Interstellar → Chris Beck

S O L 1 8

MAIA BASKED IN the glory of the task Commander Lewis had assigned her. Despite her love of being able to head out in her EVA suit, she didn't exactly feel the urge to do so today, as the threat of a potentially dangerous storm still loomed in the air. She was happy to spend her day inside the comfort and safety of the Hab with Beck and Johanssen, the two people she had come to call her best friends on the mission.

Maia grabbed a white NASA hoodie from her bin and threw it on, along with a pair of black compression leggings and her black Nike tennis shoes. After spending ten minutes trying to fix her unruly brown hair, she scurried away from her bunk and headed towards her shared work station with Johanssen.

Beck stood in front of a microscope with a headset on his head, no doubt running the samples he had been instructed to earlier. Maia's presence caught his attention, and he looked up to smile at her before tending back to his work. Johanssen was in her usual spot in front of the monitors with a headset on her head as well. The moment she took notice of Maia's presence, she grabbed the other one and held it up to her, to which Maia responded by taking it from her hands and placing it on top of her head.

"Any new reports?" Maia questioned as she took a seat beside Johanssen, readying her monitor in front of her.

Johanssen's eyes were narrowed at the screen in front of her, her expression very concentrated. "No, ma'am."

Maia merely shrugged in response, unsure of what to do rather than track the reports as she was instructed to do. There weren't any new ones, as Johanssen had just informed her, but there was still an abundant amount of them from NASA to analyze and report back to Commander Lewis. It was a very lengthy process for the two sysops, but their field of intelligence allowed them to work at a much quicker pace than most.

"Alright, team. Stay in sight of each other," Commander Lewis's voice could be heard in Maia's headset. "Let's make NASA proud today."

Maia bit her lip to prevent herself from making a smart remark about the death storm that was supposedly approaching the Ares III landing site. She did hope Mark would end up making one, however; she preferred listening to him being chastised rather than herself.

"How's it lookin' over there, Watney?" Martinez asked.

"Well, you'll be happy to hear that in grid section 14.28, the particles were predominately course, but in 29 they're much finer and should be ideal for chem analysis," Mark explained to him.

"Oh, wow," Martinez chimed. "Did everybody hear that? Mark just discovered dirt. Should we alert the media?"

Maia snickered in response to Martinez's joke, but kept her attention locked on the monitor in front of her.

"I'm sorry? What are you doing today, Martinez? Making sure the MAV is still upright?"

"Well, I'd like you to know that visual inspection of the equipment is imperative to mission success; I would also like to report that the MAV is still upright," Martinez shot back.

The three working inside the Hab laughed, as did Mark, but the feminine sigh in Maia's headset gave her some insight that the situation was not a laughing matter to Commander Lewis.

"Watney, you keep leaving your channel open, which leads to Martinez responding, which leads to all of us listening, which leads to me being annoyed," the Commander chastised him.

"Roger that," Mark said. "Martinez, the Captain would like you to please shut your smart mouth."

"We'd prefer to use a different adjective to describe Martinez's mouth," Beck followed quickly.