Volume 9: Molten Mine Chapter 444 Support Base
At the same time, on the edge of the Molten Mine Area, the reconnaissance team supported the base.
This temporary support base is located on a small hill with a commanding position. The four-meter-high wall is made entirely of foldable alloy armor plates, with two six-meter-wide entrances and exits at the front and back.
However, these two entrances and exits were not equipped with gates. Instead, they were replaced by two heavy armored vehicles. The giant buckets hung on the front of the armored vehicles for clearing the way and removing obstacles directly blocked the entire entrance and exit. On both sides of the armored vehicles, there were two humanoid tactical mechas squatting like door gods. Each mecha was equipped with dual rapid-fire railguns, and the monitors on their heads kept turning, scanning the area around the base.
The infantry was divided into three shifts, taking turns to stand guard on the wall. There was a firing hole every six meters, and protruding from these firing holes were all 25mm caliber machine gun barrels.
Eight military drones were hovering at a safe altitude above the base. Each drone was equipped with a quad-mounted heavy machine gun and remote-controlled guided missiles. In terms of instantaneous firepower alone, they were even stronger than the mechas wielding dual railguns.
Not to mention the third-level standard, the defense level of this support base is already close to the fourth level. The cost of disposable consumables used to build fortifications alone is enough to cover the three-year maintenance cost of a standard-sized transfer station.
Anyway, all the expenses would be reimbursed by the Security Bureau, so Ke Lan would not worry about saving the budget at all - if the heavy cruiser sent to them had not had another mission to perform, he would even plan to leave the cruiser behind as air support for the base.
Afternoon, 1:48 p.m.
Even at the edge of the area, the day and night in the Molten Mine Area are still unclear - during the day, the sunlight cannot penetrate the thick lead-gray clouds; at night, the light emitted by the hot magma dyes the entire sky a dark red... This does not seem like the scenery that should be seen in the human world, but is rather similar to the hell in mythology.
A soldier squatting on the wall looked down at his watch. The thermometer showed that the temperature near the support base had reached 93.6 degrees Celsius, which was two degrees higher than when they had just landed from the battleship.
He touched the metal wall in front of him, and a hot touch was transmitted to his palm through the thick protective gloves. He thought for a moment, then took out a piece of compressed dry food from his backpack, tore open the aluminum foil packaging and placed it on the top of the wall.
As soon as the dry food came into contact with the armor plate, a "sizzling" sound was made, and the oil contained in it instantly melted and flowed out, while the edges of the solid matter quickly turned charred. He opened a gap in the mask, and a heat wave mixed with the smell of burnt and sulfur suddenly rushed into the helmet.
"Cough cough..." The soldier coughed twice due to being choked and quickly closed his mask.
The moment he raised his head, a dozen figures in protective clothing suddenly appeared in his field of vision. This discovery made the soldier immediately nervous. He raised his gun and aimed at the suddenly appearing figures.
"Report! This is sentry post number three. Suspicious targets have been spotted to the west. They are humanoids, about fifteen in number. They have walked out of the mining area and are slowly approaching the base!"
" About ? Are they Mr. Ke Lan and Team Leader Breya?" The voice of a senior officer came over the intercom.
"No... not like that." The soldier replied. He quickly adjusted the magnification of the scope and aimed it at the people who came out of the mine. "They are not our people! They are wearing civilian protective clothing, and I don't see the Valkyrie mecha! Request instructions!"
"Are they exiles? Or survivors of the garrison base?" asked the officer.
“Can’t be sure!”
"I can't contact them either. There's no response to the communication requests I sent out... Everyone be on alert! They might be enemies! But no one is allowed to shoot without my order!" said the officer as he quickly ran up to the top of the wall.
"Captain, they are still getting closer, what should we do?" The soldier looked back at the officer who ran up the wall and asked.
"Wait a minute..." The officer raised the binoculars, but these people were wrapped in protective clothing, their faces could not be seen at all, and there were no identifiable marks or emblems on their bodies. It was impossible to determine the identity of this group of people just by observing with the naked eye.
"How about this? We'll fire two warning shots first. If they are survivors, they should stop right away... If they are enemies..."
“Bang! Bang!”
The soldier fired two shots with a sniper rifle, and the bullets landed less than five meters in front of the people's path. The broken rock fragments even splashed on the two people walking in front.
But they did not stop. On the contrary, these people suddenly sped up and ran towards the base!
"It's the enemy! Everyone, permission to open fire!" the officer shouted sternly.
The only humans that can be met here, apart from the survivors, are the exiles wandering in the wilderness... and these are not ordinary exiles, but a group of dangerous elements loyal to heretical sects!
Several machine guns fired in that direction suddenly started to fire. The dense rain of bullets directly tore the bodies of these people apart. Broken limbs, flesh, and internal organs flew everywhere, and the spilled blood was vaporized the moment it touched the ground - in less than two seconds, these dozen people of unknown origin had died. The large-caliber machine guns didn't even leave them with a complete corpse.
But in the next moment, these shattered corpses began to wriggle on the ground, and countless tentacles grew wildly from their flesh and blood.
"There are containers of the Seeds of Corrosion among these people... No, that's not right, they are all containers! All of them!" a female soldier wearing heavy power armor screamed.
"Keep calm! Don't panic! We are facing the Seeds of Erosion more than once. The number of enemies is small and they cannot pose a threat to us! Everyone, switch to 'active ammunition'." the officer shouted.
Driven by the tentacles, the speed of these corpses suddenly increased a lot, and in the blink of an eye they had rushed to the support base.
The soldier who first discovered the enemy removed the regular magazine and replaced it with a magazine with a black and yellow "biohazard logo", but when he raised his gun again, he suddenly froze.
According to the training, before using "active ammunition" to shoot, you must first use conventional weapons to break open the shell of the Corrosion Seed to expose its "core". At the very least, you must determine the location of the "core" and aim at that location to shoot. Otherwise, the toxicity produced by the "charge" of a single bullet is simply not enough to kill a mature Corrosion Seed.
But now, each "container" has split into at least a dozen pieces of different sizes, and each piece has become an independent "seed of erosion". This situation is something the soldiers have never seen in the training tutorials - these "things" don't even have a fixed shape, so how to determine the location of the "core"?
"Sir... I can't determine the location of the 'core'."
"No need to confirm, just fire saturation fire. If one round of active ammunition is not toxic enough, then fire ten rounds." The officer said calmly, "We have plenty of ammunition reserves."
…
…
On the other side, deep in the Molten Mine Area, there is the entrance to the passage.
The Valkyrie One struggled to wade through the lava. Although it had undergone a major transformation, it was still far from a true all-terrain mecha. A mecha like the Wolf Spider, which had eight legs, didn't have to worry about the balance of the mecha. The Valkyrie, which had only four legs, had to be careful every time it landed. If one leg missed, the entire mecha could lose balance and fall into the lava.
Everyone sitting on the back of the mecha tacitly endured the high temperature. Even the hound, who was usually the most noisy, was too hot to speak. His face turned red as if blood would drip out at any time. His dry eyes kept blinking, and his sparse eyebrows were curled up due to the heat.
Ke Lan's condition was not much better than his. Although his body's recovery ability was different from that of ordinary people, his sensory organs were the same as those of ordinary people. Ke Lan could also feel the heat coming from the outside in - the temperature inside the power armor had exceeded 75 degrees Celsius. The coolant pumped out from the cooling device had just entered the heat pipe and instantly turned into boiling water. The heat it could take away was a drop in the bucket compared to the heat transferred in from the outside.
The beeping of the high temperature alarm rang in everyone's ears, but no one spoke, and no one urged Valentina to speed up - except for the frame made of Nino alloy, most of the main structure of the passage was melted by the magma, and only the skeleton was a reliable foothold. As for other parts, they could collapse at any time under stress.
Although the temperature in the cockpit of the mecha was still controlled below 40 degrees Celsius, Valentina's driving suit was completely wet with sweat. The originally light gray material of the driving suit was completely soaked in the back, chest, waist, abdomen and inner sides of the legs, and turned into dark gray. You should know that this material has extremely strong sweat absorption. The suction power of those diapers that were praised as miraculous in TV commercials is nothing compared to this driving suit. But now, sweat is constantly oozing out from the surface of the driving suit.
After the mecha competition, Valentina let her short hair grow a little longer. At this moment, the ends of her hair on her forehead and temples were stuck together by sweat, and lay in clumps on her head.
A few longer hairs kept getting into the corners of her eyes, but she had no time to reach out and brush them away.
"I should have shaved my head..."
She breathed rapidly, and the old injury in her lungs began to ache, but she didn't dare to inject painkillers herself. Although painkillers can block the transmission of pain through nerves, they will also paralyze her senses and make her reaction slow. She needed an operation that was accurate to the millimeter, and this kind of interference was undoubtedly fatal to her.
A two-liter water bag was hanging on the top of the cockpit. Valentina bit the straw of the water bag in her mouth. While replenishing water, she stared at the sensor data at the four feet of the aircraft and pushed the joystick slightly.
Under the interference of magma, the role of is extremely limited. She must rely on the force transmitted back from the joystick to determine whether the landing point is on the skeleton. The force of the test must be controlled very accurately. If the force is too light, the feedback result is meaningless. If the force is too heavy, it is easy to step directly through the bottom.
This battle is completely different... When fighting with the enemy, Valentina will rely on her terrifying fighting instinct to control the machine, using many seemingly unreasonable actions to launch unexpected attacks. In that case, the limbs of the machine are like extensions of her hands and feet. To use the description often used in novels, that is "man and machine are one", the strongest state of a pilot - but in the current situation, she cannot leave control to her instincts. She must accurately control the machine to perform a series of actions without even the slightest deviation.
Valentina couldn't help but think of a work of art she had seen on TV: it was a work carved out of rice grains, and the carving tool was a steel needle thinner than a hair. The sculptor was already gray-haired, and his face was covered with deep ravines, but his hands were surprisingly steady. The steel needle was held at his fingertips, and the naked eye could not see any tremors at all. Every time it landed, it was precise and just right...
Controlling the mecha and trudging through the magma, Valentina felt like she was the sculptor holding the steel needle...
…
Finally, after advancing about 120 meters, the depth of the magma dropped to about ten centimeters, and signs of condensation began to appear on its surface. Looking up, the passage they were heading towards had completely gotten rid of the magma, revealing the original ground.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief at the same time.
"Finally got out... I was almost roasted to death..." the hound complained.
"Just think of it as a free sauna. Sweating more is good for your body." Layton patted the hound on the shoulder and comforted him.
The others didn't even bother to talk. They took out their straws and started sipping the drink in big gulps.
