My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 186

ARES 3 solar day 185

The No. 2 airlock door closed behind him, and Spitfire took off his helmet. Even though she has to keep flapping her wings vigorously to stay aloft for long periods of time, going out into the cave to stretch her wings always makes her feel better. At least what she was doing now was considered real flight with direction and purpose, and it was infinitely better than when she was trying to take off in the habitation module. It is true that she still can't fly very fast, she still can't hover continuously, and she can't even think about carrying items with her, but none of these can deny the fact that she can fly.

At the same time, Spitfire is still considering whether to recommend a research topic to Twilight Sparkle and her group of nerdy classmates at Celestia's Academy for Gifted Unicorns: a low-magic environment similar to a cave farm (not the same as a habitation pod). , where there is almost no magic energy at all) It may be a good training ground for those Pegasus who need to exercise their physical fitness in addition to their magical talents, and those who have all abilities such as Rainbow Dash and herself Top pilots will also be happy to experience this rare challenge.

Berry and Dragonfly in front of them also took off their helmets and walked towards the space suit storage cabinet. Now Spitfire still holds emergency drills once or twice a week, and just three drills ago there was an accident where the spacesuit was not stored in the correct position. At that time, Starlight Glimmer left her space suit on a certain workbench after finishing the call with the Equestrian side, which resulted in a very embarrassing result during the exercise: she finally stumbled to the locker only to find her space suit. He disappeared out of thin air. After a moment of hesitation, he remembered his negligence. Spitfire was very happy about this, and told Starlight that she was "unfortunately killed" during the exercise; this was also a timely wake-up call, reminding her that even the smallest decision-making error in an emergency could lead to serious consequences of death.

So from now on, the space suits will still be stored in the storage cabinet at the specified time. After all, they cannot endanger their own safety just to save the time of cleaning their hooves before lunch.

Feihuo felt very good about himself these days. She regained her purpose in life and had responsibilities that she was responsible for fulfilling almost every day. Every week, she collects key vital sign data for all Amicitas crew members, including herself, and dutifully enters it into Mark's computer and transmits it back to Earth, and also transmits it to the horse country in the form of telecommunications. She has also been paying close attention to the recovery of Starlight Glimmer's fractured front leg; although it is still a little sore and tired, overall it is healing very well. Safety drills are always indispensable - but they are no longer limited to the space suit drills at the beginning, but also gradually introduce many drill items that Mark showed her in the mission training of the Earth crew members that are applicable to the current situation. She and Tingting are responsible for running the simple simulator outside the cabin. Sometimes she even sits in the driver's seat to experience it and learn how to control a human-style aircraft.

In addition, she goes to the cave farm twice a week to help take care of the crops, but to be honest, this is not a responsibility in her opinion, but more like a reward for successfully completing other tasks.

"Hey, you're back," Mark poked his head out of the food storage area, "I prepared something special for you today."

Feihuo was stunned for a while before he translated the meaning of this sentence in his mind. Although it had been some time since she had learned to understand Mark's words, it still took a lot of brain cells to analyze a complete sentence. "special?"

"Is it a hay surprise?" Berry asked, "Why is it here again?"

"Wrong guess." Mark said, pointing to the two packages of freshly baked food on the microwave tray. "In order to thank you for the stories about your world that you told me before, I decided to share some of mine with you today. Food packages. Specially selected for you, everyone here has a share!"

Feihuo's eyes widened when he heard this. After eating alfalfa and potatoes day after day, anything else she could taste now felt like she was in heaven.

"But first, everyone has to let Tingting eat." Tingting's food is still a group hug that lasts for about one or two minutes. During this time, everyone will concentrate on thinking about their most positive thoughts about Tingting, and At this moment, Spitfire was thinking about a small accident that happened three days ago; at that time, the changeling made a stumbling block and specially set up a system where the thrust of the maneuvering thruster was blocked (maximum thrust) thirty seconds after the flight started. The malfunction caused Berry's MDV flight simulation to overturn. Although Berry asked again to recreate the accident scene and passed the test perfectly, for Spitfire, he was satisfied as long as he could see that brave missile horse suddenly in chaos for the rest of his life.

But then again, she didn't want to see this expression outside of the simulator.

"Okay, then the fireball," Mark said, "You have a piece of meatball spaghetti, and the gems are provided by yourself." He took out a bag of food from the tray and placed it on the workbench in front of the dragon.

Fireball was stunned, "How did you know?"

"what do you know?"

"Pasta is my favorite food in space." Fireball stumbled and struggled to remember how to say "favorite". "Meatballs don't count, but I don't mind. Thank you."

"Uh...you're welcome." Mark replied, "I just remembered how many times you ate pasta when you first came here. Um...please use it slowly?" After that, the smile on his face returned to before, and he Another bag of similar looking but slightly smaller food was pushed towards Cherry Berry, "You've seen this before, right?"

"Cheerilee trap!" Berry exclaimed, jumping up on the stool and hurriedly started to open the packaging bag with her hooves.

"Uh, that's called cherry pie." Mark muttered to the side.

Of course, Berry didn't respond. Hot steam escaped from the vent hole of the packaging bag. She was currently intoxicated by the aroma of cherries and rolled her eyes happily.

"Biankouba, it seems that Berry is done today." Mark said, "Xingguang, what I prepared for you is cheese scrambled eggs and boiled corn batter."

Although scrambled eggs are not Starlight's favorite by any means, her standards have lowered a lot after eating only two crops for a long time, and she finally accepted them all.

"Finally it's Feihuo's turn." Mark said, and the smile on his face gradually turned ferocious.

Spitfire cheered up. This monkey seems to be up to something evil. No matter what kind of medicine he is selling in the gourd, nothing good will happen.

"It's a pity that there is no fish in the food package sent by NASA." Mark continued, "Fish usually doesn't last long and will produce a peculiar smell in the aircraft. But I know you like things that taste crunchy. Bang bang , bang, bang."

The reward for Spitfire's previous prank was like a woody wolf from the Eternal Forest; she suddenly smelled the soul-piercing stench of the magical beast approaching step by step.

"So I specially selected the best thing here after fish. Please try... bacon!"

Mark opened the last bag of food and carefully arranged eight red and white marbled meat slices on the microwave tray. The slight crisp sound of each piece of bacon falling onto the tray was audible.

"You know, I like bacon very much." Mark continued to add fuel to the fire, "After all, it is made of pork belly. But you know, bacon tastes very salty, crispy, and greasy. For carnivores, it is just like bacon." It’s like candy, you know?”

Fei Huo's stomach started to roll, and then he stabbed hard towards the lower left.

"But it's very important that we remember to pay tribute to the pigs who generously sacrificed their lives for our delicious and nutritious breakfast." Mark said, "So when you eat breakfast, I hope you have this in your mind What the pig looked like when he was alive." He pushed a piece of bacon in front of Spitfire and said, "This guy's name is Piggy."

Starlight and Berry, who were watching Mark from the side, were now terrified. Berry didn't even care to smell the cherries in front of them. Fireball was at the other end of the spectrum, grabbing a spoon and stirring small pieces of topaz and pasta while grinning at the show. There was no obvious smile on Ting Ting's face, but her innocent look was obviously overdone and unconvincing.

"This is the morning cow pig," Mark added, offering Spitfire a second piece of bacon. "They went into the slaughterhouse together, and they spent the last moments of their lives not forgetting the people who would eat their bodies. Happiness." He stretched out a finger and pushed another piece, "And Wilbur, Zuckerman's famous pig." One piece after another, "This is Baby Pig, a famous public speaker."

Spitfire finally found the ability to speak again, but her courage was still missing. "You're such a weak soul," she cursed in Pony.

"Oh, thanks, I don't have to." Mark pretended that he didn't understand, "You can eat Little Pig, Petunia Pig, Wilbur and Baby Pig. And Miss Piggy, Hampton, Pua (Ocean) Romance), and finally Hollywood star Arnold Ziffel." all made their debut. Eight slices of bacon were piled neatly on the tray under Fei Huo's chin, glowing with oil, and she was so shocked that she could barely close her mouth. "Honor their memory and get going. Don't let their noble sacrifice go to waste."

Feihuo looked at the strands of muscle and fat in front of him. She knew what was going on - she had experienced many similar incidents in her career, both proactively and passively. This behavior is an important part of team status; she had given Mark a hard time with her fishy prank, and now he was retaliating with tit-for-tat to even the score. If she wanted to maintain her advantage now and take back the fruits of victory that he was about to gain, there was only one way to go: eat them all, and at least pretend to enjoy them.

For a moment Spitfire seriously considered throwing in the towel. If she chose to surrender, Mark would laugh it off; and based on what she knew about Mark, he would give her something else good from his food bag and never speak of it again. In fact, she already thought she could basically guess what Mark was preparing: She had seen the combination of eggs, cornmeal batter, bacon and mini cream cheese pies in Mark's breakfast more than once before.

She could almost taste the meringue now.

However, the strong self-esteem in her heart took over the words: This is not a bad thing; because when you imagine the deliciousness of puff pastry pie in your mind, what you chew in your mouth is the flesh and blood of a pig; because the monkey in front of you can't even think about it. I was the butt of the joke.

She picked up a piece with her hoof and bit into it.

She didn't like the greasy feel of fat at all, especially the grease coating that quickly formed inside her mouth after chewing. However, the texture of those muscle fibers is indeed very crisp and chewy, with a somewhat strong special smell... The thick salty taste lingers on the tip of the tongue, but it still cannot cover up the greasiness.

Even though she felt sick just thinking about it, she found that she couldn't wait to take the second slice. So the second piece was also released.

When Spitfire picked up the third piece of bacon in full view of everyone in the Hab, she thought Mark would further add insult to injury and bring up the names and various life events that were on her plate. If a similar situation happened in Malaysia, this would be considered normal operation - try to see how long your teammates can hold out. But Mark didn't act harshly, probably because (despite the fact that he dug this hole for Spitfire) he wasn't that bad of an asshole yet. She heard the kind of wrapping paper commonly used in food packages rustling somewhere, and knew that Mark was hiding a package of mini pies behind his back, just waiting for her to cry and call her daddy.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth pieces were also swallowed. By the time she finished chewing her sixth slice of bacon, the saltiness had lost its appeal. She had had enough of bacon and didn't want to try any other meat. She was sincerely sorry now, and she should never have made fun of Mark for being obsessed with his omnivorous habits in the first place. By God, she'll never make a joke about eating meat again.

But her unyielding pride still drove her to mechanically pick up the seventh piece of bacon, put it in her mouth, chew it and swallow it.

All the while her digestive system threatened to retrace the steps of the first six slices of bacon.

She slowed down and chewed the seventh piece, desperately trying to find a step for herself to get off. Finally she saw hope.

She pointed to the eighth film and asked: "His name is Ayande? A great actor? Do you like him?"

At this time, Mark, whose face was almost as gray as the other ponies, seemed to have lost his soul; he was stunned for a while before he stuttered and replied: "Well...well, he should actually be considered a senior. But I still saw it He appeared in several productions. Truly one of the great pig actors of all time."

Spitfire shook her head after hearing this, "I've never met him." She said, "You know him better. You commemorate his memory more." After that, she stretched out her hoof and pushed the last piece of bacon towards Mark.

Mark thought about it for a moment, shrugged, put a weak smile on his face and said, "That makes sense." He swallowed the bacon in two or three mouthfuls, and then took out a vacuum-sealed portion. Pastries, "Would you like some dessert?"

"Wait a moment." Spitfire said, "Bacon is brittle but also easy to gain weight. I want to go for a walk to digest it." She walked towards the space suit storage cabinet and added in pony language, "No one can touch my share, understand?"

After that, she slowly walked towards her space suit, towards airlock three, and then walked out of the habitation module with her unyielding self-esteem. Somehow she was able to endure a full stomach of unhappiness until she passed through the Hab airlock, passed through the Amicitas airlock, and reached the zero-gravity toilet of the pony ship before being released.

The toilet on the ship doesn't actually flush her vomit away, but simply dumps it on the ground below the ship; the waste freezes and dries in just a few minutes and can be easily collected elsewhere. Carry out burial treatment. It was already unspeakable to ask her to bury her mouth in the small metal container in the toilet that was supposed to receive the filth discharged from the other end of the body, and this task was even more humiliating.

But at least you didn't show weakness in front of that monkey, her pride responded.

Then her stomach found a piece of leftover bacon that hadn't been cleaned out, and the rest of her mind actually silenced her pride.

He looked at the document on the monitor. The title read: "Our children (unsere kinder)." As long as he attaches this document to an email with a changed sender header, he can press a button and directly end his career.

He once dreamed of becoming an astronaut. He also submitted application materials, but always failed to meet the health standards. However, NASA always has unsatisfied engineering positions, and those engineers with management skills are even more popular. Indeed, his management skills are much weaker than his engineering abilities, but this is also one of the characteristics of NASA: the reward for completing a job with excellent results is to take on a hot potato that you don't like. Venkat Kapoor, for example: an astrophysicist who wrote his PhD thesis on supernovae inexplicably became the project leader of the Mars exploration program.

As a result, his position within NASA climbed up the ranks like no one else. Instead of donning the blue one-piece space suit of his dreams, he wore a suit and tie. Unless he is willing to spend money to buy a tourist ticket from SpaceX or Virgin Galactic, the closest he will get to space in his life will be when he is sitting in the first class of an international flight. (In fact, it is impossible for him to spend so much money, because even if going to space is his dream, he still can’t bear to burn his hard-earned salary for a year just to stay above the atmosphere for an hour or two.)

However, he never lost his admiration and respect for those rare astronauts. Both men and women are the elite among human elites. They are not afraid of the dangers they face, and they will not take risks just to seek excitement; risk is just one of many ladders for them, helping them to climb higher.

This is what differentiates him from the other senior executives in suits and ties. Both Teddy and Venkat thought the astronauts were a little crazy and felt that they were just exploring blindly without understanding the risks lurking behind them. However, he didn't think so. Astronauts understand risk like no other; if they didn't, they wouldn't be astronauts in the first place.

To be honest, if Teddy or Venkat understood the risks as well as they think they do, they would be exploring space on Hermes by now, and the bureaucrats who sit behind their desks and tell them what to do would be somewhere else. A group of people.

But now it's his turn to weigh the risks. Once that email was sent, his career would essentially be over. It actually didn't matter to him; as expected, NASA management would definitely give him some face and allow him to retire honorably and find a job as a sinecure with one of NASA's contractors. Of course, he will have to regret leaving this land that carries infinite love in his heart, but if doing so means saving Mark Watney and those alien refugees, it is worth it to him.

But he is not the only one actually taking the risk. What if he sent this email and the astronauts on Hermes decided to use the Richie Purnell maneuver? This is forcing NASA to take action. Even if Mark and his friends finally return to Earth safely, they will be kicked out without any shame.

Having said that...it depends on how they choose. After all, he didn't give them any direct orders.

But... But Teddy's coward was right. How they would decide was already a certainty. Unless there is an unexpected accident like a micrometeorite impact, Hermes can always make it to the end of the journey; there are still many uncertainties in modifying Ares 4 MAV for orbital rendezvous, but NASA still has nearly a year to consider solutions. plan. There is no reason why this plan cannot work, and in the end it will reduce many of the unnecessary risks involved in allowing Mark and the others to stay on Mars for almost another year - everything is possible during the extra solar days. It's possible, and there's a high probability that it won't be good. The astronauts all knew this, not to mention that Watney was one of theirs. What they decide will be as predictable as the results of atomic decay.

But... how much risk can be reduced by doing this?

Watney is not currently facing any foreseeable serious danger. Assuming nothing happens to Sleipnir 768 and the fuel replenishment is completed in time on Sleipnir 3, they will have enough food supplies to survive until Ares B rescue arrives on Sol in just fifty solar days. . If another sixty solar days pass, even Sleipnir may not be useful. Mark now has control over the habitat modules, rover, alien spacecraft and caves. If any one of them leaks, he can temporarily evacuate to other locations to wait for repairs to be completed. And those aliens can also provide him with absolutely sufficient air and water resources.

They are indeed still exposed to dangers of all kinds - whether it's the vast unknown, a lack of concentration or a malfunctioning equipment that could kill them. But does this mean it's worth sacrificing the career prospects of six astronauts and allowing the other five to persist in a dangerous environment for another year and a half, just to shorten this situation by 217 solar days? That's it?

The cursor on the monitor pointed at the email application, his finger hovering hesitantly over the mouse button.

He then moved his cursor to another email program he usually used for daily internal NASA communications.

It will take another six days for Hermes to start braking and prepare to transfer to Earth orbit. If the astronauts ultimately decide to perform the Purnell maneuver, they will need a day to prepare and initiate the process. Starting the launch earlier will not change the date they ultimately arrive at Mars, but will only slightly reduce the amount of thrust required for the maneuver.

He could wait another four days and wait and see.

At the same time, he also had the opportunity to get wind of the situation.

He opened his email address book, created a new email message to the SpaceX engineering department, and started typing on the keyboard.