Chapter 1399: Almost Like It’s Alive!

What it felt like to fall from a height of hundreds of kilometers?

Lu Zhou felt that, after this expedition, he knew this feeling better than anyone other than the people in the Airborne Brigade team.

The feeling of standing on the critical line between life and death caused the adrenaline in his body to soar. His hands held tightly onto the armrests of the seat, and he could even hear his own heartbeat.

When the landing capsule fell into the sea of sand, it was the first time Lu Zhou felt that life was beautiful.

He also felt like the Institute of Aeronautics at the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study should make the landing more comfortable.

After a series of violent tremors, the heavy alloy hatch opened suddenly.

The wind engulfed the yellow sand, blowing it on everyone’s suit.

Professor Vernal unlocked the connection of the life support system in the cabin. He stood up from the cushioned seat and walked out of the cabin. As he looked at the vast desert, his eyes were filled with indescribable shock.

“Jesus… It feels like being in Egypt.”

“Egypt?”

“Yeah…”

Professor Vernal’s knees touched the ground. He kneeled on the ground and picked up a hand full of sand. When he felt the touch of the alien planet through the spacesuit’s graphene fibers, his face was full of excitement and shock.

“… I worked there for three years. From the Nile to the Sahara Desert, our archaeological team’s footprints traversed the entire country… But even then, I have never seen such a spectacular scenery.”

“Is there any civilization here?” Lomonov said as he stepped across the hatch and went on the ground. He squinted his eyes and looked at the heavy sand and dust. He then glanced at the gamma counter on his wrist-mounted computer and said, “… Even Chernobyl has less radiation than here.”

“From an astronomical point of view, it is possible.” Professor Aubrey squinted his eyes and said, “Compared with the age of the universe, our civilization only exists for a brief moment.

“From the academic point of view, 3 billion years ago, maybe 4 billion years ago, before the core of Mars had cooled down, there used to be an atmosphere thicker than Earth. Freshwater lakes were distributed on the surface of the planet. In theory, it had the conditions for life. On the contrary, Earth was like hell back then, similar to how Venus is today.”

Lu Zhou turned on the positioning device and set the coordinates. He was the last to walk out of the landing module. He looked up at the approaching Mars rover in the distance and interrupted the small chat in the communication channel.

“Let’s stop talking about academic problems. Everyone, pack up and prepare to go to the base station.”

However, there was nothing to pack. Each person’s personal belongings was only a 26-inch aerospace-grade suitcase. This was embedded behind the shell of the landing module.

After everyone pulled the suitcase with their own number from the landing compartment, the rover in the distance drove to the side.

The door of the rover opened outward. An astronaut jumped out of the rover and walked quickly to Lu Zhou. His voice was a little incoherent from the excitement.

“Lu-Academician Lu, you came here in person?”

Lu Zhou looked at the nervous astronaut and shook hands with him. He spoke with a smile.

“It’s fine, don’t be so nervous, what is your name?”

“Fan Tong!” The astronaut continued happily, “Can I ask you for an autograph?”

Fan Tong?

The name sounded a bit familiar to Lu Zhou. If he remembered correctly, this should be the researcher of the “Outlier 128” project. Strictly speaking, Fan Tong was under Lu Zhou’s research team.

“Let’s talk about this later. Go drive, I have things to ask you later.”

“Yes, sir!”

Fan Tong quickly climbed back into the rover.

Lu Zhou turned around and began to tell others to tie their luggage to the rover. He then took the lead and got into the rover. He ordered Fan Tong to drive the rover.

Because the landing site itself was near the base station, the drive wasn’t long. When they approached the base, they saw three hemispherical domes slowly descending from the air with the help of their engines. They landed and were deployed in the open space next to the scientific research base station.

The international friends sitting in the rover showed looks of surprise on their faces. Especially Lomonov, an aerospace engineer from Russia, stared through the rover window with both eyes wide open. His whole body was stunned.

“Jesus Christ…

“How did you guys do this?”

Lu Zhou smiled and spoke casually.

“It’s actually nothing special.”

Lomonov turned his head and glanced at Lu Zhou with a strange expression.

Nothing f*cking special?

The colony capsules weighing tens of tons were dropped directly from the outer space orbit. The active jet engine was used for deceleration. It even landed accurately in the circled area…

Lomonov couldn’t help but feel a little sad.

Although he came to the Jinling aerospace launch site from Moscow for the purpose of studying, he still didn’t expect the gap to be this big.

From aerospace launch technology to outer planet landing, he couldn’t find a single domain where the Roscosmos excelled in.

These Chinese people had not only completely dominated the entire industrial chain but even achieved the ultimate level of technology in every chain that he could imagine. It seemed that they were indeed too far behind of the times.

The rover passed by the functional module that was just deployed and slowly drove into the garage of the scientific research base station.

The alloy gate closed. Cutting off the sand and wind from outside.

Cleaning fluid was sprayed out of the buffer chamber, covering every corner of the rover in all directions. Then the group of people got off the rover and was cleaned as well.

After the ventilation device filled the pressure buffer room with air, they changed out of their extravehicular spacesuits and put on lighter indoor clothes.

The alloy door on the side opened. The highest-ranking officer of the scientific research base, Captain Liang Youcheng, walked to the front of the group and spoke with a smile.

“Welcome to the Mars Scientific Research Base. I’m Liang Youcheng, the captain of the scientific expedition team stationed here. I hope that in the next month or even two months here, you will feel at home. I will take you guys to your rooms soon. Dinner time is at 18 o’clock, Beijing time. You can move around freely before then, or you can follow me for a visit inside the base station.

“Also, I have been briefed of your mission. If there is anything that needs help, just tell me directly.”

Liang Youcheng looked at Lu Zhou and asked him if he had anything to add.

“That’s the basics. Free time before dinner, or follow Captain Liang to visit the facilities here. I have nothing to add.” Lu Zhou nodded toward Captain Liang and looked at Fan Tong standing next to him. He said, “Dr. Fan, come with me.”

Fan Tong immediately raised his head and stood up straight.

“Yes, sir!”

The group of people followed Captain Liang to their respective rooms. Meanwhile, Lu Zhou took Fan Tong to the meeting room next to the pressure buffer room.

The alloy door closed. Lu Zhou pulled a chair and sat down like he was in his own home. He then motioned to Fan Tong to find a place to sit casually.

“Tell me briefly about the situation here.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything about Project 128.”

Fan Tong’s expression suddenly became serious. He nodded and spoke.

“I have been researching this over the past month.”

“In order to find out why the fractured structures suddenly appeared and disappeared, I tried to send a remote control vehicle to explore the underground cave. However, due to the limited propagation distance of electromagnetic wave signals, I could only use wired control to operate. The control distance of the vehicle is limited. I can’t go deep into the cave, but I still found a lot of suspicious things.”

Lu Zhou: “Suspicious?”

“Yeah.”

Fan Tong nodded and continued with a solemn expression.

“The terrain below The Gates of Hell mountains changes very frequently. There is a large change almost every 71 minutes and a small adjustment every 34 minutes. As for the seismic structure, it appears to be random. It doesn’t appear to follow a statistical law. At first, we thought it was a special geological structure of Mars, but based on the feedback of the distribution and intensity of seismic waves, we found that things were not that simple.

“There is no indication that the regional seismic action caused such peculiar and frequent changes in its underground structure. It is more likely to be mechanically driven.”

“Mechanically driven?” Lu Zhou hesitated slightly. He then said with a smile, “How is that possible?”

“I also think it’s impossible, but there doesn’t seem to be a better explanation.” Fan Tong’s face showed a headache. He said, “In theory, no matter how great a project is, it will still disintegrate over time. However, I really can’t think of any other explanation that can cause such strange changes in those tunnels.

“It’s almost as if… it’s alive!”

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