Chapter Text
They were pretty much fucked. That’s Soap’s considered opinion. Fucked.
Six days into what should have been the greatest two months of their lives, and it’d turned into a nightmare.
Soap, Gaz, Ghost, and Price stood outside the Hab, staring at the toppled-over and mangled remains of the MAV support struts and communications array. It was all twisted metal half-buried in sand, but there was one thing that was very clear. The distinct lack of the Mars Ascent Vehicle that would have taken them off the red God-forsaken planet and back up to the orbiting spacecraft Rhiannon.
The craft that would have taken them for the final leg of Mission 141 back to Earth.
It was fucking gone.
Now instead of being on the mission of a lifetime, the four men were trapped on Mars, and the Rhiannon was orbiting the planet entirely out of reach in the atmosphere with traitors on board.
“Fuckin’ hell,” Ghost muttered, Manc accent coming in crackly over the comms.
The other men were silent. What else was there to say? Ghost had covered it all for them.
This was not according to the plan. Laswell must have been losing her mind back in Houston, wondering why her team had gone silent. Wondering if the 141 was even still alive.
Or maybe Graves and Makarov had woven such a good story, that without Price and the others there to refute it, she wasn’t even looking for them. Maybe she thought they were all already dead.
Frankly, they may as well have been. There was enough morphine back in the Hab; they could take care of it themselves, too. No mess, no starving to death in the rust landscape. Just four bodies waiting to be found in the most expensive home in the universe. Billions of dollars just to build their graves.
It’d probably be years before NASA came to see exactly how they’d gone out. To confirm whatever story was fed to them bu Graves and Makarov.
It’d be too taboo for a long time, in all likelihood. They’d be skeletons by the time they got to them.
Congress refusing funding on the grounds that it was improper to disturb their graves. A convenient excuse to deny financing to the most important organization in the USA, and a way to continue to placate the Russians who didn’t like being accused of lying.
They wouldn’t like the implication that Makarov had left them there on the red planet on Russian orders. Or that Graves was actually a Russian agent. An implant in the space program to spy and steal trade secrets with the goal of furthering the Russian foray into space.
But eventually, they’d cave. Curiosity would get the better of them, and they’d come to find where the 141 had died. The first UK nationals to be trained and sent to Mars. One day, some other group of saps would walk into the Hab and find them, thinking they were on some great patriotic mission. A way to honor the 141 and bring them home.
But really, they’d find four men betrayed by their friends. Two men they’d trained tirelessly with for years.
Maybe they’d all go out in their bunks, close enough to see one another as they passed but not close enough to touch. Together, but ultimately alone. The future space archeologists would cluck their tongues at them, and poets would write about how alone they were all the way out there in the stars.
Or maybe Price would indulge them, and they’d find the end in one another’s arms. A peaceful way to go out, surrounded by the people they were closest to.
Maybe Soap could write them a note, telling them all about the day it’d happened. How when the storm hit, everything went to shit. Inside and outside the Hab. He could stick a note to his chest, journal underneath it, saying READ ME.
Either way. They were dead. So totally dead.
And it didn’t fucking matter when their bodies would be found. If they would be found.
“Well,” Price finally said once he’d had his fill of the mangled metal and piles of red sand that had been kicked up in the storm, “this just got a lot harder.”
Soap couldn’t suppress his laugh, “Oh, aye, you think Captain?” His accent was thick with emotion, despair shining in his eyes, and his hands flailing as he gestured to the remnants of the MAV’s gear. “I think we’re proper fucked.”
“Go easy on ‘em, Soap,” Gaz said, shuffling from foot to foot. “There’s no section in the manual for this.”
“Sure there is,” Soap said cheerily. “A whole section conveniently labeled How Not to Overdose on Morphine. A little bit of reverse psychology at play there, but we all know what they were going for. A little pinch and then we can go off into the good night. I recon’ it’ll take us half an hour tops. What do you think?”
“Soap,” Ghost warned. The huge man, made even bigger by his space suit, turned and stared him down through the faceplate of his helmet. “Calm.”
Soap wasn’t deterred. He couldn’t see shit beyond the reflective polarized plate of Ghost’s helmet, but he could already picture the look on the lieutenant’s face. See the sharp glint of his eyes over the top of a black neck gaiter, black medical mask, or peering out from a slit in a skull-themed balaclava.
Didn’t matter how he was covering his face. Those golden eyes would be thick with disapproval and unimpressed with the sergeant’s dramatics.
“Calm?” Soap asked, hysterical. He didn’t think he was being dramatic at all. They were stuck on Mars for fuck’s sake! “We’re on Mars, and the hunk of metal that was supposed to take us back home is gone.”
“Little more than gone,” Gaz murmured, barely audible over the comms. “Stolen.”
“Shut it, all you muppets,” Price growled, stomping out in front of them all, interrupting their picturesque Martian view of doom. “We’re going to sort this out. But I need you all with me, aye?”
Price’s voice was steady, seemingly unaffected by the absolute dire shitty situation they’d found themselves in.
“Aye, Captain,” Gaz said, surly.
Ghost just chuffed, and Soap… he was Soap. He shuffled from foot to foot and rolled his eyes, thankful no one could see the gesture behind his faceplate.
“Soap?” Price prompted.
The sergeant sighed, relenting, “Aye, Cap.”
“Good,” Price nodded.
As quick as he could manage in a heavy as fuck space suit, he paced in front of them, taking stock of the situation. A sit rep for the group.
“The storm took out the MAV. Winds were higher than Houston predicted. More than likely, they think we’re dead up here. So we’re on our own until we can re-establish communications. First priority is shelter. We’ll take a structural survey of the Hab and ensure she sustained no damage. Then food, water, and air. I want Soap to look over the water reclaimer and air circulator. Ghost on inventorying food. Gaz, you’ll be with me on solar panels.” Price stopped to look them all over, his whole body turning to take in the group. Spacesuits didn’t give much range of motion. “After that, we’re all on communications. We need to find a way to re-establish contact with Earth. Let them know we’re still here and alive.”
The last word Soap knew was directed at him, but he ignored it, eyes still wide and raking over what was left of their MAV.
“Rog,” Ghost muttered, already lumbering away towards the Hab.
“Got it, Cap,” Gaz said, turning away as well, headed for the opposite end of the large canvas structure.
“Soap?” Price prompted.
Johnny was quiet for a moment, eyes still stuck on the wreckage, but he ultimately muttered, “Roger.”
Nodding, Price turned towards the Hab as well, not waiting to see if Soap would follow. He knew he would.
The 141 was a team.
They did everything together, and now they’d have to face down their biggest challenge yet: Surviving on Mars.
The Hab was, miraculously, intact. Despite the fact that it had endured winds well over what the canvas and resin composite material was made for, is stood firm with no noticeable damage to the seals or steel supports that held the canvas up into a large dome over their heads.
Ghost and Soap went indoors then, while Price and Gaz unhooked a rover and took off for the solar panels.
“Don’t kill him,” Price had muttered to Ghost before the airlock had closed between them.
Soap frowned, but didn’t bother asking what Price had meant. Instead, he focused on shucking his suit and hanging it next to the airlock on the hook labeled with his name. John “Soap” MacTavish in fancy letters.
He’d been so excited just a few days ago when he’d unearthed it from the supplies. Real tangible proof etched in metal that he was here. That Johnny had made it to Mars.
Now it mocked him.
Ghost came to stand beside him, eyes trained on the same placard. Simon “Ghost” Riley in neat letters right next to Soap’s.
“Feels a bit morbid now,” Ghost said, arms crossing.
“At least they won’t be able to forget who we are,” Soap said cheerily. “Our names are right here on the wall.”
“Like a fuckin’ gravestone.”
“Aye.”
Soap looked his companion over out of the corner of his eye, assessing. Ghost’s voice was as calm and even as it always was. Like they weren’t trapped on a foreign planet with no hope of survival.
Out of nowhere, he said, “Always wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up.”
Soap smiled, “Oh, aye?”
“Yeah. Mum always said I had high hopes.”
Soap laughed, appreciating the awful attempt at a joke, “Well look at you know.”
“Look at me,” he agreed, nodding. “Look at us.”
Groaning, Johnny turned away, stretching and working out his knee now that they were free of the heavy space suits. “Don’t remind me. I bet me mam is having a proper panic over this.”
“Think they’ll tell them?” Ghost asked, bee-lining for the kitchen located along one curving wall of the Hab. “Or do you think they’ll hold off for a while.”
“Depends on what those bastards told them,” Soap figured. “Maybe we’ll be written off as some tragic accident.”
“Could be worse,” Ghost supposed, pulling open the cabinets and dumping their rations out onto the counter to be cataloged.
“You think?” Soap had approached their water reclaimer, situated adjacent to the kitchen, the air system just aside it. “How so?”
“Could have gutted us while we slept.”
Soap scoffed, “Morbid bastard.”
“Pot. Kettle.”
“‘Suppose you’re right. At least we get to live a few more miserable days up here.”
“Lot worse places to die than here.” Ghost said, beginning to sort through the food and logging every package, making sure to sort by contents as well. It was imperative they knew how much dehydrated chicken Parmesan there was compared to the decidedly foul chicken piccata.
“You sure know how to make a situation seem better, Lt.,” Soap said, eyeing the tubes and pipes of the water reclaimer.
It was a simple system at the end of the day, collecting humidity from the Hab, as well as any liquid waste (read: piss), and turning it back into drinkable water. It was imperative for surviving on the desert planet, and if it went down they would all die.
So Soap worked to make sure they wouldn’t die. At least of dehydration.
The on-system computer gave him all green lights, and after consulting with the lengthy NASA approved Guide for Servicing Water Reclaimer and Waste Separator , he checked the tubes as well to make sure no sand had gotten in through the head exhaust that emptied out into the wasteland.
All green there too.
The shuffle of foil MRE packaging was soft between them as Soap moved on to the air system. It was decidedly more complicated than the water reclaimer. Consisting of an oxygenator, a vent system, and a furnace, it was made to keep the Hab warm and the men inside from choking.
As a bonus, it also provided pressure for the interior of the Hab, bringing the space to nearly one Earth atmosphere as the air inside pushed up and out on the canvas that surrounded them.
It was a simple system. Working nearly the same as a children’s bounce house. But it was vital. And just because Johnny though they’d die here, didn’t mean he was going to half-ass checking it over.
If Price said they could get through this, then he’d do what he could to help. Even if it was hopeless.
Maybe especially if it was hopeless. Because Soap would much rather concentrate on maintenance than impending doom. The methodical work was soothing, keeping his mind off how sad his parents would be. His sisters.
A frog worked its way into his throat.
This was not how this was supposed to go. None of this was supposed to happen.
Soap couldn’t have even imagined something like this. It was literally other-worldly. Impossible and unprecedented. And he was unprepared for how it made him feel. His stomach churned and he had to fight the urge to suit up again and walk out onto the red dirt just to scream at the stupid red horizon.
Fuck you! He’d tell the dead planet. And then for good measure he’d kick at whatever rock he could find first, as hard as he could in his space suit.
His hands had stilled from their work, and Ghost noticed. Setting down a pile of rations, diligently tallying them, and then walked towards the other astronaut.
“Soap?”
The mechanic and chemist extraordinaire, the youngest person to ever go to Mars, looked sidelong at his Lieutenant. ”What are we gonna do, Ghost?”
“We’re going to take it an hour at a time,” Ghost said, clapping a hand over his shoulder.
“Just an hour?”
“Aye, don’t think you could handle a day.”
Soap didn’t bother telling him he was right.
Ghost knew.
Despite hurricane-force winds sandblasting it for hours on end, the Hab and all of its equipment were in shockingly good shape. Those engineers at NASA really knew what they were doing when they cooked up their Mars missions. Testing and retesting everything back on Earth, making sure it was more than capable of what they needed out here on Mars.
It was the whole reason why Johnny had agreed to the mission in the first place. Mam and Pa had told him their worries, and fretted over him when he’d gotten wind he was in consideration for the program.
Mam had cried when he accepted the formal invitation.
How could he have said no? To be the first men from the UK on Mars—a UK-led mission, even—a collaboration between the USA, Russia, and the United Kingdom. A symbol of a brighter, more harmonious future where science would be what bound everyone together. Discovery. Learning .
He should have listened to his mam.
Wasn’t that always just the way?
Too late now.
Gaz and Price looked over the solar panels, brushing them off to clear the dust accumulated in the storm and double-checking the output. They’d done a once-over on both rovers, too, and they were solid too. That was more expected, though. The rovers were more like tanks than anything. If an astronaut got stranded somewhere in a storm, the instructions were to remain in the rover and wait it out. They could take the beating.
All in all, it could have been worse.
Price looked downright pleased about it, the optimistic bastard.
“We’ve got the necessities down,” Price told them.
He’d gathered them all in the small living space at the center of the Hab. It wasn’t the coziest living room ever, space missions weren’t a place for luxury and lounging, but for the sake of their sanity, NASA had designed the Hab with a space dedicated to downtime. Some very high-paid psychologists had told them that without a non-work-oriented space to relax in, the six of them were likely to become too high-strung. Too likely to kill one another.
So NASA had relented and set aside some precious square footage in the Hab for two couches made of spare Hab canvas, some foam cushions that doubled as padding for the transport of MREs, and some deconstructed steel cargo boxes. All of it’s components pulling double duty with their final form being couch.
It’d taken Price and Gaz two days of training to get the instructions to make them down pat. They practiced it over and over again, tearing the boxes and pieces apart to reassemble them into space couches.
They felt stupid to sit on. But it was better than the floor.
The Captain standing at parade rest, hands clasped behind his back, continued, “Communication is now our top priority. We need to get in contact with Houston. Without a shipment of more rations, we’ll starve.”
“How long do we have?” Gaz asked.
“Six months.”
Ghost frowned, “It takes nine to send something to Mars.”
“Yes. We’ll need to begin rationing food immediately,” Price said. “We can stretch our supply to nine months.”
“They won’t be able to get a rocket up tomorrow,” Soap pointed out. “Even if we did manage to get them a message that fast.”
Johnny could feel the anger rise in his throat again, the righteous fury.
What was the point?
They were doomed. Fucked over by fucking Makarov and Graves. Why even keep up the farce of surviving?
“Hour at a time,” Ghost whispered to him.
Soap’s hands shook as he clenched them, letting out a hissing breath.
“Fuck, alright,” he muttered back.
Price waited for Johnny to look back at him, “Solid?”
“Aye.”
The Captain gave a short nod. “It’s up to NASA and the other big brains down there to figure out how to feed us. We’ll do what we can from up here. But first, we need to establish contact. Once we do, we’ll tackle calories.”
Ghost shifted in his seat, “Guess we’re all about to get real lean.”
“Undoubtably,” Price agreed, cocking a smile. “I’m sure you’ll still be plenty pretty, Ghostie.”
Ghost snorted, “Aye, Cap.”
Gaz stood then, clapping his hands, “Tomorrow, then?”
“Affirm,” Price said.
“Alright then, I’m knackered. What with almost dying last night and all the work today. I’m hitting bunks.”
“Night, Garrick.”
They all watched Gaz shuffle over to the bunks at the far end of the Hab, opposite from the kitchen, and begin his nightly routine.
“You men ok?” Price asked after a moment, turning back to where Ghost and Soap still sat on one of the couches, their knees nearly touching they were so short.
“‘Reckon I am,” Ghost said, blinking slowly.
A black neck gaiter covered the bottom half of his face, but his eyes shone true enough, and Price took him at face value. “Good. Soap?”
“I’m pissed, Cap,” Johnny said.
“You have good reason to be,” Price sighed. “But are you gonna be solid for me?”
“As I can be, Sir.”
“All I can ask.”
Letting his head fall to one side and then the other, Price cracked his neck and then sighed, “I’m following Garrick’s lead. Get a good night’s sleep. Tackle tomorrow when it comes. At least no one here will be trying to kill us anymore.”
“I dunno, Cap,” Ghost deadpanned. “I reckon there’s still a knife around here somewhere. I’m sure I could make use of it.”
“If I know you, I know there is,” Price laughed. “But I’ll just have to trust you not to gut me.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
Price grunted, then walked away smiling, somehow.
That was how he was the leader, Johnny supposed. Price always kept his cool, trudging forward no matter the odds. It really was a good quality for an astronaut, maybe even the main reason why he’d been promoted from fighter pilot to space pilot. Taking his military know-how and leadership and applying it to the final frontier.
Aside him, Ghost watched Price go until they were essentially alone on the couch, and then he sighed, low and quiet.
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re knackered too,” Soap groaned. “How can ye’all sleep when we got sandblasted and betrayed last night?”
Ghost shrugged.
“That simple?” Johnny asked. “You are stone-cold. Don’t you have any feelings about this? Any at all?”
Ghost shifted, grunting. Wincing, even.
That caught Johnny’s eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
Ghost’s dark eyes met his, “Hm?”
“You winced.”
“Did no’.”
“Did too, ye bastart. What happened? Hurt yourself doing inventory?”
He snorted, “No.”
“Did a svelte blue alien woman sneak into the Hab at night and have her way with ye?”
Ghost just rolled his eyes and stood, done with Johnny and his mouth.
Then, Johnny froze.
“Lt., why are you bleeding?”