My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 367

ARES 3 solar day 361

The dragonfly leaned on the battery that projected the magic field to absorb energy, letting every beam of neon magic energy emitted anesthetize every cell in the body and be tortured by ruthless gnawing.

Yes, she does look much better now than when she first left the cocoon. Most of the wrinkles on her body were gone. There is also weight gain. By the way, as a joke, her legs have also completed the transformation from holes to wholes. So obviously the small amount of magic energy everyone replenished in the cave every day worked. She was indeed recovering, albeit slowly.

but……

Ninety days from today, if everything goes as they wish, they will say goodbye to this place forever. After that, the magic batteries necessary for them to briefly simulate the natural magic environment of the Equestrian Kingdom could only be recharged by the ponies themselves - this was the inevitable price of losing the cave biological environment. Even taking into account the difference in the ability of intelligent creatures and plants to generate magic energy, the charging rate will be reduced by at least two-thirds, and perhaps even slower.

In fact, it will definitely be slower, because part of the magic energy collected every day must be used to make up for the loss of the giant battery midway, and the energy cannot be stored in the mobile home and replenished by life forms.

The hard days are still to come, so now Tingting will not miss any opportunity to absorb magic energy. When he sees the magic energy projector in operation, he will definitely hold on to it.

Sometimes it's a little too much. "Drington," Starlight Glimmer interrupted, "I understand that you need to be exposed to magic energy, but can you please step back a little? You have almost absorbed the battery's magic field."

"Sorry." Tingting took a few steps back reluctantly.

"By the way," Starlight continued, "could you please go get another battery? I feel like this battery alone won't be enough for me to complete the enchanting of all fifteen batteries."

"I'll get it." Mark stood up before Dragonfly had time to react, and walked towards the row of idle batteries beside the cave wall that had recently been connected in order to evenly distribute the absorption of plant magic energy. Dragonfly didn't have any objections to this, since she didn't want to spend a lot of effort carrying a 60-kilogram battery over with her front hooves. (Of course, the actual weight on Mars is only equivalent to about 25 kilograms, but you have to take into account that she has always been in poor health.) It is even more unthinkable for her to rely on her limited magic energy reserves to transport the battery. think.

At the same time, Starlight Glimmer's energy was focused on the fifteen giant batteries. Each one has enough space to tuck in a secondary enchantment in addition to the standard battery enchantment, linking each giant battery to one of three forty kilogram crystal blocks. Each target block corresponds to five giant batteries that output all the energy to push the target away; assuming that their calculations of energy consumption are correct, the running time of such a propulsion system is about six minutes.

The scheme itself is simple. The main thing is to fix the target crystal block around the rear of the upgraded central engine nozzle on MAV No. 1. These crystal blocks have been precisely cut and shaped according to the design drawings attached to the Ares mission information on Mark's computer, and can perfectly fit into the corresponding installation position. The fifteen giant batteries will be set up in a stone array around the MAV descent stage, and in some way - they have not yet thought about the technical details of the implementation - it is set to delay half the time after the MAV breaks away from the descent stage and takes off. seconds before restarting.

Based on calculations from a series of experiments conducted in Malaysia, assuming that all fifteen batteries can operate normally, the fuel remaining in the second upgrade is completely sufficient for them to implement orbital maneuvers. Even if four missiles were lost during launch, they would be able to rendezvous with Hermes in orbit normally without using the Shining engine. However, these calculations were based on the perfect conditions of the Horse Kingdom, which was very different from their common environment in a cave on Mars; therefore, Dragonfly did not complain at all about Starlight's kind words just now, asking her not to occupy the magic energy.

Moreover...Dingting glanced at the battery indicator and turned to Starlight, "Xingguang, you can stop when you're done with this. This battery is almost used up."

"Okay." There was another magic battery under Starlight's hooves, so she simultaneously drew energy from the spare battery and the declining magic projection field, and tried her best to drive the enchantment deeply into the crystal. She freely controlled the magic energy flowing into the clear crystal from the tip of the horn, and there was not even a trace of fluctuation when she briefly responded to Dragonfly's warning. In the next twenty seconds, the spell continued to ablate invisible textures inside the crystal. Then the enchantment was declared complete, and she immediately stopped casting the spell. "That's it. Turn off the battery and replace it with another one."

Although the pain was only temporary, seeing the Yamibu Ladder closed and the magic field disintegrating, Xiaoting was always deeply unhappy with this moment of interruption of magic power. Although she is now able to restrain herself and not lose her mind, the feeling she experiences remains unchanged, as if some kind of force that has been holding her up and supporting her has been roughly pulled away, leaving only a cold and painful energy vacuum. .

However, after experiencing torture again and again, she has become accustomed to getting along with it, learned to hide it, and deny its existence. Not to mention that it takes less than two minutes to remove the tangled tangle of cables from the exhausted battery, replace it with a fresh, full battery and flip a switch to start releasing energy again. "How's the progress?" She asked Starlight while busy wiring.

"Three boost target crystals and ten giant batteries have been completed." Starlight replied, "The enchantments are in good condition after inspection. We also need to add some wires to connect the electrodes to the various receiving points on the crystals. The original battery enchantment According to the design, it cannot drive other enchantments attached to the battery itself, and can only use indirect methods to supply energy."

"Can you show me the location?"

"Okay. I need to make a small hole in each piece to directly fix the wires to ensure that they can maintain a stable connection with the contact point even if they are subject to strong vibrations during launch."

"We have power tools."

"Neither your nor Mark's tools can be used to cut quartz," Starlight shook her head. "I won't try to drill holes for at least a week, until we replenish the magic energy consumed by today's work."

"Okay. As long as you make sure you can handle it."

"Don't worry, it's easier to cut a two-foot hole in the crystal than to set up these enchantments. Are the new batteries ready?"

"All right."

"Okay. I should be done in another ten minutes."

"What did you think of the last part of that book?"

"Huh? Oh. Didn't I tell you on the spot during the story meeting?"

"You didn't say a word at that time. We were all talking."

"Ah. Sorry, my mind was on this matter at the time. And since Mark always complained every time I mentioned the many flaws in their ethnic group's government system, I didn't think he would be willing to listen to my explanation. Why Carrot is apparently destined to be an Alicorn Prince."

"Really?" Mark started to get angry, "It's right to think about it. For example, there are many ponies with short orange hair, two meters tall, and they can hold swords with their opposite fingers that obviously don't exist at all..."

Starlight sighed impatiently, "Ding Ting, turn on the battery."

The dragonfly, who had properly stirred up the muddy water and made some small contributions to adding interest to life, complied with the order knowingly.