Chapter 191 - Sol Three Hundred and Twenty-Two, The Last Party Branch in the Universe (1/2)

Chapter 191: Sol Three Hundred and Twenty-Two, The Last Party Branch in the Universe

Tomcat and Tang Yue sat in front of the computer for a full six hours until the sunset and the dark, starry sky arose. In these six hours, the man and cat didn’t even dare take a breath. Although the space station’s attitude adjustment was an extremely slow job, Tang Yue was unable to see any shrinking in angle with his naked eye, this stemmed from the fact that the United Space Station was facing the greatest crisis ever since its establishment.

In these six hours, the United Space Station had orbited Mars nearly seven times. Mai Dong could finally fix the Sun in the middle of a window—stabilization of the space station’s attitude needed it to be done in all three axes. The first x-axis was now stable. What was left was to resolve the tumbling along the z-axis.

“This is very problematic…” Tomcat’s paws hovered over the keyboard as it typed over the air without pressing down. “SPT276 doesn’t have enough degrees of freedom. The thrust is unable to fully align with the direction of spin. There will be additional velocity components.”

Tang Yue stared at the space station on the monitor. In short, the United Space Station was in an extremely complex state of motion after the collision. Orion II had nearly torn the space station apart. The latter’s center of mass had undoubtedly suffered a tremendous change. Worst of all, Tomcat lacked the effective means to make measurements. All it could do was adjust the engine’s thrust by trial and error.

“How much more propellant does SPT276 have?” Tomcat asked.

“27%.”

“We might not be able to completely stabilize the space station’s attitude.” Tomcat sighed. “Based on the present situation, and hoping that there not being any additional impetus, we will only be able to reduce the space station’s tumbling speed to 3°/s. That is the optimal solution.”

Once SPT276 was initialized again, it would be its final mission. After stabilizing the space station’s attitude as best as it could, SPT276 would be drained of all its substance, ending its historical calling. It was born in a manufacturing environment at the Kawasaki Heavy Industries. It was launched into space at the Tanegashima Space Center with the Hayabusa III probe by an H3A rocket. The farthest it had been was the asteroid belt two AU away. Its journey spanned four billion kilometers and it would eventually have its eternal rest on the Mars United Space Station.

Sunlight beamed into the window. This circular window was probably the only thing in the Crystal that maintained relative stillness with Mai Dong. The other things were slowly spinning. The random components that had been floating in the module had been put away by the girl, securing them to the walls and drawers. Together, they began tumbling along with the space station.

Mai Dong and the core module didn’t have any physical contact. She could maintain a straight line with the Sun and Mars, but this put her in a state of motion relative to the space station. Mai Dong inhaled gently as water vapor condensed on the glass visor. The core module’s walls were sweeping overhead.

The core module’s current temperature was –11°C.

The temperature control had been put out of commission. The Crystal’s temperature would decline drastically once it came to the back of Mars. It would slowly rise a little when it faced the Sun.

She held a straw in her mouth, taking a small sip to moisturize her dry throat.

The remaining three liters of water were all in the water bags of spacesuits. The two IVA suits in Crystal, each contained 1.5 liters of water.

There was a greater lack of food than water.

All Mai Dong had was two pieces of compressed biscuit. These two pieces had happened to survive because of Mai Dong’s work habits. As she had been tirelessly modifying Orion II, she often carried with her a wrench, screwdriver, and biscuits. Later, it became a habit, often having food in her pockets—a piece of biscuit in the pocket on each side.

These two pieces of biscuit had survived the disaster with Mai Dong. As for the rest of its own kind, they had long been scattered into the vast deep space.

“Tang Yue… do you hear me?”

The emergency communication system’s control panel swept past Mai Dong’s eyes. Only the red indicator light was blinking once every second. Tomcat’s speed reduction had worked. The space station’s spin had clearly slowed down.

“Yes? Lass? I’m here.”