Chapter 1673 Captain’s Meeting

When the tiny soul looks into the void through the porthole, the void always responds with silence.

On the bridge of Lewis and Clark, silence enveloped most people, including Dr. Will.

He is an elegant middle-aged man with short black hair neatly combed back. His neatly ironed dark blue cabin uniform has sharp and straight folds. His wet and melancholy eyes reveal a gray vision, and he is reading non-stop. Report on tablet, holding pen in hand to perform complex calculations. The air here is very dry, very clean, and at the same time very cold, with the smell of gray circulating filters. The air is full of the almost imperceptible high-pitched hum of the instruments when they are running. The force generated by the spin firmly holds the crew Pressed to the floor of the habitat.

Everyone gathered around the round table, and Captain Miller, who was sitting opposite Dr. Will, was looking at him, his dark face full of seriousness. As an experienced astronaut, he knew that this mission was unusual. The person who organized the rescue operation was Dr. Weir, who seemed to be out of tune with everyone. Even the most lively crew members seemed extremely troubled at this moment.

Captain Miller glanced at the round table. He believed that Dr. Weir must give everyone here an answer, one worth risking their lives and spending several years flying on a spacecraft that has not been technically verified, and one worthy of letting them put down everything on the earth and being attached to it. person's answer. The middle-aged woman sitting next to Dr. Weir is also wearing an aerospace uniform and a grass-green coat. Her neat short reddish-brown curly hair is combed back wetly. She is holding a tablet computer, and a video is playing on the tablet computer. video. A boy with short reddish-brown hair was wrapped tightly and sat in a trolley, bumping around under her push and laughing loudly. That was her son, a physically disabled child.

She had no time or opportunity to say goodbye to her children who were far away on Earth, so she hurriedly embarked on this extremely dangerous and unprecedented journey, extending human footprints to the edge of the solar system. Everyone else on the ship had similar worries, and the background check told Captain Miller a lot.

"I must apologize to you again for letting you board this ship, Doctor Peters." Captain Miller's voice broke the silence, and at the same time, the middle-aged woman raised her head. The latter's eyes reluctantly moved away from the tablet. "This meeting is democratic. I have told you about the predicament we are currently facing. After more than four months of sleeping from hibernation and forty contacts with no response, Houston is unable to give any instructions. What do you have? Anything you want to say, Dr. Peters?”

"Regardless of whether we can contact Earth now, we must complete this journey." Dr. Peters said, "We have spent so long getting here, and we must rescue the crew of the Event Horizon no matter what. I believe they at least have Some people will stay in the hibernation chamber and sleep. The hibernation chamber experimental data comes from the observation of Captain America Steve Rogers, and some also come from cryonics experiments. Under extreme conditions, the crew of the Event Horizon can persist for seven years or more. long."

Lieutenant Cooper, the search and rescue officer, nodded vigorously, supporting Dr. Peters's opinion with all his expressions.

This optimistic black guy is not intimidated by the current situation. He believes that the current inability to contact the earth does not mean anything. No matter whether the radio signals they send can reach their destination (referring to the Houston command center), they will have to stuff their stomachs with unpalatable jelly nutritional paste and vitamin tablets before returning.

"I don't mind sharing those nutrients with the Event Horizon." He said with a grin. "If they all stay in the hibernation cabin and sleep, it means there is still a lot of food on the Event Horizon. As far as I know As you know, the Event Horizon spacecraft is much larger than this ship, and their food is much better than ours. Am I right, Dr. Will?"

Dr. Will raised his head and looked around at everyone.

"Yes, there are a lot of shelf-stable dehydrated meats and vegetables on the Event Horizon spacecraft. I believe the crew of the Event Horizon will be very happy to taste the familiar taste after they are rescued."

Dr. Weir responded in a gentle tone. His identity as the designer of the Event Horizon has been known to others from the moment he landed in Earth orbit, but Captain Miller knows more. He also knows the reason why Dr. Will is willing to drop everything on Earth to accept this rescue. The action was assigned partly because there were no humans left on Earth that Dr. Will cared about. Dr. Will's wife has passed away, and a careless man has exiled himself into the cold endless void.

"I know, I have an answer for all of you. The reason why NASA is willing to do whatever it takes to find out all the information about the Event Horizon spacecraft is because the Event Horizon is a spacecraft equipped with a hyperspace engine. It can It carries humans to travel at faster than light speeds to places we have never set foot on, and that hyperspace engine is a product that we cannot copy or reverse engineer.”

Dr. Will picked up a magazine that was several years out of date, pulled out two overlapping pages, and then pierced them together with a pencil. The Lewis and Clark spacecraft was also designed by him, but Dr. Weir only joined it as part of the project, not the chief designer - Chief Designer Dr. Wendy Lawson, the talented woman who launched the Pegasus in 1989. He was killed in a flight accident during the plan, leaving behind highly automated aerospace projects including the Lewis and Clark and Event Horizon that were completely unattainable at the technological level at the time, and many technological black boxes used in aerospace.

Dr. Weir believes that Dr. Wendy Lawson is far more intelligent than Tony Stark, who is praised by the world.

After that, Dr. Will continued to work in the Pegasus Project. This is how he met Captain Miller, who was still working in the Pegasus Project at the time, and became his partner. At the same time, precisely because of the high degree of automation of Lewis and Clark, the space agency does not require candidates to have a considerable degree of electronics and mechanical knowledge when selecting astronauts. Dr. Weir’s explanation is for those astronauts who do not have relevant knowledge of physics. .

"This is how the hyperspace engine works. The Lewis and Clark spacecraft is the product of the same plan as the Event Horizon spacecraft. It is also a technological black box that cannot be reverse engineered, so NASA can only send us to perform rescue operations. Mission. No ship other than the Lewis and Clark can reach Neptune as quickly as we can. We must recover the Event Horizon spacecraft and its crew. Only by figuring out where the Event Horizon has been in the past seven years can we obtain super Only with the experimental data of the space-time engine can we know whether the hyper-space engine can allow mankind to take another step towards the universe."

Except for Dr. Peters, Captain Miller, and the pilot, Lieutenant Smith, no one expressed understanding to Dr. Will.

"I won't go into details about the relationship between gravity and time. I believe that you have studied the classic Doppler effect in college, and you also know that you have studied the phenomenon of time dilation - if not, the Houston Command Center must have taught it before departure - Global The positioning system (GPS) is also an ongoing experiment in general relativity and special relativity." Dr. Will said with some emotion. He showed all the crew members the densely packed calculation formulas and operation steps he had written on the scratch paper, "I dare not say that this theory is completely correct, even if it was Einstein captured by Dr. Jane Foster in New Mexico." -The Rosen Bridge data cannot completely solve my doubts. I don’t know whether the crew of the Event Horizon spacecraft will encounter the twin paradox with us, but what is certain is that artificial wormholes serve as tunnels linking distant time and space. When the Event Horizon started the hyperspace engine, the ship was no longer in this universe, and it could not be measured by the time we have experienced. In other words, we don’t know how long the crew of the Event Horizon lived, maybe For them, it was just an instant, and they arrived seven years later. Is time a sea or a river? Friends, the Event Horizon went to a distant place, so is the location they arrived in the past or the future?"

"Let's give up on that bold assumption, Will."

Captain Miller straightened up. He really couldn't let Dr. Will continue to vent. Those words were really frustrating. Of course, except for Lieutenant Cooper, he has realized that the so-called hyperspace engine is a time machine, but even Dr. Will is not sure whether the Event Horizon spacecraft has really been to the past or the future.

"What are you calculating?"

"Before calculating the answer to our arrival question, will Lieutenant Cooper (search and rescuer) and Lieutenant Smith (pilot) starve to death, and will our oxygen supply still allow some people to smoke in the cabin." Dr. Will stood up Get up and put away the papers on the table. "I am not as energetic as these two young men, Miller, my old friend." He said, "If you will allow me, it would be better for me to get some sleep."

"I'm not as good at eating as Cooper," Lieutenant Smith complained.

Captain Miller laughed at the long-lost humor.

"On an astronomical scale, we are very close to the Event Horizon," the captain said. "According to Dr. Will's calculations, our food and circulating fresh water reserves are enough to support our return. The Event Horizon is not equipped with a sublight engine. Therefore, we still have one task, which is to return the Event Horizon to Earth orbit. When we return, we will implement a rationing system to ensure that both the Event Horizon and the Lewis and Clark can return safely. Lieutenant Smith, if the pilot of the Event Horizon is unlucky If you are in trouble, then I will need you to pilot that spacecraft to return with us. Dr. Will will provide you with help and make you familiar with the driving system of the Event Horizon."

The four-month voyage would not allow the Punishment to catch up with the Lewis and Clark.

This sky aircraft carrier sailed in silence, and the anti-collision lights all over the edge of the hull flashed red and white, like a series of twinkling stars in the void. This ship was once sent into the underground world from an altitude of 10,000 meters by the emperor. Then with the help of hundreds of improvised rocket thrusters, it pushed tens of thousands of tons of seawater out of the seabed and reappeared in the sky, so brilliant that it seemed to jump out of the sea. Giant whale on the water.

When the sky aircraft carrier returned to the world, it was replaced with a thicker and tougher adamantine keel. The length and width were more than doubled, and it could accommodate nearly 10,000 crew members. Highly automated equipment kept the crew number at about 6,000 people. This does not include the commandos carried in this operation, and most of the space is used as a hangar, responsible for carrying a large number of void fighters and transport aircraft. All the passages were widened, allowing tall guardsmen to walk in any passage. Constantine walked into the training room. His arrival made a large group of commandos of the First Secret Regiment who were training stop. training movements, stopping the dance training and physical recovery training, all the commando team members turned their attention to the golden-armored demigod who filled the entire sealed pneumatic door. They were obviously at a loss for the arrival of the emperor's guard. Many people even felt nervous - especially the team conducting shooting training. Many people subconsciously put their fingers on the trigger, and then they immediately realized how stupid they were for doing so. They were unable to resist the fear that came from the depths of their genes and faced with more evolved and more threatening creatures - then, short and powerful orders were issued by commanders at all levels. In less than thirty seconds, the entire huge All the commandos in the cabin gathered in front of Constantine. The gas blown into the ventilation duct from the air circulation machine could not completely dilute the smell of propellant and sweat in this huge cabin.

"Sir!" Nicki was fully armed and stood in front of Constantine.

There were obvious signs of self-repair and a sealing tie on his armor. It was obvious that before the arrival of the Guards, Niqi was leading his team to conduct emergency medical training. This is crucial in void combat. If the space suit is damaged and the automatic repair system of the void combat suit (actually, it is a dense capillary tube under the space suit, the capillary tube is filled with chemical colloids of different compositions, and is pumped by a very small pump. The body functions and can quickly solidify after the capillary is broken) and cannot be repaired. Emergency medical training has become the key to protecting the survival of soldiers.

During the long voyage of more than two months, these soldiers trained day after day.

Although these soldiers have once boarded the Tianjian Space Station, the concept of being on a space station in orbit is different from sailing far away from the earth. Here, the soldiers cannot see the earth or the moon with the naked eye. Looking out from the portholes, only Desolate planets and dark voids. All the stars are so far away, their cold light cannot warm the skin. The medical department made lengthy plans before setting sail, from physical training and supplements needed to maintain health, to various medical drugs and psychotropic drugs to relax the mortal crew. Constantine had always believed that a weak mind was an insurmountable barrier for mortals, but he could not use this theory to explain why these soldiers would voluntarily board the Punishment, just like they took another sky carrier to the Kuiper Belt. Greet the Emperor and fire cannon fire at the beast in the void.

The Lord Commander of the Praetorian Guards was curious as to whether the minds of these mortal soldiers were strong enough.

"I just came to inform you that the medical department has sent a new drug list."

"Sir, you shouldn't be the one to inform about this kind of thing." Niqi saluted and took the document.

"The Imperial Guards are responsible for patrolling. I just dropped by to improve efficiency." The Guards Commander covered up his curiosity with a little lie. To be precise, he didn't even realize his curiosity, because the psychological adjustment made him no longer have ordinary human emotions. This strange feeling was like rough sand rolling on the tip of his tongue, which was difficult to swallow. "In addition, the Praetorian Order has prepared a proportional training room in the Event Horizon cabin. All commandos must participate in the training."

"I know, it was the scene where we built it with cargo boxes." Nicky shrugged, "You don't know about this?"

"I didn't look at the documents. I thought it was built by servitors."

"I've got to give the boys something to do, sir, or they'll make the ship dirty with their shenanigans. Believe me, they've got it."