Dead on Mars

When Mai Dong woke up, it was forty minutes to the next sunrise.

In Kunlun Station, Tang Yue and Tomcat had been discussing in detail every step of the procedure to ensure that they didn’t miss out on anything.

“Miss Mai Dong, the detailed repair plans and steps have been sent to you.” Tomcat moved the camera over. On Mai Dong’s communications system, a huge cat face appeared. “Please open the message.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

Mai Dong was eating, her mouth stuffed full of food.

When the girl opened the checklist, strings of text appeared. Tang Yue had written down everything, no matter how trivial it was. Every point to take note had been listed, including which foot to take first when releasing the catch needed for the extension of the arm.

“Okay…”

“How is it?” Tomcat asked. “Miss Mai Dong, what do you think of the difficulty involved?”

“It’s nothing.” Mai Dong slowly nodded as she scanned the document on the screen. “It’s only to fix a sensor, right? No problem. It won’t stump me.”

“Then it’s question and answer time.” Tang Yue interjected and pushed away Tomcat. “Mai Dong, you need to carefully read through the procedure and raise any questions. I hope you understand every step in the plan so that you won’t be in a fluster when the time comes.”

“Alright. I get it. Let me take a look…”

Tomcat left its seat as Tang Yue and Mai Dong got down to work. It still had some time, so it went to look after the solar panels in the Battery Farm.

The daily moving in and out of the solar panels wasn’t done by Tang Yue alone. At times, Tomcat would help as well, but clearly, it was a lot more relaxed than Tang Yue. Tang Yue would pant in exhaustion from the work while wearing the heavy Radiant Armor. He was like a landlord’s laborer, while Tomcat would stroll through the solar panels, with its paws behind its back, as though it was the landlord.

Tomcat opened the airlock, stood at the entrance to Kunlun Station and looked up into the sky.

Its eyes weren’t high-magnification telescopes, so it wasn’t able to see the United Space Station. However, Tomcat knew very well that the flying vessel was sweeping across its head every eighty minutes. At night, the space station, which reflected sunlight, would be like the stars in the sky as it moved quickly across the night sky. It would appear very conspicuous in a static starry background.

On certain nights, Tang Yue and Tomcat would stand by Kunlun Station’s window and wait until the United Space Station streak across the sky. They would then communicate with her telling her that they had seen her.

Mai Dong had already lived alone on the space station for more than two hundred sols. Without any backup or resupplies, it would be most harrowing in human aeronautical history. From the moment Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin had carefully stepped into outer space until the entire globe had cooperated for the Mars landing missions, in the middle of the twenty-first century, never had any human faced a situation like Tang Yue’s and Mai Dong’s.

As a robot, Tomcat couldn’t help but sigh. God knows how much they had suffered. They were only two young adults who had just participated in the Mars project for the first time as prep crew for the subsequent development of the landing project. They couldn’t be compared to Old Wang or Thomp who were calm and experienced. Yet, bad luck had hit them.

Mai Dong’s physical condition was worsening.

The effects of prolonged exposure to zero gravity and malnutrition were slowly ravaging the girl’s body. Mai Dong had begun wearing a hat when appearing in the camera since last month. She didn’t give any explanations, but Tomcat knew that it was definitely a result of severe hair loss.

The effects of radiation had damaged her hair follicles, killing her epidermal layer. Her hair fell out in large clumps, a most obvious demonstration of her worsening health. In past missions, the astronauts would take anti-radiation drugs to avoid such situations, but Mai Dong had finished all of hers.

Tomcat wasn’t sure how long Mai Dong could last if they didn’t bring her down.

However, worst of all was that the space station didn’t have a vessel that could be used for the descent.

Tang Yue had suggested using the Eagle’s Ascent Vehicle, believing that its outer shell was able to withstand the heat, that was the only hope.

In theory, the Eagle’s heat-resistant tiles were able to resist the high temperatures from adiabatic compression, and even though the Eagle was one-use, the tiles were designed with safety redundancies. The only possibility to overcome the heat problem came from the safety redundancy. The original engineers’ adding of few extra millimeters of heat-resistant material for safety purposes had become Mai Dong’s final straw to clutch at.

This was workable logically, and Tang Yue believed that he had resolved the first difficulty, making that delightful first step.

This was a good beginning that left one excited.

As such, he began racking his brains to consider how he could overcome the subsequent difficulties. When Tomcat walked past Tang Yue’s living quarters, it would hear him muttering words such as a “reverse thrust landing” and “air resistance.” Clearly, he stayed up at night considering solutions to the safety of the landing.

It was rare for Tang Yue to be so engrossed over certain matters. His walnut-sized brain was probably occupied by this matter.

Tomcat leaned against Kunlun Station’s hatch and picked up a flat stone by its feet.

As it clenched the stone tightly, its eyes darken suddenly. It had taken on the role of a vicious, foul-mouthed landlord with unyielding energy, commanding Tang Yue to do all kinds of things as though it held all the chips. But at this moment, the cat’s back was hunched. It didn’t look as domineering or awesome as it usually was. An invisible weight weighed down on its back that prevented it from straightening it. All it could do was slowly sit on the ground.

When alone, Tomcat was only a cat—a cat that sat in the desert.

“The side with the crack is heads, and the part without is tails. If it’s heads, then, we will both have a good outcome,” Tomcat softly muttered as it threw the stone in its paw like a coin, caught it, and pressed it down on the back of its other paw.

Tomcat fell silent for a few seconds.

“If it’s tails… they would have a good ending,” Tomcat continued. “It’s fine if I’m a little unluckier.”

It slowly spread open its claws as the stone sat stably on the back of its paw.

Tomcat took a look, cracked open its mouth, and threw the stone far into the distance.

Tang Yue was still having beautiful dreams of bringing Mai Dong down to Kunlun Station, and the lady was also excited, believing that she could descend safely. Tomcat really didn’t wish to destroy their fantasies because it was already very difficult for the two of them to survive. All that was left in their lives was hope. When it saw their eyes sparkle, Tomcat eventually swallowed what it wanted to say. It would be too cruel if it were to destroy their last bit of hope as well.

Tomcat knew the situation clearer than anyone.

It had considered all viable cases.

It was impossible for the Eagle to safely land. The plan wasn’t viable at all, and riding inside the Eagle for an atmospheric entry was no different from suicide.

The hope that Tang Yue saw was nothing but a bubble in a sea of despair, bursting with a simple prod.