The crimson alarm pop-ups disappeared one after another, and the old cat temporarily stabilized the state of the joint space station before breathing a sigh of relief...... It closes the hatches between the modules and isolates the flow of air between the chambers – a safety measure designed at the beginning of the construction of the United Space Station on Mars to remotely and remotely close the hatches, and it finally came in handy today to save the entire space station.

The old cat in the depressurized cabin was also found, and it was not surprising that it was the Dawn module, which was directly affected by the impact of the Eagle spacecraft, and the interface at the end of the Dawn experimental module had been completely damaged, and the violent impact caused the bulkhead of the Dawn cabin to crack, and the air leakage in the cabin, and now the Dawn cabin is basically in a vacuum state, and the temperature is low to below zero.

Closing the locked hatch saved the other sections, and next to the Dawn module was the core module, which was currently maintaining a standard atmospheric pressure, 20 degrees Celsius air temperature - at least the old cat didn't have to worry about Mai Dong suffocating to death.

The smoke alarm has also been extinguished, and the smoking Dawn Capsule is now in a vacuum, and without oxygen, it is impossible to catch fire again.

The Joint Space Station is saved for the time being.

But Mai Dong still couldn't be contacted.

No one knows what happened to Mai Dong when the impact just happened, anything could have happened in such a serious accident, she could have been alive or died in the accident.

"Miss Mai Dong! This is Kunlun Station, Miss Mai Dong please answer when you hear it! ”

"Miss Mai Dong! This is Kunlun Station, please answer when you hear it! ”

"Miss Mai Dong! Hear it, please answer! ”

The old cat called anxiously over and over again.

There was no answer in the channel, and there was a dead silence.

"Hell!" The old cat slapped on the table, the consequences of the rear-end collision between the Eagle spacecraft and the United Space Station were very serious, both sides lost control and broke away from the original orbit, the situation of the space station was slightly better, the old cat started the attitude control rocket on the space station, and re-stabilized the rotating space station.

But the Eagle spacecraft was out of luck, it didn't carry enough propellant, this time the rendezvous and docking completely failed, the impact changed the flight direction of the lander, it lost control and fell into a tumble, and by this time it had already run far away.

The old cat glanced at the distance.

Sixty kilometers.

The distance is still growing.

While the old cat was doing his best to save the United Space Station, the Eagle spacecraft's orbit was constantly decreasing, flying faster and faster, and it was flying at high speed in orbit with its head, plunging headlong into the Martian atmosphere, and no one could stop it.

"Tang Yue, I have a good news and a bunch of bad news here, which one do you want to hear?" The old cat pushed the keyboard and let out a long sigh.

Tang Yue: "...... Hear the bad news first. ”

"There's so much bad news that it could be for next year." The old cat said, "Are you sure you want to hear the bad news first?" ”

"Good news."

"The good news is that the United Space Station has been saved for the time being, and the damage is not too great, and the Dawn module is basically abandoned, but the Dawn module has helped the space station absorb most of the kinetic energy of the impact...... This may be due to the fact that the Maozi like to build their cabins with flexible materials. The old cat said, "There are no major problems in the other sections, and the posture is now stable." ”

Tang Yue recalled for a moment, remembering which part of the Dawn cabin was...... It is connected to the core module, between the core module and the interface, and this segment provides a buffer for the core module.

"What else?"

"It's gone." The old cat shook his head, "This is the only good news, but there is a basket of bad news...... Miss Mai Dong is still in the process of being lost, life and death are unknown, the Eagle spacecraft is running wildly with its head covered on the road of no return, and the rear-end collision has seriously reduced its speed, and now it is falling rapidly towards Mars, and there are about six more laps left, and the Eagle spacecraft will re-enter the atmosphere. ”

"Six laps?"

"Six laps."

"Mai Dong...... Are you still alive? ”

"I don't know."

Tang Yue was silent for a long time.

"Do we still have a chance?"

"There can't be any more chances."

The old cat's voice was neither joyful nor sad, only deeply tired.

According to the monitoring of the Kunlun station, the current altitude of the joint space station is 400 kilometers, but the altitude of the Eagle spacecraft's orbit is only 320 kilometers, and the straight-line distance between the two is more than 100 kilometers.

As a robot, the old cat can best understand this kind of despair, this kind of despair rooted in physics and data, irreversible and unshakable. The orbit of the Eagle spacecraft is 80 kilometers lower than that of the space station, and this gap is still growing, the RD-0172 engine can no longer change orbit again, no one can pull its orbit up another 80 kilometers out of thin air, and at the moment only gravity acts on the lander...... It will continue to lose altitude under the pull of gravity until it crashes into the atmosphere.

With the last six laps, the Eagle will crash.

The average time it takes to circumnavigate a week is about 50 minutes, and six laps are 300 minutes.

Five hours, that's the last life of the Eagle.

The old cat stared at the predicted orbit on the screen, and the space station would still operate as usual, but the way ahead of the lander could no longer have any intersection with the space station, and they missed the only encounter in their lives, and there was only a further and further divergent path in the future.

The Eagle spacecraft's signal flashes intermittently and periodically, in fact because it is tumbling, and its antenna is illuminated by relay satellites once per revolution.

The old cat watched it flicker and fade away, and hope became more and more slim.

Tang Yue leaned on the body of the Martian stray dog, he has been working for more than ten hours in a row today, and he has not dropped a drop of water halfway, the reason why Tang Yue has not fallen down until now depends on his firm will and belief, but later even his consciousness began to blur, Tang Yue relied on his weight.

Now Tang Yue's weight of one hundred and forty pounds can't bear it, his eyes are black, his hands and feet are weak, Tang Yue has to tie himself firmly to the rover with a rope and force himself to stand firm.

A deep sense of powerlessness came up, and it was clear that a few minutes ago, the old cat told him that everything was fine, and that he was about to succeed, why did everything change in the blink of an eyelid?

Tang Yue patted his mask and wiped off the dust that fell on the mask, he wondered if he had auditory hallucinations from extreme exhaustion, how could such a thing exist in this world? How can success that is still a thin line away from turning into despair in an instant?

That's.

That's really.

Tang Yue's brain was very stiff, and he couldn't figure out every link.

"Tang Yue, I know you can't accept it." The old cat whispered, "But it's ...... reality"

The entropy in the universe is always increasing, time only flows in one direction, and the reality is cruel because no one has a chance to start over, even if you only miss a Planck time, then the consequences are already cast.

You will have to face the brutal endings that will ensue, and the never-ending remorse.

"We failed, completely failed." The old cat continued, "Whether Miss Maidon is still alive or not, no one can save her now. ”

Tang Yue thought about it for a long time, and his stiff brain clicked and clicked before he thought of a word.

"Cruel."

"yes...... The universe is cruel. The old cat leaned back in his chair and looked up at the roof above his head, his eyes dazed, "It's more cruel than we thought." ”

At this time, Tang Yue would rather hope that Mai Dong had been killed in the accident just now, so that she would not have to face the next desperate situation of being isolated and helpless, the docking failure of the Eagle spacecraft, the space station ran out of ammunition, if the girl was still alive, then she would have to stay on it and wait for death slowly, Tang Yue didn't dare to imagine what kind of torture and suffering this was.

"Cat...... Mr. Cat? Tang Dynasty...... Mr. Yue? You guys...... Can you hear me? ”

Suddenly, the girl's faint but crisp voice sounded in the channel.

Old Cat and Tang Yue were stunned.

"I ...... I'm Mai Dong, what's going on...... Was the docking successful? Mr. Cat? ”