"Old man, you've come back to your senses. We've arrived at the station."
Three weeks later, at the edge of the lunar Imbrium, outside the advance power node.
The young researcher stepped down the last step of the hanging ladder in two steps, stepped on the soft lunar soil, turned his helmet slightly and looked at the old man who had stood frozen beside him for a long time.
Those big, calloused hands, which had been calibrated hundreds of heavy-duty Dragon Bones with bare hands in the near-earth Orbital Factory, were now tightly grasping the metal handrails, and their knuckles were slightly white from the excessive force under the special air-tight gloves.
Under the hanging ladder, the vast gray-white moon surface extends into the distance until it disappears into the low and cold arc-shaped horizon.
There was no wind, no clouds, and not even the slightest noise of life.
Several heavy ruts with distinct depths are extending steadily towards the cubic power cabin not far away that is quietly emitting a snow-white light.
Phew...
The old engineer exhaled a long breath of warm air and finally took his right foot.
The specially-made multi-layered thickened anti-cut soles pressed down steadily, deeply grinding out a clear shoe print with sharp edges on the alien floating soil that had been silent for hundreds of millions of years.
The old man lowered his head and stared at the shoe print, his chest heaving, and suddenly he laughed heartily on the public radio channel:
"This time... I finally don't have to blindly direct the robotic arm on which rocks to step on from a screen 380,000 kilometers away."
"Okay, you just have to take your time to savor the historical moment. I'll go ahead and take over the main console first!"
The young man twisted his waist and, relying on the weak gravity of the moon, jumped forward a few meters as lightly as a large kangaroo.
"You little bastard, stop here!" The old man came to his senses in an instant and took a long step to chase after me. "The core tool box is all buckled on my back. You are occupying the seat with your bare hands and your head?!"
An old man and a young man left a series of cheerful footprints on the dead moon.
Behind them, the hatches of the two heavy-duty landers opened one after another. As the last team member wearing a protective mask stepped firmly onto the lunar surface, the first batch of one hundred and twenty special Lunar Engineering Corps who passed the hell-level training... All members were called, and no one was left behind!
During these three weeks, the veteran engineer took over the shift of the space station and returned to the ground to participate in the closed low-gravity coordination and precision assembly assessment.
There is no formalistic special care, and no respectability is left for the seniors.
The young people are the best in multi-threaded collaborative assembly speed, while the old people are able to win back the victory with decades of experience in troubleshooting emergencies in extreme environments.
On the day when the list of candidates for the moon landing was announced on the red list in the base auditorium, the two of them looked at each other from afar across half the classroom, smiling brighter than anyone else in the corners of their eyes.
And at this moment--
The moon is truly under their feet!
Boom.
Low vibrations were transmitted along the load-bearing frame to the soles of the boots. The carrier platform was lowered smoothly, and the living and working cabin modules were in place.
In the past twenty-one days, several heavy-lift launch vehicles have successively sent materials into low-Earth orbit, which were then relayed by transfer stages carrying pre-charged psychic energy and working fluids. Two complete sets of inflatable and expandable composite living cabins, psychic energy storage modules, and thousands of sets of standard parts machined and manufactured by Orbital Factory were delivered in batches to the predetermined assembly area via cargo lander.
In the past, those delicate psychic interfaces that had to be manually debugged by the chief designer in the laboratory are now standardized into slot-type fool-proof tools.
The one hundred and twenty team members did not even need to be mobilized before the battle. The moment they landed, they dispersed to their respective fighting positions like mercury pouring down the ground.
The old engineer locked the tool bag behind his waist and looked at each other in understanding with the female structural engineer opposite. The two of them worked together to hold up a six-meter-long composite connection frame and gently pushed it onto the temporary guide rail.
The female engineer pointed her fingers like a knife, and her fingertips inconspicuously exhaled a very fine amount of dark blue spiritual energy, which was tightly attached to the bite of the interface.
The frame slides smoothly under the traction of the auxiliary rail, and the high-strength titanium alloy positioning pins on both sides enter the guide groove one after another, without even half a millimeter of unnecessary shaking!
"Go deeper on the right side and give it another five millimeters."
"Let's go."
The old engineer pushed with one hand, and the last set of expansion locking tenons suddenly locked!
Perfect fit!
Immediately afterwards, technicians from the back row filed in, and three sets of standardized psychic pressure-regulating boxes were directly photographed into the reserved back panel.
Buzz!
The emergency lighting lights in the connecting corridor suddenly lit up one after another, glowing with a gentle cold white light.
The two team members didn't even look back. They stepped on the newly lit passage and rushed straight to the next unassembled sealed cabin.
In this era, the awakened physical constitution and microscopic psychic control have already completely shattered the physiological restrictions on heavy physical work in the old aerospace era.
In the past, a huge project that required an entire ground support team to tighten screws was now completed by a few professional technicians who had reached the level of Tier Two or even Tier Three in the game and worked well together to complete the final assembly of the lunar surface smoothly.
What supports the entire construction site together with their extraordinary physique and precise control are the standardized components behind them that have been precision processed and calibrated on large industrial assembly lines, and shipped in batches with micron-level assembly accuracy!
The veteran engineer inspected along the corridor that had just been connected and was not yet pressurized. Through the construction opening that had not yet been closed, as far as the eye could see, more than twenty assembly points were flashing densely packed laser level indicator lights.
This is the real industrial behemoth.
The independent temperature control, microcirculation oxygen supply and dust prevention systems inside the spacesuit hummed in an orderly manner.
No one would deliberately take off their equipment to show off in this vacuum and cold for the so-called "personal heroism".
In the game world, Tier Three can already physically cross the stars; the real-life feedback is still far weaker than the game, and the most cutting-edge Tier Four players are also close to physically crossing the sky. At this moment, these top builders are pouring their precious power and control into the wrenches and welding guns at hand!
The old man leaned over and locked the last voltage regulator buckle. Hearing the circuit connection self-check sound coming from the headset, the corners of his eyes slightly raised:
"Command the ground Logistics Department, all subsequent living cabin frames... all will be molded and mass-produced according to this standard tolerance!"
In the afternoon of that day, the first comprehensive living experimental area on the lunar surface passed all air tightness tests with a green pass.
After entering the pressurized living cabin, the old engineer took off his airtight helmet and put on a light flame-retardant uniform inside the cabin. As soon as he passed through the inner hatch, he saw the young researcher lying next to a porthole at the end of the corridor, winking at him.
Under the window sill, there is a newly reinforced folding workbench.
A set of customary marking pens and precision files hang neatly next to the corner of the table, and at the top of the tool rack -
An old iron workstation sign brought down from nearby Orbital Factory and polished to a shiny edge is being wiped spotless and nailed to the wall.
"Old man, your special seat is a special seat on a special plane." The young man grinned.
The old man stepped forward and gently touched the dented iron plate with his fingers. Then he raised his head and looked through the four-layered radiation-proof quartz glass to the deep Void outside.
In the center of the dark cosmic curtain.
A huge planet that looks like blue and white glass is hanging silently in the deep sky dome.
The sea of clouds is flowing, the ocean is vast, and the outline of the land is clearly visible at the edge of the sun.
The old man stood motionless in front of the window, his throat moving slightly, and the reprimand he had prepared was completely swallowed back in his stomach at this moment.
The young man did not disturb the tranquility, but gently unloaded the heavy multi-functional tool box and stuffed it under the table:
"You used to complain every day that the windows were too small in the space station."
"... This isn't much big." The old man said harshly.
"Okay, when the second phase of the project starts next time, I will try my best to apply for you to install a set of 200 square meters of floor-to-ceiling windows on the moon."
"Go aside and connect the heavy-duty backup power cord to me first!"
The old man laughed and cursed, slapped him on the back of the head, turned around, and quickly touched his favorite screwdriver.
In the corridor of the living area, familiar noises and fireworks gradually filled up.
There are young team members who have posted a duty rotation list on the door frame of the dormitory; young men who have just come out of the decompression chamber are queuing up to report to their mothers on the earth that they are safe through the Earth-Moon relay link; the small high-frequency heating furnace in the food preparation area is emitting the tempting aroma of meat, and several hungry Berserker players are arguing around the supply box about how many cans of hot sauce should be served with dinner.
"Don't grab the canned braised pork! Leave two boxes for the brothers who will be rotating later!!"
"I'm on the moon 380,000 kilometers away and still have to be eaten by you starving ghosts?!"
Laughter and curses passed through the hall.
In another communication room, a technician in charge of the Earth-Moon relay circuit had just taken off his login helmet and yelled into the corridor with a red face:
"It worked!! Brothers! The helmet on the moon can also be connected normally! I just returned to the guild workshop and had a great bragging with the guys who stayed on the earth!!"
"Did they believe it?!"
"Believe it or not! They insist that I use a voice changer to book nights in Internet cafes, and they ask me how much Bio-Energy I can get for digging a shovel of dirt on the moon!!"
"Hahahaha! Let them fly up and dig with their own shovels!!"
The old engineer listened to the noisy laughter outside, looked up again at the blue mother star outside the window, raised the corner of his mouth slightly, then lowered his head, and carefully hung the tools in his hands back to their corresponding slots one by one.
The starry sky is very cold.
But when people come, this place becomes home.
"Old man, have you finished cleaning up? Hurry up!"
The young researcher rushed in from the door and thrust a heavy field spacesuit into the old man's hand without any explanation:
"Take pictures! Hurry! While the sun is at the right angle!"
The two of them were fully armed again, stepped out of the airlock, and strode back to the original advance power cabin.
The industrial-grade high-pressure floodlight that once lit up the entire East from a distance of 380,000 kilometers was now pouring down a dazzling snow-white light beam from high in the sky, shining steadily on the shoulders of the two builders.
When several surrounding team members who were inspecting the solar panels saw this, they screamed and crawled towards them:
"Take me one! Take me one!!"
"Move the helmet to the side! My wife has told me that if the news network can't find my face tonight, Blue Star will let me sleep on the floor!!"
The tripod is firmly embedded in the lunar soil, and the elevation angle of the high-resolution camera is slightly raised.
In the lens, the heavy engineering armor, the towering power module, and the azure Blue Star ball hanging high above the extremely dark sky are perfectly frozen in the endless halo of daylight.
The young man stood beside the old man and gently touched his arm armor with anti-cut gloves:
"Old man... say a few words in front of the whole world?"
The old engineer peered through the transparent radiation-proof mask into the depths of the camera at the countless pairs of eyes that were waiting in front of the TV with tears in their eyes.
In the back of my mind, those top-secret drawings that glowed yellow under the dim desk lamp, the hot sparks flying in Orbital Factory, and countless long nights that were suffocated by cold eyes and blockades...
Thousands of words finally turned into the plainest and most confused roar deep in my chest.
The old man slowly raised his right hand, which had touched countless rough machine tools, and waved vigorously towards the vast galaxy.
"Motherland, we have arrived."
The voice was slightly hoarse, but through the Earth-Moon relay network, it resounded like a yellow bell to every corner of Blue Star:
"--This time, our people... are really standing here!!"
Picture transmission, signal lock.
After waiting for several seconds, the ground reception confirmation came from the earphones. Immediately afterwards, an overwhelming amount of crying and shouting almost completely drowned out the entire communication frequency band.
The old man looked up at his mother star, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes bloomed like flowers with a smile.
According to the Beijing time schedule on the ground, before preparing to take a break, the young researcher pulled the old man's sleeve with a strange expression and trotted him to the geological analysis experimental table.
A portable high-precision psychic resonance detector is exuding a faint green luster.
In the sterile tray, there are two identical sealed transparent sampling cups, which contain the original gray-white lunar soil that was just dug out from the foot of the power module.
"What's wrong? The radiation readings are wrong?" the old engineer frowned.
"It's not radiation..."
The young researcher's voice was extremely low, and he even subconsciously glanced left and right:
"I originally just wanted to test whether these ultra-fine lunar dust would cause microscopic insulation aging in superconducting coils... So I first used a trace psychic probe to 'energize' the cup on the left slightly, and the cup on the right served as a non-energized control."
The energy supply probe has been disconnected. The young man stretched out his fingers wearing insulating gloves and moved the two cups into the same shielding position of the detection box to confirm that the background reading was stable.
Sampling probe fit.
On the unenergized right cup body, the psychic energy reading on the instrument panel stuck close to the noise floor of the instrument without any ripples.
However, when the sampling probe touched the seemingly ordinary handful of lunar soil on the left side -
Di.
On the oscilloscope screen, an extremely gentle, extremely weak, but real psychic response curve is sliding down bit by bit at a slower speed than expected...
The old engineer's pupils shrank. He first tested the empty cup to confirm that the background was normal, and then carefully poured the lunar soil into a new clean container and retested.
That slow falling response still exists!
At least in this measurement, the foreign spiritual energy did not dissipate immediately. It was like the rain retained by a sponge, and continued to leave a weak and slowly attenuating response along with these fine cold rock fragments!
The young man took a deep breath, unable to hold back his racing heart, and whispered into the old man's ear:
"Old man... at least these two samples, the non-energized ones, can't detect obvious psychic signals."
"Those who have been energized still retain responses! If they can reappear stably after repeated energization, and then measure the capacity and loss... maybe this can really be used as a natural solid-state energy storage matrix!!"
The old engineer didn't speak immediately.
He very methodically attached encrypted labels to the two samples, recorded the numbers, and locked them firmly back into the constant-temperature sample box.
Then, the old man slowly turned around and cast his deep gaze through the porthole window at the vast gray land outside the camp that glowed dimly under the snow-white light.
The young man followed his gaze, and the smile on his lips gradually became lawless:
"Old man... the billions of tons of seemingly worthless mud beneath our feet..."
"-If the guarantee is not complete, our energy storage cabinets and factories on the moon can be turned into miracles by hand!!"