Four days after the space station accident.
There were still seven days before Tianzhou 37's arrival.
Old Cat was squatting on a chair early in the morning, staring at the computer monitor as it typed furiously on the keyboard. When Tang Yue came out of the crew module, it was communicating with the Joint Space Station. "Miss Mai Dong, can you see anything?"
"What's the matter?" Tang Yue had a towel draped over his shoulder, and his eyes were drowsy. "What happened?"
Old Cat raised a finger to signal for silence.
"It's too far, and it's too dark. I can't see clearly … but I can hear the sound," Mai Dong replied over the comms.
"What kind of sound?"
"It's very regular."
Mai Dong said, "It's a little like the sound of a clock's second hand ticking, but it only ticks once every few seconds. Ka-da … Ka-da … Ka-da."
"It's vibrating."
Old Cat's voice sounded solemn. "In fact, the frequency of the vibrations is higher than what you can hear. It's a rather high-frequency vibration. The sound you heard probably came from the impact of a loose component."
Tang Yue was at a loss. He still didn't know what had happened. Old Cat frowned as it tapped on the table with its fingers. Its two cat ears turned around anxiously.
"Old Cat?"
Old Cat's gaze turned to the side. "The space station is disintegrating."
The girl had already taken off her spacesuit's helmet. Her ears were pressed tightly against the exposed metal wall of the Crystal. She closed her eyes to listen for sounds. A vacuum couldn't transmit sound, but vibrations could be transmitted through the space station's structure.
The core module was silent. All the systems had stopped working. This was the best soundproofing chamber in the world. Even the slightest sound would attract attention.
Mai Dong left the inner wall and leaned against the window, trying her best to look out.
There was still a large amount of debris floating outside the window, but it was much cleaner than before the collision. Orion's collision had caused the leakage of fresh water and gas. The water vapor rapidly condensed at low temperatures, causing the space station to be shrouded in a large cloud of fog that even sunlight couldn't penetrate. Three days later, the ice crystals gradually evaporated under the sunlight, and the space outside the Crystal became transparent again.
Most of the debris was not strictly in the same direction as the crystal module. After circling Mars dozens of times, a considerable portion of the space debris had left the space station.
The huge truss passed over Mai Dong's head. At the end of the truss, the remaining four solar panels reflected the sunlight.
The soft sound reverberated through the metal frame like a venomous snake in the shadows, like the death knell of the space station before its destruction. Mai Dong didn't know where the vibration came from. She looked around, and any place could be the source of the sound.
"The space station is disintegrating?" Tang Yue asked. "What's going on?"
"Under normal circumstances," the Old Cat replied.
"Under normal circumstances?" Tang Yue heaved a sigh of relief. "That means the problem isn't too serious?"
The Old Cat glanced at him as though he was looking at an idiot.
"If I stab you now, in the next three minutes, you will suffer from convulsions and excessive blood loss before dying. This is also a normal situation. It would be abnormal if you didn't die."
The Old Cat said, "The space station was hit by a hammer the size of Orion. It's normal for it to disintegrate at any time."
"F * ck." Tang Yue shuddered.
"What the hell … It might be stress. After the impact, the stress in the Joint Space Station's structure gradually accumulated, and then it expanded and contracted due to the extreme temperature difference. The structure of the space station is constantly being damaged."
The Old Cat ground his fangs. "The space station didn't just start disintegrating today. It started the moment the impact happened. It's just that the effects aren't obvious until today."
Mai Dong heard what the Old Cat said. The Joint Space Station had actually been slowly disintegrating, and it was only today that they noticed it. This was a normal situation. The collision between the Joint Space Station and Orion was the most serious space accident in human history. Two super spacecraft were destroyed at once, and the extraterrestrial base that mankind had invested heavily in for more than a decade was destroyed.
If it was allowed to continue like this, the Joint Space Station would one day completely disintegrate.
"How much longer?" Mai Dong asked.
"I don't know … Miss Mai Dong, I don't know."
The Old Cat said, "It's hard to say which will happen first. Maybe both will happen at the same time. Once there's enough atmospheric resistance, the space station on the verge of collapse will be completely destroyed. I don't know how fast the space station will disintegrate, but it definitely won't be later than the crash."
"How can we fix it?" Tang Yue asked. "Make a plan!
Make a plan, and we'll solve the problem! "
"There's no way to fix it."
Tang Yue was taken aback. "How can there be no way to fix it?"
"There's just no way to fix it. We don't have a plan, and we can't solve any problems."
The Old Cat said, "I told you a long time ago that we've lost all means to interfere with the Joint Space Station. Have you forgotten?"
Tang Yue's eyes widened, and he didn't know what to say. The Old Cat did say that they had lost all means to interfere with the space station, but he didn't take it to heart.
In Tang Yue's subconscious mind, there was no such thing as an unsolvable problem without an answer. After being stranded on Mars for so long, facing so many storms and difficulties, they had all relied on their own strength to overcome them.
No matter what kind of problem they faced, as long as they were calm enough, witty enough, and professional enough, they could find the key to solving the problem, then formulate a complete plan, and finally cooperate with each other to overcome it.
There was always a plan. If Plan A didn't work, there was still Plan B.
"We've lost all means to interfere with the Joint Space Station."
The Old Cat repeated again. "For us, the space station is just another world. Slogans like 'Nothing is impossible in this world for those who set their mind to it' and 'Where there's a will, there's a way' are no longer useful."
Tang Yue slowly sat down.
The Old Cat turned his head and continued to monitor the computer monitor. He shook his head and muttered, "Subjective initiative only works when we can move. We can't move now."
"Then, will Mai Dong be able to leave the cabin?"
The Old Cat shook his head.
"The entire space station is disintegrating. This isn't something that can be solved with a welding torch … Besides, we don't even have a welding torch now. Miss Mai Dong's body is very weak, and she doesn't have enough strength to leave the cabin. Also, she doesn't have an EVA suit for leaving the cabin."
Tang Yue sat in his chair as his limbs turned cold. His palms couldn't help but sweat. Tomcat was right. As a clever rascal, there was no way he could come up with a solution no matter how hard he racked his brains.
"Then what should I do?" Tang Yue raised his head. "Just wait?"
"If you don't want to just wait, you can still eat, sleep, and play with Lil Pea."
"Don't worry, Tang Yue, Mr. Cat."
Mai Dong spoke. She floated in the Crystal module and touched the inner walls of the core module with her hand, inspecting it inch by inch. "The disintegration won't be that fast. The Crystal module is very sturdy. There are no signs of damage or cracks. It will definitely last until the crash."
"I don't doubt the Crystal module's sturdiness. It can even withstand Orion's violent impact."
The Old Cat said, "There's no module in the world that's sturdier than it. Before we left, the Eastern Orthodox Church's Grand Patriarch personally consecrated it."
"Then it's fine." The girl squinted her eyes and smiled. Her eyes curved into crescent moons. "Don't worry, it'll be fine."
Tang Yue wanted to say something but stopped. It was true that the eunuch was more worried than the emperor. Mai Dong was comforting him despite being in a sinking ship.
"That's good … Keep in contact. Keep monitoring. Report any situation immediately!"
“OK。”
Old Cat continued to monitor the status of the Joint Space Station. As the space station's computer system had lost most of its functions, the only means of monitoring was Mai Dong's eyes. However, there was not much left in the space station that needed to be monitored. The Mars United Space Station, a huge and complex composite permanent spacecraft, had returned to the simple single-cabin structure of the Salyut and Skylab nearly a hundred years ago.
In the dark, Tang Yue prayed for the blessings of his ancestors, Solovyov, Atikov, and Beredov. Their eternal souls in the vast universe must protect the safety of their successors.
"Hey, Tang Yue, I have a question."
"Hmm?"
"I want to ask … If you were given three days to live, what would you do?"