Caught

After more than half a month of doing the cosmic sweeping job, Xiao Wu realized a truth: comets turned out to be only outwardly large but actually weak.

If only considering the size, comets can be considered the largest objects in the universe when approaching stars. Their tails can extend to more than one billion kilometers, resembling a giant broom sweeping across space. But only when approaching them can one feel their fragility.

More than half a month of "visiting" comet tails, Xiao Wu collected less than 5000 grams of water. This shows how diluted the matter in the comet's tail is. The low collection efficiency made Xiao Wu extremely frustrated. If he still had hair, he would surely have pulled it out.

Currently, Xiao Wu is located about 30,000 km from the Sun's orbit. Although there is no concept of up and down in the universe, this way of speaking is still acceptable.

The Sun's orbit is an imaginary plane. Simply put, the orbits of most planets in the solar system lie on this plane.

Xiao Wu's current location is relatively close to the Earth's orbit. Through the optical telescope, he could see countless small, pitch-black meteorites emitting a light that was both terrifying and moving.

Xiao Wu adjusted his trajectory. He planned to follow the cloud of meteorites around the Earth for a while, after all, collecting materials was still the most important thing, even if the speed was a bit slow.

The optical telescope screen slowly scanned, and an unexpected image caught Xiao Wu's eye.

It was an irregularly shaped meteorite, about ten meters long, seven or eight meters wide, and five or six meters high. Light from a nearby crystal shone on it, and this light was collected by Xiao Wu.

Xiao Wu was slightly startled and immediately conducted a preliminary analysis of this meteorite. The results cheered him up.

Analysis showed that this meteorite contained about 30% water, 69% iron, and a small amount of elements such as nitrogen, silicon, hydrogen, oxygen, and potassium. Among the trace elements, hydrogen and oxygen were the majority.

"Could this be a gift from God?" Xiao Wu was excited.

This meteorite has a volume of about 400 cubic meters and a mass of over three thousand tons! Even if hydrogen and oxygen only account for 0.1% of the mass, the total is still more than six tons! This amount of fuel can be used for many things.

Most importantly, it also contains more than nine hundred tons of water! When near the Sun, this water can be electrolyzed into hydrogen and oxygen, bringing in a large income. In addition, more than two thousand tons of iron is enough for Xiao Wu to repair his spacecraft considerably.

"Catch it! I must catch it!" Xiao Wu made up his mind.

At this time, the crystal blocking the meteorite had moved away, and the sunlight shone directly on it.

Under the heat of the Sun, the ice water and hydro-oxygen compounds on the surface of the meteorite quickly evaporated, forming erupting columns. Countless gaseous substances erupted, covering the meteorite core in a layer of white mist, dragging a long tail behind it.

Xiao Wu worried: "These are all my treasures, I can't let them evaporate and waste like this."

Immediately, Xiao Wu maneuvered the spaceship between the meteor and the Sun, using the solar panels to absorb the heat. With no sunlight radiation, the low temperature of space caused the long white tail to dissipate at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Xiao Wu breathed a sigh of relief and began calculating how to get this gift from the sky into his possession.

With a delicious cake in front of him, the urge to create knives and forks became overwhelming. Xiao Wu no longer worried about energy consumption, instructing the robot to clean the storage area of materials, even dismantling some less important equipment to make use of them.

The fabrication room was the most strictly guarded area for Xiao Wu, second only to the main control room. Here, Xiao Wu stored the most basic and important mechanical parts, ensuring sufficient manufacturing capabilities when materials were available. Luckily, the fabrication room wasn't heavily damaged during the previous asteroid impact.

Thanks to the tireless work of the robot, a high-strength robotic arm, approximately 300 meters long, was quickly manufactured.

Xiao Wu was now only a few thousand meters from the asteroid. This distance could be considered very close in astronomy, but still a bit far for Xiao Wu's reach. He had no choice but to carefully maneuver the small spaceship, reducing engine power to the lowest level, inching closer to the asteroid.

Doing so was very risky. A few thousand meters was the minimum distance for Xiao Wu to maneuver the spaceship to avoid collisions. Beyond that point, if another asteroid collided with the meteor, sending it towards Xiao Wu, he wouldn't have time to escape and would be smashed to pieces.

"Fortune favors the bold, once this trip is over, I'll enjoy the spoils!" Xiao Wu thought to himself, his actions becoming even more cautious.

Time passed, the distance shortened to 2000m... 1000m... 500m...

Just as Xiao Wu was about to achieve his goal, a dark shadow suddenly rushed into his view. Startled, Xiao Wu saw the shadow hurtling at an extremely high speed into the asteroid, creating a bright explosion. Afterwards, it began to spin, the heat from the collision causing substances such as water, carbon dioxide, hydrogen and oxygen to violently evaporate, forming a large fog.

Furthermore, the collision altered the asteroid's trajectory, causing it to fly forward and disappear immediately.

Xiao Wu was both angry and frustrated, cursing the hateful asteroid countless times. After cursing, he refocused his attention, turning the telescope to search for its trace.

Xiao Wu knew that due to the recoil from the evaporating gas and its inherent inertia, the asteroid wouldn't fly far. Sure enough, after two hours of searching, Xiao Wu found it in the direction of the Sun's orbit, about 600km away.

Xiao Wu didn't dare accelerate too fast, maintaining a relative velocity of 50 m/s between himself and the asteroid, slowly approaching it.

50 m/s might seem lightning fast on Earth, but here it was no different from a snail's pace. Xiao Wu spent more than three hours getting close to the asteroid at a distance of 3000m.

"Damn it, if any blind fool dares to disrupt this, I'll risk energy depletion and use the laser gun to eliminate him." Xiao Wu silently made up his mind and carefully approached.

The distance grew closer, and Xiao Wu became even more tense. Finally, the distance shortened to 280m!

This distance was within the operational range of the grappling hook Xiao Wu had built.

Xiao Wu aimed the grappling hook at the asteroid and decisively ordered its launch.

The recoil from launching the grappling hook caused Xiao Wu's spacecraft to shake. This shaking affected the accuracy of the grappling hook, causing it to fly past the asteroid at a distance of about 50 meters.

Xiao Wu was disappointed, controlled the machinery to retrieve the grappling hook, adjusted the thrust parameters, and launched it again.

Failure again. The grappling hook flew past the asteroid at a distance of 20 meters.

He continued to adjust the thrust parameters and launched again.

Finally, Xiao Wu succeeded! The grappling hook accurately hit the center of the asteroid, piercing its porous outer shell and deploying inside, firmly connecting it to Xiao Wu's spacecraft.

The asteroid was impacted by an external force and immediately flew in the opposite direction. The high-strength rope was stretched taut, and Xiao Wu's spacecraft was also pulled along.

In a zero-gravity environment, miracles often happen, breaking all conventional rules. On Earth, if you use a grappling hook to hook onto a rock, even if the hook holds firmly, the rock will not be pulled away. This is because of Earth's gravity.

But this is space, where there is no Earth's gravity. When a meteoroid is impacted, it will react. The impact force from the grappling hook will cause it to move in the opposite direction. This situation is like Xiao Wu tying himself to the tail of an arrow, then using a bow to shoot the arrow, and he is also pulled along by the arrow.

Xiao Wu had anticipated this, so he wasn't flustered. He also didn't dare to stop suddenly, because the pulling force could exceed the rope's tolerance, causing it to break. Xiao Wu slowly used his strength, gradually reducing the meteoroid's kinetic energy.

After three hours and flying over a thousand kilometers, Xiao Wu finally controlled the meteoroid. Then, he pulled it, gradually heading away from the Sun's orbit.

Like a lion catching a young calf in a herd of buffaloes, but not daring to eat it immediately and having to drag the prey away from the herd, Xiao Wu didn't dare to start his "feast" here, because this place was too dangerous.

After three days, Xiao Wu had pulled the meteoroid four thousand kilometers away from the Sun's orbit. There were no other meteoroids in sight. Seeing the delicious "feast" before him, Xiao Wu excitedly roared: "Let's eat!"