hurt a lot. I had to take breaks, stretch out, and generally convince myself to body-slam the wall again and again.
It took all damn night, but I made it.
I’m 10 meters from the Hab now. I can’t get any closer, cause the debris from the decompression is all over the place. This isn’t an “all-terrain” airlock. I can’t roll over that shit.
It was morning when the Hab popped. Now it’s morning again. I’ve been in this damn box for an entire day. But I’m leaving soon.
I’m in the EVA suit now, and ready to roll.
All right… ok…. Once more through the plan: Use the manual valves to equalize the airlock. Get out and hurry to the Hab. Wander around under the collapsed canvas. Find Martinez’s suit (or Vogel’s if I run in to it first). Get to the rover. Then I’m safe.
If I run out of time before finding a suit, I’ll just run to the rover. I’d be in trouble, but I’d have time to think and materials to work with.
Deep breath… here we go!
LOG ENTRY: SOL 120
I’m alive! And I’m in the rover!
Things didn’t go exactly as planned, but I’m not dead, so it’s a win.
Equalizing the airlock went fine. I was out on the surface within 30 seconds. Skipping toward the Hab (the fastest way to move in this gravity) I passed through the field of debris. The rupture had really sent things flying, myself included.
It was hard to see; my faceplate was covered by the makeshift patch. Fortunately, my arm had a camera. NASA discovered that turning your whole EVA-suited body to look at something was a strenuous waste of time. So they mounted a small camera on the right arm. The feed is projected on the inner faceplate. This allows us to look at things just by pointing at them.
I had to look at a rippled, messed-up version of the outside world. The faceplate patch wasn’t exactly smooth or reflective. Still, it was enough to see what was going on.
I bee-lined for where the airlock used to be. I knew there had to be a pretty big hole there, so I’d be able to get in. I found it easily. And boy is it a nasty rip! It’s going to be a pain in the ass to fix it.
That’s when the flaws in my plan started to reveal themselves. I only had one arm to work with. My left arm was pinned against my body, while the stumpy arm of the suit bounced freely. So as I moved around under the canvas, I had to use my one good arm to hold the canvas up. It slowed me down.
From what I could see, the interior of the Hab is chaos. Everything’s moved. Entire tables and bunks are meters away from where they started. Lighter objects are wildly jumbled, many of them out on the surface. Everything’s covered in soil and mangled potato plants.
Trudging onward, I got to where I’d left Martinez’s suit. To my shock, it was still there!
“Yay!” I naively thought. “Problem solved.”
Unfortunately, the suit was pinned under a table, which was held down by the collapsed canvas. If I’d had both arms, I could have pulled it free, but with only one I just couldn’t do it.
Running low on time, I detached the helmet. Setting it aside, I reached past the table to get Martinez’s patch kit. I found it with the help of the arm-camera. I dropped it in the helmet and hauled ass out of there.
Stumbling to the rover, I barely made it in time. My ears were popping from pressure loss just as the rover’s airlock filled with wonderful 1-atmosphere air.
Crawling in, I collapsed and panted for a moment.
So I’m back in the rover. Just like I was back on the Great Pathfinder Recovery Expedition. Ugh. At least this time it smells a little better.
NASA’s probably pretty worried about me by now. They probably saw the airlock move back to the Hab, so they know I’m alive, but they’ll want status. And as it happens, it’s the rover that communicates with Pathfinder.
I tried to send a message but Pathfinder isn’t responding. That’s not a big surprise. It’s powered directly from the Hab, and the Hab is offline. During my brief, panicked scramble outside, I saw Pathfinder was right where I left it, and the debris didn’t reach that far out. It should be fine once I get it some power.
As for my current situation, the big gain is the helmet. They’re interchangeable, so I can replace my broken-ass one with Martinez’s. The stumpy arm is still an issue, but the faceplate was the main source of leaks. And with the fresh patch kit, I can seal the arm with more resin.
But that can wait. I’ve been awake for over 24 hours. I’m not in any immediate danger, so I’m going to sleep.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 121
Got a good night’s sleep, and made real progress today.
First thing I did was re-seal the arm. Last time, I had to spread the resin pretty thin; I’d used most of it for the faceplate patch. But this time I had a whole patch kit just for the arm. I got a perfect seal.
I still only had a one-armed suit, but at least it didn’t leak.
I’d lost most of my air yesterday, but I had a half-hour of oxygen left. Like I said earlier, a human body doesn’t need much oxygen. Maintaining pressure was the problem.
With that much time, I was able to take advantage of the rover’s EVA tank-refill. Something I couldn’t do with the leaky suit.
The tank-refill is an emergency measure. The expected use of the rover is to start with full EVA suits and come back with air to spare. It wasn’t designed for long trips, or even overnighters. But, just in case of emergency, it has refill hoses mounted on the exterior. Inside space was limited already, and NASA concluded most air-related emergencies would be outdoors.
But refilling is slow, slower than my suit was leaking. So it wasn’t any use to me. Now, with a solid suit capable of holding pressure, refilling the tanks was a breeze.
After refilling, and making sure the suit was still not leaking, I had a few immediate tasks to take care of. Much as I trust my handiwork, I wanted a two-armed suit.
I ventured back in to the Hab. This time, not being rushed, I was able to use a pole to leverage the table off Martinez’s suit. Pulling it loose, I dragged it back to the rover.
After a thorough diagnostic to be sure, I finally had a fully-functional EVA suit! It took me two trips to get it, but I got it.
Tomorrow, I'll fix the Hab.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 122
The first thing I did today was line up rocks near the rover to spell “A-OK”. That should make NASA happy.
I went in to the Hab again to assess damage. My priority will be to get the structure intact and holding pressure. From there, I can work on fixing stuff that broke.
The Hab is normally a dome, with flexible support poles maintaining the arch, and rigid, folding floor material to keep it flat. The internal pressure was a vital part of its support. Without it, the whole thing collapsed. I inspected the poles, and none of them had broken. They’re just lying flat is all. I’ll have to re-couple a few of them, but that’ll be easy.
The hole where Airlock 1 used to be is huge, but surmountable. I have seal-strips and spare canvas. It’ll be a lot of work, but I can get the Hab together again. Once I do, I’ll re-establish power and get Pathfinder back online. From there, NASA can tell me how to fix anything I can’t figure out on my own.
I’m not worried about any of that. I have a much bigger problem.
The farm is dead.
With a complete loss of pressure, most of the water boiled off. Also, the temperature is well below freezing. Not even the bacteria in the soil can survive a catastrophe like that. Some of the crops were in pop-tents off the Hab. But they’re dead, too. I had them connected directly to the Hab via hoses to maintain air supply and temperature. When the Hab blew, the pop-tents depressurized as well. Even if they hadn’t, the freezing cold would have killed them.
Potatoes are now extinct on Mars.
So are earthworms and soil bacteria. I’ll never grow another plant so long I’m here.
We had it all planned out. My farm would give me food till Sol 900. A supply probe would get here on Sol 856; way before I ran out. With the farm dead, that plan is history.
The ration packs won’t have been affected by the explosion. And the potatoes may be dead, but they’re still food. I was just about to harvest, so it was a good time for this to happen, I guess.
The rations will last me till Sol 400. I can’t say for sure how long the potatoes will last until I see how many I got. But I can estimate. I had 400 plants, probably averaging 5 potatoes each: 2000 taters. At 150 calories each, I’ll need to eat 10 per sol to survive. That means they’ll last me 200 sols. Grand total: I have enough food to last till Sol 600.
By Sol 856 I’ll be long dead.
Chapter 15
Project Iris
[08:12]WATNEY: Test.
[08:25]JPL: Received! You gave us quite a scare there. Thanks for the “A-OK” message. Our analysis of satelli