers were shaking their heads, all across the office, and the mood was downcast, as the news began to sink in. Ares III would have no surface mission, after all. The crew was already on their way back to Earth.

She'd been lost in thought, as she continued to compile data from the same satellite image from an hour ago.

"-disaster," she heard the word, some ten minutes later, and she looked up from her screen. Two co-workers were standing in the corridor, and one was reading from text crawling along a screen that Mindy couldn't see. "-struck by a satellite dish as-" She was out of her seat, walking blindly towards them, hearing only snippets of the CNN report, as the room began to break into an uproar as the bad news began to spread.

No, no, that wouldn't be fair, she thought hazily. "Astronaut Mark Watney, confirmed dead on Mars by-" oh dear God no, she'd heard that wrong, it couldn't be true. Her legs were shaking, as she rounded the corner and could see the screen for herself. And there he was.

Mark was smiling at her, onscreen, in his orange flight suit, helmet held easily at his side. That wide, friendly smile. Below him was the year of his birth, and, oh my God. Today's date.

He was gone.

Dead on Mars.

It couldn't be true, but it was undeniable, "-had tipped to a dangerous angle-" as she stood amidst the flurry of people scrambling around her. There would be press conferences, company assets to protect, now that… "-six days into the surface mission-" Mark was dead. The words and images were only coming through in waves now,"-unable to retrieve his body, they-" as she walked outside, dazed. I have to get out of here, she thought. She'd left her purse at her desk, but keyless ignitions were a thing, so she drove home, though later she would have no recollection of having done so.

Once home, she'd stumbled up the stairs somehow, and then she'd just stood there at the window for what seemed like hours, eyes streaming. She stood, frozen, staring at the darkening horizon outside, until it was the same color as the broadloom carpet under her feet. Her face twisted, as she crouched under the window ledge, digging her fingernails underneath the wood molding. She pried the carpet away from its pad, and ripped it away from the wall, shredding it on the nails that had tacked it down so neatly. Frayed ribbons of dark purple lay scattered on the floor.

"-hate this fucking color," she sobbed, as she tore the rest of it away from the floor, not caring or even noticing that she'd broken off several of her fingernails, and one of them was oozing blood. The carpeting pulled loose completely, and she flung it into an ignominious heap in the closet and slammed the door.

She cried for most of the night. When the faintly red dot in the sky became visible, early the next morning, she broke into one last rage, screaming at it. She stood, shaking with anger, looking at it.

"Fuck you! Fuck you, Mars, and your storm and your-" she choked on her sobs, then, and collapsed to the bed.

She had no more tears.

I knew that guy, she thought, as sleep claimed her.

I knew him.