Above the orbit of Mars.

There was silence in the cockpit.

Quietly waiting for the results on the other end of the communication channel, Liu Biao took a deep breath and suddenly spoke.

"Captain."

Xu Zhenghong: "What's wrong?" ”

Liu Biao: "Is it appropriate for us to do this?" ”

"Is there anything inappropriate about the exchanges between countries? Being in the same position, it may not be that they will not preset conditions for rescue," looking at this slightly young comrade-in-arms, Xu Zhenghong smiled and turned his gaze to the planet buried in the sand, "What's more, even in the name of humanitarianism, we can't run this trip in vain." ”

Liu Biao asked, "What if they don't find what we want?" ”

Xu Zhenghong was silent for a while and spoke.

"It's a loss for us."

However, for the sake of maximizing profits, they will eventually let them on board.

And this is what Professor Lu explained to him......

……

At the same time, the surface of Mars.

The alloy door on the outside of the life support unit slowly opened, and a red-painted Mars rover drove out of it, facing the rolling sea of sand.

Looking at the approaching green dot on the radar, Johnson's face was full of complicated expressions.

Obviously, NASA could not have given such a ridiculous mission, and the Chinese man's so-called "this is your request" could not even be used as an excuse to comfort himself.

But if he wanted to go home, he had no choice......

Guided by the on-board radar, Johnson quickly arrived at his destination.

Parking not far from the center of the explosion, Johnson, who was already wearing an extravehicular spacesuit, took out the toolbox from the trunk of the rover and walked towards the center of the crash site of the BFS spacecraft.

Shet...... It's all like this. ”

While watching this shocking and tragic situation, Johnson sampled the materials of the various parts of the BFS spacecraft according to the requirements of the mission log, and stored them in a special sample box.

Soon approaching the core area, the broken wreckage gradually increased.

Carefully stepping over the shards of steel, Johnson took the arc cutter from the toolbox and pressed the button against the deformed metal casing, quickly cutting a circular fracture in the casing that could be accessed.

After doing all this, Johnson let out a sigh of relief and tossed the cutting gun into the toolbox and put it away.

"Whew...... It's time to get to work. ”

Saying a word to himself, he reached out and grabbed the metal bar in the cabin of the BFS spaceship, and slowly strained his arms to slide over the metal waste and into the cabin.

"Black Box...... Let me think about it, it seems to be under the seat in the cab. Well, that's how it should be......"

Turning on the flashlight on his chest, Johnson wiped a handful of dust from the mask of his spacesuit and, following the route he remembered, began to grope in the direction of the wheelhouse.

In fact, as Lu Zhou guessed, there was indeed something similar to a black box on the BFS spacecraft. It records a series of calculations from the launch of the BFS spacecraft to the time it enters orbit, as well as communication records with NASA headquarters.

If the BFS spacecraft encounters an accident and crashes on the surface of Mars, retrieving the black box is also one of the jobs of the ground colonists.

It's just that this part of the work does not include the part of handing over the black box to the Chinese......

Finding the green suitcase with reflective strips under the broken driver's seat, Johnson hesitated for a moment, but finally shook his head and turned to walk in the direction of the cabin......

Thirty kilometers away, in a life support unit.

Jones and Tyvy, who remained in the test chamber, were anxiously waiting for news from Captain Johnson.

I don't know how many times I looked out of the porthole, even though there was nothing but the yellow sand, but Tai Wei couldn't help but crane his neck to look out.

At that moment, the door to the experiment chamber suddenly opened, and Johnson, wearing an extravehicular spacesuit and sand hanging from top to bottom, walked in with a green box with reflective strips and a slightly smaller suitcase.

With a smile on his face, Tevi greeted him, but Johnson didn't look at him, pushed him away and walked straight to the console, connected the data cable from the spacesuit to the chassis next to him, and pressed the button to connect to communication.

"I've found what you're looking for."

The noisy electric current sounded for a while.

The voice of the reply quickly came through the communication channel.

"Congratulations, you've got your ticket home, now please get into the re-entry pod, get ready to start the ignition process, and we'll be over New Virginia in 5 minutes."

"Roger."

Unplugging the cable, Johnson looked at the two teammates standing behind him, and breathed a sigh of relief as if he had lifted his burden.

“…… Let's go home. ”

……

The New Virginia's escape pod is located directly in the center of the life support unit, connected directly above the methane generator.

When the situation on the surface of Mars deteriorates to the point where it is uncontrollable, the colonists only need to enter the re-entry capsule, start the escape procedure, and the liquid oxygen and methane in the life support unit will be injected into the engines at the base of the re-entry capsule as much as possible for the re-entry capsule to return to the BFS spacecraft in orbit.

Of course, now the BFS spacecraft has already been crashed by NASA on its own initiative.

While there is no direct evidence that NASA did this, Johnson can't think of a better reason for this.

He even prefers to believe that NASA gave up on them.

This will also make the guilt in his heart a little lighter......

Dragging a thick column of smoke and flames, the hemispherical silvery-white re-entry capsule separated from the life support unit, breaking away the tumbling dust.

At this moment, this failed colonization of the outer planet that lasted less than three months finally drew a stronghold with the withdrawal of the colonists.

Of course, although they failed, the lessons they learned from their failures were enough to pave the way for their successors to go further......

Heading for a silent starry sky, the return capsule that ascended to orbit gradually lost power and merged into orbit around Mars. After half an hour of floating, it finally fell into the arms of the Xiaguang.

Stretching the lens and looking at it from a distance, the two spacecraft, one large and one small, slowly approaching under the sunlight, are like two shining and intersecting points of light.

"The New Virginia was successfully put into orbit...... Our oxygen may not last long, and we need help. ”

"This is the Glow, we have received your request, please be patient and wait for rescue."

The hatch slowly opened, and a thick robotic arm poked out of the cabin, slowly clamping the shell of the re-entry capsule. At the moment of contact, the bulkhead of the return capsule shook violently for a while, but it quickly settled down, and was slowly dragged out of the cargo hold by the Xiaguang.

This design was originally used to recover space junk and satellites that could not crash properly after reaching the end of their useful life, but it is certainly technically feasible to recover the return capsule for escape.

Almost at the same time, thousands of kilometers away in Jinling City, surrounded by a kind of media reporters, the lunar orbit construction committee held a press conference as scheduled to announce the latest progress of the rescue operation.

When they heard the news that the BFS spacecraft had fallen from the orbit around Mars, the reporters at the scene were in an uproar, and the scene was out of control for a while, and Johnson's wife, who had rushed to China from North America, covered her nose and wept silently.

It only took a few hours for everything to come and go.

When the news of the successful entry of the return capsule into orbit, the arrival of the Xiaguang in the target airspace, and the start of the spacecraft recovery operation came one after another, reporters and people from all walks of life who were waiting for the final results, as well as US embassy personnel and the families of the victims, held their breath and nervously waited for the final results.

In the end, when the news of the successful rescue spanned tens of millions of kilometers and a delay of five or six minutes, and reached the Jinling ground command center, the news of "the rescue work was a complete success" and "all three astronauts survived" were also announced on the big screen at the press conference for the first time.

When the lines of exciting words come into view, when all the worries and prayers are answered satisfactorily......

The scene of the press conference.

In an instant.

Filled with thunderous applause!

"God...... Thank you! Thank you! Really appreciated! Sorry, I don't know how to express it, my emotions are a little out of control, woo woo woo ......"

Holding the hand of the chief designer Lu Zhou tightly, the woman who couldn't cry said words of thanks excitedly, and her legs slowly lost their support, but fortunately, the staff next to her quickly helped her, so that she was so excited that she was about to faint and did not fall to the ground.

Lu Zhou gave her a reassuring look, and then instructed the staff to take her to the side to rest.

Her husband's fate is uncertain.

In the past month or so, she must have suffered a lot.

Now that the stone in her heart has finally landed, she can finally sleep peacefully.

Standing in front of the reporter's camera, Chen Yunhai, director of the Organization Department of the Lunar Orbit Construction Committee and deputy director of the China Space Administration, announced the victory of the rescue operation in a solemn voice and announced the timetable for the return of the Xiaguang.

Standing aside and watching from afar, the embassy staff took off their eyes and wiped the sand from the corners of their eyes with their index fingers and thumbs. Immediately afterward, he, like the people next to him, gave a round of applause for this moment.

Although they lost this game, there is no doubt about it.

But......

He still couldn't help but applaud for this moment......