Volume 12: Yaguna Kotor Chapter 570: Hard Landing
Thanks to the fact that the blockade of the entire ship had not been completely lifted, the streets in most blocks of the Ark were still deserted. It only took Ke Lan half an hour to drive the young lady's luxury car to the nearest airport area, and with the authority of the Crisis Management Department, she forcibly requisitioned a stealth fighter from the garrison.
"Immediately send the Marines to the coordinates I sent and surround this area, but remember not to alert the enemy." Ke Lan adjusted the parameters of the fighter jets while holding a cell phone on his shoulder and said to Colonel Yevgeny, the commander's adjutant of Fleet Zero. "By the way, even if someone wants to leave the blockade area, don't stop them. Send a team to follow them while ensuring that you are not discovered, and report your location at any time."
The person who took Dr. Renee away was the prophet... Even if it wasn't the prophet himself, it was at least one of his substitutes. Although he might not be able to defeat the marines with the fleet's long-range support, it would be difficult for ordinary people to stop him if he wanted to escape. If he lost his trace in this place, then the clues in Ke Lan's hands would be completely gone.
"Remember, don't alert the enemy." Ke Lan emphasized again. After receiving the colonel's solemn assurance, he hung up the phone and started the engine of the fighter.
Although Ke Lan had never received any training in flying this type of fighter jet, he had driven it no less than two hundred times in the simulated combat game, and he remembered clearly the functions of the numerous buttons and joysticks on the eight dashboards in front of him - the only thing he had not mastered was how to land the plane safely on the ground.
After all, the fighter jets in the game will either be shot down or choose to parachute after taking off, and there is basically no chance to land - even if the fuel and ammunition are exhausted, the pilot player will choose to aim the plane at important enemy targets to get higher scores, rather than turning around and flying back to the gene for supplies.
However, this was not a problem for Ke Lan. He couldn't land the plane near the exile gathering point anyway. After he parachuted, the plane's automatic cruise system would be activated... As for whether this "drone" could be successfully recovered by the Ark, that was none of Ke Lan's business.
The thruster output valve was pushed to the top directly, and the two thick rocket thrusters at the tail of the aircraft suddenly made a deafening roar. The entire aircraft slid out of the airport with a tail flame that was more than ten times the length of the main body of the aircraft, and instantly rushed into the sky.
A strong push on the back was transmitted from the seat, and the tube connected to the oxygen mask vibrated violently, slapping on Ke Lan's coat, making a crackling sound - he was not wearing the armor-style flight suit required for high-speed fighter pilots, and he didn't even wear the anti-gravity suit lining. He just wore a casual sweatshirt over his shirt.
However, the ground crew are no longer surprised by this - in the military system, a large proportion of pilots and aviators are enhanced humans, and many of them can rely on their physical bodies to withstand the huge G-force generated by the acceleration of the body. For them, anti-gravity suits that rely on pressurizing the body to achieve the effect of withstanding overload are no different from straitjackets and are a burden.
After being enhanced by the living armor, Ke Lan's body has become a real enhanced human. Although his strength has not been measured, according to his own feeling, without activating the armor, his physical strength is at least equivalent to that of a level 5 or 6 enhanced human. Moreover, compared to those enhanced humans born on the operating table, Ke Lan's condition is more stable, and his physical strength, toughness and tolerance are far superior to those of regular enhanced humans of the same level.
As for after activating the living armor...even a top-level ninth-level enhanced human is no more than an ordinary person in front of him.
The power brought by the living armor completely exceeds the limits of human beings. When Ke Lan uses this power, he often has an illusion - it is not him who is controlling the armor, but the armor itself that is driving his body.
It is difficult for him to describe this feeling. When entering combat mode, the armor will seem to come alive... It seems to have an "inertia" between self-awareness and muscle memory, or... "combat instinct."
In the battle with the Seraph, many of his actions were performed subconsciously by him under the guidance of the armor. As for some actions that were not completed well, the armor would automatically help Ke Lan correct them to achieve zero error.
Ke Lan even felt that even if the person wearing the armor was not himself, but a non-powered puppet skeleton made of several metal pipes that can be seen everywhere in clothing stores, he would be able to kill the Seraph.
The power armor and humanoid mechas made by humans look more like a joke in front of this armor.
But what Ke Lan didn't understand was why the Alpha civilization had to design this weapon of war as a wearable device instead of an autonomous device like a drone... Could it be that they were worried that this thing would get out of control without anyone operating it?
"The current altitude is 11,000 meters." The voice of the auxiliary AI brought Ke Lan back to the present. The fighter plane had already entered the thick radiation cloud layer. The energy shield on the plane had been automatically turned on. From time to time, colorful thin lines appeared on the surface of the colorful light shield, just like sparks dragged out by high-speed friction of hard objects. This was the light emitted by the tiny metal particles floating in the cloud layer hitting the energy shield and then burning. Because the fighter plane was very fast, these tiny but bright flames would be pulled into extremely thin silk threads at the moment of burning, which looked quite short-lived and beautiful.
But it is precisely because of these tiny metal particles that fighter jets cannot communicate with the outside world when flying in the clouds, and the radar is completely unusable. All situations must be judged by the pilot's eyes. In several flight simulation games that Ke Lan has played, there are similar scenes. In these scenes, even the most advanced fighter jets can only rely on dogfights to resolve battles.
As for beyond visual range combat, unless you are lucky enough to hit the target by random shots, otherwise it is just a waste of ammunition.
This environment is somewhat similar to the setting in the old-time classic mecha anime "Gundam" series. (Note 1)
However, Ke Lan has already entered the coordinates sent to him by the intelligence dealer into the fighter's navigation system. Even if the positioning device and radar are now unusable, as long as the aircraft's heading does not deviate, the auxiliary AI can calculate the aircraft's current position and display it on the screen.
The fighter jet had only been flying in the radiation cloud for less than thirty minutes when the auxiliary AI began to remind Ke Lan: "We are about to reach the predetermined coordinates."
This coordinate is actually not very far from the Ark. After all, the berthing location of "Aguna Kotor" is near the Ark. The observation decks on the top floor of the Ark can even see this behemoth floating in the air with the naked eye - as for the small black dots surrounding this behemoth, they are the No. 0 Fleet responsible for protecting Aguna Kotor.
The transport plane that Dr. Renee stole was shot down before it flew out of the fleet's hovering area. The crash site was only a few hundred kilometers away from the Ark.
Adding the 680-kilometer distance between the Exiles' base and the city, it would only take Ke Lan half an hour at most to get there.
"We have arrived at the scheduled coordinates. Current altitude is 11,460 meters."
The coordinates given by the intelligence dealer are just below the clouds.
Ke Lan controlled the fighter jet to circle in the air, then pressed the joystick down sharply. The fighter jet, which was originally flying horizontally, suddenly lowered its head and flew out of the clouds.
The moment it emerged from the clouds, the optical camouflage armor on the surface of the fuselage began to show layers of color halos like water ripples. In a blink of an eye, the entire aircraft changed from its original black to bluish white, blending with the lead-gray radiation clouds behind it.
Meanwhile, a noisy electric sound came from Ke Lan 's earphones. Although the interference was still very strong, the communication channel that had been silent for nearly half an hour finally returned to normal.
"The Marines have arrived at the designated combat position. Heavy artillery cruisers No. 4, No. 6 and No. 7 have locked onto their targets and are ready to open fire at any time." The voice of a middle-aged man who was still breathing heavily and accompanied by the sound of electricity rang out in the communication channel. Ke Lan immediately recognized that the person who was reporting to her was the commander of Fleet No. 0, Captain Sophia and Colonel Yevgeny's direct superior: Major General Alexander.
After Dr. Renee's defection, Major General Alexander felt a mountain of pressure, just like his name. The Undead Crew ordered him to capture the defector within 24 hours, dead or alive. However, Major General Alexander and thousands of people searched the area around the crash site several times, but could not find any clues.
At this moment, the nominal "supreme commander" of Fleet Zero suddenly sent him a somewhat puzzling coordinate, which made him feel like he had grabbed a life-saving straw - no matter what was on the coordinate, at least it showed that the "supreme commander" wanted to take over the matter, which meant that he would no longer be the first person responsible for this matter.
It is naturally a good thing that someone is willing to take the initiative to take responsibility...and what surprised the major general even more was that the reconnaissance team sent out actually found a very cleverly disguised exile settlement at this coordinate!
This settlement was built at the bottom of several natural ravines with a vertical depth of more than 20 meters. Compared to the depth of four or five stories high, the width of these ravines can only allow a small air cushion vehicle to pass through - this was originally a fissure zone in the broken rock strata, and this peculiar landform was gradually formed under years of weathering.
Normally, it is difficult for radar or drones to detect the settlements hidden in these ravines, not to mention that the exiles here are extremely cautious when entering and leaving, and hardly leave any traces on the surface.
As a result, this exile settlement, which is not far from the Ark, has never been discovered by field troops or air force fleets.
The resources in this area are very scarce, and there are no relics of the Alpha civilization nearby. It is far away from other exile settlements, and even the Ark's transit stations and transportation routes... Logically speaking, the exiles would not choose such a place as a settlement - no matter how hidden it is, if they can't even solve the problem of filling their stomachs, then all other advantages are meaningless.
If the exiles living here want to survive, they must have a stable supply channel for materials. In the wilderness, apart from the Ark, the only ones capable of providing such a channel are the heretical sects.
If Ke Lan hadn't repeatedly emphasized not to alert the enemy, Major General Alexander would probably have already led the Marines in by now.
…
" Everyone, don't act rashly. Stay where you are." As Ke Lan said this, he opened the cockpit hatch and climbed out.
Looking down from his perspective, those ravines were not even as thick as a hair and were only a few millimeters long, but in fact the shortest one was more than two hundred meters long. As long as the inside was slightly excavated, it would be no problem to accommodate several thousand people.
Ke Lan took off his oxygen mask and coat. The blood flowing out of his pores instantly condensed into a complete suit of armor on his body.
All the controls of the aircraft were handed over to the auxiliary AI. Ke Lan squatted on the edge of the cockpit, holding the hatch behind him with both hands, looked at the direction, and then jumped out!
The plane behind him quickly shrank into a blurry dot, while the ground below was constantly expanding. The strong airflow tore off the remaining shirt fragments on the surface of the blood-colored armor in an instant - this was not Ke Lan's first skydiving, but it was definitely his first time "skydiving" without a parachute.
And it was at an altitude of nearly seven thousand meters.
This could definitely be considered a real hard landing. Even if he was wearing the "Hell Trooper" power armor, it was difficult to guarantee that the flesh and blood body wrapped in steel would remain intact when landing - but just as Ke Lan was about to hit the ground, the surface of the blood-colored armor suddenly "banged" and a large ball of blood mist exploded, directly offsetting most of the impact force.
Even... there wasn't even a loud bang when it hit the ground.
Ke Lan was thrown into the air nearly a hundred meters high, and then fell down again.
This time, he finally landed on both feet, and stepped firmly into the ground, leaving a shallow pit that was deeper than his instep.
"I landed..."
Ke Lan said this subconsciously, but only after he finished speaking did he realize that the communication device on his head had been shattered long ago, leaving only a circle of metal frame, still symbolically hanging around his neck.
"Forget it. I don't expect them to help anyway..."
