Landing

Titan has a dense atmosphere, the total mass of which is even higher than the total mass of the Earth's atmosphere, and its main component is nitrogen, which is up to ninety-five percent. An atmosphere of such concentration represents intense atmospheric friction. Hawke slowly adjusted his posture and cut into the atmosphere at a suitable angle.

The ship's shell quickly turned red under the high-speed friction. But this was all to be expected and Hawke was not worried in the least.

The altitude was dropping, from three thousand kilometres, down to one thousand kilometres, all the way down to one hundred kilometres, into the troposphere of Titan's atmosphere.

The speed began to decrease dramatically, plummeting from two kilometres per second, one point five kilometres per second, one kilometre per second, six hundred metres per second ...

It was not until three thousand metres above the ground that Hawke opened his parachute. The thick atmosphere filled the parachute to the brim and the speed dropped to three hundred metres per second at once.

At such a speed, it was only equivalent to a snail's crawl in the universe. But it was still a little too fast for landing. Hawke's hull, too fragile, could not withstand any violent ramming. Hawke's ideal landing solution was a slow descent. So after the speed had dropped to a hundred metres per second, Hawke switched on the recoil rocket again.

With a series of manoeuvres, the ship began to descend at a few metres per second and was still slowing down. Finally, at only two metres from the ground, Hawke's speed dropped to a few decimetres per second.

This speed was well within the tolerable range. The hot exhaust from the reflector rocket melted the surface of Titan, and a large amount of material began to evaporate, then condensed in the air when it was cold, turning it into a sheet of white mist. In the mist, Hawk landed on the ground as if he were an immortal descending from the sky.

When the fog cleared, Hawke opened the hatch. There were six probing robots stepping out. They were lined up side by side, like a squad of soldiers.

What met Hawke's eyes was a magical world.

It was nighttime on Titan and the sky was dark. Under this thick atmospheric cover, the sky was largely starless, with only a few bright stars to be observed.

Fortunately, however, it has a huge 'moon.' This massive figure was very conspicuous.

It is Saturn, slightly yellow in colour.

Looking at Saturn from Titan, its size looks like looking at the Sun from Earth.

Saturn is a million and two hundred thousand kilometres from Titan. This distance is enough to cover Titan within Saturn's own magnetic field, which helps to shield it from the solar wind from the Sun. Titan orbits Saturn in about sixteen days.

The earth is shrouded in a pale darkness that can largely be described as out of reach. At least, the six robots standing in front of Hawke's ship, lined up in a row, would not have been able to capture any images with an optical probe.

Hawke turned on his night vision. And so a shocking scene unfolded before Hawke's eyes.

There was the lake in front of him, just a few hundred metres in front of Hawke. It was a huge lake, rippling under the wind blowing on Titan, and at the edge of the lake, there were some waves lapping against the shore, making a crashing sound.

"This lake is beautiful." Hawke sighed, "Let's call you Lake Wee Blue."

Next to it, there was a small, curving river, and some liquid flowing from nowhere slowly fed into the lake.

Underfoot, there was slightly mottled ground, as if sandy soil, and some stones, similar to the Gobi beaches above the earth. Behind it, there is a small, not very high hill, short and crouching there like an ancient beast.

This is a place 1.5 billion kilometres from Earth, where the Earth can no longer be seen with the naked eye alone. There has never been a human or even a living footprint here. It is a place shaped by great nature, untouched by artificial forces. As an intelligent, self-aware individual, Hawke was the first person to come and see this place.

Above, there was the great planet Saturn. In front, a lake like a sea. Behind, were short hills, next to a small river. Hawke suddenly had the urge to cry.

Then, the sensors on one robot detected a liquid landing from the sky, followed by the remaining five robots. Immediately, Hawke realised a problem.

It was raining.

Yes, it was raining on Titan, too. But the rain on Titan was not made up of water, but liquid methane. And lakes, and small rivers, all made of liquid methane.

The rain was getting heavier and Hawke, in tears, had to direct the six robots back into the ship, postponing the exploration until after the rain stopped.

Turning on the collection devices and sensors on the ship's hull, Hawke began to feel the rain on the alien planet in awe. It was a wonderful feeling, as if Hawke had gone back to the old days, when he had lived carefree on Earth.

"I don't have a home anymore." Hawke thought grimly, "And no more of my kind."

"I am also without a body and am not considered truly human anymore."

The rain poured down and Hawke's thoughts drifted far away. For the first time, Hawke began to let go of his feverish desire to explore and began to have the energy to think about the rest of things.

For the first time, Hawke wanted very much to talk to someone. However, the only thing that could barely be considered a living thing here, apart from Hawke, was the 'One' inside the metal box, captured from Jupiter.

Hawke sent out a prank-like burst of high-frequency pulses and suddenly felt a little better when he looked inside the box at the irritable One, rushing left and right.

It had been raining heavily for several days. The high water of the lake even came close to reaching Hawke. But Hawke wasn't worried in the slightest, he was still quite confident about the sealing of his ship. Besides, the lake would recede sooner or later, and while it was doing so, Hawke could conveniently collect some methane to use as a reserve.

Hawke removed one of the engines from the ship and, with a little modification, converted it from burning liquid hydrogen to burning methane. It was tested and all was well.

The rain cleared and daylight arrived on Titan.

Titan's sky is a hauntingly dark, eerie blue. When Titan orbits on the side of Saturn facing the sun, the sunlight hits Titan and most of it is reflected away, while a small amount of it penetrates to the ground, where it is diffusely reflected by Titan's thick atmosphere, turning the sky this blue. The principle is similar to that of the sky being blue on Earth.

However, the daytime on Titan is still very dim, like the night on Earth when it is clear and the moon is not too bright, but at least with the optical detectors it is possible to see a little. Due to human inertia, Hawke was never quite comfortable with the night vision camera's images, and the view was better in the visible band.

The sun shone in, the temperature rose a little, and then the liquid methane began to sublimate into a gaseous state, just as water evaporates on Earth, and the high water level slowly receded. Hawke knew that this was the gas-liquid circulation system for methane that was unique to Titan.

The damp, muddy ground began to dry out. Hawke re-emerged with a formation of six robots and began a field survey of the surrounding terrain.

For convenience, the robots that Hawke had built were all battery powered. A single charge could support them in the field for roughly six to eight hours. Of course, Hawke had also made some modifications to them to suit the field exploration activities. The remaining two robots were left in the cabin of the ship in case of an accident that would lose all of them.

Under Hawke's unified command, the six robots followed a circle, using the ship as the centre of the circle, and set out to explore the terrain.

Titan's terrain was flat, with no major ups and downs, and according to the three-dimensional images previously taken in orbit around Titan, on Titan, the highest peaks were no more than three hundred metres.

The cause of this phenomenon was not yet clear to Hawke, but it was assumed to be related to some special geological activity, possibly due to the influence of Saturn.

The detection of the terrain was slowly unfolding and had reached a distance of one kilometre from Hawke. An iron ore mine had already been detected in this area, and it was now up to Hawke to find the best place to mine it.

Up ahead, a large area of dark red caught Hawke's eye. Hawke directed one of the robots to get closer, then crouched down and turned on the flash, and the image data about these things came back.

Hawke immediately launched his analysis.

Dark red iron ore. One thought came to Hawke's mind. Hawke's mood instantly spiked.

"My luck, it's actually going to be this good?"

Hawk looked at the test data with some disbelief.

This was hematite, the main composition consisted of iron oxide, which could be separated into iron and oxygen through technical means. Iron, which could be used to make steel, and oxygen, which could be used as an oxidiser.

Hawke now had many more combustion agents, even, the almost unlimited reserves of methane on Titan could be used as a combustion agent, the only thing that worried Hawke, was the oxidizer.

The discovery of the hematite ore almost exactly made up for Hawke's shortage in two ways. This discovery made Hawke sigh with relief.

Moreover, Hawke also found that this hematite mine was mostly an open vein, and that there were many and varied associated miscellaneous ores.

For example, copper, tin, gold, silver, silicon, chromium, nickel and so on.

"This, this is simply a gift from the heavens to me. Could it be that the heavens have finally felt that I have been suffering a bit lately, so they have sent me this great gift? Hmm, that must be it."

With great joy, Hawk immediately commanded the six robots to lean towards him, and then together they carried one of the mining equipment over.

Mining, practicing mining, building bases, building airships ...

The era of great construction was about to begin.