Disclaimer: I don't own The Martian. This would totally be canon if I did!
Log Entry: Mission Day 687 (3)
Obviously, since I am alive and well enough to be writing this entry, nothing went fatally wrong. I am currently back in my quarters, resting, while the rest of the crew preforms diagnostics to figure out what problems need to be addressed after the whole blowing-up-the-VAL-with-a-bomb thing.
Considering how little time he had to work and preform calculations, Vogel built his bomb very well. After Johanssen activated it, the escaping air provided enough thrust to bring the Hermes to within about a hundred meters of the MAV.
Of course, that was still too far.
Before we even began to prep for intercept, back before Watney even was in the MAV, in fact, Beck had told me that he could detach himself from the tether to grab Mark if he was too far away, or going too fast. Then, he would use the thrusters on the special EVA retrieval pack to get back to the Hermes. At the time, I had rejected this idea due to its obvious safety concerns.
Upon hearing about the intercept velocity, though, I had rethought the idea for a second. We were close enough to the MAV that Beck wouldn't need to go untethered for long in order to reach Watney.
Only for a second, though. Soon, as seemed to be the nature of astronauts, I then began to imagine everything I could think of that could go wrong, and decided it was still too dangerous. I had already left Watney behind once and almost killed everybody else by ordering them to build a bomb and blow up the VAL. I couldn't put Beck's life in danger by ordering him to go out untethered, especially since it was not only risking his life but Mark's too… again.
But I was still convinced that going out untethered was the only way we'd be able to get close enough to the MAV. Someone would still need to do it. It just couldn't be Beck. Or anybody else. I was not going to risk anyone else's lives.
Honestly, it wasn't a hard decision. I tried to hide it around my other crewmates, but the guilt of leaving Mark behind was eating me alive. I had felt bad enough before Henderson's message. It was my job as the commander to make sure that everyone got back home- safely and alive. By accepting my title, I had made a promise to my crew, and to their family and friends, that I would do everything I could to make sure that happened. And leaving one of them behind on Mars was not doing everything that I could.
Again, I know there was really nothing I could have done to keep the com dish from hitting Mark, but I could have tried harder to look for him. True, that could endanger the rest of the crew, but survival aboard the Hermes, with a reliable connection to each other and everyone at NASA (some of the smartest people in the world) was much easier than survival on an inhospitable planet, all alone, after being left for dead and abandoned. If the MAV had been forced to launch without me, at least I could have kept Mark company and made his survival easier and more bearable.
And once we had learned that Watney was okay, my sense of self-disgust and personal failure had increased tenfold. I had just left my crewmate, alone, on a godforsaken wasteland. If he died, it would once again be my fault, this time because I had ordered Martinez, Vogel, Beck, and Johanssen to leave him behind. Even if he survived everything Mars threw at him, what would being abandoned as the only person on an entire planet do to a person psychologically? If Mark returned to Earth with severe PTSD, that would be my fault too.
I may not be able to do anything about the mental trauma- at least not yet- but when the range report came in, I knew what I had to do. There was only one way. And if I died, so be it. At least I'd be dying trying to right my wrong. I could live with that.
I left the bridge without bothering to explain to Martinez and Johanssen, who were there with me, aside from ordering Martinez to open various doors as I passed them. I rushed to the airlock where we planned to retrieve Watney, and suited up then took the special tethered pack, ordering Beck to take Vogel's job and man the tether. He was clearly surprised, but didn't protest.
The tiny, rapidly-spinning, dismantled MAV stood out clearly to me against the inky, star-studded backdrop of space and the red surface of Mars from below. As he hurtled closer, I could see the white form of an EVA suit, indicating that Watney had disobeyed protocol and unhooked himself from his restraints when I told him about our plan to build a bomb and blow the VAL. I know it is ridiculous, but I imagined that I could see Mark gazing at me. The terrified look in his brown eyes that I had seen only in our decent to Mars in the MDV seared itself in front of my eyes. He probably had a similar look now. I grit my teeth. I would not let him down. I could do this.
When we reached the time that would allow for the closest point of intercept, Beck released the tether and I floated from the airlock, away from the Hermes. Mark turned towards me as I approached the MAV, watching as I slowly got closer.
The end came too soon. I was still too far to be able to grab Mark when the tether pulled taunt, jerking me back into place. It was still unrealistic, but this time I was sure I could see the hope die from Mark's eyes when he realized that he wouldn't be able to make it. To survive for… what, 549 sols on Mars, only to die meters away from his crewmate as we passed by, so close, yet so far.
I wasn't about to give up yet, though. We'd come so far- Mark had come so far- and I cared for him too much as a member of my crew to sit there helplessly as our ships passed each other, only meters apart. I began to reach back to undo the clips that held me to the tether and to Hermes, hoping Beck, Vogel, Watney, Martinez, and Johanssen couldn't see what I was doing.
But Watney did. Or if he didn't, he either assumed or just decided to take matters into his own hands- literally. I suppose that 549 sols of surviving alone on Mars had trained him to take initiative, despite what others said.
Mark clearly hadn't completely abandoned his Iron Man idea. When he saw me so close to the MAV, he ducked down for a moment, then, a few tense seconds later, came shooting up towards me, propelled by the escaping air from his glove.
When I saw him flailing around, trying to use the pressurized air to somehow get to me, I almost panicked completely. He looked so desperate and helpless, grasping blindly in a way that was completely opposite from how we as astronauts are trained and expected to think and behave. Watching Watney's struggle, my heart began to pound even more frantically than it had been, even more so than after he was hit by the com dish, back on Sol 6.
Damn you, Mark Watney. It seems that you are the cause of all my problems these days. And here I was thinking you'd be the easiest to get along with when we met all those years ago, when we shook hands and you asked if my grip was always that strong or if I was just trying to intimidate you due to the whole, as you put it, "I-need-to-establish-my-dominance-and-obvious-superiority-as-commander-of-this-freakng-mission-due-to-the-fact-that-I-would-need-to-boss-you-all-around-for-three-freaking-years-thing". (You really do have a way with words, Watney.)
Anyway, I quickly forgot about the tether and reached towards Mark, otherwise helpless. I held my breath as he neared and could practically feel everyone in space, on the ship, and on Earth doing the same. Time slowed down as Mark got close enough for me to see his face under his helmet, his eyes shining with glee as he realized he would be alright, we were going to make it- oh god, we were going to make it- but then our fingers slipped and he was flying away from me and I spun, reaching out again helplessly, and I couldn't stop a frantic cry of his name from escaping from my lips.
Luckily we still had the tether. If I had been able to detach from it before Watney decided to go Iron Man, he would be okay, but I instead would be lost to space. It was a good thing Mark hadn't hesitated for another second, otherwise I would become a Martian satellite, instead of writing in this log safely aboard Hermes.
That is classic Mark Watney right there. Only he could save your life while you are trying to save his.
Anyway, Watney had managed to grab ahold of my tether after his hand slipped from mine, so I quickly yanked on it to bring myself to him. Holding on to something that was securely attached to the Hermes meant he was relatively safe and would probably be out of danger, but I was not going to relax unless I was holding onto him as tightly as I could to be absolutely sure nothing would go wrong, or we were both safely back on the ship.
We spun around several times as we neared, like two planets in an orbit, wrapping ourselves in a cocoon of floating cables. While nowhere as tense as, well most everything we had done in the past ninety minutes, my heart felt ready to burst, it was beating so fast. We were so close. So close. Mark and I were literally only a meter apart… yet I still couldn't touch him. I felt that things wouldn't be okay until I was able to touch him.
Finally, I was close enough to grab Mark, and I clung on desperately, him doing exactly the same. We were both misty-eyed… actually I think Mark and I at least were about two seconds away from flat-out sobbing… as I yelled to the crew to pull us back. I could hear their cheers and imagine those from Mission Control and the rest of the world.
As Beck reeled us in to the airlock and I clung to Mark as tightly as I could and he did the same, I could see Vogel, Johanssen, and Martinez race through the Hermes to greet Watney. A huge smile was on my face and tears in my eyes, the pride and relief threatening to overwhelm me. This must have been how the Ares I crew felt as they stepped onto Mars for the first time, the first humans ever to visit another planet.
The best part, though, was what Mark had said to me as soon as we made contact: "You have terrible taste in music." Before, I had been worrying about what being abandoned would do to him, but cracking a joke the first time he saw a human in a year and a half was such a classically Watney thing to do. When I heard this, I knew that, eventually, he would turn out okay.
Beck quickly helped Mark and I remove our suits once we were safely within the now pressurized airlock. The rest of the crew had gathered behind the closed door, and when Beck released it, they crowded around Mark, embracing and high-fiving him.
It was one of the greatest moments in my life. Over the past few years, the crew had become my secondary family. Standing with all five of them for the first time in a year and a half, I felt like I had finally been completed after so much time of emptiness. I know I will never forget this feeling as long as I live.
The reunion was short, though, for as the doctor, Beck quickly noticed how Watney was trying to hide the pain he was in and promptly ushered him to his quarters, shooing the rest of us away to go "do something productive, 'cause it's not like we have this big ship to fly thousands of kilometers back to Earth or anything". At Mark's protesting, though, Beck promised that we would get to visit once he was feeling better and smelt a little less disgusting.
So there you have it. That's the end. We finally achieved our goal of so many months and safely got Mark back after a year and a half of isolation on the Red Planet. Well… I guess it's not the end. Not really. We still have the whole return trip home- again- to deal with. But something tells me it will be easier with the full crew. More even distribution of work must be it, right?
I just nearly died by almost going outside Hermes untethered, we still have 211 days before I'll get to see anyone on Earth again, and my chin is bleeding from crashing my helmet against Mark's.
This is the happiest day of my life.
Aaand the end! Part three! I hope you all have enjoyed reading this little story as much as I enjoyed writing it! Please review and tell me what you think!
Thanks so much to Jelsemium, knightphoenix2, and AB Feta for reviewing Part Two! You guys are super awesome!