Just as the potato chips made their second crunching sound, a line of red text suddenly popped up on Nana's screen.
An energy system malfunction.
Chen Hao paused, his half-eaten potato chip hovering near his mouth, staring at the words for three seconds before slowly swallowing. He reached up and touched his chin, the grease still glistening on his fingertips.
"What do you mean?"
“It’s not a false alarm.” Nana’s finger swiped across several split screens, bringing up three fluctuation curves. “The thruster’s energy consumption is 17 percent higher than the model, the heat loss rate is increasing, and the capacitor’s charging and discharging efficiency is decreasing. All three parameters are deviating simultaneously for four hours.”
"Didn't the system issue an alarm before?"
“It’s categorized as environmental disturbance noise by default,” she said. “I discovered it incidentally in the background scanning module while I was processing buoy data.”
Chen Hao stood up and walked behind her to look at the screen. His shadow fell on the chart, obscuring a small section of the rising red line.
"So, we're actually conserving spaceship resources while secretly burning fuel?"
"To be precise, it's that fuel consumption is happening faster than expected."
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's investigate!" He slapped the control panel. "Don't tell me this ship will lose weight on its own."
Nana had already started operating the system. She opened the interstellar travel energy consumption model in the knowledge base and input the spatial density, gravitational gradient, and background radiation value of the current segment. The calculation process took less than ten seconds, and when the result popped up, Chen Hao took a closer look and his face immediately fell.
"68%?"
“At the current speed, the remaining energy can only support 68% of the original journey,” she said. “If we continue flying directly, we will run out of main energy at a distance of 0.4 light-years from the target star system.”
The cabin was quiet for a few seconds.
Chen Hao looked down at the bag of potato chips in his hand, then looked up at the numbers on the screen, and finally crumpled the bag into a ball and threw it into the recycling bin.
“Fine,” he said. “Looks like even snacks will have to be rationed by calories from now on.”
He sat back in the control chair and tapped the armrest twice with his fingers. "Turn off the unnecessary things first. Disable the entertainment system, reduce the life support power by one level, and also pause the temperature control enhancement on Susan's end."
The communication channel was connected, and there was a moment of silence on the other end.
"Understood," came Karl's voice, short but clear.
After the call ended, Chen Hao leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped on his stomach.
"Don't we look like those people who max out their credit cards at the end of the month?"
“It’s worse,” Nana said. “They can pay in installments, but we can’t.”
"Can't you fix the equipment? Maybe some part is loose and causing an electrical leak?"
“All systems have no fault codes in their self-tests.” She pulled up the thruster structure diagram. “The problem isn’t hardware damage, but rather a decrease in energy conversion efficiency during operation. We cannot pinpoint the cause at this time.”
"So that means... the boat started consuming more fuel on its own while we were sailing?"
"yes."
Chen Hao whistled softly.
"This place is really weird. I just finished chatting with the scrap metal, and the next day I caught a chronic disease from it."
“This isn’t an infection,” Nana corrected. “It’s a physical phenomenon.”
"The result is the same anyway." He waved his hand. "We have to find a way to cheer each other on."
He opened the star map and zoomed out. Ahead of the current flight path was an unmarked area, which the old Federation database only listed with five words: Wasteland, No Record.
Where is the nearest natural energy source?
Nana started the search program. Several bright spots quickly appeared on the screen: a cloud of hydrogen gas, a planet experiencing a magnetic storm, and a small rocky planet that appeared to be geothermally active.
Chen Hao clicked on each one to read.
“The hydrogen cloud is too far away, and the geomagnetic storm planet has its own thunderstorm zone. Going in there would likely result in being pulverized into a carbon rod.” He shook his head. “The last one is closer, but it doesn’t seem reliable either.”
“This planet has no atmosphere, and its surface temperature varies by more than 400 degrees Celsius between day and night, making it unsuitable for stable energy collection,” Nana added. “Furthermore, additional equipment is required to extract geothermal energy, and the spacecraft currently lacks such devices.”
"So none of them can be used?"
"yes."
Chen Hao leaned back, and the chair creaked.
"So we're driving a car out of gas, looking for a gas station in the desert, and all we see on the map are dried-up wells?"
“The analogy is inaccurate,” Nana said. “We still have 68 percent of battery life left.”
"Can you please stop speaking English?" he glared at him. "I feel like crying whenever I hear the word 'percentage' now."
"Feel sorry."
She re-run the simulation, attempting to find alternative routes within the fan-shaped area surrounding the existing course. New routes were generated one by one, only to be quickly rejected. Each one bore the same conclusion: insufficient energy, impossible to reach.
Chen Hao stared at the constantly refreshing list of results and suddenly asked, "Is it possible for us to live a different life?"
"for example?"
"For example, I won't go to the original destination," he said. "I'll find a place closer to home and save my life first."
"Abandon the original plan?"
“I’m not saying give up forever.” He scratched his head. “I mean, let’s find somewhere to recharge and catch our breath. Otherwise, we’ll break down on the road before we even see the new continent.”
Nana paused for a moment, and the optical lens rotated slightly, as if she was thinking.
“There are three contingency plans,” she said. “First, turn to the southeast quadrant, where there is an abandoned relay station that once served the old Federation supply line and may contain a backup energy reservoir; second, try to capture a small comet and use its icy core to electrolyze hydrogen as temporary fuel; third, enter the corona edge of a nearby star and perform a short-term solar ram charge.”
After hearing this, Chen Hao grinned.
"You really dare to think that way."
“They are all viable options,” she said, “just with different success rates.”
How far is that relay station?
"Yaw rate 11 degrees, distance 0.23 light-years. Estimated travel time increased by nine days."
"How much longer does it take compared to flying there directly?"
"Twelve days."
He stroked his chin: "Just three more days? That's alright."
"But the status of the relay station is unknown," Nana cautioned. "The last signal record was seventy years ago, and there has been no response since. It cannot be ruled out that it has been damaged or looted."
"At least it's a house," Chen Hao said. "It's better than sleeping in the open."
"What's the second option?" he asked, turning his head.
"Comet capture requires a precise interception trajectory, and the current maneuverability of the spacecraft is insufficient to guarantee success on the first attempt. Failure would waste a significant amount of adjustment fuel."
"And the third one? Relying on the sun to charge?"
“Theoretically feasible,” she said, “but electromagnetic storms in the corona are frequent, and the shield would need to be kept open at all times, consuming a huge amount of energy. The net benefit could be negative.”
Chen Hao sighed, placed his hands on the control panel, and leaned forward.
"So it's either try your luck in a haunted house, chase ice hockey for your life, or jump into a fire and you might not even get warm."
"yes."
"There are so many options," he said with a wry smile.
Nana did not respond. Her screen was running the fourth round of simulation, with several candidate routes flashing alternately on the star map, each marked with a red warning label.
Chen Hao stared at one of the paths with the smallest deviation for a long time.
"Do you think... it could be that buoy from earlier that caused this?"
"What?"
"When we passed that thing, did we pick up anything strange on us?" He rubbed his fingers together. "Like radiation or residual magnetic fields, making the ship consume a lot of electricity?"
“No external contamination was detected,” she said. “And the buoy itself has no active emission source.”
"But didn't it send signals for a long time?"
"That's passive discharge, like a battery leaking current, and it won't create a field that affects navigation."
"Why did it have to happen now of all times?" he frowned. "One second everything was fine, and the next second I started losing health?"
Nana stopped what she was doing and turned to him.
"You also think it's too much of a coincidence?"
“I don’t just think so,” Chen Hao said. “I’m sure there’s a problem. The universe won’t just happen to hit you with a knockout punch right after you finish eating potato chips, unless those chips were poisoned to begin with.”
The two stared at each other for a moment.
Nana reopened the energy log and rewound the timeline to fifteen minutes before the buoy signal ended. She checked the changes in each parameter frame by frame.
Suddenly, she stopped.
"What did you find?"
She pointed to a curve that showed almost no fluctuation: "The first abnormal increase in heat loss rate occurred when we were closest to the buoy."
How close?
"Forty-eight thousand kilometers."
What were we doing back then?
"Adjust course and prepare to leave."
Nana continued to replay the data, then pointed out the second fluctuation: "The second rise occurred two minutes after the tail flame reflection was identified."
That is, when we realize we've been scammed and are ready to leave.
"yes."
Chen Hao slowly sat up straight.
"So it's not a coincidence," he said. "The ship started leaking oil as soon as we got close to it; and the problem continued to worsen as soon as we left."
“Current data supports this correlation,” Nana said.
He raised his hand and scratched his hair.
"So that lousy road sign wasn't just sending telegrams, it was also spreading poison?"
“There is no evidence yet that it has the ability to actively interfere,” she said, “but it could trigger some kind of chain reaction.”
"for example?"
"For example, changing the distribution of quantum states in a local space could lead to a decrease in energy transfer efficiency." She paused, "This is just an assumption."
Chen Hao stared at the target point that had disappeared on the star map, remaining silent for a long time.
Then he whispered:
"Should we... not be walking so fast?"
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