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The thing about space travel that most people don’t think about is the staggering amount of paperwork that is involved and the distressing amount of conference sessions after they get back to the surface. Hours of sitting in bland conference room listening to lawyers and representatives and managers going over every detail of the mission from launch to descent. Good god it was boring.
The Ares III crew had finished with their morning PT sessions and were now sitting for yet another spirited round of ‘why we did fill-in-the-blank’. Mark had always been a fidgety sort of person and sitting still while bigwigs droned on about overtaxed systems was as close to torture as he hoped to ever get.
To keep himself sane he was working out a comprehensive timeline for Dukes of Hazard until he heard the words, “Due to the actions prior to and during the Rich Purnell Maneuver, crew members aboard the Hermes at the time are henceforth restricted from any and all further space flight.”
That got Mark’s attention.
“The--what?! Why? What the hell is the Rich Purnell Maneuver, and why can’t we go into space anymore?”
Not that he’d expected to, not with his psych evals and his plain bad luck, he didn’t think anyone would ever send him back up, but what the hell did they mean his crew should be barred. And more importantly what the hell was the Rich Purnell Maneuver and why hadn’t he ever heard of it?
Mark turned to his crewmates expecting them to be just as outraged as he was and found that none of them would meet his eyes and all of them were sitting quietly with guilty but resigned looks on their faces, as if they’d known this was coming sooner or later.
“Guys, what are they talking about? Oh god. What did you all do?! ”
Mark looked around the table of unfamiliar faces to look at the people he knew. Henderson, Kapoor, Teddy Sanders, and Annie Montrose were all looking awkward and uncomfortable after his outburst.
In the end it was Annie who broke the silence.
“The Rich Purnell Maneuver is the reason you’re sitting here Watney. It's the name of the slingshot maneuver that got the Hermes back to Mars to get you. It was also enacted without NASA’s permission.”
Mark turned to his left to see his crew had all become fascinated by various spots on the wall and still refused to meet his eyes.
Annie ploughed on, “Since we went on record the next day announcing the change of the mission, no one will be charged with mutiny.”
“What mutiny?” Mitch said in the voice of someone who knew they could get away with what they were saying. “No one can be fired for enacting NASA policy.”
Teddy glared at him.
“That might be the case but we can keep them from going back.”
The word mutiny bounced around Mark’s head until a horrible realization dawned on him.
“You never asked them if they wanted to come back for me. You never even told them did you? Thought it was too risky. Planned on just sending the crash lander.”
Mark had always known his crewmates had given up a year of their lives to come get him, but this...
“Don’t. Don’t do this Mark.”
Lewis was finally looking at him. She sounded desperate and scared. Mark had never imagined she could sound like that.
“Don’t you dare feel guilty for what we did. Deciding to come back for you was the best decision we made that whole trip. You didn’t see us before, it was killing us Mark, it was killing us to not be able to help you. When we decided to go back for you...we were our old selves again. So don’t you dare feel guilty now.”
“But...you’ll never--,” Mark began but Beck interrupted.
“We knew, Mark. We knew when we did it that they would never send us back up. And it’s worth it Mark, saving you is worth it.”
All five of them were nodding, like it was no big deal that they would never go into space again. Like it was no big deal they’d effectively ended their NASA careers for him.
Mark swallowed thickly, he’d felt choked up when NASA had told him the crew was coming back to rescue him, he felt even more overwhelmed learning what they’d truly had to do to come back and get him.
Suddenly something occurred to him.
“Wait, if NASA didn’t want the Rich Purnell Maneuver, how did you all...” he trailed off unsure.
Venkat Kapoor leaned forward. “Someone,” here he glanced at Henderson, “thought that the decision to come back for you should be up to the crew and hid the maneuver in the data dump.”
Mitch Henderson finally spoke up. “Technically NASA never forbade the maneuver--”
“Oh shut the fuck up Mitch,” Annie cut him off before he could say anything to piss anyone off. “And let sleeping dogs lie.”
“The mutiny is moot point now,” Teddy Sanders spoke from his spot at the head of table as he straightened the papers in front of him. “No one is being charged but the five of you will never fly with NASA again. The only thing that concerns me is that you were able to do it and we were unable to remote override the Hermes’ computers.”
Suddenly the crew all assumed looks of bemused confusion. Mitch decided to step in.
“Why don’t you just tell us in theory how someone could conceivably do that, and we’ll let the matter drop.”
The crew exchanged looks before Johanssen spoke up.
“Sounds fair.”
Due to an unplanned extended space trip the Ares III crew was still under observation in a restricted wing of the medical center. Mark was grateful for the privacy. Once he was inside their designated area he turned to face the rest of the crew.
“You are all fucking insane, I hope you know that.”
They all winced at the harshness in Mark’s voice. Martinez, Vogel, Beck, and Lewis glanced at each other unsure of what to do. Beth was staring fixedly at the opposite wall. Martinez licked his lips before speaking.
“Well yeah, we went to Mars, twice in fact. You have to be insane to agree to space travel.” Martinez tried to play it off like a joke but everyone hear the tension in his voice, nervous about Mark’s reaction.
“True, astronauts are inherently insane, that means you all are reckless morons with no sense of--”
“Oh fuck you Watney.”
Beth stood with her shoulders thrown back, her jaw set, and fire in her eyes.
“We knew what we were doing Mark. We knew that it would be dangerous, and we knew there would be consequences, and we did it anyway. We did it for you, and we did it for us because we couldn’t stand it anymore and suddenly we didn’t have to. So stop being a dick and acting like you dragged us down!”
Her voice had grown louder near the end and the silence rang in the room that served as their rec area.
The rest of the crew watched wide-eyed as Mark opened his mouth several times as if to speak before closing it again. Finally his shoulders slumped and all of his anger drained out of him.
“Why didn’t you tell me? We were on the Hermes for seven months, you couldn’t find one spare moment to tell me what you’d done?”
He sounded hurt and Beck felt like his heart was being wrenched out of his chest.
“We didn’t want you to feel guilty because of what we’d done. You were going through a lot Mark, you didn’t need our issues too.”
Mark drew in a shuddering breath and looked at them like he wasn’t sure how he’d gotten so lucky and said in a quiet voice, “God we’re all a little messed up aren’t we?”
And just like that they were laughing and crying at the same time and it all devolved into a group hug before they broke away began to get ready for dinner.