AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 422
ARES III SOL 415
“Down five kilo, Mark.”
“I’m not surprised,” Mark replied. “Most of it’s probably from my skeleton. Common in low-gravity environments. A little higher than this point in other Ares missions, though.”
Spitfire considered this. “Ares mission lasts one year, yeah? This point in other mission, you be home two months now.”
“You know what I mean,” Mark said. “Come on, your turn on the scale. Everyone else has been.”
“Blood pressure,” Spitfire said carefully. “Temperature. Reflex. Breathing. You know the drill.” That last was a pat phrase from several of the television shows they’d watched, and Spitfire liked it. She liked it even more once drill was explained to her as not being a tool in this particular usage.
The other four castaways had been through the process already. NASA had suggested this to them in the morning’s chat. Before long they would no longer have access to the sample scale (nonessential equipment for the cross-country drive to come). This seemed like a good time to do another physical and assess the health of the crew. Blood work was out of the question, of course, but the usual non-invasive diagnostics could still be done.
To no one’s surprise, Dragonfly had the worst results thus far, with her body weight down ten whole kilograms below the baseline readings taken three hundred sols before. Mark’s loss of five kilograms came in second, but he’d had much more mass to lose than any of the others, even Fireball.
The dragon, incidentally, had actually gained three kilos. There were a couple of jokes about eating rocks, and then they moved on.
Spitfire went on to administer the other tests. Lungs clear, lung capacity undiminished. (Dragonfly was the only one whose breathing had grown weaker.) Temperature normal, heartbeat sound normal. Pulse rate slower, blood pressure slightly lower, both within margins of error according to the database on the Hab computers. In short, Mark was about as healthy as could be expected, right down to the barely visible burn scars on his upper right arm.
Spitfire was silently grateful for one fact: the only illnesses among the crew, aside from varying levels of magic deprivation, had come from injuries. Apparently neither the Equestrians nor the lone human had brought any infectious diseases to wipe out the group.
Or anyway, if they had, they were diseases for which everyone had standard resistance. If Spitfire understood parallel universe theory, the odds of Mark’s germs and pony germs being more or less identical were actually not terrible. Of course, most of what Starlight Glimmer babbled about when talking about the two universes made no sense to Spitfire, so she could be wrong.
But that didn’t help with her main concern. Mark, by deliberate decision of his bosses, had been isolated for weeks prior to launch to ensure he didn’t have a communicable disease to give to his crewmates. The ponies hadn’t been as cautious, but their weeks of training came close enough to isolation that it seemed to have worked out the same. But whichever planet the lot of them returned to first, the non-native would have to deal with the full range of disease, and the rest of them would have weakened immune systems from all this time in space.
Put bluntly, when they got back, wherever they got back to, they were all going to be really, really sick.
“Okay, Spitfire,” Mark said. “Your turn.”
“Fine.” Despite her lack of hands, Spitfire had done most of the work so far. But hooves failed to cope with the added difficulty of performing the tests on oneself, so Mark had to step in for this part. She hopped onto the worktable, stepped on the scale- down one and a quarter kilograms, not bad- and then submitted quietly to Mark's careful and cautious movements.
She couldn’t resist the ear flick when Mark stuck in the ear thermometer (a much more pleasant tool than the old-fashioned model in the Amicitas medical kit- that dinosaur was getting left behind along with the scale). Mark flinched, and Spitfire’s ear-flick became two flattened ears. “Said sorry for kick you,” she said crossly.
“And I think my abs forgive you,” Mark said. The bruises had faded some, but they were still visible when he took off his shirt. “But I’m still a bit gun-shy.”
“Get on with it.” Another pat English phrase Spitfire had embraced wholeheartedly, especially since it had fewer syllables than a lot of single English words.
Everything else checked out fine until the last test, the breath capacity test. “How much?” she asked, when she heard the results.
“Twenty percent drop,” Mark said. “That’s as bad as Dragonfly’s.”
Spitfire groaned, flopping forward on the table. “No,” she said, “it’s worse.”
“You wanna tell me about it?” Mark asked.
Spitfire snorted. “So you can finish my… sentences… for me? So you can correct me?”
Mark sighed. “Everyone, can you go find something to do in the rover or something?” he asked.
“You sure about that, Mark?” Dragonfly asked. “I think we all know Spitfire can kick your ass, even with only eighty percent of her lungs.”
“Out.”
Fireball chuckled. “Bug isn’t wrong,” he said.
“Out, out.”
“Come on, everyone,” Cherry Berry said. “I’m sure Dragonfly can find us some more wires to inspect. Suit up.”
Five minutes later, Spitfire and Mark were seated on a bunk, alone in the Hab. “Okay, we here,” she said, not bothering to hide the bitterness. “What you want me say, huh?”
“Well…” Mark seemed to think (for a change) before speaking. “First, how about this? You say what you want in pony, and I’ll talk in English. That puts us on a level playing field.”
“What?” Spitfire slipped into Equestrian at once. “But you don’t understand Equestrian! You certainly can’t speak it for crap! That’s why we all learned English!”
“I understand more than you think,” Mark said. “I’m a bit rusty, since you guys don’t go off into huddles so much anymore, but I had a lot of opportunities to listen to you. And seriously, you guys never told me what’s so wrong when I try to speak it.”
“Remember Filthy Fred?”Spitfire asked. “When you try to speak Equestrian, you sound like that almost all the time.”
Mark flinched. “That bad?” he asked.
“Worse. Like walking past drunk stallions at the air show.”
“Um… I got walking and males, and something about flying,” Mark said.
“What do stallions sound like when sexy mares walk by on your world?”
“What do… ooooh,” Mark said, understanding. “I think I see where you’re going. I sound like that. I wish you’d said.”
“We didn’t want to embarrass you.”
“Was that embarrass?” Mark chuckled. “Believe me, that ship sailed long ago.” He sobered a little and said, “Think we can keep this up now? How about you tell me what your real problem is? I know it’s not me talking down to you, because I haven’t done that for ages.”
“You’re not gonna drop this, are you? Fine.” Spitfire slumped. “I’m not just a soldier, Mark. I’m an athlete. I’m one of the twenty-four top fliers in all Equestria. Or I was, before I spent over a year in space.” She shook her head. “I’ve read the parts of your medical papers I can understand. They all say space weakens the body. When you come back you get back most of it with time and work, but never all.
“And then you tell me I’ve lost twenty percent of my lung capacity? I’m a flyer. A high-altitude flyer. I need every bit of lung function I can get. You might as well tell me that I’ve had half a lung cut out,” she shouted, making a gesture with a forehoof across her upper barrel. “It amounts to the same thing! I’ll never have that edge again! I’ll never be able to go as fast for as long as I used to.” She slumped and finished, “Mark, you just told me I lost the Wonderbolts.”
Mark put his arm around the pony’s shoulders. “I think I got most of that,” he said. “And first off, you don’t know you’ve lost your edge. We studied humans in space for up to two years. Humans, not ponies. We know nothing about pony recovery time or abilities. And you’ll be going home to a world full of magic. Who knows what’s possible there?”
“I do,” Spitfire muttered. “Once you lose the edge, you never get it back. I’m going to be like Wind Rider- an old has-been clinging to lost glory.” She slapped a hoof against the frame of the bunk. “I’m too young to be like Wind Rider, darn it! I have ten good years left in me!”
Mark hugged Spitfire a little tighter. “Spits, I’m telling you, it’s going to be all right.”
“I’m telling you it’s not! Don’t patronize me, Mark! It’s over!” Spitfire, hardened veteran, steel-willed officer with over a decade in the EUP behind her, caught herself sniffling. After a moment she decided she didn’t care. “It’s over…” she moaned, and buried her face in Mark’s side.
And then, to her shock, Mark pushed her away.
Mark, the softest, most annoying person Spitfire could think of, Mr. Cheer Up, Mr. Good Feelings, had pushed her away just as she was going to start crying.
“I’m not going to accept that,” he said quietly. “It’s not over. You’re going to survive this. You’re going to go home, and you’re going to fly faster and higher than ever before. Because if you don’t, Mars wins.” He pointed a finger at the Hab wall. “That bastard of a planet out there has been trying to break us for four hundred and some sols. In a hundred and forty sols we’ll be on our way home laughing at this fucking planet that thought it could break us. Laughing, do you hear me?”
Spitfire had lost all urge to weep. For the first time she could recall, probably for the first time ever, she heard in Mark Watney’s voice the same tone that Cherry Berry had when she was in full Steel Eyed Missile Mare mode. No… like that time when she’d been a cadet at Wonderbolts Academy, and she’d been thinking about washing out after a particularly bad day. She hadn’t said anything, but the training officer had sounded exactly like this.
“Look at all the ways Mars has tried to kill us,” Mark continued. “Impalement. Explosion. Decompression. Suffocation. Poisoning. Lightning. Starvation. Blunt force trauma. And we’re beating it, Spitfire, we’re beating the bastard. For four hundred sols we’ve beaten it. So don’t you dare let it have a victory now!” He looked down into her eyes, which had gone as wide as any of the others’, and said, “Are you going to let this fucking planet beat you, Spitfire?!”
The answer was so automatic as to be involuntary. “Sir, no sir!”
The response to that was, apparently, tradition in two universes. “I can’t hear you!”
“SIR, NO SIR!!”
“Are you going to go home, work hard, get back into shape, and show this planet where it can shove its twenty percents?”
“SIR, YES SIR!”
“Good!” And then the moment was gone, and Mark was his smiling, gentle self again, giving Spitfire another hug. “Now let’s quit this touchy-feely remake of Full Metal Jacket and go join the others, okay?”
“Um… yeah,” Spitfire said, totally confused. Had what just happened been some sort of prank? Or had she actually touched something in Mark?
She did feel better, so there must be something real in it.
“One thing,” Mark asked, “What’s so bad about being me? And why do you call me Mark Windy?”
“Not Mark Windy,” Spitfire said in English. “A pony. Wind Rider. He was a hero, once. Not more, not now. Old. Angry. Washed up.” Another pat phrase, but not one Spitfire liked.
“Okay,” Mark said. “I know the type. But that’s not you. That’s never going to be you.”
As Mark walked over to his spacesuit rack, Spitfire could only hope he was right.
Somehow Spitfire will become the poster case recovery from adjourn environments. Magic of badassness stops someone that resisted the efforts of an entire world to kill you from actually putting you down, if you survive that is.
Or simply that equestria wouldn't tolerate that smarmy upstart putting one of her children down. She'll fly even better once she comes back, because screw you little red dustball!
Sadly I have to agree with Spitfire. She may never recover. That being said it's a much better way to end your career than plain old age.
—Spitfire
Damn it, you almost had me in tears there. Wonderfully written.
Good character piece for both of them. I can see her point of view, and the odds are sadly too much in favor of her being right. But that being said, ponies are really good at doing the impossible, so an impossible recovery to become even better then we she left, just as a big f-you to Mars seems far more likely.
9105137
Maybe being it a low magic environment for a year will make her super efficient at absorbing magic when she returns, like hypobaric training for oxygen?
Dawwww. Poor Spitfire. That's pretty spirit breaking. I'm glad Mark was able to give her a pick-me-up.
On a sillier note, Mark seems to have his own little equestrian harem going, given the moments he's had with the various mares. When's Fireball going to join it?
9105149
And when she gets up to full, we will have a SONIC FIRE-BOOM!!
9105149
Its a valid point. DNA is a fickle thing, and just like being in a low oxygen environment increases red blood cells and thus oxygen absorption, and suffering from starvation means your body gets more efficient at processing foods, there is a POSSIBILITY that being in a low magical enviroment makes the body better at absorbing ambinent magic. Also drinking lots of hot drinks makes your throat better able to handle burns, and repeated injuries lead to your body strengthening that part.
However, its worth noting this is not the case in all cases. Low gravity obviously improves nothing, and AS FAR AS I AM AWARE dehydration does not improve your bodies water retention.
This leads to one of two possible situations:
1) Its an evolutionary thing: In this case, the reason we have these adaptations is an evolved response to extreme circumstances. Thus why low gravity and low hydration don't have any response. One was impossible till now, and the other was pretty much a death sentence given how quickly you die from lack of water, so the body can't evolve a response.
In this case, everyone but MAYBE Starlight will only have gotten weaker magically, as they will have not had any need to evolve a response to low magical conditions.
2) Its a Metabolic thing: A beings metabolism can adapt really quickly, and if thats the case, I can almost certainly picture Dragonfly being MUCH more efficient at absorbing love and magic once she is back in Equestria as she has had to adapt to low magic conditions. Obviously it wasn't enough to save her from almost starving.
But on Equestria she may find herself far more capable then she was before, both stronger in magic, AND requiring far less love to function at maximum potential.
Spitfire is a difficult case. Magic is how pegasi fly, control the weather and do many other awesome things. But there is a question of if its something that the absorption rate can adapt. Or for that matter if it does the opposite. For example a lot of Unicorns become better at magic through hard work and practice, and this implies it maybe something like a muscle.
That leads to all sorts of difficulties. Put a muscle in low oxygen conditions and it will adapt....but starve it of other nutrients and its going to just fall over.
9105184
Impossible to say whether ponies may have experienced a low magic environment at some point in their evolutionary past.
Certainly possible that damage will be permenant, but we're in uncharted territory here since pony medical science has never observed this before.
May be worth asking Equestria to look into this.
Buck it up, Spitfire. You've flown further, faster and higher than any other pegasus AND survived two years on an alien planet that was supposed to kill you every day. When you get back to Equestria, they're going to put up a golden statue to you because you're not just famous, you're going to be a freaking legend.
BTW, how exactly her breathing works? Since she doesn't eat anything, I guess she metabolises inhaled CO2 somehow to get carbon her body made of. If I remember correctly, she drinks water, so that's how she gets hydrogen. That leaves a lot of oxygen excess, that then should be breathed out?
Look, Spitfire... if you're right, and you DON'T make a full recovery, then not all is lost. You won't just be that athlete that had a career-ending injury, you'll be the legend that went out with a fucking bang (so to speak). I'm sure plenty of Wonderbolts have ended their careers prematurely through a crash or some fluke medical condition, but exactly how many can say their career ended from surviving the nigh impossible on an arguably hostile planet in a whole other fucking universe? My guess is a whole freaking none of them...
Quick question, wasn't there a resupply capsule supposed to land at the HAB before the journey? As well as one waiting for them at the MAV?
"“Was that embarrass?” Mark chuckled."
"“Was that embarrassing?” Mark chuckled."?
Spitfire may or may not recover her strengths as an athlete but even if she retires, she retires in with a glorious and death-defying impromptu mission. She won't retire entirely what else she learned or experienced WILL be critical for future Space Programs especially to Equestria and others of their world.
She's basically another Daring Do.
Glad Mark is able to pick her spirits up.
GREAT chapter. Powerful motivation, and excellent character and relationship building! I loved it! And I can totally relate to Mark going from silly to serious in a second. XD Thats what my family does at the end of a serious talk, basically a way of signalling that it's resolved and good and we can all laugh again.
9105294
Yeah i wondered that too. What DID happen to the successful resupply probe?
9105315
I just assumed the kraken got a hold of them. That or Kris just forgot....
9105295
More like, "Was that (the pony word for) 'embarrass'?" Single quotes around that word would certainly be what I'd do.
Also, Kris:
That should be Mark's movements, because the other way resembles a possessive plural.
9105373
Ah, that could also be it; thanks.
Whoops, missed that one; thanks! :D
9105287
that is one epic way to go out just like the cars 3 movie
You don't have to like someone to have respect for them, they might not be the best of friends but it feels like the both of them deeply respect each other.
Aww that was Sweet! Nice pep talk.
And who knows? Maybe being in the magic-deprived environment may cause adaptations that might improve their usage of it when they return?
9105294
9105315
Because of the Pernell Maneuver the Hermes will arrive before the resupply probes.
9105378
9105394
Which one of the Equestrians Mark gets along better with? Dragonfly? Starlight?
Aww.
9105295
No, he was asking if the word he picked up was embarrass. Not using it in a verb sense. I can see the confusion though.
9105435
And even if it doesn't, she will have lost her edge in the most spectacular way possible. Ask yourself which is better: to cross the finishing first, or backwards and on fire? Over the course of a race track's life, millions will be first, and all but a handful will be forgotten. But backwards and on fire is almost guaranteed to be remembered for a lifetime.
Its also possible that losing only 20% is an amazing feat. The story of The Tale of Utgarda-Loki springs to mind. Paraphrasing...
"The cup we asked you to drink from was connected to the oceans. No one has ever managed to lower it's content even a finger width. The cat we asked you to lift was actually Jormungand, and no one has ever managed to make him raise even one paw as you did. You may not have completed your challenges, but you did vastly better than anyone else who has come before you."
9105199
Sculptor is OJ MicaAngleO ? (R.J. Mitchell)
Unlike RJ Michal who was responsible for a totally different Legend at NASA.
R. Lee Ermey , hardest Drill Sergent in the West. Takes no Yakkity or Sax from noone or nothing.
I have a bad feeling Spitfire’s right. And, given how long after getting home it would take for her to know for sure, we may never find out in the story.
It’s not that she fears languishing in obscurity; her achievements with the Wonderbolts put her on Equestria’s most recognisable and most respected ponies list already, where she’ll stay for life. What troubles her is that she’ll be known for things she did in the past, rather than things she’s doing now. A has-been, as she said. The amount of fame and respect she gains as being one of the Mars survivors won’t change that.
I figure Spitfire is something of a flight prodigy. Most Wonderbolts would be, I expect, but Spitfire and Rainbow Dash are sometimes implied to be the fastest of the lot. So that skill has been innate in her for as long as she can remember, and she’s dealing with losing it ten years earlier than expected. Also, from what we saw whenever the batteries were switched on (especially the very first time), Spitfire loves to fly. I think it’s that love which is why she went into the Wonderbolts, and why she so enjoys pushing herself with them and breaking all the records she can. And, again, that primal passion for her may now be slightly more out of reach.
I do hope she’s wrong, and there’s a way to get back what she’s lost.
Perhaps she will find a way to redirect that passion to a new type of flying. Once they make it back home, it's pretty clear that Earth an Equestria are going to establish diplomatic relationships. Spitfire as one of the survivors will probably spend a fair amount of time in Earth and will get a chance to see and perhaps fly some of 2030's Earth cutting edge technology. Boings less noisy fuel efficient hypersonic private Jets should be in the air by then.
Spitfire the hypersonic jet stunt flyer?
9105360
I been re-reading some of the older chapters recently.
I don't remember exactly, but the earliest arrival dates were in the SOL 500-area, some in SOL 600-something.
I think it got shortened a bit, but we are still only in 415. The supplies are still on their way.
well.. looks like some seeds have been planted. Shippers, I urge you not to jump the gun. At least not yet.
9105315 Sleipnir probe status: (1) - metal confetti, about 60% recovered and in a NASA storage unit; (2) en route to Mars with an estimated arrival date of Sol 592; (3) Earth orbit until NASA figures out whether or not to refuel it or just deorbit it; (4) and (5) successful dock with Hermes 25 hours after launch.
MARK: "Don't make me call the eighties! (Please don't make me call the eighties)"
Before they leave, can we get the mandatory rtg-powered hot tub scene? Please?
9105506
I have to wonder what it says about me that I had to read the site name 3 times to realize it didn't say "horse mythology".
9105502
Aye, someone else already pointed that out to me, but thanks.
9105447
I'm not sure, sorry.
(And did you mean to ask me?)
That was the most dialogue we've seen from Spitfire in a long time.
9106137
Well and was allowed to speak Equestrian, it makes a difference for how comfortable you are.
some things never change.
Hopefully they won't recreate the other parts of FMJ. >.>
9105921 The 80's gave us some amazing things. Like "Back to the Future", "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", "Clue", "Transformers", and let's not forget the original "My Little Pony" which is the reason we're all on this site today. We had movies that became acclaimed and cult classics "E.T." and "The Goonies", there was "The Land Before Time" and "An American Tail" as a Don Bluth demonstrated that other studios besides Disney could succeed in animation. And it was the time Disney itself finally came back to like with "The Little Mermaid" and "Beauty and the Beast", going on to spark a Disney renaissance that culminated in one of the greatest Disney films of all time "The Lion King" a few years later in 1994.
It also brought about "Tears for Fears" and lots of other awesome 80's rock. It was the advent of cable TV, the revival of Star Trek with "The Wrath of Khan" and later the early seasons of "The Next Generation", starring one of the 80's beloved icons, Levar Burton, who also hosted one of the highlights of public television "Reading Rainbow". There was "Return of the Jedi" and some really wonderful sitcoms like "Cheers" and "Night Court".
And let's also not forget there wasn't a single significant war at the time. The Falkland Invasion was about it, and the Soviet Union began to crumble. It was a time when the world collectively began to hope that the bad times were ending and the future looked hopeful.
Alas, then some Muslims got pissed off and ruined everything.
9107162 "There wasn't a significant war at the time." - Afghanistan. Iraq and Iran. The disintegration of Yugoslavia. American interventions in Grenada and Panama. The beginning of the Eritrean Revolt. I could probably think of others, but I think you mistake "not a lot of American casualties" for "no significant war in the world".
EDIT: Oh, and there was also six years of thinking we were one jelly bean away from our president pushing the Big Red Button just to prove he could. My school showed us "Duck and Cover" when I was in second grade. 1981, y'all. It sticks in the memory.
"...and then they kissed."
...Damn. I feel for Spits. Out of all of them, Mars has stolen the most from her. The other lost time, comfort and security. Spitfire lost all that and a major part of her identity. At least, what she would define herself with.
But damn if she isn’t motivating.
Don't worry, Spitfire, Deus Ex Machina will fix (mostly) everything!
So here is a question Elements of Harmony vs Mars what would happen if them used Magic rainbow hammer on the evil Killing planet