1130 Welcoming Ceremony
…August 13th, Sunny
w.a.n.g Qian wrote the date on the header, then he gazed out at the endless sand outside of the window. He let out a sigh and closed his diary.
There was no beauty here. It was barren everywhere; sand was the only scenery. The uninteresting view and boring life made it difficult even to search for a few hundred words for his diary.
But it was fine, or how else would he kill his spare time?
When he looked up at the wall clock on the wall, it was about time. w.a.n.g Qiang stuffed the diary into the drawer and headed out.
When he walked through the corridor, he couldn’t see a soul.
No matter how vast Mars was, it was a relatively closed environment for the twenty colonists living there. After work, everyone returned to their rooms and closed themselves in their closed circles. Some put on Phantom helmets while others dazed in front of a book.
Sometimes w.a.n.g Qiang even wondered if the kitchen could be equipped with a drone, perhaps he wouldn’t ever see his neighbors for the rest of his life?
A closed environment tended to breed more psychological disorders.
More and more people began seeing the psychologist, and the psychologist was becoming busier and busier to the point that his schedule was always filled. It was even to the point that the only psychologist in the colony almost became depressed due to his heavy workload.
But w.a.n.g Qiang faired okay with his diary, a friend who occasionally played pool with him, and a not-so-boring job.
After he rinsed in the washroom, he took out his equipment from the closet. After he put on his gear, he went through the buffer room and the air shower room before he headed outside.
His boots sank into the sand, and the dim light scattered through the cracks in the dust.
w.a.n.g Qiang raised his head and narrowed his eyes slightly as he looked at the murky Sun.
Just as he walked to the rover, a communication window popped out on the lower right corner of the holographic screen inside his helmet.
When he pressed the bottom, it was the captain’s voice.
“…Today’s mission is canceled. Drive the rover back to the garage and immediately gather at Central Square.”
w.a.n.g Qiang, inexplicably confused, asked, “What happened?”
“The reinforcements are here.”
The reinforcements are here.
When w.a.n.g Qian heard the four short words, his heart was overwhelmed with uncontrollable joy. It was like a drought had lasted for three years and the rain finally arrived.
He eagerly hopped onto the rover and parked the rover into the garage. Without stopping for a second, he jogged to the Central Square.
When he crossed through the gate, he found that the remaining 19 colonists had all arrived. Captain Hong Zewei stood in the middle of the square, and he read a stack of papers in his hand. The rest of the people were beside him all listening carefully.
Everyone was full of excitement which oozed from the bottoms of their hearts.
Reinforcements finally arrived.
w.a.n.g Qiang pulled his friend and whispered.
“What is the captain reading?”
“The letters from Earth!” the friend said, overjoyed. “Celestial Trade built a column for us and collected about 10,000 greetings from Earth!”
“Are you sure you received greetings?” w.a.n.g Qiang asked strangely.
Considering the etiquette of the Internet, he didn’t believe they were greetings at all!
“Ahem, of course, all of them were screened. There were over ten thousand letters in total. How can we read them?” The friend looked at w.a.n.g Qiang with an expression that said ‘You only need to know’ then continued to look at the stack of letters in Hong Zewei’s hands.
w.a.n.g Qiang was truly touched by the envelopes.
At least the people on Earth still remembered the “Martians”. The words of longing made him think of the blue planet, the magnificent sea, and palm leaves swaying in front of his door…
Sniffing his nose, w.a.n.g Qiang suddenly remembered the canceled mission for today and why it was canceled. So he immediately looked around, but he was surrounded by familiar faces.
“Didn’t you say that the reinforcements were here? Where are they?”
“The letters were brought by the reinforcements and thrown down from the synchronized orbit.” The friend grinned and pointed his finger at the sky. “It’s almost time.”
w.a.n.g Qiang looked up and looked beyond the transparent graphene dome above the Central Square.
“…Let us welcome our new friends—the second group of colonists!”
Loud cheers filled the square. People popped open the champagne and let the liquid freely ooze.
Since the day of the landing, a long time had pa.s.sed since he heard this kind of euphoric cheer.
w.a.n.g Qian had zoned out as he didn’t hear what Hong Ziwei said anymore. His eyes were stuck on the turbid sky until the blue light particles appeared. They began to gather, turn brighter, and finally reveal the shape they carried.
The rectangular colonial cabin looked like a stone monument on its side. The shape design inherited the consistent style of Future Heavy Industries’ s.h.i.+pyard. It was dropped from the synchronous...o...b..t by the TS Seagull. With the plasma engine reducing its speed to land, it landed beside the colony.
A m.u.f.fled sound that hit the ground came underneath their feet. The base of the colonial cabin was deeply embedded in the sand, creating a gust of wind and sand.
After the first colonial cabin landed, Celestial Trade made a second footprint on Mars after just a few months.
Although the cabin carried a total of 110 people, the new landing cabin was much smaller than the original colonial cabin. The newly-launched cabin contained only the tools and materials that the new colonists and the colonies desperately needed. It didn’t contain reserved living s.p.a.ces or a functional cabin with a production workshop.
Ten bus-shaped rovers came out from the side of the colonial cabin that carried more than a hundred colonists from Earth.
Among the colonists were engineers who had worked in Lunar Colony, technicians who specialized in industrial automation design, even chefs with the goal of improving the dining choice at the colony, or musicians who decided to devote their lives…
In addition to these ordinary colonists, there were ten special people.
They were soldiers belonging to the Orbital Airborne Brigade of Celestial Trade. Nominally, they were sent to maintain the security of the colony, but in fact, they came for the secret five kilometers underground.
The colonial garage opened, and the large rovers rolled in.
The old colonists prepared a grand welcoming ceremony for their new neighbors from afar.
It had been a long time since the colony was so lively, so the welcoming ceremony was particularly grand. It wasn’t long before everyone was greeted in the cafeteria. All kinds of food and wine were brought to the table, and the captain, Hong Zewei, gave a toast to start the beginning of the celebrations.
The welcoming ceremony boosted the low morale of the colony.
After five bottles of champagne, w.a.n.g Qiang burped, tipsy, and his eyes drifted with swinging consciousness.
At that moment, he suddenly noticed that in the inconspicuous corner of the banquet, a man walked to the captain, saluted, and seemed to say something.
As for the specifics, he was too drunk to figure them out.
A friend gave him a shot of whiskey and w.a.n.g Qian felt his world turning. Finally, his forehead made intimate contact with the table before his consciousness fell into the abyss…
This was probably his happiest moment since he came to Mars.