Jiang Ling watched the rocket launch broadcast from the station hospital. As soon as she opened her eyes, she saw the giant flexible screen facing her bed flashing red, green, and blue. As usual, the hospital's television screen was silent. No matter how excited the dignified and elegant woman in the studio seemed, it felt like she was performing a Charlie Chaplin impersonation.
Fighting the migraine and nausea brought on by the hangover, she struggled to stuff two not-so-soft pillows into her back, and only then did she feel a little better. During this time, she noticed the time displayed in the upper left corner of the screen - from yesterday to now, she had lost a total of about sixteen hours of memory.
It was four in the morning, and the ward was naturally quiet, a pin drop audible. The door was ajar, revealing the equally eerie stillness in the hallway. Jiang Ling glanced around and saw that this was just an ordinary ward. The plastic wrap on the bed next to hers hadn't been removed, but the wrinkles on it showed that someone had slept there before.
On the bedside table lay her belongings, but only the pass remained intact. The terminal looked as if it had been burned in a fire, its outer shell reduced to a dark yellow ash by the intense heat. The ripped-open opening revealed the circuit boards within, mechanically damaged beyond repair. Also lying there were a medical record, a list of fines, a few bottles of salvaged beer, and a half-filled sample bag of charred human tissue that clearly wasn't hers.
Jiang Ling recalled the few remaining images in her memory - she seemed to have caused a big disturbance in Area 7 after drinking too much, playing a cat-and-mouse game with a group of mutants, knocking over countless shelves, setting a pile of flammable materials on fire, and running naked without considering the occasion - she hoped that she didn't cause too much damage.
Brushing away the history that had already happened, she refocused her attention on the screen.
The launch program entered a two-minute countdown, and cameras in several different locations played the entire rocket and the interior of the spacecraft in a loop according to a certain pattern.
Jiang Ling could see that Mount Buzhou at this moment resembled a pared-down Eiffel Tower. It was generally off-white, its lower half shrouded in brown mist, its upper half covered in layers of composite armor, and in its center, a few traditional yet captivating red Chinese characters. The interior of the Kuafu-1 spacecraft showed the faces of seven familiar figures and a fisheye view of the interior of the three command modules. They wore highly specialized, modified, bright silver, fourth-generation exoskeletons, secured to their flight seats by multiple latches in a curled, semi-reclining position, like tightly swaddled babies.
The recorded footage did not show more details. If Jiang Ling had stayed in the combat command room at that time, she would have been able to know the astronauts' various physiological indicators and Lin Yi's real-time inspection report on the spacecraft.
Jiang Ling waited silently. The screen quickly jumped to a middle-aged announcer. His mouth moved, and then a line of words floated across the bottom of the screen: One minute countdown.
The camera on the screen began to zoom out, and the engineers, designers, scientific researchers, ordinary employees, senior officials, soldiers and commander-in-chief on the scene were all solemnly silent. Most of them stared at the computer screens at their workstations, and occasionally some people spoke to pass on instructions.
Thirty seconds.
The scene returns to the launch site again, but this time it is from a slightly farther distance. At this location, you can see many nozzles releasing inert gases. They absorb a lot of heat when they vaporize, and a thick layer of white frost condenses on the wet ground.
Twenty seconds.
"Twenty seconds." Jiang Ling was driven by her emotions and began to count down quietly along with the subtitles.
The picture quickly switched between multiple camera positions. Everyone looked solemn, waiting for time to pass. At this time, the value of each second was different for everyone present, but what is worth affirming is that everyone will remember this history for the rest of their lives.
Ten seconds.
Time began to become sticky, and Jiang Ling felt that her long-lost memories began to be awakened. At that moment, she remembered the live broadcast of the launch of her country's first manned spacecraft. At that time, she had just graduated from kindergarten.
Nine.
eight.
The image from the command module should have been delayed by two seconds. She saw Chu Feixing and Song Jianying open their mouths one after another, as if they said something, and then the seven of them saluted the camera in unison.
Seven, six, five, four.
The image at the launch site shook, and the ice crystals condensed around the camera melted instantly. The ground supporting the rocket arched upward, bouncing the ice into the air.
Jiang Ling knew that it was a preparatory action before ignition. The dome on top of the launch site used to block the seawater was detonated remotely, and the high-pressure gas filled inside began to escape upwards.
Three, two, one, ignition!
At that moment, dark red substances poured out from the nozzle. They were first squeezed out of the fuel tank by the pressure pump, and then "exploded" by electric sparks, turning into a hot fireball containing huge energy. The heat generated was quickly transmitted to the source of the mixed liquid flow. While maintaining the chemical reaction, they also created a force enough to shake the mountains.
take off!
Tens of thousands of tons of reaction force crashed onto the seabed, shaking even the control room hundreds of kilometers away. Unsecured objects at the launch site toppled over and fell, ignited by the toxic air currents heated to thousands of degrees. The last image transmitted back by the cameras at the bottom before they failed was a terrifying sight of the ground beginning to melt.
The recorded broadcast must have been edited and modified. The footage from the three reserved camera positions on the launch pad, top, center, and bottom, briefly trembled before returning to normal. Jiang Ling could clearly see a small amount of thermal insulation ceramic that had fallen off the rocket. Like fireflies dancing around a campfire, they darted across the frame in an intriguing motion.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com