File: Jacob Hardy, pilot, Ares One
—Supplemental—
Centro Aguirre Pacifica Resort
Path to Ares: 63 Days to Launch
0746

Hardy: OK, whoever this is, you have 30 seconds. The whole point of vacationing at the bottom of the ocean is to avoid calls.

General Fiedler: It's Fiedler, Hardy.

H: Oh! Yes, sir.

F: It's about Moon X.

H: Sir?

F: Your friend Evie was right. It's almost impossible to track, but she has a way, and now it showed up right where she said it would: inbound to Mars. Did you copy? It's going to be on Mars. You saw what it did to Jupiter and Mercury and Venus. So, we want to send a multinational crew to intercept it.

H: Multinational…

F: You'll be the pilot of the craft.

H: Uh… look, I don't disagree with the idea, but Mars is 50 million km away.

F: Give or take, yeah. The mission will have to depart for Mars in two months. Sixty days.

H: Sixty days.

F: So enjoy your vacation and then get back here. We're building a clubhouse and a ship. We're gonna catch this sucker.