At that instant, Mai Dong felt her body warm up, as though she was soaked in warm water. This reminded her of the sunlight on Earth. Mars never had such sunlight because it was much further away from the sun than Earth. In most cases, when looking at the sun from Mars's orbit, the latter was only a glowing light bulb. It was bright but not hot.
Mai Dong leaned against the window and looked at the golden light in the darkness from afar.
She suddenly smiled.
The sun finally set behind the mountains. The majestic flames fell into the shadows as a mountain-like shadow slowly rose in front of Mai Dong's eyes.
It slowly and silently swept over Mai Dong's head like an alien spacecraft that had suddenly descended. It was also like a long blunt knife that swept over with an irresistible force. It sliced through the space station's main truss, solar panels, inflatable module, and arm. Fragments of the space station's outer shell tumbled and scattered, reflecting the red flames like flying snow above a fire.
It was clearly a violent and shocking collision, but in Mai Dong's eyes, it was like a slow-motion movie. It was like a silent film without sound. Sound couldn't be transmitted in a vacuum, and it was as though it couldn't transmit time. Everything happened outside of time.
Time seemed to stretch out at that moment. The loud crash and tremors were still slowly creeping over the metal truss. The earpiece, paper, and pen floating in the core module were still flying according to their inertia. The snow-white outer shell fragments were still drifting in the pitch-black background. The girl stared blankly at the flames that burst out in front of her. The tongues of flames slithered through the gaps in the white cabin walls like snakes. The leaked oxidizing agent was a fatal bait for them. The blue word 'Orion' was withered and charred in the flames. All of this was just a window away from her. The girl's eyes were filled with loneliness and sadness.
It was a beautiful scene, like the Crystal Palace that had collapsed in a fire. It was a vast and poignant death.
But she was so sad that she wanted to cry.
The next second, the first loud bang and tremor was transmitted into the Crystal module. This was the result of the main truss breaking. It was the first thing Orion II had hit. The spacecraft's hull had sliced through the space station like a knife. The part that broke was the battery pack on the right side of the space station. A truss more than ten meters long separated from the space station with eight solar panels. It spun further and further away before it was swallowed by the pitch-black void.
Everything in the core module was shaken. The dashboard and control panel were separated from the wall. The cables were torn apart. The tiny tears in the girl's eyes left her eyes and gathered into a sphere under the effect of surface tension.
The crystal-clear water droplet passed through the core module, through the messy cables, manuscripts, and laptops, and was disturbed by the airflow. It trembled and turned a corner. The breeze gave it a very small angular momentum, so it spun and flew toward the porthole glass.
Looking out from the teardrop, everything around it was distorted. The light was refracted by the water droplets, and the flames that erupted again in the distance were just a bright ring on the teardrop. This ring expanded from one point of the teardrop and finally returned to another point until it hit the glass. With a soft "pop" sound, it broke into countless small water droplets.
They condensed into tiny spheres again, looking like golden beads in the firelight.
Following that, an even more powerful force transmitted into the core module. Even the metal truss collapsed from the tremors. The core module's walls let out a sharp wail on the verge of death.
Mai Dong's body retreated and slammed heavily into the hatch. Her vision turned black.
The entire world was spinning and tumbling.
She saw the leaking high-pressure water vapor condense in the vacuum and low temperature. They condensed into flakes of ice crystals that shimmered.
The space station couldn't withstand such an impact and had already disintegrated. A broken module flew past the window. Mai Dong couldn't recognize which module it was until it collided with the truss and was snapped in half.
Fragments of the incubator scattered out. Only then did Mai Dong realize that it was the Hope module. The instant the module lost pressure, all the plants had frozen to death.
The core module was once again illuminated by a strong light.
Mai Dong saw the spacecraft's propellant tanks smash into the inflatable module at the end of the space station. The propellant tanks were easy to distinguish. They were large, orange-yellow cylinders. There were four of them installed on the Orion spacecraft, but at that moment, Mai Dong only saw two tanks. The other two had already disappeared. The remaining two tanks were dragging raging flames as they crashed into the inflatable module. The inflatable module instantly flattened, and the fire instantly intensified. The leaking methane and liquid oxygen triggered another explosion.
So only the light from an explosion could be so bright.
It was as bright as the sun.
The entire world was burning.
Using the light from the explosion and burning flames, Mai Dong saw that the Silent multi-purpose module had been disconnected. Half of the broken solar panels had sliced through the Silent module's outer shell.
The Harmony service module had been pierced through by the chaotic debris. The broken mechanical arm had fallen into the Silent module, and the fresh water tank had ruptured. Most of her survival resources were in there.
Almost all the battery packs in the space station had been severed, turning into blue glass fragments.
There were also countless spare parts and fragments that enveloped the space station. They were slicing and piercing through the space station's outer shell at extremely high speeds. The space station was gradually falling apart.
The world Mai Dong was in was being destroyed. She stood in the middle of the world, and everything around her was burning, falling, collapsing, and burying each other.
The entire world was being overturned.
The explosion had depleted the last of the Orion spacecraft's propellant. After it collided with the inflatable module, it flew far away, leaving behind a trail of flames. That trail of flames extinguished a few minutes later. What was funny was that the Eagle was still hanging above. The violent collision hadn't managed to knock it down, indicating that Mai Dong had tied it securely.
The Orion spacecraft had vanished without a trace.
Mai Dong couldn't hear a thing. The explosion and collision had made her lose her hearing. Her ears were ringing, and her brain was buzzing. She couldn't see a thing either. The violent collision had propelled the space station. The core module was spinning at high speeds, and if there wasn't any additional force to counteract the torque, it would continue spinning forever. Once the leaking oxidizer outside the window was exhausted, all the flames would extinguish, and the world would sink back into darkness.
She didn't know if the core module was losing pressure, or if the space station was falling. She didn't even know if she was still alive.
All the lights in the module had been extinguished. The system had long stopped working, and there wasn't even an alarm. It was pitch-black.
The entire world had perished.
In Kunlun Station, Old Cat and Tang Yue's smiles were still frozen on their faces. They were still preparing to continue talking to Mai Dong about the Heavenly Ship's descent.
The man and cat were in a daze as they faced the communications system.
There was a deathly silence.
All of this happened in less than two minutes.
From the moment Kunlun Station's computer system alerted them with the words "Warning: Contact has been severed" to the screen displaying the words "Mars United Space Station has crashed." It had only been two minutes.