“That’s nice, too,” Mark thought.

As consciousness slipped away, he wondered where he could get a cool five-sided bolt like that.

• • •

“I’M GETTING more response now,” Martinez said.

“Back on track with full acceleration,” Johanssen said. “Must have been drag. MAV’s out of the atmosphere now.”

“It was like flying a cow,” Martinez grumbled, his hands racing over his controls.

“Can you get him up?” Lewis asked.

“He’ll get to orbit,” Johanssen said, “but the intercept course may be compromised.”

“Get him up first,” Lewis said. “Then we’ll worry about intercept.”

“Copy. Main engine cutoff in fifteen seconds.”

“Totally smooth now,” Martinez said. “It’s not fighting me at all anymore.”

“Well below target altitude,” Johanssen said. “Velocity is good.”

“How far below?” Lewis said.

“Can’t say for sure,” Johanssen said. “All I have is accelerometer data. We’ll need radar pings at intervals to work out his true final orbit.”

“Back to automatic guidance,” Martinez said.

“Main shutdown in four,” Johanssen said, “…three… two… one… Shutdown.”

“Confirm shutdown,” Martinez said.

“Watney, you there?” Lewis said. “Watney? Watney, do you read?”

“Probably passed out, Commander,” Beck said over the radio. “He pulled twelve g’s on the ascent. Give him a few minutes.”

“Copy,” Lewis said. “Johanssen, got his orbit yet?”

“I have interval pings. Working out our intercept range and velocity…”

Martinez and Lewis stared at Johanssen as she brought up the intercept calculation software. Normally, orbits would be worked out by Vogel, but he was otherwise engaged. Johanssen was his backup for orbital dynamics.

“Intercept velocity will be eleven meters per second…,” she began.

“I can make that work,” Beck said over the radio.

“Distance at intercept will be—” Johanssen stopped and choked. Shakily, she continued. “We’ll be sixty-eight kilometers apart.” She buried her face in her hands.

“Did she say sixty-eight kilometers!?” Beck said. “Kilometers!?”

“God damn it,” Martinez whispered.

“Keep it together,” Lewis said. “Work the problem. Martinez, is there any juice in the MAV?”

“Negative, Commander,” Martinez responded. “They ditched the OMS system to lighten the launch weight.”

“Then we’ll have to go to him. Johanssen, time to intercept?”

“Thirty-nine minutes, twelve seconds,” Johanssen said, trying not to quaver.

“Vogel,” Lewis continued, “how far can we deflect in thirty-nine minutes with the ion engines?”

“Perhaps five kilometers,” he radioed.

“Not enough,” Lewis said. “Martinez, what if we point our attitude thrusters all the same direction?”

“Depends on how much fuel we want to save for attitude adjustments on the trip home.”

“How much do you need?”

“I could get by with maybe twenty percent of what’s left.”

“All right, if you used the other eighty percent—”

“Checking,” Martinez said, running the numbers on his console. “We’d get a delta-v of thirty-one meters per second.”

“Johanssen,” Lewis said. “Math.”

“In thirty-nine minutes we’d deflect…,” Johanssen quickly typed, “seventy-two kilometers!”

“There we go,” Lewis said. “How much fuel—”

“Use seventy-five point five percent of remaining attitude adjust fuel,” Johanssen said. “That’ll bring the intercept range to zero.”