Chapter 84: Agree To Exploration
The first to arrive on the Moon were various nuclear bombs.
They descended slowly to the surface under the jetting of square steel plates, just like the lunar rovers sent to the Moon back then.
Among them, three nuclear bomb transports failed.
Two large hydrogen bombs were completely lost, one small nuclear bomb was lost, and ten medium nuclear bombs all arrived successfully.
At this moment, the astronauts had a total of 32 small nuclear bombs and ten medium nuclear bombs available.
The square steel plate jetters responsible for “slinging” them had now sprung open dozens of meters away. But they could not be discarded; they still had use.
Remove the engine device on top, pull out the telescoping handle, flip them over to let the four wheels on the back touch the ground, and they transformed into simple board carts that could be used to transport things.
These nuclear bomb boxes were pulled back to the temporary camp one by one by the astronauts using these carts, and then the more than 20 supply boxes and ammunition boxes that subsequently arrived successfully on the Moon were also pulled back.
The first to be divided up by the astronauts were the 9 comprehensive supply boxes.
Each astronaut pulled a board cart, dragging one comprehensive supply box in front of the spaceship they rode in, disassembled it, and carried bottles of gas, drinking water, food, various consumables, and so on into the spaceship.
After closing the hatch, the astronauts connected the oxygen tanks to the gas storage chamber interfaces, pressed the gas release button, and the interior of the spaceship once again had pressure equivalent to one atmosphere.
After busying for a long time, already parched and starving, the astronauts took out food bags, simply heated the semi-solid food inside, and squeezed it into their mouths.
After eating and drinking their fill, replenishing various supplies, and resting briefly, the astronauts went out of their cabins again and gathered in front of the ammunition boxes.
It was now ten o’clock at night on the ninth day of this cycle, with 26 hours until the apocalypse.
These 26 hours were all the time the astronauts, and the entire human world, had to explore this lunar special area.
The ammunition boxes were opened, and nine custom submachine guns were taken up by the astronauts.
The nine stood in a row, aimed at the abrupt gray-black rock wall ahead, and suddenly pulled the triggers.
In the silent vacuum environment, only the clearly felt vibration and the large splashes of moon rock fragments dozens of meters away indicated the bullets’ firing.
Beyond the submachine guns were hand grenades.
One hand grenade after another was thrown out, exploding into silent fireworks under the sunset.
After verifying usability, the astronauts slung the submachine guns on their bodies, took ammo clips and hand grenades, and resolutely headed toward that special area about one kilometer away.
Hopping along, the one kilometer distance was quickly crossed.
Ahead was still a dead silent world covered in thick moon dust, no different from behind.
But after taking one more step, Zhao Jianguo suddenly heard a crackling noise in his earphone, like poor signal or interference.
He turned to look at his comrades and saw them looking at each other.
Obviously, everyone had noticed these changes.
“Forward ten meters.”
The nine astronauts lined up, advanced ten meters simultaneously, then stopped simultaneously.
The crackling in their ears had now disappeared, and so had the noises like breathing and mechanical friction from their comrades’ spacesuits.
Heaven, earth, and universe seemed to fall completely silent at this moment.
“Can you hear me?”
Zhao Jianguo looked at his comrades and saw their mouths moving through the helmets, but his ears remained silent.
He knew then that communication had been cut off.
He made a hand gesture, turned, and walked back, with all his comrades following.
After a dozen meters, noise returned to his ears.
“Communication restored.”
“Earth, this is No. 1. Earlier, our total of nine entered the special area, and communication was cut off by unknown reasons.
Now I request re-entry to conduct exploration in a no-communication environment.”
“Received, exploration approved.”
“Yes.”
Zhao Jianguo took a light breath, raised his left arm, opened a cover plate, pushed it flat, and a small drawing board appeared on his left arm.
His right fingers lightly drew a few strokes on it, and the corresponding lines appeared immediately.
A swipe of the palm, and all lines disappeared, returning to the previous empty state.
His comrades did the same.
After verifying the drawing board functioned correctly, Zhao Jianguo said in a deep voice: “Move out.”
“Yes.”
The nine lined up again, separated according to the original plan, each about 100 meters apart, stretching out a total length of 800 meters, and advanced side by side.
At this moment, each astronaut could see their comrades to the left and right with the naked eye, but could not hear their voices or communicate in any way;
At this moment, the four lunar detection satellites in high orbit dozens of kilometers up alternately passed over this special area, clearly filming the astronauts’ movement tracks, but similarly unable to send any instructions to the astronauts or receive any information from them.
In complete silence, the nine advanced slowly while searching with their eyes.
Based on the moonquake wave measurements and neutrino telescope positioning data brought back earlier by Jiang Yang, people had confirmed that the underground chamber existed within a circular area with a radius of about 3 kilometers.
That possible passage was also located in this area.
At this moment, they were still 2 kilometers from the edge of that area.
The road ahead gradually became rugged.
Although this was broadly a plain, in detail it was still uneven, full of low hillocks, broken moon rocks, and gullies everywhere.
This forced the astronauts to adjust distances and positions from time to time, sometimes even needing to “cross mountains and ridges”.
The astronauts had not conducted a very careful search in this area.
After spending about an hour, they arrived at the edge of that core area.
From this moment on, the search would enter detailed mode.
The distances between the astronauts suddenly shrank to 10 meters, like a fishing net with suddenly smaller mesh, beginning a fine sift in this “pond”.
From this moment, they could not miss any anomaly. Because any anomaly, no matter how small, might hide hope for continuing the nation and civilization.
Time passed bit by bit.
Thirsty, they sucked some water from the tube by their mouths; hungry, they sucked some nutrient solution.
Cold or hot, they manually added some energy to the liquid cycle equipment; high carbon dioxide, they replaced the core in the gas cycle equipment’s chemical adsorption device.
Bodily functions were handled directly inside the spacesuits.
Looking at the mechanical clock, Zhao Jianguo saw that they had already searched for 13 hours.
According to plan, it was time to return to camp for replenishment.
But at that moment, as he just raised his head, he froze.
Under the rocks ahead, a huge cave suddenly appeared before him.
