The Martian (40 page)

“Watney!?” Came the reply.

“Affirmative. That you, Commander?” Watney said.

“Affirmative. What's your status?”

“I'm on a ship with no control panel,” he said. “That's as much as I can tell you.”

“How do you feel?”

“My chest hurts. I think I broke a rib. How are you?”

“We're working on getting you,” Lewis said. “There was a complication in the launch.”

“Yeah,” Watney said, looking out the hole in the ship. “The canvas didn't hold. I think it ripped early in the ascent.”

“That's consistent with what we saw during the launch.”

“How bad is it, Commander?” He asked.

“We were able to correct the intercept range with Hermes's attitude thrusters. But there's a problem with the intercept velocity.”

“How big a problem.”

“42 meters per second.”

“Well shit.”

“Hey, at least he's ok for the moment,” Martinez said.

“Beck,” Lewis said. “I'm coming around to your way of thinking. How fast can you get going if you're untethered?”

“Sorry, Commander,” Beck said. “I already ran the numbers. At best I could get 25 meters per second. Even if I could get to 42, I'd need
another
42 to match Hermes when I came back.”

“Copy,” Lewis said.

“Hey,” Watney said over the radio, “I've got an idea.”

“Of course you do,” Lewis said. “What do you got?”

“I could find something sharp in here and poke a hole in the glove of my EVA suit. I could use the escaping air as a thruster and fly my way to you. The source of thrust would be on my arm, so I'd be able to direct it pretty easily.”

“How does he come up with this shit?” Martinez interjected.

“Hmm,” Lewis said. “Could you get 42 meters per second that way?”

“No idea,” Watney said.

“I can't see you having any control if you did that,” Lewis said. “You'd be eyeballing the intercept and using a thrust vector you can barely control.”

“I admit it's fatally dangerous,” Watney said. “But consider this: I'd get to fly around like Iron Man.”

“We'll keep working on ideas,” Lewis said.

“Iron Man, Commander.
Iron Man.
”

“Standby,” Lewis said.

She furrowed her brow. “Hmm... Maybe it's not such a bad idea...”

“You kidding, Commander?” Martinez said. “It's a terrible idea. He'd shoot off in to space-”

“Not the whole idea, but part of it,” she said. “Using atmosphere as thrust. Martinez, get Vogel's station up and running.”

“Ok,” Martinez said, typing at his keyboard. The screen changed to Vogel's workstation. He quickly changed the language from German to English. “It's up. What do you need?”

“Vogel's got software for calculating course offsets caused by hull breaches, right?”

“Yeah,” Martinez said. “It estimates course corrections needed in the event of-”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lewis said. “Fire it up. I want to know what happens if we blow the VAL.”

Johanssen and Martinez looked at each other.

“Um. Yes, Commander,” Martinez said.

“The Vehicular Airlock?” Johanssen said. “You want to... open it?”

“Plenty of air in the ship,” Lewis said. “It'd give us a good kick.”

“Ye-es...” Martinez said as he brought up the software. “And it might blow the nose of the ship off in the process.”

“Also, all the air would leave,” Johanssen felt compelled to add.

“We'll seal the bridge and reactor room. We can let everywhere else go vacuo, but we don't want explosive decompression in here or near the reactor.”

Martinez entered the scenario in to the software. “I think we'll just have the same problem as Watney, but on a larger scale. We can't direct that thrust.”

“We don't have to,” Lewis said. “The VAL is in the nose. Escaping air would make a thrust vector through our center of mass. We just need to point the ship directly away from where we want to go.”

“Ok I have the numbers,” Martinez said. “A breach at the VAL, with the bridge and reactor room sealed off, would accelerate us 29 meters per second.”

“We'd have a relative velocity of 13 meters per second afterward,” Johanssen supplied.

“Beck,” Lewis radioed, “Have you been hearing all this?”

“Affirmative, Commander,” Beck said. “

“Can you do 13 meters per second?”

“It'll be risky,” Beck replied, “13 to match the MAV then another 13 to match Hermes. But it's a hell of a lot better than 42.”

“Johanssen,” Lewis said. “time to intercept?”

“18 minutes, Commander.”

“What kind of jolt will we feel with that breach?” Lewis asked to Martinez.

“The air will take 4 seconds to evacuate,” he said. “We'll feel a little less than one g.”

“Watney,” she said to her headset, “We have a plan.”

“Yay! A plan!” Watney replied.

“Houston,” Lewis's voice rang through Mission Control, “be advised we are going to deliberately breach the VAL to produce thrust.”

“What?” Mitch said. “What!?” He yelled.

“Oh... my god,” Venkat said in the observation room.

“Fuck me raw,” Annie said, getting up. “I better get to the press room. Any parting knowledge before I go?”

“They're going to breach the ship,” Venkat said, still dumbfounded. “They're going to
deliberately
breach the ship. Oh my god...”

“Got it,” Annie said, jogging to the door.

“How will we open the airlock doors?” Martinez asked. “There's no way to open them remotely, and if anyone's nearby when it blows-”

“Right,” Lewis said. “We can open one door with the other shut, but how do we open the other?”

She thought for a moment. “Vogel,” she radioed. “I need you to come back in and make a bomb.”

“Um. Again, please, Commander?” Vogel replied.

“A bomb,” Lewis confirmed. “You're a chemist. Can you make a bomb out of stuff on board?”

“Ja,” Vogel said. “We have flammables and pure oxygen.”

“Sounds good.” Lewis said.

“It is of course dangerous to set off an explosive device on a spacecraft,” Vogel said pragmatically.

“So make it small,” Lewis said. “It just needs to poke a hole in the inner airlock door. Any hole will do. If it blows the door off that's fine. If it doesn't, the air will get out slower, but for longer. The momentum change is the same and we'll get the acceleration we need.”

“Pressurizing Airlock-2,” Vogel reported. “How will we activate this bomb?”

“Johanssen?” Lewis said.

“Uh...” Johanssen said. She picked up her headset and quickly put it on. “Vogel, can you run wires in to it?”

“Ja,” Vogel said. “I will use threaded stopper with a small hole for the wires. It will have little effect on the seal.”

“We could run the wire to lighting panel 41,” Johanssen said. “It's next to the airlock, and I can turn it on and off from here.”

“There's our remote trigger,” Lewis said. “Johanssen go set up the lighting panel. Vogel, get in here and make the bomb. Martinez, go close and seal the doors to the reactor room.”

“Yes Commander,” Johanssen said, kicking off her seat toward the hallway.

“Commander,” Martinez said, pausing at the exit, “You want me to bring back some space suits?”

“No point,” Lewis said. “If the seal on the bridge doesn't hold we'll get sucked out at close to the speed of sound. We'll be jelly with or without suits on.”

“Roger, Commander.”

“Are you back in yet, Vogel?” Lewis asked.

“I am just re-entering now, Commander.”

“Beck,” Lewis said to her headset. “I'll need you back in, too. But don't take your suit off.”

“Ok,” Beck said. “Why?”

“We're going to have to literally blow up one of the doors,” Lewis explained. “I'd rather we kill the inner one. I want the outer door unharmed so we keep our smooth aerobraking shape.”

“Makes sense.” Beck responded as he floated back in to the ship.

“One problem,” Lewis said. “I want the outer door locked in the fully open position with the mechanical stopper in place to keep it from being trashed by the decompress.”

“You have to have someone in the airlock to do that,” Beck said. “And you can't open the inner door if the outer door is locked open.”

“Right,” Lewis said. “I need you to go to the VAL, depressurize, and lock the outer door open. Then you'll need to crawl along the hull to get back to Airlock 2.”

“Copy, Commander,” Beck said. “There are latch points all over the hull. I'll move my tether along, mountain climber style.”

“Get to it,” Lewis said. “And Vogel, you're in a hurry. You have to make the bomb, set it up, get back to Airlock 2, suit up, depressurize it, and open the outer door so Beck can get in.”

“He's taking his suit off right now and can't reply,” Beck reported, “but he heard the order.”

“Watney, how you doing?” Lewis's voice said in his ear.

“Fine so far, Commander,” Watney replied. “You mentioned a plan?”

“Affirmative,” she said. “We're going to vent atmosphere to get thrust.”

“How?”

“We're going to blow a hole in the VAL.”

“What!?” Watney said. “How!?”

“Vogel's making a bomb.”

“I
knew
that guy was a mad scientist!” Watney said. “I think we should just go with my Iron Man idea.”

“That's too risky and you know it,” she replied.

“Thing is,” Watney said, “I'm selfish. I want the memorials back home to be just for me. I don't want the rest of you losers in them. I can't let you guys blow the VAL.”

“Oh,” Lewis said. “Well if you won't let us then- wait... wait a minute... I'm looking at my shoulder patch and it turns out I'm
the Commander. Sit tight. We're coming to get you.”

“Smart-ass.”

Being a chemist, Vogel knew how to make a bomb. In fact, much of his training was  to avoid making them by mistake.

The ship had few flammables aboard, due to the fatal danger of fire. But food, by its very nature, contained flammable hydrocarbons. Lacking time to sit down and do the math, he estimated.

Sugar has 4000 food-calories per kilogram. One food-calorie is 4184 Joules. Sugar in zero-g will float and the grains will separate, maximizing surface area. In a pure oxygen environment, 16.7 million Joules will be released for every kilogram of sugar used, releasing the explosive force of 8 sticks of dynamite. Such is the nature of combustion in pure oxygen.

Vogel measured the sugar carefully. He poured it into the strongest container he could find, a thick glass beaker. The strength of the container was as important as the explosive. A weak container would simply cause a fireball without much concussive force. A strong container, however, would contain the pressure until it reached trus destructive potential.

He quickly drilled a hole in the stopper, then stripped a section of wire. He ran the wire through the hole.

“Sehr gefährlich,” he mumbled as he poured liquid oxygen from the ship's supply in to the container, then quickly screwed the stopper on. In just a few minutes, he had made a rudimentary pipe bomb.

“Sehr,
sehr
, gefährlich,”

He floated out of the lab and made his way toward the nose of the ship.

Johanssen worked on the lighting panel as Beck floated toward the airlock.

She grabbed his arm. “Be careful crawling along the hull.”

He turned to face her. “Be careful setting up the bomb.”

She kissed his faceplate then looked away, embarrassed. “That was stupid. Don't tell anyone I did that.”

“Don't tell anyone I liked it,” Beck smiled.

He entered the airlock and sealed the inner door. After depressurizing, he opened the outer door and locked it in place. Grabbing a handrail on the hull, he pulled himself out.

Johanssen watched until he was no longer in view, then returned to the lighting panel. She had deactivated it earlier from her workstation. Pulling a length of the cable out and stripping the ends, she fiddled with a roll of electrical tape until Vogel arrived.

He showed up just a minute later, carefully floating down the hall with the bomb held in both hands.

“I have used a single wire for igniting,” he explained. “I did not want to risk two wires for a spark. It would be dangerous to us if we had static while setting up.”

“How do we set it off?” Johanssen said.

“The wire must reach a high temperature. If you short power through it, that will be sufficient.”

“I'll have to pin the breaker,” Johanssen said, “but it'll work.”

She twisted the lighting wires to the bomb's and taped them off.

“Excuse me,” Vogel said. “I have to return to Airlock 2 to let Dr. Beck back in.”

“Mm,” Johanssen said.

Martinez floated back in to the bridge. “I had a few minutes, so I ran through the aerobrake lockdown checklist for the reactor room. Everything's ready for acceleration and the compartment's sealed off.”

“Good thinking,” Lewis said. “Prep the attitude correction.”

“Roger, Commander.” Martinez said, drifting to his station. “It'll take me a sec... I need to do everything backward. The VAL's in front, so the source of thrust will be exactly opposite to our engines. Our software wasn't expecting us to have an engine there. I just need to tell it we plan to thrust
toward
Mark.”

“Take your time and get it right,” Lewis said. “And don't execute till I give you the word. We're not spinning the ship around while Beck's out on the hull.”

“Roger.” He said. After a moment, he added “Ok, the adjustment's ready to execute.”

“Standby.” Lewis said.

Vogel, back in his suit, depressurized Airlock 2 and opened the outer door.

“Bout time,” Beck said, climbing in.

“Sorry for the delay,” Vogel said. “I was required to make a bomb.”

“This has been kind of a weird day,” Beck said. “Commander, Vogel and I are in position.”

“Copy,” came Lewis's response. “Get up against the fore wall of the airlock. It's going to be about one g for four seconds. Make sure you're both tethered in.”

“Copy,” Beck said as he attached his tether. The two men pressed themselves against the wall.

“Ok, Martinez,” Lewis said, “Point us the right direction.”