Chapter 149: Preservation Mode
The alarm sounded before the updated supply projection disappeared from the communications wall.
Zeyu recognized its source immediately.
He crossed the common room as the feed from Rong headquarters shifted aside and Xiling’s monitoring system opened a diagnostic report from the damaged western access route.
The mobile command vehicle remained trapped beneath the collapsed entrance.
Twenty some odd days of hard work, buried under rubble.
Soil, concrete and pieces of the tunnel supports covered most of its armored exterior. The impact hadn’t breached the vehicle, and its internal systems had continued transmitting after the six of them retreated into Xiling.
The problem was that the battery temperature was now rising.
Zeyu opened the complete report. Heat had spread through the material surrounding the vehicle, preventing its cooling system from releasing the energy produced by the batteries.
"The soil around it has reached 61 degrees," Shichen observed as he examined the surviving underground sensors. "The debris is insulating the vehicle."
"I knew I should have installed a secondary heat exchange system," grumbled Zeyu, narrowing his eyes at the screen in front of him.
Shichen glanced at him before returning to the diagnostic report. "For use while the vehicle is buried beneath several tons of concrete?"
"It would have been useful, wouldn’t it?" Zeyu countered.
"The additional weight would have reduced its range." Shichen expanded the original design specifications beside the warning. "You rejected it for that exact reason."
Zeyu ignored the reminder that they had already argued over the same design choice a month earlier. Unfortunately, Shichen had been correct then, and the collapsed tunnel didn’t make him less correct now.
That didn’t make watching the battery temperature increase any easier.
"Can you raise the cooling output?" Jingwei asked.
"It’s already compensating." Zeyu opened the power distribution. "I can direct more energy toward the batteries, but every hour of cooling consumes the reserve we need to start the vehicle and move it after we uncover it."
The mobile command unit was more than another vehicle.
It contained independent communications, medical storage and enough reinforced living space to keep all six of them alive while traveling between shelters. The two SUVs could transport them if the roads remained intact, but neither could replace what the mobile unit provided during a prolonged journey.
Zeyu had designed it to cross floodwater, broken roads and unstable terrain.
He had never expected its first serious threat to come while it remained motionless.
Hanchuan enlarged the camera feed from the western corridor.
The collapse had buried the rear half of the vehicle and blocked the most direct route from Xiling’s garage. Several fractured supports leaned above the remaining space, carrying weight they hadn’t been designed to hold.
"How long would it take to clear from inside?" Hanchuan asked.
Shichen reviewed the structural readings before enlarging the damaged section of the corridor. "Six hours if nothing shifts. Longer if we have to reinforce the corridor as we advance."
Hanchuan studied the fractured supports leaning above the vehicle. "What happens if something does shift?"
"The remaining ceiling could collapse." Shichen traced the unstable section on the schematics. "We would lose the vehicle and whoever was operating the excavation machinery."
Zeyu opened the exterior route.
Approaching from outside required crossing almost 200 meters of exposed ground, but the vehicle’s front section remained closer to the surface on that side. If they could uncover the wheels and clear the material packed against the front axle, the drive system might pull the rest of the vehicle free.
"The exterior approach requires less excavation," he concluded. "We take one loader around the northern side, clear the front and reverse the command unit out through the breach."
Qinghe looked at the exterior temperature. "It’s 74 degrees," he reminded them.
"The people at Rong headquarters reached the entrance," Zeyu pointed out.
"They arrived in vehicles and crossed a parking area before some of them collapsed. That is not the same as operating heavy machinery for several hours."
Zeyu knew that.
He had watched the child carried through the entrance. The people outside had reached shelter, but their survival hadn’t proven the temperature safe. It had only shown that heat didn’t always kill quickly enough to prevent someone from reaching a door.
The protective suits stored inside Xiling could extend their working time. They couldn’t make their bodies immune to the temperature, and they couldn’t prevent hydraulic fluid, seals or tires from failing.
"We don’t need several hours outside," Zeyu argued. "Shichen clears as much as possible from the interior route. I approach from the north once the vehicle is accessible. If we can expose the front axle, I can use its own drive system to finish the extraction."
Hanchuan studied the route without dismissing it.
That was all Zeyu needed.
The mobile command vehicle mattered to Zhiyi’s survival. Hanchuan would risk equipment and controlled exposure to retrieve it, provided the plan didn’t depend upon optimism.
"How long outside?" Hanchuan asked.
"Twenty minutes to reach the collapse with the loader. Thirty minutes to clear the front if the debris remains loose. Less than ten to connect an external control line and start the vehicle."
Qinghe calculated the total exposure time before looking at Zeyu. "An hour, assuming the recovery proceeds exactly as planned. It will be longer if anything goes wrong."
"Then I’ll make sure nothing goes wrong." Zeyu kept his attention on the exterior route, as though refusing to acknowledge the possibility might remove it from the calculation.
"That isn’t a medical precaution," Qinghe warned.
Zeyu finally looked at him. "No, but it remains an excellent goal."
Qinghe’s expression made it clear that he found nothing amusing about the answer.
Zeyu became more serious. "The loader has a sealed cabin and an independent cooling unit. I won’t be standing outside with a shovel."
"The cabin was tested at 55 degrees," Shichen reminded him. "Not 74."
"Which is why we prepare a second cooling supply and monitor it from here."
Zhiyi opened the loader specifications before anyone could ask her to calculate the additional demand.
"The auxiliary battery can support the cabin cooling for 83 minutes at maximum output," she determined. "That estimate decreases if the battery temperature exceeds 50 degrees."
Zeyu added the predicted heat gain.
"Sixty-eight minutes," he corrected. "We turn back at 50. That leaves enough power to return even if the primary cooling system fails."
Qinghe considered the limit. "You wear a cooling suit inside the cabin. Your core temperature and heart rate remain visible to me. If either crosses the limit I set, you return immediately."
Zeyu raised an eyebrow at Qinghe. "Even if I’m almost finished?"
"Especially then," Qinghe warned. "That is when people decide another five minutes won’t kill them."
The answer eliminated any possibility of negotiating for additional time. Hanchuan turned to Shichen instead. "Can you make the interior corridor safe enough to begin clearing it?"
Shichen examined the fractured supports surrounding the vehicle. "Not immediately. We need to install temporary supports before anyone moves the debris."
"Then start with the supports," Hanchuan instructed.
Shichen transferred the structural plans to his tablet and left for the equipment level.
Hanchuan turned back to Zeyu. "Prepare the loader, the auxiliary cooling supply and two recovery teams. No one crosses the exterior barrier until Shichen confirms the vehicle can move without bringing down the remaining tunnel."
Zeyu nodded.
They weren’t waiting for the temperature to fall. The Heat had already demonstrated that it didn’t intend to obey their schedules.
They were going outside because the vehicle was worth the risk.
First, they needed to keep it alive long enough to reach it.
Zeyu selected preservation mode on the command unit’s control panel. "Communications, living systems and nonessential electronics will shut down," he explained. "Cooling will protect the batteries, medical storage and drive components. Nothing else."
Jingwei examined the revised power projection. "How long does that give us?"
"Thirty-six hours before the batteries fall below the reserve needed to extract it," Zeyu answered before he authorized the change.
The vehicle’s interior cameras went dark. Its communications array disconnected next, followed by the environmental controls and secondary systems he had spent months designing.
Within seconds, the most advanced vehicle his company had ever constructed became a motionless battery beneath the ground.
Only two readings remained on the wall.
Battery temperature.
Extraction reserve.
The countdown began.
35:59:59
Zeyu stared at the numbers for one second before turning toward the equipment level.
Thirty-six hours was enough.
It would have to be.