The engines roared as the spaceship maintained its position at low altitude, the fields below sliding backward like pieces of patchwork. Chen Hao's hand rested on the control stick, his brow suddenly furrowing.
“This thrust is wrong.” He turned to look at Nana. “It was so strong just now, but now it’s like a tractor climbing a hill.”
Nana's gaze swept across the panel, and she tapped a few times quickly. "Main energy flow rate decreased by 22%, transmission efficiency fluctuated, indicating 'atypical blockage'."
"What do you mean?" Chen Hao asked.
“The pipes are clogged.” Carl leaned out from the back cabin. “It’s not a big problem, but it needs to be cleared.”
"Then let's clean it up." Chen Hao released the throttle valve and hovered the spaceship at a height of fifteen meters. "We can't keep leaking oil while flying."
Carl got up and walked to the equipment bay, lifted the floor panel, and crawled inside. Susan stood next to the driver's seat, holding a toolbox. "Need me to hand you something?"
“Wrench, number six,” Carl’s voice came from below.
Susan bent down to rummage through the things, and her elbow accidentally bumped into a row of buttons on the side wall. With a click, the cabin lights flickered, then began to dim and flicker.
"Hey!" She quickly withdrew her hand.
Nana's main control panel screen went black for a moment, then restarted three seconds later, and the signal bar of the navigation module went straight to zero.
“Internal voltage fluctuations,” Nana said, her voice quickening. “A mis-triggering of the lighting circuit caused a brief power outage, affecting the stability of the positioning system’s power supply.”
“I didn’t mean to…” Susan took a step back and leaned against the side of her chair.
“It’s alright.” Carl poked his head out from the maintenance hatch. “This kind of old ship can’t withstand random adjustments.”
He crawled back in and, a few minutes later, pulled out a section of grayish-black filter valve, which was clogged with a layer of yellowish crystalline mixture. "Dust and condensation residue blocked it up to one-third full. It should be fine after cleaning."
He rinsed the parts with detergent, put them back in place, and tightened the connector. He clapped his hands when he was done. "Okay, let's try again."
Chen Hao pushed the throttle valve back up, and the engine response became noticeably smoother, with the instrument panel showing power restored to 98%. He grinned: "Alright, at least I'm not limping anymore."
Susan breathed a slight sigh of relief, but her eyes remained fixed on the row of buttons, as if afraid they might suddenly jump out and bite her.
Nana didn't relax. The data stream in her pupils scrolled faster, and her fingertips swiped across the screen, repeatedly refreshing the location status.
“The signal is still wrong,” she said.
"Wasn't it just fixed?" Chen Hao turned around.
“The energy system is normal, but the navigation data is abnormal.” Nana brought up the diagnostic interface. “The coordinates are jumping frequently, the calibration failed, and it now shows that we are 300 meters underground.”
“Then we’ve become moles,” Chen Hao said.
“This is not external interference.” Nana’s voice was lower. “The last scan showed that there was a write error in the system cache, which may have caused a protocol stack disorder at the moment of power failure.”
"Translate it into human language?" Chen Hao scratched his head.
“The system messed itself up.” Carl stood behind her, looking at the screen. “The underlying data is faulty; simply clearing the pipes won’t help.”
Nana switched to the backup navigation protocol and manually loaded the star map database for synchronization. The screen flickered a few times, displayed a string of garbled characters, and then froze, ceasing all updates.
“The system… is confusing itself,” she said.
The cockpit fell silent.
Chen Hao stared at the airspace ahead, his hand never leaving the control stick. The outline of the city grew closer in the distance, with high-voltage power line towers and abandoned water towers scattered across the fields.
"Can it still fly manually?" he asked.
“Sure.” Nana pulled up the infrared terrain map. “It uses surface temperature differences to determine the terrain and helps with course correction. But the accuracy is limited and it can’t automatically avoid obstacles.”
"Then don't expect it to be reliable." Chen Hao pushed the throttle valve halfway. "I'll keep an eye on things outside."
The spaceship moved slowly forward, flying close to the treetops. A dried-up riverbed swept past below, followed by collapsed walls and rusty corrugated iron roofs.
Susan sat in the corner of the passenger seat, hugging her knees, without saying a word. She avoided looking at the button from before, as if it were a thorn in her eye.
Carl crouched down next to the power supply box in the rear cabin, disassembling the casing to inspect the wiring. "The grounding wire was a bit loose, which might be one of the reasons for the voltage fluctuations." He tightened the screws and measured the resistance value again. "It's stable now."
"What about navigation?" Chen Hao asked.
“The hardware is fine.” Carl closed the cover. “The problem is the data corruption at the software level. Unless we reinstall the system, Nana will have to maintain it manually.”
Nana's finger continued to slide across the screen. She tried clearing the cache, resetting the protocol, and loading offline maps, but each time she restarted, the screen would display garbled characters again within seconds.
“The external signal blockade is still in place,” she said. “The C-level access restrictions have not been lifted, and the system keeps reporting errors when trying to connect, exacerbating the internal conflict.”
"So we're just flying around aimlessly now?" Chen Hao said.
“Not entirely.” Nana pulled up the radar image. “The obstacle detection function is still working; I can alert you to obstacles ahead in real time.”
“Then you are my eyes.” Chen Hao gripped the joystick tightly. “I’ll tell you where to go, and you’ll tell me if there’s a wall.”
"Understood," Nana nodded.
The spaceship continued flying eastward. An abandoned industrial park slid past below, half of the factory roofs collapsed, and weeds sprouted from the cracks.
"There's a chimney thirty meters away in the three-point direction," Nana reminded.
Chen Hao slightly changed course, avoiding the leaning concrete pillar.
“There’s a substation up ahead,” Carl said, looking out the porthole. “The power lines are all broken, but the frame is still there.”
"I see it." Chen Hao lowered his profile and passed between the two rows of iron frames.
Susan finally spoke up: "Won't we be spotted flying like this?"
“We noticed it a long time ago,” Chen Hao said. “Didn’t that mysterious signal just glance at us? If it really wanted to hide, it wouldn’t have taken off.”
“But we don’t even have a GPS location yet,” she said. “What if we fly in the wrong direction and go further and further astray?”
“No,” Nana said. “I can estimate the approximate location using the sun’s position and flight time. Although the error will accumulate, it won’t deviate too much in the short term.”
"It sounds like fortune telling," Chen Hao laughed.
“It’s calculation,” Nana corrected.
"There's no turning back anyway." He glanced at the fuel gauge. "The fuel will last for three hours. Let's keep going and wait for the signal to be restored."
The spaceship flew over a wasteland, and ahead appeared a broken viaduct, with its concrete piers standing crookedly in the ground.
“There’s an obstacle ahead, spanning about forty meters,” Nana said. “I suggest raising the height to twenty-five meters and passing over it.”
Chen Hao pulled up the control stick, and the spaceship slowly climbed. Just as the belly of the ship was about to cross the bridge, an alarm sounded softly on the main control panel.
"Warning: Attitude data delayed by 1.2 seconds," Nana read out the warning.
"What do you mean?" Chen Hao asked.
"The attitude information you are seeing now is from 1.2 seconds ago," she said. "If there is a sudden turbulence, the reaction will be delayed."
"So that means I have to anticipate this in advance?" Chen Hao frowned.
"right."
"This ship is getting harder and harder to handle," he muttered.
“The system instability is temporary,” Nana continued debugging. “Once we find a stable external signal source, we can resynchronize.”
“Then we should find a place with a strong signal as soon as possible,” Carl said. “Like a base station, a radar station, or we could just fly into the city.”
“There are too many people and too many eyes in the city.” Chen Hao shook his head. “The four of us came back from outer space with our worn-out equipment. We’ll be surrounded as soon as we land.”
“But we have to land eventually,” Susan said.
“Of course.” Chen Hao looked ahead. “The problem is, where to land, how to land, and whether we can take the first step alive.”
The spaceship passed through the bridge area and entered an open area. In the distance, there were several low buildings with cracked solar panels on their roofs, and the wind made the plastic sheets rustle loudly.
Nana suddenly looked up.
“A weak signal was detected,” she said. “It’s coming from the southeast, and the frequency is unencrypted. It could be a civilian surveillance camera or an automatic weather station.”
"Can you connect?" Chen Hao asked.
“Try to connect.” She quickly tapped her fingers. “The signal strength is insufficient, but enough to trigger a short handshake protocol.”
The screen flickered, and the coordinates began to update slowly.
“There’s potential.” Carl leaned closer.
The data was gradually recovered, and the latitude and longitude numbers became clearer. Nana was preparing to locate the signal source and perform reverse positioning.
The next second, the screen suddenly jittered, all the numerical values turned into gibberish, and then into a string of unrecognizable symbols.
“Here we go again,” Susan said softly.
Nana's finger stopped in mid-air.
“The system refuses to synchronize,” she said. “No matter what data is entered, it will be overwritten immediately.”
"This is quite a serious illness," Chen Hao said, staring at the screen. "Is it treatable?"
Nana didn't answer immediately. Data streams were rapidly flowing in her pupils, as if she were flipping through some deep log.
A few seconds later, she spoke.
“There is a way,” she said, “but I need access to the spacecraft’s original firmware backup, which contains a complete mirror of the navigation protocol.”
"Where?" Chen Hao asked.
“The storage unit is located below the main control panel, with a red interface labeled F-7,” she said. “But it requires a physical connection, and the power cannot be interrupted during operation.”
Carl immediately stood up: "I'll go get the wire."
He pulled out a data cable, plugged it into the F-7 port, and connected the other end to a portable terminal. Nana leaned over and operated it, her fingers rapidly typing on the virtual keyboard.
“Start loading the firmware image,” she said. “It is expected to take four minutes and thirty-six seconds.”
Chen Hao looked at the open area ahead and placed his hand on the throttle valve.
"During this time, we need to maintain a stable flight," he said. "Nobody touches any buttons, and nobody sneezes."
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