Annie worked feverishly on the statement she was going to give the next day. Suddenly she had a thought, stopped typing, and slid her laptop aside. Grabbing her phone, she tapped out a message there instead.
How fast can you get to Houston? I think I'm going to need your advice.
Her phone buzzed only a few seconds later.
What do you need?
Annie replied: Can't tell you this way, you have to come here. I'd come to you but I can't leave.
Ok, be there tomorrow.
"Sir, Senators Seaborn and Bailey here to see you, sir."
"Thank you, send them in."
"Mr. President," Sam said, extending a hand to Charlie who took it and pulled the older man into a hug, doing the same to Will.
"Thank you both for coming so quickly."
"Not a problem Mr. President."
"You know when we're alone you really can call me Charlie," the president said to his two old coworkers and friends.
"Not in this room," Sam insisted.
"He's right," Will said.
"Yes, I suppose you are. Still, it's strange."
The two men nodded.
"So," Sam said. "What's going on that you need the two of us?"
"I can't go into details because I don't have any yet, Melody Astor is supposed to join us shortly."
"Deputy Director of NASA?" Will raised an eyebrow.
"Yes," Charlie replied. "We should sit. I'm not sure when she'll be here."
He took his customary chair at the head of the seating area and the two men sat opposite one another on the two couches.
"Sir?" came a voice from the door.
"Come in Jarrod and tell the Senators what you told me earlier, and sit, you're staying for this meeting."
"Yes sir." Jarrod walked into the room and joined Will on the couch to the president's left. "Mark Watney may still be alive."
"How? What? I don't," Sam sputtered.
"Well, this is…" Will trailed off.
"You see why I wanted you two here. I know I can count on you to give me good advice even though you aren't my advisors. I also know I can count on you to help drum up support in the Senate and to find Representatives that can do the same."
"Ok while we wait for Ms. Astor," Sam said. "Let's start a list."
Venkat relaxed back into the seat as the plane took flight. He needed sleep. The flight to Pasadena, however, would be just long enough for a few-hour nap that would leave him feeling drowsy rather than alert, and he needed to be alert. His call to JPL played in his head. Had he given them enough information without giving anything away that could have been overheard and leaked? He thought so but still…
"Bruce this is going to sound crazy, but I need you to get as many people together that worked on Pathfinder as you can. I'll be there by noon. I need to be able to meet with all of them. We also need to look at any hardware and software you still have access to. You have a model of the rover somewhere in storage, right? I know you all tested out commands on a rover here on Earth before sending them out. It's still there at JPL, right? If not, we have to find it and get it there."
"What the hell, Venk?"
"Just do it. I'll explain when I get there."
"Ok," Bruce replied, clearly bewildered.
No, Venk thought he hadn't given anything away. Could he have handled it differently though? Could he have told Bruce he wanted them to investigate possible ways to utilize the rover for future use? Ares missions or the planned colony that was now in jeopardy? Maybe he could have said they were looking at Ares Vallis as a future landing site and wanted to reuse the old tech. Bruce would want to know why there was such a rush though. Still, the man was brilliant, so even with the little information he'd been given, he might still work it out. Not that it mattered; he knew he could trust Bruce to keep whatever he suspected to himself until they could talk.
If only they'd been able to use the orbiters to contact the Hab or the rovers for a status update when his imagery request had been denied...
"Dr. Kapoor, how can we help you?" Chuck asked when the man stepped into the communications office.
"Gentlemen I have a quandary, I want to check on the status of the Hab and rovers, the general site of Ares 3 without imaging. The Hab computers were left active. Is there any way to access them using the orbiters?"
"No," Morris replied.
"That's it, just 'no'?" Venaket asked.
"Sorry sir," Morris said. "The orbiters were designed to only communicate with Earth. That's why we had to notify the crew about the storm rather than them tracking it themselves. The orbiters can also relay signals from the unmanned rovers."
"Well the rovers down there now are unmanned, so why can't we access them?"
"It's a different program," Chuck answered. "Those rovers were set to run on the communications array of the Hab or through the MAV. We could try to get a response from them, but they were never designed to be run without people inside. They relay information when it's input by an astronaut."
"And the Hab computers can't be accessed without the dish. That dish is the relay. The signal on it was much stronger than anything else we have up there. We could look at the Ares one or two sites-"
Venkat rubbed a hand down his face, "No, the crews shut those systems down before leaving. Besides, I don't need to access them."
"It's all old tech, some of it old, and, amazingly, it's still functioning at all. We never imagined a time when we'd want to access the sites after the astronauts had left."
"Failure of imagination shouldn't be an issue for NASA, but it has been more than once. Thanks anyway."
Venkat had walked away from that meeting more frustrated than before about having to wait a year just to get information on Acidalia Planitia and now he was cursing the lack of imagination. If they'd thought ahead just a bit more if only someone had come up with one more what-if question, maybe they would have still had contact and Mark could have let him know he was still alive.
He stared out the window for the rest of the flight to California, hoping it wasn't too late.
"Alannah, do you have a minute," Lewis asked the commander of the next mission when she found her at her desk in her office.
"Sure, same as you I'd bet. We're scheduled to sit in on the debrief this afternoon as you know."
"There won't be a debrief. I need you to get your crew together and meet me in our office as soon as you can."
Alannah James sat back from her desk and looked up at her fellow commander. The woman had been crying, something she couldn't imagine her ever doing. Well not ever, she was sure that at some point after they'd lost Watney that every member of Ares 3 had shed some tears.
"Absolutely," she replied. "Anything I can do. Are you okay?"
Lewis nodded, "Not really, but I will be, with your help. Just get your crew together as soon as possible."
"Will do."
Melissa walked out of the office and then popped back in the door, "Oh you won't find Taylor, she's taking Beth or Alex out to JPL, Rick is flying the other. I don't know how they worked it out, I just know they're all going."
"Ok."
Alannah was sure something was very wrong, but she couldn't imagine what it was. Instead of trying to imagine it, she took out her phone and texted her team.
"Venk, what's going on," Bruce asked as the other man walked through the front doors of JPL.
"We'll talk in a minute," Venkat replied in a low voice. "Have you got everyone here?"
"Yes, come on, this way." Bruce led Venkat down the hall and out of the main building.
As they began to walk across the campus to a large storage facility Venkat asked, "Has anyone been tracking the old rovers?"
"Any of the old rovers or just Pathfinder?"
"Specifically Pathfinder."
"No, not after it stopped responding and didn't come back online for a year. Standard operating procedure. Rovers don't just come back to life on Mars. Their solar panels crust over, the batteries lose efficiency, they freeze up. Pathfinder ran for years longer than we expected-"
"I'm not criticizing JPL or your procedures, Bruce. It was just a question."
Bruce looked at him as they reached the door of the storage building. "But there's a reason you're asking."
Venkat nodded.
"You think Pathfinder is working again, sending data?"
"I believe it's a possibility or that it was at some point in the past year."
"But how?"
"Let's go in here, and I'll tell you when I tell everyone else."
Melissa Lewis stood next to the interactive TV she was currently using to display the image from her computer. The Ares IV crew sat in chairs at their counterparts' desks and simply stared.
"What do you need us to do?" Alannah asked.
"I imagine rescuing Mark will be part of your crew's mission," Lewis replied. "You know more about the current details than I do obviously, and we don't know if we'll be able to contact him before that. We don't even know yet if he got Pathfinder working, though I hope to have word on that soon."
"Beth," Alanna said, now understanding why her pilot was suddenly serving as a chauffeur.
"Yes. She or Alex will fill Taylor in."
"Good, we'll put her to work as soon as she gets back. Now, where do we start?" Alannah addressed both her crew and Melissa.
Lewis filled them in on the tasks each of her crew members had taken on.
Marianne Jeffries, the doctor, immediately stood up, "I'll go help Chris and Martin and check in with Irene. Together we can come up with plans if we contact him, and if we don't."
Engineer Pat Aaronds said, "I'll head out to Grumman, or at least give them a call. We need to find a way to add a seat to the MAV unless one of us no longer goes or has to stay on Hermes."
"Excellent," Alannah said. "Turner you contact Beth, then head to SatCon and see if you can be of any assistance there with programming the satellites. Jack I can already see you thinking you're useless in this case-"
"I'm a geologist, Alannah. Of course, I'm useless in this, unless someone tells me what to do."
"We can do that, but you are the best at public relations on our crew so you can help us keep in touch with Annie and help her."
"May I start with a suggestion?" He directed the question to Lewis.
She nodded in response.
"I think all of us that can be, should be with Annie at the press conference tomorrow as a show of support. I know Alex and Beth may not be able to make it back from Pasadena by then, but the rest of us can be there and we can explain their absence by simply saying they are already working on contacting Mark and his rescue plan."
"You're right, that's perfect, go talk to Annie. Taylor can check in with the Hermes rehab crew. Maybe we can start our mission sooner. The MAV will have plenty of fuel, it's already made half of what we need. If we can find a way to get supplies there sooner we can go sooner. You and I," she indicated Melissa, "will coordinate it all."
Lewis agreed and the astronauts all left to start their new duties. At the same time Terrence Lydell, the chief astronaut, came in. He waited to speak until Melissa and Alannah were the only ones left.
"I just heard. We're clearing out the largest classroom on the second floor for you to use as an organization center. We can move all of your desks there if you'd like. There are already several whiteboards and bulletin boards you can use as you need. It will be ready by tomorrow morning. Other than the Hermes and ISS 2 crews, everyone else is on standby for whatever you may need. Just let me know."
"Thank you, Terrence," Lewis said.
Alannah nodded, "Excellent idea Terry, thanks."
He left the office and the two women sat down to begin charting out the responsibilities of each of their crew members.
Bruce led Venkat into a room where the Pathfinder clone had been moved shortly before.
Several people sat in chairs around the room and looked up expectantly when they entered. Bruce introduced each person and Venkat went to each and shook their hands.
Venkat then took out his laptop and attached it to the waiting projector. He pulled up the image, but before he could begin, Beth walked in.
"Ok, so where are we on getting this working?" she asked.
"Beth, what? How?" Venkat stuttered, a rare occurrence for the normally well-spoken man.
She smirked, "NASA jets are always going to be faster than commercial. No need to wait in lines. Have you not told them yet?"
"I haven't had a chance."
"Would one of the two of you please fill us in?" Bruce pleaded.
"Sorry, Bruce. Short and sweet. Mark is alive, or at least he was at some point, because the Mars version of that," Beth pointed to the rover in the middle of the room. "Is now sitting right outside the Ares 3 hab."
Venkat resisted the urge to scold the woman for saying it so bluntly but sighed because there was no other way, and projected the image on the screen.
"Sorry, I know that was fast," she apologized to the shocked faces surrounding her, "but I'm here to help. If one of you could give me a book or computer with the files on the Pathfinder OS, I'll go sit in the corner and start learning it so I can be of use."
"Uh sure," said a man from across the room, who immediately rose and left the room.
Bruce took a deep breath and looked around at the team. "Ok, so the first thing to do is see if we get a signal at all from Pathfinder. Tim, get started on that, grab whoever you need to get the system up to date. The rest of us will get this version powered up and ready to use."
The man who had left, reentered with a computer on a cart and rolled it over to Beth.
"This is it. I'm Charlie by the way. I know this computer is really old but it still works, strangely enough. It is what we used for Pathfinder originally, though we have transferred the program to the intranet-"
"Which is what Tim there is going to use to try and see if we're getting any signal," she said. "Got it, thanks. I promise I'll stay out of the way until I know what I'm doing."
"If you can run the computers on Hermes, the MDV, MAV, and the Hab, you'll get this in no time," Charlie assured her. "If you have any questions though just ask, anyone but Tim. He's brilliant but frustratingly obtuse about social situations."
"I heard that," Tim said.
"Yeah, now if only you cared," Charlie said.
"Why would I?"
"I see what you mean," Beth smiled. She rolled the computer on its cart to a corner, plugged it in, and began booting it up.
Mitch Henderson signed off and passed flight director duties to the next shift's flight director, his overall second in command for Ares missions. He left mission control and headed to his office. Once there, he sank into his chair and ran his hands over his face and through his hair.
Sliding his chair up to his desk he opened his laptop. The news about Mark was making its way not so secretly and slowly through the halls and offices of the buildings. He'd seen no fewer than three groups clustered in corners talking while looking repeatedly over their shoulders. All hell was going to break loose after Annie's press conference in the morning.
He sighed as he scrolled through files on the NASA intranet. He knew he would be questioned as would everyone who'd had anything to do with Ares 3. Congress was going to call a whole new set of hearings, and they hadn't even started the first set. They'd been waiting for the crew to reacclimate to Earth and spend time with their families.
Maybe this time Teddy would finally be forced out. The man had no business running NASA. President Young had chosen not to replace him as a show of faith in the program. Sanders had been nominated for the position by the previous POTUS and had no science background. He had an MBA and had been a large donor. While he had demonstrated an interest in space and had, for the most part, let the managers do their jobs without micromanaging, Mitch had never liked him. He couldn't identify any particular reason why he didn't like the man until he rejected Venkat's satellite requests…
"That's it," Mitch muttered to himself and grabbed his mouse, sliding the cursor across his screen with a sudden purpose. He clicked through documents until he found what he wanted. After a quick check to be sure there was paper in his printer, he printed the file.
Checking the clock, he signed out of his computer for the day, collected his things, stuck the printout in his pocket, and left his office.
He strolled casually down the hall to the Astronaut office. His excuse was he wanted to check on the capcom roster if anyone asked, though no one did. The Ares 3 office was empty and he ducked in just for a second, then promptly made his way out of the building. A careful observer would have noted that there was now a folded piece of paper on Commander Lewis's desk.
Alannah walked into the Ares 3 office to fill in Lewis on what she had learned so far and found the woman standing, holding a piece of paper, jaw clenched.
"What's going on?"
No response.
"Melissa?"
Still no response.
She stepped closer and spoke louder, "Melissa!"
Lewis's eyes flew up from the paper to Alannah's face. She took a steadying breath and held out the paper.
"Look at this."
Alannah took the proffered paper and looked down at it concerned. Concern quickly became anger. Now she understood the barely contained fury she saw in the other commander.
"I'm talking to my team on a video call tonight at eight. I'd planned to do that here, but I no longer think that's the best option."
"I agree."
"So you and your crew are invited to my house tonight. Everyone needs to be in the loop."
"We'll be there. What are you going to do about this?" Alannah held up the paper.
"Still thinking, and my only decision is nothing yet. It's better if we all discuss that tonight and figure out how to handle that information."
"Again, agreed."
"I'm going to go home now and get everything set up."
"Do you need any help?"
"No, my husband can do that, but thank you."
"You're welcome."
"Sorry commander," Beth said as she slid into a chair next to Alex slightly out of breath. "I just got caught up in the Pathfinder programming. Wow, is everyone here already? Geez. I'm sorry."
"It's ok," Beck said.
"We understand," Lewis replied, "but there are quite a few of us and quite a bit of information to share. As you can see Ares IV is with us."
The crew of Ares IV, minus their doctor, was spread out on chairs, the sofa, and even the floor of Lewis's living room. Melissa had set up an HDMI connection between her laptop and her tv so everyone could see the screen. Her crew was all on screen from various places at NASA and Martinez was in his home office.
Alannah spoke up, "And we're prepared to do whatever we need to help you and rescue Mark."
"And we appreciate it," Lewis said. "Now Beth, tell us how it's going out there at JPL."
Beth told everyone of the efforts to establish communication with Pathfinder.
Alex continued with information from his discussion with astrodynamics. "It might be possible to redirect one of the Ares IV supply probes currently in flight and have it land near Mark. There is still time to then launch new probes to go to Ares IV to replace those supplies. We would need your approval, however, Commander James."
Alannah turned to her crew, "Team?" When she received a thumbs-up from each of them she turned back to the camera. "You have it. Tell Astro to do whatever they need to do to make it happen."
"Then the flight surgeons will need a manifest for the probe you're sending to Mark," Beck put in. "Right now everyone is highly concerned that even if he rationed carefully, he could be facing starvation soon. How quickly will a probe be able to get to him?"
"The closest probe is a month out," Alex said. "It can be sped up slightly as well as redirected with the remaining fuel, but it won't be much less than a month."
"How will he know the probe is there? We're not sure when we'll get communication right?"
Beth nodded, "Yeah, the group here is working as quickly as they can but there's a lot of work to do to get the current network to connect with Pathfinder. Then we have to leave it up to Mark to find a way to communicate with us. Even if there were a radio of some sort in the supply probe, it won't help without the MAV or the dish."
"It's insane that there's no way for the Hab to communicate through one of the orbiting satellites," Turner said. "I've already started hounding everyone I can to change that for our mission and all others going forward."
A chorus of "Good idea" met his statement.
"Not much else for us to say," Beck said, gesturing to Marianne who sat beside him in the flight surgeons' office.
"Anyone else?" Melissa asked.
When she received all negative responses she held up a piece of paper. "Alannah and I have something to share with you. I'll pass this one around here, and if my crew will check your personal emails now you will see it as well."
She waited for each person to read the information.
"What the hell?" Beck snapped.
"Where did this come from?" Martinez said.
"We don't know," Alannah replied.
Lewis nodded, "Though I have a suspicion or two considering how few people have access to this information. It doesn't matter though."
"The hell it doesn't!" Beck shouted. "Sorry, but it does matter. I want to thank that person and while I'm sure Venkat was just trying to get a read on assets left behind, it could have made all kinds of difference in Mark being rescued. We'd already have a plan in process, and possibly have another probe already on the way."
Everyone sat silently processing this idea. Finally, Vogel spoke, "So what do we do with this information?"
"That's why we shared it with you," Melissa replied. "We're not sure."
"It has to go to the press," Martinez said vehemently.
"Maybe that should wait until we see what Annie says in the press briefing tomorrow," Beth suggested.
Turner nodded, "And we should give her a heads up before we leak it, in case she wasn't the one who gave you the information."
"While I wouldn't put it past Annie to share this," Lewis said, "I don't think it was her and I agree that if we leak it, she should be warned. I also think we should wait and see what she says in the press conference. We've already spoken and let all of you here in Houston know to be there tomorrow morning for a show of support."
"Annie's always been on our side," Chris said.
"And we want to keep her there," Pat commented. "Have you ever seen her when she's pissed off?
Taylor shivered, "Yeah I don't want that directed at me."
Alannah nodded. "We want her anger directed elsewhere."
"Preferably at Sanders," Martinez grumbled.
Sounds of agreement moved through the room.
"So when do we tell Annie?" Beth asked.
"Yeah, when is a good time?"
Melissa shook her head, "There isn't a good time. Before the press conference might distract her and after she'll be dodging the reporters."
"But if this was given to you," Turner said, "it also could have been leaked to a reporter, or could be before tomorrow. If she finds out we knew and didn't warn her and she gets ambushed at the press conference, there'll be hell to pay."
"Very good point," Alannah said. "So Melissa what do you think?"
Lewis thought for a moment and nodded. "I'll head in early and see if I can catch her. Then after the press conference, we can all meet in the new room Terry set up for us and do some brainstorming."
At the acknowledgment from everyone, she said, "Ok see you all tomorrow. Everyone try to get a good night's sleep. We're going to need it."