Volume 12: Yaguna Kotor Chapter 593 Bishop
"It's me, it's me... ah, I forgot to take off the mask." Ke Lan said as he took back the mask covering his face, revealing his original face. "I heard that you were kidnapped, so I rushed over."
"Come here...how did you get in?" Lin Qiming was stunned for a moment and subconsciously glanced upwards.
"Joining board." Ke Lan answered casually.
"Jump...Jump on a board?" Lin Qiming was stunned again. "Is it...Is it what I understand as jumping on a board?"
"Then is there any other explanation for the term 'boarding'?" Ke Lan shrugged.
"What about that loud noise just now?"
"I smashed it out... To be honest, this transport plane is like a bun with thin big fillings. The impact should not have been very strong when it jumped over at such a close distance. But I still smashed through the outer shell and fell into the spare cargo hold on the upper level... Fortunately, no important equipment was hit." Ke Lan said.
As a heavy transport aircraft, the internal structure of the Hercules is divided into three layers: upper, middle and lower. The first-class cabin, passenger cabin and main cargo hold are in the middle layer. The upper layer is a spare cargo hold for storing various sundries and emergency equipment. The bottom layer is the vehicle cabin used to transport vehicles. As for the cockpit, it is sandwiched between the middle layer and the upper layer and is a completely independent space.
"Are...are you okay?" Lin Qiming said as he opened the hatch - he did not doubt the authenticity of the other party's identity... Even if this "Ke Lan" was fake, with his ability, it would only take a few minutes to tear open the hatch, and Lin Qiming and others could not stop him at all.
"It should be fine." Ke Lan tried to move the joints of his neck and limbs. The barbs and thorns on the blood-colored armor rubbed against each other, making a sound that made people's teeth ache. "Anyway, the bones are not broken."
Lin Qiming: “…”
"By the way, is the cockpit still under the control of the hijacker?" Ke Lan asked.
"Yeah." Lin Qiming's expression returned to seriousness and he nodded. "I have already sent a team of operators to the cockpit. We should be able to take back control of the plane soon."
"I'm afraid it's not that simple." Ke Lan shook her head.
"Why do you say that?" Lin Qiming's face twitched slightly, and he suddenly had a bad feeling in his heart.
"I entered the plane from the top cargo hold, and killed 21 hijackers along the way, plus the six stewardesses in your first-class cabin... Oh, by the way, I just glimpsed the body of a stewardess in the bathroom, also a container. The erosion seeds in her body should have entered a rapid transformation period, with signs of breaking out of her body, but she was killed in the process. Did you do it?"
Lin Qiming nodded , but the expression on his face became more solemn.
"The entire B-class crew has a total of thirty-six people. In order to ensure that there is no deviation in the number of people, there should be at least thirty-six hijackers. Now we have killed twenty-eight of them. Excluding the two people who were controlling the plane in the cockpit, there are still six people left... They are gone." Ke Lan said, "When you boarded the plane, did you notice how many people were in the cockpit?"
"No." Lin Qiming shook his head.
"Oh, by the way, there is one more thing I need to tell you." Ke Lan continued, "In the spare cargo hold up there, I found a lot of empty boxes with foam sponges inside... Although I can't be sure, I have to say that the space inside these boxes is just enough to fit one person."
"That is to say... the number of hijackers on the plane may not be just thirty-six... Oh no, I have to call back the first group!"
At this moment, a burst of intensive gunfire suddenly came from the direction of the cockpit!
Although crew members are not allowed to carry weapons on board in principle, even on civilian aircraft, there are always a few "boxes" of folding submachine guns such as FMG9 stuffed in the secret compartment of the cockpit for the crew to use as self-defense weapons.
After all, this is Alpha, not Earth. Any unexpected situation could happen in the wilderness, and it is impossible to not equip the crew with weapons at all... As for whether these self-defense weapons that can't even penetrate bulletproof vests can provide assistance to the crew in the event of an accident, it is hard to say.
"No, that gunshot is wrong!" Lin Qiming shook his head repeatedly.
"I also heard that these are not bullets from a 9mm submachine gun... It sounds like there are at least four Type 01 assault rifles and a light machine gun for the squad - this shouldn't be the equipment you brought, right?" Ke Lan looked at Lin Qiming.
"No." Lin Qiming shook his head. "We traveled light on this mission and didn't bring anything like this... I'm afraid the whole group... is in great danger."
The gunshots only lasted for a few seconds before stopping. Afterwards, there was no more movement coming from the direction of the cockpit.
"You guys keep an eye on these researchers. I'll go over and take a look." After Ke Lan said that, he stood up and walked towards the passage connecting the first class cabin and the cockpit.
Although the first-class cabin is located at the front of the plane, it is actually nearly 30 meters away from the cockpit in a straight line. In addition, due to the winding structure inside, the actual distance is about 100 meters.
There are so many places to set up ambushes in this space.
Ke Lan did not take the gun handed to him by Lin Qiming, and went into the aisle alone.
At the other end of the first-class cabin was the crew's resting place. The upper and lower bunks embedded in the wall made maximum use of the narrow space on both sides of the aisle. Several trolley cases were lying in a crisscross pattern in the aisle, most of which had been opened roughly, with the women's personal belongings inside scattered everywhere. Ke Lan could even smell the rich aroma of broken perfume bottles in the air.
Ke Lan glanced at the things in the box. This should have been taken by a group of operators who just passed by - after all, the entire crew were hijackers, and no one knew whether there would be some dangerous items hidden in their luggage, so it was reasonable to check it.
Ke Lan didn't waste too much time on such trivial matters. He stepped over the suitcase and continued walking forward.
Further ahead was a bathroom reserved for crew members. Ke Lan had no intention of going in, but just as he walked past the bathroom door, he heard a rapid heartbeat inside.
When the active armor is activated, Ke Lan's five senses will be greatly enhanced. Although his hearing may not reach the abnormal level of Asano Akira, it can be considered extremely sharp compared to ordinary people.
"Is there an ambush? Are there hijackers?"
After thinking about it, Ke Lan kicked open the bathroom door, picked up a high-heeled shoe that had fallen on the ground and threw it in.
The high heels hit the mirror on the opposite wall, and the tempered glass mirror surface instantly turned into countless soybean-sized fragments and exploded. But even so, the person hiding in the bathroom did not take any countermeasures.
It's just that the heartbeat frequency became more rapid.
"Whoever's inside, come out." Ke Lan shouted coldly.
No response.
Ke Lan took a deep breath, walked in quickly, and stopped in front of the innermost compartment.
The heartbeat sound came from this compartment.
With a wave of the sharp claws, the polymer compartment door was cut open, and a curled up and shivering figure was suddenly exposed in front of Ke Lan.
This was a young woman in her early twenties, wearing only underwear and pantyhose, with messy chestnut curly hair draped over her shoulders. Her hands were tied behind her back with self-locking plastic ties, and her wrists were even rubbed with blisters.
Something like shorts was stuffed into her mouth, preventing her from making any sound.
Of course, it is also possible that she simply did not dare to make a sound.
"You are... a crew member on this plane?" Ke Lan remembered very clearly that after Ye Yan sent people to the sewer to count the bodies, he found that the entire Class B was not wiped out. The bodies of two people were not found - one was the captain of this plane, Lawrence, and the other was Longchuan Ximei from the flight attendant service team.
The young woman tied up in the bathroom looked like an Asian from her appearance and physical features. Ke Lan's heart moved, and she tore out the thing stuffed in her mouth and asked, "Are you Longchuan Ximei?"
Who would have thought that the woman not only did not answer, but instead closed her eyes tightly, curled up into a ball, and sobbed softly.
Ke Lan immediately realized that it might be his current appearance that scared the other party - in terms of visual deterrence alone, the active armor was quite strong, especially the dense spikes on the surface of the armor, which made him look like some unknown humanoid monster.
He had no choice but to remove the armor on his upper body, then lifted the woman up from the ground and said word by word: "I am a rescuer sent by Ark. If you are the original crew member of this Hercules transport plane, then please cooperate with my actions. The entire plane is still in danger. If the rescue operation fails, we can only adopt the final plan."
The final solution, of course, is to shoot down the plane. The other party should be able to understand this even without explaining it.
With Ke Lan's help, the woman managed to stand against the wall of the compartment. She opened her eyes slightly and looked at Ke Lan timidly. After discovering that the "monster" just now was actually a human, she breathed a sigh of relief and nodded to Ke Lan, "Well... I am... Longchuan Ximei."
"Were you locked up here by the hijackers?" Ke Lan asked.
Longchuan Ximei nodded .
"Although I really want to know how the entire crew was replaced, time does not allow it now, so I will get straight to the point and ask a few key questions." Ke Lan grabbed Longchuan Ximei's shoulders and said, "How many hijackers were there? Is there no obvious leader among them? Is the captain of this plane, Lawrence, still alive?"
"I... I don't know how many of them there are..." Longchuan Ximei replied tremblingly, "I was attacked in the locker room... My colleagues were killed by them, but they didn't kill me. Instead, they stuffed me into a box... When they let me out, I was already on the plane."
"They arrested you to get information related to this plane, right?" Ke Lan asked again.
Longchuan Ximei nodded again: "They asked us a lot of questions in the locker room... After we answered, they took action..."
The other party's answer was pretty much what Ke Lan had expected. As for why this Longchuan Ximei survived, it was probably because the other party was afraid of any omissions, so they kept a person alive with them.
"I don't know how many of them there are, maybe more than twenty... or even more... I don't know if Captain Lawrence is still alive... I..."
"Don't be nervous, relax." Ke Lan said patiently, "Think carefully, is there a person among them who gives orders, and everyone else needs to obey his orders... Is there such a person among the people who attacked you?"
"It seems... it seems that the person who asked us questions was..." Longchuan Ximei stammered, "He was a young man. After he asked a question to a person, he would kill that person... All my colleagues were killed by him."
"So what did the other hijackers call this guy?"
"They...seem to call him...Bishop."
Bishop? Ke Lan was stunned... Although this is indeed a normal name, when it is used as an English word, it has another meaning.
Bishop.
Damn, there really is a cardinal in black on this plane!
