Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 1011: Twin Moon Fortress
Ke Lan glanced at the phone in his hand and unexpectedly found that the call between him and the intelligence dealer was still going on. The interference of the star destroyer on the radio was no less than that of the electromagnetic pulse bomb just now. It seemed that this call must have been made with the help of some "special means"...
Thinking back to the time in the bottomless tiankeng, when he was immersed in the dream created by the "octopus monster", and the intelligence dealer could actually send "e-mails" into the dream, Ke Lan already sensed something was amiss.
Whether it is email or mobile phone, the so-called information carrier may just be a deception... Ke Lan thought for a moment, turned the phone in his hand over, took off the back cover, and pulled out the battery - the screen of the phone that lost power did not go out and remained in call status.
"Isn't this a waste of time?" Ke Lan threw the phone out with force, then pulled out his pistol and shot the phone into pieces in mid-air.
At this moment, the voice of the information dealer sounded directly in his mind: "Hey, when did you find out this?"
"I found a problem with this phone the moment I picked it up. Judging from the extent of the damage, it can't be turned on at all... These sounds and images are all generated in my brain, but they are so realistic that they give people the feeling that they are happening in the real world. In addition to this time, you also contacted me in this way when we were in the bottomless tiankeng and the ancient bronze city ruins, right?"
"Absolutely right, ha... cough cough cough." The intelligence dealer's laughter suddenly turned into a cough. In the cough, Ke Lan could vaguely hear the sound of flesh and blood squirming, "Cough cough... There is an invisible connection between the four personalities split from the Fool. With the help of some gadgets made by the Alpha civilization, we can communicate across space at the level of consciousness... cough cough..."
"Your condition seems to be a little strange." Ke Lan replied with consciousness, "Why are you coughing all the time? And... since this is a communication at the consciousness level, why can I hear these coughs?"
"I want to cough out those growths in my respiratory tract... cough cough... Unfortunately, they grow too fast... cough cough..." the information dealer said, "As for communication at the consciousness level, only the receiver of the information is in a pure consciousness state, cough, and the user of the device is actually no different from making a phone call... cough cough ."
"You're over-eclipsed?" Ke Lan couldn't help but frown.
"Almost... According to the progress, I should have broken through the critical point half a year ago. However, I used some means to suppress the progress of the erosion. Although this method is similar to drinking poison to quench thirst... cough cough... at least it has allowed me to hold on until now." The information dealer seemed very anxious, and his speed of speech was getting faster and faster. "Okay, don't worry about me, hurry up... The space beacon is buried in the wall of the fifth floor of the underground ice storage."
Ke Lan jumped into the opening of the polygonal container - this was not his first time to come to the fifth floor of the underground ice storage, but compared to the last time, the place had changed so much that he could hardly recognize it.
After the original Yinglong Egg was destroyed, the walls, floors, and ceilings of the fifth floor of the underground ice storage were all demolished and rebuilt, and the safety measures were greatly strengthened. The internal space was more than half the size of the original. Four fully transparent cabinets were neatly placed in the center, but three of them had been smashed open and the contents were missing. As for the fourth glass cabinet, it was the container that was originally used to store the living armor.
"Zeluo, can you sense the space beacon?" Ke Lan turned around and asked.
The girl tiptoed around the edge of the ice storage, and finally stopped in front of the wall at one o'clock. She said to Ke Lan, "There is a spatial anomaly node inside the wall. It should be the spatial beacon."
"Open it."
The sharp space blade cut through the high-strength alloy cast wall like cutting tofu. When it cut more than two meters deep, a completely black stone box buried in the wall appeared in Ke Lan's field of vision.
Ke Lan carefully took out the stone box and opened the lid. What came into view was a rusty bottle cap.
There is an obvious indentation in the middle of the bottle cap, and there are also signs of deformation on the edge due to being pried with a bottle opener.
"This thing... is a space beacon?" Ke Lan couldn't help but ask.
"Yes, it is the space beacon leading to the 'New Moon'."
"The abnormal space node is attached to this thing." The intelligence dealer and Ze Luo answered at the same time.
"Okay..." Ke Lan nodded and took out the bottle cap. Unfortunately, the paint on the bottle cap had already peeled off, and Ke Lan couldn't tell what it originally contained.
But it doesn’t matter. This thing can instantly teleport itself to the inside of the crescent, and that’s enough.
"Zeluo must stay here." The intelligence dealer continued, "The moment the transmission channel is opened, there will be very obvious space fluctuations. At that time, she will detonate the annihilation bomb to attract the attention of the Undead Crew... ahem, my suggestion is to throw the annihilation bomb directly towards the core area... Don't worry about the aftermath of the explosion, ahem, the Undead Crew will definitely find ways to minimize the damage caused by the annihilation bomb."
"What about you?" Ke Lan asked again.
"I still have... ahem... other things to do... You can rest assured... before I turn into that kind of monster... ahem... I will take care of all the aftermath, and you don't need to clean up my mess for me... ahem."
"I understand." Ke Lan nodded silently - although he was not sure whether the other party could see his nod - then turned to Ze Luo and said: "After the space channel is opened, throw the annihilation bomb in the direction of the core area, and then you run away quickly. The farther the better. Find a place that is secluded enough to hide. I will come to find you when I finish my work."
"You make it sound like I'm a child with no ability to protect myself." Ze Luo said expressionlessly.
"I'm worried about your safety." Ke Lan said seriously, "In front of something like the World-Destroying Tree, your 'plug-in' is not completely invincible. What's more, we just encountered an enemy with the ability to ban magic. If there is another one, what will you do?"
"I understand. I will hide myself well." Ze Luo nodded. "Now, do you want to open the transmission channel?"
"Open." Ke Lan handed the bottle cap to Ze Luo. "There's no time to lose. We've already wasted too much time."
Ze Luo held the bottle cap and closed his eyes slightly. Ke Lan only felt that the space around him was slightly distorted. The next second, the entrance to a transmission channel appeared in front of him.
"The entrance can only last for a few seconds, go in quickly." Ze Luo urged softly.
"I will launch the annihilation bomb immediately after I enter." After saying this, Ke Lan jumped directly into the transmission channel.
The surrounding scenery began to distort. At first, Ke Lan felt as if she had been thrown into a high-speed drum washing machine. Her internal organs, along with the food she had eaten not long ago, which was either breakfast or lunch, seemed to be thrown out of her throat...
But gradually, even this feeling of nausea and dizziness disappeared. Ke Lan's consciousness and body seemed to be separated. He seemed to see his body being decomposed into the most primitive particles, and these particles were gradually accelerated to a speed close to the speed of light... He also saw that the space at both ends of the channel seemed to have been folded countless times, and the two places that were originally far apart were stacked into the front and back of a piece of paper...
It was the first time for Ke Lan to teleport over such a long distance while fully awake. In the transmission channel, time seemed to have completely stopped. Ke Lan felt as if he had been frozen for many years, and even his thinking had become a little slow... Just when he began to wonder if there was something wrong with the transmission channel and if he was trapped inside, the exit of the channel suddenly appeared in front of him, enveloping his body and consciousness.
“Boom!”
Ke Lan was spit out of the transmission channel and fell heavily onto a smooth and cold metal floor.
"arrive?"
Ke Lan stood up with the help of the floor, rubbed his dizzy head, and looked around - this seemed to be a warehouse, but the doors of the metal cabinets placed against the wall were open, and the inside was empty.
He glanced at the mechanical watch on his wrist. The hands were still ticking. The "countdown" he had set showed eight hours and seven minutes left. In other words, it actually took him less than a minute to pass through the transmission channel.
Ke Lan tapped the ground with her toes, and her whole body slowly floated up, drawing an arc in the air, and landed several meters away - judging by her physical feeling, the gravity in this place is about one-fifth of that on Alpha, which is exactly in line with the value calculated by the astronomers on the Ark about the gravity of the two moons.
The gravity of the moon is one-sixth of that of the earth, but due to the different volumes, densities and distances from Alpha Centauri, the gravity of the two moons is different from that of the moon in the old era. As for the moon that originally accompanied the earth, it was blown up by humans as early as the implementation of the "Wandering Earth" plan.
"It seems I'm already inside the Twin Moons."
Ke Lan moved towards the end of the room in a half-jumping, half-floating state. Logically speaking, space fortresses like these would generally be equipped with gravity simulation devices to facilitate the daily lives of the garrisoned personnel, especially for civilizations like the Alpha Civilization that have mastered gravity control technology. It is impossible that there is no such equipment inside the Twin Moon Fortress...
Ke Lan couldn't help but have a bad thought in his mind: Could it be that the energy of the Twin Moon Fortress has been almost exhausted? They are reluctant to even open a gravity adjustment device.
If this is true, then the star destroyer cannon installed on the Twin Moons Fortress would be completely useless.
Ke Lan moved to one end of the warehouse, where there was a door more than three meters high. Before Ke Lan could reach out his hand, the door seemed to sense Ke Lan's approach and automatically rose up.
There were no lights on in the corridor outside, but when Ke Lan walked out of the warehouse, a familiar gravity was immediately applied to him, making him feel a little relieved - it seemed that the gravity adjustment device in the warehouse was not activated simply because this empty warehouse did not belong to the activity area of the garrison personnel, and the device was not turned on most likely to save unnecessary energy consumption.
"According to the information dealer, this should be the new moon, right?"
There were no inscriptions on the walls, ceilings, and floors on both sides of the corridor, and the entire corridor contained very little information. This made Ke Lan, who was used to observing the surrounding environment as the first step after entering the ruins, feel uncomfortable - the more information he obtained through observation, the more confident he would be. On the contrary, every step must be taken with caution... Those risk factors hidden in unknown corners are like shackles that shackle the hunter's hands and feet, slowing down the pace of exploration.
But Ke Lan doesn't have that much time and energy to waste now. If the Star Destroyer Cannon cannot be activated within eight hours, human civilization will come to an end...
"Double Moon Fortress...Double Moon Fortress..." Ke Lan muttered the name silently. As an Alpha Civilization relic of "external" level, and also the only "SSS-level" relic, the exploration level of the zeroth SSS-level relic "Double Moon" has always been zero. In addition to knowing that the two "moons" have firepower powerful enough to destroy all approaching aircraft, the Ark civilization knows nothing about the situation inside the two moons.
However, from the owner of the nest, Ke Lan learned some information about Shuangyue:
After Alpha, which is the Earth in this time and space, "settled" in the galaxy, the Alphans wanted to restore the original ecological environment, so they found a way to induce an asteroid to approach Alpha 60,000 years ago, and used Alpha's gravity to capture it, making it a satellite of Alpha.
But later the Alphas discovered that although this asteroid was about the same size as the moon, its mass was much greater than that of the moon. Therefore, the tides caused by its gravity were more violent than those in the old era - it could no longer be described as a tide, it was simply a catastrophic tsunami - several Alpha civilization cities built in coastal areas were destroyed, including the "ring city" that sank into the ground.
In order to solve this problem, the Alpha civilization collected a large amount of resources from nearby celestial bodies and built a new artificial satellite. A delicate balance was reached between this new satellite and the asteroid. The gravity between them balanced each other, forming a perfect "dual satellite system".
The asteroid captured by the gravity of Alpha was called the "Old Moon", and the artificial satellite later built by the Alpha civilization was called the "New Moon"... As for the transformation of these two satellites into space fortresses, that happened tens of thousands of years later.
