Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 842 The Second Batch of People Entering the Water
Yeager was also thinking about this question - as a veteran Air Force pilot, he had participated in no less than a hundred battles, but this was his first time to have a mission deep into the sea.
In Yeger's memory, the first time he fought with aquatic native creatures was six years ago, when a scientific expedition team in the Central Sea encountered an attack by a "one-eyed shark" living in the shallow sea and sent a distress signal to the military. At that time, Yeger's fighter formation was conducting long-distance flight training in the nearby airspace, and the rescue mission was naturally assigned to them and became part of the training content.
But that rescue operation could hardly be called a battle... it was more like a massacre. Those "one-eyed sharks" were not much different from sharks on Earth, except that they were larger and stronger. The fighter jets' 25mm machine guns just had to sweep along the water surface. The dense swarm of sharks meant that the pilots didn't have to worry about the hit rate at all. After a few round trips, the entire sea surface had turned dark red, with bloody corpses of one-eyed sharks floating everywhere.
Oh, by the way, another most significant difference between these one-eyed sharks and sharks on Earth is not the number of eyes, but the density of their bodies - sharks on Earth do not have swim bladders, and are able to float in the water entirely relying on their own muscle strength. If a shark dies and its body stops moving, its corpse will not float on the water, but will slowly sink to the bottom of the sea.
"When a whale dies, it's called a whale fall... When a shark dies, what should it be called? Shark die? Shark fall?... Stupid?" Thinking of this, Yeger couldn't help laughing, and even the tension of the upcoming departure disappeared a lot.
"Zokog Kai" has already walked to the front of the transmission channel. If he takes one more step forward, he will be teleported to the deep sea outside.
When his sight came into contact with the chaos at the entrance of the transmission channel, the tension in Yeger's heart, which had just subsided a little, suddenly increased again. The invisible pressure made him feel as if there was a heavy yoke around his neck. Even raising his head to look at the head-up displays above took a lot of effort.
Yeger took several deep breaths, then turned to look at Wilson beside him.
He is obviously just a fitter, and even if he has military experience, he probably served in a non-combat position such as logistics. Even if he has a mecha driver's license, he should not have participated in actual combat... But at this moment, the expression on Wilson's face is much calmer than that of Yeager, a veteran who has been through many battles.
His breathing was steady, his facial muscles were relaxed, and his hands rested lightly on the keyboard placed horizontally on his knees. He was as calm as an office worker driving out every morning, instead of driving an untested mecha to the bottom of the sea three thousand meters deep to fight unknown monsters.
Wilson's eyes were fixed on the screen in front of him, with the reflection of the screen flashing in his pupils... Yeger seemed to see some strange tiny spots of light in the other's pupils, but these spots of light were fleeting, and they disappeared in the blink of an eye.
There was no such light spot on the screen, so it couldn't be a reflection... Was it my imagination? Did I see it wrong?
Yeager muttered to himself, but as a fighter pilot, he had absolute confidence in his eyes. Those who were selected as pilots had much stronger dynamic vision and instant capture abilities than ordinary people, not to mention that Yeager had undergone two enhancement surgeries on his eyes. Although the enhancement was not large, he could still be regarded as an enhanced person with specialized vision.
Yeger rubbed his eyes and looked again, but those strange tiny spots of light never appeared again.
The cockpit of the "Zokog Kai" is completely enclosed. Apart from the indicator lights on the screen and the console, there are no other light sources. These light beams cannot be reflections of other things... then what is going on?
Is it really because I am too tired that I have hallucinations?
Just as Yeager was thinking this, Wilson had already noticed his gaze, turned around and looked at him and asked, "What's wrong? Is there a problem?"
"No..." Yeger shook his head slightly, "I just think that your eyes seem a little strange."
Although it may seem a bit impolite to say this, Yeger's cautious personality and a slight symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder made him decide to ask clearly... Otherwise, he always felt like there was a stone in his heart that he couldn't let go.
"Are you talking about this eye?" Wilson pointed to his left eye with his finger - the cockpit of Zokok adopted a "left-hand drive" layout, and the co-pilot seat was located on the right side of the main pilot. The light spots that Yeager just saw were Wilson's left eye.
"……Um."
"Oh, it's just a cyborg eye." As if to verify Wilson's words, the pupil of his left eye expanded and shrank twice very quickly, like a surveillance camera adjusting the focus.
"It's a prosthetic eye..." Yeger felt relieved for some reason. "Is it because of an accidental injury or some disease? Did you get a prosthetic eye?"
"Neither. There was nothing wrong with my eyeball originally. I only installed this thing for work needs." Wilson's voice was full of emotion. The screen in front of him just happened to cut to black, and most of his face was hidden in the shadow, so Yeager couldn't see his expression at the moment. "In many cases, the original parts of the human body are actually not as convenient as these technological creations."
"Haha, that being said, I always feel that it's quite troublesome to maintain the prosthesis. And for a small-sized prosthesis like this that is directly connected to the nerves, it should also require regular injections of immunosuppressants, right?... Forget it." Yeager laughed dryly twice, intending to end the topic. "By the way, you don't seem nervous at all from the way you look? You have a good mental state. Have you been in the military before?"
"No." Wilson whispered, "Being nervous... has no effect other than bringing negative effects to myself."
"Uh..." Yeger was choked and suddenly didn't know how to respond.
This brother seemed easy to get along with, but how come the conversation died down after just a few words?
At this time, the logistics personnel standing on both sides of the "Zokog Kai" had removed all the external connection pipelines of the mecha and retreated to the sides. A logistics personnel waved his light stick vigorously, indicating that Yeager and Wilson could set off at any time.
"Please... we must find the submersible and Old Dog and the others." Layton's voice came from the headset. "Although I know the hope is slim... I can only place my hope on you."
"All I can say is that I'll try my best," Yeager responded, then pushed the joystick forward.
The body then fell into chaos.
After that familiar yet unfamiliar state between weightlessness and freeze-frame, Yeager felt like a drowning man who suddenly broke through the surface of the water and broke free from the extremely brief state of confusion after the teleportation - however, the machine he was driving began to slowly fall downwards.
In order to ensure the strength of the fuselage, the "Zokog Kai" does not have any drainage tanks. The buoyancy is completely provided by the thrusters. If the thrusters are not started, it will just sink straight to the bottom of the sea like a big lump of iron.
"This is Zokog Kai, pilot number one, Yeager," Yeager reported into the communicator, "The aircraft has left the transmission channel and entered the Zhonghai area, and is approaching the seabed."
"Received." Layton's reply came immediately - the communication signal strength between the mecha and Yaguna Kotor was full, Layton's voice was very clear, and the slight electrical noise in the communication channel was completely negligible. Of course, this was only because they were not far away from Yaguna Kotor. Once the distance exceeded 300 meters, both radio communication and laser communication would fail. Only the sound wave communication device could maintain contact at this distance.
But there is a fatal problem with the sonic communication device, which is that it is very easy to be interfered with, intercepted or even "tampered with"... Yeger had seen a story on the Internet before. When a hunter team was exploring a ruin, they carried ultrasonic communication equipment because there was strong electromagnetic interference in the ruins. During the exploration, two hunters disappeared, but their communication was not interrupted. They kept calling for help in the communication channel... When the remaining people found their crushed bodies, the cries for help in the communicator still did not stop.
Later, after research by scholars accompanying the team, it was discovered that the walls of the ruins had the function of absorbing sound waves and releasing them again, so the distress signals they sent out would be repeated over and over again like a recording.
Fortunately, it was just a repetition of the dead's cry for help... If the ruins had some intelligent mechanism that changed the distress signal into a false signal that lured the remaining people into a trap, the entire team might have been wiped out.
"Damn it!" Yeger cursed inwardly, "Why am I thinking about this kind of thing at this time? I'm scaring myself."
But the more he said this, the more his mind popped up all the strange stories he had heard about exploring ruins.
"...It seems that being a relic hunter is not that easy...To be honest, I would rather fight those ferocious indigenous creatures than groping forward in a tunnel that looks like an ancient tomb." Yeger tried to adjust his emotions and slow down his heart rate as much as possible.
He glanced at his vital signs monitor and took several deep breaths before his heart rate barely dropped from 130 to 115. Wilson, who was sitting next to him, was like an emotionless bionic robot. His heart rate remained around 80 without any major fluctuations.
"This guy...his mental quality is a bit outrageous..."
"Colonel Yeager, I have synchronized with you the coordinates of the last location when the submersible disappeared and the coordinates of the suspected explosion point of the 'Fang IV' torpedo. Your task is to search these two coordinates first, and then expand the search range to the area between these two points." Leighton said.
"The first mission objective is approved, and the second mission objective is rejected." Before Yeager could speak, Wilson took the lead in rejecting Layton's order.
"What's wrong? Any objections?" Layton was not angry, but asked Wilson sincerely.
"If the submersible was caught in the impact of the 'Fang IV' torpedo explosion, it should move in the opposite direction of the explosion center. It is recommended to connect the coordinates of the submersible's disappearance and the center of the torpedo explosion, and then draw a three-kilometer-long extension line outward. Use the extension line as the reference axis and the 180-degree fan area on the reference axis as the third priority search target." Wilson explained.
"This guy... has a very careful way of thinking." Yeger nodded secretly, thinking to himself, "In this environment, he can still analyze so calmly and point out the mistakes in the superior's instructions... Even if this guy doesn't work in this field, if he joins the army, he will definitely become an excellent commander... Gold will shine wherever it goes."
Layton was silent for a few seconds, as if he was thinking about what Wilson said. A few seconds later, Layton's voice sounded again: "You are right. Then do as you said and take the extended sector area of the extension line connecting the two points as the third priority search target."
"Got it." Yeager and Wilson responded at the same time.
With a slight vibration, "Zokog Kai" landed steadily on the street of the underwater city and began to move towards the "first priority coordinates", which was the last place where the submersible carrying Hound and others appeared before its signal disappeared.
The submersible that Hound and the others were riding on was heading for the pyramid in the underwater city at first, and the location where it disappeared was less than one kilometer away from the pyramid. Yegel had long heard from the reserve hunters of the God Hunter Group that according to the discussion, the pyramid was most likely an altar or a mausoleum. For some reason, Yegel subconsciously resisted the two buildings of "altar" and "mausoleum".
But he also felt that the disappearance of the submersible might be closely related to this underwater pyramid.
"The sonar detects that large targets are approaching rapidly at the three o'clock, four o'clock and twelve o'clock directions. Six hundred meters... no, only four hundred meters left, so fast!" Yeger's mood had not yet calmed down when he was once again aroused by the alarm. On the sonar image, there were more than a dozen light spots in the front right, approaching them at an extremely fast speed!
"Don't panic!" Layton's voice sounded again, "Aguna Kator has also discovered these targets. They are giant deep-sea eels."
