Chapter 1036 Something Is Wrong

The deep-diving ship continued to move forward in the abyss for a total of three and a half days. At first glance, this sounds like a very bad result. It is only three and a half days, which is not even as good as some powerful imperial commanders who can continue to fight in the abyss. It takes a long time, but if you think about another thing, no one probably has any doubts: it marches all the way to the most polluted depths of the abyss, and the distance it travels has long exceeded the stability limit of the products of the material world. If you take a step forward, the pressure you have to endure will increase several times. On the first day, the deep-diving ship may still be in the area that Sandora entered back then. After that, what it enters is completely a death that no one has ever attempted. zone.

The design strength of the deep-diving ship in resisting abyssal pollution far exceeds any starship we have. It can move almost permanently when cruising near the gate of the abyss. It will only continue to penetrate into the dangerous zone and reach a limit. It will collapse. According to the sailing speed of the deep-diving ship, it is estimated that the location of its collapse has crossed the shallow area of ​​​​the abyss, and it is very likely to have touched the "strange frontier".

The shallow zone of the abyss is Tavel's way of describing it. She roughly stratifies the known environment of the abyss. The gate of the abyss is the entrance. The place close to the gate of the abyss is the shallow zone of the abyss, where the pollution is heavy but not fatal. There are unstable passages between the forces of the abyss that can be safely passed - that is, the gaps created when the fog we observe surge. These unstable passages greatly reduce the danger in the shallow areas of the abyss, as long as these gaps can be found accurately , the average intermediate Xiang apostle can also fight in the abyss environment. There will be an obvious dividing line when crossing this shallow area. This dividing line has never been observed, but Tavel inferred this based on the data we extracted from the database of the original deep submersible ship prototype. The existence of the dividing line, all the abyssal fog should stop abruptly after this dividing line, the other side of the line is the strong pollution zone with uniform concentration, where the abyss no longer presents a measurable state, at the deep diving depth At the same level, the intensity of abyssal pollution is the same in every storage space. And as the depth of the deep dive increases, it will increase exponentially. This area is called the deep abyss area. Since there is no safe passage with a "superior" environment in the deep zone like the shallow zone, and there is no fog that can be demarcated, deep-diving ships will face huge challenges when navigating in this area. There is no opportunistic safe route, everything depends on The protective performance of the hull itself comes to a head☆ If the submarine can still move forward after crossing that dividing line: even if it only advances an inch, it means that the design idea of ​​​​the star ship is correct, indicating that its protection system is indeed capable in the abyss. Continuous working characteristics. At best, the intensity needs to be improved. It can be said that the dividing line between the deep zone and the shallow zone is also the dividing line that determines the fate of the deep submersible ship. If it does not successfully cross this line and survive in the deep zone for a short period of time, our deep submersible ship must be re-entered. designed.

Because the inability to cross the dividing line means that the deep-diving ship completely relies on taking a safe path to pass through the shallow area.

Fortunately, the deep-diving ship passed the dividing line on the second day of departure. After that, it continued sailing for about thirty-five hours and came into contact with the so-called "strange frontier."

Strange frontier is Sandora's way of saying it. She is used to refer to the limits of our current technology in analyzing phenomena deep in the abyss. There is no clear dividing line between that area and the deep area of ​​​​the abyss. The reason why such an area is divided is also inferred based on the data we previously obtained from the database of the deep submersible ship prototype. According to the records in the database, some time after the deep submersible ship arrived in the deep zone, all research data began to decrease sharply. It seemed that the scientific research team led by Occam suddenly could not collect any useful information after advancing for a period of time in the deep zone. This shows that after going deep into the abyss to a certain extent, the bizarre scenes presented in the abyss will be completely beyond the understanding of existing technology, and shipboard instruments will be unable to detect any phenomena occurring around them. The ship can still sail. But the crew no longer recognized the constellations around them—that’s what it felt like. Obviously, the division of the strange frontier depends a bit on the level of shipboard instruments or our current technological level. With the technological strength of the New Empire, the strange frontier will definitely arrive earlier than what Occam encountered back then.

There are two vague layers after the strange frontier, namely the "barrier area" and the "bottom layer". They are both areas of speculation. There is currently no evidence to prove their existence. Occam also failed to cross the "strange area" back then. "Border" is a dead end. Tavel just imagined a bottom layer for the abyss based on the "ordered signal phenomenon of the abyss" that appeared many times, and then added a "barrier area" on top of this bottom layer.

Ninety percent of all our current assumptions about the abyss are based on such speculations and inferences. And the deep diving ship or the entire deep diving plan. It is to slowly fill in these conjectures until they are full of flesh and blood.

The Gate of the Abyss floats quietly on the flaming red surface of the red giant star, surrounded by a circle of obelisks of psionic energy that are flashing regularly. In order to maintain the stability of this gate, it looks from a distance as if a small dark round hole has been poked out of the red giant's radiant outer skin, revealing the cold and dark true core of the planet. From the outside, the surface of the red giant star is stormy, with red plasma hurricanes roaring past at tens of thousands of meters per second, while the Gate of the Abyss is as quiet as a pool of black water; on the inside, it's just the opposite, red. There is order hidden in the turbulent surface of the giant star. Each beam of plasma fire erupted from it is based on laws that can be accurately described by several mathematics. In the eyes of scientists, the red giant star is like a small fire that burns quietly. It is as stable and silent as ever, but the abyss is violent and twisted. It is weird and abnormal, challenging all the laws of the material world and subverting everything unreasonably: even though it seems to be just a pool of black water without any ripples.

Two "Ferryman" class medium-sized barges that have undergone targeted modifications are patrolling a few kilometers above the Gate of the Abyss. This distance is equivalent to half a foot stepping into the death zone. Therefore, the "Ferryman" class barges are also added by Tawerg. Equipped with a new type of shield specifically designed to combat abyssal erosion, some barges attach the same importance to practicality as other common engineering ships. They have a square appearance and an extremely flat body. They look like a playing card floating in space: as long as Twelve kilometers of playing cards. There are several large rectangular openings on the hull of the barge that run through the entire spacecraft up and down. A force field traction system is set up on the edge of the opening, which looks like some kind of ancient refining well. In the center of this circle of traction system is a loop leading to the barge grid. Naku's space door. The guidance system can drag the goods over without touching the target, and the space gate will send these goods to a high-concentration psionic energy environment. In the psionic energy environment, the ☆ abyss will be neutralized and purified, and finally the goods will be safely transported. Stored in Gnaku.

However, the "Ferryman" barge does not have the ability to drag things from inside the Gate of the Abyss. If we want to "fish out" the "drift bottle" from the opposite side of the Gate of the Abyss, we still need some... special tools that work in extreme environments. staff, and the job has to be done manually: on this project we can't afford any surprises.

Still in the space workstation next to the Gate of the Abyss, which is already the frontline command center of the deep dive plan, the staff of the planning team are nervously paying attention to the situation of the first batch of engineering teams. They have entered the Gate of the Abyss and are now operating in the outermost layer of the shallow zone. Although that is already a safe zone quite close to the main material world, it is only compared to deeper places. The engineering team only has limited protection. The "salvage ship" they use is also made based on the principle of a deep submersible ship. However, because it is trying to remove physical substances from the abyssal environment, the salvage ship has a higher chance of being exposed to the substance of the pollution← A job must be done without distraction.

A bearded middle-aged man wearing an assistant technician's uniform appeared on the communication screen in front of us. He was the leader of the brave engineering team. The engineering team established contact with the command center in the abyss, and the transmitted picture had obvious The distortion and lagging phenomenon - the place where they were working was only a few dozen kilometers away from the command center, but the communication situation was so pessimistic, which made me feel unreal, as if the people around me were not extremely advanced. Imperial Technology is using old radio stations from World War II to talk to the soldiers.

The bearded middle-aged man has a strong build and strong facial lines. Although he was wearing researcher's clothes, I really thought it was an Imperial soldier wrapped in a white robe. Tavel introduced her junior assistant to me. According to her, he was a "frontline field scientist." In short, he is the kind of imperial technician who prefers to carry dozens of tons of explosives to the battlefield and collect enemy casualty data while assembling new bombs rather than working on theories in the laboratory - no wonder he is known as As an assistant technician, he led the engineering team into the gate of the abyss.

"The environment here is harsh, and the ship's hull is shaking slightly. Just now, the gravity inside the ship suddenly increased by one percent." The bearded "frontline field scientist" said in a rough voice. His eyes were not focused on the communicator for a long time. Instead, he quickly glanced around, seeming to be paying attention to a lot of constantly refreshing data, "There may be many things trying to kill us."

"Pay attention to your shield readings. A new wave of pollution is occurring within the Gate of the Abyss," Tavel frowned, and one of her mass projections was personally monitoring it in the psionic obelisk next to the Gate of the Abyss -<>- It seems that the continuous interaction between the material world's information and the abyssal realm has made this door somewhat loose. "

"Of course, Chief Technician." The bearded eyes drifted to the side, seemingly confirming Tavel's warning, and then skillfully operated on the console, "We saw the thick fog. The breath of the abyss has come into contact with the work ship. Our outermost shield is decomposing itself, but it is far from the danger point. It seems that it can withstand the impact. We cannot move our position. Those who fell off the deep submersible ship The security databases that came down are returning, and their working condition is very bad, so I have just set the work ship as a temporary navigation tower, so that more databases can come back safely... Oh, the impact is coming... zizz..."

The bearded voice was suddenly replaced by a huge noise, and the picture transmitted from the opposite side of the Gate of the Abyss suddenly turned into a large group of twisted bright lines. The surging power of the abyss destroyed the orderly combination of contact signals, causing them to become a chaotic chaos. The bold bearded man really used the work boat to withstand the impact. Everyone became nervous all of a sudden. Only Tavel remained calm: "It's just a communication interruption. The work boat is designed to be strong enough to face various crises in shallow areas." . I know that guy Vader, he just likes to risk his life, but he doesn’t like to lose his life.”

Sure enough, as Tavel said, the work ship quickly reappeared in the contact list, and the bearded report was barely heard amidst the violent clutter: "The impact is still continuing, chief technician, we see a large area of ​​gray and black... At least after the equipment was processed, there was a gray-black fog that enveloped the work ship. It was as if they could tell that the work ship did not belong to their world. The shield system was being refreshed rapidly, and the contaminated shield tried to self-destruct inward, but was stopped in time. Stopped. We are still sending navigation signals to the 'drifting bottle'. The impact just now may have affected one or two of the databases and lost their traces... Oh, no, the work ship may be a little polluted, I'm not sure. But Two escape towers suddenly disintegrated just now..."

The signal interference was so severe that the images transmitted from the opposite side of the Gate of the Abyss almost became frame-by-frame images. The expression on the bearded face was still light, but more and more alarm lights were appearing in the control hall behind him— - It seems that the situation is not as easy as his tone. Dora gave the order decisively: "Come to the surface immediately, and we will send the second batch of engineering teams down. Send a briefing on the status of the spacecraft. I ask the team of scientists to analyze what you are doing right now." Causes of pollution.”

"Maybe... it doesn't need to be so troublesome. We can deal with this small problem. Wiham has gone to the escape tower base to check the damage. The early warning system has not yet issued an alarm. Our shield is still intact. This should be just an accident. "The situation," the bearded voice suddenly became clear, and the screen returned to normal, "Oh, the impact has passed. It goes away as quickly as it came. Okay, Chief Technician, and His Majesty, now let's talk about what we confirmed: The database that fell off from the deep-diving ship may have suffered a more serious impact than expected. We only received a total of seven navigation requests. Yes, of more than a hundred databases, only seven returned to the shallow area alive, and there were more just now Two suddenly lost connection. We must stay here. Continue to provide navigation to the remaining five databases. They can no longer go home on their own. More storms are forming, once the navigation signal is terminated or the second engineering team is switched There was a delay. There was a 90% chance that those databases would be lost - that was the last bit of achievement of the entire plan. I had to save the empire's property! There was no need to send a second engineering team. We could put it in one minute. The first database is transmitted out of the gate, please prepare to receive it."

The bearded man's attitude was very determined, and it seemed that the expert team he led could really solve these troubles, so Sandora no longer insisted, but asked them to complete the task as soon as possible, and then let Tavel check it out.

The bearded man gave a military salute and then hung up the communication.

Soon, the barge waiting on the side of the Gate of the Abyss received the "cargo delivery" signal from the engineering team. I don't know whose idea it was. The communication password between them was this: Open the door, your express... …

An undetectable small whirlpool appeared from the middle of the Gate of the Abyss, and then a small object with a dim blue light floated out from the vortex. Compared with the entire Gate of the Abyss with a radius of hundreds of kilometers, this blue thing The gadgets are as inconspicuous as the sesame seeds on the sesame seeds - okay, I admit that I really lack words at this time. The work boat successfully captured the first floating database and sent it out of the gate of the abyss. Everything went well. When this sesame seed fell from the sesame cake... ahem, it seems that it is quite difficult to turn around. In short, it is inconspicuous. When the little thing floated out from the gate of the abyss, a relaxed atmosphere immediately filled the entire command center.

As long as one database is back in our hands, the whole plan is more than half successful.

"Very good, we have observed the target - but it seems that the latter's condition is not very good. Its shield has almost been extinguished, and it does not accept our external instructions. There may be a certain degree of system damage. I hope the scientists The designed database security program is still functioning normally...our tractor beam captured it!" A report came from the No. 1 barge, and then we saw many faint lines radiating from the walls of the rectangular channel in the center of the barge. These beams wrapped up the database that had just floated out of the abyss gate and quickly pulled it towards the space gate used to receive the goods. "A strong abyss reaction was detected, and there was a danger signal uploaded along the tractor beam." … The containment system worked well and we limited the contamination. The thing needs a thorough cleaning, and first it smells disgusting.”

How big is an escape database? In fact, in the abyss environment, smaller size means it is easier to obtain efficient protection. Those drift bottles equipped with navigation systems and the most efficient drive engines currently are only as big as a small car, while a "ferryman" The size of the "class barge is measured in kilometers. It looks a bit funny to use such a huge thing to pick up something the size of a small car home, just like Megatron carefully picking up a jingle from the grass, but we are so There is a reason for doing it: only something as big as a barge can carry a sufficient amount of equipment to ensure proper operation while close to the gate of the abyss, and it must also be equipped with a set of "cleaning machines" that can quickly purify the abyss. "Device" is used to sterilize the drift bottles that have just been salvaged. It's not like we haven't thought about letting a high-speed maneuvering small spacecraft fly past the Gate of the Abyss to recover the database. This may be more efficient and not so funny, but there is a certain chance that the contamination will be extended to the salvage troops: the gain outweighs the loss.

Soon other databases left the abyss under the guidance of the work boat. The entire salvage process seemed to be completed more smoothly than we expected. Among them, only one "drift bottle" was lost. It was seriously infected, the shield had been completely extinguished, and the shell was twisted like a mess. The interior of this completely abyssal mechanical body burst out with light on the eve of its self-destruction. As soon as it came to the material world He immediately tried to dissipate the aura of the abyss from his body by self-destructing. Fortunately, there were a large number of sentinel cannons nearby, and before it exploded, the high concentration of psionic energy rays completely purified everything. The contaminated database only produced a small spark in space, but was instantly swallowed up by the bright light of the red giant star, and then Tavel felt as if he was distressed...

"First Engineering Team, your mission is completed, return immediately."

Sandora breathed a sigh of relief and ordered the communicator.

No reply.

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