Interstellar → Chris Beck

S O L 2 1 8

MAIA PUSHED HERSELF as hard as she could on the treadmill. Her muscles ached horrifically, but she didn't think to stop. Over the last several weeks, she had been falling tremendously behind in taking care of herself physically, so much so that Beck had transitioned into full-on doctor mode because of it. Maia was supposed to use her personal time to get some exercise in, but she hadn't been given much of a chance to since she and the rest of the crew had found out Mark was alive. She was slacking, and a five minute lecture from Beck about the crucial aspect of astronaut health in space was enough to inform her of such.

About fifteen minutes had passed since Maia had began her workout. She wanted nothing more than to be done with the workout, but she knew she would be in trouble if Beck discovered she had bailed early. Maia absolutely adored Beck, but aside from being her boyfriend, he was also her caretaker. Beck took his field very seriously, and he also took the health of his crew-mates very seriously. He was much the same as any doctor was when a patient refused to listen to him, and Maia wouldn't lie and say it wasn't particularly frightening, no matter how soft Beck appeared to be on the outside.

Several more minutes of intense running had gone by before Maia was saved by Vogel's voice sounding over comms.

"Watney," he spoke calmly.

"Yeah?" she answered breathlessly, pulling back on the intensity in which she pushed herself.

"Johanssen is asleep, and I know it's your private time, but could I bother you for a second?" Vogel asked her.

"Yeah, go ahead."

"Where are you?"

"The gym."

Vogel arrived in the gym about three minutes later, clad in his usual NASA attire. Maia slowed to a stop on the treadmill, heaving out a breath as she finally switched the machine off. She removed her sweat-ridden hair from her face and looked at her German friend.

"What's up, Vogel?" she greeted him.

"I just got an email from my wife and the subject line says 'our children'," he started. "My computer won't open the attachment."

Maia nodded and let out a breath before hopping down to the floor. "Okay, let's take a look," she spoke breathlessly.

Maia made her way over to the computer at the opposite end of the room and Vogel followed behind her. The monitor lit up the moment Maia pressed her finger to the screen, and she very quickly navigated her way to Vogel's emails. Soon enough she stumbled across the one he had been referring to. Vogel watched Maia's fingers move effortlessly as she typed in what looked to be some sort of code he was not at all familiar with. She was attempting to correct the issue she had been informed of, but it didn't seem to work.

Maia's brows fell in confusion as she looked over the screen. In her mind, she should have been looking at a photo of Vogel's children, but instead she was looking at an ASCII text file.

"Uh, this isn't a JPEG," Maia informed him. "It's a plain ASCII text file. It looks like a bunch of math formulae, really."

Maia clicked VIEW AS TEXT. Suddenly, an array of letters, numbers, and symbols began to flash across the screen. This only confused Maia and Vogel much more than they already were.

"I don't really know what we're looking at to be quite honest," Maia said.

RICH PURNELL MANEUVER PARAMETERS
3-IMPULSE TRANSFER ORBIT

Maia raised her brows as she read over the words. "Does that make any sense to you?"

"Rich Purnell maneuver," Maia looked up at Vogel, "It's a course maneuver for the Hermes."