AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 549
ARES III SOL 538
The jumbo battery felt heavy in Fireball’s arms.
It shouldn’t have.
It wasn’t a big deal, not really- he could carry two of them easily, probably, except they had to be absolutely sure to treat these giant chunks of crystal as delicately as possible. Starlight had found five cracks in the batteries from the cross-Mars drive- none very large, but any of them could cause a complete break once the repulsor enchantments in the top of the crystals kicked in. She’d taken the time and the magic battery power to cast mending spells on all the cracks, leaving the crystals- and their embedded enchantments- as good as new. Even little cracks couldn’t be allowed, not now.
But as important as absolute care and caution were, Fireball couldn’t keep his mind completely on the job. His mind kept returning to the fact that, after the ninth battery, and after spending two days’ worth of EVA time clearing all the junk removed from Phoenix from the launch zone to make room for the batteries, he felt… no other word for it… weak. And tired. And, well, very un-dragonlike.
Is whatever Dragonfly’s going through contagious? He glanced over at the changeling, who was slowly stringing cables between the batteries to link them to a master switch. All the batteries were lying on their backs, terminals and readouts facing up, making it easier to connect them. The bug was really dragging her hooves and not particularly trying to hide it anymore, but at least she kept going.
Thirteen more days. That’s it. Thirteen days and we’re on our way home. We can lie down, rest, do nothing until we get someplace with real magic again, and with gems that aren’t bucking quartz!
“Okay, right here, Fireball,” Starlight Glimmer said. “Very gently. Metal away from the ship.”
“Yeah, I know.” Fireball brought his mind back to the here and now, shifting his grip and cautiously lowering the meter-and-a-half long shaft of quartz and metal to the dust-covered soil. “There. These would look neat if we stood them up.”
“They sure would,” Starlight agreed. “Right up to the moment they fell over and shattered during liftoff. They’ll work just as well this way, and they can’t fall over like this.”
“We could dig holes.”
“That wouldn’t keep them steady enough. Besides, the controls and terminals are on the bottom. I really don’t want to think about what might happen if we stood these upside down and launched.”
“Heh. How about if we stuck one on top of the ship, upside down, and turned it on?” Fireball grinned. “And watch the battery fly up into the sky.”
“Not funny. It’d probably also wreck the ship. Equal and opposite reaction, remember? C’mon, let’s go get the next booster. Only five to go.”
Fireball followed the unicorn back to the rover. “Can I ask you somethin’?”
“Sure.”
“Have you tried using magic without the batteries lately? Is it stronger or weaker?”
“Not for anything larger than a potato, no. Why do you ask?”
Fireball, on most subjects, believed in brutal honesty. But where it came to his own feelings of weakness, or his own feelings of any kind, he felt no shame or guilt about lying like a pile of rhinestones. “Bug’s getting worse fast on the two-minute magic ration,” he said. “I was wondering if it affected you ponies any.”
“Hm,” Starlight said. “Well, I’m a bad example. Channeling mana from the batteries exposes me to more magic than the rest of us put together.” She stopped walking to look at the MAV, where Cherry Berry and Spitfire were going through more control familiarization drills. “And I don’t think Cherry would admit it if she was feeling weaker, not right now. I know for a fact Spitfire won’t.”
“Huh,” Fireball shrugged. “Anything we can do about it?”
Starlight considered this. “We have nine full batteries,” she said. “We’ll need a little juice to levitate up the last pieces of equipment to install in the Phoenix- the Sparkle Drive, the RTGs, the batteries. Maybe we can go to three minutes. If Mars doesn’t pull something new on us, that is.”
Fireball nodded at Dragonfly again. “Probably a good idea,” he said. “More would be better.”
Starlight shook her head. “If we have extra magic the night before liftoff, we can splurge then. But I just don’t feel safe…”
“Yeah.” Fireball didn’t need her to finish the sentence. “None of us are gonna feel safe til we get off this rock.”
They began walking again. Fireball carefully slid another jumbo battery out of the harness that had carried it from Acidalia Planitia across thirty-seven hundred kilometers of Mars. It felt heavy in his arms too, just like the ones before.
Three minutes instead of two. Hope it’s enough.
Thirteen more days.
THis has to be close to the end right?
Hang in there big guy. Don't be afraid to tell ponies if something's wrong, either. It doesn't make you weak at all, rather it makes the group stronger.
9215103
Well, we're 13 days away from the scheduled "let's get off of Mars" launch... whether that's near the end or not is another matter altogether.
9215119
Hell, there could be an entire sequel of the aftermath. Something The Martian was REALLY lacking. (Although, to be fair, Andy Wier's new book is quite good!)
The number thirteen sounds like a Murphy taunt. I guess launch day will cause the mother of all storms as a Mars farewell.
9215119
Cool. I really should read authro notes.
Because using up your excess unneeded magic just before launch on a planet that actively reacts to when magic is used on a large enough scale is the safe thing to do...
9215139
The reactions aren't instantaneous. The killer storms earlier took some time to build up.
13 more days.... and.... 13 chapters to go to the big chapter
9215148
Just watch. I bet there'll be enough time for Mars to throw something new at them during the launch.
9215153
13 at most. There could always be a multi-Sol chapter.
Are they going to Earth first then the ponies will launch again back to their Earth? Or they're staying there until a rescue team comes up? I didn't pay attention to the story. Paragraphs with all of the rocket science and mars is interesting but I'm still not old to study and remember that and that leads to skipping a few important lines.
9215128
and of course, we KNOW how NASA missions with the number "13" turned out as: jsc.nasa.gov/jscfeatures/photos/Apollo13_35th/as13-59-8500.jpg
9215160
They don't currently have a way back to Equestria (does CSP use Equus? I forget). However, they have enough of a potential lead they could probably build a magic beacon with Earth's help and the joint Equestrian/changeling space program sounds like they've pretty much perfected their dimensional drive if they know where to go to reach Earth, so they could probably be there within days.
9215160
I think the plan is for them to go to Earth and work both on their own to find a way back to their world and have the ones back home keep working. With more magic on Earth they might be able to construct something, and if not at least they have bought their world more time to get them and a less hostile environment to fetch them from.
I can rejoyce knowing that I'll have read the Sol 551 Chapter by the time I arrive at school next week.
9215153 9215190 Less than 13, but more than 1. I currently have at least three more scenes worth writing about before Sol 551. I do not, however, have a scene in me for each of the sols from 538 through 550.
9215164
Come to think of it, I almost feel like NASA wanted to tempt fate, there... Apollo 13, lifting off at 13:13, AND entering the moon's gravity on April 13th? Yeah, no. Even if you're not superstitious, there's no way that NOBODY stopped and said "maybe we should delay this one until the next launch window"...
Soon Fireball will be weak enough for the demon cricket ghosts to TAKE OVER HIS MIND!!
9215218
I go back to school on the 15th of October. Thought I should clear that up.
curve ball incoming!
9215139
They've used large amounts of magic plenty of times without a reaction from Mars. The difference with the storm, possibly storms now with the other coming up at launch, was magical energy was shot directly into the atmosphere.
Its not that any magic on Mars is bad, its when they put enough in a place where Mars can turn it against them that it becomes a problem.
9215412
"Sure, I may act crazy, but that's only because I'm not crazy. I know what happens to people around here who aren't crazy. Why, some of them go mad!"
9215222
Well... I understand it by the American background that 13 may be considered unlucky... but go example here in Italy it’s 17 the real unlucky number... 13 was somewhat lucky as it was the number of matches to guess right on the big “lottery” in the years back. “Fare tredici al totocalcio” was the big dream of everybody ^^
What we need is a space blanket, but for magic. Keep all that magic from floating off as osmosis-ing out to space....
Fireball and his gold deficiency. I wonder how many kilo's he will eat when he gets to Earth.
Are they all coming down with magic-scurvy now? That actually makes a lot of sense. The more that the creature's biology depends on magic to function, the sooner they start to suffer malnutrition.
I still wonder how the Sparkle Drive works in regards of relative velocity. Yesterday, I got the Alcubierre drive to work in KSP, and.... yeah, you can get to your target within a couple hours, sure. So what if you're coming out of warp and you're at 50km/s relative to it? 'cause when you entered warp, you were moving at 30km/s around the Sun with your planet, and your target is on the opposite side of the sun, moving at 20km/s in the opposite direction, and your speed at exit is the same as it was on entry...
I found a way around that. Warp into a point really close to your target planet, such that your trajectory goes 'away' from it. Wait a couple hours - let it brake you some on your escape trajectory. Warp back to the same spot. Repeat as many times as needed.
But without knowing that, using the warp drive is tricky as hell. Change location, retain velocity... and you're so close to your target, and simultaneously so far...
If Fireballs weakening, its goign to end up Mark having to sausage them all over to Hermes with Starlight using the last of her magic to Mojlnir him accross.
9215641
I will just give you scientific report from our space station.
9092683
Post Scriptum: 9166500
this is not looking good our band are getting weaker fast.
9215431
It gets better: You conjugate your verbs depending on who you’re talking about, and you is different depending on whether or not it’s formal/informal and plural/singular. And the formal second-person conjugations are the same as the third-person conjugations. And occasionally you have to change a letter in the rest of the verb. ¡Español!
(P.S. if you know this already ignore me)
9215218
My guesstament puts it between four and five scenes before launch.
Looking forward to it!
9215641
I THINK it retains momentum out of each teleport. Not entirely sure though, I can't explicitly remember if it said that or not.
9215127
There is some excellent The Martian fanfic on AO3, if you'd like that itch scratched. Personally, I'm fine with the book ending where and how it did, since a long ride home would only have had tension if, say, critical ship systems started to fail or serious medical problems presented themselves. I don't think the book would have been improved by hearing about a media circus and tearful reunion over and over and over.
That bug needs hugs. And that dragon needs gold.
9216835
More hugs for the hug-bug!
Is there anyway to get concentrated Essence of Love? We should totally look into ways to liquify emotions.
I find Fireball not telling the truth here incredibly annoying and stupid. This is a life and death situation you all are in on Mars and you should know by now you can't be hiding crap like this from each other. Did Dragonfly's cocoon incident teach you nothing about full disclosure to your team? I would have expected a move like this from him early on in the fic but not now, not after all they've been through.
9220893
There’re launching soon enough that lost strength isn’t that much of a problem.
No reason to put more stress on the rest of the crew right now.
Almost there! Lets do it right!! Power trough!!!
9217092
oh, i've read several fan-stories where changelings COULD turn love into a sort of gel...
BUT that wouldn't do much good in their current situation.
Stamina is near its end. Good they evacuate Mars soon...
Dragons gotta drag'.
There is a story where Luna is banishes to the human moon, she lacks anything, but a magic field let her improvise a lot. Both stories originals are made so much better with magical ponies in it ♡