Die on Mars

The crimson alarm pop-ups disappeared one by one. The old cat temporarily stabilized the state of the United Space Station, and then he breathed a sigh of relief... It closed the hatches between each cabin and isolated the air flow between the cabins. ——This is a safety measure designed at the beginning of the construction of the Mars United Space Station. It can remotely control the emergency closing of the hatch. It finally came in use today, and it saved the entire space station.

The old cat also found the cabin that lost pressure. Unsurprisingly, it was the Dawn cabin. It was the cabin section that directly withstood the impact of the Eagle spacecraft. The interface at the end of the Dawn experimental cabin had been completely damaged. The violent impact caused the Dawn cabin to The walls cracked and the air in the cabin leaked. Now the Dawn Cabin is basically in a vacuum state, and the temperature is as low as sub-zero.

Closing the locked hatch saved other cabins. Next to the Dawn cabin is the core cabin. The core cabin currently maintains a standard atmospheric pressure and an air temperature of 20 degrees Celsius - at least the old cat no longer has to worry about suffocation due to Ophiopogon japonicus. died.

The smoke alarm also went off. The smoldering Dawn Cabin was now in a vacuum state. Without oxygen, it was impossible to catch fire again.

The joint space station is saved for the time being.

But Maidong still couldn't be contacted.

No one knows what happened to Maidong when the collision just occurred. Anything could happen in such a serious accident. She may still be alive, or she may die in the accident.

"Miss Maidong! This is Kunlun Station. Miss Maidong, please answer if you hear me!"

"Ms. Maidong! This is Kunlun Station. Please answer if you hear me!"

"Miss Maidong! Please answer if you hear me!"

The old cat called anxiously over and over again.

No one answered on the channel, it was deathly silent.

"Hell!" Old Cat slapped the table. The consequences of the rear-end collision between the Eagle spacecraft and the United Space Station were very serious. Both parties lost control and deviated from their original orbits. The situation on the space station was slightly better. Old Cat activated the system on the space station. Attitude control of the rocket stabilized the rotating space again.

But the Eagle spacecraft was at a loss. It carried insufficient propellant, and the rendezvous and docking failed completely. The impact changed the flight direction of the lander. It lost control and fell into a roll. By this time, it had already run far away.

The old cat glanced at the distance.

Sixty kilometers.

The distance continues to grow.

While Lao Mao was doing his best to save the United Space Station, the orbit of the Eagle spacecraft was constantly lowering and flying faster and faster. It turned somersaults and flew at high speed on the orbit, diving headlong into the atmosphere of Mars. No one could stop it. thing.

"Tang Yue, I have good news and a bunch of bad news here. Which one do you want to hear?" Old Mao pushed the keyboard and sighed.

Tang Yue: "...Hear the bad news first."

"There is so much bad news that we can talk about it until next year." The old cat said, "Are you sure you want to hear the bad news first?"

"good news."

"The good news is that the United Space Station has been saved for the time being. The damage is not too big. The Dawn module is basically useless, but the Dawn module helped the space station absorb most of the kinetic energy of the impact... This may be because the idiots like to use flexible materials. Build the cabin." Old Mao said, "There are no major problems with the other cabins, and the posture is now stable."

Tang Yue recalled for a while and remembered which part of the Dawn cabin was... It was connected to the core cabin and was located between the core cabin and the interface. This cabin section provided a buffer for the core cabin.

"anything else?"

"No more." The old cat shook his head, "This is the only good news, but there is a lot of bad news... Miss Maidong is still out of contact, and she doesn't know whether she is alive or dead. The Eagle spacecraft ran wildly with its head covered on the road of no return, and rear-ended it. "Severely slowing it down, it's now hurtling towards Mars, with about six orbits left before the Eagle spacecraft re-enters the atmosphere."

"Six laps?"

"Six laps."

"Is Ophiopogon japonicus... still alive?"

"have no idea."

Tang Yue was silent for a long time.

"Do we still have a chance?"

"There's no chance of another chance."

The old cat's voice was neither happy nor sad, only expressing deep exhaustion.

According to the monitoring of the Kunlun Station, the current altitude of the Joint Space Station is 400 kilometers, but the altitude of the Eagle spacecraft's orbit is only 320 kilometers, and the straight-line distance between the two exceeds 100 kilometers.

The lander is no longer able to change orbit and accelerate. As a robot, Lao Mao can best understand this despair. This despair, rooted in physics and data, is irreversible and unshakable. The orbit of the Eagle spacecraft is 80 kilometers lower than the space station. This gap is still widening. The RD-0172 engine can no longer change its orbit. No one can raise its orbit by 80 kilometers out of thin air. At this moment, the impact on the lander There is only gravity... It will continue to lower its height under the pull of gravity until it falls into the atmosphere.

There are only six more laps to go before the Eagle spacecraft crashes.

The average time it takes to go around once is about fifty minutes, six times equals three hundred minutes.

Five hours, this was the last life of the Eagle spacecraft.

The old cat stared at the predicted trajectory on the screen. The space station will still operate as usual, but the path ahead of the lander will no longer have any intersection with the space station. They missed the only encounter in this life, and they will only get farther and farther away from now on. Crossroads.

The signal from the Eagle spacecraft was intermittent and flickered periodically. This was actually because it was tumbling, and its antenna was illuminated by the relay satellite once every revolution.

The old cat watched it twinkling and drifting away, its hope getting slimmer and slimmer.

Tang Yue leaned on the body of the Mars Stray Dog. He had been working continuously for more than ten hours today, and he did not drink any water in the middle. The reason why Tang Yue persisted until now and did not fall down was because of his firm will and belief, but later Even his consciousness began to blur, so Tang Yue relied on his weight.

Now Tang Yue couldn't bear the weight of 140 kilograms anymore. His vision turned black and his hands, feet and limbs were getting weak. Tang Yue had to tie himself tightly to the rover with a rope and force himself to stand firm.

A deep feeling of powerlessness came over him. It was clear that just a few minutes ago, Lao Mao had told him that everything would be fine and he was about to succeed. Why did everything change in the blink of an eye?

Tang Yue patted his mask and wiped away the dust that fell on the mask. He wondered if he had auditory hallucinations due to extreme exhaustion. How could such a thing exist in this world? How could success, which was just a hair away, turn into despair in an instant?

This is too nonsense.

This is really nonsense.

Tang Yue's brain was very stiff and he couldn't figure out every link.

"Tang Yue, I know you can't accept it." Old Cat whispered, "But this is reality..."

The entropy in the universe will always increase, and time will only flow in one direction. The reason why reality is cruel is that no one has a chance to come back. Even if you only miss one Planck time, the consequences have already been forged.

You will have to face the brutal ending that follows and the regret that never ends.

"We failed, completely failed." The old cat continued, "No matter whether Miss Maidong is still alive or not, no one can save her now."

Tang Yue thought for a long time, his stiff brain rattling before he thought of a word.

"cruel."

"Yes... the universe is very cruel." The old cat leaned back in his chair and looked up at the roof above his head with a blank look in his eyes. "It is more cruel than we imagined."

At this time, Tang Yue would rather hope that Maidong had died in the accident just now, so that she would not have to face the desperate situation of being alone and helpless. The Eagle spacecraft failed to dock and the space station ran out of ammunition and food. If the girl was still alive, then she He had to stay up there and slowly wait to die. Tang Yue couldn't imagine what kind of torture and suffering this was.

"Cat...Mr. Cat? Tang...Mr. Yue? Can you...can you hear me?"

The girl's weak but clear voice suddenly sounded on the channel.

Both Lao Mao and Tang Yue were stunned.

"I... I am Maidong. What happened... was the docking successful? Mr. Cat?"