The atmosphere in Blonnfield today is very strange, on the one hand, people are walking around with serious faces to check whether there is any work left to be done, and on the other hand, their eyes cannot hide the joy that a long-awaited event is finally about to happen.

On the launch platform of the Bloomfield Space Center, the only remaining rocket is about to be launched.

Standing under the launch platform, at the foot of the rocket, Andy was talking to the other five people who were selected by him to go to space together, probably to say some of the necessity and precautions of this action, going to space to contact with Prester and his gang is definitely not just a mouth to stop their action, real battles are bound to happen, so this trip can be described as extremely dangerous.

Everyone must have a strong will, at least to the point where they cannot have a mental breakdown just because they see the universe on the road.

Needless to say, people with a relatively high level of education, such as strings and Mark, may also have to help appease those who are relatively shallow at that time.

Beatrice was watching Hermes Rocket cheer and didn't know why she was so happy, she said that she saw this big guy in a dream, and said that she would sit on its belly and fly very high, whether it was a fool's dream or not, at least she was in a good state of mind at this time.

The battery emoji looks a little anxious... He looked at the rocket at one time, at the sky at another, and let out a strange wail from his mouth.

Alexandra's blonde hair glistened in the sun, her blue eyes looked unwavering, after Andy completed a simple mobilization speech, she now found the string to seriously communicate with her about the various things to pay attention to after flying into space, the two seemed to be talking very speculatively, although Alexandra was a wastelander, she was born in New Canaan after all, the descendants of the Vault dwellers, and received a good basic education since childhood.

The choice of candidates really made Andy struggle for a long time. At the last moment when she was about to choose a candidate, Chrissy flinched, saying that she was just an insignificant NcR soldier, and even if Andy was willing to take her, she didn't know how she would behave in space, and that she had been having nightmares the other day dreaming that she was lost in the universe, and this fear coupled with the very severe long-term insomnia she was already suffering from had made her unbearable, and she was tormented by mental pain.

After she made it clear that she would not follow any longer, the only suitable replacement was the battery... In all fairness, in fact, Otto can also be a substitute, Otto has almost no shortcomings except that he is not good at fighting, he is a pre-war man, with more than a hundred years of experience as a mechanic, and has witnessed the space activities of SA in the old world, as a ghoul, he is also completely immune to the strong radiation in space, and will even behave more energetically than others in space, just... As a member of the crypto tribe, Battery not only has the technology but also has the foundation to fight, after all, it is more suitable than Otto.

With the exception of Andy and Beatrice, everyone else has some skills in technology and repair, but the two have an advantage in combat that no one else can match combined, and this can make up for it.

While thinking, Andy noticed the strangeness of the battery and took the initiative to go up and talk.

"What's wrong with the battery, are you nervous?" Battery almost cried and said the anxiety in his heart.

"The place we are going to is too high, so high, even if this big iron arrow can protect our bodies, but what about our souls? Our souls will be dragged out on the way, drifted out of the world, never to be able to return, forever and forever away from their homeland and ancestors... It's horrible! He almost choked up as he spoke.

Andy didn't know how to comfort him for a moment, soul? Is it possible to argue with him that man has no soul at all?

No, of course he couldn't accept it for a moment, that wasn't the direction that would convince him.

"Calm down, battery." He grabbed the shoulders of the young Buraku man and made him look into his eyes.

"Listen, there are always people in this world who have to make sacrifices, to take risks that others don't need to take, not for ourselves, but for our descendants, friends, family and all those we are willing to protect, we always have to do things, this is part of our destiny."

"You are the Nemonek of the crypto tribe, you are responsible, now there is no one else who can replace you to go to space, do you want an invisible fire to fall from the sky and burn down the entire village?" Battery's expression slowed slightly, but his face was still full of anxiety.

String heard the conversation between the two and walked over as well.

"It's okay battery, the big circle we're going to, it's got some devices installed on it, it's always rotating, it can fix your soul so you don't float around, and the rocket we're going to make won't take long to get there, your soul will actually be fine." Everyone came over to talk and persuade him, but the battery still couldn't keep up his spirits, and finally even cried bitterly, complaining that Andy didn't say that he wanted to fly into the sky when he came to him, but only said that he wanted to help make the chip.

Helplessly, Andy can only find Otto after his efforts are fruitless, which can make the old ghoul happy.

So this is the six-person group that is about to fly into space, Andy, String, Mark, Beatrice, and Otto, it is really a magical combination, with NcR soldiers, Shi scientists, former enclave officers, super mutants, Wastelanders descended from Vault dwellers, and ghouls, which can be described as a combination of various races and power elements of the wasteland.

Gillian was standing in front of a terminal on a fixed elevated platform, next to a slot for inserting items, and she inserted a small chip into it, and then entered some programs into the terminal.

With some mechanical noise, the clip holding the rocket horizontally on the holder slowly loosens and turns to the side, indicating that the rocket has been unlocked.

Gillian wiped the sweat from the top of her head, she hadn't slept for three days, and finally after a few failures, with the help of the battery, she successfully manufactured the required chip according to the design drawings provided by the crypto tribe, Sid, Cylinder Brain and several other technicians and scientists who had been fighting with her for several days around looked at the slowly untied fixing clip and cheered, their efforts were not in vain, and now the rocket can be launched safely.

The eyeball robot flew into the air and untied the tube inserted in the rocket fuel tank, and closed the injection port.

The hill of materials was gone, and what was left had been picked up by Big Bear while he was cleaning up the garbage, and the launch platform was now very clean.

Isaac and Goddard had been busy debugging various software and hardware in the control center, and since they had fought together on the shuttle side before, the relationship between the two stubborn guys belonging to the Brotherhood of Steel and NcR had miraculously improved, and for whatever reason, the work of the ground crew team had become harmonious, and the Candace branch president was very happy about it.

The final preparations took a day, almost a month after Diana asked Andy to go around and raise human and material resources as she requested.

In the afternoon, she suddenly announced something.

"To all of you at the Bloomfield Space Center, I hereby make a notice." People turned to look at the loudspeakers scattered around the space center, waiting for the long-awaited commander to tell the news.

Diana's face appeared on all the terminal monitors, and she spoke calmly.

"After nearly a month of preparation, we have united all forces and concentrated resources from all sides. Finally, we have completed the inspection and repair of the Hermes 13 rocket. At present, the overall repair of the Hermes XIII rocket has been completed, the navigation devices have been installed, the rocket fuel and the required catalysts have been injected, the fixing clips have been released, the internal safety system is under control, and the necessary codes for docking with the .m.b-001 space station have been obtained. After my careful calculation and final judgment, I believe that at this time, the Hermes XIII space launch vehicle has the launch capability, it can successfully send the shuttle into space according to the preset process of the pre-war designer, and go to the .m.b-001 geosynchronous orbit space station to complete the docking, Prester has not yet completed the modification and correction of the nuclear bomb launch target, we still have the last chance to go there to stop him, and we will definitely be able to do it! ”

"I now announce that tomorrow morning, at five o'clock in the morning, we will have a rocket launch!" People raised their arms and cheered.

At this time, Andy was busy making the last preparations, which was the spacesuit.

"Are these really okay?" He looked at the old spacesuits that had been turned out of warehouses all over Bloomfield and was a little worried, even if he was an outsider, looking at the various flaws on those old clothes, he knew that these things were all retired items that had been abandoned before the war, and they could not be used for collection and exhibition before.

The strings don't care so much.

"Don't be afraid, although these spacesuits are very old, they still have enough radiation protection capabilities, we don't need to directly contact the universe whether we take the shuttle or enter the .m.b-001, we are all located inside the safe spacecraft or space station, not to mention, I think there must be spare spacesuits for emergency use inside .m.b-001, and we will not be helpless if we have to go out of the capsule for a spacewalk. And most importantly... These are the only ones we've found in a short period of time. Andy sighed, just a few torn clothes were not enough, and they could only make Beatrice and Otto, two people who were not afraid of radiation, aggrieved.

The finishing touches continued into the next day, when a ray of sunlight came from the distant horizon. Andy, String, Mark, Beatrice, Alexandra, Otto, the six of them stood in front of the Hermes XIII rocket in full costume, surrounded by some people who had come to see them off.

Some of them wore a messy spacesuit, while others simply wore some rough clothes, like Otto, who only had a mechanic's suit, and looked a little out of place... But it wasn't anything against Beatrice's backdrop, and she wasn't even wearing anything decent on her at all.

"Alright, guys, let's get here, we're going to board the rocket, you need to get out of here and get to safety!" Andy shouted a few times, and the crowd of onlookers gradually dispersed.

"Come on! It's all up to you! ”

"The Boss will win!"

"Kick Prester's asshole hard!" The people went back to their respective jobs, Big Bear and the others stood on the defensive posts on the perimeter and watched the rockets, and Isaac, Goddard, Candace and the others sat in front of the terminal in the control center and stared at the parameters on the screen that flowed rapidly under Diana's control, although they didn't need to do much action, but it was a precious opportunity to observe how Diana, a pre-war scientist and super-cyborg, operated the highly complex electronic systems inside the terminal.

Andy led his teammates into the elevator inside the fixed frame, and took the elevator to the highest point, where they walked into the shuttle one by one through the open hatch.

The shuttle was an absolute behemoth, and Andy took a closer look at it for the first time and was struck by the human industrial aesthetic it embodied on its surface.

Everyone found their own place to sit down, saying that they were sitting, but in fact they were 'lying down', after all, at this time the space shuttle was still in a vertical state, and the seat back was in the direction of the soles of the feet.

Sitting in the front row are Andy Chords, in the second row are Mark and Alexandra, and in the last row are Otto and Beatrice... It's absolutely fine to say it's squeezed, after all, it's bigger than Beatrice, and the seat belt is barely fastened, or it is not a seat belt at all, but a piece of cargo strap that was found in the cargo hold by the string, which was dismantled and abandoned during the original enclave transformation shuttle, and now it finally comes in handy again.

Everyone was breathing heavily from nervousness, and they lay in their chairs looking in the direction above their heads, and the lights inside the shuttle lit up one by one, and Diana's face appeared on the internal terminal.

"Ten minutes later, the rocket will be launched." Beatrice let out a weird laugh.

"Roar, Fly, Fly!" Otto was almost gasping for breath from her big arms, coughing awkwardly.

Mark in the front row glanced behind him, and his face involuntarily showed a look of extreme disgust, Alexandra noticed this, and read a scripture that ordinary people could not understand.

"All men were created equal." Mark turned his head to look at Alexandra, his eyes changing slightly.

"You're a nun?" Alexandra nodded and shook her head.

"Once... At last. There was a terrible slaughter in Mark's eyes, and he asked Alexandra in a questioning tone.

What if creation did not come from God's creation? Should this mistake be eliminated? Alexandra looked at him calmly.

"Is there one? Think again? Mark nodded firmly, looking unable to regain his composure with a simple response.

"There are so many dirty fallacies in this world, and what makes me feel even worse is that they are all done by human hands... The great war that destroyed the world may have been God's punishment. Alexandra shook her head.

"I don't see it that way, it is human beings who destroy human beings, but it is God who saves human beings, and the people of the old world created doomsday weapons in order to destroy the world and die with the enemy, but today, human beings are still alive in the wasteland, I prefer to believe that God loves the world, and human beings can survive the irreparable disasters they have created, which proves this." Mark repeated the phrase that God loves the world, and suddenly turned his head again.

"Who does God include for the love of the world? Genesis says, 'God created man in his own image, and even male and female in his image.'" 'How do you include those twisted and deformed things?' Alexandra understood what he was referring to.

"Which of those so-called twisted and deformed things has not been a creature like us? Although they were poisoned and their bodies were damaged, they still had human blood and human souls in their bodies. The book of Genesis also says, "Whoever sheds blood, his blood will be shed by men, for God created man in his own image." Mark became silent and began to close his eyes and make a prayer gesture.

But after a moment, he frowned and asked Alexandra again.

"I still can't accept it, I can't put them in the same position as me, it's not God who made them, they're just things created by human beings themselves to serve human beings, just like robots and livestock, and now they harm human beings, how can I be equal to them?" Alexandra had been praying with him for a long time, and at the moment she was reciting a verse from her mouth after listening to his words.

"When my servants and maidservants contend with me, if I despise and do not listen to their plots; God arises, what shall I do? He asked, and how did I answer, Did not he who made me in the womb also make him, and who took him and me in the womb, is not the one?"

Andy Chord, who was sitting in the front row, sat silently, but this short few minutes seemed so long, they subconsciously shook hands and felt each other's body temperature.

Suddenly, the string spoke softly.

"I have some things that I haven't had time to tell you, and it would probably be a pity if I didn't have a chance to say anything again on this trip, but... I also didn't want to tell you about that at this last moment, so I made a holo cassette. She handed a cassette to Andy, who was interrupted just as he was about to ask what it was about.

"Promise me, don't ask, if I don't get a chance to tell you, you can go and see what's on the cassette yourself, and if it's not that bad, then act like it didn't happen." Andy didn't discuss it anymore, he just put the cassette away, hoping he didn't have to listen to it.

"Alright then, I promise you, but I have one more thing to tell you." String looked at Andy suspiciously.

Andy winked at her.

"I like you, I love you, strings, I've confirmed that from the first time we met." String smiled.

"I see, I love you too, Andy." Note: Excerpt from Job 31:13–15.