"Cough..."
"Calling base... coordinates 15° south latitude, 128.1° west longitude... requesting support."
There was no response.
Only the anxiety-inducing crackle of static came through the communications channel.
Pitch-black darkness surrounded him. The flashing [Signal Lost] icon on the wrist-mounted computer on his right arm reminded him that he had completely lost contact with the base.
And he was at least twenty meters underground.
The area was also filled with hematite that accelerated the attenuation of electromagnetic signals...
"Damn it..."
A flicker of despair flashed through his eyes, but that fleeting negative emotion was quickly replaced by a powerful desire to survive.
There were still many people on Earth waiting for him to return.
He couldn't die here...
Recalling the survival knowledge he had learned during training in the Gurbantunggut Desert, Fan Tong gritted his teeth and struggled to climb to his feet. After taking a deep breath, he entered the administrator password into his wrist-mounted computer and shut down the positioning system and communications module, which served no purpose other than increasing power consumption.
This was somewhere deep beneath Mars...
Here, the only person he could rely on was himself.
Thinking that he might have to miss tonight's hot pot, Fan Tong swallowed hard, gritted his teeth, and took a special paint marker from the toolbox on his back. He found a sturdy spot on the wall of the rocky cavern and left marks indicating his trail, along with a few last words.
"I hope these last words never have to be used."
The base should have noticed something was wrong by now. If nothing unexpected had happened, the rescue team should already have set out.
However, he didn't dare expect too much from the base's rescue capabilities.
After all, with those simple engineering devices, he truly couldn't think of