forbidden - chris beck

Chapter 31

After what seemed like hours, the crew was finally ready to bring Mark home. We all sat in the control room, guarding our stations. Beck and Vogel were awaiting in the airlock to retrieve Watney. This was perhaps the most nervous I had ever been in my entire life.

It was a mixture of relief and yet worry when we heard Watney's voice through the mic. I'd almost forgotten what he sounded like.

I just hoped that Beck had gotten those ridiculous ideas out of his head. Going out untethered into space was practically suicide.

We were preparing for Watney's launch from the MAV which was completely in our control.

"T-Minus Ten," said Johanssen, "nine...eight..."

"See you in a few," Watney radioed back.

"...four...three...two..."

"Velocity seven hundred and forty-one metres per second," Johanssen called out.

"That's too low." I responded with a wary voice.

After a few minutes of status report, Lewis decided we needed to burn the ion engine jets in order to get our intercept range to zero.

Watney reported back claiming to have a few broken ribs, but we were just happy to hear him being responsive.

A chuckle escaped my lips as Watney announced his dangerous but numerous Iron Man plan, but of course the Commander denied it.

Then after the moment of supposed stupidity, Lewis seemed to be driven on a new idea. We were going to breach the ship. I bet NASA lost their minds when we told them.

"Vogel," Lewis radioed. "I need you to come back in and make a bomb."

~

The Commander called Beck back in to crawl along the hull to get back to airlock 2, as the inner door was about to be destroyed. At this point, I started to panic.

"What?" I turned from my station and looked at the Commander. "That's crazy, he can't walk along the hull." I raised my voice.

Before she could respond, Beck radioed back, "There are latch points all over the hull. I'll move my tether along, I'll be fine."

"Collins, I need you to get the bomb from Vogel." I got up from my chair.

"All you have to do is hook it up to the lighting panel in the airlock. You can do that right?" Johanssen said.

"Yeah, and then you're going to use the switch to active it, right?"

"Yes, on my command." Lewis said to Johanssen, I nodded back.

After carefully retrieving the bomb from Vogel, I reached the airlock where Beck was.

Behind his helmet, I could see the same wearisome expression everyone else was giving me. Was my anxiety really that obvious?

"Chris...Be careful crawling along the hull." I worked on the lighting panel.

He turned to face me. "Be careful setting up the bomb."

For a second, my hazel orbs gazed into his. For some reason, I tried to memorise every feature of his beautiful face just in case I would never see it again.