Dead on Mars

Taking a step forward would mean plummeting down into a hundred-thousand-feet deep abyss, and the man below was shouting: Jump down. I’ll catch you!

Would you close your eyes and do the leap of faith?

Mai Dong stared into Tang Yue’s eyes as she suddenly felt that she had never seen cowardice or fear in them. No matter if Earth disappeared or the tomatoes died, Tang Yue would end up disappointed and desperate due to all the difficulties, but he had never felt cowardice or fear… What kind of person was he?

He had arduously traversed the dark hurricane, holding up a communications antenna roaring. He sat in the cold Hab, hugging the dead sprouts in his arms with great sorrow. Now, faced with the most terrifying calamity from the skies, he still struggled to get onto his feet to find that last chance of survival. What exactly prompted him to continue this far?

Don’t you know fatigue?

“Mai Dong, you have to trust us.”

“I obviously trust both of you.” Mai Dong leaned against the wall as she slammed into Ah Q’s stomach and sighed. “I also really, really wish to head down. You have no idea what it is like to spend so many days in the space station.”

The girl scrunched her nose, thought for a moment, and added, “It’s like hell. I really wish to leave this place of misery as quickly as possible.”

Including the time she had worked on the space station before Earth vanished, Mai Dong had already spent more than a year there. She had tried her best to modify the space station to make it conducive for living. She had covered the sleeping quarters and core module with all kinds of brightly colored paper and hung furry toys and all kinds of trinkets. She kept playing relaxing piano pieces and light music to reduce the ice-cold industrial and machinery feelings the space station gave her.

Unfortunately, how could a group of tunnels, which had been put together, change the reality that it was a cramped and stifling space? The music couldn’t drown out the constant humming noise either. The space station was ultimately not a conducive place for long-term habitation.

At times, while floating inside the core module, Mai Dong would look at the walls and the dense array of buttons on the control panel, feeling as though she was lying inside a coffin.

But to run freely on an open plain to see the endless skies was something only possible in a dream.

“Listen up lass. We will formulate the plans,” Tang Yue said. “Arrange your schedule. We need you to head out once to check the Eagle’s heat-resistant tiles. It’s our only hope.”

“Alright!” Mai Dong nodded. “I’ll head out again.”

…

To examine the Eagle’s situation, Mai Dong needed to head out on an EVA trip.

After the last resupply mission, the Eagle’s Ascent Vehicle was connected to the Silent multipurpose module. It was where the Orion was docked and was the farthest away from the Crystal core module. To make it easier for Mai Dong, Tang Yue and Tomcat needed to first move the Eagle.

They planned on undocking the Eagle from the Silent module before redocking onto the Hope experiment module.

“Tomcat! Tomcat, come control the arm. Hear that? Stop being a Wallfacer! Wallfacer Tomcat, I am your Wallbreaker!”

“I know, but The Lord doesn’t care.”

Wallfacers and Wallbreakers are a homage to The Dark Forest of The Three-Body Problem trilogyAnother reference to The Dark Forest of The Three-Body Problem trilogy in which a Wallbreaker tells his Wallfacer.