"Hello." Zhang Fan.

"Hello," Yui said.

"Nice to meet you."

"Me too."

"Well……"

"Um."

"that……"

"Um."

It was so awkward.

The two of them just stood there, dumbfounded.

Although he had imagined meeting Yui countless times in his mind, and even prepared several sets of dialogue, Zhang Fan felt like an idiot when the girl actually stood in front of him.

Katerina stepped forward, past the two, and looked at Ivanka, who was walking down the gangway of the Apollo spacecraft.

Zhang Fan immediately tensed up. He saw Katerina trembling all over. Although he didn't know why she was trembling, it was definitely not a good sign.

"Long time no see, Katerina, how have you been?" Ivanka walked over with a smile.

“Thanks to you, I’m doing very well.” Katerina opened her arms to welcome Ivanka’s embrace. “Darling, you have no idea how much I’ve missed you.”

"Now that you're back, you're not allowed to leave again!"

“I will slowly tell you about my life at ‘Peace Station’ over the past six months.”

"You'll absolutely understand!"

"Hehehe."

Katerina's laughter sent chills down Zhang Fan's spine; it seemed she was about to have another episode.

Zhang Fan regretted bringing Katerina along.

“Ivanka, I’ve finally caught you, I…”

Seeing the two embracing, and with Katerina still hiding the small knife on her wrist, Zhang Fan broke out in a cold sweat, wanting to remind Katerina not to be too impulsive.

"Katerina, don't be so impulsive..."

Snap—

Zhang Fan's reminder came too late.

A syringe pierced Katerina's spacesuit and plunged into her neck.

Katerina's eyes widened, and she slowly collapsed to the ground, her face filled with resentment...

“Sigh…” Ivanka looked at Katerina lying on the ground and sighed helplessly, “You still talk too much. You’re really not suited to be a villain.”

Huh, what's going on?

Zhang Fan stood there, completely bewildered.

“Your name is Fan, right?” Ivanka beckoned to Zhang Fan. “Come help me lift her up, she’s fainted.”

"Be careful not to knock the syringe over, or her spacesuit will leak air. Let's get back to the base first."

"It's just an anesthetic; she'll wake up in a bit."

Zhang Fan carried Katerina onto the Mars rover, and the four of them returned to the "Bird's Nest".

Back at the base, Ivanka took the unconscious Katerina to the medical pod.

Zhang Fan was so anxious in the control room that he couldn't sit still or stand still.

Even if the "Bird's Nest" is huge, the space is still limited, and Ivanka and Katerina will inevitably meet again in the future.

They're about to meet, won't they continue their life-or-death struggle? We can't keep Katerina locked up again, it seems the base will never be peaceful again.

"Yui, why do you seem so unconcerned?" Zhang Fan watched as Yui teased Bob, the beauty and the beast seemed to be having a great time and getting along quite well.

"What's there to worry about? Hehe." Yui, carried on Bob's shoulders, ran around happily. "Besides being an astronaut, Ivanka also has a medical doctorate. What's there to worry about?"

"But the conflict between them is so great that even if they know medicine, people will still die."

“You don’t need to worry about that, Mr. Zhang Fan. Ivanka is very smart; she can handle it.” Yui got off Bob and pointed behind them, saying, “Look, aren’t they here?”

Zhang Fan turned around, his mouth agape in astonishment.

He saw Katerina and Ivanka walking in hand in hand, like a pair of close best friends.

What's going on here?

Zhang Fan was completely dumbfounded.

Are relationships between women always this complicated?

Ivanka came in and asked Zhang Fan for the astronaut access to the "Bird's Nest" stadium. Zhang Fan then transferred the access to two astronauts to Ivanka and Yui. The four of them then went to the automated restaurant for a meal.

Yui was the happiest during the meal. She had been starving for a day on the way to Phobos. Although there was some food on the Apollo spaceship, it was all canned food, which was of course not as delicious as fresh food.

As Zhang Fan ate, he kept glancing at Ivanka and Katerina, his eyes filled with boundless amazement.

"By the way, may I ask you something?" Zhang Fan asked curiously, "What are you two doing at 'Peace Station'?"

The mysterious 10 years of the "Peace Station" Mars base are something that cannot be ignored.

"Didn't Katerina tell you?" Ivanka asked while eating.

She said she'd ask you when you came down.

“Uh…” Ivanka thought for a moment and said, “Anyway, there are no humans left, so it’s not really a secret. I won’t hurt to tell you.”

“Fan, do you know about ‘Sun God’?” Ivanka asked in return.

"The sun god? Does it refer to Apollo, the sun god in ancient Greek mythology?"

"Yes, so as you can see, our spaceship is called 'Apollo,' which comes from the Greek sun god 'Apollo,' and is also a tribute to the Apollo moon landing program, which was once the pride of the United States!"

"What does this have to do with the present?" Zhang Fan asked, puzzled.

“Of course,” Ivanka explained. “China has developed too fast in the past century. In the field of near-Earth space, especially in the development of the moon, it has already surpassed the United States. Relying on our first-mover advantage, we also have a leading position in the field of Mars exploration. However, in our view, this position will soon be surpassed by China in the near future. The development and construction of the Bird’s Nest is one such sign.”

"So we chose to join forces with Ross, who is ranked third, to establish a strategic nuclear strike force on Mars, codenamed 'Project Helios', while we still had the advantage."

"Is it really necessary to go this far?" Zhang Fan's eyes widened. "China is still a developing country..."

"A developing country?" Ivanka looked at Zhang Fan with disdain. "China's GDP is already twice ours! Have you ever seen a developing country like this!"

"But our population is four times that of the United States, so in terms of GDP per capita, we only have half of yours..."

"Have you no shame?"

How is this shameless? Zhang Fan remembers that's what the book said: on a per capita basis, we will remain a developing country for a hundred years without wavering.

“Then you should ask Katerina,” Ivanka said. “They feel even more pressure than we do, otherwise they wouldn’t have had the ‘Milo honeymoon period’.”

“There’s no other way.” Katerina spread her hands. “Our territories are adjacent to each other, and we were once the country that took the most territory from them in the world. We have to be on guard.”

"Therefore, the 'Helios' project is aimed at strategic nuclear strike forces in extreme situations, which is what 'Peace Station' has been doing for the past ten years."

"Where is the 'Sun God'?" Zhang Fan couldn't help but wonder.

“In orbit around Phobos,” Ivanka said, pointing to the sky. “We spent ten years building the Helios nuclear strike orbital station, using the Peace Station as a transit point.”

“Our ultimate mission was to implant a chip into ‘Helios’,” Katerina kicked Ivanka. “This chip is the start-up key, which will put ‘Helios’ into an unattended, closed-loop operation, providing a permanent nuclear umbrella for both Mir and Romania.”

“That’s a pity. With Earth in such a state, no one will activate ‘Sun God’,” Zhang Fan said with some regret. “It’s a waste of 10 years of time and huge sums of money from two major powers to build a nuclear weapons station that will never be used.”

“Not necessarily,” Katerina said.

“Am I wrong?” Zhang Fan said. “It’s been half a year, and the Bird’s Nest has not detected any electromagnetic signals from Earth.”

"The condition for the activation of 'Sun God' is that our country suffers a devastating blow, and this condition can be interpreted in multiple ways."

"For example, if we are unable to send new commands to 'Apollo' for more than a certain period of time due to a communication interruption, this situation can be understood as us suffering a devastating blow, resulting in the loss of communication capabilities."

"We have set this communication interruption period to one month."

"so……"

“One month after Earth was struck by an asteroid, the ‘Sun God’ was actually activated.”

"Now……"

"The 10 heavy nuclear missiles should have been on their way to Earth for 5 months."

"But it doesn't matter. There are no humans left on Earth anyway, so what does it matter if we take 10 more nuclear hits?"

Right?

This was just an ordinary lunch chat on Mars, adding a little something to the otherwise mundane meal.

But on Earth.

In front of various television screens listening to and watching the Mars live broadcast.

People were stunned.