Volume 12: Yaguna Kotor Chapter 578: The First Joint Exploration (Part 2)
Ke Lan did not stay on the "New Dawn" for long. After filling his stomach with two bags of instant military rations, he immediately boarded a transport plane and flew to "Yaguna Kotor".
There was less than a month left before the first joint exploration began, and although he had always been a hands-off boss, there were still a lot of trivial matters that he had to handle personally.
For example, this front-line supply base built in the power room of "Yaguna Kotor"... According to the scheduled construction period, it is almost time for acceptance.
In order to facilitate the transportation of materials, Ke Lan set up three semi-permanent transmission channels outside Yaguna Kotor. Of course, this channel is not open to everyone. Only those who hold a "transmission beacon" can enter, and there are strict restrictions on the quality of the things they carry.
The so-called "teleportation beacon" is actually just an empty energy crystal shell with a special mark. Only by carrying this beacon can one be teleported to the core power room. As for those who sneak in without the beacon or simply break in, they will be thrown into the passage that trapped Ke Lan and the others for a long time .
After gaining control of the "Aguna Kator", Ke Lan realized that most of those passages were not for people to pass through, but were the cooling pipes of this ancient warship. When the warship's engine was in operation, a steady stream of hot air would be discharged into these passages. If any unlucky person was transported into these cooling pipes at this time, it would probably take only a few seconds for the whole person to be scalded inside and out.
These three transmission channels are located on the top of Yagunaktor. Fleet Zero built four helipads and a large unloading dock on this ancient battleship. The construction materials and equipment shipped from the Ark will be delivered to this platform by transport planes or small transport ships, and then stacked up in different categories. Finally, they will be sent to the core power room of "Yagunaktor" by manual transportation.
According to the cargo throughput of this unloading dock, the materials for building the front-line supply base could actually be in place in half a day. However, these materials were stuck at the last step of the transportation process - each worker could only carry a total of 450 kilograms of materials, including his body weight and equipment, into the transmission channel. As a result, the efficiency of transportation dropped instantly.
This is like installing a flow control valve on the mouth of a madly gushing water pipe... At the current efficiency, it will probably take more than a month just to move all the materials stacked on the platform, not to mention building the base...
There is no other way. Only by strictly controlling the entry and exit can we prevent the spies of the heretical sects from sneaking in. Fortunately, it will take some time for the personnel training and running-in on the other side. By the time the people from the Soma Consortium and the Ye Consortium arrive at "Yaguna Kotor", the progress of the project here should be about halfway.
Ke Lan randomly picked a passage and entered the core power room. The first thing that appeared in his field of vision was a construction site covering an area of more than 40,000 square meters.
The basic framework made of alloy tubes has been completed, but most of the buildings have not yet had time to install walls, and less than one-fifth of the houses have enclosed rooms. Even so, the general appearance of the entire base has been revealed - it is like a mecha, the skeleton has been completed, and the rest is to fill it with various equipment and armor.
All these projects were contracted by the Ye Group - in order to build this base, the wealthy Ye family even temporarily acquired a well-established construction company ranked among the top three in the industry and six of the highest-standard steel structure production lines.
Hosting the annual mecha competition has already given the Ye Group a wealth of experience in base construction. Coupled with this wave of support and the almost unlimited budget given by the board of directors, the design team in charge of this project was so excited that they took off on the spot. The drawings that originally took half a month to complete were completed by those bald guys in just two nights...It is said that this group of people have been so busy that they don’t even have time to eat, and they rely on concentrated nutrient solution and high-intensity military stimulants to maintain their condition.
Ke Lan had seen the blueprint. Although he only had a superficial understanding of architectural design, he could tell that the design of this base could definitely be called a masterpiece. The protective shield that self-energized by absorbing stray radiation was an unprecedented idea in human architectural history.
This protective shield was built first and is now in use. It is a hemispherical physical shield, inverted above the entire base. The main body of the shield is made up of more than 20 million energy-depleted crystals, connected by a deciphered crystal path structure. With eight large shield generators, the entire shield can provide protection to the front-line supply base that is no weaker than the energy shield at the institute's headquarters. Moreover, since physical crystals are used as the carrier of the energy shield, this shield has almost no "overload" problem - in other words, as long as the energy supply is sufficient, the shield can be maintained, and there is no need to consider the endurance problem.
"Captain Ke, look here. This is the office area we specially arranged for you. It is also the first room in the base to be renovated." A man wearing fluorescent construction warning clothing and an orange safety helmet led Ke Lan into a corridor.
This man was not an ordinary worker, but one of the senior engineers in the overworked design team. The dark circles under his eyes made him look like the "panda", the national treasure of China in the old era. The grease on his face, accumulated due to staying up late and not taking time to wash, was so thick that it could be scraped off with fingers.
But there was not a trace of fatigue in his voice, and his excitement was so strong that Ke Lan even suspected that this guy was taking drugs - oh, no doubt about it, as soon as he walked into the corridor, Ke Lan saw several engineers who looked similar to this guy gathered around a table and arguing fiercely about something, and on the ground at their feet were a large number of empty disposable stimulant syringes scattered around.
Wow... Ke Lan counted the number of syringes and the number of engineers. If they took all the medicine, each of them would have been injected with at least five large doses of military stimulants within two days. A large dose of military stimulant contains four standard units. Generally, the command will only distribute military stimulants of this specification to soldiers on the eve of an important battle.
"No one among you... died suddenly?" Ke Lan did not look at the design drawings on the table at the first time, but asked the engineers.
"It's not a big problem. The emergency personnel are waiting outside anyway. As long as they provide timely rescue, he won't die." An engineer said without raising his head.
"Old Li and Tom fell to the ground yesterday and were taken directly to the medical cabin. But I heard that they have woken up today and are clamoring to come back." Another engineer took over the conversation. He just realized that Ke Lan's voice was very unfamiliar. He raised his head and looked at Ke Lan with a puzzled and dissatisfied look, and shouted: "By the way... who are you? Who let you in? Didn't we say that outsiders are not allowed to enter here?"
"You idiot! This is Captain Ke!" The engineer who brought Ke Lan in immediately stepped forward and said.
"Captain Ke? Which captain? Even if he is the captain of Fleet Zero, he can't just enter this place as he pleases!" The engineer showed no sign of backing down. "Marcus, you bastard, I haven't even come to an agreement with you for the huge mistake you made in designing the heating system! Now you bring people here again, you..."
Before he could finish, the engineer named Marcus interrupted him: "He is the captain of this battleship!"
"This battleship?" The engineer who was still spitting just a second ago was stunned for a moment, and the expression on his face suddenly became extremely interesting. "You mean... he is the captain of Yaguna Kator?"
As soon as he said this, several other engineers raised their heads and looked at Ke Lan.
As a result, Ke Lan felt a little embarrassed. For a moment, he didn't know what to say to these bald guys.
He can't just say "Hello comrades, thank you for your hard work"...
This group of people are as crazy as those in the research institute, but they are not as lawless as those researchers. The title of acting captain of "Aguna Tor" is enough to suppress this group of people.
"Is this my office area?" Ke Lan simply got straight to the point and asked, pointing to the door at the end of the corridor.
"Yes." A crisp female voice responded. Ke Lan looked in the direction of the voice, but did not see anyone. It was not until he lowered his eyes that he found a little girl who looked only eleven or twelve years old at most standing on tiptoe with her hands on the table, looking at Ke Lan with excitement.
She was wearing a construction suit that was obviously ill-fitting, and a child-sized safety helmet on her head. Her fair face also had two huge dark circles under her eyes. Due to the perspective just now, Ke Lan did not notice this little girl who was blocked by others.
"You guys...are still recruiting child laborers here?" Ke Lan looked at Marcus beside her in some confusion.
"No, no, no... Miss Bianca is not an employee of the company, but the youngest daughter of our boss." Marcus lowered his voice slightly and whispered in Ke Lan's ear, "She is a genius... You just saw the physical protective shield made of discarded crystals outside. The original idea of that thing was proposed by Miss Bianca."
"But... even if she's a talented designer, she's still a minor, right?"
"I skipped six grades and graduated from MIT's Department of Architecture last year. It's stupid to judge a person's ability based on age alone." The little girl glared at Ke Lan and said angrily.
The "MIT" she mentioned is a very famous college of higher learning on the Ark. Its predecessor is the "Massachusetts Institute of Technology" on Earth. If the architecture department of this college claims to be the second best in the world, then no school dares to claim to be the best in the world. There is no need to elaborate on how strong it is.
The "MIT" on the Ark is a complete successor to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Its Department of Architecture and Department of Engineering also maintain the "No. 1 on the Ark" ranking. The proportion of students graduating from this college who are admitted to graduate school is as high as an astonishing 27%.
You should know that among the top 20 universities in the Ark, the average rate of graduates admitted to graduate school is only 1.9%. Many schools can brag about it when they recruit students the following year as long as they can produce one talent who enters graduate school. MIT sends at least one hundred outstanding talents to graduate school every year.
Ke Lan couldn't help but take another look at this talented girl who just graduated from "MIT" last year, and sighed in her heart, fortunately she was not chosen by the research institute, otherwise, she would probably be in great danger now.
"That's true, but it's illegal for minors to use military stimulants." Ke Lan's eyes swept over Bianca's arm intentionally or unintentionally, as if he could see the needle holes on the slender arm through the thick construction clothes.
The ingredients of military stimulants include a large amount of hormone-like substances. If minors who are still in the stage of physical development use this stuff, it will have irreversible effects on the body, especially if it is injected in excess in a short period of time - even a strong adult may not be able to withstand it, let alone a child of only eleven or twelve years old.
"I am a congenitally enhanced person, and the side effects of stimulants are basically ineffective on me." The little girl said with some pride - congenitally enhanced people refer to babies who have undergone genetic adjustments in the embryonic stage and have undergone multiple intrauterine enhancement surgeries during the mother's pregnancy.
This type of people can obtain the second to third level of enhancement from birth, and subsequent further enhancement will become easier, and the success rate will be much higher than that of ordinary enhanced people.
But the disadvantage is that it is very expensive, and both the mother and the fetus need to take considerable risks - if the enhancement surgery fails, not only will the fetus miscarry, but the adult will most likely not be able to be saved.
However, in the upper class of the Ark, there are many people with innate enhancement like this... In order to ensure that their offspring have superhuman qualities, some families will let the heirs of the family give up marrying other dignitaries and choose excellent girls from the civilian class as spouses - there will never be only one such spouse, at least five or six, and at most more than a dozen... After these girls become pregnant, they will undergo such innate enhancement surgery. If it fails, her original family will receive a huge amount of compensation. If it succeeds, her child will have the opportunity to become the future heir of the family, and she will also become the wife of the child's father because of her son's status.
If multiple fetuses survive the operation, the situation becomes more complicated...On the Internet, there is a more derogatory term to describe this practice, which is... "raising poisonous insects."
Ke Lan looked at Bianca with a complicated look in her eyes - could this genius girl also be a "gu" in some Gu pot?
