Landing on the Meteorite

The success of Team USA encouraged Team Vermillion, sixty billion people on Earth cheered and celebrated too. Even Chen Xin was feeling confident after the success of the mission.

Team USA completed their mission with their lives, the rescue operation was partially completed. If Team Vermillion succeeded with their mission too, the meteorite would be pushed off its course. The meteorite strike and the apocalypse would be avoided.

At a time like this, everyone stopped what they were doing and watched their TV screens attentively. They paid attention to the people that tried to save Earth three hundred and eighty thousand miles away.

Team Vermillion fired up their spacecraft. The debris was blown away from the explosion, leaving the meteorite's surface exposed. The Vermillion Team quickly went towards the meteorite through a gap.

Maybe it was the meteorite or the EMP (electromagnetic pulse) shockwave caused by the nuclear bomb explosion, the signal was weak when they nearer the meteorite. 

Everyone could watch the meteorite clearly from the camera on the spacecraft. They watched the visuals turned from a big mountain-like meteorite in the universe into terrain on the surface. 

Chen Xin was astounded, it was not something you would see every day on Earth.

The Vermillion spacecraft installed a wide-angle lens, so the visuals captured were wider than a normal camera lens making it look more astounding and impactful.

The surface of the meteorite was bumpy with craters caused by impacts by space debris. Some thought it looked like a burnt cake.

No one would find this humongous 'cake' appetizing though. 

Even if the United States blew the meteorite apart, the two halves of the meteorite were still relatively large. The visual impact of watching it through the Vermillion spacecraft camera was an indescribable feeling.

If it had to be described with a metaphor, it would be as if the Himalayan Mountains were falling from the sky.

Chen Xin could not help but wonder, if the meteorite strikes, could humankind even survive?

He built his bunker and prepared his food and water supplies. He considered every aspect and was ready for survival. However… there was a deadly threat Chen Xin could not prepare for.

Unfortunately, their chances of survival depended solely on their luck, and whether the meteorite would strike directly on them.

The meteorite was not as huge as it once was, but it would still cause tremendous damage. Chen Xin knew if the meteorite crashed in Asia, his chances of survival were slim to none.

He was scared and frightened he when looked at this huge impending rock of doom.

As an imaginative sci-fi author, a meteorite strike was not worth mentioning in his web novels. It caused Chen Xin to lack a sense of danger upon this disaster.

He did his best to prepare for the apocalypse, he stored supplies, built his bunker, and was ready for survival...

However, he did not have an exact concept of what would happen if a meteorite strike did indeed occur.

Hypothetically, it was like a tiger. Everyone knew a tiger is dangerous, but they would not know how dangerous it was until they witnessed a tiger eating a man alive. This caged animal in the zoo was like a big soft kitty, chubby and lazy. They forgot it was a fierce beast.

Humans would only be scared when faced with danger.

Chen Xin was the same. He prepared for the apocalypse calmly. He was feeling scared now that he saw the meteorite.

Well, scared was not the right description, Chen Xin was terrified of death.

You could imagine how much pressure the astronauts were under.

The astronauts in the Vermillion spacecraft fearlessly flew towards the meteorite, the lives of sixty billion people depended on them.

The astronauts from the United States made a forced landing on the meteorite surface look easy. It then struck the astronauts from Vermillion on how difficult it was.

Although the debris was out of the way, it was still extremely dangerous to land on a meteorite.

Some debris might hit them if they were not cautious, the spacecraft could be damaged, or even worse, crash into their ultimate demise.

Thankfully, the Vermillion spacecraft was designed to be more agile than the USA Space Shuttle. The astronauts were well-trained with flight simulations too. They landed successfully with only a few scratches on the paint and a few antennas gone. All things considered, it was a good landing.

The landing was the first step. Now, the astronauts had to carry out their assignments by stepping out of the spacecraft. Their mission was to ensure the main body part of the spacecraft — a specially made booster and its fuel tank were connected and secured to the meteorite surface. The rest of their mission was to manually push the meteorite off its course.

Their landing spot was carefully calculated to ensure the booster had an accurate pressure point to push the meteorite in the right direction. If the booster worked but the meteorite was pushed in an unexpected direction, it would be all for nothing.

Fortunately, Team Vermillion landed on the right spot. Despite losing a space shuttle, the rescue operation was going according to plan so far.

All they had to do was activate the booster and use the help of the gravitational pull from the moon, the meteorite would be out of the way and Earth could avoid the apocalypse.