Okay so I just thought I'd start off by apologizing for the flood of posts that have nothing to do with this blog, I accidentally started reblogging things with this account when I meant to with my main account,and it took me awhile to realize that.
I mean I know the posts got lots of likes and reblog but they aren't really what this blog is for. No, what this blog was created for, long before I became a member, was to post lesbian rewrites of popular books, which brings me to the real reason for this post.
Now, I don't want to promise anything just yet, I did that once before and nothing came of it in the end, but I will say that in light of JK Rowlings recent complete unmasking as a horrible piece of shit TERF, I have been hugely inspired to make another attempt at my rewrites of the Harry Potter series.
Cause what better way to say a big fuck you to that woman then by rewriting her work and filling it with Trans and other LGBTQ representation. :)
And with that I'd like to come out, pun intended, with the second announcement of this post. Harry, or as she's named in my rewrite, Hayley Potter, will be Trans. :D
Hope to get back to you with some more good news soon.
Okay so I know this blog has been dead for a very very very long time, and I don’t want to get your hopes up, it might stay that way, but I felt I should share this with you all just in case.
So first off I should say I don’t know what happened to the others who used to contribute to this blog, so if I do revive it it’ll just be me here so I probably won’t be taking any requests.
But I’ve just recently decided to start rereading a lot of old book series’ I used to love but haven’t read in a long time, and in the process had the thought, These books are too hetero for me, I’m gonna make em gay. :D
Now I’m not sure how successful I’ll be at this, but I’m going to try, starting off with a redo of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
It will be awhile before I post anything, if I actually do post anything, maybe a few weeks or months, I want to build up a bit of a back log of chapters before I try to bring this blog back to life, instead of posting chapters as I rewrite them, that’s what led to my failure last time I tried to keep this blog afloat all on my own.
If things start going well and it seems like I’ll actually do this I’ll make another announcement post before I start posting chapters, to give you all a heads up.
I really want to try and bring this blog back to life, I really love it, and I mean I can’t promise anything, but like I said, I’m going to try. :)
*disclaimer* This is a project done for fun, and none of these characters/works belong to me. I do not claim to own any of the material on this page.
This is a Lesbian edit of Harry Potter by J.K Rowling.
Special Chapter Release as I feel it’s been to long since the last one. :3
Regular Updates Resume: Still Unknown
Google doc version can be found here. The chapter can also be found under the cut. Enjoy!
Halloween
Malfoy couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw that Hayley and Raine were still at Hogwarts the next day, looking tired but perfectly cheerful. Indeed, by the next morning Hayley and Raine thought that meeting the three-headed dog had been an excellent adventure, and they were quite keen to have another one. In the meantime, Hayley filled Raine in about the package that seemed to have been moved from Gringotts to Hogwarts, and they spent a lot of time wondering what could possibly need such heavy protection.
“It’s either really valuable or really dangerous,” said Raine.
“Or both,” said Hayley.
But as all they knew for sure about the mysterious object was that it was about two inches long, they didn’t have much chance of guessing what it was without further clues.
Neither Neville nor Hermione showed the slightest interest in what lay underneath the dog and the trapdoor. All Neville cared about was never going near the dog again.
Hermione was now refusing to speak to Hayley and Raine, but she was such a bossy know-it-all that they saw this as an added bonus. All they really wanted now was a way of getting back at Malfoy, and to their great delight, just such a thing arrived in the mail about a week later.
As the owls flooded into the Great Hall as usual, everyone’s attention was caught at once by a long, thin package carried by six large screech owls. Hayley was just as interested as everyone else to see what was in this large parcel, and was amazed when the owls soared down and dropped it right in front of her, knocking her bacon to the floor. They had hardly fluttered out of the way when another owl dropped a letter on top of the parcel.
Hayley ripped open the letter first, which was lucky, because it said:
DO NOT OPEN THE PARCEL AT THE TABLE.
It contains your new Nimbus Two Thousand, but I don’t want everybody knowing you’ve got a broomstick or they’ll all want one. Octavia Wood will meet you tonight on the Quidditch field at seven o’clock for your first training session.
Professor M. McGonagall
Hayley had difficulty hiding her glee as she handed the note to Raine to read.
“A Nimbus Two Thousand!” Raine moaned enviously. “I’ve never even touched one.”
They left the hall quickly, wanting to unwrap the broomstick in private before their first class, but halfway across the entrance hall they found the way upstairs barred by Crabbe and Goyle. Malfoy seized the package from Hayley and felt it.
“That’s a broomstick,” she said, throwing it back to Hayley with a mixture of jealousy and spite on her face. “You’ll be in for it this time, Potter, first years aren’t allowed them.”
Raine couldn’t resist it.
“It’s not any old broomstick,” they said, “it’s a Nimbus Two Thousand. What did you say you’ve got at home, Malfoy, a Comet Two Sixty?” Raine grinned at Hayley. “Comets look flashy, but they’re not in the same league as the Nimbus.”
“What would you know about it, Weasley, you couldn’t afford half the handle,” Malfoy snapped back. “I suppose you and your family have to save up twig by twig.”
Before Raine could answer, Professor Flitwick appeared at Malfoy’s elbow.
“Not arguing, I hope?” he squeaked.
“Potters been sent a broomstick, Professor,” said Malfoy quickly.
“Yes, yes, that’s right,” said Professor Flitwick, beaming at Hayley. “Professor McGonagall told me all about the special circumstances, Potter. And what model is it?”
“A Nimbus Two Thousand, sir,” said Hayley, fighting not to laugh at the look of horror on Malfoy’s face. “And it’s really thanks to Malfoy here that I’ve got it,” she added.
Hayley and Raine headed upstairs, smothering their laughter at Malfoy’s obvious rage and confusion.
“Well, it’s true,” Hayley chortled as they reached the top of the marble staircase, brushing aside long curly hair that had fallen over her face, “If she hadn’t stolen Neville’s Remembrall I wouldn’t be on the team. …”
“So I suppose you think that’s a reward for breaking rules?” came an angry voice from just behind them. Hermione was stomping up the stairs, looking disapprovingly at the package in Hayley’s hand.
“I thought you weren’t speaking to us?” said Hayley.
“Yes, don’t stop now,” said Raine, “it’s doing us so much good.”
Hermione marched away with her nose in the air.
Hayley had a lot of trouble keeping her mind on her lessons that day. It kept wandering up to the dormitory where her new broomstick was lying under her bed, or straying off to the Quidditch field where she’d be learning to play that night. She bolted her dinner that evening without noticing what she was eating, and then rushed upstairs with Raine to unwrap the Nimbus Two Thousand at last.
“Wow,” Raine sighed, as the broomstick rolled onto Hayley’s bedspread.
Even Hayley, who knew nothing about the different brooms, thought it looked wonderful. Sleek and shiny, with a mahogany handle, it had a long tail of neat, straight twigs and Nimbus Two Thousand written in gold near the top.
As seven o’clock drew nearer, Hayley left the castle and set off in the dusk toward the Quidditch field. She’d never been inside the stadium before. Hundreds of seats were raised in stands around the field so that the spectators were high enough to see what was going on. At either end of the field were three golden poles with hoops on the end. They reminded Hayley of the little plastic sticks Muggle children blew bubbles through, except that they were fifty feet high.
Too eager to fly again to wait for Wood, Hayley mounted her broomstick and kicked off from the ground. What a feeling — she swooped in and out of the goal posts and then sped up and down the field. The Nimbus Two Thousand turned wherever she wanted at her lightest touch.
“Hey, Potter, come down!”
Octavia Wood had arrived. She was carrying a large wooden crate under her arm. Hayley landed next to her.
“Very nice,” said Wood, her eyes glinting. “I see what McGonagall meant … you really are a natural. I’m just going to teach you the rules this evening, then you’ll be joining team practice three times a week.”
She opened the crate. Inside were four different-sized balls.
“Right,” said Wood. “Now, Quidditch is easy enough to understand, even if it’s not too easy to play. There are seven players on each side. Three of them are called Chasers.”
“Three Chasers,” Hayley repeated, as Wood took out a bright red ball about the size of a soccer ball.
“This ball’s called the Quaffle,” said Wood. “The Chasers throw the Quaffle to each other and try and get it through one of the hoops to score a goal. Ten points every time the Quaffle goes through one of the hoops. Follow me?”
“The Chasers throw the Quaffle and put it through the hoops to score,” Hayley recited. “So — that’s sort of like basketball on broomsticks with six hoops, isn’t it?”
“No, not exactly.” Wood replied.
“Now, there’s another player on each side who’s called the Keeper — I’m Keeper for Gryffindor. I have to fly around our hoops and stop the other team from scoring.”
“Three Chasers, one Keeper,” said Hayley, who was determined to remember it all. “And they play with the Quaffle. Okay, got that. So what are they for?” She pointed at the three balls left inside the box.
“I’ll show you now,” said Wood. “Take this.”
She handed Hayley a small club, a bit like a short baseball bat.
“I’m going to show you what the Bludgers do,” Wood said. “These two are the Bludgers.”
She showed Hayley two identical balls, jet black and slightly smaller than the red Quaffle. Hayley noticed that they seemed to be straining to escape the straps holding them inside the box.
“Stand back,” Wood warned Hayley. She bent down and freed one of the Bludgers.
At once, the black ball rose high in the air and then pelted straight at Hayley’s face. Hayley swung at it with the bat to stop it from breaking her nose, and sent it zigzagging away into the air — it zoomed around their heads and then shot at Wood, who dived on top of it and managed to pin it to the ground.
“See?” Wood panted, forcing the struggling Bludger back into the crate and strapping it down safely. “The Bludgers rocket around, trying to knock players off their brooms. That’s why you have two Beaters on each team — the Weasley twins are ours — it’s their job to protect their side from the Bludgers and try and knock them toward the other team. So — think you’ve got all that?”
“Three Chasers try and score with the Quaffle; the Keeper guards the goal posts; the Beaters keep the Bludgers away from their team,” Hayley reeled off.
“Very good,” said Wood.
“Er — have the Bludgers ever killed anyone?” Hayley asked, hoping she sounded offhand.
“Never at Hogwarts. We’ve had a couple of broken jaws but nothing worse than that. Now, the last member of the team is the Seeker. That’s you. And you don’t have to worry about the Quaffle or the Bludgers —”
“— unless they crack my head open.”
“Don’t worry, the Weasleys are more than a match for the Bludgers — I mean, they’re like a pair of human Bludgers themselves.”
Wood reached into the crate and took out the fourth and last ball. Compared with the Quaffle and the Bludgers, it was tiny, about the size of a large walnut. It was bright gold and had little fluttering silver wings.
“This,” said Wood, “is the Golden Snitch, and it’s the most important ball of the lot. It’s very hard to catch because it’s so fast and difficult to see. It’s the Seeker’s job to catch it. You’ve got to weave in and out of the Chasers, Beaters, Bludgers, and Quaffle to get it before the other team’s Seeker, because whichever Seeker catches the Snitch wins his team an extra hundred and fifty points, so they nearly always win. That’s why Seekers get fouled so much. A game of Quidditch only ends when the Snitch is caught, so it can go on for ages — I think the record is three months, they had to keep bringing on substitutes so the players could get some sleep.
“Well, that’s it — any questions?”
Hayley shook her head. She understood what she had to do all right, it was doing it that was going to be the problem.
“We won’t practice with the Snitch yet,” said Wood, carefully shutting it back inside the crate, “it’s too dark, we might lose it. Let’s try you out with a few of these.”
She pulled a bag of ordinary golf balls out of her pocket and a few minutes later, she and Hayley were up in the air, Wood throwing the golf balls as hard as she could in every direction for Hayley to catch.
Hayley didn’t miss a single one, and Wood was delighted. After half an hour, night had really fallen and they couldn’t carry on.
“That Quidditch Cup’ll have our name on it this year,” said Wood happily as they trudged back up to the castle. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you turn out better than Charlie Weasley, and he could have played for England if he hadn’t gone off chasing dragons.”
Perhaps it was because she was now so busy, what with Quidditch practice three evenings a week on top of all her homework, but Hayley could hardly believe it when she realized that she’d already been at Hogwarts two months. The castle felt more like home than Privet Drive ever had. Her lessons, too, were becoming more and more interesting now that they had mastered the basics.
On Halloween morning they woke to the delicious smell of baking pumpkin wafting through the corridors. Even better, Professor Flitwick announced in Charms that he thought they were ready to start making objects fly, something they had all been dying to try since they’d seen him make Neville’s toad zoom around the classroom. Professor Flitwick put the class into pairs to practice. Hayley’s partner was Seamus Finnigan (which was a relief, because Neville had been trying to catch her eye). Raine, however, was to be working with Hermione Granger. It was hard to tell whether Raine or Hermione was angrier about this. She hadn’t spoken to either of them since the day Hayley’s broomstick had arrived.
“Now, don’t forget that nice wrist movement we’ve been practicing!” squeaked Professor Flitwick, perched on top of his pile of books as usual. “Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick. And saying the magic words properly is very important, too — never forget Wizard Baruffio, who said ‘s’ instead of ‘f’ and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest.”
It was very difficult. Hayley and Seamus swished and flicked, but the feather they were supposed to be sending skyward just lay on the desktop. Seamus got so impatient that he prodded it with his wand and set fire to it — Hayley had to put it out with his charms textbook.
Raine, at the next table, wasn’t having much more luck.
“Wingardium Leviosa!” they shouted, waving their long arms like a windmill.
“You’re saying it wrong,” Hayley heard Hermione snap. “It’s Wing-gar-dium Levi-o-sa, make the ‘gar’ nice and long.”
“You do it, then, if you’re so clever,” Raine snarled.
Hermione rolled up the sleeves of her gown, flicked her wand, and said, “Wingardium Leviosa!”
Their feather rose off the desk and hovered about four feet above their heads.
“Oh, well done!” cried Professor Flitwick, clapping. “Everyone see here, Miss Granger’s done it!”
Raine was in a very bad mood by the end of the class.
“It’s no wonder no one can stand her,” Raine said to Hayley as the two pushed their way into the crowded corridor, “she’s a nightmare, honestly.”
Someone knocked into Hayley as they hurried past her. It was Hermione. Hayley caught a glimpse of her face — and was startled to see that she was in tears.
“I think she heard you.”
“So?” said Raine, but they looked a bit uncomfortable. “She must’ve noticed she’s got no friends.”
Hermione didn’t turn up for the next class and wasn’t seen all afternoon. On their way down to the Great Hall for the Halloween feast, Hayley and Raine overheard Parvati Patil telling her friend Lavender that Hermione was crying in the girls’ bathroom and wanted to be left alone. Raine looked still more awkward at this, but a moment later they had entered the Great Hall, where the Halloween decorations put Hermione out of their minds.
A thousand live bats fluttered from the walls and ceiling while a thousand more swooped over the tables in low black clouds, making the candles in the pumpkins stutter. The feast appeared suddenly on the golden plates, as it had at the start-of-term banquet.
Hayley was just helping herself to a baked potato when Professor Quirrell came sprinting into the hall, her turban askew and terror on her face. Everyone stared as she reached Professor Dumbledore’s chair, slumped against the table, and gasped, “Troll — in the dungeons — thought you ought to know.”
She then sank to the floor in a dead faint.
There was an uproar. It took several purple firecrackers exploding from the end of Professor Dumbledore’s wand to bring silence.
“Prefects,” he rumbled, “lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately!”
Percy was in his element.
“Follow me! Stick together, first years! No need to fear the troll if you follow my orders! Stay close behind me, now. Make way, first years coming through! Excuse me, I’m a prefect!”
“How could a troll get in?” Hayley asked as they climbed the stairs.
“Don’t ask me, they’re supposed to be really stupid,” said Raine. “Maybe Peeves let it in for a Halloween joke.”
They passed different groups of people hurrying in different directions. As they jostled their way through a crowd of confused Hufflepuffs, Hayley suddenly grabbed Raine’s arm.
“I’ve just thought — Hermione.”
“What about her?”
“She doesn’t know about the troll.”
Raine bit their lip.
“Oh, all right,” they snapped. “But Percy’d better not see us.”
Ducking down, they joined the Hufflepuffs going the other way, slipped down a deserted side corridor, and hurried off toward the girls’ bathroom. They had just turned the corner when they heard quick footsteps behind them.
“Percy!” hissed Raine, pulling Hayley behind a large stone griffin.
Peering around it, however, they saw not Percy but Snape. He crossed the corridor and disappeared from view.
“What’s he doing?” Hayley whispered. “Why isn’t he down in the dungeons with the rest of the teachers?”
“Search me.”
Quietly as possible, they crept along the next corridor after Snape’s fading footsteps.
“He’s heading for the third floor,” Hayley said, but Raine held up their hand.
“Can you smell something?”
Hayley sniffed and a foul stench reached her nostrils, a mixture of old socks and the kind of public toilet no one seems to clean.
And then they heard it — a low grunting, and the shuffling footfalls of gigantic feet. Raine pointed — at the end of a passage to the left, something huge was moving toward them. They shrank into the shadows and watched as it emerged into a patch of moonlight.
It was a horrible sight. Twelve feet tall, its skin was a dull, granite gray, its great lumpy body like a boulder with its small bald head perched on top like a coconut. It had short legs thick as tree trunks with flat, horny feet. The smell coming from it was incredible. It was holding a huge wooden club, which dragged along the floor because its arms were so long.
The troll stopped next to a doorway and peered inside. It waggled its long ears, making up its tiny mind, then slouched slowly into the room.
“The key’s in the lock,” Hayley muttered. “We could lock it in.”
“Good idea,” said Raine nervously.
They edged toward the open door, mouths dry, praying the troll wasn’t about to come out of it. With one great leap, Hayley managed to grab the key, slam the door, and lock it.
“Yes!”
Flushed with their victory, they started to run back up the passage, but as they reached the corner they heard something that made their hearts stop — a high, petrified scream — and it was coming from the chamber they’d just chained up.
“Oh, no,” said Raine, pale as the Bloody Baroness.
“It’s the girls’ bathroom!” Hayley gasped.
“Hermione!” they said together.
It was the last thing they wanted to do, but what choice did they have? Wheeling around, they sprinted back to the door and turned the key, fumbling in their panic. Hayley pulled the door open and they ran inside.
Hermione Granger was shrinking against the wall opposite, looking as if she was about to faint. The troll was advancing on her, knocking the sinks off the walls as it went.
“Confuse it!” Hayley said desperately to Raine, and, seizing a tap, she threw it as hard as she could against the wall.
The troll stopped a few feet from Hermione. It lumbered around, blinking stupidly, to see what had made the noise. Its mean little eyes saw Hayley. It hesitated, then made for her instead, lifting its club as it went.
“Oy, pea-brain!” yelled Raine from the other side of the chamber, and they threw a metal pipe at it. The troll didn’t even seem to notice the pipe hitting its shoulder, but it heard the yell and paused again, turning its ugly snout toward Raine instead, giving Hayley time to run around it.
“Come on, run, run!” Hayley yelled at Hermione, trying to pull her toward the door, but she couldn’t move, she was still flat against the wall, her mouth open with terror.
The shouting and the echoes seemed to be driving the troll berserk. It roared again and started toward Raine, who was nearest and had no way to escape.
Hayley then did something that was both very brave and very stupid: She took a great running jump and managed to fasten her arms around the troll’s neck from behind. The troll couldn’t feel Hayley hanging there, but even a troll will notice if you stick a long bit of wood up its nose, and Hayley’s wand had still been in her hand when she’d jumped — it had gone straight up one of the troll’s nostrils.
Howling with pain, the troll twisted and flailed its club, with Hayley clinging on for dear life; any second, the troll was going to rip her off or catch her a terrible blow with the club.
Hermione had sunk to the floor in fright; Raine pulled out their own wand — not knowing what they were going to do they heard themselves cry the first spell that came into their head: “Wingardium Leviosa!”
The club flew suddenly out of the troll’s hand, rose high, high up into the air, turned slowly over — and dropped, with a sickening crack, onto its owner’s head. The troll swayed on the spot and then fell flat on its face, with a thud that made the whole room tremble.
Hayley got to her feet. She was shaking and out of breath. Raine was standing there with their wand still raised, staring at what they had done.
It was Hermione who spoke first.
“Is it — dead?”
“I don’t think so,” said Hayley, “I think it’s just been knocked out.”
She bent down and pulled her wand out of the troll’s nose. It was covered in what looked like lumpy gray glue.
“Urgh — troll boogers.”
She wiped it on the troll’s trousers.
A sudden slamming and loud footsteps made the three of them look up. They hadn’t realized what a racket they had been making, but of course, someone downstairs must have heard the crashes and the troll’s roars. A moment later, Professor McGonagall had come bursting into the room, closely followed by Snape, with Quirrell bringing up the rear. Quirrell took one look at the troll, let out a faint whimper, and sat quickly down on a toilet, clutching her heart.
Snape bent over the troll. Professor McGonagall was looking at Raine and Hayley. Hayley had never seen her look so angry. Her lips were even whiter than normal. Hopes of winning fifty points for Gryffindor faded quickly from Hayley’s mind.
“What on earth were you thinking of?” said Professor McGonagall, with cold fury in her voice. Hayley looked at Raine, who was still standing with their wand in the air. “You’re lucky you weren’t killed. Why aren’t you in your dormitory?”
Snape gave Hayley a swift, piercing look. Hayley looked at the floor. She wished Raine would put their wand down.
Then a small voice came out of the shadows.
“Please, Professor McGonagall — they were looking for me.”
“Miss Granger!”
Hermione had managed to get to her feet at last.
“I went looking for the troll because I — I thought I could deal with it on my own — you know, because I’ve read all about them.”
Raine dropped their wand. Hermione Granger, telling a downright lie to a teacher?
“If they hadn’t found me, I’d be dead now. Hayley stuck her wand up its nose and Raine knocked it out with its own club. They didn’t have time to come and fetch anyone. It was about to finish me off when they arrived.”
Hayley and Raine tried to look as though this story wasn’t new to them.
“Well — in that case …” said Professor McGonagall, staring at the three of them, “Miss Granger, you foolish girl, how could you think of tackling a mountain troll on your own?”
Hermione hung her head. Hayley was speechless. Hermione was the last person to do anything against the rules, and here she was, pretending she had, to get them out of trouble. It was as if Snape had started handing out sweets.
“Miss Granger, five points will be taken from Gryffindor for this,” said Professor McGonagall. “I’m very disappointed in you. If you’re not hurt at all, you’d better get off to Gryffindor Tower. Students are finishing the feast in their Houses.”
Hermione left.
Professor McGonagall turned to Hayley and Raine.
“Well, I still say you were lucky, but not many first years could have taken on a full-grown mountain troll. You each win Gryffindor five points. Professor Dumbledore will be informed of this. You may go.”
They hurried out of the chamber and didn’t speak at all until they had climbed two floors up. It was a relief to be away from the smell of the troll, quite apart from anything else.
“We should have gotten more than ten points,” Raine grumbled.
“Five, you mean, once she’s taken off Hermione’s.”
“Good of her to get us out of trouble like that,” Raine admitted. “Mind you, we did save her.”
“She might not have needed saving if we hadn’t locked the thing in with her,” Hayley reminded them.
They had reached the portrait of the Fat Lady.
“Pig snout,” they said and entered.
The common room was packed and noisy. Everyone was eating the food that had been sent up. Hermione, however, stood alone by the door, waiting for them. There was a very embarrassed pause. Then, none of them looking at each other, they all said “Thanks,” and hurried off to get plates.
But from that moment on, Hermione Granger became their friend. There are some things you can’t share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them.
*disclaimer* This is a project done for fun, and none of these characters/works belong to me. I do not claim to own any of the material on this page.
This is a Lesbian edit of Harry Potter by J.K Rowling.
Special Saturday Chapter Release
Chapters will normally be posted every Monday, Wednesday & Friday around 9-10pm EST.
Google doc version can be found here. The chapter can also be found under the cut. Enjoy!
The Midnight Duel
Hayley had never believed she would meet someone she hated more than Dudley, but that was before she met Druella Malfoy. Still, first-year Gryffindors only had Potions with the Slytherins, so they didn’t have to put up with Malfoy much. Or at least, they didn’t until they spotted a notice pinned up in the Gryffindor common room that made them all groan. Flying lessons would be starting on Thursday — and Gryffindor and Slytherin would be learning together.
“Typical,” said Hayley darkly. “Just what I always wanted. To make a fool of myself on a broomstick in front of Malfoy.”
She had been looking forward to learning to fly more than anything else.
“You don’t know that you’ll make a fool of yourself,” said Raine reasonably. “Anyway, I know Malfoy’s always going on about how good she is at Quidditch, but I bet that’s all talk.”
Malfoy certainly did talk about flying a lot. She complained loudly about first years never getting on the House Quidditch teams and told long, boastful stories that always seemed to end with her narrowly escaping Muggles in helicopters. She wasn’t the only one, though: the way Seamus Finnigan told it, he’d spent most of his childhood zooming around the countryside on his broomstick. Even Raine would tell anyone who’d listen about the time they’d almost hit a hang glider on Charlie’s old broom. Everyone from wizarding families talked about Quidditch constantly. Raine had already had a big argument with Dean Thomas about soccer. Raine had never understood what was exciting about a game with only one ball where no one was allowed to fly. Hayley had caught Raine prodding Dean’s poster of West Ham soccer team, trying to make the players move.
Neville had never been on a broomstick in his life, because his grandmother had never let him near one. Privately, Hayley felt she’d had good reason, because Neville managed to have an extraordinary number of accidents even with both feet on the ground.
Hermione Granger was almost as nervous about flying as Neville was. This was something you couldn’t learn by heart out of a book — not that she hadn’t tried. At breakfast on Thursday she bored them all stupid with flying tips she’d gotten out of a library book called Quidditch Through the Ages. Neville was hanging on to her every word, desperate for anything that might help him hang on to his broomstick later, but everybody else was very pleased when Hermione’s lecture was interrupted by the arrival of the mail.
Hayley hadn’t had a single letter since Hagrid’s note, something that Malfoy had been quick to notice, of course. Malfoy’s eagle owl was always bringing her packages of sweets from home, which she opened gloatingly at the Slytherin table.
A barn owl brought Neville a small package from his grandmother. He opened it excitedly and showed them a glass ball the size of a large marble, which seemed to be full of white smoke.
“It’s a Remembrall!” he explained. “Gran knows I forget things — this tells you if there’s something you’ve forgotten to do. Look, you hold it tight like this and if it turns red — oh …” His face fell, because the Remembrall had suddenly glowed scarlet, “… you’ve forgotten something …”
Neville was trying to remember what he’d forgotten when Druella Malfoy, who was passing the Gryffindor table, snatched the Remembrall out of his hand.
Hayley and Raine jumped to their feet. They were half hoping for a reason to fight Malfoy, but Professor McGonagall, who could spot trouble quicker than any teacher in the school, was there in a flash.
“What’s going on?”
“Malfoy’s got my Remembrall, Professor.”
Scowling, Malfoy quickly dropped the Remembrall back on the table.
“Just looking,” she said, and she sloped away with Crabbe and Goyle behind her.
At three-thirty that afternoon, Hayley, Raine, and the other Gryffindors hurried down the front steps onto the grounds for their first flying lesson. It was a clear, breezy day, and the grass rippled under their feet as they marched down the sloping lawns toward a smooth, flat lawn on the opposite side of the grounds to the forbidden forest, whose trees were swaying darkly in the distance.
The Slytherins were already there, and so were twenty broomsticks lying in neat lines on the ground. Hayley had heard Frankie and Glory Weasley complain about the school brooms, saying that some of them started to vibrate if you flew too high, or always flew slightly to the left.
Their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short, gray hair, and yellow eyes like a hawk.
“Well, what are you all waiting for?” she barked. “Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up.”
Hayley glanced down at her broom. It was old and some of the twigs stuck out at odd angles.
“Stick out your right hand over your broom,” called Madam Hooch at the front, “and say ‘Up!’ ”
“UP!” everyone shouted.
Hayley’s broom jumped into her hand at once, but it was one of the few that did. Hermione Granger’s had simply rolled over on the ground, and Neville’s hadn’t moved at all. Perhaps brooms, like horses, could tell when you were afraid, thought Hayley; there was a quaver in Neville’s voice that said only too clearly that he wanted to keep his feet on the ground.
Madam Hooch then showed them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end, and walked up and down the rows correcting their grips. Hayley and Raine were delighted when she told Malfoy she’d been doing it wrong for years.
“Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard,” said Madam Hooch. “Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle — three — two —”
But Neville, nervous and jumpy and frightened of being left on the ground, pushed off hard before the whistle had touched Madam Hooch’s lips.
“Come back, boy!” she shouted, but Neville was rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle — twelve feet — twenty feet. Hayley saw his scared white face look down at the ground falling away, saw him gasp, slip sideways off the broom and —
WHAM — a thud and a nasty crack and Neville lay facedown on the grass in a heap. His broomstick was still rising higher and higher, and started to drift lazily toward the forbidden forest and out of sight.
Madam Hooch was bending over Neville, her face as white as his.
“Broken wrist,” Hayley heard her mutter. “Come on, boy — it’s all right, up you get.”
She turned to the rest of the class.
“None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where they are or you’ll be out of Hogwarts before you can say ‘Quidditch.’ Come on, dear.”
Neville, his face tear-streaked, clutching his wrist, hobbled off with Madam Hooch, who had her arm around him.
No sooner were they out of earshot than Malfoy burst into laughter.
“Did you see his face, the great lump?”
The other Slytherins joined in.
“Shut up, Malfoy,” snapped Parvati Patil.
“Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?” said Pansy Parkinson, a hard-faced Slytherin girl. “Never thought you’d like fat little crybabies, Parvati.”
“Look!” said Malfoy, darting forward and snatching something out of the grass. “It’s that stupid thing Longbottom’s gran sent him.”
The Remembrall glittered in the sun as she held it up.
“Give that here, Malfoy,” said Hayley quietly. Everyone stopped talking to watch.
Malfoy smiled nastily.
“I think I’ll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find — how about — up a tree?”
“Give it here!” Hayley yelled, but Malfoy had leapt onto her broomstick and taken off. She hadn’t been lying, she could fly well. Hovering level with the topmost branches of an oak she called, “Come and get it, Potter!”
Hayley grabbed her broom.
“No!” shouted Hermione Granger. “Madam Hooch told us not to move — you’ll get us all into trouble.”
Hayley ignored her. Blood was pounding in her ears. She mounted the broom and kicked hard against the ground and up, up she soared; air rushed through her hair, and her robes whipped out behind her — and in a rush of fierce joy she realized she’d found something she could do without being taught — this was easy, this was wonderful. She pulled her broomstick up a little to take it even higher, and heard screams and gasps of the other girls back on the ground and an admiring cry of encouragement from Raine.
She turned her broomstick sharply to face Malfoy in midair. Malfoy looked stunned.
“Give it here,” Hayley called, “or I’ll knock you off that broom!”
“Oh, yeah?” said Malfoy, trying to sneer, but looking worried.
Hayley knew, somehow, what to do. She leaned forward and grasped the broom tightly in both hands, and it shot toward Malfoy like a javelin. Malfoy only just got out of the way in time; Hayley made a sharp about-face and held the broom steady. A few people below were clapping.
“No Crabbe and Goyle up here to save your neck, Malfoy,” Hayley called.
The same thought seemed to have struck Malfoy.
“Catch it if you can, then!” she shouted, and she threw the glass ball high into the air and streaked back toward the ground.
Hayley saw, as though in slow motion, the ball rise up in the air and then start to fall. She leaned forward and pointed her broom handle down — next second she was gathering speed in a steep dive, racing the ball — wind whistled in her ears, mingled with the screams of people watching — she stretched out her hand — a foot from the ground she caught it, just in time to pull her broom straight, and she toppled gently onto the grass with the Remembrall clutched safely in her fist.
“HAYLEY POTTER!”
Her heart sank faster than she’d just dived. Professor McGonagall was running toward them. She got to her feet, trembling.
“Never — in all my time at Hogwarts —”
Professor McGonagall was almost speechless with shock, and her glasses flashed furiously, “— how dare you — might have broken your neck —”
“It wasn’t her fault, Professor —”
“Be quiet, Miss Patil —”
“But Malfoy —”
“That’s enough, Weasley. Potter, follow me, now.”
Hayley caught sight of Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle’s triumphant faces as she left, walking numbly in Professor McGonagall’s wake as she strode toward the castle. She was going to be expelled, she just knew it. She wanted to say something to defend herself, but there seemed to be something wrong with her voice. Professor McGonagall was sweeping along without even looking at her; she had to jog to keep up. Now she’d done it. She hadn’t even lasted two weeks. She’d be packing her bags in ten minutes. What would the Dursleys say when she turned up on the doorstep?
Up the front steps, up the marble staircase inside, and still Professor McGonagall didn’t say a word to her. She wrenched open doors and marched along corridors with Hayley trotting miserably behind her. Maybe she was taking her to Dumbledore. She thought of Hagrid, expelled but allowed to stay on as gamekeeper. Perhaps she could be Hagrid’s assistant. Her stomach twisted as she imagined it, watching Raine and the others becoming witches and wizards while she stumped around the grounds carrying Hagrid’s bag.
Professor McGonagall stopped outside a classroom. She opened the door and poked her head inside.
“Excuse me, Professor Flitwick, could I borrow Wood for a moment?”
Wood? thought Hayley, bewildered; was Wood a cane she was going to use on her?
But Wood turned out to be a person, a burly fifth-year girl who came out of Flitwick’s class looking confused.
“Follow me, you two,” said Professor McGonagall, and they marched on up the corridor, Wood looking curiously at Hayley.
“In here.”
Professor McGonagall pointed them into a classroom that was empty except for Peeves, who was busy writing rude words on the blackboard.
“Out, Peeves!” she barked. Peeves threw the chalk into a bin, which clanged loudly, and he swooped out cursing. Professor McGonagall slammed the door behind him and turned to face the two.
“Potter, this is Octavia Wood. Wood — I’ve found you a Seeker.”
Wood’s expression changed from puzzlement to delight.
“Are you serious, Professor?”
“Absolutely,” said Professor McGonagall crisply. “The girl’s a natural. I’ve never seen anything like it. Was that your first time on a broomstick, Potter?”
Hayley nodded silently. She didn’t have a clue what was going on, but she didn’t seem to be getting expelled, and some of the feeling started coming back to her legs.
“She caught that thing in her hand after a fifty-foot dive,” Professor McGonagall told Wood. “Didn’t even scratch herself. Charlie Weasley couldn’t have done it.”
Wood was now looking as though all her dreams had come true at once.
“Ever seen a game of Quidditch, Potter?” she asked excitedly.
“Wood’s captain of the Gryffindor team,” Professor McGonagall explained.
“She’s just the build for a Seeker, too,” said Wood, now walking around Hayley and staring at her. “Light — speedy — we’ll have to get her a decent broom, Professor — a Nimbus Two Thousand or a Cleansweep Seven, I’d say.”
“I shall speak to Professor Dumbledore and see if we can’t bend the first-year rule. Heaven knows, we need a better team than last year. Flattened in that last match by Slytherin, I couldn’t look Severus Snape in the face for weeks. …”
Professor McGonagall peered sternly over her glasses at Hayley.
“I want to hear you’re training hard, Potter, or I may change my mind about punishing you.”
Then she suddenly smiled.
“June would have been proud,” she said. “She was an excellent Quidditch player herself.”
“You’re joking.”
It was dinnertime. Hayley had just finished telling Raine what had happened when she’d left the grounds with Professor McGonagall. Raine had a piece of steak and kidney pie halfway to their mouth, but they’d forgotten all about it.
“Seeker?” they said. “But first years never — you must be the youngest House player in about —”
“— a century,” said Hayley, shoveling pie into her mouth. She felt particularly hungry after the excitement of the afternoon. “Wood told me.”
Raine was so amazed, so impressed, they just sat and gaped at Hayley.
“I start training next week,” said Hayley. “Only don’t tell anyone, Wood wants to keep it a secret.”
Frankie and Glory Weasley now came into the hall, spotted Hayley, and hurried over.
“Well done,” said Glory in a low voice. “Wood told us. We’re on the team too — Beaters.”
“I tell you, we’re going to win that Quidditch Cup for sure this year,” said Frankie. “We haven’t won since Charlie left, but this year’s team is going to be brilliant. You must be good, Hayley, Wood was almost skipping when she told us.”
“Anyway, we’ve got to go, Lee Jordan reckons he’s found a new secret passageway out of the school.”
“Bet it’s that one behind the statue of Gregory the Smarmy that we found in our first week. See you.”
Frankie and Glory had hardly disappeared when someone far less welcome turned up: Malfoy, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle.
“Having a last meal, Potter? When are you getting the train back to the Muggles?”
“You’re a lot braver now that you’re back on the ground and you’ve got your little friends with you,” said Hayley coolly. There was of course nothing at all little about Crabbe and Goyle, but as the High Table was full of teachers, neither of them could do more than crack their knuckles and scowl.
“I’d take you on anytime on my own,” said Malfoy. “Tonight, if you want. Wizard’s duel. Wands only — no contact. What’s the matter? Never heard of a wizard’s duel before, I suppose?”
“Of course she has,” said Raine, wheeling around. “I’m her second, who’s yours?”
Malfoy looked at Crabbe and Goyle, sizing them up.
“Crabbe,” she said. “Midnight all right? We’ll meet you in the trophy room; that’s always unlocked.”
When Malfoy had gone, Raine and Hayley looked at each other.
“What is a wizard’s duel?” said Hayley. “And what do you mean, you’re my second?”
“Well, a second’s there to take over if you die,” said Raine casually, getting started at last on their cold pie. Catching the look on Hayley’s face, they added quickly, “But people only die in proper duels, you know, with real wizards. The most you and Malfoy’ll be able to do is send sparks at each other. Neither of you knows enough magic to do any real damage. I bet she expected you to refuse, anyway.”
“And what if I wave my wand and nothing happens?”
“Throw it away and punch her on the nose,” Raine suggested.
“Excuse me.
They both looked up. It was Hermione Granger.
“Can’t a person eat in peace in this place?” said Raine.
Hermione ignored them and spoke to Hayley.
“I couldn’t help overhearing what you and Malfoy were saying —”
“Bet you could,” Raine muttered.
“— and you mustn’t go wandering around the school at night, think of the points you’ll lose Gryffindor if you’re caught, and you’re bound to be. It’s really very selfish of you.”
“And it’s really none of your business,” said Hayley.
“Good-bye,” said Raine.
All the same, it wasn’t what you’d call the perfect end to the day, Hayley thought, as she lay awake much later listening to Lavender and Parvati falling asleep. (Hermione was already asleep) Raine had spent all evening giving her advice such as “If she tries to curse you, you’d better dodge it, because I can’t remember how to block them.” There was a very good chance they were going to get caught by Filch or Mrs. Norris, and Hayley felt she was pushing her luck, breaking another school rule today. On the other hand, Malfoy’s sneering face kept looming up out of the darkness — this was her big chance to beat Malfoy face-to-face. She couldn’t miss it.
“Half-past eleven,” Raine muttered at last, “we’d better go.”
They pulled on their bathrobes, picked up their wands, and crept across the tower room, down the spiral staircase, and into the Gryffindor common room. A few embers were still glowing in the fireplace, turning all the armchairs into hunched black shadows. They had almost reached the portrait hole when a voice spoke from the chair nearest them, “I can’t believe you’re going to do this, Hayley.”
A lamp flickered on. It was Hermione Granger, wearing a pink bathrobe and a frown.
“You!” said Raine furiously. “How are you even- Go back to bed!”
“I almost told your brother,” Hermione snapped, “Percy — he’s a prefect, he’d put a stop to this.”
Hayley couldn’t believe anyone could be so interfering.
“Come on,” she said to Raine. She pushed open the portrait of the Fat Lady and climbed through the hole.
Hermione wasn’t going to give up that easily. She followed Raine through the portrait hole, hissing at them like an angry goose.
“Don’t you care about Gryffindor, do you only care about yourselves, I don’t want Slytherin to win the House Cup, and you’ll lose all the points I got from Professor McGonagall for knowing about Switching Spells.”
“Go away.”
“All right, but I warned you, you just remember what I said when you’re on the train home tomorrow, you’re so —”
But what they were, they didn’t find out. Hermione had turned to the portrait of the Fat Lady to get back inside and found herself facing an empty painting. The Fat Lady had gone on a nighttime visit and Hermione was locked out of Gryffindor Tower.
“Now what am I going to do?” she asked shrilly.
“That’s your problem,” said Raine. “We’ve got to go, we’re going to be late.”
They hadn’t even reached the end of the corridor when Hermione caught up with them.
“I’m coming with you,” she said.
“You are not.”
“D’you think I’m going to stand out here and wait for Filch to catch me? If he finds all three of us I’ll tell him the truth, that I was trying to stop you, and you can back me up.”
“You’ve got some nerve —” said Raine loudly.
“Shut up, both of you!” said Hayley sharply. “I heard something.”
It was a sort of snuffling.
“Mrs. Norris?” breathed Raine, squinting through the dark.
It wasn’t Mrs. Norris. It was Neville. He was curled up on the floor, fast asleep, but jerked suddenly awake as they crept nearer.
“Thank goodness you found me! I’ve been out here for hours, I couldn’t remember the new password to get into bed.”
“Keep your voice down, Neville. The password’s ‘Pig snout’ but it won’t help you now, the Fat Lady’s gone off somewhere.”
“How’s your arm?” said Hayley.
“Fine,” said Neville, showing them. “Madam Pomfrey mended it in about a minute.”
“Good — well, look, Neville, we’ve got to be somewhere, we’ll see you later —”
“Don’t leave me!” said Neville, scrambling to his feet, “I don’t want to stay here alone, the Bloody Baroness has been past twice already.”
Raine looked at their watch and then glared furiously at Hermione and Neville.
“If either of you get us caught, I’ll never rest until I’ve learned that Curse of the Bogies Quirrell told us about, and used it on you.
Hermione opened her mouth, perhaps to tell Raine exactly how to use the Curse of the Bogies, but Hayley hissed at her to be quiet and beckoned them all forward.
They flitted along corridors striped with bars of moonlight from the high windows. At every turn Hayley expected to run into Filch or Mrs. Norris, but they were lucky. They sped up a staircase to the third floor and tiptoed toward the trophy room.
Malfoy and Crabbe weren’t there yet. The crystal trophy cases glimmered where the moonlight caught them. Cups, shields, plates, and statues winked silver and gold in the darkness. They edged along the walls, keeping their eyes on the doors at either end of the room. Hayley took out her wand in case Malfoy leapt in and started at once. The minutes crept by.
Then a noise in the next room made them jump. Hayley had only just raised her wand when they heard someone speak — and it wasn’t Malfoy.
“Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner.”
It was Filch speaking to Mrs. Norris. Horror-struck, Hayley waved madly at the other three to follow her as quickly as possible; they scurried silently toward the door, away from Filch’s voice. Neville’s robes had barely whipped round the corner when they heard Filch enter the trophy room.
“They’re in here somewhere,” they heard him mutter, “probably hiding.”
“This way!” Hayley mouthed to the others and, petrified, they began to creep down a long gallery full of suits of armor. They could hear Filch getting nearer. Neville suddenly let out a frightened squeak and broke into a run — he tripped, grabbed Raine around the waist, and the pair of them toppled right into a suit of armor.
The clanging and crashing were enough to wake the whole castle.
“RUN!” Hayley yelled, and the four of them sprinted down the gallery, not looking back to see whether Filch was following — they swung around the doorpost and galloped down one corridor then another, Hayley in the lead, without any idea where they were or where they were going — they ripped through a tapestry and found themselves in a hidden passageway, hurtled along it and came out near their Charms classroom, which they knew was miles from the trophy room.
“I think we’ve lost him,” Hayley panted, leaning against the cold wall and wiping her forehead. Neville was bent double, wheezing and spluttering.
“I — told — you,” Hermione gasped, clutching at the stitch in her chest, “I — told — you.”
“We’ve got to get back to Gryffindor Tower,” said Raine, “quickly as possible.”
“Malfoy tricked you,” Hermione said to Hayley. “You realize that, don’t you? She was never going to meet you — Filch knew someone was going to be in the trophy room, Malfoy must have tipped him off.”
Hayley thought Hermione was probably right, but she wasn’t going to tell her that.
“Let’s go.”
It wasn’t going to be that simple. They hadn’t gone more than a dozen paces when a doorknob rattled and something came shooting out of a classroom in front of them.
It was Peeves. He caught sight of them and gave a squeal of delight.
“Shut up, Peeves — please — you’ll get us thrown out.”
Peeves cackled.
“Wandering around at midnight, Ickle Firsties? Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, naughty, you’ll get caughty.”
“Not if you don’t give us away, Peeves, please.”
“Should tell Filch, I should,” said Peeves in a sanity voice, but his eyes glittered wickedly. “It’s for your own good, you know.”
“Get out of the way,” snapped Raine, taking a swipe at Peeves — this was a big mistake.
“STUDENTS OUT OF BED!” Peeves bellowed, “STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!”
Ducking under Peeves, they ran for their lives, right to the end of the corridor where they slammed into a door — and it was locked.
“This is it!” Raine moaned, as they pushed helplessly at the door, “We’re done for! This is the end!”
They could hear footsteps, Filch running as fast as he could toward Peeves’s shouts.
“Oh, move over,” Hermione snarled. She grabbed Hayley’s wand, tapped the lock, and whispered, “Alohomora!”
The lock clicked and the door swung open — they piled through it, shut it quickly, and pressed their ears against it, listening.
“Which way did they go, Peeves?” Filch was saying. “Quick, tell me.”
“Say ‘please.’ ”
“Don’t mess with me, Peeves, now where did they go?”
“Shan’t say nothing if you don’t say please,” said Peeves in his annoying singsong voice.
“All right — please.”
“NOTHING! Ha haaa! Told you I wouldn’t say nothing if you didn’t say please! Ha ha! Haaaaaa!” And they heard the sound of Peeves whooshing away and Filch cursing in rage.
“He thinks this door is locked,” Hayley whispered. “I think we’ll be okay — get off, Neville!” For Neville had been tugging on the sleeve of Hayley’s bathrobe for the last minute. “What?”
Hayley turned around — and saw, quite clearly, what. For a moment, she was sure she’d walked into a nightmare — this was too much, on top of everything that had happened so far.
They weren’t in a room, as she had supposed. They were in a corridor. The forbidden corridor on the third floor. And now they knew why it was forbidden.
They were looking straight into the eyes of a monstrous dog, a dog that filled the whole space between ceiling and floor. It had three heads. Three pairs of rolling, mad eyes; three noses, twitching and quivering in their direction; three drooling mouths, saliva hanging in slippery ropes from yellowish fangs.
It was standing quite still, all six eyes staring at them, and Hayley knew that the only reason they weren’t already dead was that their sudden appearance had taken it by surprise, but it was quickly getting over that, there was no mistaking what those thunderous growls meant.
Hayley groped for the doorknob — between Filch and death, she’d take Filch.
They fell backward — Hayley slammed the door shut, and they ran, they almost flew, back down the corridor. Filch must have hurried off to look for them somewhere else, because they didn’t see him anywhere, but they hardly cared — all they wanted to do was put as much space as possible between them and that monster. They didn’t stop running until they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady on the seventh floor.
“Where on earth have you all been?” she asked, looking at their bathrobes hanging off their shoulders and their flushed, sweaty faces.
“Never mind that — pig snout, pig snout,” panted Hayley, and the portrait swung forward. They scrambled into the common room and collapsed, trembling, into armchairs.
It was a while before any of them said anything. Neville, indeed, looked as if he’d never speak again.
“What do they think they’re doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?” said Raine finally. “If any dog needs exercise, that one does.”
Hermione had got both her breath and her bad temper back again.
“You don’t use your eyes, any of you, do you?” she snapped. “Didn’t you see what it was standing on?”
“The floor?” Hayley suggested. “I wasn’t looking at its feet, I was too busy with its heads.”
“No, not the floor. It was standing on a trapdoor. It’s obviously guarding something.”
She stood up, glaring at them.
“I hope you’re pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed — or worse, expelled. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed.”
Raine stared after her, their mouth open.
“No, we don’t mind,” they said. “You’d think we dragged her along, wouldn’t you?”
But Hermione had given Hayley something else to think about as she climbed back into bed. The dog was guarding something. … What had Hagrid said? Gringotts was the safest place in the world for something you wanted to hide — except perhaps Hogwarts.
It looked as though Hayley had found out where the grubby little package from vault seven hundred and thirteen was.
*disclaimer* This is a project done for fun, and none of these characters/works belong to me. I do not claim to own any of the material on this page.
This is a Lesbian edit of The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan.
Chapters will be posted every day at 10am EST.
Google doc version can be found here. The chapter can also be found under the cut. Enjoy!
NICOLA WASN’T SURE whether to kick herself or Jill Solace.
If she hadn’t been so distracted bickering with the daughter of Apollo, she would never have allowed the enemy to get so close.
As the dog-headed men barrelled forward, Nicola raised her sword. She doubted she had the strength left to win, but, before she could attack them, Jill let out a piercing taxicab whistle.
All six dog-men dropped their weapons, grabbed their ears and fell down in agony.
‘Dude.’ Cecil opened his mouth to pop his ears. ‘What the actual Hades? A little warning next time.’
‘It’s even worse for the dogs.’ Jill shrugged. ‘One of my few musical talents. I do a really awful ultrasonic whistle.’
Nicola didn’t complain. She waded through the dog-men, jabbing them with her sword. They dissolved into shadows.
Octavian and the other Romans seemed too stunned to react.
‘My – my elite guard!’ Octavian looked around for sympathy. ‘Did you see what she did to my elite guard?’
‘Some dogs need to be put down.’ Nicola took a step forward. ‘Like you.’
For one beautiful moment, the entire First Cohort wavered. Then they remembered themselves and levelled their pila.
‘You will be destroyed!’ Octavian shrieked. ‘You Graeci sneak around, sabotaging our weapons, attacking our men –’
‘You mean the weapons you were about to fire at us?’ Cecil asked.
‘And the men who were about to burn our camp to ashes?’ added Lou Ellen.
‘Just like a Greek!’ Octavian yelled. ‘Trying to twist things around! Well, it won’t work!’ He pointed to the nearest legionnaires. ‘You, you, you and you. Check all the onagers. Make sure they’re operational. I want them fired simultaneously as soon as possible. Go!’
The four Romans ran.
Nicola tried to keep her expression neutral.
Please don’t check the firing trajectory, she thought.
She hoped Cecil had done her work well. It was one thing to screw up a huge weapon. It was another thing to screw it up so subtly that no one noticed until it was too late. But if anyone had that skill it would be a child of Hermes, god of trickery.
Octavian marched up to Nicola. To his credit, the augur didn’t seem afraid, though his only weapon was a dagger. He stopped so close that Nicola could see the bloodshot veins in his pale watery eyes. His face was gaunt. His hair was the colour of overcooked spaghetti.
Nicola knew Octavian was a legacy – a descendant of Apollo many generations removed. Now, she couldn’t help thinking that Octavian looked like a watered-down, unhealthy version of Jill Solace – like a photo that had been copied too many times. Whatever made a child of Apollo special, Octavian didn’t have it.
‘Tell me, daughter of Pluto,’ the augur hissed, ‘why are you helping the Greeks? What have they ever done for you?’
Nicola was itching to stab Octavian in the chest. She’d been dreaming of that ever since Bryce Lawrence had attacked them in South Carolina. But, now that they were face to face, Nicola hesitated. She had no doubt she could kill Octavian before the First Cohort intervened. Nor did Nicola particularly care if she died for her actions. The trade-off would be worth it.
But, after what happened with Bryce, the idea of cutting down another demigod in cold blood – even Octavian – didn’t sit well. Nor did it seem right to sentence Cecil, Lou Ellen and Jill to die with her.
It doesn’t seem right? Another part of her wondered, Since when do I worry about what’s right?
‘I’m helping the Greeks and the Romans,’ Nicola said.
Octavian laughed. ‘Don’t try to con me. What have they offered you – a place in their camp? They won’t honour their agreement.’
‘I don’t want a place in their camp,’ Nicola snarled. ‘Or in yours. When this war is over, I’m leaving both camps for good.’
Jill Solace made a sound like she’d been punched. ‘Why would you do that?’
Nicola scowled. ‘It’s none of your business, but I don’t belong. That’s obvious. No one wants me. I’m a child of –’
‘Oh, please.’ Jill sounded unusually angry. ‘Nobody at Camp Half-Blood ever pushed you away. You have friends – or at least people who would like to be your friend. You pushed yourself away. If you’d get your head out of that brooding cloud of yours for once –’
‘Enough!’ Octavian snapped. ‘Di Angelo, I can beat any offer the Greeks could make. I always thought you would make a powerful ally. I see the ruthlessness in you, and I appreciate that. I can assure you a place in New Rome. All you have to do is step aside and allow the Romans to win. The god Apollo has shown me the future –’
‘No!’ Jill Solace shoved Nicola out of the way and got in Octavian’s face. ‘I am a daughter of Apollo, you anaemic loser. My father hasn’t shown anyone the future, because the power of prophecy isn’t working. But this –’ She waved loosely at the assembled legion, the hordes of monstrous armies spread across the hillside. ‘This is not what Apollo would want!’
Octavian’s lip curled. ‘You lie. The god told me personally that I would be remembered as the saviour of Rome. I will lead the legion to victory, and I will start by –’
Nicola felt the sound before she heard it – thunk-thunk-thunk reverberating through the earth, like the massive gears of a drawbridge. All the onagers fired at once, and six golden comets billowed into the sky.
‘By destroying the Greeks!’ Octavian cried with glee. ‘The days of Camp Half-Blood are over!’
Nicola couldn’t think of anything more beautiful than an off-course projectile. At least, not today. From the three sabotaged machines, the payloads veered sideways, arcing towards the barrage from the other three onagers.
The fireballs didn’t collide directly. They didn’t need to. As soon as the missiles got close to one another, all six warheads detonated in midair, spraying a dome of gold and fire that sucked the oxygen right out of the sky.
The heat stung Nicola’s face. The grass hissed. The tops of the trees steamed. But, when the fireworks faded, no serious damage had been done.
Octavian reacted first. He stomped his feet and yelled, ‘NO! NO, NO! RELOAD!’
No one in the First Cohort moved. Nicola heard the tromping of boots to her right. The Fifth Cohort was marching towards them double-time, Dakota in the lead.
Further downhill, the rest of the legion was trying to form up, but the Second, Third and Fourth Cohorts were now surrounded by a sea of ill-tempered monstrous allies. The auxilia forces didn’t look happy about the explosion overhead. No doubt they’d been waiting for Camp Half-Blood to go up in flames so they’d get chargrilled demigod for breakfast.
‘Octavian!’ Dakota called. ‘We have new orders.’
Octavian’s left eye twitched so violently it looked like it might explode. ‘Orders? From whom? Not from me!’
‘From Reyna,’ Dakota said, loud enough to make sure everyone in the First Cohort could hear. ‘She’s ordered us to stand down.’
‘Reyna?’ Octavian laughed, though no one seemed to get the joke. ‘You mean the outlaw I sent you to arrest? The ex-praetor who conspired to betray her own people with this Graecus?’ He jabbed his finger in Nicola’s chest. ‘You’re taking orders from her?’
The Fifth Cohort formed up behind their centurion, uneasily facing their comrades in the First.
Dakota crossed his arms stubbornly. ‘Reyna is the praetor until voted otherwise by the Senate.’
‘This is war!’ Octavian yelled. ‘I’ve brought you to the brink of ultimate victory and you want to give up? First Cohort: arrest Centurion Dakota and any who stand with him. Fifth Cohort: remember your vows to Rome and the legion. You will obey me!’
Jill Solace shook her head. ‘Don’t do this, Octavian. Don’t force your people to choose. This is your last chance.’
‘My last chance?’ Octavian grinned, madness glinting in his eyes. ‘I will SAVE ROME! Now, Romans, follow my orders! Arrest Dakota. Destroy these Graecus scum. And reload those onagers!’
What the Romans would have done left to their own devices, Nicola didn’t know.
But she hadn’t counted on the Greeks.
At that moment, the entire army of Camp Half-Blood appeared on the crest of Half-Blood Hill. Clarisse La Rue rode in the lead, on a red war chariot pulled by metal horses. A hundred demigods fanned out around her, with twice that many satyrs and nature spirits led by Grover Underwood. Tegan lumbered forward with six other Cyclopes. Chiron stood in full white stallion mode, his bow drawn.
It was an impressive sight, but all Nicola could think was: No. Not now.
Clarisse yelled, ‘Romans, you have fired on our camp! Withdraw or be destroyed!’
Octavian wheeled on his troops. ‘You see? It was a trick! They divided us so they could launch a surprise attack. Legion, cuneum formate! CHARGE!’
*disclaimer* This is a project done for fun, and none of these characters/works belong to me. I do not claim to own any of the material on this page.
This is a Lesbian edit of The Martian by Andy Weir.
Chapters will be posted every day at 2pm EST.
Google doc version can be found here. The chapter can also be found under the cut. Enjoy!
CHAPTER XII
Watney slept peacefully in her bunk. She shifted slightly as some pleasant dream put a smile on her face. The previous day had been particularly labor-intensive, so she slept deeper and better than she had in a long time.
“Good morning crew!” Lewis called out. “It’s a brand new day! Up and at ‘em!”
Watney added her voice to a chorus of groans.
“Come on,” Lewis prodded, “no bitching. You got 40 minutes more sleep than you would’ve on Earth.”
Martinez was first out of his bunk. An Air-Force man, he could match Lewis’s Navy schedule with ease. “Morning, Commander,” he said crisply.
Johanssen sat up, but made no further move toward the harsh world outside her blankets. A career software-engineer, mornings were never her forte.
Vogel slowly lumbered from his bunk, checking his watch. He wordlessly pulled on his jumpsuit, smoothing out what wrinkles he could. He sighed inwardly at the grimy feeling of another day without a shower.
Watney turned away from the noise, hugging a pillow to her head. “Noisy people go away,” she mumbled.
“Beck!” Martinez called out, shaking the mission’s doctor. “Rise and shine, bud!”
“Yeah, ok,” Beck said blearily.
Johanssen fell out of her bunk, then remained on the floor.
Pulling the pillow from Watney’s hands, Lewis said “Let’s move, Watney! Uncle Sam paid $100,000 for every second we’ll be here.”
“Bad woman take pillow,” Watney groaned, unwilling to open her eyes.
“Back on Earth, I’ve tipped 200-pound men out of their bunks. Want to see what I can do in 0.4g?”
“No, not really,” Watney said, sitting up.
Having rousted the troops, Lewis sat at the comm station to check overnight messages from Houston.
Watney shuffled to the ration cupboard and grabbed a breakfast at random.
“Hand me an ‘eggs’, will ya,” Martinez said.
“You can tell the difference?” Watney said, passing Martinez a pack.
“Not really,” Martinez said.
“Beck, what’ll you have?” Watney continued.
“Don’t care,” Beck said. “Give me whatever.”
Watney tossed a pack to him.
“Vogel, your usual sausages?”
“Ja, please,” Vogel responded.
“You know you’re a stereotype, right?”
“I am comfortable with that,” Vogel replied, taking the proffered breakfast.
“Hey Sunshine,” Watney called to Johanssen. “Eating breakfast today?”
“Mnrrn,” Johanssen grunted.
“Pretty sure that’s a no,” Watney guessed.
The crew ate in silence. Johanssen eventually trudged to the ration cupboard and got a coffee packet. Clumsily adding hot water, she sipped it until wakefulness crept in.
“Mission updates from Houston,” Lewis said. “Satellites show a storm coming, but we can do surface ops before it gets here. Vogel, Martinez, you’ll be with me outside. Johanssen, you’re stuck tracking weather reports. Watney, your soil experiments are bumped up to today. Beck, run the samples from yesterday’s EVA through the spectrometer.”
“Should you really go out with a storm on the way?” Beck asked.
“Houston authorized it,” Lewis said.
“Seems needlessly dangerous.”
“Coming to Mars was needlessly dangerous,” Lewis said. “What’s your point?”
Beck shrugged. “Just be careful.”
Three figures looked eastward. Their bulky EVA suits rendered them nearly identical. Only the European Union flag on Vogel’s shoulder distinguished him from Lewis and Martinez, who donned the Stars and Stripes.
The darkness to the east undulated and flickered in the rays of the rising sun.
“The storm.” Vogel said in his accented English. “It is closer than Houston reported.”
“We’ve got time,” Lewis said. “Focus on the task at hand. This EVA’s all about chemical analysis. Vogel, you’re the chemist, so you’re in charge of what we dig up.”
“Ja,” Vogel said. “Please dig 30 centimeters and get soil samples. At least 100 grams each. Very important is 30 centimeters down.”
“Will do.” Lewis said. “Stay within 100 meters of the Hab,” she added.
“Mm,” Vogel said.
“Yes, Ma’am,” said Martinez.
They split up. Greatly improved since the days of Apollo, Ares EVA suits allowed much more freedom of motion. Digging, bending over, and bagging samples were trivial tasks.
After a time, Lewis asked “How many samples do you need?”
“Seven each, perhaps?”
“That’s fine,” Lewis confirmed. “I’ve got four so far.”
“Five here,” Martinez said. “Of course, we can’t expect the Navy to keep up with the Air Force, now can we?”
“So that’s how you want to play it?” Lewis said.
“Just call ‘em as I see ‘em Commander.”
“Johanssen here,” came the sysop’s voice over the radio. “Houston’s upgraded the storm to ‘severe’. It’s going to be here in 15 minutes.”
“Back to base,” Lewis said.
The Hab shook in the roaring wind as the astronauts huddled in the center. All six of donned their EVA suits in case of a breach. Johanssen watched her laptop while the rest watched her.
“Sustained winds over 100kph now,” she said. “Gusting to 125.”
“Jesus, we’re gonna end up in Oz,” Watney said. “What’s the abort windspeed?”
“Technically 150kph,” Martinez said. “Any more than that and the MAV’s in danger of tipping.”
“Any predictions on the storm track?” Lewis asked.
“This is the edge of it,” Johanssen said, staring at her screen. “It’s gonna get worse before it gets better.”
The Hab canvas rippled under the brutal assault as the internal supports bent and shivered with each gust. The cacophony grew louder by the minute.
“All right,” Lewis said. “Prep for abort. We’ll go to the MAV and hope for the best. If the wind gets too high, we’ll launch.”
Leaving the Hab in pairs, they grouped up outside airlock 1. The driving wind and sand battered them, but they were able to stay on their feet.
“Visibility is almost zero,” Lewis said. “If you get lost, home in on my suit’s telemetry. The wind’s gonna be rougher away from the Hab, so be ready.”
Pressing through the gale, they stumbled toward the MAV.
“Hey,” Watney panted, “Maybe we could shore up the MAV. Make tipping less likely.”
“How?” Lewis huffed.
“We could use cables from the solar farm as guy lines.” He wheezed for a few moments, then continued. “The rovers could be anchors. The trick would be getting the line around the-“
Flying wreckage slammed Watney, carrying her off into the wind.
“Watney!” Johanssen exclaimed.
“What happened?” Lewis said.
“Something hit her!” Johanssen reported.
“Watney, report,” Lewis said.
No reply.
“Watney, report,” Lewis repeated.
Again, she was met with silence.
“She’s offline,” Johanssen reported. “I don’t know where she is!”
“Commander,” Beck said, “Before we lost telemetry, her decompression alarm went off!”
“Shit!” Lewis exclaimed. “Johanssen where did you last see her?”
“She was right in front of me and then she was gone,” she said. “She flew off due west.”
“Ok,” Lewis said. “Martinez, get to the MAV and prep for launch. Everyone else, home in on Johanssen.”
“Doctor Beck,” Vogel said as he stumbled through the storm, “How long can a person survive decompression?”
“Less than a minute,” Beck said, emotion choking his voice.
“I can’t see anything,” Johanssen said as the crew crowded around her.
“Line up and walk west,” Lewis commanded. “Small steps. She’s probably prone; we don’t want to step over her.”
Staying in sight of one another, they trudged through the chaos.
Martinez fell in to the MAV airlock and forced it closed against the wind. Once it pressurized he quickly doffed his suit. Climbing the ladder to the crew compartment, he slid in to the pilot’s couch and booted the system.
Grabbing the emergency-launch checklist with one hand, he flicked switches rapidly with the other. One by one, the systems reported flight-ready status. As they came online, he noted one in particular.
“Commander,” he radioed, “The MAV’s got a 7 degree tilt. It’ll tip at 12.3.”
“Copy that,” Lewis said.
“Johanssen,” Beck said, looking at his arm computer, “Watney’s bio-monitor sent something before going offline. My computer just says ‘Bad Packet.’”
“I have it, too,” Johanssen said. “It didn’t finish transmitting. Some data’s missing and there’s no checksum. Gimme a sec.”
“Commander,” Martinez said. “Message from Houston. We’re officially scrubbed. The storm’s definitely gonna be too rough.”
“Copy,” Lewis said.
“They sent that four and a half minutes ago,” Martinez continued, “while looking at satellite data from nine minutes ago.”
“Understood,” Lewis said. “Continue prepping for launch.”
“Copy,” Martinez said.
“Beck,” Johanssen said. “I have the raw packet. It’s plaintext: BP 0, PR 0, TP 36.2. That’s as far as it got.”
“Copy,” Beck said morosely. “Blood pressure 0, pulse rate 0, temperature normal.”
The channel fell silent for some time. They continued pressing forward, shuffling through the sandstorm, hoping for a miracle.
“Temperature normal?” Lewis said, a hint of hope in her voice.
“It takes a while for the-“ Beck stammered. “It takes a while to cool.”
“Commander,” Martinez said. “Tilting at 10.5 degrees now, with gusts pushing it to 11.”
“Copy,” Lewis said. “Are you at pilot-release?”
“Affirmative,” Martinez replied. “I can launch any time.”
“If it tips, can you launch before it falls completely over?”
“Uh,” Martinez said, not expecting the question. “Yes Ma’am. I’d take manual control and go full throttle. Then I’d nose up and return to pre-programmed ascent.”
“Copy that,” Lewis said. “Everyone home in on Martinez’s suit. That’ll get you to the MAV airlock. Get in and prep for launch.”
“What about you, Commander?” Beck asked.
“I’m searching a little more. Get moving. And Martinez, if you start to tip, launch.”
“You really think I’ll leave you behind?” Martinez said.
“I just ordered you to,” Lewis replied. “You three, get to the ship.”
They reluctantly obeyed Lewis’s order, and made their way toward the MAV. The punishing wind fought them every step of the way.
Unable to see the ground, Lewis shuffled forward. Remembering something, she reached to her back and got a pair of rock-drill bits. She had added the 1-meter bits to her equipment that morning, anticipating geological sampling later in the day. Holding one in each hand, she dragged them along the ground as she walked.
After 20 meters, she turned around and walked the opposite direction. Walking a straight line proved to be impossible. Not only did she lack visual references, the endless wind pushed her off course. The sheer volume of attacking sand buried her feet with each step. Grunting, she pressed on.
Beck, Johanssen, and Vogel squeezed in to the MAV airlock. Designed for two, it could be used by three in emergencies. As it equalized, Lewis’s voice came over the radio.
“Johanssen,” she said. “Would the rover IR camera do any good?”
“Negative,” Johanssen replied. “IR can’t get through sand any better than visible light.”
“What’s she thinking?” Beck asked after removing his helmet. “She’s a geologist. She knows IR can’t get through a sandstorm.”
“She is grasping,” Vogel said, opening the inner door. “We must get to the couches. Please hurry.”
“I don’t feel good about this,” Beck said.
“Neither do I, Doctor,” said Vogel, climbing the ladder. “But the Commander has given us orders. Insubordination will not help.”
“Commander,” Martinez radioed, “We’re tilting 11.6 degrees. One good gust and we’re tipping.”
“What about the proximity radar?” Lewis said, “Could it detect Watney’s suit?”
“No way,” Martinez said. “It’s made to see Hermes in orbit, not the metal in a single space suit.”
“Give it a try,” Lewis said.
“Commander,” said Beck, putting on a headset as he slid in to his acceleration couch. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but Watn-… Maia’s dead.”
“Copy,” Lewis said. “Martinez, try the radar.”
“Roger,” Martinez radioed.
Bringing the radar online, he waited for it to complete a self check. Glaring at Beck, he said “What’s the matter with you?”
“My friend just died,” Beck answered. “And I don’t want my Commander to die too.”
Martinez gave him a stern look. Turning his attention back to the radar, he radioed “Negative contact on proximity radar.”
“Nothing?” Lewis asked.
“It can barely see the Hab,” he replied. “The sandstorm’s fucking things up. Even if it wasn’t, there’s not enough metal in- Shit!”
“Strap in!” he yelled to the crew. “We’re tipping!”
The MAV began to creaking as it tilted faster and faster.
“13 degrees,” Johanssen called out from her couch.
Buckling his restraints, Vogel said “We are far past balance. We will not rock back.”
“We can’t leave her!” Beck yelled. “Let it tip, we’ll fix it!”
“32 metric tons including fuel,” Martinez said, his hands flying over the controls. “If it hits the ground, it’ll do structural damage to the tanks, frame, and probably the second stage engine. We’d never be able to fix it.”
“You can’t abandon her!” Beck said. “You can’t.”
“I’ve got one trick. If that doesn’t work, I’m following her orders.”
Bringing the Orbital Maneuvering System online, he fired a sustained burn from the nosecone array. The small thrusters fought against the lumbering mass of the slowly tilting spacecraft.
“You are firing the OMS?” Vogel asked.
“I don’t know if it’ll work. We’re not tipping very fast,” Martinez said. “I think it’s slowing down…”
“The aerodynamic caps will have automatically ejected.” Vogel said. “It will be a bumpy ascent with three holes in the side of the ship.”
“Thanks for the tip,” Martinez said, maintaining the burn and watching the tilt readout. “C’mon…”
“Still 13 degrees,” Johanssen reported.
“What’s going on up there?” Lewis radioed. “You went quiet. Respond.”
“Standby,” Martinez replied.
“12.9 degrees,” Johanssen said.
“It is working,” Vogel said.
“For now,” Martinez said. “I don’t know if maneuvering fuel will last.”
“12.8 now.” Johanssen supplied.
“OMS fuel at 60 percent,” Beck said. “How much do you need to dock with Hermes?”
“10 percent if I don’t fuck anything up,” Martinez said, adjusting the thrust angle.
“12.6,” Johanssen said. “We’re tipping back.”
“Or the wind died down a little,” Beck postulated. “Fuel at 45 percent.”
“There is danger of damage to the vents,” Vogel cautioned. “The OMS was not made for prolonged thrusts,”
“I know,” Martinez said. “I can dock without nose vents if I have to.”
“Almost there…” Johanssen said. “Ok we’re under 12.3.”
“OMS cutoff,” Martinez announced, terminating the burn.
“Still tipping back,” Johanssen said. “11.6… 11.5… holding at 11.5”
“OMS Fuel at 22 percent,” Beck said.
“Yeah, I see that,” Martinez replied. “It’ll be enough.”
“Commander,” Beck radioed. “You need to get to the ship now.”
“Agreed,” Martinez radioed. “She’s gone, Ma’am. Watney’s gone.”
The four crewmates awaited their commander’s response.
“Copy,” she finally replied. “On my way.”
They lay in silence, strapped to their couches and ready for launch. Beck looked at Watney’s empty couch and saw Vogel doing the same. Martinez ran a self-check on the nosecone OMS thrusters. They were no longer safe for use. He noted the malfunction in his log.
The airlock cycled. After removing her suit, Lewis made her way to the flight cabin. She wordlessly strapped into her couch, her face a frozen mask. Only Martinez dared speak.
“Still at pilot release,” he said quietly. “Ready for launch.”
Lewis closed her eyes and nodded.
“I’m sorry, Commander,” Martinez said. “You need to verbally-”
“Launch,” she said.
“Yes, Ma’am,” he replied, activating the sequence.
The retaining clamps ejected from the launch gantry, falling to the ground. Seconds later, preignition pyros fired, igniting the main engines, and the MAV lurched upward.
The ship slowly gained speed. As it did, wind-sheer blew it laterally off course. Sensing the problem, the ascent software angled the ship into the wind to counteract it.
As fuel was consumed, the ship got lighter, and the acceleration more pronounced. Rising at this exponential rate, the craft quickly reached maximum acceleration. A limit defined not by the ship’s power, but by the delicate human bodies inside.
As the ship soared, the open OMS ports took their toll. The crew rocked in their couches as the craft shook violently. Martinez and the ascent software kept it trim, though it was a constant battle. The turbulence tapered off and eventually fell to nothing as the atmosphere became thinner and thinner.
Suddenly, all force stopped. The first stage had completed. The crew experienced weightlessness for several seconds, then were pressed back in to their couches as the next stage began. Outside, the now-empty first stage fell away, eventually to crash on some unknown area of the planet below.
The second stage pushed the ship ever higher, and in to low orbit. Lasting less time than the massive first stage, and running much smoother, it seemed almost like an afterthought.
Abruptly, the engine stopped, and an oppressive calm replaced the previous cacophony.
“Main engine shutdown,” Martinez said. “Ascent time: 8 minutes, 14 seconds. On course for Hermes intercept.”
Normally, an incident-free launch would be cause for celebration. This one earned only silence broken by Johanssen’s gentle sobbing.
Four months later…
NASA was loathe to waste research time. Trips to and from Mars were as busy as surface operations. The crew had almost caught up with the backlog of work. The schedule had been made for six, not five.
Beck tried not to think about the painful reason he was doing zero-g plant growth experiments. He noted the size and shape of the fern leaves, took photos, and made notes.
Having completed his science schedule for the day, he checked his watch. Perfect timing. The data dump would be completing soon. He floated past the reactor to the Semicone-A ladder.
Traveling feet-first along the ladder, he soon had to grip it in earnest as the centripetal force of the rotating ship took hold. By the time he reached Semicone-A he was at 0.4g.
No mere luxury, the artificial gravity kept them fit. Without it, they would have spent their first week on Mars barely able to walk. Exercise regimens could keep the heart and bones healthy, but none had been devised that would give them full function from Sol 1.
Because the ship was already designed for it, they used the system on the return trip as well.
Johanssen sat at her station. Lewis sat in the adjacent seat while Vogel and Martinez hovered nearby. The data dump carried emails and videos from home. It was the high point of the day.
“Is it here yet?” Back asked as he entered the bridge.
“Almost,” Johanssen said. “98%.”
“You’re looking cheerful, Martinez,” Beck said.
“My son turned three yesterday,” He beamed. “Should be some pics of the party. How about you?”
“Nothing special,” Beck said. “Peer-reviews of a paper I wrote a few years back.”
“Complete,” Johanssen said. “All the personal emails are dispatched to your laptops. Also there’s a telemetry update for Vogel and a system update for me. Huh… there’s a voice message addressed to the whole crew.”
She looked over her shoulder to Lewis.
Lewis shrugged. “Play it.”
Johanssen opened the message, then sat back.
“Hermes, this is Mitch Henderson,” the message began.
“Henderson?” Martinez said, puzzled. “Talking directly to us without CAPCOM?”
Lewis held her hand up to signal for silence.
“I have some news,” Mitch’s voice continued, “There’s no subtle way to put this: Maia Watney’s still alive.”
Johanssen gasped.
“Wha-“ Beck stammered.
Vogel stood agape as a shocked expression swept across his face.
Martinez looked to Lewis. She leaned forward and pinched her chin.
“I know that’s a surprise,” Mitch continued. “And I know you’ll have a lot of questions. We’re going to answer those questions. But for now I’ll just give you the basics.
“She’s alive and healthy. We found out two months ago and decided not to tell you; we even censored personal messages. I was strongly against all that. We’re telling you now because we finally have communication with her and a viable rescue plan. It boils down to Ares 4 picking her up with a modified MDV.
“We’ll get you a full write-up of what happened, but it’s definitely not your fault. Maia stresses that every time it comes up. It was just bad luck.
“Take some time to absorb this. Your science schedules are cleared for tomorrow. Send all the questions you want and we’ll answer them. Henderson out.”
The message’s end brought stunned silence to the bridge.
“She…She’s alive?” Martinez said, then smiled.
Vogel nodded excitedly. “She lives.”
Johanssen stared at her screen in wide-eyed disbelief.
“Holy shit,” Beck laughed. “Holy shit! Commander! She’s alive!”
“I left her behind,” Lewis said quietly.
The celebrations ceased immediately as the crew saw their commander’s inconsolable expression.
“But,” Beck began, “We all left togeth-“
“You followed orders,” Lewis interrupted. “I left her behind. In a barren, unreachable, godforsaken wasteland.”
Beck looked to Martinez pleadingly. Martinez opened his mouth, but could find no words to say.
Lewis trudged off the bridge.
*disclaimer* This is a project done for fun, and none of these characters/works belong to me. I do not claim to own any of the material on this page.
This is a Lesbian edit of The Martian by Andy Weir.
Chapters will be posted every day at 2pm EST.
Google doc version can be found here. The chapter can also be found under the cut. Enjoy!
CHAPTER XI
“Something’s coming in… yes… yes! It’s Pathfinder!”
The room burst in to applause and cheers. Venkat slapped an unknown technician heartily on the back while Bruce pumped his fist in the air.
The ad-hoc control center was an accomplishment in itself. JPL had just 20 days to piece together antiquated computers, repair broken components, network everything, and install hastily made software to interact with the modern Deep Space Network. A team of engineers had worked around the clock, finishing only two days earlier.
The room itself was formerly a conference room; JPL had no space ready for the sudden need. Crammed with computers and equipment, little space was left over for the many spectators squeezing in.
One Associated Press camera team was permitted. The rest of the media would have to satisfy themselves with the live AP feed, and await a press conference.
Venkat turned to Bruce. “God damn, Bruce. You really pulled a rabbit out of your hat this time! Good work!”
“I’m just the director,” Bruce said modestly. “Thank the guys who got all this shit working.”
“Oh I will!” Venkat beamed. “But first I have to talk to my new best friend!”
Turning to the headsetted man at the communications console, Venkat asked “What’s you’re name, new best friend?”
“Tim,” he said, not taking his eyes off the screen.
“What now?” Venkat asked.
“We sent the return telemetry automatically. It’ll get there in just over 11 minutes. Once it does, Pathfinder will start high-gain transmissions. So it’ll be 22 minutes till we hear from it again.”
“Venkat’s got a doctorate in physics, Tim,” Bruce said, “You don’t need to explain transmission time to him.”
Tim shrugged. “You can never tell with managers.”
“What was in the transmission we got?” Venkat asked.
“Just the bare bones. A hardware self check. It’s got a lot of “nonfunctional” systems, cause they were on the panels Watney removed.”
“What about the camera?”
“It says the imager’s working. We’ll have it take a panorama as soon as we can.”
LOG ENTRY: SOL 97
It worked!
Holy fucking shit it worked!
I just checked the Lander. The high gain antenna is angled directly at Earth! Pathfinder has no way of knowing where it is, so it has no way of knowing where Earth is. The only way for it to find out is getting a signal.
They know I’m alive!
Happy dance, happy dance, I’m doin’ the happy dance!
All right. Enough happy dance. Time to make with the communicatin’!
“We received the high-gain response just over half an hour ago,” Venkat said to the assembled press. “We immediately directed Pathfinder to take a panoramic image. Hopefully, Watney has some kind of message for us. Questions?”
The sea of reporters raised their hands.
“Cathy, let’s start with you,” Venkat said, pointing her out.
“Thanks,” she said. “Have you had any contact with the Sojourner rover?”
“Unfortunately, no,” he replied. “The Lander hasn’t been able to connect to Sojourner, and we have no way to contact it directly.”
“What might be wrong with Sojourner?”
“I can’t even speculate,” Venkat said. “After spending that long on Mars, anything could be wrong with it.”
“Best guess?”
“Our best guess is she took it into the Hab. The Lander’s signal wouldn’t be able to reach Sojourner through Hab canvas.” Pointing to another reporter, he said “You, there.”
“Marty West, NBC News,” Marty said. “How will you communicate with Watney once everything’s up and running?”
“That’ll be up to Watney,” said Venkat. “All we have to work with is the camera. She can write notes and hold them up. But how we talk back is trickier.”
“How so?” Marty asked.
“Because all we have is the camera platform. That’s the only moving part. There are plenty of ways to get information across with just the platform’s rotation, but no way to tell Watney about them. She’ll have to come up with something and tell us. We’ll follow her lead.”
Pointing to the next reporter, he said, “Go ahead.”
“Jill Holbrook, BBC. With a 32 minute round trip, and nothing but a single rotating platform to talk with, it’ll be a dreadfully slow conversation, won’t it?”
“Yes it will,” Venkat confirmed. “It’s early morning in Acidalia Planitia right now, and just past 3am here in Pasadena. We’ll be here all night, and that’s just for a start. No more questions for now, the panorama is due back in a few minutes. We’ll keep you posted.”
Quickly leaving the press room, Venkat hurried down the hall to the makeshift Pathfinder control center. He pressed through the throng to the communications console.
“Anything, Tim?”
“Totally,” he replied. “But we’re staring at this black screen because it’s way more interesting than pictures from Mars.”
“You’re a smart-ass, Tim,” Venkat said.
“Noted.”
Bruce pushed his way forward. “Still another few seconds on the clock,” he said.
The time passed in silence.
“Getting something,” Tim said. “Yup. It’s the panoramic.”
A general loosening of tension coruscated through the room as the image slowly came through, one vertical stripe at a time.
“Martian surface…” Venkat said as the lines displayed. “More surface…”
“Edge of the Hab!” Bruce said, pointing to the screen.
“Hab,” Venkat smiled. “More Hab now… more Hab… is that a message? That’s a message!”
The vertical stripes revealed a handwritten note, suspended at the camera’s height by a thin metal rod.
“We got a note from Maia!” Venkat announced to the room.
Applause filled the room, then quickly died down. “What’s it say?” someone asked.
Venkat leaned closer to the screen. “It says …‘I’ll write questions here – Are you receiving?’”
“Ok…?” said Bruce.
“That’s what it says,” Venkat shrugged.
“Another note,” said Tim, pointing to the screen as the slow march of data revealed itself.
Venkat leaned in again. “This one says ‘Point here for yes’.”
“All right, I see what she’s going for,” said Bruce.
“There’s the third note,” said Tim.
“‘Point here for no,’” Venkat read. “‘Will check often for answer’”
Venkat folded his arms. “All right. We have communication with Maia. Tim, point the camera at ‘Yes’. Then, start taking pictures at 10 minute intervals until she puts another question up.”
LOG ENTRY: SOL 97 (2)
“Yes!” They said “Yes!”
I haven’t been this excited about a “yes” since prom night!
Ok, calm down.
I have limited paper to work with. These cards were intended to label batches of samples. I have about 50 cards. I can use both sides, and if it comes down to it, I can re-use them by scratching out the old question.
The Sharpie I’m using will last much longer than the cards, so ink isn’t a problem. But I have to do all my writing in the Hab. I don’t know what kind of hallucinogenic crap that ink is made of, but I’m pretty sure it would boil off in 1/90th of an atmosphere.
I’m using old parts of the antenna array to hold the cards up. There’s a certain irony in that.
We’ll need to talk faster than yes/no questions every half-hour. The camera can rotate 360 degrees, and I have plenty of antenna parts. Time to make an alphabet. But I can’t just use the letters A through Z. With my Question Card, that would be 27 cards around the lander. Each one would only get 13 degrees of arc. Even if JPL points the camera perfectly, there’s a good chance I won’t know which letter they meant.
So I’ll have to use ASCII. That’s how computers manage characters. Each character has a numerical code between 0 and 255. Values between 0 and 255 can be expressed as 2 hexadecimal digits. By giving me pairs of hex digits, they can send any character they like, including numbers, punctuation, etc.
How do I know which values go with which characters? Because Johanssen’s laptop is a wealth of information. I knew she’d have an ASCII table in there somewhere. All computer geeks do.
So I’ll make cards for 0 through 9, and A through F. That makes 16 cards to place around the camera, plus the Question Card. 17 cards means over 21 degrees each. Much easier to deal with.
Time to get to work!
Spell with ASCII. Numbers 0-F at 21 degree increments. Will watch camera starting 11:00 my time. When message done, return to this position. Wait 20 minutes after completion to take picture (So I can write and post reply). Repeat process at top of every hour.
S…T…A…T…U…S
No physical problems. All Hab components functional. Eating 3/4 rations. Successfully growing crops in Hab with cultivated soil. Note: Situation not Ares 3 crew’s fault. Bad luck.
H…O…W…A…L…I…V…E
Impaled by antenna fragment. Knocked out by decompression. Landed face down, blood sealed hole. Woke up after crew left. Bio-monitor computer destroyed by puncture. Crew had reason to think me dead. Not their fault.
C…R…O…P…S…?
Long story. Extreme Botany. Have 126 m2 farmland growing potatoes. Will extend food supply, but not enough to last until Ares 4 landing. Modified rover for long distance travel, plan to drive to Ares 4.
W…E…S…A…W…-…S…A…T…L…I…T…E
Government watching me with satellites? Need tinfoil hat! Also need faster way to communicate. Speak&Spell taking all damn day. Any ideas?
B…R…I…N…G…S…J…R…N…R…O…U…T
Sojourner rover brought out, placed 1 meter due north of Lander. If you can contact it, I can draw hex numbers on the wheels and you can send me six bytes at a time.
S…J…R…N…R…N…O…T…R…S…P…N…D
Damn. Any other ideas? Need faster communication.
W…O…R…K…I…N…G…O…N…I…T
Earth is about to set. Resume 08:00 my time tomorrow morning. Tell family I’m fine. Give crew my best. Tell Commander Lewis disco sucks.
“I was up all night,” said Venkat. “Forgive me if I’m a little punchy. Who are you again?”
“Jack Trevor,” said the thin, pale man before Venkat. “I work in software engineering.”
“What can I do for you?”
“We have an idea for communication.”
“I’m all ears.”
“We’ve been looking through the old Pathfinder software. We got duplicate computers up and running for testing. Same computers they used to find a problem that almost killed the original mission. Real interesting story, actually, turns out there was a priority inversion in Sojourner’s thread management and-”
“Focus, Jack,” interrupted Venkat.
“Right. Well, the thing is, Pathfinder has an OS update process. So we can change the software to anything we want.”
“Ok, how does this help us?”
“Pathfinder has two communication systems. One to talk to us, the other to talk to Sojourner. We can change the second system to broadcast on the Ares-3 rover frequency. And we can have it pretend to be the beacon signal from the Hab.”
“You can get Pathfinder talking to Maia’s rover?”
“It’s the only option. The Hab’s radio is dead. Thing is, all the rover does is triangulate the signal to fix its location. It doesn’t send data back to the Hab. It just has a voice channel for the astronauts to talk to each other.”
“So,” Venkat said, “You can get Pathfinder talking to the rover, but you can’t get the rover talking back.”
“Right. What we want is for our text to show up on the rover screen, and whatever Watney types to be sent back to us. That requires a change to the rover’s software.”
“And we can’t do that,” Venkat concluded. “Because we can’t talk to the rover.”
“Not directly,” Jack said. “But we can send data to Watney, and have her enter it into the rover.”
“How much data are we talking about?”
“I have guys working on the rover software right now. The patch file will be 20 Meg, minimum. We can send one byte to Watney every 4 seconds or so with the ‘Speak&Spell.’ It’d take three years of constant broadcasting to get that patch across. So that’s no good.”
“But you’re talking to me, so you have a solution, right?” Venkat probed.
“Of course!” Jack beamed. “Software engineers are sneaky bastards when it comes to data management.”
“Enlighten me,” said Venkat, patiently.
“Here’s the clever part,” Jack said, conspiratorially. “The rover currently parses the signal into bytes, then identifies the specific sequence the Hab sends. That way, natural radio waves won’t throw off the homing. If the bytes aren’t right, the rover ignores them.”
“Ok, so what?”
“It means there’s a spot in the codebase where it’s got the parsed bytes. We can insert a tiny bit of code, just 20 instructions, to write the parsed bytes to a log file before checking their validity.”
“This sounds promising…” Venkat said.
“It is!” Jack said excitedly. “First, we update Pathfinder with our replacement OS. Then, we tell Watney exactly how to hack the rover software to add those 20 instructions. Then we broadcast the rover’s patch to Pathfinder, which re-broadcasts it to the rover. The rover logs the bytes to a file. Finally, Watney launches the file as an executable and it patches the rover software!”
Venkat furrowed his brow, taking in far more information than his sleep-deprived mind wanted to accept.
“Um,” Jack said. “You’re not cheering or dancing.”
“So we just need to send Watney those 20 instructions?” Venkat asked.
“That, and how to edit the files. And where to insert the instructions in the files.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that!”
Venkat was silent for a moment. “Jack. I’m going to buy your whole team autographed Star Trek memorabilia.”
“I prefer Star Wars.”
“Hello?”
“I need a picture of Watney.”
“Hi, Annie. Nice to hear from you, too. How are things back in Houston?”
“Cut the shit, Venkat. I need a picture.”
“It’s not that simple,” Venkat explained.
“You’re talking to her with a fucking camera. How hard can it be?”
“We spell out our message, wait 20 minutes and then take a picture. Watney’s back in the Hab by then.”
“So tell her to be around when you take the next picture,” Annie demanded.
“We can only send one message per hour, and only when Acidalia Planitia is facing Earth,” Venkat said. “We’re not going to waste a message just to tell her to pose for a photo. Besides, she’ll be in her EVA suit. You won’t even be able to see her face.”
“I need something, Venkat,” Annie said. “You’ve been in contact for 24 hours and the media is going ape shit. They want an image for the story. It’ll be on every news site in the world.”
“You have the pictures of her notes. Make do with that.”
“Not enough,” Annie said. “The press is crawling down my throat for this. And up my ass. Both directions, Venkat! They’re gonna meet in the middle!”
“It’ll have to wait a few days. We’re going to try and link Pathfinder to the rover computer-“
“A few days!?” Annie gasped. “This is all anyone cares about right now. In the world. You see what I’m getting at? This is the biggest story since Apollo 13. Give me a fucking picture!”
Venkat sighed. “I’ll try to get it tomorrow.”
“Great!” She said. “Looking forward to it.”
LOG ENTRY: SOL 98
I have to be watching the camera when it spells shit out. It’s half a byte at a time. So I watch a pair of numbers, then look them up on an ASCII cheat-sheet I made. That’s one letter.
I don’t want to forget any letters, so I scrape them into the dirt with a rod. The process of looking up a letter and scraping it in the dirt takes a couple of seconds. Sometimes when I look back at the camera, I’ve missed a number. I can usually guess it from context, but other times I just miss out.
Today I got up hours earlier than I needed to. It was like Christmas morning! I could hardly wait for 08:00 to roll around. I had breakfast, did some unnecessary checks on Hab equipment, and read some Poirot. Finally the time came!
“CNHAKRVR2TLK2PTHFDRPRP4LONGMSG”
Yeah. Took me a minute. “Can hack rover to talk to Pathfinder. Prepare for long message.”
That took some mental gymnastics to work out. But it was great news! If we could get that set up, we’d only be limited by transmission time! I set up a note that said “Roger.”
Not sure what they meant by “long message” but I figured I better be ready. I went out 15 minutes before the top of the hour and smoothed out a big area of dirt. I found the longest antenna rod I had, so I could reach into the smooth area without having to step on it.
Then I stood by. Waiting.
At exactly the top of the hour, the message came.
“LNCHhexiditONRVRCMP,OPENFILE-/usr/lib/habcomm.so-SCROLLTILIDXON LFTIS:2AAE5,OVRWRT141BYTSWTHDATAWE’LLSNDNXTMSG,STANDINVIE W4NXTPIC20MINFTERTHSDONE”
Jesus. Ok…
They want me to launch ‘hexedit’ on the rover’s computer, then open the file /usr/lib/habcomm.so, scroll until the index reading on the left of the screen is 2AAE5, then replace the bytes there with a 141 byte sequence NASA will send in the next message. Fair enough.
Also, for some reason, they want me to hang around for the next pic. Not sure why. You can’t see any part of me when I’m in the suit. Even the faceplate would reflect too much light. Still, it’s what they want.
I went back in and copied down the message for future reference. Then I wrote a short note and came back out. Usually I’d pin up the note and go back in. But this time I had to hang around for a photo op.
I gave the camera a thumb’s-up to go along with my note, which said “Ayyyyyy!”
Blame the ‘70’s TV.
“I ask for a picture and I get The Fonz?” Annie admonished.
“You got your picture, quit bitching,” Venkat said, cradling the phone on his shoulder. He paid more attention to the schematics in front of him than the conversation.
“Ayyyyyy!” Annie mocked. “Why would she do that?”
“Have you met Maia Watney?”
“Fine, fine,” Annie said. “But I want a pic of her face ASAP.”
“Can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because if she takes off her helmet, she’ll die. Annie, I have to go, one of the JPL programmers is here and it’s urgent. Bye!”
“But-“ Annie said as he hung up.
Jack, in the doorway, said “It’s not urgent.”
“Yeah, I know,” Venkat said. “What can I do for you?”
“We were thinking,” Jack began, “This rover hack might get kind of detailed. We may have to do a bunch of back-and-forth communication with Watney.”
“That’s fine,” Venkat said. “Take your time, do it right.”
“We could get things done faster with a shorter transmission time,” Jack said.
Venkat gave him a puzzled look. “Do you have a plan for moving Earth and Mars closer together?”
“Earth doesn’t have to be involved,” Jack said. “Hermes is 73 million km from Mars right now. Only 4 light-minutes away. Beth Johanssen is a great programmer. She could talk Maia through it.”
“Out of the question,” Venkat said.
“She’s the mission Sysop,” Jack pressed on, “This is her exact area of expertise.”
“Can’t do it, Jack. The crew still doesn’t know.”
“What is with you? Why won’t you just tell them?”
“Watney’s not my only responsibility,” Venkat said. “I’ve got five other astronauts in deep space, who have to concentrate on their return trip. Nobody thinks about it, but statistically they’re in more danger than Watney right now. She’s on a planet. They’re in space.”
Jack raised his arms. “Fine, we’ll do it the slow way.”
LOG ENTRY: SOL 98 (2)
Ever transcribed 141 random bytes, one half of a byte at a time?
It’s boring. And it’s tricky when you don’t have a pen.
Earlier, I had just written letters in the sand. But this time, I needed a way to get the numbers on to something portable. My first plan was: Use a laptop!
Each crewman had their own laptop. So I have six at my disposal. Rather, I “had” six. I now have five. I thought a laptop would be fine outside. It’s just electronics, right? It’ll keep warm enough to operate in the short term, and it doesn’t need air for anything.
It died instantly. The screen went black before I was out of the airlock. Turns out the “L” in “LCD” stands for “Liquid.” I guess it either froze or boiled off. Maybe I’ll post a consumer review. “Brought product to surface of Mars. It stopped working. 0/10.”
So I used a camera. I’ve got lots of them, specially made for working on Mars. I wrote the bytes in the sand as they came in, took a picture, then transcribed them in the Hab.
It’s night now, so no more messages. Tomorrow, I’ll enter this in to the rover and the geeks at JPL can take it from there.
“Come on up here, Jack,” said Venkat. “You get to be the most Timward today.”
“Thanks,” said Jack, taking Venkat’s place next to Tim. “Heya, Tim!”
“Jack,” said Tim.
“How long will the patch take?” Venkat asked.
“Should be pretty much instant,” Jack answered. “Watney entered the hack earlier today, and we confirmed it worked. We updated Pathfinder’s OS without any problems. We sent the rover patch, which Pathfinder rebroadcast. Once Watney executes the patch and reboots the rover, we should get a connection.”
“Jesus what a complicated process,” Venkat said.
“Try updating a Linux server some time,” Jack said.
After a moment of silence, Tim said “You know he was telling a joke, right? That was supposed to be funny.”
“Oh,” said Venkat. “I’m a physics guy, not a computer guy.”
“He’s not funny to computer guys either.”
“You’re a very unpleasant man, Tim,” Jack said.
“System’s online,” said Tim.
“What?”
“It’s online. FYI.”
“Holy crap!” Jack said.
“It worked!” Venkat announced to the room.
[11:18]JPL: Maia, this is Venkat Kapoor. We’ve been watching you since Sol 49. The whole world’s been rooting for you. Amazing job, getting Pathfinder. We’re working on rescue plans. JPL is adjusting Ares 4’s MDV to do a short overland flight. They’ll pick you up, then take you with them to Schiaparelli. We’re putting together a supply mission to keep you fed till Ares 4 arrives.
[11:29]WATNEY: Glad to hear it. Really looking forward to not dying. I want to make it clear it wasn’t the crew’s fault. Side question: What did they say when they found out I was alive? Also, “Hi, mom!”
[11:41]JPL: Tell us about your “crops”. We estimated your food packs would last until Sol 400 at 3/4 ration per meal. Will your crops affect that number? As to your question: We haven’t told the crew you’re alive yet. We wanted them to concentrate on their own mission.
[11:52]WATNEY: The crops are potatoes, grown from the ones we were supposed to prepare on Thanksgiving. They’re doing great, but the available farmland isn’t enough for sustainability. I’ll run out food around Sol 900. Also: Tell the crew I’m alive! What the fuck is wrong with you?
[12:04]JPL: We’ll get botanists in to ask detailed questions and double-check your work. Your life is at stake, so we want to be sure. Sol 900 is great news. It’ll give us a lot more time to get the supply mission together. Also, please watch your language. Everything you type is being broadcast live all over the world.
[12:15]WATNEY: Look! A pair of boobs! -> (.Y.)
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Teddy said into the phone. “I appreciate the call, and I’ll pass your congratulations on to the whole organization.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Teddy said in to the phone. “I appreciate the call, and I’ll pass your congratulations on to the whole organization.”
“This a good time?” Mitch asked.
“Come in, Mitch,” Teddy said. “Have a seat.”
“Thanks,” Mitch said, sitting in a fine leather couch. “Good day today!”
“Yes, it was,” Teddy agreed. “Another step closer to getting Watney back alive.”
“Yeah, about that,” said Mitch. “You probably know why I’m here.”
“I can take a guess,” said Teddy. “You want to tell the crew Watney’s alive.”
“Yes,” Mitch said.
“And you’re bringing this up with me while Venkat is in Pasadena, so he can’t argue the other side.”
“I shouldn’t have to clear this with you or Venkat or anyone else. I’m the flight director. It should have been my call from the beginning, but you two stepped in and overrode me. Ignoring all that, we agreed we’d tell them when there was hope. And now there’s hope. We’ve got communication, we have a plan for rescue in the works, and her farm buys us enough time to get her supplies.”
“Ok, tell them.” Teddy said.
Mitch paused. “Just like that?”
“I knew you’d be here sooner or later, so I already thought it through and decided. Go ahead and tell them.”
Mitch stood up. “All right. Thanks,” he said as he left the office.
Teddy swiveled in his chair and looked out his windows to the night sky. He pondered the faint, red dot amongst the stars. “Hang in there Watney,” he said to no one. “We’re coming.”
*disclaimer* This is a project done for fun, and none of these characters/works belong to me. I do not claim to own any of the material on this page.
This is a Lesbian edit of The Martian by Andy Weir.
Chapters will be posted every day at 2pm EST.
Google doc version can be found here. The chapter can also be found under the cut. Enjoy!
CHAPTER X
LOG ENTRY: SOL 90
Seven days since Pathfinder, and seven days closer to home.
As I’d hoped, my inbound tracks gave me a path back to Lewis Valley. Then it was four sols of easy driving. The hills to my left made it impossible to get lost, and the terrain was smooth.
But all good things come to an end. I’m back in Acidalia Planitia now. My outgoing tracks are long gone. It’s been 16 days since I was last here. Even timid weather would clear them out in that time.
On my way out, I should have made a pile of rocks every time I camped. The land is so flat they’d be visible for kilometers.
On second thought, thinking back to making that damn ramp… ugh.
So once again I am the desert wanderer, using Phobos to navigate, and hoping I don’t stray too far. All I need to do is get within 40km of the Hab and I’ll pick up the beacon.
I’m feeling optimistic. For the first time, I think I might get off this planet alive. With that in mind, I’m taking soil and rock samples every time I do an EVA.
At first, I figured it was my duty. If I survive, geologists will love me for it. But then it started to get fun. Now, as I drive, I look forward to that simple act of bagging rocks.
It just feels nice to be an astronaut again. That’s all it is. Not a reluctant farmer, not an electrical engineer, not a long haul trucker. An astronaut. I’m doing what astronauts do. I missed it.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 92
I got 2 seconds of signal from the Hab beacon today, then lost it. But it’s a good sign. I’ve been traveling vaguely north-northwest for two days. I must be a good 100km from the Hab; it’s a miracle I got any signal at all. Must have been a moment of perfect weather conditions.
During the boring-ass days, I’m working my way through “The Six Million Dollar Man” from Commander Lewis’s inexhaustible collection of ‘70s tripe.
I just watched an episode where Steve Austin fights a Russian Venus probe that landed on Earth by mistake. As an expert in interplanetary travel, I can tell you there are no scientific inaccuracies in the story. It’s quite common for probes to land on the wrong planet. Also, the probe’s large, flat-panel hull is ideal for the high-pressure Venusian atmosphere. And, as we all know, probes often refuse to obey directives, choosing instead to attack humans on sight.
So far, Pathfinder hasn’t tried kill me. But I’m keeping an eye on it.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 93
I found the Hab signal today. I have a solid bearing and direction to go. No more chance to get lost. According to the computer, I’m 24718 meters away.
I’ll be home tomorrow. Even if the rover has a catastrophic failure, I’ll be fine. I can walk to the Hab from here.
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I am really fucking sick of being in this rover. I’ve spent so much time seated or laying down, my back is all screwed up. Of all my crewmates, the one I miss most right now is Beck. He’d fix my aching back.
Though he’d probably give me a bunch of shit about it. “Why didn’t you do stretching exercises? Your body is important! Eat more fiber,” or whatever.
At this point I’d welcome a health lecture.
During training, we had to practice the dreaded “Missed Orbit” scenario. In the event of a second-stage failure during MAV ascent, we’d be in orbit, but too low to reach Hermes. We’d be skimming the upper atmosphere, so our orbit would rapidly decay. NASA would remotely operate Hermes and bring it in for rendezvous. Then we’d get the hell out of there before Hermes caught too much drag.
To drill this, they made us stay in the MAV simulator for 3 miserable days. Six people in an ascent vehicle originally designed for a 23 minute flight. It got a little cramped. And by “a little cramped” I mean “We wanted to kill each other”.
Once we got out, Commander Lewis declared “what happened in Missed Orbit stays in Missed Orbit.” It may seem trite, but it worked. We put it behind us and got back to normal.
I’d give anything for just five minutes of Missed Orbit training. I’m really feeling alone lately. Up till this road trip, I’ve been too busy to mope. But the long, dull days with nothing to do really drives it home. I’m further away from other humans than anyone has ever been.
Man, I hope I get Pathfinder working again.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 94
Home sweet home!
Today I write from my gigantic, cavernous Hab!
The first thing I did when I got in was wave my arms wildly while running in circles. Felt great! I was in that damn rover for 22 sols, and couldn’t even walk without suiting up.
I’ll need to endure twice that to get to Ares 4, but that’s a problem for later.
After a few celebratory laps around the Hab, it was time to get to work.
First, I fired up the Oxygenator and Atmospheric Regulator. Checking the air levels, everything looked good. There was still CO2, so the plants hadn’t suffocated without me exhaling for them.
Naturally I did an exhaustive check on my crops, and they’re all healthy.
I added my bags of shit to the manure pile. Lovely smell, I can tell you. But once I mixed some soil in, it died down to tolerable levels. I dumped my box o’ pee into the Water Reclaimer.
I’d been gone over three weeks, and had left the Hab very humid for the sake of the crops. That much water in the air can cause any amount of electrical problems, so I spent the next few hours doing full systems checks on everything.
Then I kind of lounged around for a while. I wanted to spend the rest of the day relaxing, but I had more to do.
Suiting up, I went out to the rover and dragged the solar cells off the roof. Over the next few hours, I put them back where they belonged, wiring them into the Hab’s power grid.
Getting the Lander off the roof was a hell of a lot easier than getting it up there. I detached a strut from the MAV platform and dragged it over to the rover. Leaning it against the hull and digging the other end into the ground for stability, I had a ramp.
I should have brought that strut with me to the Pathfinder site. Live and learn.
There’s no way to get the Lander in the airlock. It’s just too big. I could probably dismantle it and bring it in a piece at a time, but there’s a pretty compelling reason not to.
With no magnetic field, Mars has no defense against harsh solar radiation. If I were exposed to it, I’d get so much cancer, the cancer would have cancer. So the Hab canvas shields from electromagnetic waves. This means the Hab itself it would block any transmissions if the Lander were inside.
Speaking of cancer, it was time to get rid of the RTG.
It pained me to climb back into the rover, but it had to be done. If the RTG ever broke open, it would kill me to death.
NASA decided 4km was the safe distance, and I wasn’t about to second-guess them. Driving back to where Commander Lewis had originally dumped it, I ditched it in the same hole and drove back to the Hab.
I’ll start work on the Lander tomorrow.
Now, to enjoy a good, long sleep in an actual cot. With the comforting knowledge that when I wake, my morning piss will go into a toilet.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 95
Today was all about repairs!
The Pathfinder mission ended because the Lander had an unknown critical failure. Once they lost contact with the Lander, they had no idea what became of Sojourner. It might be in better shape. Maybe it just needs power. Power it couldn’t get with the solar panels hopelessly caked with dust.
Setting it on my workbench, I pried open a panel to peek inside. The battery was a lithium thionyl chloride non-rechargeable. I figured that out from some subtle clues: the shape of the connection points, the thickness of the insulation, and the fact that it had “LiSOCl2 NON-RCHRG” written on it.
I cleaned the solar panels thoroughly, then aimed a small, flexible lamp directly at them. The battery’s long dead. But the panels might be ok, and Sojourner can operate directly off them. We’ll see if anything happens.
Then it was time to take a look at Sojourner’s daddy. I suited up and headed out.
On most landers, the weak point is the battery. It’s the most delicate component, and when it dies, there’s no way to recover.
Landers can’t just shut down and wait when they have low batteries. Their electronics won’t work unless they’re at a minimum temperature. So they have heaters to keep the electronics warm. It’s a problem that rarely comes up on Earth, but hey. Mars.
Over time, the solar panels get covered with dust. Then winter brings colder temperatures and less daylight. This all combines into a big “fuck you” from Mars to your lander. Eventually it’s using more power to keep warm than it’s getting from the meager daylight that makes it through the dust.
Once the battery runs down, the electronics get too cold to operate, and the whole system dies. The solar panels will recharge the battery somewhat, but there’s nothing to tell the system to reboot. Anything that could make that decision would be electronics, which would not be working. Eventually, the now unused battery will lose its ability to retain charge.
That’s the usual cause of death. And I sure hope it’s what killed Pathfinder.
I piled some leftover parts of the MDV into a makeshift table and ramp. Then I dragged the Lander up to my new outdoor workbench. Working in an EVA suit is annoying enough. Bending over the whole time would have been torture.
I got my toolkit and started poking around. Opening the outer panel wasn’t too hard and I identified the battery easily enough. JPL labels everything. It’s a 40 Amp-hour Ag-Zr battery with an optimal voltage of 1.5V. Wow. They really made those things run on nothin’ back then.
I detached the battery and headed back inside. I checked it with my electronics kit, and sure enough it’s dead, dead, dead. I could shuffle across a carpet and hold more charge.
So I knew what it needed. 1.5 volts.
Compared to the makeshift crap I’ve been gluing together since Sol 6, this was a breeze. I have voltage controllers in my kit! It only took me 15 minutes to put a controller on a reserve power line, then another hour to go outside and run the line to where the battery used to be.
Then there’s the issue of heat. It’s a good idea to keep electronics above -40C. The temperature today is a brisk -63C.
The battery was big and easy to identify, but I had no clue where the heaters were. Even if I knew, it’d be too risky to hook them directly to power. I could easily fry the whole system.
So instead, I went to good old “Spare Parts” Rover 1, and stole it’s environment heater. I’ve gutted that poor rover so much.
Bringing the heater to my “workbench,” I hooked it to Hab power. Then I rested it in the Lander where the battery used to be.
Now I wait. And hope.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 96
I was really hoping I’d wake up to a functional Lander, but no such luck. Its high-gain antenna is right where I last saw it. Why does that matter? Well, I’ll tell ya…
If the Lander comes back to life (and that’s a big if) it’ll try to establish contact with Earth. Problem is, nobody’s listening. It’s not like the Pathfinder team is hanging around JPL just in case their long dead probe is repaired by a wayward astronaut.
The Deep Space Network and SETI are my best bets for picking up the signal. If either of them caught a blip from Pathfinder, they’d tell JPL.
JPL would quickly figure out what was going on, especially when they triangulated the signal to my landing site.
They’d tell the Lander where Earth is, and it would angle the high-gain antenna appropriately. That there, the angling of the antenna, is how I’ll know if it linked up.
So far, no action.
There’s still hope. Any number of reasons could be delaying things. The rover heater is designed to heat air at 1 atmosphere. The thin Martian air severely hampers its ability to work. So the electronics might need more time to warm up.
Also, Earth is only visible during the day. I (hopefully) fixed the Lander yesterday evening. It’s morning now, so most of the intervening time has been night. No Earth.
Sojourner’s also showing no signs of life. It’s been in the nice, warm environment of the Hab all night, with plenty of light on its sparkling clean solar cells. Maybe it’s running an extended self-check, or staying still until it hears from the Lander or something.
I’ll just have to put it out of my mind for now.
PATHFINDER LOG: SOL 0
BOOT SEQUENCE INITIATED
TIME 00:00:00
LOSS OF POWER DETECTED, TIME/DATE UNRELIABLE
LOADING OS…
VXWARE OPERATING SYSTEM (C) WIND RIVER SYSTEMS
PERFORMING HARDWARE CHECK:
INT. TEMPERATURE: -34C
EXT. TEMPERATURE: NONFUNCTIONAL
BATTERY: FULL
HIGAIN: OK
LOGAIN: OK
WIND SENSOR: NONFUNCTIONAL
METEOROLOGY: NONFUNCTIONAL
ASI: NONFUNCTIONAL
IMAGER: OK
ROVER RAMP: NONFUNCTIONAL
SOLAR A: NONFUNCTIONAL
SOLAR B: NONFUNCTIONAL
SOLAR C: NONFUNCTIONAL
HARDWARE CHECK COMPLETE
BROADCASTING STATUS
LISTENING FOR TELEMETRY SIGNAL…
LISTENING FOR TELEMETRY SIGNAL…
LISTENING FOR TELEMETRY SIGNAL…
SIGNAL ACQUIRED
