Volume 8: A Trip to the Sick Village Chapter 362: Breach
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Alpha is in low-Earth orbit, fifteen kilometers away from the "Sick Village" of the South Sector 16 space station.
The spaceship Greece drifted quietly in the shadow of Alpha. It had entered an orbit parallel to the space station. With the help of Alpha's gravity and its own inertia, it maintained a constant relative distance from the space station.
This is also part of the plan - the transport ships of the Mineral Mining Alliance only come once every two or three months. When they come, you can take their ship, but there is no need to do so when they leave. That is why Ke Lan arranged for the Greece to be on standby around the space station so that it can pick them up at any time.
To this end, a lot of equipment and crew members were added to the Greece, and even a team of "Marine" was arranged. If any accident happened, these Marines could even drive the landing craft directly and force their way into the space station to rescue them.
"Captain, I seem to see something at the tail end of the space station." A crew member in charge of observation reported.
"What is it?"
"It's too far away... and it's on the dark side, so it's hard to see clearly..." the crew member replied, "But I feel like something is wrong."
"Start the No. 2 and No. 4 thrusters at the rear of the ship, leave the current orbit, target coordinates B1F4, G5A0, move forward one." The captain gave the order without hesitation - the observer on the Greece had more than fifteen years of professional work experience and had served in the Second Fleet. Since he said something was wrong, it was most likely correct.
Out of trust in the observer's ability, the Grecia slowly drifted out of orbit and approached the space station.
Although the Greece is a luxury spaceship, it is still a civilian ship. It does not have military-grade surveillance equipment. At the previous distance, it is completely impossible to use conventional natural light cameras to see things on the dark side of the space station.
Only this experienced observer could catch a hint of abnormality by relying on the blurred light and shadow outlines after the image was magnified. As for the other people on the airship, they found nothing.
Two of the six thruster nozzles at the rear of the Greece spewed out soft blue flames, pushing the spaceship little by little to the other side of the space station... But just when the distance between the Greece and the space station was shortened to less than ten kilometers, the observer suddenly exclaimed!
Before others had the chance to ask him why he was exclaiming, the image enlarged on the main screen had already shocked everyone on the bridge!
Although the magnified image was full of mosaics and jagged edges, at least the general appearance of the exterior of the space station could be clearly seen. At the tail of the space station, which was directly connected to Area F, there was a hole with a diameter of about five to six meters! And at the edge of the hole, there seemed to be something moving...
"Send out the reconnaissance plane! I need high-definition images taken at close range!" the captain said decisively.
The hangar door of the Greece opened, and two single-seat shuttle-type space planes shot out and headed straight for the space station.
"Probe 01, Probe 02, on the way to perform a reconnaissance mission, expected to arrive at the designated location in 28 seconds." The voice of the reconnaissance aircraft pilot sounded in the communication channel.
The shuttle reconnaissance planes were very fast and could cover a distance of several kilometers in an instant. However, just as they were about to reach the reconnaissance position, one of the shuttle reconnaissance planes suddenly crashed into its companion plane which was over a hundred meters away as if it had lost control. The people on the Greece did not even have time to call the reconnaissance planes before the two reconnaissance planes had already turned into a ball of exploding fire.
Everything happened so fast that the other reconnaissance plane had no time to evade and the pilot didn't even have a chance to eject before both of them died - with an accident of this magnitude, there is no chance of survival at all.
"What happened! Check the real-time status records fed back to our ship by the flight recorder of the reconnaissance aircraft, and find out the cause of the accident for me!" The captain was the first to react from his astonishment - the two pilots of the reconnaissance aircraft were both fighter pilots who retired from the Air Force. They could definitely be counted as among the best aircraft pilots in the world - one had a full 3,200 flying hours, and the other had more than 5,000 flying hours. He had also served as a flight trainer for cadets. If calculated according to the standards of mecha pilots, both of them could definitely be considered ace-level.
But this time, the reconnaissance plane that suddenly lost control was the one piloted by the pilot with 5,000 hours of flight time...
"Report: Until 0.45 seconds before the two aircraft collided, the automatic recording equipment on the reconnaissance aircraft was still sending us status information, but from this information, it seems that neither reconnaissance aircraft had any malfunctions."
"This is impossible..." The captain held tightly onto the edge of the command platform, "This is absolutely impossible!"
There was no malfunction in the aircraft itself, which meant that the accident was most likely caused by human error on the part of the pilot, but the captain could not believe that the pilot would make such a low-level mistake.
There were neither meteorite fragments nor space junk in this airspace, nor were there any strong gravitational fields or electromagnetic interference around. Normally, this kind of place would be an excellent venue for novice pilots to conduct flight training. However, an experienced instructor with 5,000 hours of flying experience actually overturned in a place that looked like a training ground. Who would believe this if he told others?
During the mission, pilots are strictly prohibited from drinking alcohol or taking drugs that may affect the sensory organs, and neither of them was driving while fatigued... This kind of mistake should never have happened!
"Captain... there is something, I don't know if you have noticed..." A crew member standing at the bottom of the command desk turned around with a strange expression on his face, as if he had seen something very strange.
"What is it? Tell me."
"It was too quiet. The communication channel was too quiet just before the accident happened." The crew member said, "From 5 seconds before Probe 01 lost control, to the plane losing control, to the collision with Probe 02... there was no sound coming from the communication channel."
"This doesn't make sense," he continued. "Even if the pilot didn't have time to report the situation, he shouldn't have remained silent in this situation... He, he didn't even scream or shout."
"It's really unreasonable." The captain said in a deep voice, his face was livid - he had also seen the pilot's resume. During his service, he had encountered several dangerous situations where the plane was almost destroyed and people were killed, but he escaped danger every time. People like this are undoubtedly very strong in psychological quality. When encountering emergencies, they will never be so scared that they can't even say a word.
"Should we send Probe 03 out?" someone asked. There were only three reconnaissance planes on the Greece, and two of them were destroyed, leaving only the last one .
"No." The captain rejected the proposal. "Just drive the Greece up there and retrieve the black boxes of Probe 01 and Probe 02 to find out the cause of the accident."
Hearing the captain's order , the pilot who was already sitting in the cockpit of Unit 3 and on standby breathed a sigh of relief - compared to the two predecessors who had just died, his flying time was less than 1,000 hours, and his ability in operation and emergency response was far inferior to that of the pilots of Probe 01 and Probe 02.
"Damn...what is going on?" The pilot jumped out of the cockpit, walked to the side of the logistics and maintenance personnel, and looked up at the screen hanging on the top of the hangar with them.
At this time, the explosion and burning had ended. The wreckage of the two reconnaissance planes floated in the empty universe. The severely deformed metal parts were full of traces of collision and burning. A broken vector thruster slowly passed through the monitoring screen. The heat-resistant nozzle made of high-strength alloy had now been completely blown into the shape of a blooming chrysanthemum.
The Greek approached cautiously.
The main surveillance screen on the bridge had been divided into two parts - one half was searching for the "black box" on the reconnaissance plane in the accident area, while searching for the two pilots whose chances of survival were infinitely close to zero; the other half was locking onto the "South Area 16" space station which was getting closer and closer.
As the clarity of the image continued to increase, the people on the Greece finally saw the details of the breach, and bursts of low cries suddenly sounded in the bridge.
“What…what is this?!”
It was indeed a big hole in the outer wall of the space station, and the edge of the hole was covered with a large amount of dark red fungal carpet that looked like rotten flesh. Countless slender tentacles extended from the fungal carpet, gathered together in clusters like shrubs in the desert, and swayed gently in the completely windless environment.
The front end of these tentacles is divided into several petals, and white spore-like objects are released from them from time to time. These "spores" will quickly generate new tentacles after coming into contact with the fungal mat, and the area of the fungal mat is also constantly expanding to farther places.
"This... is this a native creature of Alpha? Could it be the legendary blood-thirsty bacterial blanket?!" A crew member muttered to himself in horror, "But, but... how can a blood-thirsty bacterial blanket survive in space?!"
"It...it's still growing! At this rate, it won't take a few days for this thing to engulf the entire space station!" Another crew member who was still relatively calm turned to the captain and asked, "Captain, what should we do now?"
"Immediately contact Mr. Ke Lan's companions and ask them to abandon their mission and evacuate the space station. At the same time, have landing craft No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3 and the marines get ready to get the people out at any cost." The captain paused, "Then, find a way to contact the Ark and report the situation here."
"Understood!" Although the communicator's voice was still trembling, under the influence of muscle memory, his fingers operating the keyboard were still quite flexible, and he quickly entered the startup password of the secret communication channel into the verification box.
But the next second, his movements froze.
"Captain! We have detected strong signal interference. We can't contact the people in the space station, nor can we send messages to the ground!"
"Signal interference?" After hearing these four words, the captain immediately cast his eyes on the fungal mats attached to the outer wall of the space station. "Could it be that these creatures are interfering with the communication?"
"Keep getting closer. We must prioritize the safety of Mr. Ke Lan and his men!" the captain ordered. "We'll have the landing craft forcibly break into the unloading area... Tell the Marines that after entering the space station, I give them the power to open fire freely. Their first mission is to find Mr. Ke Lan and bring him out. Anyone who stands in their way can be shot... As for the responsibility afterwards, I'll take it!"
But as soon as the captain finished speaking, a new situation emerged again -
I saw several "flower clusters" made of tentacles separated from the fungal carpet, and the ends of the tentacles continuously sprayed out a large number of spores. With the help of this reaction force, these "flower clusters" quickly flew towards the Greece spaceship.
"Captain, shall we open fire?"
"No, we can't fire. If we fire at this distance, the ship's guns will penetrate these things and directly hit the space station—" the captain shouted, "Immediately take evasive action. Activate all main thrusters one, two, three, and four. Adjust the right steering jet to 75% power. Turn left to avoid the route of these things."
"Yes! Main thrusters number one, two, three and four are all started! Right-side control jet at 75% power!" The helmsman repeated the captain's order while frantically pushing the control rudder to one side - the entire ship of the Greece began to turn sideways rapidly, drawing a huge "C" shaped trajectory on the originally straight course.
There were a total of five tentacle groups "launched" from the fungal blanket. The evasive action of the Greece directly bypassed the routes of these five tentacle groups... However, before the Greece could readjust its posture, these five tentacle groups suddenly turned around halfway and caught up with it like a thorn in its side.
"This thing's mobility is so strong?" Looking at the approaching tentacles, the captain frowned tightly. He thought for a moment, then waved his hand and shouted "Let landing craft No. 1 and No. 2 take off directly and break into the space station to carry out the original mission. Landing craft No. 3 will be changed to the escort mission!"
These landing craft were originally prepared to break into the space station, and naturally they also carried some weapons. Although they were light weapons for airships, if they were used to attack people, they would be standard heavy weapons.
Things like 25mm machine guns, honeycomb rocket launchers, and diffusion mines, although they cannot damage heavily armored air vessels, are more than enough to kill living targets.
By using the weapons on the landing craft to attack these tentacle groups, there is no need to worry about accidentally damaging the space station not far away.
"Let Probe 03 go out as well, to clean up the fish that have slipped through the net." The captain gave the order again. The reconnaissance aircraft is also equipped with self-defense weapons - two high-power cluster laser cannons, which can not only be used for combat, but also for smashing meteorites and space debris floating on the route. Their power is even stronger than the machine guns on the landing craft.
