AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 561
ARES III SOL 550
The cuddle pile formed, probably for the last time. Outside, the last light of the setting Martian sun lit up the thickening haze of dust from the oncoming storm, giving the freezing night an even more unworldly look than usual. None of the castaways saw it. None of them would have cared.
They needed to get an early sleep- or make the attempt. Launch lay less than twelve hours off.
“You know,” Dragonfly said, “it’s gonna feel weird, not sleeping like this anymore.”
“Bite your tongue,” Starlight Glimmer muttered. “I want a real bucking bed again, in a room that isn’t bucking freezing except for body heat.”
I wasn’t so foul-mouthed before, she thought to herself. Being around Mark Watney did this to me.
No, Mars did this to me. Blame this planet. Blame this whole bucking magic-starved universe.
“I can’t promise you a bed,” Mark said. “It’s going to be tight quarters on Hermes. We might even have to take day and night shifts with the bunks.”
“You say we,” Starlight grumbled. “I say, once I get a bunk, they can try prying it out of my stone cold hooves.”
“Quit saying cold,” Spitfire muttered. The pile shuffled as, by unspoken cooperation, they tried to pull two or three of the sleeping rolls into a more snug position over the top of the pile. Both the old RTG and the one from the Phoenix fuel plant now sat in the Phoenix, tucked into the sides of the lower deck. The flight up would be toasty-warm with three thousand watts of heat filling a space about twice that of the interior of Rover 2. But the tradeoff was that, on this last night on Mars, the Whinnybago had only two electrical heaters, the one from Rover 2 and the last remaining Amicitas heater, putting out a mere six hundred watts of heat on battery power.
The Martian night laughed at six hundred watts of heat. The metal hull of the Whinnybago trailer sucked up the heat and hungered for more.
The cuddle pile drew a little tighter.
“No more hay,” Cherry Berry said. “Think about that. No more hay, no more potatoes.”
“No more EVAs,” Fireball rumbled from the core of the pile.
“No more washing out airlock to get rid of perchlorate dust,” Spitfire stammered out.
“No more pouring gallons of water down the toilet so we can talk to home,” Dragonfly sighed.
“That reminds me,” Mark said. “Do your bosses know about tomorrow?”
“Updated them yesterday,” Dragonfly said. “Ship names, launch time, all of it.”
“What did they say?”
“They said, ‘Message received, good luck, out.’ Kinda rude of them.”
“Probably mad they never managed to track this dimension down,” Starlight said. “When we get to Earth I’ll build a huge magic beacon in the most life-packed place on your planet. If that doesn’t work, we’ll apply for citizenship.”
“They’ll find us eventually,” Cherry said. “Twilight and Chrysalis won’t give up.”
“I know they won’t,” Starlight said. “It’s that word ‘eventually’ that worries me.”
“They did say a couple weeks ago that both Twilight and Chrysalis were up on… on Harmony,” Dragonfly said, giving the English word they used for Concordia. “Maybe they’re waiting on launch.”
“They couldn’t track us with all the resources of… Pony-land… how could they do it in orbit?” Starlight grumbled. “No, I think we’re going to spend a lot of time with a lot of humans. Beginning with Mark’s friends on Hermes.”
“Martinez is pretty nice,” Cherry said. “And Commander Lewis and I have been exchanging emails for a while now. She’s got lots of good advice.”
“I wish Johanssen would talk more,” Dragonfly said. “As many times as I’ve disguised myself as her, I don’t really know much about her, even now.”
“Johanssen’s always been shy,” Mark said. “Geeky and introverted. If it wasn’t for NASA, she’d crawl into a computer and never come out again.”
“Huh. Replace NASA with ‘friendship princess work’ and ‘computer’ with ‘library,’ and that describes Twilight,” Starlight said. “Maybe someday you can meet her, Mark, and then you can tell us if she and Johanssen are alike.”
“You’ll meet Johanssen in person sooner,” Mark said. “Then you can tell me.”
“My favorite is Vogel,” Fireball growled from the bottom of the pile.
“Um, Fireball,” Mark said, “Vogel’s spoken directly to us maybe four times in the past year.”
“Exactly.”
“Don’t pay any attention to him,” Dragonfly said. “That’s Fireball’s idea of a joke.”
“I figured,” Mark said. “Anyway, the one we all get to meet first will be Chris Beck. That’s Doctor Beck to you. And he’ll get to know all of us very personally.”
“Dibs on the oral thermometer,” Dragonfly said immediately.
There was a bit of laughter all around, if somewhat nervous.
“Mark?” Cherry asked. “Tell us about your crew.”
“Hm.” Mark shifted his position a little next to Fireball. “Well, Johanssen and I were in the same astronaut group- the last group trained before the Ares III crew was selected. Martinez and Beck were in the group before ours, and Lewis was in the group before that. Vogel’s European Space Agency- he was the last guy picked. I knew Johanssen a little, and I had some training under Lewis, but I didn’t meet the others until the Ares III picks were finalized. And then we had years of training together ahead of us.”
“Yeah, but what are they like?”
“They’re like… well, they’re like them,” Mark said. “None of them are like anyone else. Martinez comes off as a fighter jock, and he loves a joke, the dirtier the better, but he’s also totally nuts for his wife and a committed Catholic- very religious, and not in any jerk I’m-better-than-you or you-ought-to-do-this-too way. Lewis is by-the-book and strict, but she has this silly streak that sneaks up on you sometimes when you don’t expect it. Beck is a doctor twenty-four seven, but once you get around that he’s game for anything. Johanssen is all geek, but she’s also the supermodel of the crew and barely knows it. Vogel is like this human iceberg, keeps most of himself hidden, very quiet, very serious. But he’s funny, in a sly way. When he tells a joke, it can take half an hour before you realize it.”
“So,” Spitfire said, “Lewis, she’s oldest, right?”
“Um… actually…” Mark wiggled under the pile, a little harder than perhaps necessary. “Actually, I’m the oldest. Nine months older than Vogel. Over a year older than Lewis.”
“Really?” Fireball snorted hard enough to shake the whole cuddle pile. “And you the oldest here, too. You able to keep up with us, old man?”
“You know,” Mark said softly, “I never appreciated that joke during training. Don’t care much for it now, either.”
“Don’t worry, Grandfather,” Starlight said. “You just take your nap during launch while the rest of us do all the work.”
“How about we take the nap now?” Dragonfly asked. “It’s an early morning tomorrow.”
As various riffs on “good night” echoed through the pile, Starlight forced her eyes to close. Sleep seemed miles away. Tomorrow anything could happen. They could go home. They could go to Earth. They could die in a fireball. They could die in the vacuum of space.
But whatever happened, it wouldn’t happen on Mars.
The pile shifted again. “Guys?” Mark asked.
“What?” Spitfire grumbled.
“Whatever happens tomorrow… thanks for everything. I don’t know how I would have survived without you. I’m lucky I met you about a dozen times over.”
“Mutual,” Fireball muttered.
“Yeah,” Dragonfly said.
“Thanks,” Spitfire said. “Now go sleep. Good night.”
“Mm.”
The pile grew still again, and gradually the easy sleepers, Fireball, Cherry and Spitfire, began their usual gentle snoring. Starlight listened to the sounds, and thought about tomorrow.
It didn’t take long for her to join them in the last sleep before leaving Mars.
In the book, there's a line about Watney telling his grandchildren that "Back in my day, I had to walk to the rim of a crater! In an EVA suit!" I hadn't realized he was actually the oldest until now, but I'm sure in any continuity he gets use out of that joke long before returning to Earth.
9221015 I should mention that the book says nothing whatever about relative ages. Birthdays of the crew come from the materials made for the movie.
So the launch is going to be the single biggest magical event on Mars yet. I'm expecting Twilight and Chrysalis are on Concordia hoping they can lock on to the launch and jump to its universe.
If I didn't know the story was ending I'd say they'd then crash into each other and bring the whole mess down on Mars.
I can think of no better legacy of Mark Watney. Really; ignore the botanist who grew plants where nothing has ever grown before, and the commitment of a man who can go that long as the only human and keep his sanity - this guy taught the student of the Princess of Friendship the importance of swearing a lot
Breathlessly excited for tomorrow.
Good luck everyone.
Bring them home.
9221026 Very "Rescue from Gilligan's Island", that notion.
And thus we will transition from Mars trying to kill them to the RTG's trying to kill them. I wonder what they plan to do, now that there are 2 of them.
Very sweet. And it's down to the wire. Can't wait. Have to anyway.
Fireball ever gets into human video games, see what he thinks of Wrex from Mass Effect.
I'm really gonna miss this story and it's daily updates.
9221026 Which makes me wonder if that's why they went to orbit, somehow less magical interference from the planet?
It's been a wild ride. Good luck to everyone.
9221057
Maybe all the life using magic and producing magic was providing "background radiation," and they waNTED TO ISOLATE THEMSELVES TO GET A CLEARER PICTURE OF The magic beacon Glim-Glam sets up once they are earth.
And sorry for the caps, I didn't realize my caps lock was on and I don't want to retype that.
9221057
Hey, it worked for the Hubble.
Tonight we sleep. For tomorrow we die.
9221057
Maybe they can channel the song of the spheres somehow, up there where they can hear the universe, and get help with that.
Yes or no...
Do we get at least ONE chapter of the ponies on Earth?
9221082
as tomorrow we make one last video of ourself walking to our rocket with this music playing
9221026
Makes sense. Previously, Twilight’s location attempts were limited by the endurance of the regular mana batteries and Starlight herself. Now there will be a set of jumbo mana batteries firing continuously for several minutes. Throw in Twilight moving operations to Concordia during the launch—which is probably a good way to minimize background magic “noise” as well, or at least compensate for it by making the same observations at the same time back on Equus—and I think you’re spot-on. What Twilight’s trying to do in locating the castaways is probably several orders of magnitude more difficult than detecting a gravity wave, after all.
Just for kicks and grins I'm predicting that Twilight will somehow find a way to track them using the lift-off spell and they pop in at the very last minute and snatch them and Hermes out of the void of space. Then it's a nice convenient pop to Earth while NASA is still waiting to hear how the launch went off XD
9221090
Eggplant here we come!
The launch's gonna be a doozy.
... I wonder if Chryssie and Twilight managed to drive each other up the wall by now.
I'm going to put this on my "Featured" wall on my page. Also, going to miss reading this. Boy this was a great ride.
Finale HYPE! Still, I'm gonna miss these daily updates. At least CSP will continue once this is done, right?
9221170 Yes, but don't expect daily updates on THAT. In fact, when this wraps up, my next project (of which I've already written a thousand words) is an entry for FoME's Villain Exchange Program contest. Aside from that, I'm probably going to take it easy until after my trip to South Carolina for BanzaiCon (assuming it doesn't get cancelled after SC's second hurricane in two months).
If and when I resume daily writing, it won't be chapter-per-day here, but snippets posted for Patreon supporters only, posted here (a) if pony-related and (b) once an actual chapter is completed.
9221090 Mu.
And I'm hearing the Martian night like this:
Guess Spitfire's English is getting better.
Smart Bug. Can you even use the other end thermometer on a Ling?
Surprised Mark didn't get a chance to talk about the Hermes crew to the Equestrians before now.
9221037 Well, when one RTG loves another RTG very, very much...
9221202 Oh, Mark's talked about them quite a lot. But they want to hear more, or hear it again, or... well, they just want to hear something. It's early bedtime, and tomorrow is the biggest day of their lives to date.
(Possibly the last day, too, but they hope not.)
Sol 551 is written.
And you're going to make us wait A WHOLE ENTIRE DAY to see it.
You are more evil than Mars itself.
9221212 It took me several days to write it. You can take more than one day to read it.
9221203
I’m imagining them saying “Good night. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.”
And so its about to begin...
kinda surprised no one made an actual count down timer and posted it here via an enbedded link XD
9221203
Yeah, I heard about that. So have several spots in Nevada, some in Russia, and two in Japan.
Nuclear power is nice, and you don't run out of fuel for thousands and thousands of years, but I tend to get nervous about death I can't see or smell. Irrational of me, but there you have it...
9221203
*SCREAMING INTERNALLY*
Still, it was she who taught Mark word "bucking".
9221071
Well, Lightning Dust tried
vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/3/32/Scootaloo%27s_rocket_shoots_upward_S8E20.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/640?cb=20180910152234
So I may or may not be working on a thing inspired by the impending Sol 551 launch...
i.imgur.com/FKd07dX.png
9221202
Yes you can. Orally.
Eat, drink, and be merry, my fellows, for on the morrow we clench our cheeks and ride on a pillar of fire into the coldest, most merciless sea that ever did spread its jaws and snap at us for the simple crime of saying...
"UP! YOOOOOUUUUURS!!!"
My selection for launch day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa6QlTC7CHA&list=RDbKnXxICFT1I&index=19
9221156 In the first two minutes together, probably.
9221371
I'm thinking David Bowie- Space Oddity.
It’s happening!
stubbornthoughts.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/kermit-the-frog-flail.gif
9221093
9221371
Both solid choices, but I for one suspect their sentiments on finally leaving Mars will be a bit more combative:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZLnehahDBs
(warning for the sensitive: dirty language)
9221351
You were saying?
Well, we're here. Tomorrow is launch day. Godspeed.
Looking forward to tomorrow.
It's been one hell of a ride.
9221371
A fellow Star Citizen? Nice.
However, I have to submit this as my choice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKlMOblghiQ
Honest question are we gonna get any Starlight x Mark because I need this in my life.