The room was in complete chaos.
Just ten minutes ago, they interrupted the national broadcast on Mars. Soldiers were deployed to maintain the order outside the launch center and yellow tapes were set up at the door to stop the eager reporter waiting for the news as the entire center was locked down.
“…this is Ares! We need backup! God…they, the bugs! They are hitting our spaceship!”
“Hell, don’t they not attack?”
“We may have fallen on their nests… the hull has suffered 11% damage, damn it!”
Pieces of information came back intermittently from Ares, tens of millions of kilometers away.
Bolden stared at the screen in complete shock.
He could not believe everything happened so unexpectedly.
Also stunned were the scientists invited by the Advanced Projects Agency of the Department of Defense, the biology professors from Harvard, and the researchers at SpaceX’s Mars Colony Project team… including Martin Karplus who was rejected by Celestial Trade in Coro City, and Michael Levitt on behalf of MIT.
Almost all the well-known experts in the biology community were here.
They had vowed to the NASA consultants that the Mars creature, after three billion years of evolution, already lost its digestive ability of mammals when the organisms on Mars went extinct. They would not attack for no apparent reason.
The reason why Devil Worms attacked the Celestial Trade colony was because of the hostile actions of Celestial Trade… In short, those Xin citizens deserved it.
However, now, Devil Worms used the death of Sean to slap everyone’s face.
They not only ate people.
But they used a cruel way to devour their prey in front of everyone…
“God.” Along with a group of high-ranking officials, Secretary of Defense Carter went into the lounge next door to the mission control and swallowed all this information down. “Today will be the darkest day in UA’s space history.”
“Celestial Trade warned us about the dangers of those Mars species… DAMNIT! Who said these things are mild and cute, and there is nothing wrong if we don’t touch it!” NASA Director Bolden punched the table.
These eight astronauts were the treasure of NASA. The amount of money spent on them was no less than Ares itself.
Training an astronaut was much more expensive than training a fighter pilot. They not only had to master how to operate the more complex spacecraft, but they also possessed a lot of natural science knowledge to deal with unexpected situations.
“What should we do now?” The Capitol consultant looked at Bolden. “How can I explain this to the president in two hours?”
“…proactively clarify to the media?” Secretary of Defense Carter suggested. “No… If we let them know that our astronauts were killed simply because of our error in judgment, we will be crucified by the media.”
“There are still seven people alive…we have to find a way to save them,” Bolden said with paleness.
“How can we save them?” Carter was amused by Bolden’s words, but he could not laugh. He bitterly said. “Do you think this is Iraq? Or Afghanistan? The people that have surrounded us are terrorists? If so, I would immediately send the SEAL team to extract our citizens and go home.”
“You can only go to Celestial Trade.”
The entire lounge suddenly turned silent.
The deputy director who said this immediately closed his mouth. He peeked at several of his peers and stopped talking.
“First, buy time from the media, then discuss with Celestial Trade. If you can convince them to take our astronauts to their colony…” The more Bolden said, the less confident he sounded.
Before the launch, Celestial Trade warned about the dangers of the Mars species. However, they not only disregarded the warning but also thought that it was a smoke bomb released by Celestial Trade. They thought they were using insects that would not actively attack mammals to obstruct their “Mars Plan.”
But now…
They paid the price for their stupidity.
“I can only find a way to solve this through diplomatic channels,” Carter said.
The ball was kicked to the secretary of state… But it was not directly related to him. The Advanced Project Bureau of the Ministry of Defense only participated in the design of the Ares VI engine, but did not participate in the entire launch project.
And the reason why he stood here was just to leave his mark on this historical moment.
It was just a pity that the mark he left was not a positive one…
“In short, we need to calm the media. I will talk to them. Just say that Mars encountered solar wind. The contact between the ground command center and Ares has failed. It will take a while to receive communication,” the Capitol consultant said.
“I’ll speak with NASA staff. This is confidential,” Bolden glanced at several senior officials and said.
“I’ll go explain to SpaceX,” said the Deputy Director of NASA.
As long as they could convince Celestial Trade, the safety of the seven astronauts would be guaranteed.
It would be up to the secretary of state to guide the conversation.
However, the door of the lounge was pushed open, and a man in a NASA uniform ran in, panicked.
The conversation that was full of state secrets was suddenly interrupted.
“What’s the matter? Lippmann,” Bolden frowned in dissatisfaction as he stared at the man who ran in. “What’s wrong? Don’t you know to knock?”
“Bad news!” Lippmann’s breath was out of rhythm as he was panting heavily. He held onto the door frame and looked at Bolden with an ugly expression, “Washington Post, Los Angeles Daily, Wall Street Journal, and CBS… are all outside the launch center. They are demanding us to explain this incident immediately!”
“Explain?” Carter frowned. “Explain what? Are they not outside?”
As he scanned around the the senior figures in the lounge, Lippmann’s eyes widened. “You don’t know?”
“Know what?” The Capitol advisor heart suddenly sank, and he immediately rushed to Lippmann’s side and clutched onto his shoulders. “What happened outside? Tell me!”
You actually don’t know?
Lippmann smiled bitterly, took out his iPhone X, and stuffed it in the advisor’s hands.
“Go see yourself.”
The Capitol advisor quickly took over the phone, and Carter, Bolden, and the others all gathered around him.
It was a Tweet.
To be precise, it was news retweeted by a well-known blogger along with the blogger’s comments on the news…but that was not the issue.
The moment they saw the news headline.
Everyone turned pale.
The news headline said…
[Shocking! The UA manned rocket that landed on Mars actually encountered them…]