Dead on Mars

Chapter 197 - Sol Three Hundred and Twenty-Five, If You Were Given Three Sols to Live
Chapter 197: Sol Three Hundred and Twenty-Five, If You Were Given Three Sols to Live

The fourth sol after the space station’s incident.

There were another seven sols before Tianzhou 37 arrived.

Tomcat had been staring at the monitor early in the morning, tapping rapidly on the keyboard. When Tang Yue came out of the living quarters, it was communicating with the United Space Station. “Miss Mai Dong, what can you see?”

“What’s wrong?” Tang Yue had a towel over his shoulders as he was still lost in his reverie. “What happened?”

Tomcat raised a claw to request for silence.

“It’s too far. It’s too dim. I can’t see it… But I can hear something,” Mai Dong replied over the comms.

“What do you hear?”

“It’s very rhythmic,” Mai Dong said. “It sounds like a clock’s second-hand ticking away. However, it sounds every few seconds. Tick-tock… Tick-tock… Tick-tock.”

“It’s vibrating.” Tomcat’s voice sounded heavy. “In fact, the vibration is happening at a higher frequency than you can hear. It’s happening at a rather high frequency. What you hear is probably the collision of some loose component.”

Tang Yue was very confused. He still wasn’t sure what had just happened. Tomcat frowned and rapped the table as its ears turned around in frustration.

“Tomcat?”

Tomcat’s eyes looked to the side. “The space station is disintegrating.”

The girl had already taken off the spacesuit’s helmet as she stuck her ears to the exposed metal wall of the Crystal. She closed her eyes and listened. Although a vacuum didn’t transmit sound, the vibrations could be transmitted via the space station’s structure. The core module was silent, and all the systems had already been made to stop working. This was the best noise-insulated in the world. Any bit of sound would attract one’s attention.

Mai Dong left the wall and leaned in front of the window, trying hard to look outside.

There were still plenty of fragments floating outside, but the area had mostly been cleared out since the collision. Orion II’s collision had caused the leak of water and gases which froze under the low temperatures. This enveloped the space station in a huge fog, making it difficult for the sunlight to penetrate it. After three days, the icicles had gradually evaporated away under the sunlight, allowing the area outside the Crystal to turn clear again.

Most fragments weren’t moving at the same velocity as the Crystal. After ten orbits around Mars, most of the space trash had distanced from the space station.

The huge truss swept overhead Mai Dong. At the end of it were four remnant solar panels which were reflecting sunlight.

The soft sound was transmitted through the metallic truss. It resembled a snake in the shadows as though the space station was striking the kneel before its death. Mai Dong wasn’t sure where the vibrations came since the source could be anywhere when she surveyed her surroundings.

“The space station is disintegrating?” Tang Yue asked. “What’s happened!?”

“It’s an expected scenario,” Tomcat replied.

“Expected scenario?” Tang Yue heaved a sigh of relief. “So it means it’s nothing serious?”

Tomcat shot a glance at him, looking at him like he was an idiot.

“If I were to stab you, you will be in great pain and suffer from severe blood loss in the next three minutes before dying. That’s also an expected scenario. Not dying will be unexpected,” Tomcat said. “The space station was smashed by a huge sledgehammer like Orion. It disintegrating is an expected scenario.”

“F*ck!” Tang Yue trembled.

“Damn it… Perhaps it’s gravity. After the collision, the stress within the United Space Station’s internal structure has been accumulating. Then, due to the disparate temperature differences, there is expansion and contraction. The space station has been constantly suffering damage to its structure.” Tomcat ground its fangs. “The space station didn’t begin disintegrating today. It had begun doing so at the moment of the collision. The effects only became obvious today.”

Mai Dong heard Tomcat. The United Space Station was in fact slowly disintegrating. They had only discovered it today. That was an expected scenario. The collision between the United Space Station and Orion II was the worst space disaster in human history. It finished off two super space vehicles, destroying the alien base which humans had arduously spent more than a decade to build.

Now, if things continued developing without any intervention, the United Space Station would ultimately completely disintegrate.

“How many more sols before that happens?” Mai Dong asked.

“I don’t know… Miss Mai Dong, I don’t know,” Tomcat said. “It’s hard to say which will first happen—the crash or disintegration. They might happen at the same time as well. Once there’s sufficient atmospheric resistance, the space station which is already on the brink of collapse will be completely destroyed. I do not know the speed of the space station’s disintegration, but it’s definitely not going to happen after the crash.”

“How can it be prevented?” Tang Yue asked. “Formulate a plan! Formulate one! We’ll resolve the problem.”

“There’s no way to prevent it from happening.”

Tang Yue was alarmed. “Why?”

“There’s just no way. We have no plans. We have no way to resolve any problem,” Tomcat said. “I already told you that we have already lost all means to intervene with the United Space Station. Have you forgotten?”

Tang Yue glared with widened eyes, momentarily at a loss for words. Tomcat had indeed mentioned that they had lost all means to interfere with the space station. However, he hadn’t taken it to heart. In his subconscious, problems with no answers or solutions didn’t exist. Having been left stranded on Mars for so long, he had been through so many obstacles and difficulties. They had overcome each and every one of them with their own might.

Regardless of the difficulty, as long as they were sufficiently calm, intelligent, and professional, there was a way to find the key to resolving the problem. They could then formulate a plan and work together to overcome it.

There was always a plan. There was a Plan B if Plan A didn’t work.

“We have already lost all means to interfere with the United Space Station,” Tomcat repeated itself. “To us, the space station is in another world. Where there is a will there’s a way no longer works here.”

Tang Yue slowly sat down.

Tomcat turned its head and continued monitoring the data. As it shook its head, it mumbled, “Subjective initiative can only be employed in situations where motion is possible. We no longer can move.”

“What about heading out… Can Mai Dong do an EVA trip?”

Tomcat shook its head.

“The entire space station is disintegrating. This isn’t something she can resolve with a soldering iron Besides, we don’t even have a soldering iron. Miss Mai Dong is physically very weak. She doesn’t have the stamina needed to complete an EVA trip. Besides, she doesn’t have an EVA suit with her.”

Tang Yue sat in the chair, his limbs feeling cold. He couldn’t help his palms from sweating. Tomcat was right. He was a smart aleck, but there was nothing he could come up with even if he racked his brains.

“Then what do I do?” Tang Yue looked up. “Just wait?”

“You don’t have to wait. You can still eat and sleep.”

“Don’t worry, Tang Yue, Mr. Cat,” Mai Dong said. She was floating within the Crystal, caressing the core module’s inner walls with her hands as she inspected inch by inch. The disintegration won’t happen that quickly. The Crystal is very strong. There are no signs of damage or cracks. It will definitely be able to last to the point of the crash.”

“I don’t doubt the Crystal’s strength. It was able to survive Orion II’s violent collision after all,” Tomcat said. “There’s no module in the world that’s harder than it. Before it was launched, it had been blessed by the Eastern Orthodox Church’s Patriarch.”

“That makes it impressive.” The girl squinted her eyes into crescents as she laughed. “Don’t worry. It will be fine.”

Tang Yue wanted to say something but paused. He was being vicarious. Mai Dong, who was in a sinking ship, was the one consoling him.

“Alright… Stay in contact. Keep monitoring. Lass, report any situation in a timely manner.”

“OK.”

Tomcat continued monitoring the United Space Station’s condition. As the space station’s system had lost most of its functionality, the only way to monitor it was through Mai Dong’s eyes. However, there was little left of the space station to monitor. The massive modular, permanent spacecraft had turned into a simple single-manned station like it was a hundred years ago with the Salyut 1 and Skylab.

In his mind, Tang Yue was praying to the ancestors to watch over them—Vladimir Solovyov, Alexei Leonov, and Pavel Belyayev. Their heroic souls that remained in the ether would forever bless their successors’ safety.

“Hey, Tang Yue, I have a question.”

“Yes?”

“I’d like to ask… If you were given three sols to live, what would you do?”