novelnext Chapter 226 226: Nyx
Chapter 226 226: Nyx
"...Now we've reached the most critical moment! Our A-001 spacecraft is executing a continuous retrograde deceleration burn. The engines are spewing pale blue ion flames... Here it comes! According to the flight plan, its relative velocity to the mothership must not exceed 1,500 meters per second! Of course, the lower the relative speed, the better..."
"The slower it goes, the safer the landing!"
"This maneuver reminds me of mid-air refueling techniques from the old world, where two aircraft had to synchronize their speeds perfectly... But obviously, what we are attempting is infinitely more difficult. Alright, the telemetry is coming in... 1,000 meters per second... 900... Just as expected. It is rapidly closing in on the orbital ring!"
"Touchdown! He made it!"
At that gasp, even the seasoned anchor held his breath, his eyes glued to the monitor. He completely forgot to continue his live commentary!
In that heart-stopping instant, the A-001 spacecraft plunged straight onto the orbital ring at a relative speed of 800 meters per second!
For context, this was roughly the cruising speed of a vintage Boeing 737 back on Earth. However, if an old passenger jet attempted to land at that speed, it would be instantly pulverized, causing a catastrophic disaster with a zero percent survival rate.
But things were different now. The relative speed was well within the A-001's design tolerances. Naturally, it wasn't a hard physical landing; the craft would decelerate using the massive, circular magnetic track!
The immense magnetic levitation fields within the orbital ring engaged instantly. The A-001 was subjected to massive, omnidirectional pressure, as if an invisible giant's hand had firmly gripped it in the center of the runway.
The spacecraft hovered perfectly in the center of the ring, tearing along the track at extreme speeds without ever grazing the surrounding walls!
It began decelerating at a rate of 3G, or 30 meters per second squared. Roughly twenty seconds later, after completing a quarter lap around the massive ring, its velocity successfully dropped to 20 meters per second.
At that threshold, the repulsive magnetic levitation shifted into electromagnetic attraction. The locking scaffolds descended, guiding the spacecraft to a smooth, physical touchdown on the deck before slowly towing it into an automated docking bay.
"Perfect... A total success!"
The reporter instinctively let out a triumphant shout before remembering he was on a live broadcast. He quickly recovered. "Ladies and gentlemen, let's give a massive round of applause to our hotshot pilot, Matthew Beach! And let's not forget the brilliant engineers who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make this possible..."
The mothership erupted into deafening cheers! People screamed and hugged one another. Having watched the feed live, it felt as if they were right there in the cockpit. Their hearts were still hammering against their ribs!
Despite the mothership's spherical shape, the spacecraft managed to come to a complete halt after traversing less than half its circumference.
That was from a touchdown speed of 800 meters per second!
This level of aerospace engineering was something humanity could only dream of in the past!
Up in the command center, Jason enthusiastically high-fived Austin and the rest of the senior staff.
While the room buzzed with excitement, several data analysts were already hard at work. They meticulously reviewed every telemetry log from the manual flight, checking error margins and evaluating the effectiveness of their emergency protocols.
After a thorough review, the engineering team finally breathed a collective sigh of relief.
The data proved that, with rigorous training, a baseline human being still possessed the physical and neural capacity to pilot these hyper-velocity vessels.
However, the A-001 represented the absolute ceiling of normal human capability.
If a spacecraft were to travel any faster, a standard human nervous system simply wouldn't be able to process the sensory input quickly enough to maintain control—unless the pilot was a Superhuman like Jason.
Putting hypothetical limits aside, the success of this final test flight cemented the absolute maturity of the Federation's aerospace technology.
The citizens could finally take a breath and refocus all their energy on their impending objective: making landfall on Nyx!
At their current distance, Nyx was already clearly visible through the ship's radio telescopes.
The Astronomy Division had been tracking it for months!
Just as predicted, the dim, rogue planet was shrouded in a thick atmosphere, with three tiny moons locked in its orbit. The Federation, of course, intended to land on the primary planet rather than its barren satellites.
"Is this... really our future home?" Jason murmured to himself, seated in the primary observatory.
For some reason, an unshakable sense of unease gnawed at him. The planet was just so dark and unimaginably cold. The overall environment looked even more hostile than Mars, let alone Earth!
He silently vowed that humanity would never settle for this world of eternal night. The Federation would inevitably rise as a true Interstellar Civilization and secure a proper, sunlit world to call home!
Later that evening, a massive celebration was held in the Central Plaza at 8:00 PM.
The grueling three-year preparation period had flown by, and the vast majority of their ambitious engineering goals had been met. The few projects that remained unfinished were simply bottlenecked by current technological limits, not a lack of effort from the scientific teams.
Naturally, as the Leader of the Federation, Jason was obligated to attend. He gave speeches, shook hands, offered his profound gratitude to the workforce, and handed out commendation medals.
After a series of formalities, the crowd was riding high on a wave of pure joy.
It was an honor they truly deserved. Many of these engineering and testing roles didn't just demand grueling mental labor; they came with massive, lethal risks.
Take Special Forces operative Matthew Beach, for instance. He had stepped into that cockpit fully aware that it might be his last day alive.
Therefore, Jason felt a deep, personal obligation to express his gratitude to every last one of them.
The rest of the gala proceeded smoothly...
As soon as the after-party concluded, the real work began. The final observation and landing protocols were initiated!
First, they would scan the planet from afar using deep-space radio telescopes. A few days later, as the mothership continued to decelerate, it would allow itself to be captured by Nyx's gravity well. Once anchored in orbit, they would deploy a swarm of artificial satellites, autonomous drones, and reconnaissance robots to map the surface.
Jason didn't waste a second. He was already back in his office, poring over a mountain of incoming reports.
The latest planetary survey laid out the raw telemetry:
"Nyx has an overall density 0.68 times that of Earth and a radius 1.96 times that of Earth. Its surface gravity sits at approximately 1.34G!"
"Its rotation period is 38 hours—roughly a day and a half by our old standards. Its orbital period around the galactic center exceeds 100,000 years, which is practically negligible for our purposes."
"Geological activity is incredibly violent, generating a surface magnetic field 13 times stronger than Earth's!"
"It possesses a dense atmosphere. Surface barometric pressure is 2.6 times that of Earth! Atmospheric composition breaks down as follows: 80.3% nitrogen, 14.8% oxygen, 3.4% carbon dioxide, 0.9% argon, with trace amounts of carbon monoxide, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and other volatile gases."
Jason's eyes narrowed. That's an incredibly high concentration of free oxygen!
Did this mean... if they could just filter out the toxic trace gases and alien microbes, they could breathe the air directly?
He quickly shook his head, dismissing the thought. Even ignoring the threat of alien pathogens, the sheer atmospheric pressure would wreak havoc on a baseline human's oxygen equilibrium. Excessive levels of carbon dioxide would rapidly dissolve into the bloodstream, triggering acute hypoxia and suffocation.
The human body was simply too fragile. Even if the gas mixture was theoretically breathable, the lungs couldn't handle the crushing pressure without the protection of fully enclosed power armor.
Under controlled conditions, a human could survive roughly 6 atmospheres of pressure, but only for a few agonizing minutes. Constant exposure to 2.6 atmospheres wouldn't be immediately fatal, but it would cause severe, compounding physiological damage.
Fortunately, their troops were equipped with hermetically sealed exoskeletons, rendering the external air pressure completely irrelevant.
But that raised a massive, glaring question... Where did all that free oxygen come from?
Logically, a dead, rogue planet shouldn't possess such a high concentration of reactive oxygen! Natural geological phenomena, like atmospheric lightning, could only synthesize minute trace amounts.
An oxygen concentration of 14.8% could only mean one thing... Did this frozen rock harbor life?
Were there macroscopic organisms down there in the dark?
This was a terrifyingly critical variable!
No artificial satellites or orbital debris had been detected around Nyx, meaning it was highly unlikely to be the home of a technologically advanced civilization...
Frowning deeply, he continued reading the survey report: "The planet possesses a carbon dioxide concentration one hundred times that of Earth, and a methane concentration thirty thousand times higher! This creates an extreme, runaway greenhouse effect, fueled by constant, aggressive volcanic activity!"
"Due to this trapped volcanic and atmospheric greenhouse effect, despite the planet's immense distance from any star, its surface temperature is significantly higher than deep-space models predicted. The global average sits at minus 120 degrees Celsius... However, localized thermal pockets near active volcanic vents may exceed zero degrees Celsius. This abundant geothermal energy could absolutely provide the necessary conditions for the genesis of biological life!"