Die on Mars - Chapter 205

c205 Day 325 (1) If I were given three days to live

Four days after the space station accident.

There are still seven days until the Tianzhou 37 cargo spacecraft arrives.

The old cat squatted on the chair early in the morning and stared at the computer monitor, typing on the keyboard. When Tang Yue emerged from the crew cabin, it was communicating with the United Space Station, “Miss Maidong, can you see anything? ”

“What’s wrong?” Tang Yue had a towel on his shoulders and said sleepily, “What happened?”

The old cat raised a finger to signal for silence.

“It’s too far away and the light is too dark to see clearly…but I can hear the sound.” Maidong answered on the channel.

“What kind of sound?”

“It’s very regular.” Maidong said, “It’s a bit like the sound of the second hand of a clock moving, but it only sounds once every few seconds, click… click… click.”

“It’s vibrating.” Old Cat’s voice sounded solemn. “Actually, the vibration frequency is higher than what you hear. It is a very high-frequency vibration. The sound you hear should only come from a loose… Crash of parts.”

Tang Yue was at a loss. He still didn’t know what happened. The old cat frowned, tapped the table with his fingers, and its two cat ears turned anxiously.

“Old cat?”

The old cat squinted his eyes and said, “The space station is disintegrating.”

The girl has taken off the helmet of the spacesuit in the cabin. Her ears are pressed tightly against the exposed metal inner wall of the crystal cabin. She closes her eyes and listens to the sound. The vacuum cannot conduct sound, but the vibration can spread along the structure of the space station. There is silence in the core cabin, and all systems have stopped working. This is the quiet room with the best sound insulation in the world, and the slightest sound will attract special attention.

Maidong left the inner wall, lay down in front of the porthole, and tried his best to look out.

There is still a large amount of debris floating outside the window, but it is much cleaner than when the impact just occurred. The impact of the Orion spacecraft caused the leakage of fresh water and gas, and the water vapor condensed rapidly at low temperatures. This caused the space station to be shrouded in a large cloud of fog, and the sunlight It was difficult to penetrate. Three days later, the ice crystals gradually sublimated and evaporated in the sunlight, and the space outside the crystal cabin became transparent again.

Most of the debris and the crystal capsule are not strictly in the same speed and direction. After orbiting Mars for dozens of times, a considerable part of the space junk has moved away from the space station.

A huge truss passes across the head of Ophiopogon japonicus. At the end of the truss, four remaining solar panels reflect the sunlight.

The tiny sound spread on the metal frame, like a poisonous snake in the shadow, like the death knell before the death of the space station. Maidong didn’t know where the vibration came from. She looked around, and every place could be the source of the sound. .

“The space station is disintegrating?” Tang Yue asked, “What is going on?”

“Normal situation.” The old cat replied.

“Normal situation?” Tang Yue breathed a sigh of relief, “Does that mean the problem is not too serious?”

The old cat glanced at him, as if looking at an idiot.

“If I stab you now, in the next three minutes you will experience pain, spasm, loss of blood, and end up burping. This is also normal. It is abnormal if you don’t die.” The old cat said, “The space station was attacked by the Orion spacecraft. If the big mallet hits the head, it is normal for it to disintegrate at any time.”

“Holy shit.” Tang Yue shuddered.

“Hell… it might be stress. After the impact, the stress inside the joint space station structure gradually accumulated, and then thermal expansion and contraction occurred in the external environment with huge temperature differences. The structure of the space station has been damaged.” Old Mao rubbed Dogtooth, “The space station didn’t just start to disintegrate today. It started from the moment after the impact. It’s just that the effect was not obvious enough until today.”

Maidong heard what Lao Mao said. The United Space Station had actually been slowly collapsing, and they were not aware of it until today. This was normal. The collision between the United Space Station and the Orion spacecraft was the most serious space accident in human history. Two super spacecraft were killed at once, and the extraterrestrial base that mankind had invested heavily in and worked hard for more than ten years was destroyed.

If it is allowed to develop like this, the joint space station will one day completely disintegrate.

“How long?” Maidong asked.

“I don’t know… Miss Maidong, I don’t know.” Old Cat said, “It’s hard to say which one will happen first, the crash or the disintegration – maybe both will happen at the same time. Once it encounters enough atmospheric resistance, the space station on the verge of collapse will It will be completely destroyed in the overload. I don’t know how fast the space station will disintegrate, but it will certainly not be later than the time of crash.”

“How to remedy it?” Tang Yue asked, “Make a plan! Make a plan, and we will solve the problem!”

“No remedy.”

Tang Yue was surprised, “How come there is no way to remedy it?”

“There is just no way to remedy it. We have no plan and cannot solve any problems.” Old Cat said, “I have told you before that we have lost all means to interfere with the United Space Station. Have you forgotten?”

Tang Yue stared, not knowing what to say for a moment. Lao Mao did say that they had lost all means of interfering with the space station, but he didn’t take it to heart. In Tang Yue’s subconscious, there is no problem that cannot be solved without an answer. They have been living on Mars for such a long time, there have been so many storms, so many difficulties and obstacles, and they have all made it through with their own powerful abilities.

No matter what kind of problem, as long as they are calm enough, smart enough, and professional enough, they can find the key to solving the problem, then formulate a complete plan, and finally cooperate with each other to overcome it.

There is always a plan. If Plan A doesn’t work, there is Plan B.

“We have lost all means of interfering with the joint space station.” Lao Mao repeated it again, “For us, the space station is purely another world. ‘Nothing is difficult in the world, as long as there is a will.’ ‘Where there is a will, there is a way.’ The slogan is no longer useful.”

Tang Yue sat down slowly.

The old cat turned his head and continued to monitor the computer monitor. He shook his head and muttered something, “Subjective initiative only works when you can move. We can’t move now.”

“Then leaving the cabin…is it possible for Ophiopogon japonicus to leave the cabin?”

The old cat shook his head.

“The entire space station is disintegrating. This cannot be solved with a welding gun… What’s more, we don’t even have a welding gun now. Miss Maidong is very weak and does not have enough strength to leave the cabin, and she has not left the space yet. Extravehicular suits for cabin operations.”

Tang Yue sat on the chair, his limbs were cold, and his palms were sweating uncontrollably. The old cat was right, he, a clever little guy, couldn’t even think of any solution this time.

“Then what should I do?” Tang Yue raised his head, “Just wait?”

“If you don’t want to wait around, you can still eat, sleep and play beans.”

“Don’t worry, Tang Yue, Mr. Cat.” Maidong spoke. She floated in the crystal cabin, stroking the inner wall of the core cabin with her hand, checking inch by inch, “The disintegration speed will not be that fast. The crystal cabin is very strong. , there is no sign of damage or cracking, and it will definitely last until the crash.”

“I don’t doubt the solidity of the crystal cabin. It can withstand the violent impact of Orion.” Old Cat said, “There is no stronger cabin in the world. The Orthodox Patriarch personally opened it for it before it went to heaven. Pass the light.”

“That’s okay.” The girl squinted her eyes and smiled, her eyes curved into crescent moons. “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.”

Tang Yue hesitated to speak. It was true that the emperor was not in a hurry and the eunuch was. Maidong was in such a broken ship that was about to sink and yet she comforted him.

“Okay… keep in touch, keep monitoring, girl, and report any situation in a timely manner.”

“OK.”

Old Cat continues to monitor the status of the Joint Space Station. Since the system computer of the space station has lost most of its functions, the only monitoring method left is Maidong’s eyes – but there is nothing left in the space station that needs to be monitored. The Mars Joint Space Station This large and complex composite permanent spacecraft transformed overnight into the simple single-cabin structure of the Salyut and Skylab nearly a century ago.

In the dark, Tang Yue prayed for the blessings of his ancestors, Solovyov, Atikov and Beredov. Their heroic souls that will last forever in the vast world must protect those who come after them. .

“Hey, Tang Yue, I have a question.”

“Um?”

“I want to ask…if you were given the last three days to live, what would you do?”