Mechanical vehicles Nos. 4 and 5 began moving toward the center, steering around alloy plates and other debris on the ground.
Their cameras surveyed the world. The sky was a strange black, yet the ground was brightly lit.
Beneath that black sky, holes of every size riddled the base's white walls. Debris lay scattered across the sand, and human bodies in white clothing occasionally appeared, exposed to the elements.
The lack of air and moisture had turned them into dried corpses, still frozen in their final struggles, all looking as though they had suffocated. Perhaps ten thousand years later, a civilization born on this planet would unearth them.
If Luo Qi was unlucky, he would be unearthed too.
Future life-forms would marvel that computers had existed in such distant antiquity, and lament the merciless passage of time.
Mechanical vehicles Nos. 4 and 5 continued through the main control base.
Meanwhile, the three vehicles that had left the base laid three conspicuous pairs of tracks across the boundless red desert.
Soon, vehicles Nos. 1, 2, and 3 stopped before a vast open stretch and carefully surveyed their surroundings with their cameras. Yellow sand-red sand-more red sand.
If Luo Qi had not been a computer now, able to accurately consult the data in his "brain," he would have suspected that he had remembered the location incorrectly.
Where were all the solar panels at My Orange Star Base?!
"These are my lifeline! I have to find them!"
Luo Qi divided his attention and directed the three vehicles to spread out.
Their mechanical arms extended from recessed slots in their sides, and compartments popped open at the fronts of their box-shaped bodies, revealing attachments for the arms.
The attachments served different functions. One arm fitted itself with a multifunction scanner, a rod connected to a larger spherical object.
The multifunction scanner came online. It could detect liquids, solids, metals, nonmetals, and radioactive substances.
Its maximum scanning depth was five meters underground, though that also depended on how much interference the materials in the scanning area produced.
At its core, it was a specialized electromagnetic-wave emitter. Light was also a type of electromagnetic wave, divided into visible and invisible light.
Invisible light penetrated far more effectively than visible light. The scanner analyzed objects buried beneath the sand by measuring how efficiently different materials reflected invisible light.
As their treads churned up fine grains of sand, the three vehicles extended their mechanical arms.
Like mine-clearing engineers, they began scanning the level sand.
Luo Qi rapidly ran calculations. He did not know what worry felt like, but the data simulations told him that without power-generating panels, he would certainly die.
He built a shock-wave data model and began simulating its power to deduce where the solar panels might have gone. Simulations involving such small amounts of data required little processing power and would not consume excessive energy.
Luo Qi began plotting the vehicles' routes. As smart devices, they had precise data on how many motor revolutions would move them a given number of meters.
It was as though Luo Qi had drawn invisible lines on the ground, sending the three vehicles along those predetermined routes to search.
While controlling the vehicles, Luo Qi still spared some attention for other matters.
"According to my records, Water Blue Star's technology in this era is more advanced than Earth's in my previous life. The year is 2054."
"The two planets have different orbits and travel at different speeds. Each time they approach one another, the distance between them is approximately seventy million kilometers!"
"Water Blue Star has a twenty-four-hour day, and one orbit around its star takes 365 days, making one year."
"Orange Star has a twenty-eight-hour day, and takes 687 days to orbit its star."
"The long journey requires thorough preparation. Once humanity confirms that Orange Star Base has lost contact, preparing a rescue mission and reaching Orange Star will take half a year."
"Humanity has suitable transport spacecraft, which need only three months to return to Orange Star."
"The brain's information on Water Blue Star is incomplete. I cannot determine its exact level of scientific and technological development."
Luo Qi returned his attention to the damaged base.
Vehicles Nos. 4 and 5 had reached the main base. Luo Qi directed them to smash straight through its wall and open a path.
One advantage of no longer being human was that he did not have to breathe oxygen and age, nor did he need to drink, eat, or sleep.
Through the vehicles' cameras, Luo Qi immediately spotted the shattered, enormous black screen in the hall, as well as the dead human at the console.
Their treads rolled over the debris as they reached the center of the hall.
Vehicle No. 4 began hauling away debris from the hall.
No. 5 moved toward a gaping breach three meters tall and six meters long.
Through the vehicle's built-in camera, Luo Qi surveyed the outside. White metal fragments and all sorts of wreckage littered the red sand.
This side had suffered severe damage. The passageways near the main base had all been torn apart. He could imagine a large object moving at tremendous speed, carrying terrifying kinetic energy as it sliced straight through.
It had severely damaged three passageways, and the main structures of the two outermost sections had vanished altogether. This side looked more like a garbage dump that had not been fully cleared.
"What a cosmic-scale starting hand..." Luo Qi lamented.
He multitasked with ease.
He controlled vehicles Nos. 1, 2, and 3 as they searched the desert for solar panels.
He directed No. 4 to clean the hall, while sending No. 5 behind the large screen. Behind it stood a server enclosure two meters tall, four meters long, and three meters wide, like a small room.
Buried beneath the sand in one corner was the Power Storage Station.
If the main base was a hemisphere resting on the ground, the large screen formed a dividing line three-fifths of the way across it. The front three-fifths was the human activity area.
The rear two-fifths housed the servers and the Power Storage Station near the wall. The entire base relied primarily on this station, consisting of 900 high-energy batteries, for power.
According to the records, each battery was about the size of a brick. Though these high-energy batteries were not as formidable as the nuclear hydrogen battery in the T800's chest in the Terminator films,
the base's batteries held 186 times as much electricity as lithium batteries of the same volume.
Fully charged, the Power Storage Station could keep the base operating normally for two hundred days, and the high-energy batteries were extremely safe.
But now the Power Storage Station's location had become a person-high mound of sand, with a section of twisted lightweight metal framework jutting out.
Perhaps it could still be salvaged. Luo Qi continuously transmitted electromagnetic signals, directing vehicle No. 5 forward and replacing its arm attachment with a four-fingered mechanical hand.
A small motor powered the hydraulics, and the nimble mechanical fingers grasped a fragment. No. 5 was about to pull, but slowly released its grip instead, letting sand trickle down.
"I can't act rashly. The server needs a backup battery bank."
"Otherwise, if anything goes wrong, it's game over..." Luo Qi directed the robot to retreat.
Vehicle No. 5's treads started moving, and it left the main control base through the breach.
I should be able to find some high-energy batteries. There are spare batteries...
Metal fragments and all kinds of fallen objects were mixed into the sand. No. 5 swayed as it navigated among them.
Meanwhile, vehicle No. 2 made a discovery: one corner of a solar panel protruded from the sand, though only a palm-sized piece remained.
Still, it gave Luo Qi hope. At least the panels really were here, beneath the sand.
The vehicles continued searching for solar panels.
Vehicle No. 5 reached the supplies transfer area, one of the warehouses that had lost contact. Its main structure was gone, leaving only white foundation panels spread across the ground.
Various silvery-white cases lay scattered in the red sand, some already smashed apart.
"A terrible day, a terrible disaster!"
Luo Qi controlled the vehicle as it searched for batteries.
After vehicle No. 4 finished clearing the hall, it joined the "treasure hunt" as well.
High-energy batteries, cables, solar panels, screws, metal wall panels, cutters, twisted metal rods...
The vehicles were like wild dogs digging through the sand for food. Their sensitive scanners always managed to find something.
They dug through the red sand, searching for answers...
As the planet slowly rotated, the base gradually passed into night.
On the first day, Luo Qi obtained seventeen solar panels and fifteen high-energy batteries.
There was also one piece of somewhat good news: before night fully fell, the wind, roughly force two, stopped. With the wind-speed sensor gone, force two was only Luo Qi's estimate.
His energy reserves were low, so Luo Qi prepared to put his brain into low-power sleep mode.
Before doing so, he used the brain's existing resources to write a basic intelligent program, instructing the five vehicles to search independently for usable objects.
Night finally descended on this desolate planet. Within just half an hour, the equatorial region's bitter cold of minus forty-seven degrees had taken hold.
Stars glittered in the sky, casting their light across the surface as the five robots moved through the ruins.
Luo Qi "turned off the lights" and went to sleep, entering low-power mode and setting an alarm for thirteen hours later-to wait for dawn.
The entire base sank into darkness...
In the living and recreation area, a brilliant white beam flashed through a crack in a damaged wall...
Thump-thump-thump-
A strong heartbeat pounded inside Stendhal's chest. He groggily opened his eyes to darkness, fragments of memory flashing through his mind like a revolving lantern.
The sudden earthquake and shock wave had punched a hole through his companion's forehead, killing them instantly. He had also been struck by an object and sent flying, but fortunately, the control panel on his chest had blocked the fatal blow.
Although his protective suit had consequently lost its communications and physical-monitoring functions, he had escaped serious injury, and the suit still barely functioned.
But what followed had shocked him. The sky and ground alike were shrouded in dense red fog so thick that he could not see his hand in front of his face! It was as though hell had descended upon the world!
Everyone was dead... The main base had been hit, both backup power battery banks destroyed, and the artificial intelligence had fallen silent...
Stendhal felt around and found a flashlight beside him. Hungry and thirsty, he pressed its square switch, and a blinding incandescent beam pierced the darkness.
It nearly blinded him. His stomach growled, and Stendhal struggled to stand.
"Have I been starving for fifty-five hours? Or sixty-five?" He could no longer quite remember how long it had been since he had eaten. His fifteen-kilogram protective suit felt heavier than ever. He staggered through the debris, devastation everywhere he looked.
It looked exactly like ruins left after a war.
"The base's artificial intelligence is offline, and everyone else is dead..."
Exhausted, he looked up at the extinguished surveillance indicator lights in the corridor. Even Artificial Intelligence Dad, who would activate backup power to turn on surveillance during emergencies, had gone completely dead this time.
And what could he do? What choice did he have except to wait for death on this alien planet? Water Blue Star was more than eighty million kilometers away.
The cold universe was all vacuum and intense radiation. Oh, he couldn't even escape Orange Star's gravity! How lucky.
Stendhal smiled bitterly. The disaster should have taken him along with everyone else! Why had heaven left him alone to cling to life?
The beam swept around in Stendhal's hand. He had already inspected the base's dreadful condition after the disaster.
Every piece of equipment had suffered the impact, and all power had failed. Holes riddled the walls, making an airtight seal impossible. The rooms had become sieves, leaking every last bit of oxygen.
Stendhal touched his heavy protective suit. It had kept him alive, but taking it off would be an invitation to death.
The sweeping beam stopped on a body ahead. Stendhal halted and looked at the male corpse on the floor. Perhaps he could do something with his remaining time...
He spent the entire night searching for bodies, yet somehow never crossed paths with the electrically powered vehicles.
He gathered the bodies in an open area, enduring hunger and dizzy spells, before finally returning to the main control hall.
There was only one person left.
His beam passed over several cases piled in the otherwise empty hall. Paying them no attention, Stendhal slowly walked to the center.
He rallied his spirits and looked at the crack-covered screen. He had inspected the server after the disaster, and the backup circuit was already in use.
Yet the artificial intelligence simply would not boot up. Even having someone to talk to would have been something.
Stendhal pressed his dry, cracked lips together and reached out to touch the console's keyboard. No miracle awakened the artificial intelligence. Dejected, he dragged the body away...
The next day, the wake-up mechanism roused Luo Qi's consciousness.
His first instinct upon waking was to stretch, but this triggered a phantom-limb illusion, the data simulating the sensation of a body according to his thoughts.
When he opened 156 eyes, Luo Qi immediately found it overwhelming and left only one in the hall active.
All sorts of cases were piled in the hall.
Luo Qi checked the vehicles' operating logs, then counted the cases in the hall. There were twenty-eight!
Meanwhile, incomplete pieces of scrap metal had been piled in the open area outside.
Luo Qi knew full well that the base lacked adequate metal-smelting capabilities. Any metal fragments that could be recovered had to be gathered together.
And now it was time for the joy of opening cases!
But Luo Qi discovered that the body at the console had vanished...
Before you continue