Reborn in 2011, I am the chief designer of aerospace.

"Let's look for it!" Song Xingye said.

"Wait a minute," Han Jing grabbed him, "What did you just say? No lingering, no exploration."

"It won't take more than a few minutes," Song Xingye said urgently. "We're practically right above it. It's definitely nearby, and it should be so conspicuous that we can see it at a glance."

But that wasn't the case. After a full hour of intensive searching, Song Xingye finally had to admit in frustration that the "Pathfinder" seemed to have truly vanished into thin air.

Even the inertial navigation system he removed from the rover was of no use; that thing could pinpoint their current location to the meter, but the official coordinates of that antique spaceship had an error of several kilometers.

Even so, it should be visible to the naked eye.

"We knew it was right here," Song Xingye said in frustration, "How could we not find it?"

"It's dust," Han Jing reminded him. "Think carefully, when did this area stop functioning? Thirty years ago? How many dust storms have swept across Mars in the last thirty years?"

He pondered for a moment and continued, "The sandstorm has buried it completely, even blending it into the surrounding landscape. If you were to step on it now, you would probably only think it was a strangely shaped, lumpy mound of earth."

"Damn sandstorm." Song Xingye sighed in frustration. "You're right, it was my oversight. We might have just passed right next to it without even realizing it. What do we do now?"

"Keep moving forward." Han Jing returned his words verbatim, "No detours, no exploration, no sightseeing, just speed. Head to the Agamemnon, or die trying."

"Let's go to the Agamemnon, it's all or nothing!" Song Xingye rallied his spirits and agreed. "Let's go, let's get going!"

……

They were exhausted, mired in extreme burnout, a complete numbness that drained all consciousness, the whole world compressed infinitely, leaving only the mechanical act of lifting one foot and then taking the other.

The surrounding scenery gradually lost its color, from the light orange they had seen when they first landed to a deep brown like burnt bricks, as they trudged arduously across the bedrock they were standing on.

But at this moment, no one had the leisure to appreciate the scenery, and no one looked into the distance. Everyone's eyes were fixed on the ground where they were about to land.

Song Xingye kept clutching the inertial navigation system he had removed from the roaming vehicle, staring intently at the location data on it. At first, he would occasionally announce the progress: "Three hundred kilometers left."

Han Jing finally couldn't take it anymore and told him to shut up. This countdown felt like torture, and none of them dared to think about what would happen if the inertial navigation system also broke down, or if they missed the Agamemnon base like they missed the Pathfinder.

Two hundred kilometers.

One hundred kilometers.

When they finally reached the edge of the Agamemnon camp, they were stunned for several minutes before they could barely recognize that the metal lump in front of them was an abandoned drilling lubricant storage tank.

A short distance further ahead was an earthquake monitoring station, but everyone was exhausted and had no interest in it, so the high-tech wreckage was ignored.

They mechanically climbed to the top of a sand dune and slowly descended along the other side until they were almost stumbling and falling headfirst into the center of the camp, when finally someone raised their head.

The generous gifts from the Agamemnon were thus laid bare before their eyes.

"We've arrived." Han Jing's voice was so soft it was almost a whisper.

Song Xingye suddenly looked up: "We're here! It's right there!"

Mira called out in a trembling voice from behind, "Come here, come here!"

The Agamemnon's camp was in a mess. The landing module was moored a kilometer to the east, like a half-melted mushroom on the heat shield, with fragments of the impact airbags scattered around it.

Abandoned facilities are scattered throughout the camp: abandoned fuel plant and generator room, two shriveled living quarters, tool shed, domed greenhouse, six or seven research stations, communication antennas, and sheds haphazardly built with metal sheets.

Piles of garbage and abandoned equipment were stacked up like mountains, and cables and data lines were tangled and spread out like a mess. The crew members of the Agamemnon, who were destined to perish, no longer cared about their dignity. At that time, they only had survival on their minds.

As far as the eye could see, everything was covered with a thick layer of Martian dust.

The Agamemnon's power generation facilities were long since destroyed, but the structure of the habitation module remained intact. Although the gas inside the module had been completely lost during its long time on Mars, Song Xingye confirmed after inspection that the module itself was undamaged.

Reopening Camp Agamemnon carries enormous risks. If the deadly primitive fungus survived on Mars for six years and remained active and toxic, it could very well trigger the uncontrolled infection that destroyed Agamemnon.

Theoretically, this strain cannot survive more than six years without a host. Theoretically, even if they survive, they cannot infect healthy humans. Theoretically, even if they do infect, they have prepared sufficient effective drugs this time. Everything is just theoretical.

But they had no other choice.

Song Xingye removed several solar panels from the landing module, brushed off the accumulated dust, and was pleasantly surprised to find that they were still working. The electricity generated by these arrays was enough to maintain the heating and lighting of the living quarters.

More importantly, if those signal transmitters were not completely destroyed, they could re-establish contact with Earth.

"We have a new campsite and new equipment," Song Xingye announced to his companions.

He should have been experiencing the joy of victory, but at this moment he only felt exhausted.

"Moreover, everything here seems to still be usable."

……

Contacting Earth was a daunting yet unavoidable task for Song Xingye. The Agamemnon Expedition had left behind a complete set of high-bandwidth communication equipment and a rotatable high-gain antenna, leaving him with no other option but to call Earth.

After the Agamemnon's main command module was re-inflated, it took him a full hour to wake up the old communication equipment, recalibrate the computer to calculate the Earth's current position, and guide the antenna to complete the alignment.

Subconsciously, he even secretly prayed that the antenna would not lock onto the signal, so that he could buy a few more hours of breathing room and avoid the inevitable heavy confrontation. Unfortunately, things did not go as planned.

At least he didn't have to bear all of this alone, so he called Mira and Han Jing over.

"We're in this together," he took a deep breath, "Are you ready?"

Mira nodded, tossed her disheveled hair aside, and forced a pale smile. Han Jing replied in a deep voice, "Ready."

He pressed the switch, started the camera, and began transmitting signals.

"Earth Call Center, this is Song Xingye, Han Jing, and Mira, connection test." He reported, "We have arrived at the ruins of the Agamemnon Farm in the Arcadia Plain."

He paused, this was only the easiest part to talk about.

"We are deeply sorry..." He paused again, his mind blank.

He looked helplessly at Han Jing, but Han Jing just shook his head slightly and silently mouthed to him: You say it.

He had no choice but to bite the bullet and face the camera again.

"I regret to inform you that, uh... after landing, I mean, we had some casualties. Uh... only the three of us survived. I hate doing this, listen, here's the situation."

He took a deep breath and blurted out in a rapid-fire voice: "We encountered a serious crisis during landing. Sheng Tianhong and Sergei have both sacrificed their lives. Do you understand?"

After saying that, he cut off the camera and collapsed to the ground as if he had lost all his strength.

"Okay, all done."

"Isn't the report over yet?" Han Jing frowned. "We need to give them more details. I'd like to hear their instructions first."

Song Xingye shook his head and answered incoherently, "No, I mean... yes, no, it's not over yet."

"Then we..."

"It takes half an hour for the signal to reach Earth before we can receive a reply," Song Xingye interrupted him. "After that, it may take a while before we can contact the person in charge. Don't worry, we have plenty of time."

He tried to calm himself down and then reconnected the transmitter, beginning a brief report on the details of Captain Sheng Tianhong and Sergei's sacrifice.

More than half an hour later, the monitor finally showed a picture of a communications officer who looked astonished, as if he had just been dragged out of bed.

"Uh, Xihe, signal established." Song Xingye didn't recognize this person; he was clearly not a regular on-duty communicator.

"Uh...this is so great! Wow, it's so good to hear your voices, we were almost going crazy with worry!"

Before he could finish speaking, his expression froze, clearly having just heard the delayed report of Sheng Tianhong and Sergei's deaths.

Extreme shock flashed in the technician's eyes.

"Wait a moment," he said hastily.

宋星野在心里默默换算着地球时间，格林尼治标準时间05:45，这意味着当地时间是深夜12:45，航天中心所在的地方则是深夜11:45。

It was during the midnight shift change, and their signal cut directly into the gap between the second shift. No wonder the response was so slow; the ground control center was probably busy waking up the relevant high-ranking officials.

The ensuing conversation was like getting bogged down in a quagmire. Due to the long signal delay, Song Xingye and Han Jing could only talk to themselves for a long time, answering the preliminary questions posed by the Earth side, while ignoring some meaningless inquiries.

They then cut off communication and listened to real-time feedback from Earth, delayed responses to their questions from half an hour earlier.

After several rounds of communication, bad news came one after another. First of all, the rescue mission was still hopeless. Song Xingye had never expected a miracle. He kept asking questions only out of an almost self-destructive obsession, wanting to personally confirm this conclusion that was destined to be hopeless.

After several rounds of communication, bad news came one after another. First of all, the rescue mission was still hopeless. Song Xingye had never expected a miracle. He kept asking questions only out of an almost self-destructive obsession, wanting to personally confirm this conclusion that was destined to be hopeless.

Secondly, although the engineers on Earth did not give up, they still could not come up with any new solutions to break the deadlock. Their only chance of survival rested entirely on the Viking 3 return rocket from Country A, which was docked at the south pole of Mars.

At this moment, the command center on Earth must be completely surrounded by hundreds of reporters who have flocked there. Although Jingzhou has been trying its best to delay, how could the media not demand to see them?

Therefore, when Song Xingye decisively refused to be interviewed, the staff on the other side of the screen did not show the slightest surprise.

"Received," the other party replied. "There's one more thing I need to report to you. Please wait a moment. I think you might prefer to hear the assessment from the orbital mechanics experts directly regarding this part."

It turned out that the orbital mechanics expert was actually a middle-aged woman.

"We have obtained all the design parameters of that country A's rocket and entered them into the trajectory matrix of the launch window for comparison. The core conclusion is that even if it is streamlined to the extreme, discarding all rock samples, clearing all unnecessary materials, and allowing no operational errors, the rocket's fuel reserves can only support a payload of up to 140 kilograms into Mars orbit."

This is the theoretical absolute limit; we strongly recommend leaving a sufficient safety margin.

"Received," Song Xingye said, his face ashen. "But what if it were us?" He suddenly stopped.

What if they find out?

The ground engineers hadn't realized the problem yet, but a thunderbolt had already struck Song Xingye's mind. If the expert had directly announced the figure of 140 kilograms over the channel, everything would have been over.

140 kg.

But it was all too late; now they had all heard it.

This means that only two of them are destined to make it home.

……

After the long meeting with Earth ended, everything seemed to have come to a standstill again.

The aircraft, known as the "Butterfly," had an unremarkable appearance and didn't even look like an airplane. It looked more like a pile of thin, transparent plastic foil sheets randomly stacked together.

The density of Mars' atmosphere is only one percent of that of Earth. Even with the help of Mars' low gravity environment, achieving flight in such a thin atmosphere is still a counterintuitive challenge.

To generate sufficient lift, an aircraft's wing area must be forty times that of a comparable aircraft on Earth; otherwise, its speed would need to be increased sixfold, or its mass would need to be reduced fortyfold.

The "Butterfly" pushed lightweight and aerodynamic performance to the extreme in its design. By Earth's standards, its wing area is astonishing, and its flight speed is close to the speed of sound, but its weight is almost zero.

The fuselage skin is made of a thin, yet exceptionally strong, single-molecule plastic film. The wing spars are not made of metal, but rather use a pressurized airbag design, giving the wings sufficient stability through a rigid, balloon-like structure.

The fuselage also relies on inflatable technology to support the frame, while the interior is supported by ultra-lightweight foam ribs to create a high-lift airfoil.

"Do you know why they named it 'Butterfly'?" Song Xingye asked while inspecting it.

"Because it is light and fragile," Han Jing said, looking at the thin wings, "like a butterfly."

Song Xingye gave a wry smile.

"No, when the chief engineer finished assembling Unit-01, he shook his head and said, 'Hmm, it really looks like a yellow butterfly.' That's how the name was decided."