Dead on Mars

Chapter 186: Sol Three Hundred and Twenty-Two, An Electrical Engineer Saving the World

Translator: CKtalon Editor: CKtalon

An extremely weak voice sounded over the earpiece.

Tang Yue and Tomcat jolted to attention as they lunged forward to grab the earpiece.

“Tang Yue… Mr. Cat? Can you hear me?” The girl’s voice was very weak. The signal was unstable with lots of static.

“Yes, yes, yes! Mai Dong, we can hear you! We can hear you!” Tang Yue was overjoyed as he trembled with excitement. He and Tomcat had believed that the space station must have crashed. “Wh-wh-what’s the situation on your side? Are you alright? How’s the space station?”

Tomcat took up position and got into the zone. It stabilized the communications signal. Clearly, Orion II’s collision had nearly destroyed the entire space station. On the ground, the computer had even determined that the space station had crashed. But thankfully, the Crystal core module wasn’t on the same planar axis as Orion II. After losing control, Orion II had begun spinning and sliding, equivalent to hurtling across space from above Mai Dong. Hence, the Crystal had survived the disaster.

“I… I’m fine…” Mai Dong’s voice was intermittent.

Mai Dong had regained consciousness some time ago. When she woke up, her surroundings were almost pitch-black. The computers on the space station had stopped working and the temperature in the module was extremely low. Furthermore, there was a slight lack of oxygen as well as the pungent smell of smoke. Perhaps the life support system had gone offline, leaving zero ventilation in the module. But thankfully, there wasn’t a loss of pressure. The Crystal was the most important and also the heaviest module of the space station. It had a fully metallic inner shell, making it extremely resilient.

Items were flying around at random in the darkness. Cables, pen, paper, and computers had hit Mai Dong on the arms and head. She moved away the damaged indicator panel that was floating in front of her and found her way to the emergency toolbox to take out a tiny torchlight.

With the torchlight, she activated the independent backup communications system. This was a low-powered, half-duplex communications system. It came with independent batteries and was the size of an ordinary phone battery. It didn’t rely on the space station to provide its power. Under such circumstances, it was the only tool that could be used to communicate with Kunlun Station.

“Miss Mai Dong, please give a sitrep of the space station.” Tomcat’s voice was heavy and solemn. Its mistake had indirectly caused the present situation. Now, it was trying its best to redeem it.

“It’s very dark in here… All the systems are offline… The computer… There’s no reaction from the computer…”

“Can’t you make the signal more stable?” Tang Yue leaned over.

“There’s no way of making it more stable.” Tomcat clenched its teeth. “This is a problem with the space station. All systems are now offline. We have already lost all control of the space station. No command is of use.”

“Mr. Cat… Cat…”

The signal was intermittent and the static could at times drown out Mai Dong’s voice. The quality of transmission was terrible.

“Mai Dong!”

“Miss Mai Dong!”

Tang Yue and Tomcat yelled at the same time.

“Mr… Mr. Cat… What should I do? I…” Mai Dong’s voice vanished in the static once again.

“Damn it!” Tomcat slapped its thigh in anger. “Miss Mai Dong! Can you hear me? Miss Mai Dong?”

There were a few seconds of static before Mai Dong’s voice sounded again.

“I can hear you.”

“Listen up, Miss Mai Dong. You need to reboot the space station’s computer system! You have to reboot the computer system. Only with it operational can the other systems be restored to normal. We need to be able to interface with the space station’s computer to determine the damages.” Tomcat was nearly shouting through the microphone, afraid that Mai Dong couldn’t hear it. “Do you copy?”

“Roger that. But how do I reboot it?”

Tomcat and Tang Yue were taken aback.

“Long press the reboot button.”

“I know it’s that, but… I can no longer find the button.” Mai Dong raised the torch as the white light swept across the darkness. From time to time, strange shadows would flit past the light cone. The girl felt as though she was sitting at the bottom of the ocean. The weak light from the torch couldn’t reach far into the dark seawater. And those random items that didn’t seem to follow any pattern or shape were the deep-sea fish that were loitering about. They looked ferocious and terrifying.

Mai Dong had lost her bearings. The core module’s layout had been completely destroyed by the accident. Nearly all the control panels were damaged from the violent impact. Mai Dong could find the control panel of the computer system, but at that moment, all that was left was a bunch of broken power cables.

Tomcat and Tang Yue were taken aback.

This outcome was reasonable, but it wasn’t something they had expected. To the astronauts on the United Space Station, the terminal instrument was the only way to control the complicated system that was the space station. A button corresponded to a subsystem. The complex array of control logic had been hidden underneath the panel by engineers, presenting a clean and minimalistic option that was obvious at a glance. This was akin to Windows personal computers. Without the Graphical User Interface, 99% of the users in the world would be left helpless in the face of complicated commands.

Mai Dong was facing such a situation. The dummy-proof Windows system wasn’t available. All that stood before her was a mess.

She took a deep breath before breaking out into a violent fit of coughing.

The oxygen in the Crystal module was thinning. She had no choice but to take deep breaths to replenish the oxygen her body needed. However, the air was filled with smoke. The more she breathed, the worse it was for her respiratory tract.

“Mr… Cat? Tang… Tang Yue?”

Tomcat sat in front of the computer, staring blankly.

If the space station’s computer system couldn’t be rebooted, then the follow-up rescue and restoration work couldn’t unfold. It never expected to reach an impasse at the first step.

Tomcat was desperately thinking of a solution.

Mai Dong was gasping over the comms as her coughing worsened. Her voice was becoming weaker and weaker.

Damn it! Tomcat clenched its paw. Is there really no solution?

Think of something!

Quick! Think of something!

There won’t be any time left if you don’t!

“Get lost!” Tang Yue carried a large stack of paper in his arms as he rushed over and kicked Tomcat away. The latter was sitting on the chair as it spun far away. Tomcat turned its head in puzzlement. “Tang Yue? What are you… Can you reboot the system?”

“Don’t forget what’s my job!” Tang Yue shot a glance at it, his gaze filled with contempt. He slammed the paper heavily on the desk and said, “Mai Dong! Listen to my instructions from now on!”

“You are only a mechanical and electrical engineer,” Tomcat said in a daze. Tang Yue wasn’t a programmer. He was basically a computer idiot, so how was he to resolve the problem?

“Don’t talk nonsense! What’s wrong? Are you looking down on a mechanical and electrical engineer? I don’t understand the logic behind the computer, but is its electrical control logic any different from a Volkswagen Passat?” Tang Yue wore the earpiece as he held a pen in his mouth. He laid out the paper on the desk. “What do you do when a Passat stalls? What do you do when the space station has a broken circuit… Lass, listen to me. I’ll teach you a way to reboot the computer without needing to long-press a button!”

Tang Yue paused. This was what he was best at.

“Hot-wiring!”