Earth Era

A small propulsion rocket quietly left the Xinghai spacecraft and then sailed into the vast space. Compared with the large scale of the universe or the forward speed of the Xinghai spacecraft, its movement speed is very slow, only less than ten kilometers per second, which means that it will take more time for it to finally encounter the alien equipment. After about thirteen days, it will take another ten days to finally reunite and push it to the Xinghai spacecraft, which lasts for a month. But Wei Feng, who has long been accustomed to waiting for decades and hundreds of years, doesn't care about this mere month.

During this month, Wei Feng first conducted some restorative training, carried out some inspection and maintenance tasks on the Xinghai spacecraft, and replaced some parts that had malfunctioned or were at risk of malfunction. Time passed quietly in such busyness, and more than ten days passed in a flash. At this moment, the distance between the small propulsion rocket and the alien equipment was less than ten kilometers.

Before finally rendezvousing with the unknown alien device, the small propulsion rocket had already decelerated in advance. At this moment, the relative motion speed between it and the alien device was only about one hundred meters per second, and this The speed is still decreasing rapidly. Finally, more than half an hour later, the propulsion rocket and the target successfully merged. At this moment, the distance between them was shortened to less than one meter.

In this dark universe, two devices built by two different civilizations were moving side by side.

The distance between here and the Xinghai spacecraft is only 10 million kilometers, which means that the two-way communication delay between the two parties is about one minute. This time was not long, so in order to improve the success rate of the mission, Wei Feng finally chose the manual operation solution, that is, every action performed by the propulsion rocket was controlled by Wei Feng himself. In this case, Wei Feng issued a command and received the task receipt and execution results report more than a minute later. Wei Feng would then decide the next execution action based on the task execution results. Each step in this task may be just a trivial command such as "turn on the hydraulic system of the robotic arm" or "advance five centimeters". The entire task of recovering this alien device is not complicated. But if it is broken down into such detailed steps, the task becomes much more troublesome. It also means it consumes a lot of time.

But Wei Feng has the patience. Wei Feng controlled the propulsion rocket and quietly adjusted his posture, then stretched out his mechanical arm to pull himself to its side. Then the fixation device began to work. The alien equipment and the propulsion rocket were bundled together, and then the propulsion rocket was ignited. …

As the blue light began to eject from the tail of the rocket, the equipment made by the unknown alien civilization that the satellite had been waiting for more than two hundred years finally began to slowly approach the Xinghai spacecraft...

This closeness lasted for more than half a month, every five hours. Wei Feng will recalculate its forward trajectory to correct the orbit deviation caused by its advance. Every ten hours, Wei Feng will confirm the working status of the propulsion system...

In this state, the two-way communication delay gradually decreased from nearly seventy seconds to fifty seconds, and then to thirty seconds, ten seconds, two seconds...

This means that the distance between it and the Xinghai spacecraft is now less than 300,000 kilometers. At this distance, the optical telescope equipped on the Xinghai spacecraft can already capture its image relatively clearly. So Wei Feng really saw what this alien device looked like for the first time.

Its appearance has changed greatly from two hundred years ago. Two hundred years ago, it probably looked like a screw. It has a larger diameter nut part and a smaller diameter nut part. But now, the nut part has disappeared, and there are obvious traces of cutting and disassembly at the connection between the nut and the nut body. And there are some scattered cable-like things extending out.

Wei Feng knew that this must be the work he did on the disassembly and maintenance equipment he launched. Wei Feng could not remember what happened more than two hundred years ago. After reconstructing what happened in a location hundreds of billions of kilometers away from him, he didn't know what kind of work he did to dismantle and repair the equipment, and what kind of problems and difficulties he encountered. Wei Feng didn't know anything about these things. But Wei Feng knows one thing, that is, the disassembly and maintenance equipment finally succeeded. It successfully completed its intended goal. This is the most important thing.

There were still about two or three days before the final recovery was successful. During these two or three days, Wei Feng cleaned out the specimen storage compartment of the Xinghai spacecraft. It is intended to be used as a temporary storage place for this unknown alien device. The specimen storage compartment is intended to be used to collect and store specimens after the satellite arrives in the Nanmen II system. Now it is just right to store this alien equipment.

Three hundred thousand kilometers away. Driven by the propulsion rocket, the alien equipment began to slowly decelerate, and finally reduced its relative motion speed to about one meter per second before reaching the Xinghai spacecraft. In order to ensure that no accidents occurred, Wei Feng even reduced the rotation speed of the Xinghai spacecraft, opened the door of the specimen storage compartment to the maximum, and with the cooperation of the robotic arm, he finally successfully captured the target within the spacecraft.

After completing all this work, Wei Feng put on his spacesuit and prepared to enter the specimen storage cabin in a vacuum state to check the experimental equipment in person, while Ye Luo closed the door, retracted the robotic arm, and operated The Xinghai spacecraft began to rotate again.

Gravity was restored to the Xinghai spacecraft again, and the alien equipment landed quietly on the ground. Wei Feng also arrived here ten minutes later.

In a well-lit environment, Wei Feng saw this thing up close and personal for the first time. The propulsion rocket just now separated from the Xinghai spacecraft before it entered it, but the four propulsion rockets sent two hundred years ago were still fixed on it. They occupy the left, right, upper and lower sides of the device, and seem to have been integrated into it.

Looking at them, Wei Feng was filled with emotion. Wei Feng knew that the successful recovery of this alien equipment was all due to the propulsion of these four rockets. Although they have long since run out of fuel and lost the ability to work, and have even been severely damaged over the past two hundred years, and are no different than a piece of scrap metal, in Wei Feng's eyes, they are so kind.

"Long time no see, my old friends." Wei Feng said, then walked over and walked around the alien equipment, which was originally more than ten meters long, but now the nut part has been removed, leaving only ten meters in length. One lap.

The first impression it gave Wei Feng was that it was old and messy. There is almost no complete armor or shell on it, and it is full of black instruments, pipes and cables that have no apparent use. It looked dirty, like it had been sitting in a dusty place for hundreds of years without anyone taking care of it. But Wei Feng knew that there was no dust in the space environment. The fact that it looks like this only proves that it has existed for too long, so long ago that I can hardly imagine it, so long ago that... so much thin cosmic dust has gathered on it.

Although its appearance is scattered, except for the separation between the screw body and the nut, there is no obvious damage in other places, and there are no broken pipes or cables. This proves that in its long history of existence, it has not been hit by interstellar matter or other accidents. Even... it still had at least some working capabilities more than two hundred years ago.

Because Ye Luo received a signal of unknown meaning sent by it more than two hundred years ago. It was precisely because of these signals that Wei Feng was able to finally find it and capture it here. But now, it's no longer signaling.

This has been confirmed since Ye Luo rediscovered its traces. Wei Feng and Ye Luo also made some speculations about this. Wei Feng and Ye Luo both believed that the disassembled nut part that might contain a micro black hole was probably the energy supply device of the instrument. If it was disassembled and without power, it would naturally not be able to work.

Although it is very incredible to use a black hole as an energy supply device, the reality tells Wei Feng that this is probably very credible.

The spacesuit Wei Feng wore was equipped with camera equipment, which meant that every picture Wei Feng saw could be detected by Ye Luo simultaneously. Ye Luo has the same or even greater vision than Wei Feng. So, after Wei Feng made a visual observation, Wei Feng said directly to Ye Luo: "Dismantle the four propulsion rockets."

"Okay." Ye Luo agreed, and then controlled several robots to come over. The lifting robot first lifted the equipment, and the disassembly robot stepped forward and dismantled the four propulsion rockets one by one.

After completing this step, further analysis can begin.

But at this moment, Wei Feng felt a little embarrassed. After all, this is an alien creation that is completely different from human civilization. Wei Feng does not understand its structure, its working principle, or anything else. Under such circumstances, how to carry out analysis work?

"Captain, I think we should conduct a fluoroscopic scan on it first to determine its internal structure." Ye Luo said, "This can prevent us from accidentally damaging its structure and causing it to be unrecoverable." (To be continued~^~)