Understanding the importance of this machine to his plans, Victor quickly returned to try to turn the machine off in order to recalibrate it.
At the same time, Reed began powering up the ship to return.
Although Ben and Johnny were the pilots, he remembered their training and could take their place if necessary.
Of course, I could also rely on turning on the autopilot.
Meanwhile, Susan had left the control cabin and was waiting at the ship's entrance for her brother and Ben.
"¡Johnny!"
And she smiled with joy when her brother appeared and entered the ship.
Behind him, Ben also appeared and was about to enter the ship, so Susan breathed a sigh of relief.
Now all that was missing was Victor showing up…
!!!!
And right at that moment the cloud of cosmic radiation arrived.
Reed opened his eyes in surprise, as he could swear that the cloud of cosmic radiation accelerated.
But he could say or do nothing as the cosmic radiation hit him and his body began to writhe in pain.
The same thing happened with Susan, Johnny, and Ben.
Trapped inside their suits, the four writhed in pain.
But compared to Reed, Susan, and Johnny, who were somewhat protected by the ship, Ben was hit directly.
Ben was unlucky, as he was only one meter from the ship's door when he was hit by the cloud.
All he could do was stretch out his hands to close the ship's entrance before falling to the ground, just like Reed, Susan, and Johnny.
Meanwhile, the machine Victor had wanted to turn on exploded as the cloud of cosmic radiation passed by, taking him by surprise and sending him flying out of the room, hitting the wall of the hallway and falling to the floor.
And because he wasn't wearing the helmet part of his suit, he suffered a severe burn on his face.
But Victor did not suffer much, as the pain of being hit by the explosion and the cosmic radiation that passed through his body left him unconscious.
Meanwhile, the other 4 continued to suffer on the ground until 3 of them lost consciousness after a few minutes.
Susan was the only one who remained conscious, sighing with relief as the cosmic radiation passed and the pain subsided.
Of course the pain was still there, but the woman endured it because there was no time to lament in this situation.
"Johnny?" Susan asked, but her brother didn't answer.
The woman tried to move her body, finding it difficult due to the pain and the weight of the suit.
With an effort, the woman began to get up and crawled to her brother.
Through the helmet of the suit, Susan saw that her brother's eyes were closed, but she sighed with relief when she realized that he was still breathing.
Looking to the sides and then towards the entrance of the ship, Susan thought of Ben and struggled to get up and walk towards the door.
Through the window in the door, Susa could see the fallen body of her friend and immediately opened the door.
Straining harder, Susan began to drag Ben's body, but her attention was caught by the light in the distance and she saw the laboratory far away.
And Susan opened her eyes when she saw the fire through the windows of the closed structure.
'Victor' thought Susan.
Victor had said he was in the lab busy with a machine, and he must surely be trapped in the burning lab.
Apologizing, Susan continued dragging Ben's body back to the ship and closed the door before bracing herself against the wall to avoid falling.
It wasn't that I wanted to abandon Victor, but I didn't have much strength left to go to the laboratory and look for Victor.
With the ship's door closed, Susan dragged the bodies of her brother and Ben into the ship, before closing the compartment that led to the ship's exit and opening its hull.
Taking a deep breath, Susas only recovered from his fatigue for a moment before opening his brother's helmet as well and
Ben.
Sighing with relief at seeing that none of them had visible injuries, she tried to wake them up.
"¡Johnny!"
"¡Ben!"
But it was useless.
No matter what he tried, neither Johnny nor Ben regained consciousness.
Desperate, Susan went to seek help from Reed, but unfortunately she found him in the same situation as the 2 men and he also did not respond.
Feeling the weight of her body, Susan knew she wouldn't last much longer.
Recalling his training, he started the ship and engaged the autopilot.
Having sent a message to the space station, Susan could no longer bear it and slowly fell to the ground while holding onto the ship's control console.
And in a few seconds, her eyes closed.
.
.
.
The spacecraft took off and began flying back to the space station in Earth's orbit while the crew members were unconscious.
But no one knew that before Susan fell unconscious, a group of invisible stowaways appeared inside the ship through space portals.
But since they did it in places on the ship where there were no security cameras, no one else will discover them.
Hidden under invisibility spells, several shadow clones of Peter checked the ship to find any flaws and prevent accidents on the return trip.
And when the ship took off, another group of clones checked on the condition of the fallen crew members who were affected by the cosmic cloud.
While his clones took care of everything, Peter's real body arrived shortly after, also invisible, through a portal, and sighed because his backup plans had worked.
Knowing that the group would be affected by cosmic radiation, Peter wanted to ensure that the group could return and had placed a shadow clone inside the ship.
But how would he help them if his clone were also destroyed by cosmic radiation?
The answer was in the metal boxes he handed to Susan.
When Susan left them in the open air on the asteroid and returned to the ship, these metal boxes began to move away from everyone's sight and stopped when they reached a secluded spot.
There, most of the boxes 'melted' and tiny nanorobots began to build a solid structure, increasing the width of the building with materials from the asteroid itself.
And in the end, when the building was finished, it was a fortress tens of meters high.
Inside the fortress, the last metal boxes also melted and the nano robots began to build a metallic structure in the shape of an arch.
And when everything was ready, a portal appeared and several shadow clones of Peter came out of it.
"Note in the report that the portals created with the slingshot rings work in space," said one of the clones, causing the others to roll their eyes because they don't need to make reports.
Confirming that the portals created with the sling rings worked, the clones quickly brought several things that would be exposed to cosmic radiation just before watching the arc-shaped machine power itself up.
And with electric sparks, the space of the arc rippled, then revealed an entrance to another place.
It was Peter's secret base on Earth where there was another arc machine controlled by another group of shadow clones, and all the shadow clones cheered when the space arc machine worked.
After celebrating, they got down to work.
This fortress on this asteroid will be Peter's first space base, and a group of shadow clones will begin working here before creating more bases throughout the solar system.
But before that, they received notification from other shadow clones about the sudden acceleration of the cosmic radiation cloud.
Quickly, the shadow clones returned to Earth, shut down the space arc machine, and left only a couple of them behind.
Meanwhile, on Earth, they monitor the fortress through surveillance spells.
Unlike surveillance done with modern technology, these magical spells had no time lag and could know everything that was happening in real time, whether inside or outside the fortress and also inside the Baxter group's spaceship.
And when the cosmic cloud passed, they could only shake their heads as they watched the shadow clones disappear.
But they also breathed a sigh of relief because the monitoring spells had not been affected by the cosmic radiation.
Otherwise, they would have to repeatedly create small portals to know when the cosmic radiation cloud had completely passed.
With the surveillance spells, the group of shadow clones knew that the cosmic radiation cloud had passed and they were able to return to the asteroid.
But instead of using portals created with a sling ring, this time they did it through the space arc machine.