Sol 228
AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 230
ARES III SOL 228
“Mark.”
Mark’s head jerked up. He’d fallen asleep on his work stool. His sleep-muddled eyes ran around the Hab, along the rows of recently harvested and replanted potato plants, past the bunks full of ponies and dragon, over the computers scattered here and there. Everyone was asleep except for him… so who was whispering his name?
“Mark.”
He glanced up at the mission clock, hanging over the kitchen and lab area. 02:13 hours. The middle of the night. Why hadn’t he sacked out? And who-
“Mark.”
The whisper was a little louder this time, and coming from behind him. He swiveled to face Airlock 3 and saw…
… no. It couldn’t be. Absolutely impossible.
Beth Johanssen, wearing tattered clothes almost identical to the ones he currently wore, stood by the inner airlock door, leaning against the metal frame with one hand. “Mark,” she whispered again, imploring, eyes wide, face full of unreadable emotions.
Warnings rang through Mark Watney’s brain. This is absolutely impossible. Beth is on Hermes, still only a dozen or so days out of Earth on that wacko return trajectory. This is a dream. Or maybe a nightmare. Are we going to relive The Thing?
But it didn’t feel like a dream. It felt real. And a real human being was in front of him, the first one he’d seen in person for over seven months. And this was no random passerby, either: Johanssen was a crewmate, someone he’d spent four years living, training, doing absolutely everything with. This was someone closer to him than blood family. And she was here, only a few yards away.
He stood up and walked over to Johanssen, every logical thought his sleepy mind could devise screaming he shouldn’t, instincts older than logic demanding that he must. Instinct won.
“Johanssen,” he gasped, bending down and hugging the small woman desperately. She clung to him in return, pulling on his arms for support. “Beth… Beth, I…”
“Maaaaark,” Johanssen hissed, pulling herself tightly to his body.
“God, I’ve missed you so much,” Mark said. “Where is everybody? God, it’s just so good to…” Words failed him. He couldn’t express, in this moment, how much love he felt, how much loneliness had lifted off his shoulders.
He held Johanssen’s shoulders, pushing back from the embrace so he could look her in the eyes.
The solid blue, pupilless eyes glowed faintly in the dim Hab night-mode lighting.
Johanssen opened her mouth, but all that emerged was a serpentine- no, an insectile- hiss.
And Mark Watney knew nothing more.
Cherry Berry hadn’t slept well. She had nightmares of her crew dying- not in sensible ways, either, but just keeling over and dramatically ceasing to breathe. She’d been powerless to prevent it- well, of course she was, when none of them were dying for any apparent cause. And they just kept dying at her, again and again, as if they were driving home the point that they were dying and, somehow, that it was all Cherry’s fault.
The flash of the Hab lights going from night to day mode roused her. She sat up on her bunk, licking her teeth, blinking her eyes, trying to sweep the last bad dreams out of her head and get her brain working again.
Death. Yeah. Small wonder she’d dreamed about it. Twilight Sparkle had finally managed to get Auntie Gardner out of Horseton to answer questions. The changeling healer hadn’t minced words. Based on the symptoms, Dragonfly was in the terminal stages of starvation. No changeling free to do anything about it would ever allow itself to get into that condition, and the hive would take measures long before any changeling got that bad. Auntie had only heard of starvation cases from her teacher, and so she only know what she had been told; that pits and holes in the torso were the final stage of deterioration.
The others had suggested that Auntie Gardner, being a changeling, might be lying. But for what reason? Dragonfly was popular in Chrysalis’s hive- a hero. Besides, Cherry knew Auntie from the earliest days of the Changeling Space Program, one of a number of changelings who tended to the broken limbs, wings and other parts of wanna-be astronauts whose idea of space travel had, at the time, begun and ended with the idea of throwing one another really fast through the air. Changeling healers were no-nonsense, unimaginative, and dedicated to their duty- and they never lied about a diagnosis.
(They also had a bedside manner that a yak would find unsympathetic, one reason why Chrysalis had hired pony medics almost as soon as Horseton Space Center opened for business.)
But Cherry didn’t want to believe it. Dragonfly had been with the program from the start. She’d been a pilot, an engineer, a leader… and, yes, a hero, and not just to changelings. And every time she went up, it seemed, she found some way of “taunting the Pale Horse,” as she called it, seeking thrills by endangering her own life. She’d lived. She’d thrived on it. If one pony was going to survive this awful, horrible planet, Dragonfly was the one Cherry Berry would have bet on.
But be fair, Cherry Berry thought. How much of this is you believing in Dragonfly, when we all knew she wasn’t doing well, and how much of it is you not wanting to admit that you lost a member of your crew?
She sighed. She was hungry, and she knew Dragonfly would be hungry, too.
If she lived through the night.
Shut up, stupid thoughts.
There was a small bundle of hay by Airlock 2, which had been intended for last night’s supper. Nopony had wanted it. Cherry didn’t particularly want it now, but her stomach demanded something. She slid off her bunk onto all fours and walked, slowly, towards the hay.
She’d got to the hay and pulled out a double hoofful to munch on before she realized that things were very, very wrong.
The ponies’ spacesuits were scattered all over the dirt, backpacks opened to reveal the thruster systems inside, complete with their chunks of crystal batteries. The five large mana batteries in the Hab had been dragged from their depository near Airlock 2, left lying on their sides. Even the broken battery was there, its bad terminal reattached with a glob of…
… changeling goo.
Cherry looked at the worktable they’d cleared- no Dragonfly.
Cherry looked at the suits- one of the orange ones was missing.
And there, by Airlock Three, Mark sat, propped up against the frame of the airlock, motionless except for the slight rising and falling of his chest, eyes staring out at nothing. Next to him Sojourner sat, facing the airlock, its round spectrometer "nose" pushed up against the door.
Puzzle pieces slotted into position with incredible speed.
Oh buck oh buck oh buck oh BUCK.
“SUIT UP!!” she screamed, paying no notice to the sudden groans and scrambling as the others woke up in response to reflexes imbued by hundreds of drills. She kept her eyes on Mark, who hadn’t budged. She reached out a hoof and touched his leg. “Mark?” she asked, much more gently. “Mark, all right? You all right, Mark?”
“Beth…” The name flowed downhill on inertia, with practically no force or inflection behind it. “Johannsen… Johannsen…” Mark’s eyes slowly tracked around Cherry- literally around her, never actually focusing at her- before returning to their neutral state.
“What the buck? What happened to all the suits?”
“Who left the thruster packs open?”
“Hey, where’s Dragonfly?”
“Her suit’s not here!”
“Guys!” Cherry Berry called out, switching to Equestrian. “Fireball, Spitfire, get Mark to a bunk now. Starlight, are you okay to check the suits?”
“I think so,” Starlight said. “My head still hurts a bit, but-“
“Dragonfly woke up last night,” Cherry said. “I think she went into some kind of weird feeding frenzy, beginning with Mark. I have no idea why she didn’t do the same to the rest of us.”
“Because Mark feeds her the most,” Spitfire said. “She said that once to me. Asked me to keep it secret.”
“Me, too,” Starlight added. “That’s why she asked us not to talk about shape-shifting. She wasn’t just afraid that humans would fear changelings. She was afraid that Mark would stop loving her.”
Cherry groaned. “Once we find her, we’re all going to have a talk about secrets,” she said. “Secrets, and why you do NOT KEEP THEM FROM YOUR CREWMATES!”
“We’re not going after her in these suits,” Spitfire said. “I just checked my suit’s system power. It reads at only twelve percent. She must have drained them.”
“Like she drained the batteries,” Starlight nodded, gesturing at the scattered blocks of quartz and metal.
“Buck,” Cherry groaned, and then added in English, “Dammit!”
They noticed the live computer only after Mark was in his bunk, still unresponsive. Dragonfly had left a note.
First: tell Irene Shields I release her from her promise. She is to tell NASA everything, at once.
Second: tell my queen I am sorry. I tried to hold out. Now I’ve spoiled it for us all, for changelings and also for ponies.
I had to save Mark. I didn’t think about it- I just did it. But I didn’t have a battery- only me. The last thing I remember was knowing that I’d set the engine down safely. Then I passed out.
When I came to my senses I was standing over Mark. I’d just drained him dry. I think I took the shape of his friend Johannsen to do it, but I don’t remember clearly.
You see, if a changeling is hungry enough, or if we’re really close to a huge supply of love, we go wild. We can’t stop ourselves. Changelings never starve to death. Our instincts kick in before that point and make us feed, even if it’s smarter for us not to. But I’ve been starving for magic, not for food, and recently I’ve been right on the edge.
I still am. I’ve drained every source of magic here except for you all, and it’s not enough. I have to get out of here before I go under again and feed on you. I can only write this because of how terrible I feel for what I did to Mark, and how I’ve failed all of you- my crew, my hive, everyone.
When you find me, because ponies will look for friends even if they don’t deserve finding, leave me where I am. I am danger to the mission. Don’t take me to the MAV. The last thing you need is a wild animal in a rocket ship during liftoff.
I must leave now while I can. I am so very sorry.
They read the note. Then, carefully, they copied the note into an email and sent it to Dr. Shields.
That afternoon, once the suits had regenerated enough power to run comms and navigation for the gallop to the cave farm and back, Cherry Berry and Spitfire found Dragonfly. Most of the potato plants had been eaten down to the ground, and a large dark green cocoon- not the soft, squishy pods changelings used to store victims, but an actual opaque, hard-shelled cocoon- hung from the crystals on the wall just inside the airlock, not far from the life support box.
The cocoon had two English words on it, written in dried goo splashes: LEAVE ME.
They did, but only after a long and, on Cherry’s part at least, truly heartfelt hug.
[15:37] WATNEY: Starlight Glimmer here, Dr. Kapoor. Sorry to interrupt the software download, but we have an urgent report. This will be a long one, so please be patient.
[16:02] WATNEY: I will begin by mentioning something we haven’t done before; that all of us are showing symptoms of what might be called magic withdrawal. With us ponies the symptoms are very minor. Our coats are a little dull, our marks a bit faded. Fireball can’t breathe fire anymore except when we have a magic field generator working.
But Dragonfly is the most magical of us all, so she felt the symptoms worst of all. That is because of a thing we did not tell you before. Dragonfly is a shapeshifter, able to change herself into absolutely anything. This is how they fed on us ponies for the love they eat- by disguising themselves as loved ones and infiltrating our society, before the space race and the peace came.
We knew Dragonfly was not feeling well, but we didn’t know why until fairly recently. She was keeping her sickness from us, just like she asked us to keep her shapeshift powers from you, because she was afraid. When we figured out Dragonfly was sick from lack of magic, we began taking steps to relieve the problem. We thought that would fix it. We didn’t know how serious it was, or the most important thing Dragonfly was holding back from us.
That brings us to the events of yesterday, Sol 227…
Venkat Kapoor read the chat post, which went on in horrifying detail. It concluded:
… Mark is in some sort of trance. He obeys orders only if we keep repeating them, if we keep pushing him to do them. And he won’t eat no matter how hard we push. If he hasn’t recovered by tomorrow we’ll try raiding his food packs to see if he responds to something that isn’t potatoes.
On behalf of Commander Cherry Berry and all of us, we apologize for what’s happened. Please remember that Dragonfly meant well. She was sick, and she made herself sick almost to death saving Mark’s life. It was in that condition that she did what she did. We can’t blame you for being mad that we kept her secrets, but we forgive her for that, and we forgive her for what the sickness made her do.
We will try to go forward with the rover procedures. It will be very difficult without Mark, so we hope he recovers soon. But we have to take care of him, and also we have to take care of Dragonfly. We will find a way to heal her. We will not leave her behind.
Ask Dr. Shields for more details. We will answer any questions you have.
Venkat reached for his phone, selecting a contact from the list and dialing it.
Two rings, and then a loud, grouchy voice. “What do you want, Venkat?” Annie snapped. “I have a press conference in five minutes.”
“Cancel it,” Venkat ordered. “Tell them we’re preparing a special press release and need more time.”
“A what?” Venkat could hear Annie blinking over the momentarily silent line. “What press release? This is supposed to be a routine presser, no news after the unexplained abort of the rocket test yesterday. What’s happened?”
“I’ll explain in a minute. But cancel that right now, and then put an embargo on all outgoing data feeds. Especially the Pathfinder chat. We need to block that going out at once. And by the way, thank you for pushing for the delayed release.”
“What the fuck, Venk?” Annie snapped. “Did somebody fucking die up there or something?”
Venkat didn’t answer.
“… fuck,” Annie gasped as it sank in. “Who, Venk? Tell me who?”
“Lock the doors on our data, Annie,” Venkat said. “Then read the chat log for today. And expect a meeting in Teddy’s office when you’re done. I’m calling him next.”
“But who- oh, fuck it.” The line went dead.
Venkat leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Fuck is right,” he muttered to himself. “God, oh God.” He calmed himself, selected Teddy’s number from his contacts, and dialed. “God, oh God,” he repeated.
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Boy howdy did I show expert timing in when to catch up completely with this story.
Queen Dragonfly incoming.
Whelp... Shit, fan. Fan, shit.
8916942
Honestly, that would be kinda dumb. She's starved to near death, her having the energy to transform into a queen would break my SoD like a twig.
Some kind of hibernation protocol to preserve energy seems far more likely.
Oh noooo x2 combo
I predict the ESA/CSP rescue mission will reach Mars before the NASA/CNSA/ESA (the other one) mission does based on the fact that the story isn't tagged "dark," "sad," or "tragedy," with implies they all get off of Mars alive, and I can't see that happening following their current plan with Dragonfly and Mark disabled for the time being, and possibly quite some time to come.
8916949
Could be that being a Queen is a more efficient form that you can only gain by being pushed to the brink and then recovering from. The body literally breaking down and rebuilding near all of itself like butterflies do.
...if so, though, then Dragonfly is probably stuck in that cocoon near indefinably until a much harder rescue operations can be pulled off without waking up a revenues monster, and even if she gains enough food to wake slash finish the metamorphosis it might not be the same changeling that claws itself out that went in.
I called it!
8916963
Thing is, caterpillars gorge themselves to fuel their transformation into a butterfly, the exact opposite of what Dragonfly has been doing.
Oh. Oh, horseapples.
Good grief! Mars has really hit hard this time. And with one of those long-game strikes no less. One shudders to think about what’s going to happen next.
I would think that with as many times as they'd made the trip, it would be fairly ingrained into their memory. Still not smart to go out before they're charged, though.
8916967
Fair point.
I guess what I just said could still hold true if the 'queen cocoon' gorges itself on the magic background field itself 'normally,' instead of love and that's why Chrysalis feels that strange presence clearer in Equestria space...
But, yeah, that's still not good news for Dragonfly in this case, being trapped on planet 'HATEHATEHATEHATE You.'
8916949 If changelings metamorphose into queens under certain conditions (like how parrotfish can change sex), and said metamorphosis is incapable of self-aborting in the absence of magic, then it's possible that Dragonfly is starving because she's turning into a queen.
Of course, hibernation is possible, too.
Or even metamorphosis into something else, like a completely new form that is better adapted to Mars. Imagine if Dragonfly adapted to to feed on what the red planet seems to have in abundance: "Yes, Mars, your hatred sustains me!"
8916989
Parrotfish can change sex? I know goldfish can...
Finally, jesus bucking christ, finally a killer alien bug acting like it's supposed to.
I feel whole again.
8916990
NO. EVERYONE IS GETTING OUT OF THIS ALIVE. YOU WILL NOT TAKE THIS FROM ME.
And now they have to play the game of "catch the bug".
8916990
That kinda goes against the spirit of The Martian. It's a book less about "will Watney survive" and more "What disasters will Mars throw at Watney and how will he use SCIENCE! to survive anyway"
Well, frak x2.
At least I can't claim this isn't an intensely interesting situation.
8916958
Mark is definitely not disabled for the time being... He will probably recover in relatively short order...
Dragonfly is a different thing...
To everyone saying "Just cocoon someone," congratulations. You got your wish.
This is going to take some serious damage control on both planets. At least the engine's still intact. A tattered silver lining on a very dark cloud, but there's something.
8916945
We've already met. Wasn't any more pleasant that time.
Ugh. Stab me some more.
Keep in mind, everyone, that we can’t blame this one on Mars:
I’m sorry, but this is Dragonfly’s fault.
... Yikes.
Well... if Dragonfly is just hibernating or something along those lines, they can always just load up her cocoon as cargo and take her with them that way. Assuming, of course, that her current state won't change without outside interference ("OK Dragonfly, lots of love and magic here, wakey wakey").
On the other hand, if she wakes up on her own, say, on Hermes, then there'll be a problem. And a late-story genre shift to horror ("Dragonfly, please, no!" *Hissss* "Arrgh...")
8916925
Welcome to the cliff. Are you hanging comfortably?
8917037
Then I have to honestly say you'd be a very bad The Martian writer.
The Feels are strong with this one.
I know you can’t spoil it but is Dragonfly gone for the rest of the series? I will miss my adorable bug pone.
8917047
Wrong fan...
Meant the one that circulates air, not you
Not much of a wham. This wasn’t exactly hard to see coming.
Got to wonder how good the life support of a cocoon is. Potentially Dragonfly could just sit there until Chrysalis comes to dig her out and yell at her.
It's even worse than I thought. Or imagined.
Dragonfly is probably on the equivalent of hybernation. Lets hope all works out.
How big of a cocoon are we talking about? Just enough for a pony? It's possibly transportable, then. Possible to take it to earth... but will earth accept it?
8917075
You got a thumb up...
Uh oh.
As much sympathy as I have for Dragonfly, what happened, and what will follow, is all on her. If it didn't happen now, it was just a matter of time, and she knew it.
As much as I like her...I hope that she, and the rest of the changelings, will have to face actual consequences for their actions.
Hopefully she doesn't go complete Xenomorph when she does wake up.
8917002
Dragonfly cocooned herself in the Mars Cave.
That counts as "caught".
Huh. I should have seen this coming, yet I'm taken totally by surprise. Good thing NASA delayed the release when they did.
I saw this coming, but I didn't see it coming so fast. Does Horseton have a procedure for this, I wonder?
Whoa. I am going to need some time to process this
damn. so that happened.
Now I regret reading this early. I normally wait until morning with reading the new chapters, (because timezones), but I saw this was up(presumably earlier than normally), so... what the heck. Now, I desperately NEED the next chapter. How can I possibly sleep now? (for context, local time now is 22:00)
Well... at least they don't need to worry about feeding her anymore. She'll probably "recharge" just fine in that cave.
Thankfully we already know changing takes too much magic or I'd be worried about her having replaced someone. An opaque cocoon with a note like that sounds like a great way to hide someone.
Things are about to get very, very ugly...
.........*bleeeeeeeeep*
Will the suit crystals recharge?
8917229
They did, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to head to the cave
8916925
Sorry bro. You just got a terrible cliffhanger.
8917153
Yeah, I somehow missed that.
I still think they will try and coax her out. They don't exactly have a lot of workforce, so each pair of hooves (and, more importantly, each horn!) counts.
8917130
Sadly, "what they don't know, can't harm them" mindset tends to end up with "what they don't know, can kill them" kind of situation.
8917095
On the bright side, it'll make the trip easier since she's already packed herself into luggage.
It should prove fascinating how Mark recovers from this and deals with the resulting fallout. Humans have never encountered anything like Changelings and their dietary needs. I can see a number of similarities to drugs causing the mental lethargy but since this isn't a pill doing it, what will happen? Are there any withdrawal symptoms? Does the victim become more susceptible or resistant to each feeding? You'd need a larger group to test if that varies between people who might be genetically predispositioned one way or the other. And what of people with emotional disparity such as bipolar disorders? Would regular feeding balance or exaggerate the disorders? Much like sending electrical impulses to the nerve stem to quiet Multiple Sclerosis, I wonder if feeding would quiet bipolar and ADHD without the need for heavy medication-- as an example.
Either way, the ponies here would never leave a crew member behind and Dragonfly will not be the first. Mark, when he recovers, might be mad, or hurt at Dragonfly but he will probably also feel as the ponies do. I mean, at this point, they're practically family.
And if for nothing else, than to give a hateful Mars the finger when they all get to safety. All the fingers.
8916949
Except, notice where she put her cocoon?
Right next to the strongest source on magic on Mars: the cave farm. Consider the rate at which the magic batteries recharge. Think about how she was able to absorb so much ambient magic the other day that the air around her turned black. I wonder whether the batteries will even be able to charge, with her siphoning from the field.
Of course, they do still have months.