My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 197

ARES 3 solar day 196

Starlight Glimmer was awakened by an unreal sound coming from somewhere in her sleep, and poked her head out of her crib. She reluctantly opened her eyes while half asleep, and squinted at the Ares 3 mission clock, which was based on Mars midnight. The current Martian time was :, about an hour before local sunrise; it would have been impossible for any horse except Spitfire to get up under normal circumstances at this time.

She craned her neck to look at Spitfire's bunk. The pegasus seemed to be sleeping soundly at this time, snoring quietly and methodically. Obviously the noise that woke her up this time was not that Spitfire was planning to hold a midnight security drill; Spitfire's habit caused a lot of trouble, but she was almost used to it.

So she decided to return to sweet dreams. The brain, eyes and every part of the body agree with this decision.

Her bladder, however, said otherwise. She grumbled to herself, stumbling around in the dim nightlight of the pod, trying to make as little noise as possible on her way to the bathroom. Fortunately, Mark decided to stop collecting excrement waste for composting after the third round of soil experiments found that alfalfa’s nitrogen-fixing effect was enough to replace soil cultivation work. Starlight now has much less worries when going to the toilet.

After spending a few minutes on the oversized commode in the cabin, Starlight felt much more comfortable and prepared to walk towards her bunk.

Then she heard again the sound that had woken her; a quiet trickle of water that had nothing to do with her bladder.

It was only a short moment, but Starlight had already guessed where it came from. She steeled herself and ran to the cupboard where the ponies kept their spacesuits. Opening the cabinet door, she was greeted by a cluster of red, green and blue indicator lights; the life support systems of all five spacesuits were activated.

She was fairly certain that the suit had not been stored in this condition. Very sure. The reason why she can't guarantee it 100% is because it's still early in the morning and her mind is not fully awake yet.

She pulled out the spacesuit from the top pile—she guessed it belonged to Dragonfly; the changeling had been in and out of the Hab more than anyone else. The spacesuit's legs were heavy and still swaying. She carefully emptied each boot and poured a full pint of water from each leg.

Starlight is still in a half-asleep state. She knew that the life-support system of the space suit could not be activated by itself under any circumstances, but it could be activated remotely from the other side of the country. At this time, she had not had time to conclude that "unless the situation is very urgent, they will not try to send messages when everyone is asleep", so she set up her space suit without thinking too much, and raised her neck irritably. A water pipe shoots a small stream of water into the soil next to a potato bush.

BLM-ESA DE ESA-F54 OP SG WTB K (ESA's 54th mission calls to Cape Friendship. Operator Starlight. What are you going to do? Complete)

Translated in a more friendly tone, it would be: "Amicitas calls Maltimore, where the stars are shining; could you please explain why we have to fill our spacesuits with water in the middle of the night? Over."

The other person sent a reply almost immediately:

ESA-F54 LSS SCRM FLMB GAS DTCTD CVE II LSS SCRM FLMB GAS DTCTD CVE AA INVSTG ASAP K (ESA 54th Flight Task Group Life Support System Emergency Shutdown Cave Combustible Gas Detected Repeated Combustible Gas Detected in the Life Support System Emergency Shutdown Cave When the gas stops, go immediately and investigate the situation.)

When she read the end of this message, Starlight's hooves were completely wet from the splashing water, and she felt completely sleepless. She immediately sent a reply:

BLM-ESA CFM LSS SCRM AA CFM FLMB GAS K (is it confirmed that the life support system is shut down? is it terminated? is it confirmed that the presence of flammable gas is completed)

After a while:

ESA-F54 U HRD ME K (Do you want me to say it again? Complete)

Starlight suddenly found that the feeling of urgency to urinate had returned.

BLM-ESA SN STND BY WL UPDT AR (understood, please stand by, report the situation later, communication completed)

After the "communication completed" signal was struck under her hooves, she shouted: "Change the extravehicular suit!"

What followed was a minute or two of slush and utter confusion mixed with drowsiness, but eventually the starlight captured the undivided attention of the five conscious but unhappy-looking astronauts.

"There's news from Malaysia," she decided to conduct the conversation in English, both to facilitate Mark's understanding and to practice on his own. "Judging from the depth of the water in our spacesuits, they should have been trying for half the night. Contact us. The main life support system shut down on its own last night. Our side said that flammable gas was detected."

"Damn it!" Before everyone could react, Mark cursed first, "Do you know what kind of flammable gas it is?"

Starlight could only shrug at this, "The only reason we know that there is... any flammable substance is because the transmission link terminal on the other side of the horse country caught fire. The system automatically shut down before the flame temperature rose to a level that could cause any damage. ”

After hearing this, Berry rushed forward. "The cave is on fire!?" She was so frightened that she didn't even care about using the correct grammar.

"It's not clear yet." Starlight replied, "You also know how our life-support system works."

"Once the cave catches fire, we're doomed. Or bucked." Mark added in pony language. "Wonderful" is the only Pony language word that Mark can pronounce correctly. It has become an old joke among this group of Martian refugees, but now no one can laugh when they hear it.

"Okay. Starlight, Dragonfly, pour the water out of the space suit." Berry tried to calm down and assigned the task, "Hurry up and have breakfast. Mark, can you tell me where it is?"

Mark squinted and glanced at the mission clock. "Not yet, it will take another two hours," he replied. "The Earth is still below the horizon - it hasn't risen yet." He put on his space suit and put on his helmet - his suit escaped damage. Not getting wet meant that he was now the driest/least depressed resident in the residential area - and he casually took out a food package from the cabinet and said, "I'm going to prepare the No. 2 rover."

"Okay," Berry replied, "We'll leave in fifteen minutes."

"You can only get a C-." Starlight muttered to the commander.

"……What?"

Dragonfly took a moment to check whether her feet were damaged while drying her space suit. The recently restored surfaces were intact, so the changeling was able to join Berry and Spitfire in tracking the Mark rover.

Starlight, whose spacesuit was severely damaged and could not withstand strenuous exercise, had no choice but to ride Mark's rover toward the cave with Fireball, despite her infinite yearning to run with her companions on the horizon of Mars before dawn. Mark completely threw aside his usual caution when driving, and after removing the saddlebags and extra batteries from the rover, he drove at full speed across the Ashidaria Plain. Whenever the rover rides on the ravines scattered throughout the ancient riverbed ruins, the front of the car will fly up and rush forward, and then fall down and hit the slope... When it runs over the ravines and returns to the ground, it is just the opposite. The front of the car rushes up. They jump high on the slope, and often fly briefly in the air because the gravity of Mars is not enough to keep the four wheels close to the surface. After the rear wheels leave the top of the ravine, the front wheels will quickly hit the ground again, repeatedly knocking several occupants of the car to pieces.

Normally it takes the rover more than half an hour to drive from the residential area to the cave farm, but this time Mark's dangerous driving (fortunately he did not overturn) successfully compressed the time to less than twenty-four minutes. After finally arriving at their destination after going through all kinds of hardships, as the three unfortunate passengers stumbled out of the rover's airlock in a somewhat dazed state to meet the ponies and changelings waiting outside the vehicle, a pony language suddenly came out of the fireball. , "Did I say before that I wanted to drive 'General Lee'?"

"Yes." Starlight replied.

"I take that back now. If I had just had breakfast I would have vomited it all by now."

The distant sun was rising slowly from the eastern horizon, and the Martian refugees climbed up the slope leading to the entrance of the cave with difficulty. As Amicitas' weathered cargo compartment airlock door slowly closed behind them, Mark reminded everyone, "Don't be in a hurry to take off your space suit after entering. If the internal air circulation stops, a large amount of gas may accumulate - completely No oxygen."

"What kind of gas do you think it might be?" Dragonfly asked.

"It's almost certainly methane," Mark replied. "This is the only flammable gas we've ever found here. But usually only trace amounts can be detected - about 5PPB, for example, on Mars. There's almost a million times that amount of water in the atmosphere. But there's no other possibility."

The air pressure inside and outside the airlock was equalized, and Starlight immediately opened the inner door of the airlock. What is shown in front of you is a cave that extends diagonally downward into the distance. The enchanted crystal hanging on the top is emitting light as the crystal receiver on the top of the mountain begins to absorb sunlight. There was no sign of burning, and there was not a trace of smoke anywhere as far as the eye could see; in other words, everything in the cave looked like normal.

Berry was the first to bear the brunt and ran out; she simply ignored the precautions Mark just mentioned and ripped off her helmet, and then broke away from the constraints of the space suit as quickly as possible.

"Berry!" Mark yelled, trying to pull her back.

"I can't check the plants while wearing a space suit!" Berry yelled back.

"Let her go," said Spitfire, who was still wearing his space suit. "I will keep an eye on her." She followed closely behind the commander, while Fireball quietly picked up Berry's space suit and followed closely. in case for need.

"What is methane?" Dragonfly watched Berry and the others go away, then asked.

"The molecular formula is CH4," Mark replied. "It is composed of one carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms. It is extremely flammable and may explode in a confined space. This is the substance produced by the MAV fuel generator."

"Is that poisonous? Is it similar to hydrazine?"

"No," Mark explained, "its most dangerous property is that it can burn, and the second is that it can cause suffocation. It is not actually poisonous in itself, but it is obviously not oxygen. There were many miners who died because of the methane gas deep underground. And in terms of loss of life, these two factors are the main culprits.”

"Oh...!" Tingting widened her pair of shining eyes, "Are you talking about...swamp gas? This is the closest name I can think of to the original meaning. This is a common name in Gas deep in caves and mines. In the past, when we were digging, we would use..." The changeling looked at the starlight aside, his eyes avoided for a moment and he cautiously changed his words, "... something... to detect the presence of gas. There is no such gas."

Starlight Glimmer could probably understand what Dragonfly meant by "something", and it definitely couldn't be Canary anyway. She tried to comfort herself: what Dragonfly just mentioned was the so-called "dark old times" of the changelings, and it was all in the past. And to be honest, bad behavior of this nature has not never happened in her own "black history", so it is not up to her to judge right and wrong now.

Yet she couldn't help but step back, letting Mark stand between her and the bug as a symbolic barrier.

The three of them - Mark, Dragonfly and Starlight - then walked towards the Amicitas life support system equipment box; the main water outlet of the life support system was connected to the underground water heating pipes. All the pilot lights on the equipment box are now off; the hot water supply has been cut off as the life support system automatically shuts down. The cave that had been warm and comfortable inside just a few days ago was now extremely cold and damp, just like the first day when the cave had just been pressurized and they entered to cultivate the soil.

Mark reached into a pocket on his spacesuit and took out a small bag and a rubber band. He used a rubber band to tie the bag mask to the air supply outlet of the life support system; then he took out a second bag and another rubber band and sealed the air inlet in the same manner. "Let them turn the system back on," Mark said. "If that doesn't work, it would be better for us to return to the residential area."

Starlight gives this task to Dragonfly; Dragonfly's ability to send Morse codes through her space suit's drinking tube is definitely the best among them. "Methane," she thought again, "one carbon and four hydrogen. Do you mean the kind that's similar to what's burned in a stove?"

Starlight could see the surprised expression on Mark's face through a layer of spacesuit: "You know how to use a gas stove?"

Starlight just shrugged. "Some are electric, some are gas, and some are even powered by magic." She replied, "There are still many ponies in rural areas who use wood stoves."

"Well," Mark thought for a while and muttered softly, "I really learn something new every day."

The life support system indicator light comes on. Both bags are inflated; although one side of the air transmission crystal is sending and the other is receiving, the air flows in these two directions are not completely isolated from each other, so the incoming air can pressurize the entire system. The sound of water gurgling came from the pipeline, and the scalding hot water was gradually pumped into the floor heating system. Mark and Starlight let out a long sigh of relief. It took Starlight a while to realize his subconscious behavior.

"Okay, then we still have a chance." Mark continued, "Next step we have to find a way to know how much methane is here."

"Isn't it bad as long as there is methane?" Starlight was puzzled.

"Today's new word:" Mark muttered and took out another bag, "stoichiometry." He left the life-support system equipment box and walked to the open area of ​​the alfalfa field, and continued, "Stoichiometry is the study of reactions in chemical reactions. The science of calculating the balance of matter and products. Simply put, it is the science of how matter burns.”

"Stoichiometry." Starlight spelled out the word carefully.

"Don't let the fireballs pronounce this word." The dragonfly on the side couldn't help but comment, "otherwise they will be so angry that they will jump in anger for a week."

"Take our current situation as an example," Mark continued to explain, "Methane requires a certain amount of oxygen to burn. The ideal mixing ratio is two parts oxygen molecules to one part methane molecules. Ordinary Earth's atmosphere - or yours The same goes for the air over there - about 20% oxygen, or maybe more. So for optimal combustion, the methane should reach an air concentration of a little over 9% or so. If the methane concentration is too low - —The proportion of air is less than 6%—the heat released by the flame cannot sustain continuous combustion; but if there is too much methane—for example, the concentration exceeds 20%—the oxygen in the environment will be diluted, and the flame will spontaneously Extinguish."

"So this bag in your hand can let you know how much methane is here?" Xingguang asked.

"Well, first of all, the methane concentration here must not exceed 20%," Mark replied, "after all, Berry Berry is still alive and kicking." Indeed, the earth pony pilot not far away was still wandering around the farm, sometimes pacing. Sometimes when I run fast, even if I finally stand still for a while, I will soon run towards another point. Flying Fire and Fireball followed closely behind; judging from the resigned expressions on their faces, they should be ready to face the scene where Berry suddenly gasped for air, choked on his breath, and then fell to the ground and fainted suddenly.

"But I hope it is below 6%." Mark continued, "If the concentration is below 6%... of course it is not safe, because we will still have the risk of hypoxia without wearing space suits; but at least this will There will be no fire or explosion." The human in front of me suddenly became excited when he said this, and then added, "This is the first time in my history that fire and explosion are not fun at all."

He handed the two bags in his hand to Dragonfly, "Take these two bags to the two chambers in the cave." He said, "Then like this," he opened the mouth of the bag and waved it repeatedly in the air, and the air Naturally, he propped up the bag and bulged it out. "Then just seal the bag tightly." Then he pinched the bag mouth with his fingertips and closed the air seal. "Each bag corresponds to a chamber. But wait a moment." He took out a marker pen from his tool belt, first tried it by scratching the cuff of his space suit a few times, and then marked the two bags respectively. Letters B and C. "B is the next chamber, C is the next one. Is that okay?"

"No problem!" Dingting grinned and showed the fangs at the corner of her mouth. "Be right back!" She stuffed the bag into the hole of one front hoof and ran towards the covered cave on the other side of the huge cave. The rest of the entrance is insulated with curtains.

Mark then took out another bag and was about to walk towards the row of cherry saplings at the edge of the farm when Berry ran towards him, followed by flying fire and fireballs. "The soil is sick." Unfortunately, she didn't bring good news. "It's still rotting. The center of the farm is the worst, but the edges are better."

Mark's face immediately darkened. "Yes, that's what I'm afraid of." He muttered, "Spike, when was the last time you flew here?"

Spitfire thought carefully. "About four or five days ago?" She guessed, "It should have been the day before you came here last time."

"That was four solar days ago." Mark asked, "Did you notice anything unusual?"

Spitfire shook his head and replied, "If I had, I would have told you."

"Okay. Berry, could you please put on your space suit? Feihuo, can you fly around the cave briefly to get a feel for it?"

Spitfire looked at Berry; Starlight noticed that it took a few seconds for a certain Earth pony to realize that the former Wonderbolt captain wanted her to confirm the order. "Oh, no problem, let's go." Berry took the space suit from Fireball and prepared to put it on herself. At the same time, Spitfire went in the opposite direction and began to quickly take off his space suit.

"Keep an eye on me." She said, spreading her wings and trying to wave them a few times. Starlight watched as Spitfire squatted down and raised his wings, then jumped up and flapped his wings with all his strength to lift himself to the top of the cave covered with crystal protrusions. She circled slowly and laboriously around the cave, once or twice swooping down and climbing back to her original height. She finally landed back to the starting point, and was fine except for breathing heavily.

"The feeling of the air..." Feihuo, who was at a loss for words, rolled his eyes and switched back to pony language, "The air doesn't give me as much buoyancy as before. The difference is actually quite small, and it feels like the change in altitude. She sniffed and added, "And for a moment when I first took off, I seemed to smell something rotten, but it's gone now."

Starlight translated this sentence to Mark, and he nodded as he listened. "Let's go back to the rover and run an air composition test on these samples," he said. "But I can basically guess the results."

Sure enough, the readings from the rover's air detection system showed that the samples collected by Mark around the farm contained about 1% methane, and also contained trace amounts of hydrogen sulfide - about 1 to 2 PPB, which is close to the limit of the equipment's detection accuracy. Element. Two samples taken by Dragonfly deeper into the cave detected only trace amounts of methane and no hydrogen sulfide.

"Okay," Mark said to the Amicitas team members who were packed into the rover like a sardine can, "I know what happened. Have you ever heard of methane hydrate before?"

What I got was five pairs of big eyes staring at each other. Tingting answered on behalf of everyone: "I've definitely never heard anyone say it in English anyway."

"Yes, I was stupid. Sorry." Mark thought for a while and explained, "Sometimes under the right conditions, water will freeze in a special way, trapping methane molecules inside the crystal structure. People in the past have successfully ignited ice. What actually burns is the methane wrapped inside the ice crystals. In this way, methane can be stably preserved for millions of years, and will only be released when the ice crystals melt."

"But there can't be ice in the cave now." Fireball didn't believe it. "It's so warm now, the ice must have melted."

Starlight's heart sank, "It's permafrost." She then used the corresponding vocabulary in Pony language to explain to the others who couldn't understand English.

"That's right." Mark replied, "After Starlight completed the sealing of the cave, the internal temperature rose a lot. According to my speculation, this heat may have affected the permafrost layer inside the cave below the soil surface. Obviously there is a layer of permafrost in the cave. It contains a lot of methane, God knows how it formed. But whatever the cause, this methane has been released into the soil for some time, and it may have only recently risen to the surface."

“But that’s not the worst problem,” he said, pointing to the small line of hydrogen sulfide readings on the air sampler. “Hydrogen sulfide is much worse. It’s very different from methane, and it’s poisonous. , and it doesn’t take much to cause poisoning. Fortunately, the concentration in the cave doesn’t need to worry us – it’s less than the output of a fart.”

Everyone couldn't laugh when they heard this joke - which Starlight thought was just right.

"The problem is," Mark continued to explain, "Normally, free hydrogen sulfide is not found on Mars. Martian soil does contain a lot of sulfur, but hydrogen sulfide generally decomposes on its own very quickly; it It can react with many other substances, so it cannot be stored for too long." He then took a deep breath and said, "This also means that the hydrogen sulfide we detected was just generated recently, which will cause big trouble."

"What's wrong?" Starlight asked.

"It's bacteria," Mark replied. "There are many types of soil bacteria that ingest methane and emit hydrogen sulfide. They can also kill plants." He leaned on the driver's seat of the rover and tried to lean back, accidentally touching Berry. Dingting hit her head and could only sit up. "Sorry. I've been in similar situations before; someone tried growing decorative plants on top of an old garbage dump, and methane came out of the soil and replaced the oxygen. Bacteria eat the methane and release sulfide Hydrogen causes plant roots to gradually erode and rot and die, and the entire plant above the surface usually dies soon as well.”

"You mean the farm is going to die?!" Berry almost cried when she asked this question.

Mark nodded. "You just mentioned that the soil in the center of the farm feels the worst," he explained. "It is also the warmest area, which means that the methane-eating bacteria have been active there for the longest time. But this situation should only just happen. There will be a chance for plants to recover soon, but we have to act now."

"Want to kill Bad Jin... Jin... Bad Bug?" Fireball asked stammeringly.

Mark shook his head upon hearing this. "We had to hollow out the entire farm to find them, and it's not easy to completely eliminate them. NASA also tried to remove this bacteria from the soil samples I brought for the Mars experiment, but it seems to be ineffective now. Ideal." He sighed, "This won't work. It seems that there is only one way left; although I have strong opinions on this method, I think we still have to use the last perchlorate spell to remove all methane."

If the rover cabin hadn't been packed to the brim, Starlight would have collapsed to the ground in fright when she heard this. "I think this method is very problematic." She quickly explained, "Gas is much more difficult to handle than soil."

"Or mud." Dragonfly muttered from the side.

"Hot sauce." Fireball also added.

"Well..." Mark asked, "Remember how we checked the cave for leaks last time?"

"Remember." Starlight was very impressed by this, "My horns still hurt for several days after I finished."

"You said... you said you'd be fine the next day!" Feihuo wanted to express his dissatisfaction, but his English skills couldn't keep up with her speaking speed.

"I lied to you!" Xingguang snapped back, "I just wanted to go back to work early!"

"I knew it! I knew you would lie! Next time..."

"You two, please calm down for a while!" came Berry's sharp scream; this Pony Valley local horse once again showed his tough missile horse side. "Mark, keep talking."

"Okay. The difference from last time is that this time we don't need two force fields, only one, just near the entrance." Mark created a space in front of him with his hands, "Use the perchlorate spell to capture the inside of the cave. All the methane and hydrogen sulfide gases are concentrated into the force field around the airlock." He paused here and said, "Dingting, how does your airlock work when it is exhausted? It will regenerate the gas. Pump it back into the cave?”

"No. We can always rely on the life support system to provide air, so there is no need. The airlock will slowly discharge the gas to the outside." Dingting thought for a while and then added, "If it is a cockpit airlock, most of it will The air will first be pumped into the tank so that it will not deviate from the route due to exhaust. But this airlock does not have this design."

"That's no problem. Just find someone to take over in the airlock. First discharge the air in the airlock to the outside, and then circulate and inhale the gas in the cave-that is, methane and hydrogen sulfide. Repeat this until the harmful gas is cleared. Until it is clean - and the future troubles will be eliminated forever.”

In theory this seems like a good solution.

But don't forget that in theory, Starlight had also thought that the perchlorate spell seemed like a good solution.

Starlight connected the last cable. Six of the nine magic batteries were originally stored in the cave and are being slowly recharged. Now Starlight has connected them all in series so that the magical energy of all the batteries can be used at the same time, so that there is no need to replace the batteries in the middle of casting the spell.

Ideally, even a single battery, even one-third full like the ones in the cave, would be enough. This amount of energy was completely sufficient when checking the air tightness of the cave. This amount of energy was basically enough when the perchlorate spell was cast before, and this did not take into account that the perchlorate to be processed at that time was several times more than the methane and hydrogen sulfide combined in the cave now. .

But Starlight had a very bad feeling about this. This plan was prepared too hastily. She wanted to ask Twilight's opinion. She also wanted to consult Dr. Kapol on Earth. She was even willing to bow her head to Discord and ask for help, even though she could probably guess that Discord would think that the state of a cave made more than half of it made of horse dung and full of farts was too interesting to add to it. put one's oar in.

Speaking of Discord, did Twilight and the others ask Discord for help? How did Discord respond? Although the Spirit of Chaos is most likely helpless in the rescue - his ability has nothing to do with science. But at least this can be regarded as a hopeless solution...

Starlight quickly shook her head to expel these irrelevant thoughts, and concentrated on constructing the spell array she had used to remove perchlorate and other salts from the cave. She concentrated on thinking about the molecular structures that Mark had shown her before - methane was a slightly stiff pyramid-shaped molecule, while hydrogen sulfide looked like a glutton with two legs stretched out and a round belly.

Cherry Berry, who had put on her spacesuit, stood in the airlock after getting ready, ready to operate the airlock mechanism. Feihuo and Fireball stood outside the cave to observe the situation, fearing that some extremely serious accident would happen. Dragonfly and Mark were next to Starlight. Mark put on a spacesuit and put his hand on Starlight's shoulder. The changeling was pressed against the side of her body.

"No problem." Dragonfly encouraged, "You are the most powerful unicorn in all of Equestria. You are also the unrivaled mage on this planet. You can definitely do it."

"Yes," Starlight thought to herself, "I can do it."

I can do it.

I'd better do it.

The force field spell cast in the first step was completed easily. The battery introduced the magic energy into her body steadily and smoothly, and then injected it into the spell; however, the polymer spell to be cast after that was even more complicated than the first step. It's much more complicated, and it also requires more energy... and the force field spell itself is not a fuel-efficient lamp.

However, after she cast the second step of the spell, she immediately noticed that the spell had successfully taken effect. Different from the previous situation, this time she could not see the many tiny particles floating from the ground into the air. Instead, she could only glimpse the wind-swept alfalfa, feel the trembling of the leaves as the air flowed through the potato plants, and the cherry saplings formed There were ripples in the green forest. Other than that, there are no visible signs.

At this time, the pressure exerted on the force field spell changed. The barrier bulged outward in her direction, gradually moving away from the airlock. She struggled to keep going back and forth between the two spells, keeping the methane and a very small amount of hydrogen sulfide gas flowing while allocating more magic energy to the force field spell. However, the thin light curtain only stabilized for a moment, and then began to move in her direction driven by the huge gas pressure on the other side.

Oh.

Oh, it's over.

Starlight finally discovered a major flaw in this plan. The space enclosed by the force field spell is not completely empty, but is originally filled with air - nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, and a small amount of carbon dioxide. As the spell continuously poured methane and hydrogen sulfide gas into the small space, the internal air pressure began to increase explosively, and the already filled area naturally began to expand outward.

Starlight tried her best to slow down the speed of the methane collection spell, find some way to measure it, and put a restraint on it. Unfortunately, she failed in the end; most of her energy had been used to strengthen the force field spell, and she had no time to withdraw at this time. The methane collecting spell seemed to be grinning out of her control, drawing energy from her body without any scruples. Once this kind of curse is started, it cannot be stopped. Its destructive pace will only stop when the magic energy is exhausted or all the gas is collected.

The force field barrier continued to move backwards, and Starlight used all its strength to block its progress before it contacted the life support system equipment box. The light curtain that could not move outward evenly bulged to one side and tilted towards the position where the three of them were. Seeing that the top of the light screen came into contact with the sunlight-illuminated crystals on the top of the cave, Starlight desperately imagined a horrific scene: Will the temperature of these crystals be high enough to ignite the mixed gas in the barrier? Is the oxygen content sufficient to support combustion?

Now she was drawing energy from the batteries at maximum power; the rate at which these batteries were supplying her with magical energy had reached a limit. She wanted to speak but was speechless; almost all of her focus was on maintaining the stability of the force field in order to prevent the barrier from moving back even an inch. "Air..." She gasped and shouted hard... "Exhaust... air..."

She suddenly noticed that Mark and Dragonfly were shouting. She hadn't heard them just now and couldn't sense any sounds they made now. Her entire mind was invested in it, and she had essentially become one with the spell.

How much energy is left in the battery? she does not know. She was unable to distract herself at this time and couldn't see clearly.

What happens if the battery suddenly dies while the spell is trying to draw energy? Will they be shattered in an instant like the fateful nightmare Amicitas encountered that day?

Will she be shattered to pieces?

How much damn methane is left in the cave? ? ?

There must be something that gives up resistance in advance!

And it did.

The spell Starlight had previously used to permanently seal the cave had no effect on the airlock at the entrance. Let's put it this way, although the surrounding rocks (to sum up) have formed an airtight structure around the airlock, the metal of the airlock body does not have any form of physical connection with the rock, so that part of the cave becomes the entire The weakest point of the airtight system.

Under the struggle between the pressure of up to three standard atmospheres on one side and the pressure of only one percent of the atmosphere on the other side, it finally collapsed as expected.

As was the case during the Hab incident, the airlock gradually began to move outward. However, the cave is made of compressed rock rather than canvas, so the airlock did not instantly detach from the cave entrance. As the original thin protruding edge of the cave entrance disintegrated under the huge eruption force of the escaping gas, the airlock left its original position little by little, sliding forward slowly and laboriously, friction and collision with the surrounding rocks and the rocks below the cave entrance. By the time it is completely pushed away from the cave entrance by aerodynamic force, the air pressure inside and outside the cave has almost completely balanced. Cherry Berry, who was inside the airlock the whole time, was lucky enough to experience the extreme fear of having her underwear wet for seven seconds, but other than that, she was fine.

But there's another problem: a cave that was supposed to be a sealed environment now has a big hole. In just a moment, Starlight's entire goal changed from preventing the force field barrier and its contents from advancing into the cave to maintaining the force field within the cave's scope - and more importantly, to prevent the spell system from directly collapsing.

What a blessing among misfortunes - thank you Faust, thank Celestia, thank Luna, and even thank you Discord - the methane collection spell ended at this moment, and Starlight's thinking and consciousness once again changed from a deep magical immersion state Back to reality.

"Hurry up and plug the airlock back into the hole!!!" She finally heard Dragonfly's cry. "Mark and I can fix it, but we're running out of time! Let's go!!!"

"How can we do this?!" Mark yelled.

"I'm out of the airlock now," Berry's voice came from the space suit's communicator, "Fireball, come quickly and help me push in!"

"Hurry up and dig the soil! Pile the sand to the edge of the hole! I can stick it together!" Suddenly the face of the dragonfly filled Starlight's entire field of vision, and the changeling had taken off its helmet. "Starlight, you have to let the airlock pass through the force field barrier! Can you do it?"

"How much energy is left in the battery?" She finally said the first sentence.

"It must be enough," Tingting couldn't say much, "Can it be done?"

On the other side of the bulging force field barrier that was almost outside the cave, the huge airlock was moving back to its original position extremely slowly.

Starlight concentrated and allowed the force field barrier to move forward a little, and then felt the interface layer separate to both sides like jelly, revealing a corner of the end of the airlock. There is still a gap visible to the naked eye at the top of this big iron box, and there are also cracks all around it and at the bottom. Mark ran toward the airlock with an armful of loose soil in his arms, leaving a dusty trail behind him. Dragonfly then followed, spraying slime on the side walls of the airlock.

Xingguang thought: This is useless. As soon as I stopped casting the force spell, the escaping air would sweep up the mounds and nothing would remain.

Then Starlight looked down at the battery meter for the first time ever. Almost all six batteries were nearly empty. Again, it’s really killing.

Time is running out.

Can only succeed once.

Starlight took a deep breath - which wasn't necessary, since she was still wearing her spacesuit - and turned off the force field spell. As expected, as the air in the cave surged out to the outside world at high speed through the cracks around the airlock, the mixture of slime and soil disappeared without a trace in an instant. In just a few seconds, the cave will be close to a vacuum, and the plants will immediately die - and the dragonfly will also die on the spot: the strong wind will blow up the falling leaves, carrying her spacesuit helmet towards her. Roll towards the door.

However, in less than half a second, she cast the "Door Curse", the spell she used to seal the entrance to the cave in the first place.

After another second and a half, the cave was sealed, and the noisy air flow stopped and returned to calm.

Starlight stepped back from the battery—to be precise, he staggered away from the battery. At this moment, she felt that she was as light as a feather. Unfortunately, she was swept into the air by the hurricane. She floated for a long time before finally falling back to the ground.

"Ha." She thought to herself, "Fuck you, Mars. As the most powerful mage here, I beat you to a pulp. You are not worth mentioning in front of my powerful power."

But now the Supreme Mage has to take a nap.

She stood unsteadily and swayed a few times, then seemed to remember something. She noticed that the indicator light on the life support system equipment box went out again, and the two small bags that Mark had tied before were swept away by the wind. She lowered her head and slowly typed this message on the drinking tube with her mouth and nose:

BLM-ESADE ESA-F54 (ESA Mission 54 call to Maltimore)

Mark and Dragonfly came to her side again, mumbling something. Starlight didn't hear. She continued to press the outlet with her nose slowly and rhythmically.

TRN ON LSS AGN (restart life support system)

Anything else to say? By the way, I remembered it.

ALL SAFE

alright. That should be it.

Mark picked her up. He's so nice. She just didn't want to walk back to the living area by herself right now. She just wanted to go back to her bed and have a good sleep.

AR (communication completed)

After she sent "Done," she too went out like the light on the life support box.

Those indicator lights came back on after about ten seconds, and flashed intermittently for several times as the automatic shutdown setting was remotely overridden, and the pressure in the cave quickly returned to a standard atmosphere.

But Starlight Glimmer fell into a deep sleep and didn't wake up for a whole day. Even her dreams couldn't bear to disturb her well-deserved sleep.