Chapter 794 Falling!

In fact, the Xiaguang arrived 79 hours earlier than Lu Zhou estimated.

After 41 days and 2 hours of flight, the fiery red planet has slowly risen over the porthole of the Xiaguang cockpit.

Squinting his eyes and looking out the porthole, watching the bright sunlight rising slowly from the edge of the fiery red outline, watching the billowing sand waves churning like a sea of ​​fire, Liu Biao, who was sitting in the co-pilot seat, smashed Tongue down.

"It's a total mess...but it's a pretty sight."

"Yes." Xu Zhenghong nodded, didn't talk much, stretched out his hand and pressed it on the helmet, and reported calmly, "This is Xiaguang. We have entered the Martian gravity system and successfully entered orbit a-11."

Waited quietly for about five minutes.

Accompanied by the noisy current sound, the sound of unstable communication came from the earth tens of millions of kilometers away.

"This is the ground command center. Congratulations on successfully completing the mission... Now please start the active braking program and prepare to approach Mars. The orbit change navigation will be completed by the onboard computer. I wish you good luck."

"receive!"

With a distance of tens of millions of kilometers, it is obviously impossible to command the spacecraft to change orbit through real-time communication.

The track change plan has been written into the pre-set program, and the driver will complete the track switch according to his own judgment with the assistance of the onboard computer.

Of course, although it sounds complicated, it is not that troublesome in practice.

The degree of automation of the Xiaguang is still very high. Unless there are special circumstances, generally speaking, the driver only needs to keep an eye on the speed and distance dials to make sure that the spacecraft has not deviated from the orbit.

Liu Biao: "Should we go straight down? Or wait for them to come up?"

Xu Zhenghong: "The New Virginia life support unit has a return capsule installed. They return to the BFS spacecraft in Mars orbit through the return capsule. We recover the target and then change orbit to return."

And drop the "detector".

Of course, this part is a top-secret task, which was personally assigned to him by Lu Zhou, the chief designer of the Lunar Orbit Construction Committee. He can only rot in his stomach for this task, even if Liu Biao is his deputy, he can't reveal any information...

Liu Biao: "OK...what if they don't come back?"

Xu Zhenghong twitched the corner of his mouth: "Then mourn for them for half a minute... Remember to take pictures to collect evidence, and don't let the Americans blame us."

"No problem, the body camera is activated!"

Liu Biao smiled and stretched out his hand to push the button on the console.

"What's the hurry, it's still early."

Xu Zhenghong laughed and cursed.

But at this moment, the expression on his face suddenly froze.

Looking at the silver-white spot outside the porthole, Xu Zhenghong's pupils shrank slightly, and he stretched out his hand to press the helmet.

"This is the Xiaguang...the American spacecraft, it seems that there is a little problem."

Another five minute wait.

The voice of the ground command center came from the communication channel.

"What's happening?"

Xu Zhenghong squinted his eyes, staring at the silver bright spot in the distance.

I don't know if it's his illusion, but he always feels something is wrong.

Sensing the direction he was looking at, Liu Biao cooperatively turned on the active ranging lidar and aimed at the airspace where the target aircraft was located.

Although this thing is used to measure the relative distance of meteorites, the target of the action can also be a spacecraft.

Looking at the distance parameters in kilometers per second on the screen, Xu Zhenghong took a deep breath and said loudly.

"The BFS ship is falling...repeat...the BFS ship is falling!"

...

It has been more than a month since the distress signal was sent.

Or to be precise, 41 days and 2 hours.

The crops in the planting area are completely withered, there is not enough light, and there is not enough energy. These things are just a burden.

In order to save energy, as early as two weeks ago, they restricted the scope of activities to the experimental area of ​​less than ten square meters, and cut off the power supply of other functional areas. The reason why I chose to wait for rescue here is because there is the only control terminal that can receive the signal of the BFS spacecraft, obtain weather information, and use it as a signal repeater to get in touch with the earth.

However, even so, the remaining energy is stretched.

Up to 42 hours, they will die from lack of oxygen...

At this time, a weak female voice with a hint of trembling broke the silence in the experimental cabin.

"Are they coming back to save us?" Jones looked helplessly at the dust covering the sky outside the porthole, and a hint of despair appeared in Jones' pupils.

It is basically impossible to count on the sandstorm to stop.

Judging from the current scale, this dust storm will last at least six months.

Johnson, who was leaning against the porthole and holding a photo tightly in his hand, replied subconsciously in a voice that didn't have much strength.

"Most definitely."

Although at this moment, there was no optimistic expression on that handsome face that was always optimistic.

"Not necessarily," the dark-skinned Tai Wei snorted while huddled in another corner, "Maybe they will think it would be better if we died."

The blue eyes were wide open, and Jones looked at this side in disbelief: "Why?"

Tavy: "You think, if we're dead, we're heroes, and all it takes is a flag and a funeral to get us out of here. But if we're alive, they'll have to spend a bunch of Franklins building another one." Rocket, bring us more supplies or take us home... either way, it's a shame—"

"enough!"

Johnson, with a gloomy face, suddenly roared.

There was an eerie silence in the cabin for a while.

He was stunned by the captain's aura for two or three seconds, but soon Taiwei frowned and stood up in a bad tone.

"Hey, is there something wrong with what I said?"

Also standing up from the floor, Johnson looked at him sullenly.

"I just want you, pig, to close your mouth and consume two milliliters of oxygen less. Maybe we can live a few more seconds."

"Oh, what's the point? It's death anyway, oh, I get it, do you want to have a fight with me? Then come on, I've been annoyed by your stinky face for a long time." Taiwei rubbed He raised his fist and assumed a boxing stance.

Seeing that the two were about to fight, Jones used all his strength to stand up from the ground, trying to stop the two.

"Enough! Calm down, all of you!"

However, at this moment, a sudden muffled sound came from outside the life support unit.

The two who were about to clash suddenly froze, and looked out the porthole in unison.

Although separated by the billowing smoke, the fireball that pierced the dust was still clearly visible. At the same time, on the control terminal not far away, the green dot marking the contact signal of the spacecraft finally turned red after a series of intermittent flashes.

At the same time, the standby screen turned on, and a line of glaring characters flashed in the upper right corner——

【lost connection】

The moment he saw this line of words, Johnson swallowed, and a trace of panic gradually appeared on his face.

"Shet, our spaceship!"

Taiwei also muttered something to himself in a low voice.

"……God."

There was a long silence.

Until the flickering flame exhausted the liquid oxygen in the engine, was finally swallowed by the tumbling dust, and fell to an unknown place...

Staring at the dead dust outside the porthole, Jones asked in a trembling voice.

"Are we going to die?"

No one answered her.

The fuel of the BFS spacecraft is more than enough to float in orbit for 20 years, but at this time there is a "fault"...

Raising his trembling index finger, Johnson stretched out his hand and made a sign of the cross on his chest.

God bless.

Although he also knows that this is the territory of Ares, even the old man God can do nothing...

However, at this moment, a voice like the sound of heaven sounded.

At first he thought it was an electric sound and didn't pay attention.

Until the noisy voice gradually became clear...

Seeing the [Connection Request] appearing on the screen and the green dot on the terminal, as if grabbing the last straw, Johnson frantically rushed to the control terminal and pressed the button to connect to the communication.

Whether it's God or aliens...

He just hoped it wasn't his hallucination.

It turns out that this is indeed not an illusion.

The moment the communication was connected, a clear and smooth voice poured into his ears like a spring of oasis...

"...This is Colonel Xu Zhenghong of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Astronaut Brigade, friends on Mars, how are you?"