Hermes was unusually quiet, quieter than it has been the entire trip to Mars but that would have come as no surprise to anyone at NASA. It wouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone that knew the astronauts aboard. Had it been any other time it would have been surprising but in the aftermath of the evacuation, the aftermath of losing Watney it was exactly what was expected.

It had been three days since they had launched from the surface, three days since they'd left Mars orbit, and three days since any of them had said anything to each other that was not work-related. They barely even looked at one another when they passed in the corridors or sat in the mess having meals. There had yet to be a meal with all five remaining astronauts sitting at the table at the same time since before they left Mars.

Again none of that was surprising or would be surprising to anyone if they reported it but they hadn't. None of them thought to. It wasn't a requirement and yet it began to stick out to Dr. Christopher Beck when he did take the time to think about it.

Dr. Beck was not a psychologist, a psychiatrist, or a counselor though he had taken some courses in medical school and done some additional training as a flight surgeon for helping others deal with grief and loss. He just never expected to be one of those also experiencing the loss while he was doing the counseling. It put him in a unique position. He could talk to Dr. Shields, and so could the rest of the crew but the likelihood of their doing so was low. He had to be there for them.

At first, he was caught up in his own grief and guilt. While writing his report of events for NASA he went over it and over it. Every second, every step, every word that was said he agonized over. He didn't sleep the first night back on Hermes and barely slept the second. The half-hour from Lewis opening the airlock door of the Hab until the MAV launch replayed in his head as if on a constant loop. What could he have done differently he wondered. What could any of them have done differently? Could they have done anything differently? Was there any way they could have changed the outcome? Why had they not taken the rover? He knew it had something to do with the rover being near the MAV when it took off but they weren't going to use the Rover again and they still could have parked a short distance away. It was a freak storm, a freak accident, a one-in-a-million occurrence and yet he still beat himself up over it.

He had made the call. Literally, he had made the call that his friend had died. He had made the call based on the last vital signs they'd received, based on his NASA training. He knew it was the right call to make, but still, it nagged at him. He had never in his career as a doctor declared someone dead without actually seeing that they were dead, checking their pulse with a stethoscope or with his hands. There was something not right, something that felt unfinished, about declaring someone dead without actually seeing it with your own eyes.

He had no reason to disbelieve the data. The bio-monitors that they wore had been tested for decades, since the original ISS. He managed to do a quick scan of everyone else's biomonitor data after Johanssen had reported the final information from Mark's. They were all functioning correctly, then again none of them had been hit by flying debris and carried away. It nagged at him not knowing for sure, not knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt, but there had been no choice. While the biomonitor could have broken it was unlikely that the comms system in the helmet would also break. It made more sense that Mark hadn't replied to the calls to him because he was dead.

He finally decided he'd made the right call. He had to deal with the fact that one of his best friends was gone. Beck decided to concentrate on the living, the five of them aboard Hermes. If he hadn't declared Mark dead when he did the commander wouldn't have been on board and they would have had to launch without her, leaving her for dead which would have been worse, much much worse, unthinkably worse. That had been the nightmare scenario they had had to work through. It was bad to do a sim where one of them died but the sim where someone got left behind, and it had only been run once because it was so unlikely, had given him nightmares. They'd all left that day and not spoken to each other at all until they met up at the simulator again the next day.

On the third day, he began to concentrate on the living, late on that third day, but on the third day. He started by going through the work logs just to see what his colleagues had been up to, and what they had been doing. He checked their bio-monitors records for the past few days but nothing stood out. Everything seemed normal but it was quiet, really quiet. There had been times on the way to Mars that it had been this quiet in the ship, always during the sleep cycle though, and that worried him. Someone should be playing music, someone should be complaining loudly, or something should be making noise. There should be talking or even crying. At that point, he began to move through the ship trying to find each one and listening, still hearing nothing.

Martinez had always been the most happy-go-lucky of the crew after Watney. He was also the quickest to get mad but the fastest to settle down once he'd complained. It was one of the reasons they got along so well and became such good friends. Beck had mellowed their craziness to some extent, but they'd also made him goofier, pulled him out of his shell.

Getting Hermes out of orbit back on transit to Earth had kept him occupied for a few hours. Then he'd begun running systems checks. They weren't normally part of his job but they needed to be done and Mark wasn't here to check the things he was supposed to and so Rick did the job. He didn't know what to do with plants and he wasn't the backup for that. He was the backup mechanical engineer. He could make sure everything was working properly for their long trip home.

That first day he worked straight through dinner, not stopping until late when the lights dimmed on Hermes, the sign that it was time for sleep. He floated to his quarters with his eyes low. They wouldn't spin up the centrifuge until tomorrow, so for now they stayed floating.

Rick purposely avoided looking at the door to Mark's quarters right next to his own. He didn't sleep well that night and blamed it on sleeping in the floating bag instead of sleeping in the .4 gravity he was used to. It took him until very early in the morning to get to sleep.

When he finally exited his quarters the next day and made it to the mess it was empty. He grabbed a coffee pack, filled it with hot water, and floated to the bridge again. Lewis was there typing furiously at her computer.

"Ready to spin up?" he asked.

"In one hour," she replied.

He nodded and turned back to the computer once again running systems checks.

The remaining crew members floated in and buckled themselves into their bridge seats all carefully, averting their eyes from the lone empty chair. The spin-up occurred with only the barest of speaking and everyone but Martinez left the bridge. He again began running systems checks and stayed through lunch. Only his stomach growling loudly sent him back to the mess for a meal pack, as soon as he had eaten he went right back to the bridge and once again stayed until the lights dimmed. The third day he spent walking the halls and corridors, floating through the core and out to each segment of the wheel doing physical inspections of all systems again working long hours and eating only breakfast and a late lunch.

He didn't check his email, not even to look for one from his wife. He knew she would send him a message about Mark but he wasn't ready to face it yet so he ignored it. He sent her a quick one simply saying he loved her and David, then went back to work.

At the first meeting of the Ares III crew, Johanssen had been the quietest and shyest. She wasn't truly that introverted, if she had been she probably wouldn't have ever been chosen as an astronaut. From a young age as a student, she had learned to get the lay of the land before speaking. Being the smartest in the room and showing it often led to ridicule. It had become a habit for her to wait to say anything. It was a bit easier when she was selected as an astronaut, everyone in the office was used to being the smartest or best in the room, but old habits were hard to break.

Even in meetings or classes with those she knew well she still waited. This waiting meant she hid her sharp wit and humor. Once she let it loose with the crew however they had done everything they could to pull her out of her shell. Well, Martinez and Watney had, especially Watney. He'd become almost a big brother to her. She'd always wanted a sibling and while friends assured her it wasn't all it was cracked up to be, being an only child was lonely for her. She'd wanted someone she could go to for advice, someone to commiserate with, someone to lean on when she needed a shoulder.

Mark had filled that role and she'd enjoyed it. Rick had stepped up as a second big brother, the more harassing one but still, now she had two. Beck was often with them but her relationship with him was different in a way she couldn't seem to codify, but she did know he was there for her if she needed him.

During a team building exercise in preparation for Ares II, they had all been split into teams for a scavenger hunt around Houston. It was all just for fun and games but she wanted to win. Mark, on the other hand, her partner, just wanted to have a good time. If they won, great, according to him, but he'd have more fun just being ridiculous. They'd been sent all over Johnson Space Center and then all over Houston looking for things. Nothing had to come back with them, instead, they had to take pictures and so they did. They had taken the most ridiculous photos of any team and while they hadn't won, Vogel and Lewis it turned out were a super team, they had beaten Martinez and Beck, and all of the Ares III teams had beaten the Ares II crew teams, so she was ok with that.

When they'd gotten to space, her first trip, he had been the one to take her to the cupola and show her their home from above. They'd made it a weekly meeting to watch their home shrink in the background until it was as Carl Sagan said "a Pale Blue Dot" and still they met looking back at it or looking at other stars and constellations, testing each other on their astronomical knowledge. They'd planned on meeting each week on the return trip to watch that dot grow and grow in the window. Now she avoided the cupola, if she had to take the corridor that it was a part of she would purposely look the other way.

She hadn't eaten anything but snacks that she'd hidden in her quarters for late-night snacking on the trip out. Then she had just been too excited to sleep so would wake up hungry. Now she wasn't sleeping well and the only time she felt hungry was in the middle of the night but she didn't want to wake anyone up by leaving her room in the middle of the night.

She was avoiding her crewmates, not consciously, but she did, then again none of them even noticed as they had all been avoiding each other. If they didn't see each other, if they didn't gather they could continue to deny that Mark was gone. Well, all but Vogel that was.

The German astronaut had been thrilled to be chosen for a Mars mission though it meant leaving his wife and two children behind for over a year. His wife was a highly competent teacher and parent. She would manage everything just fine without him but they would miss one another. It was fine while he was still on Earth because they could fly back and forth to visit one another occasionally and they could talk in real-time every day. In space, emails were sent out daily so if he sent her a question or wanted to just talk about how he was feeling it could take two to three days before he got a response from her.

On the way to Mars, he'd been the quietest member of the crew just as he had been on Earth though he had still participated in conversations and movie nights. He was with them for dinners and helped out with experiments. He enjoyed time with the crew but he also enjoyed time alone.

Now, he spent more time in his quarters or in the cupola that no one else ever seemed to visit. He was looking back at Mars, a view he alone took in daily. He went to the rec at what had been the standard time to eat dinner on the trip but no one else was there. So he ate and went back to his quarters.

He didn't think anything of it, just kept going about his routine. It wasn't that Mark's death didn't bother him. It did. It hurt to lose a friend and crewmate, but he was also pragmatic enough to simply focus on his job and backburner his feelings for later when he would have time to talk to his wife.

Lewis had gone immediately to her quarters to send a report back to NASA, then to the bridge and she stayed after the others had all gone. She wrote up the most detailed report she'd ever written in her time in the service and with the space program. She then read her crew members' reports when they submitted them to her and then sent each one back for more information, three times.

She told herself it was just because she knew that there would be a Congressional investigation as well as a NASA commission as there had been for Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia but she did it as much for herself. She reviewed all of the communication logs up to the point that she had called an abort. She reviewed the schematics of the Hab, Mav, and comms array to make suggestions for future missions and their safety. She reviewed all procedures for emergency evacuation.

If she wasn't in her quarters she was on the bridge reading reports and checking procedures. There were no samples to analyze, she rationalized so this was what she needed to do. Never mind the fact that all of the data collected during the six sols had been automatically uploaded to Hermes each day and she could write reports on that. No, she went back to the reports from each day on the surface and again read them and sent them back to the appropriate crew member for additional information.

While she and Martinez were often both on the bridge at the same time they never spoke to one another.

On the fourth day, Beck came knocking at her quarter's door.

"Yes?" she said.

"Commander, I'd like to talk to you."

"Come in."

Beck came through the door and leaned against the wall.

"I'm worried about everyone," he said simply.

"We're all just processing-"

"I don't think anyone is processing at all. I think everyone is avoiding even thinking about what happened."

"We just need time."

He nodded, "I'm not denying that but we also need to stop avoiding each other. We can't keep pretending he's just around the corner, or in his room, or his lab. We have to at least acknowledge each other."

She wanted to argue but she knew he was right for the good of her crew which had nearly a year of space travel still ahead of them. She sighed.

"What do you suggest?"

"Nothing big to start," he said, "just having one meal a day together. Dinner or breakfast whichever you prefer, but being together even if all we talk about is work. We need to spend time together. It's the first step towards acceptance. I haven't checked with Irene but I'm sure it's what she'd recommend."

"Every day?" she asked, skeptical. "Are you sure that's necessary?"

"Yes," he nodded. "It needs to become routine. We need to be together and reconnect, to remember we can count on each other. Eventually, we'll stop beating ourselves up over losing Mark. It's never going to feel good or even okay but we have to get to the point where we accept that it's not our fault."

"I called for the abort before Mitch did so why would anyone else be beating themselves up?"

He shook his head. "This is what I mean, you're so wrapped up in your own thoughts you aren't seeing the rest of us and that's not like you, and while I understand it-"

"I need to be able to because that's my job. Ok fine, I'll find everyone tomorrow and tell them dinner is at six every day, no excuses. Then I'll send that message to Houston so they know too and won't disrupt us unless it's an emergency."

"Thank you, Melissa."

"No, thank you, Chris. I should have seen it but I'm glad we have you looking out for our mental as well as our physical well-being.

Dinner the next few nights was very quiet but there were occasional comments about the ship.

Beck looked over the list of Watney's duties and tried to decide where to start. He knew Martinez had taken over the mechanical engineering assignments already, so that left the botany and media ones. He knew he could do the botany work. It wasn't his strong suit but he figured he could manage to grow some plants. He was determined to do more than just grow plants. He was going to do the best with all of these green things that he possibly could, for Mark.

He could almost hear the man teasing him and panicking that Beck was the one taking over the nursery.

"Bossy Brown Thumb Beck, taking care of my precious plants. They'll be dead in days."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Beck muttered. "He's probably right but I have to try."

He spent the next two hours watering and feeding the ferns and ficus, then planting new lettuce seeds.

Finally done, he recorded all of the work that he'd done and went back to the media duties list.

Media was his least favorite thing to do. Mark had been a natural, always able to smile and talk to anyone or even record videos as if he was talking to someone when there was no one actively there. Beck thought he did ok with interviews but making recordings was a different thing. He'd have to bring it up with the crew and see if anyone else was willing to do the rest of the educational clips they were supposed to do for the trip home.

Mark had made their first video before they'd even left Earth orbit, a tour of Hermes and an introduction to all of the crew. He'd then done one featuring each of the crew and their duties on board. He'd redone some of the recordings Owen Garriott had made for students back on America's first space station: Skylab, the ones his son Richard had remade on the ISS. He'd also done some that Chris Hadfield and others had made on the ISS.

There had been segments on how to exercise in space, what it was like to be in zero-g, and what it was like when the ship was spun up. That had been a favorite of the kids. Mark, just climbing and floating up and down the ladders of Hermes. Then there was the one where he showed kids what they ate and how that worked in zero-g. There were other videos online from previous missions but something about Mark's personality engaged viewers of all ages. How was he going to compete with that?

At dinner that night he broached the subject.

"So we still have videos on the schedule to be made. Maybe we should take turns making them. They don't have to be done right away but…" he trailed off.

Lewis nodded, "We should do them. There are teachers back on Earth counting on them for lesson plans."

"I don't know," Martinez said. "That was Mark's thing. It doesn't feel right without him."

"It's too soon to talk about this," Johanssen argued. "At least it is for me. If you all are ready to move on already then do it but leave me out of it."

"That's not what this is," Beck said.

"Really? Cause that's what it seems like."

Vogel stood and took his tray to the recycler. Then turned and faced the crew. "It does seem early but it's also a duty that's been assigned. Perhaps we should check with NASA and see what they want us to do."

"That's a good idea. Thank you, Alex," the commander said. "I'll send a message tomorrow. In the meantime just so we know what needs to be done Beck you go through Mark's files and see what he had finished. We can start where he left off."

"There won't be any from the surface," Beck said.

"He did record a few there and at least one before we went down, not sure if they got sent back to NASA though."

Johanssen shook her head. "No, there haven't been any recordings sent back in the data packets for a month."

"So what do we do with those?"

"I'm not watching them," Beth snapped, "so don't even ask."

"We'll ask about that too," Melissa said, "and I won't force anyone to watch them no matter what."

It took the shrinks and executives three days to send a response.

Once again the entire crew sat together for dinner. This time it was Lewis who broached the subject.

"Oh before I forget," she said, "we received a response on the videos. First, they would like us to continue making them though they agree with waiting a while to do so and they have no preference right now on who does it. They would also like the videos Mark recorded. They understand he didn't have time to edit them so if anyone would like to do that that's fine or we can just send the files and someone at JSC will edit them."

"Not me," Martinez said, "you all know I suck at anything computer that isn't related to flying."

"I could try but I'm afraid I'd just mess it up. I vote we send them to NASA," Beck said, "unless Beth is willing."

She didn't answer, just glared at him for the suggestion so he raised his hands in front of him.

"Fine, we'll send them out in our next data package. You will see to that, right Beth."

"Yes."

"Ok then, there was also a message from Dr. Shields. She suggests we keep a copy of each of the videos because watching them together could be, in her words, very therapeutic. It would be good for us to remember just how much Mark loved his job/

"No! Hell no!" Beth snapped and took off out of the rec.

"I am not sure that is such a good idea, no matter what the doctor says, at least not right now. I know that I am not ready," Vogel said.

Martinez agreed with him. Lewis let the matter drop then.

Beck knocked on her quarter's door that night before lights out.

"Commander."

"Come in Beck. What do you need?"

"I apologize, I know this is your personal time-"

"It's alright," she interrupted him. "Go ahead."

"You never got a chance to say what you thought about watching Mark's last recordings."

"Neither did you," she pointed out.

He nodded. "No, I didn't and while it's Irene's job to take care of all of us and our mental state she's nearly half an hour round trip communication away. I'm the one that's here."

"And you're worried about me."

"I'm worried about all of us, including myself. I actually agree with Irene. I think watching the videos could be good for us but I won't force anyone," Beck said. "Personally, I do plan to watch even if it's alone, but I wanted to offer you the option."

She smiled sadly. "Thank you but I'm with Alex and Rick. I'm just not ready."

"Understandable. When you're ready-"

"I'll let you know."

Chris went back to his quarters and after getting ready to sleep he sat on his bed with his laptop and earbuds. The rooms weren't soundproof. They were close but not perfect and he didn't want anyone else to hear. He didn't want to upset anyone but he needed to watch. He missed his friend and needed to see him once more even if it was on a screen.

The recording started with Mark reaching his hand back to his side, and straightens his sweatshirt, smiles, then speaks. "Hey everyone! Mark Watney here. Time for another video." His face drops.

"No, that's dumb. I'm going to start again. 3, 2, 1," he whispers.

"Hey kiddies!"

"No, that's really stupid. All right, 3, 2, 1."

"Hey, it's Mark Watney, your favorite astronaut... or not."

"Why can't I get this right today? 3, 2, 1."

"Hello, Earth! Mark Watney aboard Hermes. I'm a little excited today. Okay, more than a little. Tomorrow is it. Tomorrow is the day we leave here and head down to Mars to begin our surface mission. This is the day we've been waiting two months. Well, for longer than that, more like years, but two months since we launched from Earth and headed to Mars. Today I'm going to show you the MDV, Mars descent vehicle."

"First I want to show you something else," Mark holds up two small models and laughs nervously. "Yeah, these are models. I brought toys,"

"Ugh dumb," he mutters just loud enough for it to be picked up by the camera.

"Some of you may have seen these before though probably in a museum at this point. "This is the Apollo service and Command Module. This is how the Apollo astronauts got from Earth to the Moon. The top part, the little cone-looking section, was the command module where the astronauts lived and worked. The cylinder below housed much of their fuel and life support. If you want to know more about what all that was there are some excellent documentaries on the NASA website, and on youtube or you could watch Apollo 13, the movie about the Apollo 13 mission. Here in my other hand is the lunar module, originally called the lunar excursion module but they decided to drop excursion from the name because they said it was unnecessary. Let's be honest, just like Mars any trip to the moon would be an excursion anyway. The lunar module was the spacecraft the astronauts took to get down to the Moon then, hang on just a second." Mark sets down the command service module model and then separates the lunar module model so that part is in each hand.

"Okay so now in my right hand, you see the descent stage that powered their descent. It helped them move away from the command service module and then slowed them down so that they could deorbit and then slowed them, even more, to be sure they could land safely. When their surface mission was done and they were launching back to orbit the lunar module separated just like the Enterprise from Star Trek: The Next Generation."

He pauses as if waiting for laughter. "Come on, that was funny, ok maybe only to geeks like me." He grins.

"So this in my left hand is the ascent stage. This is the top half of the LM when you see one of the museum versions. The astronauts took this little guy back up to orbit to reconnect and dock with the CSM then when they were all safely in the capsule, the spacecraft, sorry wrong. Except you know we still call it Capcom as in capsule communicator, the astronaut back on Earth at Johnson Space Center that's the one that talks to us. That position goes back to Mercury. And even when they stopped calling the spacecraft a capsule they still called the position CapCom. Ok gotta stop now, that was way off-topic. Sorry about that." He smiles again.

"Anyway when they were all safely aboard their Apollo capsule." He winces. "There I said it again. Anyway, when everything was locked up nice and tight they disconnected the ascent stage part of the lunar module from the CSM and let it go. Eventually, the ascent stage would deorbit and crash to the surface of the Moon. It was a great way to check the seismometers they'd left behind. We really littered that place over five missions. Five descent stages, five ascent stages, experimental packages, three rovers, some of the spent rocket boosters that had followed them to the moon crashed there, and other stuff. Mars is going to be worse, by the time we're done though hopefully some of what we leave behind can be collected and reused in some way on future missions. Mars was already littered when we got there the first time, Ares I that is, with all the Rovers that NASA and other space organizations have sent- anyway I got off track again. Yeah, I'm going to have to edit this."

Mark sets the lunar module model down next to the CSM model on a strip of Velcro. "So tomorrow we'll head down to Mars much the way that the lunar astronauts went down to the moon. We have the MDV as our version of the LM."

Mark reaches out and grabs the camera and turns it to an airlock door. "You may have noticed I'm floating. You know from other videos if you watch them and if you didn't, hey why not? Go do that then come back here, kidding." He smiled and winked.

"Anyway as we prepare to descend we have to stop the centrifugal force of Hermes, it's part of both the accelerating and braking processes." He stops talking for a moment while he opens the door. "This is the airlock that leads to the MDV. We've been in here a couple of times to check and make sure everything is ok since we started the trip. The MDV is remotely piloted to Hermes near the end of refurbishment. It's launched on rocket boosters so that all of its fuel can be saved to get us to the surface."

Mark reaches to the wall just out of sight of the camera and the sound of velcro being separated is heard. Then he holds up a new model, this time one of the MDV.

"Yep, more toys. You can get one of these with the Hermes model kit and yes even though I'm on the ship itself I have the model. Hey, it's good for these videos. So this is the MDV and it's impossible for it to carry enough fuel to both land us on Mars and launch us back into orbit. Too many people and too much equipment. There's a reason only two astronauts went to the surface of the Moon at a time. Since we can only use this to land, our ride back to space is already waiting for us at Acidalia Planitia. The M A V, or Mars Ascent Vehicle, or as we call it, the MAV. The Ares II crew landed it for us when they began their mission and NASA has been keeping tabs on it with satellites and computers for the past four years. If it weren't there and in the proper position taking on fuel, we wouldn't be able to go down tomorrow, but it's there waiting and ready to go. Martinez will be landing the Ares IV MAV later today over at Schiaparelli crater."

"It's great knowing we can get back to space, and not be stranded on Mars, but I'm not ready to think about leaving yet. We have to get there first. As I said, we've been checking on the MDV about once a week. Everything is where it needs to be. You see the door I floated through was round and somewhat small, that's because it is much like the airlock that connected the Apollo Command Service module to the Lunar Module. You know what I'm tired of saying Apollo command and service module that's a long term, even CSM gets old and I'm never sure if people understand what I mean when I say that so I'm going to use the name of one set, the most familiar, the one everybody knows or should know: Columbia and Eagle, the Apollo 11 spacecraft. Did you know that spacecraft is plural as well as singular?"

Mark shakes his head and then smacks himself on the forehead. "Oh my God, this is a mess. I'm gonna have to do so much editing."

He takes a deep breath and continues, "We don't get cool names like that for our spacecraft. Ares 3 is the mission name. Hermes is and has been the name for this vessel that I've shown you several times before, our home away from home. The MDV and MAV don't need to be renamed because only one craft is used at a time by us astronauts. Apollo was different, with two spacecraft call signs, the moonwalkers using the landers' call sign when they talked to NASA and needing to communicate at the same time. The Eagle and Columbia had a hatch between them at the nose of Columbia. The MDV works the same. It connects to Hermes at the nose. Let me show you where."

He gestures in a circle around him at the walls a short way into the MDV. "You can't see it but on this line right here, you're going to have to imagine it. Some latches are currently holding the MDV to Hermes. When they dock, those latches snap in place." He makes a kind of claw motion with his hand as if showing latches hooking on. "The latches are loud but it's a great noise because it means we're safe."

He continues floating into the MDV and points to the circle of seats. "This is another reason to turn off the centrifugal force, no gravity means I can float into my seat right here." He mounts the camera to the wall above his seat and demonstrates getting into his seat and buckling in.

"Ask any astronaut who ever sat in the shuttle, or look back at the stories from Apollo, Gemini, and Mercury and you'll see how hard it can be on the body. You have to climb into your spacecraft and sit in your seat with your back to the ground and your legs up above you. Fortunately, we don't launch that way anymore. When our ships are on the ground, and that includes Mars, we sit upright to start and then tilt back just before launch, but because of the way that the MDV connects to Hermes we would be back in that old style if we had gravity."

Mark unbuckles and grabs the camera then floats to each station talking a bit about the astronaut that sits there and what they monitor on the screen in front of them. Then he floats over to the floor.

"I know, I know. You're wondering what I'm doing on the floor. Well, it's only the floor when the MDV is upright, right now it's a wall. And when it is upright this is the hatch down to our airlock. This opens up and there's a ladder we climb down to the airlock door. We can only do this two at a time. Tomorrow this is how I'll get down to Mars."

"The MAV works the same, just in reverse. As a matter of fact, the only real difference between the two spacecraft is that one is called MDV and one is called MAV. Ok no not entirely. The MAV part separates as well. After the first stage is emptied it is cut apart and falls back to Mars. It gives the MAV a little more boost to get up to orbit to Hermes. That's it for today. Next time I talk to you I'll be standing on the surface of Mars and I can't wait!"

Chris smiled slightly as he watched Mark reach for the camera and the screen went black. It was hard to see his friend so alive and so excited but it was also wonderful. Dr. Shields had been right, it helped to remember just how much Mark loved this job, loved what they were doing. He definitely would have spent the last week moaning and groaning and complaining that they had to leave the surface early and they would have all been equally as upset but Mark would have gotten over it first and gone right back to learning more about growing plants in space. He would have teased everyone else out of their bad moods. He would have pointed out the positives.

Chris missed him and he fought the urge not to wonder if something different could have been done as he cued up the next video

"We're here! Take a look around, oh wait that means I have to look around, what a shame." Mark could barely contain the glee in his voice. Anyone who watched the video, if anyone ever did, would be able to hear how excited he was no matter how much he tried to sound professional.

"See all that red." an arm appeared in the camera's view pointing out. "Mars. I know you don't see much else right now, that's because we're still setting up camp as it were. If you've ever been on a camping trip you know that one of the first things you have to do is set up the tent. Well same here, we may have more conveniences than a standard tent camping trip but we're pretty much living in a tent. The Hab will be a canvas dome. Lewis, Martinez, Beck, and Johanssen are doing that right now. The first thing we did when we landed was to unpack a rover. It takes NASA four years and fourteen missions to get all of our supplies here. The two rovers each come on their own and are soft landed with a parachute and sky crane, much like Curiosity was, though most of our supplies bounce. Yes, bounce. Later I can show you the deflated balloons on one of the crates."

"So I'm sure you're wondering why I'm not helping set up the Hab. That would be because Herr Vogel-" The camera moved to show another astronaut not far off setting up solar panels. "And I are setting up the solar farm. It's great to have the Hab to shelter us but if there is no electricity it won't do us any good. We have two hundred square meters of solar cells to put up, that's one hundred cells. They were also sky-craned down for safety."

The camera moves across to a crate about half filled with large squares. "Since you're here with me, so to speak, I'll show you how it works." Hands appear and pull one square out of the crate then carry it back over to the farm.

"We could just lay these out but then any amount of wind would cover them in dust, or any one of us walking by the cells would kick up dust onto them, diminishing our energy. So each one has feet folded up underneath." The hands flip the cell over and show the feet, then unfold and extend them, before flipping the whole thing back over.

"Some really smart people back at NASA, and there are lots of them, calculated the best angle to collect the solar rays throughout the day and keep us running. Fortunately, I don't have to guess or get out a protractor because those smart people also had this red mark placed on the frame so all I have to do is line up the cell with the line and we're good. And there we go. One more done and a whole lot to go so I'll keep doing that and when the Hab is up I'll be back with you."

The screen doesn't even go black it just suddenly changes and now the view is Mars with a large white circle lying on the ground. Beck can see himself, and his crewmates in the distance.

"That is the Hab, or it will be when it's inflated. You're probably wondering how that's going to happen and where it came from. I'm done with the solar panels now so I can show you while the others work. I can give you a tour of the whole site. So starting here at twelve o'clock we see the Hab, yes I will show it to you again when it is up. Those round tube-like things are the three airlocks. Now if I turn to three o'clock, I'll move slowly, I don't want anyone getting motion sickness. Speaking of," he continues as he turns, "don't know if I mentioned it in my videos from Hermes but we were really lucky as a crew and no one suffered from any serious space sickness. Mercury and Gemini astronauts had so little space in their craft that they didn't move around much but ever since Apollo astronauts, cosmonauts, and taikonauts have gotten to space to discover their vestibular system, that's the body system that controls balance in case you didn't know, has gone haywire. Research has been done for decades and we still aren't sure what causes space sickness and can't predict who will suffer from it."

"Ok we've reached three o'clock now and that large stack of containers is our supplies. When we landed the first thing we all did was start collecting them and stacking them by contents. Martinez and Johanssen took one rover, Lewis and Vogel took the other and they headed out following the beacons. Beck and I gathered the ones closest to the Hab site. Then we started setting up. Time to go to my six. And with that, I'll go back to the space sickness discussion, though I guess since it's just me it's not really a discussion and more of a monologue. Everyone does time in the centrifuge, we also all fly with the pilots in the office and they do aerobatics. You can get motion sickness on a plane and be fine in space, or you can be totally fine in space and be nauseous and throwing up nonstop in space. Fortunately, there are some really good meds now we can take if we do get sick, but I'm glad I didn't have to use them."

"So here at six is the MAV I told you about in my last video. Our ride back to Hemes. Martinez has already been out to check it out and make sure everything is functioning. Yeah, he checked from space but this is NASA. We're all about redundancies: check, double check, triple check, quadruple check, and then hey check one more time for good measure."

"Now on to nine, our last stop, not sure what else to say as we slowly move our way in that direction, and maybe I'm moving too slow for some of you but again I want to make anyone sick. So let's just check out that view. It doesn't get much better than that. Maybe it doesn't look as great to you right now but I think it's pretty amazing. I think I'll steal a line from Buzz Aldrin to describe it: magnificent desolation."

There is silence for the next few seconds as the camera continues to pan the surface.

"Okay here's nine and the MDV that brought us down here. It will also be our home for the night. Yes, they're all setting up the hab, and that only takes two but it goes faster supposedly when more people work together. Still, even if it gets completely set up, we move all the supplies in and all the systems activated, we want to give it one night running just to be on the safe side. Nobody wants to sleep in their EVA suit, not to mention we do have a limited number of CO2 scrubbers for the suit. The MDV has enough life support to last nearly a week. When we did the missed orbit scenario, practicing in the MAV simulator, living there for six days trying not to kill each other, joke, but you try living with six people in a teeny tiny capsule. Okay, not a capsule. It's like living in a minivan which would be easier if we had missed orbit because it means more space. I know that sounds odd because it's the same amount of space in the spacecraft either way but you have to remember when you float you can use more of that room. Anyway, there was a possibility we would start to descend in the MDV and end up having to abort but not have enough propellant left to get us back to orbit so it works out the same."

"Well, it looks like they're ready to pop up the Hab."

"Watney," came a call over the comms system.

"Yes, commander."

"Stop spinning in circles and get down here and help us."

Watney laughed, "Yes commander. Right away."

Watney starts walking. "Guess I'll be back with you again later. You don't want to have to watch as we try and pop this thing up. I know some of you are yelling at your screen that you do but trust me you don't."

Again there is no black screen. The Hab is just suddenly sitting in view fully inflated.

"Here it is, our home on Mars starting tomorrow. I know I said you probably wouldn't be interested in watching us actually inflate it and I know as soon as I said that so if you yelled at the screen that yes you would no matter that I think it's dull. Some of you want to see everything we do and I appreciate that. So, I got permission from Lewis and set up the camera on the Rover, and recorded the whole thing. I'll post that as a separate video so you only have to watch it if you want to. I might find a way to do a quick montage though for this video. Maybe I can find some good music for it. That may take a bit though the surface mission is packed. I'm not sure when I'll have time to edit videos, sorry guys. You may not get to see these until after we're back on Hermes but I'll try and get them out sooner. So you ready to go in the house?"

"I'm pretty sure you all said yes. Here we go."

The camera shows the Hab getting closer and closer as Mark walks to the airlock door, a hand reaches out and opens the door, moves into the airlock, the sound of the door closing comes from behind, and steps forward to the control panel next to the inner door, a button is pressed, and the soft sound of rushing air comes in. Finally, the panel flashes and the hand again reaches out, turns the handle, and opens the door.

"Well, here we are inside a great big nothing. Yes, I know you see all those crates sitting there so it's not really nothing but it's also not not a home yet. The idea is to get it all inside first then we'll start unpacking. From here you can see it is a tent."

The camera pans upward to show what appears to be large flexible tent poles with canvas stretched across. The camera pans back down."

"Sorry, not much to see right now but I'll give you a detailed tour later when everything's set up. Sometime tomorrow or the day after. See you then. Watney out."

When the screen went black this time Beck looked at his clock to check the time. It was past time for him to be sleeping if was going to get up in the morning without having to drag himself out of bed, so he reluctantly closed his laptop, resolving to watch more tomorrow.