Volume 10: Ancient Battleship Chapter 483: All fear comes from insufficient firepower
Since the Alphas once imitated energy crystals here, this power room must have a passage connecting to the outside - otherwise, the personnel and materials participating in the imitation project could not have relied on teleportation devices to enter and exit this place, right?
Personnel and supplies are easy to deal with, but those large and heavy equipment, even if they can be disassembled, are extremely troublesome to transport.
Judging from the indentations on the ground, the machinery that was once installed on the edge of the giant pit was obviously of considerable tonnage.
But what Ke Lan couldn't understand was that since the Alphas captured this ancient battleship, why didn't they incorporate it into the fleet, but instead sank it deep into this lava lake?
Putting aside other things, just looking at this engine room, the combat power of this battleship is probably enough to defeat all the combat units of the Alpha civilization. There is no reason to leave it in this place?
Even if research is to be carried out, there will be no conflict at all. Transforming the battleship into a mobile fortress can greatly improve security and confidentiality, which is clearly a win-win situation.
But the Alphas not only did not do so, they even dismantled the shell of the "Aguna Kotor" to obtain the Nino alloy. Ke Lan's mind suddenly popped up a series of idioms to describe this behavior: buying the casket and returning the pearl, giving up the main thing for the trivial, wasting natural resources, cooking the crane and burning the piano...
Even he, an Earthling, knows that this is a losing business. How could these Alpha people, whose civilization level is far superior to that of humans, not know this?
This doesn't make sense...
Could it be that... they were unable to control this battleship and had to sink it here?
…
"Leighton, Ivan, have you found anything over there?" Ke Lan asked in the team communication channel.
"This guy committed suicide, just like the guy in the truck. The gun was dropped not far from his hand." Layton replied, "The vehicle is unusable. Someone shot through the control console with a gun. The hard drive and memory card are empty. The black box is also missing."
"This must have been done by Park Sang-woo. Maybe he killed the driver as well and then disguised it as suicide." The Hound said confidently.
"But the energy converter and engine are still usable. I can use these things to piece together a small propulsion device that may come in handy." Layton continued, "The supplies have not been touched. There is still a lot of food, water, and medicine left. This is probably the only good news."
At this moment, Asano Akira suddenly stepped forward, grabbed Ke Lan's wrist and pulled him back two steps: "Be careful! Something is crawling up from below!"
"What?!" The Hound was startled and trembled, and quickly pulled out the assault rifle hanging at his waist.
"There are a lot of them! They are climbing up the wall of the pit!" shouted Asano Akira.
With a "swish", the sword was unsheathed and he dodged in front of Ke Lan.
At this time, even Ke Lan heard the sound - it was the rustling sound of countless limbs scraping against the rock wall, just like the sound of sand rubbing against each other when holding a handful of sand... When the sound gradually became louder, a tingling feeling on the scalp involuntarily surged into his heart.
"It seems to be some kind of arthropod, not very big in size and mass, but there are a lot of them." Ke Lan said, and he couldn't help but think of the split jaw worms they encountered in the glacial ruins. At that time, facing the fierce swarm of insects, they could only run away desperately. But now everyone's equipment is no longer the same as before. Layton and Valkyrie are equipped with heavy flamethrowers, which can instantly create a wall of fire nearly 100 meters wide and more than 10 meters high, which will become a natural barrier that the swarm of insects cannot cross.
Although force cannot solve most of the problems in the ruins, it can at least alleviate the fear in people's hearts - at least, when faced with impending danger, everyone's first reaction is to raise their weapons rather than looking for a way to retreat.
Ke Lan remembered a joke that was widely circulated on the Internet: All fear comes from insufficient firepower.
For example, many people are afraid of the dead, especially the "resurrected" dead - the " Resident Evil" series of movies is undoubtedly a classic in science fiction thrillers - the scene of zombies swarming over the mountains and plains is indeed full of oppression, but the premise for this sense of oppression is that the protagonist only has two small pistols in his hands... or at most an M2 Lao Gan Ma and the bullets often jam.
That is indeed quite scary.
But what if the protagonist is sitting in the cockpit of a Gundam? That probably has nothing to do with horror at all, although the adrenaline is still soaring, but for completely different reasons.
If a survival game turns into a lawn mowing game, then basically the only thing left is fun.
"Get ready--" Aya said to her men. The remaining three agents were obviously old teammates who had worked together for many years, and the division of labor was very clear: one of them fired three flares into the air, illuminating the edge of the huge pit as if it were daytime; one of them held a grenade launcher, and through the transparent window of the magazine, he could see that it was filled with orange-red napalm bombs, which were special models for the Security Bureau and elite troops. Self-reacting combustion aids were also added to the concentrated fuel, so it could burn even in a place ; as for the last person, he was holding a shield equipped with a shield generator and was at the front.
The rustling sound became louder and louder, as if countless hands were scratching a blackboard with their fingernails, causing the hairs on the back of Ke Lan's neck to stand up. He took a deep breath, moved slightly to the right, and switched the gun's safety from semi-automatic mode to fully automatic mode.
Ke Lan felt a little regretful. It would have been better if he had installed an under-slung shotgun before setting off. That thing would be much more useful for killing insects than ordinary fully automatic weapons.
"It's coming!" The Hound reminded. Layton and the other two had already reunited with them. As for the supplies and vehicle parts that had not been transferred in time, they could not take care of them for the time being.
Finally, the first bug appeared in everyone's sight.
"This is……"
The body of the insect was like a louse magnified tens of thousands times. Its head and torso together were only the size of a fist, but it was dragging a bloated abdomen as big as a winter melon behind it. Its back and lower abdomen were covered with a hard protective carapace, and on the surface of the carapace was a layer of uneven light green crystals.
Ke Lan only felt that the bug looked somewhat familiar, but could not match it with any beetle-like creature in his memory - whether it was a native creature of Alpha Star, or an Earth creature like the "cockroach" that escaped from the Ark and colonized this new planet.
