Sol 380
AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 386
ARES III SOL 380
The castaways gathered around the worktable for the all too usual breakfast of alfalfa and potatoes, in various proportions.
“So,” Mark said, “I’m thinking that, over the next couple of days, we start migrating food for the trip over to the trailer. The food packs and stuff.”
“I’m not talking to you,” Dragonfly announced, out of the blue.
Mark twitched. “What? Why not?”
“You mentioned food.” The changeling, after an effort that might be called heroic if ancient legends ever told tales of epic accomplishments in the realm of disgusting things, had produced enough rope and patches to weave the cables required for the heavy-duty rover harness that would carry the jumbo batteries. She’d spent the previous day sick as a dog, and this morning she held one of the hab’s two magic batteries in a full-body hug and hissed at anyone who came too close.
Mark shrugged. “Anyway, how should we do it? We’ve got the last hay harvest a week from now, and that needs to go in the back to be used last thing before launch.” He looked at Cherry Berry. “It’s your ship. What do you think?”
“I’m not talking to you either,” Cherry Berry said.
“What?? Dragonfly I can understand, but why you?” Mark asked.
“I just worked it out last night,” Cherry said. “With the booster system we could have re-launched our ship. With new batteries we could have powered engines, used Sparkle Drive on low power. We would be on the way to Earth right now, if you hadn’t had us cut the engine room off the ship.”
Mark sighed. “Cherry,” he said, “the ship was compromised. The engine room had a huge hole in it. Half the outer skin was missing, and we ripped the rest off so we could salvage your cooling system for the farm. Your ship was never going to fly again, even if we’d thought of the booster system before we cut the tail off.”
Cherry Berry looked at Starlight Glimmer. “Starlight, tell the ship-destroying ape what the words ‘not talking to you’ mean.”
Starlight waved off this duty with both forehooves. “Oh, no,” she said. “I’m not getting in the middle of this one.”
The corner of Cherry’s mouth turned up. “So you’re not speaking to him, either?”
“I… um… buck!” Starlight blushed.
Mark rolled his eyes. “Spitfire?”
“If commander not talking to you,” Spitfire said, “I not talking to you neither.”
Fireball crunched his last flake of quartz and rumbled, “I’ll talk to you, Mark.”
Mark smiled. “Thank you, Fireball. I appreciate it.”
Fireball nodded. “You an idiot, Mark. Stupid. Complete dipstick. If you looked up in a rainstorm, you’d drown.”
“Never mind,” Mark grumbled, and ate a potato with slightly more disgust than usual, if that was possible.
[09:06] WATNEY: Venkat? Commander? Guys? You’re still talking to me, right?
[09:29] HERMES: What did you do now, Mark?
[09:33] JPL: What did you do now, Mark?
[09:55] WATNEY: I didn’t do anything! It’s just apparently all my guests woke up on the wrong side of the bunk this mor
[09:58] WATNEY: In stereo? Gee, thanks, guys. Your faith in me is touching. Never mind.
By the way, still no storm. Where’s the kaboom? There was supposed to be a Hab-shattering kaboom?
[10:21] HERMES: Sorry, Mark. Just a little joke.
[10:27] JPL: Don’t question gifts Mars gives you. The normal dust distribution is beginning to reassert itself, but no signs of any major wind or thick dust clouds. The sky should be properly pink again in a day or two. We’ll let you know if any storms come up anywhere on the planet. In the meantime, go sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done, whatever it was.
[14:11] WATNEY: I really didn’t do anything. And the Hab hasn’t got a corner.
[14:38] JPL: Improvise. You do it so well.
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There seems to be a line or two missing from the radio exchange at the end of the chapter.
We're not talking to you either.
9071659
No it don't
Nice Marvin the Martian reference
Dragonfly needs so many hugs.
Looks like some
ponyone misplaced the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator again.It's Mars. You'd best question every gift horse it sends you and look it in the mouth because it might be a future assassin.
Am I missing something? Why they giving him the cold shoulder?
I refer Dragonfly to the Aegean Stables. At least Hercules had a river to reroute.
9071716 Cherry actually has something approaching a good reason, though her wishful thinking makes her underestimate just how wrecked Amicitas was. Dragonfly is just grumpy, Starlight caught in a logic trap, and Spitfire and Fireball just piling on for fun.
9071717 Hercules only had to empty the stables. He wasn't asked to fill them.
Pink skies? I thought the Martian sky was more of a butterscotch/caramel color.
okay chrysalis do something useful, verbally bitch-slap the crew.
Don't really get what Starlight's deal is. She's embarrassed about apparently not talking to Mark either when it's to not get in the middle of an argument?
Hardin County? Man, you've got my sympathy. Unless it's some appreciable acreage with some timber ready for harvest...unless the tree pirates show up and clear cut your lots. Which I've heard is a thing.
9071772
I think the idea is that, if she talks to Mark, she has to take sides, which she doesn't want to do, but by not talking to Mark, she's taking a side by default. Which she's trying to figure out how to get out of doing.
9071729
Exactly! So there’s precedent AND she should get more credit than Herc for that one.
9071794
Is that the story where Herc had to clean the stables, but the only way he could do that was by rerouting the river through them?
9071688
I love you for remembering that detail.
9071688
Wait. Fimfic's BBcode supports cited quotes? Why was I not informed of this and how do I use them?
9071801
Pretty much. The idea was to make him spend years shoveling literal mountains of crap to humiliate him, since they’d figured out that just throwing him at bigger monsters probably wouldn’t work.
All the hugs to Dragonfly!
Man, that post-Thanksgiving depression hit harder than expected...
Keep going! ;)
9071823
9071915
Ahh, so a variation on the syntax vBulletin uses. Thanks.
An outbreak of Sporktacus occurs?
Mars is a planet. Its supposed to take a while for anything to change even when pushed by the sun.
Wonder if the biggest problem theyre going to have is something going BOOM elsewhere and making it rain. With mud and Wadis and slides and having to remove batteries to float accross lakes after Caulking.
9071780
Probably by telling Cherry that she is being silly and to knock it off. As the second in command smacking her commander upside the head when she's going off the rails is kinda in the job description :P
9072000
Not as if that Spocks or Rikers job any easier...
If Mark was being mean, he could mention that if not for him, they'd be dead, and if not for them, he'd never be in this situation.
Wait, she made all that rope... How is she even sitting?! Hugs for the Cuddlebug!
I never knew “not being presciencent” was a punishable offense. And shut up Starlight, I can hear your monarchist self from over here.
9071774
On the one hand, that would really suck. Trees aren't easy to replace. On the other, tree pirates have some amazing story potential.
Sorry, Mark. It's unofficial Pick on Watney Day. Don't worry, I'm sure someone else will find their way into the spotlight soon.
9071661
We're several decades in the past and in another universe besides. I don't think Mark could hear us if we tried.
Unless you're proposing we go to Mars and leave time capsules for him...
...So they all just decided to be assholes today?
9072217
Decided? Spitfire always is.
Cherry just upset that no one thought of the magic launcher system that could have salvaged her ship, even if it can't. The hull's breached, its superstructure broken, the magic batteries are mostly dead. The sparkle drive not useful and dangerous.
Though curious what is with starlight's stance. Fireball and Spitfire piling on the fun hehe.
9072239
Starlight takes same stance I do in situation like that.
I clearly don't have full picture of each side's opinion, I have to deal/live with each side after this, and I usually buck up and will find myself aggravating both, which I really, really do not want.
I'll wait out the initial blast and would begin to quench wildfires it left behind.
More than decade of experience had shown me that stepping in just made me a mutual enemy, even if briefly.
9072015
They just pull their friend status whenever possible.
Even Quark used that trick.
9072200
Imagine how much Mark would appreciate apparently precognitive time capsules (A) buried on Mars rather than somewhere he could find them before being stranded and (B) containing harsh words rather than, say, seasonings.
9072024 Yes, of them all Dragonfly has the best reason to be grumpy.
Especially since, though I haven't said it explicitly in story, the marvels of the changeling digestive system require some magic to create. Hence the reason she's cuddling up to a battery.
I had an idea. Couldn't Starlight make solar panels more effective?
9072024
Yeah that much throwingup would be like having the stomach flue an up chucking every minute.
9072532
Considering 20% is "impossibly" efficient, anything is to the good (I seem to recall that about 9% is the high end for consumer grade panels). I doubt it'll be an enchantment since we were told many chapters ago that while electricity-mana conversion is possible, it'll still take like 50 years to make a physical demonstration of the theory. However, there's nothing stopping Starlight from using magic to make the silicon matrix more efficient to the limit of its physical properties-- removing impurities, creating a smaller crystal lattice, and so on.
9072532
9072623
Another idea interesting idea would be to use the same light gathering enchantment she used for the farm to simply concentrate more light on the panels. The efficiency wouldn't change but the total amount of power would increase drastically, assuming it did not overheat the panels.
Was that a Babylon 5 joke?
9072831
You mean, this?
No, Watney’s clearly referencing Marvin the Martian from decades earlier.
9072826
Sure. I'd like to see that, too. "We are not alone" covers a lot of ground.
I dunno, knowing that facial recognition is good enough with the right camera to hit from 50 feet and that the government can monitor all voice communication for keywords... I'd feel pretty paranoid in that case. I dont need to know there are multiple dimensions to be paranoid.
9072371
I like to think he'd be equally parts angry about it, and ammused/appreciative of the humor!
9071659
Judging by the timestamps, I think that Watney stopped typing right at the instant the stereo reply from Hermes arrived and started a new reply.
I know it’s meant to be intimidating, but a hissing Dragonfly just sounds to adorable right now.
Damn.