Chapter 48: Acceleration_1

The Trisolarans' New Space City was intentionally constructed outside of the asteroid group to avoid collisions with the asteroids, allowing only mining ships to enter and collect mineral resources.

However, it now seemed as if the asteroid group itself had come to life, hurtling toward New Space City as though trying to reclaim the resources taken by the Trisolarans.

Soon, Jiang Yu and Yang Dong discovered the root of this "disturbance," it turned out that a star had suddenly passed by from less than an astronomical unit away, causing the orbit of the asteroid group to deviate significantly under its immense gravitational pull.

These three stars were just so "unreasonable." As long as you were within the Three-Body Star System, such disasters could strike at any moment.

Luckily, the Trisolarans had anticipated this when building New Space City; it was equipped with powerful deceleration capabilities.

As the space engines on the outer side were quickly ignited, New Space City narrowly dodged the "attack" from the asteroid group.

Only some meteorites a few meters and several centimeters in size, along with cosmic dust, hit the Space City.

The shell of Space City was hard enough to remain undamaged.

The "Distant Space Fleet," however, was not so fortunate. The ship's hull could not withstand the impact of meteorites several meters across and was nearly destroyed.

Jiang Yu said, "The 'parents' are here to celebrate their children's new invention, it seems!"

Yang Dong shook his head and smiled wryly, "Such 'celebrations' we can do without."

Suddenly, the asteroid group charged towards New Space City again, causing Jiang Yu to start, "Do these asteroids have eyes or what? Why do they keep honing in on New Space City?"

Yang Dong quickly realized, "It's not that the asteroids are moving closer to the Space City; it's that the Space City is moving closer to the asteroids!"

Jiang Yu took a closer look and saw that this was indeed the case. With the space engines turned off, Space City was being drawn toward the asteroid group by the star's gravity.

Since New Space City was much more massive than the asteroids, it was more affected by the star's gravity.

Thus, New Space City pursued the asteroid group at a faster pace.

Without any distinct points of reference, it appeared as though the asteroids were once again approaching New Space City, but in reality, the opposite was happening.

New Space City did not try to fight against this great gravitational force. Instead, while avoiding contact with the asteroid group, it sailed toward the nearby star, going along with the pull.

Yang Dong contacted the person in charge of Space City, "What's your plan?"

"Didn't expect to encounter Madame Curie here," came a rugged male voice from the communicator. "I am General of the Left Guards, Wei Chi Gong, and also the mayor of this Space City."

Jiang Yu was puzzled; were they still not capable of "video calls" in a space civilization?

Then he immediately understood. These stingy Trisolarans! To prevent Earthlings from seeing anything inside Space City, they had opted for voice-only communication.

Wei Chi Gong continued, "This star arrived so suddenly that the ships didn't have enough time to accelerate to the third cosmic velocity. In other words, we are temporarily unable to escape the star's gravitational pull.

"We plan to take advantage of this force to orbit around the nearby star once and use its gravity to 'slingshot' us out," he explained.

Yang Dong praised, "Brilliant idea!"

This was the fastest acceleration method for artificial probes or spacecraft. As far as Yang Dong knew, the Apollo spacecraft had used Earth's gravity for its final burst of acceleration.

After entering the Earth-Moon Transfer Orbit, the spacecraft did not head straight for the Moon. Instead, it orbited Earth about one and a half times before igniting the third stage of its rocket for the second time at the correct position, leaving near-Earth orbit to fly to the Moon.

The return from the Moon also used a similar method. It was as if Earth's and Moon's gravity were "throwing" the spacecraft "over" and then "back," the most efficient way of reaching the Moon.

Additionally, probes launched by humanity into outer space usually accelerated by orbiting around Jupiter.

This approach could relatively easily achieve the third cosmic velocity and escape the gravity of the sun.

But while this method might be applicable in the Solar System, it's not necessarily so in the Three-Body Star System.

Yang Dong reminded Wei Chi Gong, "You need to pay attention to controlling the orbit, to avoid falling into an even more dangerous situation."

"That is exactly the difficulty we are currently facing," Wei Chi Gong said, "With the chaotic forces of the three stars, no one knows what will happen after we approach any one of them."

Jiang Yu sighed, "The problem of the three stars has always been the root of all problems."

In the Three-Body Star System, not only is the destiny of Trisolaris unpredictable, but the spacecraft of the Trisolarans face the same issue.

Unlike spacecraft on Earth, which can escape their target or fly towards a planned destination upon reaching a certain velocity.

In this star system with its chaotic forces, it's impossible to predict the orbit of the spacecraft or predict where the star will throw New Space City after orbiting it once.

One could only constantly adjust the orbit to possibly have a glimmer of hope.

Wei Chi Gong continued, "Although our future is unclear, we still have to try bravely.

"The 'Twilight Belt' of Trisolaris has been destroyed, we are the last hope of this wave of civilization."

Jiang Yu was startled, "When did this happen?"

Wei Chi Gong replied, "In the last few days."

Jiang Yu and Yang Dong were too far from Trisolaris, it would take at least three months to return there using a spacecraft.

The two of them had no choice but to activate the "God's View" in the game to quickly close the distance to Trisolaris.

At the location of Trisolaris, they only found a blank white planet, completely unrecognizable as Trisolaris.

Jiang Yu shifted the game time forward a bit, and Trisolaris restored to the scene they left, the symbolically ascendant "Twilight Belt" still dazzling.

Suddenly, what appeared to be two stationary stars quickly grew larger, a sign they were rapidly approaching.

The Stable Era on Trisolaris was immediately shattered, followed by a catastrophic scene, as the two stars approached from the direction of the Eternal Night Side.

The Eternal Night Side, which had not seen sunlight in over seventy years, was suddenly illuminated by the light of two suns.

Vast amounts of ice and snow were swiftly melted, submerging the "Twilight Belt" completely in just half a day.

A great flood swept across the globe, and the waters on the Eternal Day Side were rapidly evaporated.

The water vapor in the atmosphere was transported to the former Eternal Night Side, causing torrential rainfall there, merging with the melted ice and creating even greater floods.

Then more water evaporated, the downpour intensified, the flood grew larger, forming a vicious cycle.

Jiang Yu and Yang Dong entered the cloud layer of Trisolaris, witnessing a deluge they had never seen before, more akin to a waterfall than rainfall.

Any normal person caught on the surface would be like walking in a river, with no chance to catch their breath.

Even if one struggled to stand and wasn't swept away by the torrential rains, or if one was at a high place and not in a low area that became a vast inland lake within minutes, they would still drown.

In such weather, the Trisolarans' survival strategy of "dehydration" was utterly useless; no sooner had they dehydrated than they were soaked by the flood, forced to "rehydrate," and then drowned.

And this was only the beginning of the disaster.