Volume 9: Molten Mine Chapter 443: Evacuation Route
"Damn! I was wondering why the measured epicenter depth was so shallow. It turns out that this earthquake was caused by a battleship?!" the hound exclaimed.
"You all know what happened afterwards... As for the current situation of 'Aguna Kotor', I'm afraid we can only find out if we go deep into the central area of the mining area." Park Sangyou said, looking at Ke Lan nervously, "I have told you everything I know, you won't break your promise, right?"
"Don't worry, I'm not a demon after all." Ke Lan said, "Forced confession is just a means, and what I want is to achieve the goal through this means. If you were willing to speak earlier, I wouldn't have to waste so much time talking."
Ke Lan gave Ivan a look, and Ivan immediately pushed the injection in his hand into the infusion tube.
"You... didn't you say you wouldn't break your promise?!" Seeing Ivan's actions, Park Sangyou's eyes widened immediately, "Why are you..."
"Don't panic, it's just a hormone... Our mission is to search and rescue survivors, not torture them. We have to calculate every gram of what we carry carefully, so how could we possibly have that kind of drug? I took it out at the beginning just to play a joke on you." Ke Lan said.
"...This...this joke is not funny at all." Within just a few seconds, a layer of fine beads of sweat broke out on Park Sangyou's forehead, and he was obviously frightened.
"Team Leader Breya, I think our mission has been accomplished." Ke Lan turned to Aya Breya and said, "The most urgent task is to quickly pass this news back to the Ark and escort Dr. Park Sangyou out of the mining area. The purpose of the heretic sect is very clear. They are here for this ancient warship of an advanced civilization. Although we don't know what happened inside the warship yet. But what is certain is that the heretic sect has deployed a large number of troops in the mining area. It is impossible to stop them with just our few people."
"We can return to the support base first, and then find a way to contact the Ark..." Aya Breya said.
"Don't forget what happened to the garrison base. Since the heretic sect can intercept the garrison base's communications, they can naturally intercept ours. Doing so is equivalent to actively exposing my whereabouts to them... I even suspect that the strong interference inside the mining area is also caused by them. In addition to the communication equipment we carry, the situation at those transfer stations is probably not much better."
"So what's your plan?"
"First, we will meet up with the people at the support base, and then use vehicles to rush to the 'Mukakh' military base, which is closest to the mining area. The high-power transmitters there are difficult to intercept. Moreover, if Ark decides to send troops to the mining area, the 'Mukakh' military base will become the forefront of this operation." Ke Lan said.
"But the problem now is how we can bypass the heretic's control area and withdraw from the mining area. In the previous conflict, although they failed to catch us, our tracks have been exposed. If we withdraw from the mining area from another direction as Ke Lan said before, we must take a long detour to reach the Mukach base. And in this way, we will not be able to meet up with the troops supporting the base. Without a vehicle, it will take at least fifteen days to walk to the base on foot." Ivan looked up and said.
"And we don't have enough supplies with us." Leighton stared at the electronic map and said, "The two transfer stations on the edge of the mining area were destroyed in the earthquake. It's completely unknown whether we can find supplies in the ruins. The nearest intact transfer station is 270 kilometers away. We can't get there at all."
At this moment, Park Sang-woo suddenly said, "Can you show me your map?"
Layton glanced at Ke Lan, who nodded, and he projected the holographic image of the electronic map onto the car window.
"The green highlighted line is the route we take into the mining area, the red cross marks the point where we encounter the heretic sect, and the red dotted area shaped like a large lemon is the control area of the heretic sect calculated by AI... Of course, this is the data from a few hours ago, and no one knows what it looks like now." Layton explained, "This is the location of the support base. Our supplies and vehicles are left here. This direction is the evacuation route originally planned by Ke Lan... As you can see, it is completely the opposite. We originally planned to search for supplies in the mining area, but now it seems that this method will not work."
"I know a passage that can lead us out along the edge of the heretic sect's controlled area... According to the scale on the map, the evacuation point is only fifteen kilometers away from your support base," said Park Sang-woo.
"Are you sure? The terrain of the entire mining area has completely changed. Could the passage you mentioned still exist?" Leighton said with some doubt.
"That is an underground passage built by the Alpha civilization. The walls of the passage are all reinforced with Nino alloy skeletons. Even if it falls into the magma, it will not be easily damaged!" said Park Sangyou.
"I think we can give it a try." Ke Lan thought for a moment, "Can you point out the approximate location of the passage on the map?"
"I...I can't lift my arms...."
"Layton, track the focus of Dr. Park Sang-woo's vision and mark it on the map projection." Ke Lan said immediately.
As Park Sang-woo's eyes moved, a winding curve appeared on the map. This curve was close to the edge of the "heretic sect control area" circled by a red dotted line. There were several protruding positions that invaded the inside of the dotted line.
"Isn't this too close? If this passage has been occupied by the heretical sects, then we are walking into a trap," muttered the hound.
"No, the passage is more than fifty meters deep. Except for the entrance and exit, it is difficult to be discovered." Park Sangyou said.
"But the problem is that the ground in the mining area is now cracked beyond recognition. The cracks are so dense that they look like a shrunken chrysanthemum. Even if this passage is buried deep underground, it must have been exposed by now." The Hound shook his head, "This is too risky."
"This passage uses a ductile structure. We have done tests and the passage itself can be extended to more than twice its original length. Even if the rock layer cracks, the passage will not be torn apart. Even if they find an exposed passage, they will not be able to get into the passage if they can't find the entrance," Park Sang-woo continued.
"Tsk... That's what you said, but I always feel it's not very reliable." The Hound smacked his lips and turned to Ke Lan, "Ke Lan, you make the decision."
"I think we can give it a try. If we go on the ground and cross the mining area, we won't have enough supplies. If we go back the same way, we will almost certainly encounter heretical sects. This passage is our best option right now."
"Yeah, picking the tallest one among the short ones... According to what you said, the other options sound even worse." The Hound stood up straight and patted the ashes on his legs. "Then what about this guy? Can he walk?"
"The extracorporeal life support device cannot be removed for the time being. Even if he is a reinforced human, his injuries are fatal." Ivan shook his head. "We can only carry him back to the lifeboat and carry him away."
"By the way, Dr. Park Sang-woo, how wide and high is that passage? Can the mecha pass through it?"
"The width is about ten meters, and the height... I remember it was about six to eight meters, but if the passage was stretched by external force, the space should be reduced a lot." Park Sang-woo recalled.
"That's enough." Ke Lan said, "Check your equipment, clean up the traces on the ground, and get ready to go!"
At Ke Lan's command, everyone immediately started moving, and Park Sang-woo was put into the lifeboat along with the stretcher and a complete set of extracorporeal life support equipment. Ivan pulled out the safety belt from the truck compartment and tied Park Sang-woo tightly to the bottom of the lifeboat to prevent him from being hurt again due to bumps during transportation.
A rocket launcher on the back of the Valentina mecha was removed, and the empty bracket was used to fix the life capsule. In order to reduce bumps, Layton even dismantled the shock absorbers of two wheeled drones and installed them at the bottom of the bracket.
…
…
Two hours and twenty minutes later, in front of the entrance of the "passage".
"This... this is what you call 'passable'?" Leighton pointed at the entrance of the passage, one third of which was submerged in the magma, and shouted to the lifeboat with a stern face.
"I... I don't know either..." There was a porthole on the door of the lifeboat. Through the porthole, Park Sang-woo naturally saw the scene at the entrance.
"Don't be impatient, old dog." Ke Lan pulled the somewhat irritated hound back. "Look, the overall trend of this passage is upwards, which means that only the entrance is soaked in magma. As long as you pass this section, the rest of the passage will be safe."
"Wade through this section? This is magma, not drinking water, how can you wade through it?" the hound asked back.
"Lyton, you modified the Valkyrie Type 1 yourself, right? Tell me, can this mecha move in lava?" Ke Lan turned to ask Layton.
"If we're just trudging through the lava for a short time, it's fine." Layton nodded. "This mech was originally a special model modified for operations in the Molten Mine. The skeletons of its limbs are all made of 100% pure Nino alloy... For these four legs, I used up half a year's budget of the workshop. However, although the lava can't melt the Nino alloy, over time, a lot of heat will be transferred to the main body of the mech. Once the cooling system can't lower the temperature, there will be problems."
"I know this." Ke Lan nodded, then stretched out his hand and gestured at the angle of the entrance to the passage. "According to the height of the magma in this rift, the length of the passage that penetrates the magma will not exceed 100 meters. We can get through - everyone, climb onto the back of the mecha, adjust the cooling device of the power armor to maximum power, and we will walk through on the magma!"
"Fuck, you're crazy!" Although Hound cursed, he was the first to climb onto Valkyrie's back, sat down next to the lifeboat, and slapped the porthole on the hatch:
"I'll trust you just this once. Remember this: if this passage is a dead end, I'll throw you into the lava first!"
Others also climbed onto the back of the mecha one after another. After everyone had held on firmly, two grappling hooks shot out from Valkyrie's shoulders and fixed themselves on the cliff. The entire mecha began to slowly descend toward the rift.
All of a sudden, an unbearable burning sensation swept over. Even though the cooling device was running at maximum power and roaring wildly, it still couldn't offset all the heat. That feeling was like putting a person in an iron barrel and constantly roasting him from the outside with a flame blowtorch.
"Damn... compared to this... a sauna is nothing but child's play..." the Hound complained while panting.
Finally, Valkyrie's legs were inserted into the magma - the magma that flooded the entrance of the passage was not deep, only about half a meter.
But even so, everyone felt that the temperature of the surface of the machine suddenly rose a lot.
"Fortunately, I'm using carbon fiber armor that can withstand temperatures of over 2,600 degrees Celsius... This stuff has much worse thermal conductivity than metal. Otherwise, the back of this mecha could probably be used as a teppanyaki grill," said Layton.
"No need to estimate, we can do it now." Ivan glanced at the external temperature reading and said lightly.
