Chapter 171: The Road to the Underworld - Part 1

Theodore replied, "Just now... Just now we were evacuating from the supply module, and I had already returned to the spacecraft's transition chamber."

"But the accident happened so suddenly, I was blown out of the transition chamber."

"Then... I hit the spacecraft's gravity chamber."

You Haoming and the others were all stunned. Theodore really did have a stroke of luck. The gravity chamber is a circular ring located in the middle part of the spacecraft; although it has a diameter of several dozen meters, the outer ring is only a little more than four meters wide, and it's only connected to the spaceship through four passages.

Being ejected from the transition chamber, there was only a very small chance of colliding with the gravity chamber.

Theodore was fortunate enough; otherwise, if she had fallen from the spacecraft into space, "Mars Explorer" would have quickly moved away from her, leaving almost no possibility of rescue.

After You Haoming brought Theodore back, she calmed down for a while before she recovered.

At this time, the spacecraft finally completed its deceleration and began to turn. After reaching the orbit calculated by Mi Jingtiao, You Haoming immediately issued the command to accelerate!

After chasing for dozens of minutes, Rolf suddenly said, "Commander, we have lost the signal from the supply module!"

This was not near-Earth orbit, nor were there any signal relay satellites here; losing the signal meant that the other party had already left the maximum communication range.

You Haoming said to Mi Jingtiao, "Search for the supply module using the radar system!"

Mi Jingtiao hesitated for a moment before saying, "Commander, I've been trying to locate the supply module, but it's just too small!"

Indeed, a supply module with a diameter of just over seven meters was far too small, barely worth mentioning in the vastness of space.

Initially, the radar system on the spacecraft was able to track the supply module, but as the distance rapidly increased, the module immediately became as tiny as a speck of dust.

For Earth, the radar system of "Mars Explorer" was very advanced, but that was only the case on Earth. Faced with the complex space environment, it was almost useless.

After all, the targets that radar on Earth needed to find do not pull away tens of thousands of kilometers from the radar in an extremely short time, and this distance was still increasing.

Using radar to track the movement of a grain of sand from Asia to North America is virtually an impossible task!

Rolf then said to You Haoming, "Commander, Bole just reported that the supply module's controller has completely malfunctioned.

"The four-way thruster randomly fired for a while, and by now, it must have left the predicted orbit.

"If we can't restore communication, we have no way of determining the supply module's position."

You Haoming paused for a moment before saying, "Try to contact Bole with the high-powered antenna used for communicating with Xichang. Continue moving forward; hopefully, Bole has Theodore's luck!"

Everyone was silent; in the vast expanse of space, such good fortune was highly improbable.

The high-powered antenna was of no avail, with no reply from Bole ever received.

The search operation continued for seven days before You Haoming declared the mission to rescue Bole a failure!

In truth, on the fifth day, the supply module's oxygen supply system had already reached its limit. By then, Bole's survival had become impossible.

Later, in the report on Bole's fatal incident, Rolf wrote: I pray that Bole, having starved for five days, did not suffer too much in his last moments.

I even hoped that in his final moments, Bole could open the supply module, then his spacesuit helmet. That way, Bole could die with some dignity and without suffering.

...

Jiang Yu stood in front of the window, silent for a long time upon hearing the news of the astronaut Bole's demise.

Jiang Yu had an illusion, as if it were he who had sent Bole on his way to the netherworld.

However, at this moment, he did not blame himself. Instead, his sense of mission intensified.

He resolved that the latter part of the "Plan Zero" had to achieve its intended goal, otherwise, it would be a disservice to the people who contributed to the plan without knowing.

A month after the accident, as the "Mars Explorer" spaceship was preparing to enter Mars orbit, another piece of bad news came from space:

Several key leaders of the space agency, who were attending a meeting at the Yellow River Space Station, encountered a meteor shower while taking photos outside the cabin, resulting in the deaths of five individuals.

These five included the three "Old Space Industry Experts" who supported the propellant spacecraft.

Jiang Yu seemed to see the killer in space, who was calm, resolute, and ruthlessly pulled the trigger.

Jiang Yu found that his mindset was still inferior to Zhang Beihai's.

In the future, there would be people dying because of his plan!

He demanded of himself to harden his heart, to advance for his goals at all expenses!

Jiang Yu thought, what was that famous saying from Old Weide? Right, advance! Advance! Advance at all costs!

In this cruel universe, weakness is a sin!

Jiang Yu was determined not to stop until he had knocked down all the "hunters" surrounding him!

It was only after these thoughts that Jiang Yu attended the funeral of the leaders who had just been hit by the "meteor shower" in space.

In front of their portraits, Jiang Yu apologized in his heart: "I'm sorry, we have to step over your bodies to move forward."

...

Perhaps on the other side of the sun, after a three-month and two-day journey, covering over 90 million kilometers, that reddish planet finally appeared before everyone's eyes.

Although it was still just a small red dot, everyone felt as if they already had a sense of the final leg of their journey drawing near.

Because a significant amount of fuel had been used up in the process of returning to the route after the rescue mission, the "Mars Explorer" docked with the third supply module again.

Fortunately, the third supply module was functioning well, and the astronauts completed the docking and successfully refueled outside the module.

However, since the docking system and the supply module were not hermetically sealed, the astronauts had to first transport the supplies to the transition compartment, then close the outer door of the transition compartment before opening the inner door and moving the supplies into the interior of the spaceship.

After successfully entering Mars orbit, everyone rested for more than ten hours to fully recharge before starting the landing maneuvers.

The "Mars Explorer's" landers were located at the rear of the ship, with two landers in total, each capable of carrying three people.

Since Bil had died, one of the landers now only carried two people.

The design of the Mars landers was similar to China's "Shenzhou" as well as the "Alliance" used by Western countries.

In front of the seats was a console of various buttons, and in the upper right, there was a small display screen.

As soon as the spaceship entered the appropriate orbit, You Haoming set it to "autopilot," and the ship would orbit Mars for more than five hundred days until the astronauts returned.

After everyone entered the lander, You Haoming gave the command, "Get ready, we'll open the hatch in five seconds. Five, four, three, two, one!"

The hatches below the landing pods opened, and both landers were ejected simultaneously.

Through the windows of the landers, the five astronauts saw Mars filling the view directly below.

This red planet appeared to silently extend countless hands, gently pulling them toward the ground.