"Message... received... Friendship," she said as the response message came through. "Will... relay... to Twilight Sparkle and Chrysalis... gone to... Hair Hat City... for Summer... Sun... Celebration, over."
Cherry Berry and Spitfire moaned.
"What's wrong?" Mark asked.
"This is the second Summer Sun Celebration we've spent on Mars," Cherry Berry sighed.
"Here. Not there," Spitfire added.
"Well, look at the bright side," Mark said, smiling. "We launch in eighty sols. There's a good chance you'll be home in time for... what's the next big holiday?"
"Doesn't matter," Fireball snorted. "Ponies have holiday every week."
"Not every week," Cherry protested. "Not more than every other week."
"Yeah, and they'll make another one just for the day you get back," Fireball growled. "So no sighs. Keep mind on getting home."
Cherry Berry sat up and glared at Fireball. "Nice gentle attitude you have there," she said.
"As gentle as the next dragon who ain't Spike."
From the head, Starlight called, "Do we have anything more we want to say today? If not, I'm signing off."
Cherry looked at Fireball. "Tell them to start buying our Hearth's Warming presents," she said. "And make sure Fireball gets coal."
Fireball made a face. "Coal? Tastes awful. And gives me gas."
"I don't think they meant for you to eat it," Mark said.
"Whatever." Fireball stretched again. It was crowded in the bridge, but at least it wasn't the habitat compartment. After two weeks on the road, nobody wanted to be in there until they had to be, when mealtime came or when night fell.
But for the moment a room without nutty whiny ponies or cheerful monkeys seemed like a good idea. "I make lunch," he said. "I tell you when ready."
MISSION LOG — SOL 472
We made our first southbound leg today. We're now past Trouvelot and on our way to a region of smaller craters marked on my map as Thymiamata. The bad news is, NASA predicts the leading edge of the dust storm to catch us just as we enter that area. We're hoping we get the go-ahead to turn east before we hit Crommelin crater, though. The area around Crommelin is really bad even by the standards of Arabia Terra. Plus, Crommelin is just above Mars' equator. If we go more than 150 kilometers south of it, we drop south of the MAV... meaning that after that, we'll be driving AWAY from our destination.
But the important thing is that we keep moving. If we stop, not only do we miss the launch, but we probably die. We can't make it back to the Hab now, even if we wanted to. So we have to make as much ground as fast as we can while guaranteeing a full battery in the morning for more driving.
That's not easy. The ground east of Trouvelot was pretty badly broken, with several small craters to dodge, ejecta from those craters and from Trouvelot itself, and a lot of gullies and ravines that dwarf the little ditches we had in Acidalia. But after two hours today we found a huge lake bed which runs north-northeast to south-southwest. It's got some sand dunes, but nothing too difficult. We haven't bogged down or threatened to tip over— more just plowed right through. There's a ridge we have to go around tomorrow or the next sol, but for two days we should have comparatively smooth driving.
After that, though, it's back into the standard Arabia Terra crap... complete with sandstorm. Because into each life a little crap must fall, unless you're Mark Watney and anyone unfortunate enough to be within his blast radius, in which case enjoy the fucking Niagara Falls of diarrhetic feces from the sky.
We're not reporting to NASA anymore, but we're not completely out of contact. At high noon local time we turn on the radio to receive-only. Hermes will send a message update within ten minutes with a brief on the next day's driving and a weather report. After the ten minutes is up, we turn off the radio. Granted we don't need to be saving every scrap of power just yet, which is why we're still using the microwave for meals and all the computers for entertainment. But the radio thing is NASA's idea, and it doesn't really hurt at this point to start doing it.
That said, we're going to make tonight the last D&D session for a while. And I've decided to make a little peace offering to Starlight. Her Priestess of Om character is about to draw the attention of a Discworld-style unicorn that's escaped from the elves. If she plays the situation right, she might just get to be a witch after all...
MISSION LOG — SOL 472 (2)
Since we're not on power rationing yet, I'm going to report: my plan went a little too successfully. Starlight is now the Ninth Prophetess of Om due to consecutive natural 20s rolled on her knowledge of Omnianism as it applies to the holiness or unholiness of wild unicorns. As in, Om manifested, and she made the case to sanctify her new unicorn friend, and made it stick. For one night, the pony the others call Ms. Can't Roll made every roll.
Of course, the others are mad at me for two reasons: (1) Starlight got a magic pet and they didn't; and (2) all those good rolls were wasted on what amounts to diplomancing. No combat.
I think the reason GMs get the reputation for being TPK addicts is, TPK is the only way a GM can win..
Author's Notes:
San Japan setup is tomorrow. Going to be busy, so I'm going to take advantage of the situation in story to cheat a little and do several short-short chapters as our heroes begin driving through the storm.
Because on Monday I might have the time to write the good bit...
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Sols 475-476
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MISSION LOG — SOL 475
Today's message from Hermes:
"Good morning, Mark. Hope you had a good drive today. It's not going to be easily apparent from where you are, but you entered the dust storm today. For the next day or two you'll only see a small reduction in efficiency. We're hoping it stays that way.
"You're mostly on the right track. If you see any craters that stretch across the horizon, pass them on the east side. That will keep you out of the worst terrain of Thymiamata.
"Good luck, and stay safe."
Well, she's right. Looking outside the day is just as sunny and clear to look at as before. But the wattage coming from the solar cells is down just a hair— about half of one percent down.
We've been pushing hard the last couple of sols, trying to squeeze a couple extra kilometers out of each drive. For all we know those couple of kilometers might be the difference between life and death.
Cold food today. The ponies decided to go to an all-alfalfa diet for the time being, since they loathe cold potatoes with a passion surpassed only by my undying hatred for the root vegetable in any form, at any temperature. Sorry, Mom, but I'm going to snub your potato salad next Thanksgiving we have. Besides, your dressing is better anyway.
Compared to the triangle of huge craters at the headwaters of Mawrth Vallis, the cluster of craters in Thymiamata are much smaller. That said, they're still over ten kilometers wide, a couple as wide as twenty kilometers. With Mars's too-close horizons, a crater rim wall for any of those really would go from horizon to horizon if we hit dead-on. Fortunately we're only seeing the rim walls from a long way away... and, yes, we're passing them all on the east side.
Although the region has a name, none of the local features do. So I'm naming craters as we pass them based on what the crater rims look like from the Whinnybago. So far I've got Headstone Crater, Cenotaph Crater, Crypt Crater, Sarcophagus Crater, and Duckie Crater.
Somehow I don't think the astronomers are going to endorse my suggestions.
Mindy looked up at the sound of stomping feet on the carpeted SatCom floor. Randall Carter was making a beeline for her cubicle. "Are these pictures legit?" he asked, waving a couple of printouts clutched in one hand.
"You're getting the raw data every time any of the probes cross over Arabia Terra," Mindy said. "Is there something wrong?"
"Something's very wrong," Carter said. "Show me any photos you have from any single satellite observing Arabia Terra, each one day apart. Include today."
Mindy ran through the mental list she kept of which orbiters had and hadn't yet crossed Arabia in their orbits during local daytime that sol. "Close up view or wide area?" she asked.
"Not planetwide, but get me all of the storm if you can."
"Okay." She knew exactly which orbiter to pick. She called up the image archives, selected each day's targeted view of Arabia Terra from three days ago until today, and brought them up on her screen. "Here you are."
"Cycle through them, in chronological order," Carter said.
"Okay." Mindy stacked the windows on her screen in the proper order and then clicked through them. First to second; small movement of the storm. Second to third; small movement. Third to fourth...
Whoa.
"Is that supposed to happen?"
"No," Carter said grimly. "High-level martian dust storms like this one do not suddenly double their land speed and, at the same time, intensify strongly. Did the ponies do another thruster test or something?"
"They're not scheduled to," Mindy said. "But they're not broadcasting right now, and they couldn't send us uploads of their logs even if they were broadcasting. So I can't confirm that."
Carter growled with frustration, tossing away his printouts. "Print out each of those," he said. "Then come with me. Time to see Dr. Kapoor."
"This," Teddy said, his hands clasped on his desk blotter, "is our nightmare scenario made real."
"Possibly not," Venkat said. "Yes, the storm is growing thicker and stronger, and above all larger. But it's still only about a thousand kilometers across. It's now moving at eight kilometers per hour. If the storm stops growing and keeps moving, it will pass over the Whinnybago in five more sols. No danger."
"How confident are you that the storm stops growing and keeps moving?"
"Not in the least," Venkat said. "You said it yourself. Nightmare scenario. Kobayashi Maru."
"Do you mind not speaking geek when I'm in the room?" Annie snapped. "The fuck is a kobawhatever maru?"
Teddy and Venkat stopped to stare blankly at the director of media operations. On the couch, Mitch Henderson did likewise, as did Randall Carter and Mindy Park, who had been dragged along behind Venkat to this emergency meeting. "You must have watched Star Trek," Teddy said.
"Watched it, yeah," Annie said. "Once. I don't worship it like some people."
"Kobayashi Maru is a no-win scenario," Venkat said. "In the story it's a simulation rigged so that everything you do, everything you can think of to do, is the wrong thing to do. No matter what, you die."
"The difference is that this is no simulation," Teddy continued. "Venkat, is there anything we can do to help?"
"We're feeding updates and guidance through a daily Hermes radio message," Venkat said. "That's all we can do. Mark's only options are to keep trying to get around the worst part of the storm or to hunker down and hope it passes quickly. Right now his options are limited to backtracking north or going south. Going west takes him into the broken terrain of Margaritifer Terra, and going east requires him to negotiate the badlands of Thymiamata. Both would slow him down greatly, and the western route takes him directly away from Schiaparelli."
"What I want to know is," Annie said, "if this is a rigged game, who the fuck is doing the rigging?"
"Mars is," Mitch said from the couch. "The planet's not even trying to hide it behind coincidence or natural phenomena or human error. It wants them dead and doesn't care who knows it anymore."
"That," Teddy said quickly, "is something NASA cannot even hint at. Annie, shut down any hints or suppositions that Mars is out to get Watney and his friends."
"Why? Sounds like the plain fucking truth to me, at this point," Annie said.
"It doesn't matter how true it is," Teddy said. "It's unscientific. There's no way to disprove it. And whatever else we are, NASA is a scientific institution. If we can't test it, we don't discuss it."
"Even if we believe it?"
"Especially if we believe it," Venkat said.
Author's Notes:
Unloaded the van in an air-conditioned loading dock, set up most of the booth.
Still feel badly overheated. Brain cooked.
But apparently I still wrote a thing.
This weekend they'll probably get shorter. I hadn't intended to write the Houston bits until they happened, so expect at least one update this week which is just a Mission Log about the length of the one here.
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Sols 477-478
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MISSION LOG — SOL 477
Message from Hermes: "The storm's continuing to expand, and the center's moving almost directly in your direction. Keep pushing as hard as you can. Starting tomorrow we'd like you to start angling a little east of due south. This is partly because the storm has shifted direction of motion to due westwards, and partly because the ground is smoother in that direction. We'll keep you posted."
Wonderful. So the storm's getting bigger and deeper, and the worst part of it is turning to aim directly at us. That's the bad news. But the good news is...
... yeah, I got nothin'.
We made 71.1 kilometers according to the rover computer, as opposed to 71.5 yesterday, despite starting the sol with a full battery charge. That's down to less production from the boosted solar cells on top of the rover, all of which have surprisingly remained intact through all the driving. As of right after I set out the rover's solar panels for recharging, the panels as a whole were producing 92% of their normal voltage. That's opposed to 97% yesterday and 99.5% the sol before.
Not much conversation in the Whinnybago today. The storm is casting a shadow over everything— in all senses of the phrase.
MISSION LOG — SOL 478
Message from Hermes: "The storm is slowing down. Keep moving. All we can do is cross our fingers."
That's not a message you ever want to hear from NASA, even indirectly.
When the batteries hit the critical 5% "stop right now or you'll regret it" level, we'd made 70.3 kilometers. We're almost out of Thymiamata. Solar cells producing at 83% of normal.
We stopped today not far from a middling-sized crater, about ten kilometers across I think. I walked out to it and up to the rim— about a kilometer each way.
Remember, the normal horizon on Mars on flat ground is just over two kilometers. When you stand on a crater rim, though, it's like standing on a scenic outlook on Earth; you're higher than the terrain you're looking towards, so you can see over the curvature of the planet a bit. I should have been able to see the far rim of a ten kilometer wide crater pretty well, given normal conditions.
