Work Text
As was usual for Mindy Park in the last few months, she was all alone at mission control in NASA’s Johnson Space Center at a completely ungodly hour (for normal people) She couldn’t complain, she had never been a people’s person, and she liked the tranquility.She spent the time analyzing satellite imagery and calculating the orbital adjustments required to keep track of the world’s favorite wayward astronaut, Mark Watney.As she was coming back to her workstation from her 2nd coffee break of the night, she noticed a notification on the workstation next to hers, the station lately used by Venkat Kapoor for directly communicating with Mark via the Pathfinder probe. Who had gone to his office to take a nap while the engineers at JPL tried to troubleshoot the latest of Mark’s equipment issues, a lower-than-expected efficiency on the water reclaimer.“It must be a clogged pipe or something” she had thought, putting to use her master’s degree in aerospace engineering which had been seldom used lately in her role as “space paparazzi”Realizing there was no one else to check the message she decided to open it, maybe if it was important, she could go wake up Venkat. He was a bit scary, being 4 levels of management over her and all that, but they had bonded since they had been stuck on Watney watching duty and maybe she could even start to consider him a friend.“Is it lame to be friends with your boss?” She thought for a second while sliding her chair across to read the text message more comfortably.RVR: Ok you’re not gonna like this, but I went in and cleaned the tubing inside the water reclaimer, and the problem is fixed. I may not be Miles O’Brien but I’m the best engineer in this god forsaken planet.Mindy read the text a couple of times deliberating on whether to reply or wait for someone, perhaps the JPL engineers, to reply. In the end she decided to reply, after all Venkat had left her in charge.JSC: You were instructed to wait for further diagnostic procedures.JSC: Not cool manIt was then when she noticed the last part of the message. Is he making a Star Trek reference? Like she did not stalk the guy, but she had read a fair bit about his psych profile, and his personal logs (FOR WORK REASONS) and she didn’t know he was a Trekkie. Should she ask him about it? He was friendly and pretty chill, he would probably like his reference to be noticed. And it must be hard to spend all day thinking about surviving, maybe a normal chat would be good for him.Mindy thought.JSC: Wait, Miles O’Brien?JSC: As in the most important person in the history of Starfleet? Chief of Operations in Deep Space Nine? That Miles O’Brien?JSC: Are you into old Star Trek?About 18 light minutes away Mark was sitting on the rover waiting for the reply, expecting to be admonished by either Venkat or one of Bruce’s engineers for not following their instructions. When he noticed the notification on the screen…He did not expect that, he didn’t know who he was talking to, he usually talked directly to Venkat, sometimes an engineer or one of those annoying botanists trying to micromanage him. But this person sounded different from the rest. They got my star trek reference! Mark thought, immediately perking up and thinking about what he should say next.He missed just having a friendly chat, no mars, no engineering, or chemistry, or botany, just two people talking about shared interests.RVR: You’re not VenkatRVR: Venkat is not funRVR: who are you?RVR: Yes, I am another astronaut who likes Star Trek. I admit it, I’m a huge nerd.He replied.Maybe I can find someone to talk to like a normal human being, considering my only friends are still not allowed to send me an email, or to even know that I’m alive for the matter… Mark thought.A few minutes later the notification on the rover computer sounded again.JSC: I’m Mindy Park from SATCOM, I don’t usually do CAPCOM, but it’s the graveyard shift and Venkat went to take a nap.JSC: We are all nerds here, It’s basically a job requirement. But so many think Star Wars is better than Star Trek. Please tell me you agree on the superiority of Trek. Who is your favorite Captain? And series?“Mindy Park…” Mark said to the empty rover, trying to remember if he had ever met her, perhaps at a NASA mixer, or some event, but he couldn’t recall anyone by the name. Is she cute? Mark thought, the loneliness getting the better of him. Ok that’s not important, but working in NASA she must be smart, and she liked trek, he had always liked smart. He thought.“What am I thinking? I’m not even sure I’ll get out of this planet. I can’t think about girls, or relationships!” He said to himself. Tho having someone back on earth would have been nice. Lewis, Martinez, and Vogel all had spouses and even children waiting for them back home. Mark had been the eternal bachelor, always more focused on science and professional aspirations rather than trying to find love. Not that nerdy Mechanical Engineers/Botanists were in high demand in the dating market anyway. He thought.He decided to just keep things natural and see where this may go.Back on earth Mindy had been trying to keep herself busy while she waited for Mark’s response, after all she did had important work to do, and chatting with lost astronauts wasn’t technically part of her job. She was right in the middle of calculating the next set of orbital adjustments for the Mars Super Surveyor when the notification sounded again on Venkat’s computer.RVR: SATCOM? So you’re in charge of reviewing satellite imagery? I want to apologize in advance for the next time I do something stupid and almost get myself killed.RVR: No, I 100% agree on the superiority of Trek, Star Wars is more like fantasy, Trek has more interesting moral dilemmas and philosophical questions. Which is not like I don’t like fantasy, I love Tolkien and I played DND in college (No, I’ve never been a “cool” kid).RVR: Oh that’s a though one, I will say I think my favorite captain is a tie between Sisko and Pike. As for favorite show? Deep Space Nine hands down, but I also really liked Lower Decks, had all 7 seasons of both on my personal USB drive which I stupidly left on the Hermes not knowing I would spend the rest of my days in a desolate planet.Mindy read the messages a couple of times to remember everything he had written to formulate a proper reply.Should I tell him I was the one who discovered him after sol 6? No, I’m not that important. Besides, I don’t really want it to sound weird. Mindy thought.She had always liked Mark, he seemed fun, and friendly, and from the Ares III interviews she had watched he seemed incredibly intelligent, but not the kind of superior complex intelligence some people had, he seemed very down to earth.JSC: I don’t really like Sisko; I think he committed many how do I say it politely? Controversial actions? Like how he treated Edington and the Maquis, and the whole thing with Garak and the Romulan Senator. My favorite captain is Janeway, tho I agree on DS9 being the best show. I also really liked Lower Decks, I think that and SNW were the best of that era of Trek. AND DON’T SAY THAT! YOU’RE COMING BACK!Mark waited anxiously for Mindy’s reply on the rover, he had not noticed the time until he looked out and the whole landscape was looking way darker than when he went first to the rover.It had been hours, but Mark had the most fun he had since Sol 6, he really missed just talking with someone for fun, that kind of of human connection.RVR: Sisko did what he had to do to win the Dominon War! But ok, you're entitled to your WRONG opinion. Janeway is really cool tho. I may be a bit of a Tom Paris.RVR: It’s almost sundown, I should go back inside. But loved talking to you, I really needed this. I want to do this again. Why don’t you write me an e-mail so you don’t have to sneak behind Venkat to chat with me? [email protected] Tell me about your favorite starship, and when did you got into Trek.He gave me his email address! Not that it was difficult to figure out, all NASA email addresses followed the same format, would it be weird to cold email him if he hadn’t told her to? Mindy thought.JSC: Yes, we’ve been at this for hours! My shift is almost over. And for your information Venkat left me in charge, so I did not had to sneak around to talk to you. But yes, email is a good idea. Mine is [email protected] but I’ll write you soon, I really liked talking with you too.Mark read that last reply and smiled before donning his EVA suit to walk back to the hab, perhaps he had found a friend to talk to, perhaps something good could come from this…He thought.
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So uhh idk how many of you know who im IRL, but basically my life has really changed in the past few months, my background is as a mechanical engineer, with a focus on propulsion engineering, and I got an internship position as a propulsion test engineer at Rocket Factory Augsburg in Germany, which I started in December, so i had to deal with bureaucracy and immigration stuff and didn't had the headspace for writing a new chapter which has been sitting half written in my laptop for months, and I really wanted to continue this story after coming to Germany, but also shortly after coming here I had a big fallout with the person who directly inspired this fic, so i have not really been in the right headspace to take this where I wanted it to go. I really hope I can heal enough to give this a proper ending, but I just wanted to say this, I don't want to abandon this fic, but currently I don't think i can match the tone and intention I want.