My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 405

ARES 3 solar day 398

Cherry Berry exerted great force, and with one kick of her hind hooves, she kicked out a rock that may have weighed several hundred pounds, and flew across the surface of Mars in a low arc. The reinforcements that Dragonfly had previously made on the back boots of her space suit seemed to be working well. The metal plates protected by thick wrappings allowed her to fully utilize the earth pony's strength advantage without having to worry about kicking out the soles of her boots.

Not far away, Flying Fire and Dragonfly were pushing other rocks to the side, clearing a smooth path for the rover still half a kilometer away. The surface of Mars is dotted with rocks of various sizes, but smaller rocks can be ignored. The ponies only cared about rocks large enough to cause trouble for the giant rover wheels, and these were generally rare and far apart. At present, the three of them should be fully capable of clearing these rocks to clear the way for the rover; if they encounter a rock that is too big to move, they can also find another way to directly bypass the obstacle, and then continue flying all the way. Ben left the rover far behind.

Sirius V's second mission went well - much better than the disastrous last attempt. Mark's new turn indicator has not completely solved the communication difficulties, but at least he and Fireball no longer bring the entire rover to a complete stop every time they try to turn like last time. Mark has already explained that maintaining the maximum driving speed normally and stably for as long as possible is the key to extending the cruising range and battery life. Acceleration consumes much more energy than normal cruising; and even if the roaming wheel can recover a little energy when braking, it cannot make up for the large amount of power required to return to the original speed. So essentially, anything that can prevent the rover from stopping is a good thing.

So I have to mention the other half of the ponies' reconnaissance mission. In satellite images taken from high orbits, the terrain around the habitable module does indeed look relatively flat, but the shallow rock crevices crisscrossing the Ashidaria plain can only be seen with the naked eye under high magnification or ultra-low altitude aerial photography. Observed. These gullies have bothered the ponies ever since they first left their crashed ship to investigate an unidentified beacon displayed on the suit's navigation system. These cracks were just deep enough, and the sides of the edges were steep enough, as if they were deliberately meant to cause trouble for them.

At this moment, the drop on both sides of the ravine that appeared in front of the ponies could no longer be described as steep. It was basically straight up and down. "Mark, Berry," she greeted on the communication channel, "stop the rover first. We have found a deep trench that cannot be crossed safely. I would like to take this opportunity to practice my ability to detect detour routes."

"Okay," Mark replied, "Fireball, start braking."

"receive."

Berry looked at the two people around her, "Okay, Feihuo, you are responsible for the left side, and then..." She glanced carefully again. For a moment, Tingting looked as if she was going to collapse to the ground due to exhaustion, but once she realized that Arima was looking at her, she immediately sat up straight again. "Dingting, switch to the private chat channel. Feihuo, go ahead."

Pegasus winked at the two of them, but still ran to the left and took up position, starting to look for a gentle route across the ravine. After seeing her leave, Berry switched the communication system of her spacesuit to a private channel and also switched to pony language, "Okay, Dragonfly, how bad is the situation?"

"How bad is the situation?" Ding Ting still looked innocent.

Cherry Berry took a deep breath and said, "Ding Ting, I'm not in the mood to play the 'guess I'm pretending I'm not sick' trick with you right now. So don't talk to me about these things, okay?" ?Be honest, how bad is it?"

Dragonfly shrugged, "I'm not that hungry - at least I feel about the same level of hunger as usual," she replied, "But I still get tired easily. Originally, I thought the magic energy we come into contact with every day would Help me regain my physical strength, but..."

CherryBerry clenched her teeth and tightened her lips. It had been four days since their last healing session at the magic field. She really wanted to go back to the cave to see how the life support system they pieced together was working, but it seemed like Ting Ting had to go back now. But for now, this doesn't seem to be the problem. "You were seriously ill for such a long time," she said, her tone serious. "No horse can recover from such a bad situation in such a short period of time."

"The Changeling Society," Ting Ting still did not forget to show off her abilities, "We are so tough."

"Maybe it's like this where we are," Cherry Berry pointed at their surroundings, the almost white sky above their heads, and the red and brown surface of Mars beneath their feet, "Do you think a place like this now looks like home? ?! What we can give you now is just a few minutes of contact with magic energy every day, which is absolutely different from living in a normal magic field every day."

"Do you think this ghost place cares?" Tingting asked, "Believe me, I will be fine. At least I can survive for a while. And at this time, none of us must let go."

Cherry Berry sighed. Even when alone, a commander must not cry and curse the unfairness of life. Needless to say, there is nothing fair about the life they are living now. Where can you find justice on this hell planet? If fairness really exists, they must still be lying on the bed in Houston or Friendship Point or Central City or Horse Town or some corner of Horse Country that day, allowing them to board Amicitas and fly away from the launch pad with Disaster comes with a date that never ends.

But she still wanted to scream loudly enough that people on Mark's planet could hear it without a radio.

What's unfair is that she hasn't been able to eat fresh cherries for more than a year, and even highly processed cherry-flavored desserts have been out of supply for several months. It wasn't fair that Starlight had a whole year where even the simplest of spells were in danger of being permanently disabled. What's unfair is that Spitfire loses her innate ability to soar with ease in the hostile, almost non-existent skies here. It's unfair that the fireball should be brought to a place like this; that alone is outrageous. What is unfair is that Mark was trapped here by chance or accident; it may also be the instruction of Faust and her old man, as if his existence is just to prevent the five visitors from the horse country from dying miserably in this angry and resentful planet. On a scary planet.

The injustice also includes Dragonfly, please feel free to fill in the blanks here. No matter what crimes she had committed before the advent of the space age when changelings were still regarded as invading evil monsters, and no matter how many petty crimes she committed without thinking about it, she was not worthy enough to deserve such torture. Due to the loss of magic energy, it gradually decayed into a pitiful microcosm of the original strong and confident individual.

But no matter how much unpleasant emotions can be released, whining about unfairness all day long will not make the unfair situation change at all. If you want fairness, you have to fight for it yourself.

Wait, that's not right; you have to fight for it together.

Berry patted the control box in front of her space suit, and then made a gesture to switch her communication system back to the broadcast channel. After seeing the changeling also switching channels, she switched back to English and ordered, "Dingting, you stay here to be responsible for coordination. I will go to the other side to investigate."

She hadn't even taken a few steps before Spitfire reported on the channel that she had found a passable location. But that's not the point.

She had no ability to make Mars fair. But she can at least work hard to make it less unfair, and even less unfair.

Mission Log – Solar Day 398

Sirius V's second mission ended up being a journey rehearsal. I called it a day when the battery was still 4% full, and we had already traveled fifty-two kilometers. This alone is exciting enough; at a speed of fifty kilometers per day, it will only take about seventy days to reach Ares 551 MAV, which is still far away from the final launch deadline of Sol . If there are no accidents along the way, we can accept this result, but we still want to set the goal at kilometers per day. The next time we drive the rover out, we will run a performance test.

Fireball and I still have some communication lapses to deal with. After installing the turn indicators the performance improved a lot, now the main problem is with me because I keep forgetting to remind the fireball what I'm going to do next. It’s quite difficult because I have to keep teamwork in mind while driving. It’s like that time-honored joke about two kids driving a car, one steering the wheel and the other squatting under the dashboard to operate the pedals.

(Now that I think about it, isn’t this joke bound to lead to something big in the end? Forget it, my analogy is inappropriate, so just treat it as if I didn’t say it.)

Anyway, we will take a break for a few days after this test trip. We need to go back to the cave and check out what's going on there. This meant uncoupling the trailer, because since we had no intention of testing its capabilities, there was absolutely no reason to risk an accident with it. The trailer must be in perfect condition when we hit the road to Schiaparelli. If we accidentally damage the trailer, Hermes will have to leave us and return to Earth, and we will have to find another way.

I still have some ideas in mind to continue testing the rover. MD, having said that, I still have the urge to hit the road and drive to Schiaparelli now. But our preparations are far from complete. We need a concrete plan to drive all the way there. We need to make sure we make it to the end of the trip. And the two Sirius 5 missions also clearly show that we still need sufficient training.

So now patience and caution are the order of the day. After all, there are no Soviets here, and they won’t rush us to the MAV just because we want to test and confirm that orangutans can drive before they dare to try it ourselves.

hope so.