Volume 13 Ancient Bronze City Ruins Chapter 609: Rat Squad
The Hound rubbed his nose irritably and said, "Unless they are crazy. In fact, in my opinion, sending troops to attack a fully activated Alpha site is essentially the same as being crazy."
"I also think this is a suicidal mission..." Layton sighed, "The technological gap between the two warring parties is too big. Ark has no chance of winning at all."
"Damn it... If it was in the past, I would never have thought that one day the Ark's army would be overwhelmed by those rats in the wilderness in terms of technology... It's really fucked up, why didn't that damn prophet die while exploring the ruins? Isn't this just too damn lucky?"
"In fact, we are the same." Ivan lowered his voice and said to the hound, "Old dog, have you ever noticed... since our group was officially formed, there has been no loss of personnel during the exploration of the ruins?"
The hound was stunned.
Ivan was right. Since they formed the team, except for Jiang Lian who died in the glacier ruins, no one in the team had ever encountered any accidents in the ruins. The only teammate they lost was because of the Arasaka Group, and it had nothing to do with the ruins themselves. As for the people who died in the subsequent missions, whether they were members of the Polaris Hunters or agents of the Security Bureau, they could only be considered "outsiders" and not "insiders".
As for the six of them who walked out of the glacial ruins alive, there has been no casualties until now, which is already regarded as a legend in the hunter circle.
Not to mention, the ruins they explored later were either S-level or A-level... Other hunters would have something to brag about in the future as long as they could walk out of ruins of this level alive, but the entire team explored high-level ruins continuously with zero deaths - the Hounds had never realized before that they had created a record that others could hardly reach.
Before the transplant of living armor, Ke Lan's own combat power could only be considered as middle-lower level among the elite hunters, but the special abilities he accidentally acquired could greatly improve the team's survival rate and the success rate of exploring ruins - in this way, the efficiency of the prophet who possessed the same ability in exploring ruins must also be terrifying.
After all, he gained his abilities more than ten years earlier than Ke Lan...
What Ke Lan and his team lack is time... If Ke Lan is given ten years to develop most of the functions of Yaguna Kotor, the ruins of an ancient bronze city will not be able to withstand this super battleship from a more advanced civilization.
Unfortunately, the word "if" is at the very beginning of this sentence, so all this is just a hypothesis.
…
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Ke Lan and his team were still in a meeting discussing the plan to attack the ancient bronze city ruins, while the field corps had already begun to take action.
It takes time to assemble a large force, but this does not prevent a small elite team from carrying out infiltration operations on the ancient bronze city ruins. The 574th Special Forces Squad "Mole" of the Field Corps is one of the first combat units to receive the mission.
The Gopher Team, as their name suggests, is equipped with the only "Super Gopher Drill" heavy-duty drilling rig in the entire Ark. This drilling rig is modified on the chassis of the "Mammoth Tank". The front end of the drilling rig is equipped with six maximum-sized three-cone drill bits, with a total of more than 12,000 diamond drill teeth, which can easily cut and crush even the hardest rock formations like freshly baked shortbread.
At the same time, the drilling rig is also equipped with two high-power pumps that use crystal energy to pump the mud generated during excavation to several kilometers away, ensuring the smooth progress of the excavation operation.
At this moment, the drilling rig is located in the rock layer 140 meters underground, 11 kilometers away from the ancient bronze city ruins.
Several members of the Gopher Team gathered in the control room of the drilling rig. In order to save energy, all unnecessary light sources in the control room were turned off, leaving only the fluorescent light emitted by the screen and indicator lights to illuminate their faces - from a third-person perspective, it felt like a cheap horror movie from an old era.
"There are still 11 kilometers left... At this speed, we will have to dig for another day and night to reach the bottom of the ancient bronze city ruins." The engineer operating the drill in the co-pilot seat said, "But the problem is... if we get too close to the ruins, the pump power will not be enough to directly discharge the mud from the tunnel. We must build a transfer station."
"Building a transit station several kilometers away from the ruins...it will definitely be discovered by the enemy, right?" said another soldier sitting in the back row.
"Of course we can't build a transfer station on the surface." The engineer who spoke earlier shook his head. "My suggestion is to build the transfer station directly in the tunnel. We only need to reserve an opening for the follow-up troops to pass through. The rest of the space can be used to place a second set of silent pumps. In addition, we can connect a few kilometers of pipelines, so that the mud can be discharged to the ground 20 kilometers away."
"I have reported this plan to the headquarters." The leader of the Gopher Squad nodded. "The silent pump and extension pipeline will be shipped directly from the Mukah base. The transportation and assembly will take about eight hours."
"They're really moving fast." The engineer sighed. "I heard that the entire field corps has been mobilized this time, and more than 100,000 people will be transferred here in the future."
"That's not something we need to worry about." The captain frowned and said, "Our mission is to dig this tunnel and send the special operations forces directly into the ruins of the Ancient Bronze City after the battle begins."
"I know..." Before the engineer could finish his words, the entire control room suddenly shook violently, and on the operating panel in front of him, a series of green indicator lights turned red in an instant.
"What's going on?" The captain asked in a deep voice, holding onto the roof of the control room.
"The drill has stopped... Hey, that's strange. I checked the equipment from top to bottom and didn't find any fault..." The engineer slid his ten fingers across the screen. The six huge drills were divided into dozens of independent modules. However, the status displayed on each module was "everything is normal". But after combining them together, the drill would not move.
"Could it be that the pump has malfunctioned? Or is the delivery pipeline clogged?" The driver sitting in the left driver's seat was a muscular man. He turned around from the narrow driver's seat with some difficulty and said to the others, "If the mud cannot be discharged smoothly, the safety device will lock the drill bit."
"We can't rule out this possibility." The engineer nodded, "Someone has to go down and take a look."
"Basil, get off the car and take a look." The captain said to a soldier wearing light power armor sitting outside the control room, "Be careful, this is deep in the enemy-occupied area, anything can happen."
The soldier named Basil nodded silently, and just as he stood up, he was stopped by the captain again.
"Wait a minute, I'll go with you." The captain said, taking off the breathing mask and carbine hanging on the bulkhead. "I always feel that something is a little strange. I have to go and see it myself to be at ease."
The two men pushed open the hatch at the rear of the control room and climbed up along a vertical passage with a ladder.
Although the "Super Gopher", which was transformed from the chassis of a mammoth tank, is large in size, its internal space is actually filled with pumps, crystal engines and energy conversion devices, and the space left for the crew is not much larger than that of an ordinary tank.
Two members of the Gopher Squad went out one after the other. Basil, wearing power armor, turned on the searchlight on his shoulder and swung the beam of light around the vehicle.
"No abnormalities were found." Basil said in a muffled voice - he usually didn't like to talk much, because for a special team whose main task was drilling operations, the existence of a firepower expert like him was a bit redundant... The Gopher Team rarely received missions that required combat, and over time, Basil, who was originally an introvert, became even less talkative.
"Don't let your guard down." The captain said in a deep voice, "Wait... something seems to be wrong..."
Basil turned his head and looked at his captain with a puzzled look.
"Basil, just say something," said the captain.
"What?" Basil's puzzled expression became more serious.
"Didn't you notice that when we were talking, there was no sound in the headset?" The captain pointed to the communication device hanging on his head. "The reason we can hear each other's voices is entirely because we are very close to each other, but there is no sound coming out of the headset... When I was talking, was there any sound in your headset?"
"No." Basil shook his head.
"Then can you get in touch with the people in the car?" the captain asked again.
"No." Basil still shook his head.
"It seems that either our communication devices are broken at the same time, or there is some extremely strong interference in this place... The interference is so strong that even if we are facing each other, the radio communication will fail..." As the captain said this, he turned around, lifted the hatch, and shouted into the car: "The radio communication seems to be interfered with, have you noticed?"
"No—" the engineer's voice echoed from the passage, "Our communication with the headquarters is normal."
"Idiot, we use wired communication with the headquarters, so of course there will be no interference!" The captain couldn't help but curse, "Check whether the remaining radio equipment can still work properly."
Ten seconds later, the engineer's voice came again: "Captain, the remaining four radio communication devices have all failed... Even zero-distance communication is impossible."
"Such strong interference should not occur even if we are in a tunnel surrounded by metal ores... Check the radiation intensity of the surrounding environment to see if it is abnormal."
"The radiation intensity outside the vehicle is below the safety threshold and no abnormalities were found," the engineer replied.
"That's right." The captain muttered to himself. Not only was he not wearing radiation protection clothing, but because of the crowded and stuffy environment in the carriage, he didn't even wear a combat jacket. He only wore a short-sleeved summer uniform with his arms completely exposed. If the radiation intensity in the environment was high enough to affect wireless communications, his body would have shown discomfort long ago.
"You guys stay in the car and Basil and I will go check the surroundings." After the captain said that, he climbed down from the roof of the car with Basil.
Although the cross-section of the tunnel dug by the "Super Drilling Hamster" is very large, the size of the drilling rig itself is also very large, so there is only a gap of less than two meters around the body of the vehicle, and only one person can barely pass through it. The captain of the Hamster team originally planned to act separately with Basil, and the two of them would circle the car in two directions, but for some reason, just when he was about to say this, he felt a sense of uneasiness in his heart for no reason.
"Basil, let's work together and start from this side. You are responsible for the part above the tracks, and I will check the underbody and the exposed part of the pump... As for the mud delivery pipeline, we will leave it for last."
"I understand." Basil didn't say much and walked forward with the electromagnetic assault rifle.
The captain took out a tactical flashlight from his pocket, mounted it on the Picatinny rail of the carbine, bent down, and looked under the car.
At the moment when the light of the tactical flashlight swept under the car, he seemed to see a shadow flash by and go into the deeper darkness.
"Basil." The captain whispered immediately, "There seems to be something under the car."
Basil, who was wearing power armor, did not look back. He just stood there blankly, as if he was stunned.
"Basil?" The captain thought Basil had also seen something surprising, and immediately looked in the direction he was facing - however, under the bright searchlight, there was only a dark rock wall in front of him, with gravel crushed by the drill bit all over the ground.
"What's wrong with you?" The captain patted Basil, but there was still no response from him, which made the captain nervous. He quickly walked around to the front of Basil, but suddenly found that under the transparent mask of the power armor helmet was a white skull! !
The captain was so frightened that he smashed the chest armor of the power armor with the butt of his gun. The whole power armor fell straight down and hit the ground with a loud noise.
