Chapter 920
Chapter 920: Chapter 870: One Minute!_1 Chapter 920: Chapter 870: One Minute!_1 “How far away is the wrench?” Lincoln subconsciously asked.
—This couldn’t have been damage caused by a wrench.
If it really was a wrench, the space capsule would instantly be punctured with a large hole!
It couldn’t have just caused this “small” impact.
The damage was likely caused by smaller, undetectable debris.
“1 minute 56 seconds!” came the immediate response through his headphones.
The command center didn’t give him a distance to calculate, but a countdown accurate to the second.
Stacy was also a bit stupefied.
Although he had extensive aerospace experience and had participated in six space missions, he had never encountered this kind of low-probability situation.
When faced with such a complex scenario, he couldn’t help but hesitate for a moment.
Go back into the space capsule?
If they’re missing a solar panel, the power system in the spacecraft would be affected.
Could they still complete the mission successfully, or for that matter, make a safe return to Earth?
Rush to repair it?
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What if the “wrench” hits it?
The whole spacecraft could be scrapped instantaneously.
They can’t just leave it to luck, can they?
Countless thoughts flashed through Stacy’s mind.
But Lincoln thought of nothing.
Once he got the answer, he looked at the point of detachment again and said, “Mavis, let me see clearly!”
As soon as he finished speaking, the image of the connection point between the solar panels and the space capsule quickly zoomed in and exactly-the high-level headband he wore left no details unnoticed, let alone with Mavis beside him.
However, his words stunned the dispatchers at the command center: “Xiajing…doesn’t understand.”
Lincoln didn’t explain, because he had seen the cause: a piece of space debris about two or three millimeters in diameter had hit the connection point, not only shattering some of the outer shell but also causing the bolts underneath to break, causing the solar panels to loosen.
The commander, after being momentarily stumped, made a decision: “02, return to the spacecraft immediately.
I’ll fix the solar panels.”
—He’s decided to take a risk.
“No.” Lincoln had already planned a rapid repair strategy, “You should hold onto my safety rope.”
“What?” This was the first time Lincoln had defied an order, causing Stacy to falter.
But in the next moment, he was shocked to see Lincoln twist his body and gently jump on the outer wall of the space capsule, instantly releasing the handhold and flying towards the point where the solar panels were detaching!
“Shit!” He instinctively grabbed the safety rope, but dared not to pull it rashly.
Stacy couldn’t help but curse in his heart: Why was he playing the hero at a time like this?!
But Lincoln wasn’t trying to play the hero.
He was already in a highly focused state.
In an instant, Mavis calculated the best force and angle for him, and transmitted the magnitude of the applied force in the form of “neural signals”.
Lincoln, through the body control trained by martial arts, applied just the right amount of force when pushing off from the spacecraft.
The already slow flight speed seemed to slow down even further in his senses, allowing him to effortlessly grab the handhold on the edge of the connecting point, prepare in advance to counteract the inertia, and successfully stop himself here.
Then he adjusted his body, grabbed the slowly detaching solar panels, dismantled the shattered shell, cleaned up the broken screws, adjusted the solar panels back into the buckle, took out the pliers from the tool bag to twist the deformed point straight, and added a new screw…
During this process, the countdown at the edge of his vision didn’t stop for a moment!
[1 minute 50 seconds]
[1 minute 49 seconds]
[1 minute 48 seconds]
…
Every second that the countdown jumped, they would be 7 kilometers closer to the “wrench”!
Lincoln was getting more and more nervous, but his hands remained steady.
After completing the emergency treatment and ensuring that it would not easily detach for the time being, Lincoln quickly put away the pliers, locked up the tool bag, and prepared to return – the time was tight, and a more detailed repair could be carried out later.
As soon as he turned his head, he saw the commander half out of the cabin, his hands tightly clutching the safety rope ready to pull him back at any moment.
With the aid of Mavis, Lincoln once again found the right angle, overlapped his posture with the figure that Mavis had simulated, and then securely stepped on the footprints that Mavis had marked red for him.
—— But after a complete emergency repair, looking at the countdown of 1 minute 7 seconds, tension finally surged, causing his strength to be slightly greater than before.
But as he “jumped” up, he realized this and prepared to apply more force to make himself “stop”.
He once again traveled across half of the space capsule to the hatch.
At the same moment as his “takeoff”, Stacy had already started to desperately pull back the safety rope.
Lincoln accurately gripped the handle outside the hatch, while at the same time Stacy released the safety rope and tightly clung to the safety belt on his chest, helping him bear the force of inertia.
But the commander was surprised to find: this force was much smaller than he had expected!
But without time to ponder, he quickly dove down, pulling Lincoln rapidly into the space capsule, retrieving the safety rope, and closing the hatch.
Then, acting on ground instructions, Nathan immediately proceeded with the orbital change.
“What were you thinking?
Do you know how dangerous that was?!” Stacy secured himself firmly, and couldn’t help but roar a sentence in the team communication channel.
But before Lincoln could answer, he took two quick breaths and couldn’t help exclaiming: “That’s fucking awesome!”
“Less than a minute, traveling to and fro half of the space capsule to complete an emergency repair, this is simply…too absurd!”
He said this, all while his arm trembled in fear afterwards.
—— He was merely a bystander and was this nervous, it was hard to imagine how Lincoln had managed to accomplish all this.
It was precisely because he was a seasoned astronaut that he understood how extremely exaggerated Lincoln’s maneuver had been!
After completing the operation, Nathan also couldn’t help but interrupt: “Your operation, in the global aerospace field, was quite explosive!
You’ve definitely made history!”
“I just don’t know if it will become a model example or a counterexample…”
Lincoln didn’t have time to feel pleased, nor did he say much more, because in his line of sight, the countdown was still ongoing.
The wrench should be well out of the way, but the “debris” was another story.
A few millimeters of debris caused such an incident, if there were a few larger pieces…it was simply unthinkable!
On the ground, who would think that a mere few millimeters of debris could cause such fatal destruction?
A speed of 7 kilometers per second was simply too horrifying!
The 2D Mavis stood by Lincoln’s side, gently placed her hand on his arm, soothing his unease.
A minute later, the orbital change was completed, and the wrench and fragments barely missed each other.
Lincoln was inside the cabin and wasn’t able to see the culprit, but he had already decided to incorporate this thing into the game.
Never mind the game for now, this easter egg must be included!
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The tension finally eased among the three people in the cabin.
“Very impressive!
Thank you.” Commander Stacy formally expressed his thanks to Lincoln.
“Indeed, too impressive!” Nathan also chimed in.
“I should be the one thanking you, without you pulling the safety rope, I would not have dared to jump over straight.” Lincoln also thanked Stacy.
It was precisely because he trusted Stacy and Mavis enough, and because of their backup and data support, that he dared to take the risk.
If it weren’t for Stacy pulling the safety rope and he made a mistake, he couldn’t say what would have happened.
In a chain reaction, it might even have led to the release of the safety rope hook, him being cast out of the spacecraft, floating lonely in the vast abyss of space until his oxygen ran out and died, never returning to Earth.
Thinking about this, before Lincoln had time to feel terrified, his eyes suddenly lit up——
“Space Debris”, “Aerospace Impact”, “Safety Rope Break”, “Survival in the Universe”, “Return to Earth”…
These key phrases combined instantly reminded him of a story.
A production process that’s relatively simple, featuring only two people for the entire journey, but it was thrilling, romantic, stimulating, and could perfectly combine with the experience of weightlessness——
“Gravity”!