Dead on Mars

“Miss… Mai Dong! Miss Mai Dong! Answer if you copy! Answer if you copy!”

After an unknown period of time, when the space station had entered the shadow of Mars—the start of a forty-minute long night—Mai Dong had just increased the intensity of the lights in the module when a clear, hurried cry sounded from the earpiece.

Mai Dong suddenly looked up.

“Mr. Cat?”

“It’s me. We are in an emergency situation. I’ll get to the point. Listen clearly to everything I have to say!” Tomcat spoke quickly as there were hurried typing sounds in the background. She could imagine that it was typing rapidly as it conversed with her. “Mai Dong, listen up. In another five minutes and forty seconds, the Eagle will rendezvous with the United Space Station! Are you in the Crystal core module?”

Mai Dong was shocked by the sudden news.

The Eagle would dock with the United Space Station in about five minutes?

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Mr. Cat. I’m presently in the Crystal module, by the window.” The girl pressed down on her earpiece and hastened to nod.

She didn’t know how Tomcat had resumed communications. Could it be that the sandstorm over Kunlun Station had weakened again? Communicating over the frequency was extremely clear and stable, with almost zero static. Communications with such quality had rarely happened since the sandstorm began.

“The Eagle has entered the orbit’s apoapsis! It’s preparing to do the orbital maneuver! We have only once chance of success!” Tomcat said. “Now, switch on the MR!”

“MR?”

“Microwave Radar! Switch on the Microwave Radar!”

“M-m-microwave Radar…”

Mai Dong began fumbling about frantically.

“Aren’t you by the window? Look up to your left There will be a gray control panel. On it will be Boeing’s logo. There will be the acronym “RAD” written in white. Do you see it? Damn it, Lady, be quick… Tang Yue is about to lose his life…”

“Acronym written in white… RAD… I see it! I see it! I found it!” Mr. Tang Yue floated up and grabbed onto the panel’s handle. “Mr. Cat, what did you just say? What happened to Mr. Tang Yue?”

“Don’t waste time on unimportant matters! Have you found the control system? Good, now switch on the red button on the right of the panel! Listen, the Eagle will be entering a remote guidance stage. I’ll teach you how to operate it! Do what I say, step by step. You mustn’t make any mistakes! Do you copy?”

The girl nodded her head seriously.

“Loud and clear.”

…

Kunlun Station.

The hurricane was wreaking havoc.

Tomcat decided that Tang Yue was truly a madman. Mai Dong didn’t know how the communications had suddenly been restored to normal, believing that the sandstorm’s intensity had dropped. In fact, the wind speeds hadn’t dropped at all. With the cyclone’s low-pressure zone departing slowly, the wind speeds rose once more. Now, it was already at 40 m/s. It was pitch-dark outside Kunlun Station.

The reason Tomcat could re-establish communications with the space station was all thanks to Tang Yue.

This madman even guaranteed Tomcat that he would allow it to contact the Eagle before the next orbital maneuver window. Tomcat believed that they were merely empty words meant to bolster his courage, for no one could guarantee the establishment of communications with the lander in such terrible weather. But to Tomcat’s surprise, he did it.

“Tang Yue! Tang Yue, do you hear me? How’s the situation on your side? Can you hold on?”

“Situation is… good! I can still hold on. Ignore me. Focus on the docking between the Eagle and space station!”

Tang Yue shouted through the comms. He was wearing the Radiant Armor while facing the hurricane head-on amidst the darkness.

“Darn it!”

Tomcat cursed softly. If anything happened to Tang Yue, it wouldn’t be able to rescue him in time.

Tang Yue wasn’t at the entrance of Kunlun Station.

Instead, he was at the garage a hundred meters away. He was standing behind the Mars Wanderer, with a huge communications antenna on him.

This was Tang Yue’s method. The emergency antenna was too weak. He had decided to reboot the communications antenna that Kunlun Station used. The latter was two-meters tall and had high efficiency. It could maintain communications even in a hurricane. The only problem was that the strong winds had toppled it, putting it out of commission.

It wasn’t that Tomcat had never thought of re-erecting the huge antenna, but the antenna was installed by the side of the garage, a considerable distance from Kunlun Station. To reboot the antenna, they needed to head to the garage, which was a hundred meters away. Tomcat couldn’t even guarantee that it could return, and it was basically a road to death for anyone else.

As for Tang Yue, he forged his way forward while singing “Katyusha” and “Unity is Strength.” He secured one end of the safety rope to the airlock’s hatch, reattached the antenna’s data cable, and spent forty minutes tottering in the pitch-black hurricane. Tomcat had wondered if he had died out in the sandstorm, but Tang Yue ultimately arrived at the garage.

Right on the heels of that, Tang Yue drove the Mars Wanderer, using its massive body to block the wind before proceeding to set up the communications antenna. At wind speeds of 40 m/s, the antenna couldn’t stay standing by itself. Therefore, Tang Yue tied the antenna tightly to himself and used his seventy-odd kilogram body weight and the sixty kilograms of the Radiant Armor as a human tripod to withstand the wanton sandstorm.

The madman really didn’t care for his life.

From beginning to end, he was like a desperado.

“F*ck… You better return alive!”

Tomcat stared at the screen. Tang Yue had created unprecedented conditions for communications. The Eagle and the United Space Station were constantly transmitting real-time data into Kunlun Station’s computers.

Tang Yue had already fulfilled his promise. He had accomplished what he had claimed. Now, it all depended on Tomcat… As they had abandoned the plan of the double orbital maneuvers, and only attempt a single orbital maneuver, the control difficulty had arisen. The control of the acceleration and deceleration as well as the attitude had to be perfect. Likewise for the timing.

The experienced Tomcat had to steer the Russian-made tractor above its head, using the RD-0172 rocket engines to place the Eagle into a huge super drift and change tracks at high speeds before accurately getting into position! The docking distance couldn’t exceed 300 meters, and the angle difference couldn’t exceed 5°. The maneuvering would be extremely difficult, but it couldn’t stump the legendary Mt. Akina’s pram racing god!

The Eagle gradually approached the space station as the two man-made space vehicles flew through the vast vacuum. Even though they were physically close to each other, they were on completely different trajectories. They came from different directions and would head for different directions. Once they missed the window, the lander and the space station would rapidly pull apart from each other.

Tomcat needed to seize that opportunity.

It wanted to make the Eagle jump into the space station’s trajectory!

The computer’s timer was already synchronized, and the countdown had begun.

Five seconds left on the timer.

Tomcat slowly narrowed its eyes as it placed its paw on the keyboard. Its claw slowly exerted pressure as the two blips on the screen blinked one after another.

Three seconds left on the timer.

The lander had arrived at its apoapsis.

Two seconds left on the timer.

The space station entered its periapsis.

One second left on the timer.

Tomcat pressed the initialization button, and at that instant, Kunlun Station’s computer sent the digital signal through the cable and into the antenna. The communications antenna shot the modulated radio waves into the sky, as the electromagnetic waves moved at the speed of light to tear through the hundred-kilometer Martian atmosphere. In 0.06 seconds, they reached the relay satellite, and in 0.02 seconds, the relay satellite relayed the signal, sending the command sent by Tomcat over more than a hundred thousand kilometers to the Eagle.

The Eagle received the command as RD-0172’s engines were ignited! It began the orbital maneuver!