My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 521

ARES 3 solar day 511

"Can you explain to me again why we can't just use magic to unscrew these bolts?"

Tingting, who was hanging upside down on the side of the flight seat, continued to tighten a bolt that fixed the seat to the floor of the cabin, and replied, "Oh, of course it's very convenient for you to do this. Then I will come to you when you are sleeping tonight, stick a straw in your ear, and suck your will to survive completely. You have experienced it before. Anyway, I feel that this idea is not very good, but if you really insist, I am willing to accompany you."

"Okay, okay," Mark muttered, "can't you let a poor man like me complain a little?"

"Mark?" Tingting fluttered around the seat a few times, turned her upside-down body over, and stared at Mark's eyes. "Watch me." She held the ratchet wrench with her right elbow, raised it above a hole in her left front leg, and then let the wrench fall into the hole. Then she raised her left front leg and swung it back and forth a few times; the wrench bounced, swayed, and vibrated in the hole, and finally slid out and hit the floor with a loud bang. "Are you going to complain?"

"No," Mark's face turned a little green. "By the way, could you please not do this again in our lifetime?"

"That can't be guaranteed." Tingting said and crawled back to her original position.

Mark muttered quietly and went back to tighten the bolts on his side. There wasn't much room for them to work. In fact, it was because there wasn't much room in here to begin with. Six seats and the accompanying consoles were crammed into a cabin that was less than half the size of the Amicitas bridge; as it stands now, the astronauts entering the cabin even have to climb over other seats in some places to get to their seats. Therefore, before they began any other modification work in the MAV cabin, the first step to be completed was to remove all the existing flight seats except for one, and then install two Amicitas flight seats that were reassembled using Mark's MDV seats as the base, so that Cherry Berry, Starlight, and Dragonfly could run flight simulations in the afternoon.

After that, the construction team will split into two groups. Mark and Starlight will be responsible for the modifications outside the cabin. The sooner these modifications are completed, the more time there will be for the magic battery to recharge. At the same time, Dragonfly and Fireball will also carry out work in the cabin simultaneously, and under the guidance of the detailed photos and diagrams sent by NASA in advance, they will complete the removal process of all the equipment on the weight reduction list step by step - and only the listed equipment.

But these are things for the future. Back to the present, the time spent on disassembling these seats alone has far exceeded expectations. In fact, Tingting is unwilling to admit that she now has an irresistible urge to secretly take a battery and transform herself into some kind of creature that can really probe into such a narrow gap, accurately match the socket to the bolt head and turn the ratchet wrench. For example, how about a tree octopus with mechanical talent? Or how about a baby hydra? It's a pity that even if the changeling transforms into Pinkie Pie's appearance, it can't get her kind of strange ability, otherwise turning into a divine horse will definitely be Tingting's first choice.

"It's done." Mark said after a moment, "I've removed the last one on my side. How long will it take on your side?"

"There is one more seat left besides this one," Tingting replied, "and we still have one seat left to remove. We will move those two seats in later."

"Fireball, how long have we been doing this?"

Nalong, who was fully dressed in a space suit except for his helmet, was lazily leaning against the open airlock door in the lower cabin of the MAV. He glanced at the clock on his navigation display, did a quick mental calculation, and then replied upstairs, "Two hours and forty-five minutes."

"It turns out it's not a year and a half," Mark said to himself, "Why does it feel so similar?"

"You sound like you're complaining." Tingting didn't want to hear that again. Just the few bolts in front of her were enough to make her feel exhausted; even though she was just standing there twisting the wrench, she felt like she had just flown from Appleloosa to Huston and back. It was actually Mark and Fireball who were carrying the heavy load, and they were not that heavy in the gravity of Mars.

Oh. Something must be wrong with her, how else can she explain it?

She started removing the last bolt, desperately twisting the fasteners that were really too tight. When they started installing the replacement seats, it seemed that she would have to let Mark or Fireball finish her work and tighten all the bolts she had tightened. After struggling to loosen so many bolts that seemed to have been tightened by a yak, she was not sure she had the energy to complete the task with quality and quantity.

She didn't complain, but kept her thoughts to herself.

When the two of them stepped into the cabin of Rover No. 2, where they were in a space where privacy was absolutely guaranteed, Meimei got to the point, "Okay, what did you want to talk to me about?"

"I can't be your operations controller," Tingting sighed, "Feihuo is the only one who can take this position."

Cherry Berry looked at the exhausted changeling in front of her, "Okay," she said softly after a while, "I have worked with you for five years now. Your English is definitely one of the best here - I feel that recently it has even surpassed Mark. You also understand the system very well. Feihuo has never touched the system, his English is also very poor, and he has not yet fully recovered." She looked directly into Tingting's eyes and asked, "Are you really that bad now?"

"Really." Tingting answered without hesitation. "Boss, just twisting the wrench for half a day makes me exhausted. For everyone's sake, I have to continue working, or at least tell Fireball what to do, but I really don't have the energy to complete the existing work while also investing enough time to practice the simulator to a standard that can reassure you. And if I'm already this weak now, imagine how bad it will be in forty days when we launch? Feihuo is gradually recovering. But I'm going downhill."

Cherry Berry didn't smell any anger or disappointment after hearing this. She did feel a lot of pity (vomit), but there was something else, a special feeling that she rarely encountered and didn't know how to taste. "I just remember the past," the pink mare murmured, "back then, even if you were covered in wounds and blood and missing arms and legs, you would still limp and insist on being able to go into battle."

"Yes. But at that time, I was the only one affected." Tingting replied, "A changeling warrior will never show weakness even in front of his friends. Especially not to his friends. But the situation now is very different. This time, if I lie, the result may be that we all die together. We have to withstand a full eight G overload at maximum thrust. Under such conditions, even a healthy Pegasus will sometimes faint. Feihuo has been trained and has strong flying skills, so she will be fine. As for me... it's better not to bet on such things."

The strange feeling in the air became stronger and stronger. "Okay." Meimei whispered, "I'll discuss this with Feihuo. Will it be a problem for you to continue to construct and modify the MAV?"

"I feel fine," Tingting replied in a low voice. "If I'm too tired, I'll quietly find some work to push onto Fireball. I guarantee he won't even notice." She thought for a moment and added, "Well, that's not entirely true. Regardless of whether I'm doing this trick or not, he'll think I'm up to something."

"If the situation changes, tell me or Mark immediately." Meimei finally said softly, "Somehow, I don't know if it's God's will, we have survived until now. I just hope that we can all walk the rest of the journey safely. You are no exception, understand?"

"Thank you." Tingting replied.

"Okay," Berry ended the topic, "let's go have lunch. After lunch you have to help me coach Spitfire and train her to get familiar with the controls."