Volume 8: A Trip to the Sick Village Chapter 390: Operation "Greece" Recapture
"But... in your memory... Chinese people... should like white hair very much..." Ze Luo said in a low voice.
Compared to her previous babbling, her speech has become much more fluent now, which can be described as rapid progress.
However, the content of this sentence made Ke Lan fall into a brief embarrassment - "You...what did you read? Don't confuse the XP of the second dimension with things in the real world... And, it is precisely because many people like white hair that white hair will be more eye-catching!"
"Oh..." Ze Luo looked at Ke Lan blankly, obviously not understanding what Ke Lan meant.
However, her hair color changed to a color between dark brown and pure black in just one second.
"Also, he has found the person your companion was looking for," Chiron suddenly interrupted.
"Marshall? He is indeed on this space station." Ke Lan said, "But... you said before that this space station is actually a large research institute. He should not know about this, right?"
"Well. He didn't know. He always thought he had escaped from the experimental project... But in fact, even his escape route was planned by us, and those who helped him escape from the Ark were also arranged by us. He has been following the experimental process step by step and has never exceeded it." Chiron replied.
"Then it sounds like his fate is really tragic... The reason you moved the experimental project from the ground to the space station is to circumvent the laws of the Ark and public opinion, right? After all, if this kind of human live experiment is accidentally exposed, it will definitely cause riots among the people." Ke Lan said.
Apart from anything else, even when the project of biochemically modified humans was first made public, it triggered several large-scale riots - at first it was just verbal protests and demonstrations, but later it gradually evolved into deliberate sabotage and even attacks on the army. These riots gradually subsided until the authorities decided to use force to suppress them.
Even so, human body modification surgery was not officially legalized until the Ark landed on Alpha and the front-line combat power was extremely scarce. Before that, even the name of this surgery could be considered a taboo.
"That's right. Although many people know about the existence of this kind of experiment, those who know about it are smart people. They understand the pros and cons and know how to keep silent. However, when this whole is expanded to all the people, the situation is different. Collective consciousness is blind and obedient, and it is extremely emotional. It is easy to go to extremes. If someone with ulterior motives provokes it at this time..."
"The tragedy that happened hundreds of years ago will happen again." Ke Lan continued what Chiron said, "So, even if your hands are stained with sin, you think it is necessary, so you have no complaints about it, right?"
"Everything I have done is for the future of mankind. I have a clear conscience." Chiron replied, "Those experimental projects have been continuing. Neither the United Council nor the Undead Crew has ever thought of giving up these projects."
"After this is over, can we take Marshall away?" Ke Lan asked tentatively, "No matter how other experimental projects progress, at least the one you are in charge of should be finished."
"It's a pity that you're a step too late." Chiron said with a barely perceptible sigh, "This experimental project has been completed, and that perfect work is Marshall."
"What?" Ke Lan subconsciously recalled what Asano Akira had said to her, "So this Marshall, can he already... fly with a sword?"
Chiron said: "With the ability to materialize thoughts, the 'flying sword' you mentioned can theoretically be done, but it has no practical value."
"I'm just making an analogy. Of course I know how terrifying this ability is... So, can it be mass-produced?" Although Ke Lan knew that now was not the time to ask this, he still couldn't help but ask.
"No. When you passed through the Wall of Flesh and Blood, you should have seen those hatching experimental subjects... These were just ordinary experimental subjects fused with Gene 44, and their final survival rate was less than 5%... As for the telekinetic enhanced type like Marshall, he is the only perfect individual born." Chiron said.
"What a pity." Ke Lan sighed, but for some reason, after hearing the news, he felt an inexplicable sense of relief that he couldn't explain.
"Besides, he himself is unwilling to leave this place with you." Chiron continued, "I'm not sure whether he has seen through the truth of the 'Sick Village', but even if he has known the true purpose of this space station, he has already regarded this place as a refuge isolated from the world... It is difficult for him to integrate into human society again, and..."
Chiron paused, then continued to say to Ke Lan: "Although the experiment was successful, in a sense, this perfect individual is not perfect... He has at most one week left to live. I think this is probably one of the reasons why he is unwilling to leave with your companion."
"Will this thing affect your lifespan?" Ke Lan asked.
"After the thought materialized, it became an unbearable burden for the human body... If he hadn't relied on this ability to maintain the current status quo, his body would have collapsed at any time. He is now like a broken doll that has been put together again with glue. However, while the glue maintains the doll's shape, it is also constantly corroding the doll itself. From the moment he became a 'perfect individual', he was already running towards death."
"Okay, I get it." Ke Lan nodded. "If I had known earlier, I wouldn't have gotten involved in this mess. Not only did I fail to bring the person back, but I also got myself into trouble."
"By the way, regardless of whether Marshall has seen through the true purpose of this space station, I hope you won't tell him the truth, lest his emotions be stimulated. In addition, the people I send out will go with you on the pretext of 'eliminating heretics'... For the residents of this 'sick village', the truth is a torture."
"Okay... Oh, I should put it another way - yes, Your Excellency the Pope." Ke Lan said, bowing slightly to the rotten mountain of flesh.
…
…
The spare space shuttle that Chiron mentioned was parked in the "emergency escape hangar" in Area A. It was a "Dervala" class medium-sized space shuttle that could carry up to thirty-two people and had the ability to enter and exit the atmosphere . But what made Ke Lan feel a little regretful was that this space shuttle was not equipped with any weapons.
Asano Akira, Layton and Ivan also arrived at the hangar under the guidance of Chiron's men. In addition to the "God's Servant" wearing the bronze hammer armor and Marshall, Chiron also sent them sixteen people. These sixteen people were all experimental subjects hatched from the "meat cocoon", and each of them had strength not weaker than the "God's Servant".
"Tsk... I didn't expect that they were enemies one second and became teammates the next." Layton muttered in the team communication channel, "To be honest, I don't feel safe leaving the back to these... these 'people'."
At this time, Ke Lan and Asano Akira had also changed into a set of space suits and connected the communication equipment that came with the space suits to the team channel.
"Don't... question... our... loyalty... to the great god." The servant of God wearing the bronze hammer armor said word by word - just as Ke Lan had guessed before, this guy was actually just a messenger of Chiron, and these words were actually spoken by Chiron through his mouth.
Of course, to be more precise, it was spoken with the help of the built-in sound-generating device of this copper hammer armor.
"This guy...could it be that he has been relying on role-playing games to kill time and relieve his loneliness for so many years?" Ke Lan couldn't help but complain in his heart.
"Compared to these people, I am more concerned about this little girl." Ivan stared at Ze Luo who followed closely behind Ke Lan and asked, "Is she also a combatant in this operation?"
"Not only that, but it's also very important." Ke Lan said seriously. He didn't explain much, but as soon as their eyes met, Ivan immediately understood what Ke Lan meant.
Among the people present, Marshall seemed more relaxed. He put one hand on Asano Akira's shoulder and the other hand on the wine flask snatched from Ivan. He drank and said, "Hey, I never thought, shorty, we would have the opportunity to fight side by side... When was the last time? I remember... it seemed like we had a fight with the guys from Class 10, right?"
Asano Akira did not answer him, but lowered his head, tightly gripping the hilt of the sword, wondering what he was thinking.
Although Ke Lan did not tell them the truth about the space station and Chiron, he still told Asano Akira through a one-on-one communication channel that Marshall only had a week left to live.
Ke Lan believed that this matter did not need to be concealed. White lies were used to protect children. Asano Akira was an adult and he had the right and necessity to know the truth, even though this fact was cruel to him.
"Ke Lan, I want to confirm with you one last time. Is the high-level member of the Sick Village sect that you contacted... trustworthy?" Ivan said in the team channel.
"It's credible." Ke Lan nodded at him. "The heretics are our common enemy. They hate the heretics more than we do. And that thing has now occupied the Greek spaceship. If we don't cooperate with them, we will all be doomed to perish."
"To be honest, it's been ten minutes since you told me the origin of that thing, but I still find it hard to believe that the thing in the Iron Maiden could survive the bombardment of the Ark's main gun."
"If there is a chance, I really want to get some living samples of that thing and take them back for careful study." Ivan continued.
Your words are too dangerous! Ke Lan muttered silently in his heart, and couldn't help but glance at Ze Luo who was following him. If Ivan knew that the "real boss" was this person, he didn't know what kind of expression would appear on his face.
However, Ke Lan was not worried that Ze Luo's identity would be exposed. With Chiron's authority, it was not a problem to give her a legal identity in the Ark's archives. As for the physical examination, Ke Lan didn't need to worry about it - Ze Luo had a nearly perfect mimicry ability. In Chiron's words, even if she was sent to the operating table for dissection, the researchers in charge of the dissection would only see a body that was "100% pure human" from the inside out. Although she didn't know how she did it, since Chiron said so, Ke Lan naturally had no reason to question it.
"To be honest, this operation is really difficult." Layton was already in the driver's seat of the space shuttle. "Although it seems that the shuttle has not yet gained control of the Grecia, you have to know that our space shuttle is a 'black account' with its serial number and identification code cancelled. The Grecia's friendly force identification system cannot recognize us. As long as we enter the final alert range, even if no one is controlling it, the Grecia's automatic air defense weapons will open fire on us."
"This space shuttle doesn't even have a laser launcher to smash meteorites, let alone an energy shield. As for the armor... it's even more fragile than the one I'm wearing. I feel like we're like a dumpling with a thin skin and a big filling, crashing into it and dying."
"What you are talking about is Plan B. Before that, at least try Plan A first." Ke Lan said.
The so-called Plan A was actually proposed by Layton. He had discovered something was wrong when he escaped from the space station and was about to contact the Grecia. Although he could not observe what was happening inside the Grecia, the wreckage of the shuttle reconnaissance aircraft and armed landing craft floating in the universe could already illustrate the seriousness of the problem.
He had originally planned to fight the indigenous people of the "Sick Village" to the death, but when he returned to the space station, he found that the indigenous people no longer regarded him as an enemy.
The most critical point of Plan A proposed by Layton is the wreckage of these landing craft .
As long as he could successfully recover the friendly force identification module from the wreckage, with his technology, he could completely "disguise" this space shuttle as an armed landing craft carried by the Greece itself - of course, the prerequisite was that the friendly force identification module was intact.
