My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

Venkat raised his head when he heard someone knocking on his office door. Randall Carter stood at the door with a shy expression on his face.

"It's terrible," Venkat lamented, "I don't know what you're here for, but it's definitely not good news."

Randall just shrugged, "Actually, the good news is that this time at least it's not as inexplicable as the previous times." He replied, "This time we have a completely reasonable dust storm forming in the Greek area, and it has already shown It’s spreading globally.”

"How bad is it?" asked Venkat. "Will it affect Schiaparelli in the next three weeks?"

"It's not too bad," Randall replied. "It seems that the Great Dark Spot has consumed a lot of the energy stored in the atmosphere by the previous heat wave. But judging from its recent movement and expansion trend, we It is basically certain that by Sol 551, some areas of the Ares 4 mission site will be affected. If I really want to give a figure, there may be a loss of % to % of the sunlight energy reaching the surface. . Of course, the MAV will inevitably be launched in a dust storm."

"Alas." Venkat could only lament, lowering his head and covering his face with his hands. Although the weather conditions when the Ares 3 MAV was launched were many times worse than they are now and did not damage the cabin structure, the portholes and extravehicular imagers on board paid a heavy price; Martinez almost had his eyes half open when docking. blind. "Is there anything else you haven't mentioned? Is there still seismic activity in the Tarsis area? Or is Mount Olympus about to erupt?"

"No, that's it so far." Randall replied, "The seismometers deployed in Ares 1/2 have not seen any movement in recent months. It's just a little more dust, nothing serious."

"It's harmless, right?" Venkat sneered, "Okay, you've already told me. If this thing starts to get bad... bad momentum means that it starts to show that it wants to kill Watney and the others again. 'In that case...please inform me immediately."

"As ordered."

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 538

ARES 3 solar day 528

"You're fucking kidding me." Mark spoke out the thoughts of everyone present.

Six pairs of eyes stared blankly at the message displayed on the computer screen.

Then five pairs of eyes turned to stare at the sixth pair.

"No, no, no," Spitfire blurted out quickly, "One is enough. Two won't do."

"Okay," Mark enlightened everyone, "Let the dust storm be a dust storm. The dust storm that Lewis and his colleagues had when they launched was much worse than this one. They are all still alive and well. We will be fine too."

"It's hard to say," Starlight Glimmer said while rubbing his hooves. "If there is a dust storm, any plan to use the Sparkling Engine in the atmosphere will be scrapped. The spell will recognize the dust and then try to find a place without dust to teleport. In the past. But there is no such place in the dust storm; I can't predict what will happen, but even if we are lucky and encounter the best situation, the engine will fail and break like the one on Sol 6."

"It's no problem," Berry said. "The Shining Engine is only used in emergencies. In this case, we just need to be more careful during the launch process. The success rate will not change much."

"Really?" Fireball asked, "Then what is the success rate?"

"Based on the simulation results we ran and the computer predictions from NASA," Berry replied, "it's ninety-seven percent."

"Hey, isn't that great!" Tingting said happily, "Boss, think about how many missions we have launched in the past with a much lower success rate than this one. It's still okay, right?"

"I don't feel much better." Fireball growled back.

"That's still ninety-seven percent," Mark tried to smooth things over. "Of course, this is indeed lower than the success rate of those old Soviet rockets... Those are truly worthless... Think about it... It’s better to shut up.”

"Thirty-two successes out of thirty-three," Cherry Berry said firmly, "The probability of safe launch is ninety-seven percent. Who wants to guess what our success rate was when we fell?"

silence.

"It seems that everyone knows what's going on." Berry then concluded, "We survived. We will continue to survive. The situation remains the same."

"It's just that we can't use the sparkling engine when we lift off." Starlight Glimmer couldn't help but add.

"Says like that won't help."

Starlight Glimmer opened her eyes while half asleep. There was a light somewhere in the cabin, and the source wasn't Fireball's nostrils. She reluctantly slid down the sleep pile, causing the dragon below to let out a soft grunt; her hooves stepped on the ground again, and she shivered at the exposed cold cabin board.

Cherry Berry curled up in a cupboard where the stored food had been emptied, silently staring at the computer screen in front of her, tapping a few keys from time to time, and then returned to staring at the screen with all her concentration.

"Berry," Starlight lowered her voice, "What are you doing?"

"What if we really meet Three Percent," Berry murmured softly, "I have to write a message and send it back. I'll go back to sleep after I finish sending it."

"Didn't you just say that we would all survive?" Starlight continued to whisper.

"Yes." Berry replied, "The data says so. All our efforts are also ensuring that we will survive. And Mark and his people have also done various jobs to ensure our survival. She pointed at the computer, "But this can still make me feel better. It's like..." She thought about the computer again, "...If I write this down, nothing will happen." . But if I hadn't written this, something would have happened, and what I was thinking at the last moment was, 'I didn't even get the chance to say this or that.'"

"So what is it that you want to say such and such?"

Berry sighed, "I haven't thought about it yet."

"Okay," Xingguang left quietly, "Then I won't disturb you."

There was not much movement as he climbed back onto the sleepy pile, just another soft hum. Everyone has long been accustomed to getting up and going to the toilet in the middle of the night. The warmth radiated from the fireball and Mark's body seemed extremely wonderful compared to the severe cold transmitted by the metal cabin. Starlight closed her eyes in relief.

But she did not return to sleep. A thought kept spinning in her mind: What would I say if I really encountered that situation?

She finally heard the sound of splashing water coming from the bow on the other side of the pressure bulkhead. First, the connection protocol was exchanged, a signal was sent to prepare to receive long messages, and a confirmation was received from the country of Malaysia; for someone with pony ears and unable to sleep, these sounds can easily be heard clearly.

Then she made out the code that followed, the splash of each letter clearly visible:

Dear Princess Celestia,

My time on Mars made me realize how lucky we ponies are to have a princess. It is difficult to stay calm when you are full of panic and fear. It's hard to always be confident when other ponies are listening to your orders. I've tried my best to the best of my knowledge, and I feel like it works in most cases, but the task is too daunting. When I go to sleep every night, I can't help but wonder if I made the right choice. I can't wait to return home to the land of horses and under the wings of our all-knowing princesses. No matter what conditions are given, I cannot bear your responsibility, and I will never take your protection as a matter of course.

your little subjects,

Cherry Raspberry

After typing a few more times to send out the ending, Starlight felt that Berry had also climbed up the sleepy pile and returned to her side. So she tensed up and remained motionless, carefully maintaining her unhurried breathing rhythm, waiting for Berry to snuggle up next to her, collapse in exhaustion, and start snoring almost immediately.

Spitfire, who was lying on the other side of her, was disturbed. "Uh... Starlight, kick Berry..." She cursed in a low voice.

Starlight softened Berry's snoring with just a gentle push.

She spent the rest of the long night just listening to snoring.