Volume 12: Yaguna Kotor Chapter 576 Burning Glass
However, how to get in touch with the fleet is a problem.
All of Ke Lan's equipment had been destroyed during the airborne landing, and there could not be any equipment in the exile camp that was powerful enough to communicate with the fleet dozens of kilometers away and thousands of meters in the air... As for the land forces that surrounded the area, the actual horizontal distance between them and Ke Lan was more than 20,000 meters, which was twice the maximum communication distance of a portable military radio walkie-talkie.
The fastest way to contact them is to run to the surface and actively enter the surveillance range of the Marines - but there is an obvious problem with doing this: the Marines can only see him through the monitoring screen of the drone or the telescope, and it is difficult for Ke Lan to express his meaning clearly with gestures alone... As for asking the Marines to come and meet him, and then contact the fleet, this will waste more than ten minutes of time.
Judging from the growth rate of these piles of rotten meat, by the time the fleet aims its main guns here, "Dr. Renee" will probably have turned into a "meat mountain" dozens of meters high, which will be much more troublesome to deal with... As long as one cell in its body escapes, what will be left behind will be endless trouble.
The situation would be even worse if these surviving cells were later recovered by the heretical sect.
If we are going to kill him, we must kill him thoroughly and eliminate all future troubles...
"If it really doesn't work, we can only apply for the use of strategic nuclear weapons... or, just let the Ark's main gun fire another shot. Anyway, this area happens to be within the range of the main gun..." Ke Lan thought to himself - if the situation gets out of control, this is indeed a simple and crude solution, but another problem arises: with the power of the Ark's main gun, the current location of the Marines is a danger zone. If they want to retreat to a safe area, they have to retreat at least hundreds of kilometers away, and this retreat will take several hours.
If the members of the heretical sect took advantage of this opportunity to recover some of Dr. Renee's body tissue, then everything Ke Lan did today would be in vain.
Time, it’s a matter of time again!
Ke Lan couldn't help but clench his fists, his brain thinking rapidly.
"If I can find some old electronic parts, I can make a simple radio station by myself... But I didn't see any electronic equipment along the way. These exiles are so poor that they don't even have an old radio... Wait a minute!"
Ke Lan's eyes suddenly lit up, and he remembered something.
The "Walker" AT-A1 bipedal mecha guarding outside the cave!
Although this old-fashioned mecha does not use the intelligent operating system that is standard on modern mechas, it definitely has electronic communication equipment. Otherwise, the pilot sitting in the closed cockpit would not be able to hear the commander's orders at all, let alone coordination with friendly forces.
"I hope the heretic sect didn't dismantle the communication equipment in the mecha!" Ke Lan immediately turned around and ran towards the cave entrance!
He quickly ran to the mecha disguised as a big rock, removed the cockpit cover with a few clicks of his bloody claws, and then dragged out the corpse inside.
There was a strong smell of blood in the cockpit. Because the heater was on, the blood plasma flowing out of the bodies did not coagulate and flowed almost everywhere. A thick layer of it accumulated on the pedals at the bottom of the cockpit.
Ke Lan glanced around the cockpit and soon his eyes stopped on a microphone hanging on the right side of the driver's seat. He reached out to grab it, but the black microphone shattered in an instant...
This was partly due to the fact that Ke Lan's physical strength was too strong in his current state, but the more important reason was that this communication device was too old, and the black plastic shell had aged severely, and was so fragile that it would break at the slightest touch.
The pilots of the heretic sect don't need to use this communication device on a daily basis, so naturally they won't replace its casing with a new one.
Fortunately, the transmitter inside is made of metal and is not rusted much, with only a thin layer of oxide on the surface.
Ke Lan used the tip of his claws as a knife to pry off the cover that was connected to the microphone, and at the same time took out the entire set of communication equipment hidden in the gap between the cabin and the armor.
This communication device looks like it hasn't been used for decades, but fortunately the main components are still intact, and the most sophisticated circuit board is well mounted in a resin protective case. Although the screws at the four corners of the protective case have been rusted beyond recognition, the condition of the circuit board is almost the same as new.
He reconnected several broken wires, repaired the earphones, scraped off the rust on the electromagnet coil and rewound it. Finally, he connected the entire communication device to the battery under the seat.
Suddenly, a crackling sound of electric current came from the headphones.
"It's done!"
Ke Lan was delighted and turned the FM knob very slightly. Unlike the current smart devices that can connect by simply entering the communication channel code, this antique is like an old radio, and you have to adjust the frequency manually... and it can't decipher the encrypted code...
Coupled with the electromagnetic interference that was sometimes strong and sometimes weak in the wilderness... It took him nearly five minutes to find the public channel of Fleet Zero. He just opened his mouth to say a word and was immediately questioned -
"Please report your unit and identification code immediately, and explain the reason for using this frequency band, otherwise we will lock your position——"
"Lock it quickly! Quickly!" Ke Lan's reaction made the communications soldier on the fleet stunned for a moment. It was the first time he heard such an outrageous request.
At first he thought that it was a member of a heretical sect who had mistakenly entered the fleet's public channel. After all, this frequency band was not encrypted. But from the other party's tone, it was obvious that he had not entered by mistake.
"Please report your affiliation immediately..." The signalman was about to repeat what he had just said, but Ke Lan interrupted him impatiently: "Don't use that stupid procedure! I'm Ke Lan! Let Yevgeni answer the phone!"
"Ke... Ke Lan?! Captain Ke Lan?!" Faintly, Ke Lan seemed to hear the sound of boots colliding when standing at attention from the other end of the receiver.
Although not every member of Fleet Zero has seen Ke Lan, everyone knows Ke Lan's name... After all, he is the captain of the "Aguna Tor". The entire Fleet Zero was established for this ancient battleship. Ke Lan is the true "number one figure" of this fleet.
"Don't waste time! This is an emergency! Send Yevgeny over immediately!"
"But... even if you are Captain Ke Lan, I still have to verify your identity before..."
"Identification code XXXXXXXXXX, all right, give the intercom to Yevgeny quickly!!"
In less than fifteen seconds, the voice on the other end of the receiver changed from that of the young signalman to that of Colonel Yevgeny, who spoke Chinese with a thick Russian accent.
"Colonel Yevgeny, have you locked on to my location now?" Ke Lan asked as soon as he opened his mouth.
"Captain Ke, we have locked on to you. Your current coordinates are E04554, C19062, which is exactly... exactly in the ravine where we found signs of the exiles' activities."
"Yes, that's the coordinate... Wait, the exact location should be a little bit southwest... You fine-tune the coordinates, maybe to E04552, C19061. First, drop eight rounds of bunker-buster bombs on this point - bunker-buster bombs with tactical nuclear warheads. After blasting the surface, use plasma cannons to carry out a blanket saturation strike, and finally use napalm bombs wash the ground. Do you understand?"
"You...what did you say?" Yevgeny was a little confused for a moment. Ke Lan's order was tantamount to telling him "fire at me" - and in the secret orders received by Yevgeny and others, protecting Ke Lan's safety and protecting "Yaguna Kotor" were at the same priority. Even if Ke Lan pointed a gun at his forehead now, he would never dare to give such an order.
"I told you to raze this place to the ground quickly - no, dig three feet into the ground and evaporate everything under the ground, otherwise, things will be troublesome!" Ke Lan shouted into the microphone.
"What? What's under the ground?"
"It's hard to explain it to you clearly over the phone, but you just need to know that it is an extremely troublesome thing! Believe me, if it were the members of the Undead Crew, they would agree with my decision! Hurry up, and start charging the plasma cannon when launching the missile. The longer you delay, the harder it will be to destroy it!"
Ke Lan estimated that from the time he ran out of the cave to the time he got through to Fleet Zero, the size of that thing must have expanded several times. The larger the size, the more fragments would fly out when it was bombed. If a piece of tissue fragment flew more than ten kilometers away and was not burned by the plasma cannon and incendiary bomb, then finding it again would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
"But...what about your safety? Will you be able to leave the bombing area in time?" Yevgeny asked.
"Don't worry, I will definitely be able to escape the bombing area in time, as long as your bombs don't go astray!"
"Okay, okay. I'll give you twenty minutes to evacuate the bombing area. Please hurry up..."
"Twenty minutes is too late for anything! One hundred and twenty seconds is enough! Start the bombing in one hundred and twenty seconds! Don't delay! If you dare to disobey orders... I know it's useless to threaten you with execution, but I can tell you the truth, if you disobey orders, the consequences will definitely not be what you can imagine!"
Ke Lan glanced back at the dark cave beside him and shouted the last words into the microphone: "Don't ask anything. Every word you ask is a waste of my time to escape. Two minutes, the countdown starts now!"
After saying that, Ke Lan dropped the communication device, climbed onto the top of the mecha, and jumped out of the ravine.
As he approached, he began to run as fast as he could towards the northeast.
While running, he silently counted down the seconds in his mind.
"One hundred and nineteen, one hundred and eighteen..."
With the help of the active armor, Ke Lan's speed at full speed was no less than that of a "Junius" armored off-road vehicle speeding on a flat area, but it was still quite difficult to run out of the range of the explosion within two minutes.
"Ninety, eighty-nine... seventy-five, seventy-four... forty-six, forty-five..."
When the countdown reached forty-five, Ke Lan stopped. He knew that even if he ran for forty-five seconds, it would be difficult to reach a safe area. He simply squatted down and started digging a hole in the ground.
"Twenty-nine, twenty-eight..."
A shallow pit nearly half a meter deep soon appeared on the ground, and all the dug-out soil was pushed to the side close to the bombing area.
"Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen..."
Ke Lan took a deep breath, then lay face up in the pit.
"Three, two, one—"
As soon as the last number was counted, Ke Lan saw more than a dozen missiles flying from a distance with white trails. After arriving above the marked point, these missiles turned their warheads and drilled vertically into the ground.
A dull explosion sounded from underground as the ground shook violently. The active armor on Ke Lan's body immediately generated a large number of hollow "blood bubbles" that lifted his body up to prevent his internal organs from being shattered by this terrifying force.
"There are still seven rounds." Ke Lan muttered in his heart. Although he could not see the scene of the bombing zone from his current angle, the movement alone was enough to make people realize the power generated by more than a dozen tactical nuclear warheads exploding deep underground at the same time.
Another round of missiles streaked across the sky, and wave after wave of heat waves came from above. The sand and soil that Ke Lan had piled at the edge of the pit had already been blown away, and a large part of it was blown back into the pit, burying most of his body.
The sand contained scorching heat, and Ke Lan felt like he was in an oven. The method of wrapping things in sand and then heating them reminded him of a food processing method called "salt baking" - and this was several kilometers away from the bombing point. As for the underground laboratory that was directly hit by the missile, it was estimated that nothing was left.
Logically speaking, eight rounds of nuclear strikes would be enough to destroy "Dr. Renee" without leaving any traces. However, to be on the safe side, Ke Lan still felt that the force should be increased - perhaps the problem of "fear of insufficient firepower" was deeply engraved in the genes of every descendant of the Chinese nation?
After the earth-penetrating missiles came the plasma cannons that were like materialized laser beams. The plasma emitted an extremely dazzling light. Even if Ke Lan closed his eyes, the strong light could still penetrate the gaps in his armor and his eyelids and project onto his retina, turning his vision into a bright white.
This bright light lasted for several seconds before dimming, and it took Ke Lan's eyes five times longer to return to normal.
Shaking off the sand and dirt on his body, he climbed out of the shallow pit and turned to look towards the bombing area.
He saw a big pit, a big pit that had a completely glass-like texture.
