Dead on Mars

Chapter 164 - Sol Two Hundred and Eighty-Two, Kunlun Station
“Press F to enter the tank… Ah no, to enter the lander.”

Tang Yue held his head up feeling bored stiff.

The eleventh simulation had happened today. Tomcat had bet everything it could bet. It went from its character as a cat to the water cup on the table. “I swear in the name of this cup that the next test will succeed!” However, confidence as big as Mars failed to allow Orion II to land safely. Tomcat was repeatedly defeated as the spacecraft exploded into fireworks again and again.

“Mai Dong, remember. Pressing the Tab button calls out the menu, and pressing M opens the map…”

Tang Yue began speaking nonsense.

“Got it. Pressing Tab calls out the menu, and pressing M opens the map.”

Mai Dong also began the comic dialog.

Due to the repeated failures, with not a single instance of them descending beneath the height of 10,000 meters, Tomcat had started doing some fixing and modification at an even deeper level. It began to analyze its plan from the beginning, and as it designed the program, it carried out tests, constantly spewing vulgarities as the keyboard tapping sounds went on like a machine gun.

As for Tang Yue and Mai Dong, the two of them took Tomcat’s advice to rest.

Mai Dong used the break to take care of her plants in the space station. The tomato and prickly lettuce were growing luxuriantly in an incubator, but they were destined never to be brought out of orbit. They could only remain in the United Space Station. Mai Dong had no idea how long they could survive with no one taking care of them. The incubator could operate automatically, with the light and watering set ahead of time. If there wasn’t any problem with the power or water, they would likely live to natural death.

“Ah Chang… Your leaves are falling again.”

Ah Chang was an old tomato plant. It had borne fruit twice, and even for a normal lifespan, it was in its advanced years and was about to approach the end of its life.

Classics and Zha were as old as Ah Chang. They were old plants whose vitality was waning. They couldn’t bear any more fruit, but Mai Dong continued rearing them. In the space station where resources were worth their weight in gold, they already lacked the value to continue being taken care of. Tomcat had once suggested cutting their nutrition source and using their corpses as fertilizer.

However, Tang Yue said that the meaning of life couldn’t be that utilitarian.

By letting them live to the end of their lives was the basic respect a carbon lifeform had for one another.

“There’s a need to live with dignity. What do you think separates us hairless apes, tomatoes, and prickly lettuce from nonliving items like rocks?” Tang Yue said. “It’s the respect that comes with life.”

Mai Dong adjusted the incubator’s lighting. If Mai Dong were to leave the United Space Station, she would shut down all nonessential systems, reducing the power output of the life support system to ensure that the plants could live.

“I might be leaving all of you, Ah Chang, Classics, and Zha,” the girl said to the tomatoes softly with a pane of glass between them. “You must live well.”

Mai Dong didn’t know if she could land safely, but if she were to leave the space station, it was bound to be an eternal farewell.

Tomcat had once said that the comet’s collision had a hundred percent chance of destroying the space station, but all Mai Dong could pray for was that the space station could escape the calamity. At the very least, she hoped that things could last until the tomatoes and prickly lettuce died a normal death.

…

“Kunlun Station Earthquake Mitigation and Disaster Preparation Guide…” Tang Yue frowned as he looked at the list in his hands. “You wrote this?”

“Of course.” Tomcat stared at the monitor as it crossed its forearms and hind legs.

“We can ensure the Kunlun Station remains safe using this?” Tang Yue scanned it as the list listed down more than a hundred measures to take in detail. He didn’t know when Tomcat had finished it since it had been focused on landing Orion II the past few days.

Multitasking was a basic feature that Tomcat came equipped with. It could use its front paws to do the math and its hind paws to write history. After all, it was a cat, and there was no rule forbidding a cat from holding a pen with its hind legs.

“By following it, we can maximize the chances of Kunlun Station’s survival,” Tomcat said. “Tang Yue, you have never seen the resulting impact terrain of a comet thirty kilometers in diameter, right?”

“You sound as though you’ve seen it before.”

“I haven’t either. To be precise, no Earthling has seen it before. The asteroids that the last batch of lucky ones saw hitting Earth are nothing compared to the behemoth we are facing.” Tomcat shook its head. “However, we have maths and physics. We also have an HP workstation that can make predictions.”

Tomcat pointed at the piece of paper in Tang Yue’s hands.

“If we are lucky enough, the comet will fall somewhere more than 2,500 kilometers away. Then, Kunlun Station won’t be destroyed immediately upon impact… We need to endure a series of chain reactions and secondary disasters. What do you think is the most destructive secondary disaster?”

“The shockwave?”

“Yes, but don’t worry about that.” Tomcat waved its paw. “I believe the energy from the collision will accelerate the speed of air to Mach 8 and 9, but this is Mars. The atmosphere is too thin, so no amount of wind can affect Kunlun Station.”

“Earthquake?”

“Bingo!” Tomcat snapped its paw. “That’s right. Without any tsunamis, earthquakes will be the disaster that brings about the greatest damage. The collision will trigger an unprecedented earthquake. It’s definitely a brand new edition that you’ll never have seen before. The Richter scale that you humans often use is no longer suitable. If you really want to use it, then the earthquake’s magnitude will be a 17 on the Richter scale… Yes, that’s right. Don’t stare at me. It’s 17.”

Tang Yue’s hand trembled.

He was still lost in the dream that 8 or 9 on the Richter scale was already the limit.

At the instant of the collision, the earthquake will be transmitted from the rock underground and the longitudinal wave will move very quickly. 357 seconds after the collision, the longitudinal wave will reach our feet. The longitudinal wave is a translation wave, so it will make the ground ebb up and down.” Tomcat pointed down.

“How high will the ground undulate?”

“I’ve done a rough model.” Tomcat lifted one claw. “At a distance beyond 2,500 kilometers, the surface will ebb up and down by at least a meter.”

“A meter?” Tang Yue widened his eyes. “It will raise Kunlun Station by a meter? Won’t it just collapse?”

Kunlun Station’s flooring wasn’t directly in contact with the Martian surface. It was actually propped up by six feet and was roughly tens of centimeters off the ground. The design of Kunlun Station’s frame had taken into account dampening and anti-quake measures, but the engineers absolutely never considered an earthquake that measured 17 on the Richter scale.

“Don’t rush to conclusions. After the longitudinal wave is a transverse wave. It will be slightly slower than the former and will arrive at our feet 625 seconds after the collision. The transverse wave is a shearing wave, so it will rip the ground up in all directions. This is something I can’t simulate. Different soil conditions will lead to different outcomes,” Tomcat said. “However, there’s one thing we can confirm that under normal circumstances, there’s no way for Kunlun Station to withstand the blast. It will absolutely crumble.”

“What can we do then?”

Kunlun Station was the home that Tang Yue’s survival depended upon. If it were to be destroyed, Tang Yue would be dead.

“Trying to forcefully withstand the quake is unrealistic. We can’t clash head-on with the Universe as that’s simply having a death wish… But five thousand years ago, Yu the Great told us that it’s better to be the flow. The wisdom of the ancients is universal,” Tomcat replied. “Since Kunlun Station will definitely crumble, why don’t we crumble it ahead of time?”

Tang Yue was taken aback as he raised the Kunlun Station Earthquake Mitigation and Disaster Preparation Guide that had a huge striking word: “Dismantle!”