Genius Club

March 27, 2024, 10:43 PM

East Coast, USA, 230 Kilometers Above Sea Level

In the thin atmosphere, a pearl-white space shuttle streaked across the US coastline toward the Atlantic Ocean. Its front thrusters emitted gas continuously, decelerating its speed. Wei Cheng, focused and determined, piloted the spacecraft without navigation, signal, guidance, radar, or positioning systems.

He was confident.

From the moment this spacecraft, which he affectionately named “Little White,” rolled off the factory line, he had been its first and only pilot.

“Since its true name and model are classified, let’s call it Little White!” Wei Cheng had joked when he first saw the spacecraft, and the name stuck.

Wei Cheng was a top astronaut from X Country, having completed over a dozen space missions. Except for spacewalks, he had undertaken every type of space mission and was highly decorated. His exceptional piloting skills earned him the honor of being selected to pilot X Country’s first space shuttle—a unique honor and an unparalleled responsibility.

For countless days and nights, he had shared the cramped cockpit with Little White.

“Hang in there, Little White,” Wei Cheng muttered through gritted teeth, his gaze fixed on the dark expanse of space and the Earth’s colorful, cloud-streaked surface below.

As a professional astronaut and pilot, Wei Cheng had trained for all sorts of extreme situations, like bad weather, signal loss, no navigation, and visual-only flying.

During the early days of flight training, many of his peers complained about the extreme conditions. While adverse weather or signal loss seemed plausible, training for scenarios where all communication and navigation systems failed, leaving only their eyes to guide them, seemed absurd and unnecessary.

Back then, their instructor had told them something that Wei Cheng now repeated to Gao Yang before this mission:

“Admittedly, 99% of what we train for may seem redundant, just like much of what you learn in textbooks appears useless in real life. The country never needs you to calculate gravitational forces or prepare oxygen with a Bunsen burner, nor memorize classical literature for battle.

“Life is unpredictable. Who knows what the future holds? Ninety-nine percent of insurance policies are never claimed, 99% of precautions are unnecessary, 99% of medical checkups are false alarms, and 99% of household medicines expire unused.

“Still, why do we do these things? Because we need to be prepared for that 1%.

“You recruits, only 1% of you will become pilots, and of those pilots, only 1% will become astronauts. Most astronauts will never get the chance to go to space. Only 1% will.

“1%! 1%! 1%! If you’re not better than others, how can you become that 1%?”

The instructor pointed at them, and now, as Wei Cheng flew through space, he knew he had become one of those 1% after another.

“I’m the chosen one,” Wei Cheng thought, gripping the control stick tightly. “I’m the only one!”

In the vastness of space, at the edge of Earth’s atmosphere, the space shuttle, piloted by Wei Cheng, soared toward the sunrise, toward the other side of the Earth, toward an extraterrestrial visitor from another universe.

…

Lin Xian, Yellow Finch, Gao Yang, and Chu An Qing stood in a circle, focused and ready.

“Liu Feng’s time-space particle tracker is functioning perfectly,” Yellow Finch said, turning to Gao Yang. “We still have a lock on the particles and even have directional navigation. This won’t affect our original capture plan.”

“In an hour, we’ll encounter the time-space particles at the edge of the Atlantic,” she continued. “Their speed is a steady 0.97 Mach, which is ideal for us. The space shuttle will engage its engines and fly parallel to the particles at the same speed.”

Gao Yang gave a thumbs up, signaling his readiness.

“Lin Xian,” Yellow Finch continued, turning to him and Chu An Qing, “stand behind Gao Yang and assist him. An Qing, stay in the passenger compartment to relay messages between the equipment and the cockpit. If anything happens on either side, report immediately.”

Lin Xian and Chu An Qing nodded in agreement.

Since the incident that knocked out all network communication, the space shuttle had been flying steadily under Wei Cheng’s expert control, which helped ease everyone’s nerves.

Lin Xian moved to Gao Yang’s station, eyeing the complex controls. His worries weren’t about Wei Cheng’s piloting skills but about Kevin Walker.

Without the pressure from VV, Kevin had become a menace, hijacking the US X-37B space shuttle with ease. Would he interfere?

Surely, he would.

Yellow Finch knew this yet had allowed VV’s death, making it a guarantee for non-return. Where did her confidence come from? Did she have another plan?

“Wait! What’s that?” Liu Feng suddenly shouted from the cockpit, breaking the tension.

He had been sitting quietly beside Wei Cheng, updating him on the position and distance of the time-space particles without a word to avoid distraction. His sudden outburst was alarming.

“What’s wrong?” Yellow Finch asked, walking over.

“Look up! No, into space! Above us! There are countless glowing objects flying toward us!”

Everyone rushed to the windows or switched the space shuttle’s external cameras to see the projection.

“Holy crap!!” Gao Yang turned pale.

“Heavens… What is that?!” Chu An Qing was shocked, her face paling. “Is that… a meteor shower?!”

“No,” Lin Xian said, staring at the display. In the space above, beyond their altitude, countless lights were rapidly approaching from all directions. There were too many… like stars filling the sky! Hundreds, thousands!

These lights weren’t ordinary. They were large, reflecting sunlight with a strange blue glow from their tails. Recognizing the familiar blue light, Lin Xian realized: “Argon-ion Hall thrusters! Only one thing uses so many of them in space—Starlink satellites!”

Lin Xian frowned. The situation was escalating quickly. Before they could worry about Kevin Walker’s hijacked space shuttle, Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites were crashing down!

No wonder that reflected light looked familiar. VV had hijacked thousands of Starlink satellites during the World Hackathon to draw a pentagram in the sky for Chu An Qing. Now, thousands of Starlink satellites, glowing blue, were falling towards their space shuttle. This was scarier than a dark cloud—falling stars!

“Holy crap! What’s going on?!” Gao Yang shouted as he realized the satellites were plummeting. “Are you saying the world’s richest man’s Starlink satellites are crashing? How do we dodge this?! There are too many! It’s like a saturation strike!”

“Move! Let me see!” Gao Yang pushed Lin Xian aside to get a better look at the monitor. The display showed footage from the space shuttle’s top camera.

“My God…” Gao Yang was speechless, staring at the sky filled with blue-glowing satellites falling like a meteor shower. Thousands of satellites covered the sky, creating a massive, inescapable net.

With the satellites just tens of kilometers away, their speed made this distance negligible. They were accelerating, burning fuel without hesitation.

“Dodge, Wei! Dodge!” Gao Yang screamed.

Wei Cheng looked up through the front windshield, his face pale. “The area is too wide! There’s no way to dodge! Our radar and scanners are damaged! It’s impossible to avoid such a dense collision! And they’re falling too fast, faster than meteors!”

“No… even faster than meteors! They have thrusters accelerating them! They’ll hit us at 200 kilometers an hour!”

“What do we do, Lin Xian?” Chu An Qing grabbed Lin Xian’s arm, terrified. Even a brief glance at the sky scared her. Who could have expected such a dense satellite crash?

The eerie blue light felt like the eyes of death, countless grim reapers descending from the sky.

“We can’t avoid this,” Liu Feng said. He knew the relative speed and density of the satellite array made it impossible to dodge.

If Wei Cheng had radar, his skills could avoid the falling satellites. But now, the space shuttle was blind. Even the best pilot couldn’t see behind them, and these satellites were falling from above!

“I have an idea.” Lin Xian ran to the cockpit, looking at Wei Cheng.

“Activate the propellant engine!”

“Now?” Wei Cheng kept his eyes on the controls, questioning Lin Xian.

“Even if we activate the engine now, we can’t avoid such a dense satellite shower. More importantly, we’re decelerating. If we accelerate recklessly, we’ll miss the rendezvous point with the Alpha substance at 100 kilometers.”

“No, not forward. Downward,” Lin Xian pointed down. “Let’s dive and drag the satellites into the atmosphere!”

Hearing this, Liu Feng understood.

“I get it! Lin Xian plans to drag the falling satellites into the atmosphere! Their speed is so high that even the thin atmosphere at 100 kilometers will cause them to burn up like meteors!”

“I’ve studied meteor showers! Meteors typically burn up at 80-140 kilometers! Most are gone by 80 kilometers, some even disintegrate!”

“Starlink satellites aren’t as robust as meteors. At such high speeds, they’ll burn up or break apart within tens of kilometers! They might only last until 60 kilometers!”

“And as soon as they enter the atmosphere, air resistance will slow them down quickly. They can’t catch up with the accelerating space shuttle! If we dive to 60 kilometers, we’ll be safe!”

“We don’t need to dodge the satellite swarm! As Lin Xian said, drag them into the atmosphere! Let them burn up as a meteor shower above us!”

“Genius… Lin Xian, you’re a genius!” Liu Feng almost stood up, restrained by his seatbelt.

He quickly added, “Although we can’t rendezvous at 100 kilometers, we can do it at 60 or 50 kilometers! Our space shuttle has wings, making it more maneuverable in the atmosphere. Capturing the particles will be easier, though we’ll lose some time.”

“Commander Huang!” Wei Cheng called. “Your orders!”

Yellow Finch nodded. “Do as Lin Xian says!”

BOOM!!!!

Defying the falling stars, Little White’s engines roared to life. A rocket-like plume shot from the rear, pushing the crew back into their seats as the space shuttle dove toward Earth’s atmosphere. It was a race—a space shuttle against thousands of Starlink satellites.

“Altitude dropping! 180 kilometers… 150 kilometers… 120 kilometers… 100 kilometers… breaking the Kármán line! 90 kilometers! 80 kilometers! We’re still descending!” Wei Cheng, piloting the space shuttle, called out the updates on their altitude.

Chu An Qing and Lin Xian, strapped in tightly, watched through the windows.

“Wow…” Chu An Qing was speechless.

“This… this is a real meteor shower…” Lin Xian said, awestruck.

Outside, a sky full of blue meteors, as dense as rain, unfolded before them. This was the largest meteor shower in human history, impossible to surpass. The billions spent on the Starlink project by the world’s richest man had turned into a beautiful, dangerous display in the sky. It was the most romantic and dangerous meteor shower ever.

Liu Feng, in the cockpit, looked up with emotion.

“Qi Qi…” he choked up. She had said she’d become a star, watching over him, waiting for his Universal Constant to be recognized. Liu Feng clenched his fist, determined. “I will make it.”

By now, the space shuttle had circled half the Earth, moving from daylight to the dark side. On the ground, people watched the unprecedented celestial event, the sky filled with meteors, fireworks, blue trails, and light. In Earth’s 4.5 billion years, no night had been as beautiful and awe-inspiring.

“Crisis averted!” Wei Cheng laughed joyfully, as if clearing a game level. “We did it! We actually did it! We—” Suddenly, his smile froze, his pupils contracted, and his eyebrows twitched. “What is that?!”

Everyone looked up. A massive fireball, trailing a rocket-like tail, was hurtling toward them with deadly accuracy. Speedy! Direct! Impossible to dodge at this distance!

“It’s the US space shuttle!” Wei Cheng yelled. “X-37B!”

He knew it well. X Country astronauts envied it. They dreamed of it countless times! X Country’s Little White was designed to rival the US X-37B! But why was this space shuttle here? With their radar and scanners down, they saw it only when it entered their visual range.

The X-37B rushed at them, engines blazing. No navigation but precise targeting! At this distance and speed, it was impossible to dodge! The massive fireball was about to collide!

Wei Cheng yanked the stick to turn! But the burning space shuttle followed like a descending demon!

Boom!!!

Another flash of light shot up from below! Straight as an arrow! As fast as light! The number of Mach rings showed this unknown object was nearing escape velocity!

“A rocket?” Lin Xian watched the fast-moving shadow. It was a rocket! Even a fleeting glance showed the letters on its side—SpaceX

“It’s Elon Musk’s space rocket!” Wei Cheng shouted. “Why is it here?! And its target is—”

Boom!!!

Boom!!!

A blinding explosion erupted just kilometers ahead! Red light, black smoke, scattered debris! Elon Musk’s rocket hit the incoming fireball, the US X-37B space shuttle! The violent collision blew away nearby clouds! Wei Cheng, gripping the stick, flew past the explosion’s edge and scattered debris.

All was calm again. The fireball, the descending X-37B, the intercepting rocket… all left behind. Wei Cheng slumped in his seat, exhausted. The radio was silent, filled only with heavy breathing… no one had recovered from the thrilling space chase.

Lin Xian looked back through the window. The fire was gone. Black smoke was dissipating. Debris from the exploded space shuttle and rocket was nowhere to be seen. The sky was as serene as before. As if nothing had happened.

Lin Xian recalled Elon Musk’s words at the scientific charity gala when he pointed to the sky: “Mr. Lin Xian,” Elon Musk smiled, raising his finger to the sky. “We’ll meet up there.”

Suddenly, Liu Feng’s eyes widened. He pointed to the dark space above.

“Lin Xian! Look, time-space particles!!”