Chapter 799 - 755: Accident

Capital.

Three 777 airliners landed in succession, the control tower had made great efforts to adjust the schedules of occupied flights to allow them to land together.

But it was worth it, as the passengers on these three planes were all individuals of high status.

Leading the team was NACA Deputy Director Jim Frey, along with 6 senior officials from the space agency, several active astronauts, and representatives from aerospace companies like Rom, Boeing, and Grumman, totaling over a hundred people. Accompanying staff were even more, filling up no less than three airliners.

Carrying out this visit just a few days after the Lightning night, when external interest had not yet cooled down, truly made it difficult to make accurate judgments.

Word of this visit had been leaked a month in advance, and despite such a significant incident occurring, it still went ahead unchanged, and with no reduction in status, as if nothing had happened at all.

The domestic welcoming party was also quite extravagant, with representatives from the Aerospace Development Committee, main private aerospace enterprises, and official receptionists, all eagerly assembled on the tarmac.

Journalists vied with each other to take photographs, observing curiously as both sides happily shook hands.

Lin Ju stood beside Zhong Cheng, his right hand firmly clasping that of Jim; after exchanging greetings, he smiled and said:

"Send my regards to Mr. Robert."

The smile on Jim’s face faltered slightly, he nodded without giving a reply.

Several higher-ups from the Aerospace Development Committee instantly understood that it was supposed to be Robert leading the delegation on the other side, and it could almost be confirmed that the latter’s fate was sealed.

However, America had not reported it proactively, and there was no public information indicating Robert’s arrest.

Besides the incident being too embarrassing in itself, another significant reason was that personnel changes at NACA were already frequent:

If another public announcement of a change was made, this would mean the NACA Director position had changed hands three times in two years, which would hardly be convincing no matter how it was presented, and would cause instability among both the public and within NACA itself.

This time NACA’s visiting group also made no mention of any information related to Robert, saying only that the Director was preoccupied with urgent tasks and couldn’t spare the time; in any case, Deputy Director Jim taking charge temporarily would not pose a problem.

Robert’s capture was entirely expected; although the intelligence agency had been backsliding more and more over the years, monitoring social media and such minutiae was still a piece of cake for them.

Since America didn’t want to make a big deal out of an ugly affair, China would also pretend to be unaware, and aside from the personnel change, the arrangements proceeded as per the itinerary previously prepared.

On the day of the aircraft reception, it was mainly public appearances and photo ops, without any substantive exchanges.

A few hours later, NACA’s visiting group headed to the predetermined hotel to check-in, and no secret talks were arranged.

After all, the Aerospace Development Committee had shared almost all of Firefly-1’s data, and NACA understood that there was nothing particularly worth focusing on, with the main topic still being Earth cooperation.

...

A foreign-funded star-rated hotel.

Jim returned to his room and met with several staff from Office Thirteen to discuss the upcoming contact plan.

Robert was right, this kind of work didn’t suit him; Jim was a typical professional technical bureaucrat, who could even be sent to the Moon, but this kind of diplomatic activity was very demanding, and somewhat strenuous for him.

But with the current NACA Director secretly arrested and former Director Claire only able to indirectly control the huge institution’s operations, Jim had to be sent out.

The Lightning night did have an impact on the contact plan, it just hadn’t manifested yet, and NACA’s visiting team had to be ready to adjust at any moment.

"Anthony, how should we persuade those Chinese People?"

Jim asked painfully; before departure, he had received a very challenging mission — to find a way to establish a real-time Mars monitoring system with the Aerospace Development Committee. In simple terms, it meant sharing data from all of Mars’ probes at all times.

It wasn’t simply a matter of asking; America’s several probes could also open their data channels to them, but the thought of it was daunting.

After all, China had launched more probes, and crucially, their ground detection capabilities were very strong. To obtain firsthand data on extraterrestrial civilizations, reliance on the "Tianwen" mission series was necessary.

It was unlikely that the grand ideal of human civilization would be persuasive, and while NACA was willing to accept certain costs, they left it to Jim to decide what those would be, but this only added to his burden.

Anthony, now in America’s Space Force but still assigned to Office Thirteen, accompanied the team.

He seemed to have some ideas and without much thought, answered:

"We could start collaboration on Artemis. The Chinese People surely wouldn’t remain indifferent. However, regarding the specific areas..."

"Knock knock."

The knock on the door interrupted him, followed by the voice of the assistant arranging the itinerary:

"Please open the door. There’s been a change in plans."

Jim hurried over, and then they listened as the assistant said:

"We’ve just been informed by the Aerospace Development Committee’s liaison that due to some malfunctions, Firefly-1 has stopped sending back signals. The plan to visit their Mars monitoring center will now only allow us to see previous content. They hope to postpone it by a day as they attempt to restore communication."

"Malfunction?"

Anthony responded immediately with a frown and a calculating look, saying:

"Efficiently working for a week and then malfunctioning just when we arrive? What are the odds! Could it be that something else happened, or are they too sensitive and decided to back out of the agreement we reached earlier?"

Assistant: "We can’t confirm at the moment; the Aerospace Development Committee only notified us, but the tone wasn’t bad, it’s probably not a rejection. They didn’t say much else."

"We need to find out for ourselves."

Jim gestured dismissively, also believing it unlikely that they would so suddenly turn hostile when everything was fine during the day, and that something unexpected must have indeed occurred.

Anthony: "If it’s true, it’s probably worse than a direct rejection."

Jim was taken aback, then immediately grasped his meaning.

No one could deny that the Chinese had quite capable aerospace technology, generally not prone to serious mishaps.

The environment on Mars was much better than that of the Moon, and the Firefly-1 was also equipped with a high-power isotope battery, considered to have a high safety margin.

Its isotope battery had enough power to keep core components sufficiently heated. There had been no reports of lost communication during its months-long journey through space, and if it now could not transmit signals from Mars, it could only be due to an external impact or a quality issue.

But just a few days ago, Firefly-1 was still transmitting large amounts of data, with bandwidth several times that of Curious; the likelihood of suddenly breaking an antenna or controller was low.

That left the possibility of extraterrestrial interference. If that were the case...

The problem became more complicated. With an extraterrestrial civilization involved, Jim wasn’t sure what to do, or even if NACA had the authority to decide on its own — it would probably require the Federal Government to make a cautious decision.