novelRainbow on Europa
| ← Ch.1574 | Ch.1576 → |
From the view above, the ice sheet surrounded by the steel structure instantly shattered, and countless dense cracks began to form. In the muffled sound of vibrations accompanied by violent shaking, large pieces of ice fragments were thrown into the air.
Previously, the L-shaped structure drill sent low-temperature explosives under the ice sheet and inserted them layer by layer. The entire project took three years, and a neat cube ice pit was precisely blasted out of the fifteen kilometers of ice.
At the same time, the Svetovid, which embedded itself in the ice, surged upwards from the huge water pressure below. Thankfully, the starship's titanium armor was durable enough, otherwise, such a blowout would be enough to squeeze the frozen Svetovid into scrap metal.
"The target is rising!"
"Continue the blasting to prevent the ice layer from freezing!"
"ROGER!"
The deafening sound of rupture came one after another from beneath the ice sheet as the low-temperature explosives embedded in the nearby ice layer blasted simultaneously. The blast generated a great amount of heat energy in the fragmented ice layer which prevented the upwelling seawater from backfilling and solidifying the cracks.
"The sensor temperature is at 11 degrees Celsius!"
"Continue the blast!"
Tan Ming's eyes fixed on the holographic screen at the ice layer marked as red.
It was the ice layer where the Svetovid was located. Driven by the water current, it was now rising rapidly at a speed slightly slower than that of the seawater. If the ice sheet froze, all efforts would be in vain. In order to keep the water temperature above the freezing point, in addition to explosives, they even prepared anticoagulants...
Of course, that was their last resort.
To inject anticoagulants would result in unpredictable effects on the fragile ecosystem under Europa's ice sheet. If possible, he hoped to solve this issue with those low-temperature explosives. Otherwise, the cost of saving these people would be too severe...
As the red layer of ice continued to rise, the explosives on both sides of the well exploded one after another.
Tan Ming watched the constantly changing temperature and water flow parameters on the screen as his palms became soaked in sweat.
When the ice suddenly got stuck a few times, his heart almost jumped out of his throat.
But fortunately, there was no unexpectedness that happened in the end. Under everyone's gaze, the red ice layer finally touched the green line with a depth of two kilometers.
"The target has reached the safety level!"
Loud cheers broke out in the command room.
Tan Ming felt his legs give out as he collapsed on the chair and let out a sigh of relief towards the ceiling. As he watched the ice layer rise at a constant speed, a heartfelt smile finally appeared on his face.
The hard work of the past three years had not been in vain.
...
The astronauts who sat in the space vehicles put on their seat belts and unfolded the metal memory shield on the top of the vehicle.
The ice fragments that had been thrown into the air by the water pressure began to fall one after another. Some of these fragments were only tossed ten meters out, while some were thrown into the low orbit. Although Europa's gravity was only one-seventh of Earth, the extremely thin atmosphere meant that these heavy objects that were thrown into the air almost maintained the same upward kinetic energy and smashed back down.
The dense ice blocks smashed down violently into the bowl-shaped memory metal shield and left craters the size of fists. The unluckiest vehicle was almost buried underneath by an ice chunk, but fortunately, the quality of the memory metal shield passed the test, and the space vehicle underneath was safe.
Finally!
The blowout was coming to an end!
The ice layer that embedded the Svetovid floated up and blocked the hole that still gushed out ice shards. A rectangular icicle rose from the center of the steel structure accompanied by bursts of loud rumblings that shook the ground. Then it formed into a huge rectangular tower with a height of more than a thousand meters.
The Svetovid was like a specimen in amber, firmly frozen in the center of the "ice tower". The explosives below stopped blasting, and the upwelling sea quickly froze the cracks. After the rectangular icicle with a longitudinal area of thousands of square meters finally lost its upward kinetic energy, it slowly came to a halt.
The hailstorm falling from the sky also gradually stopped and left only the snow and ice shards flying in the air.
The bowl-shaped memory metal shield gathered towards the center and revealed the space vehicles hidden underneath. The astronauts stepped out one by one, took out the equipment from the trunk, and walked to the colleagues buried under the snowdrift, ready to help them.
At this moment, the two astronauts who carried the toolbox stopped and looked in the direction of the icicle.
The fine ice shards drifted down slowly from the surface of the icicle. From the distance, it looked like dense mist. Jupiter in the distance radiated a soft light, and when it passed through the icy fog, there was actually a faint reflection of a rainbow.
...
"That is a rainbow? This, this is incredible!" One of the astronauts opened his eyes wide and stared at the scene in disbelief.
He had been working on Europa for almost two years, but it was the first time he witnessed such a magnificent scene.
"It should be... Damnit, I left my camera in the dorm."
"What's the matter? The video on the action recorder can be extracted, and when you go back, you can take screenshots all you want."
"That's different!"
...
Just two hours after the Svetovid broke through the ice sheet, in the holographic meeting room of Future Building, Jiang Chen met Golovin I again. In the past three years, the Earth Defense Alliance had received considerable help from the Svetovid, and now the alliance fulfilled its promise to free the Svetovid from under the ice sheet.
"I hope to discuss with you about our future home ground." As always, without any greetings, Golovin went straight to the point.
"The Earth Defense Alliance voted on Resolution 51. It is one hundred kilometers away from Heavenly Palace City and you can build your home there. There are abundant underground water, graphite, and aluminum deposits. Of course, if you're not satisfied with the environment of Mars, we can consider other options." Jiang Chen sent the location he described, together with the local topographic map and the distribution map of mineral reserves, to Golovin.
"No, we are very satisfied." After Golovin read the dozens of gigabytes of data in about two seconds, he nodded and continued, "Is there any result with your plan?"
"Which one are you referring to?"
"Earth Federation."
When Jiang Chen heard the name, his expression was a little bit awkward. He coughed softly and said, "Thanks to your old friends in the void, the situation on Earth now is far more complicated than you think. I said at the beginning that it will take at least five years."
Because of the Remnants of the Void, the history of this world started to diverge from World War Two. Although from Jiang Chen's standpoint, the history of this world was supposed to be the real history, but if there was no interference from external factors, the current global situation was supposed to be divided into three powers Pan-Asia, NATO, and the Soviet Union, instead of none of them existing...
"I must correct that, we are not friends with them, " Golovin looked to Jiang Chen, then continued, "We just promised those poor people to save the last kindle of fire for Earth civilization in return for their help to us."
"Speaking of it, I have always been very surprised by your use of this statement...I mean, didn't you also come from Earth?" Jiang Chen asked, "If you must save the fire for Earth civilization, aren't you guys the one?"
Contrary to Jiang Chen's expectation, he thought that Golovin would give him the answer without thinking, just like all the other questions he had answered. However, this time, he had given it a long thought, to the point that Jiang Chen began to wonder if there was a problem with quantum communication.
"I can understand your confusion, but I can't give you an answer, " Golovin said slowly. The pupils were so calm that there was no sign of emotion; it was impossible to see his true thoughts."Maybe in those poor people's eyes, we have become something else."
"That's really ironic, their body was already destroyed..." At this point, Golovin shook his head, then just like before, left without saying goodbye.
| ← Ch. 1574 | Ch. 1576 → |