Alien Relic Hunter.

Chapter 578 Caves and Iway

Regardless of whether these caves are qualified to be called a "relic", what is certain is that they were definitely not excavated by humans... As for whether they are Alpha civilization, there is no way of knowing.

It's a pity that there are no words or symbols left on the walls of these caves, and Ke Lan is completely unable to judge their use.

In the section tens of meters from the outermost part of the cave, there are some simple sheds, with a lot of plastic sheets and straps wrapped around the outside of the shed, and dirty and worn-out bedding and some shabby clothes piled inside .

There are a few rusty Type [-] rifles against the wall. Next to the guns is a box of ammunition that looks like it came from a handicraft workshop. Whether the tolerance is too large to get stuck in the gun is a problem-but it is different from the one on the side. Compared with what can barely be called a "magazine", these bullets can already be regarded as "well-made".

Those magazines were simply put together with two rolled-formed rotten iron sheets, and the surface was wrapped with a few rounds of dirty tape, even if they were called "disposable items" sold on the black market. Junk goods are also much better than these things.

So far, everything Ke Lan has seen is pretty much the same as any exile settlement in the wilderness.

If there is any difference, it is probably that the spatial planning of these caves is too neat, and even the originally messy sheds seem to be in order - most of the exile settlements in the wilderness have no layout at all. , from the perspective directly above, it looks like a tumor growing randomly.And all the sheds here are built against the rock wall, giving people a very regular feeling.

Ke Lan walked more than ten meters in, and an extinguished bonfire appeared in front of his eyes.

"Lighting a fire in a place like this, without any smoke exhaust device, is really not afraid of carbon monoxide poisoning." Ke Lan muttered as he bent down to rummage through the charred remains in the campfire a few times, and a warm feeling came through immediately. After the armor was passed to his hands, he immediately pushed aside the ashes underneath, and a few pieces of coal that had not been completely extinguished and were still emitting black and red light were immediately exposed.

He is not surprised that the heretics can get coal. The swamps on the wilderness of Planet Alpha occupy about 9% of the area. In these swamps, a large number of coal mines are buried under the shallow peat layer.People don't even need heavy machinery to excavate. One person can dig out dozens of catties of coal in a day with a shovel and a pickaxe.

It is precisely because of these abundant coal mines that the fossil fuel-based equipment that had almost disappeared on the Ark has become popular again.

But what made Ke Lan feel vigilant was that these still burning coals proved that not long ago, there were people sitting around this bonfire to keep warm—whether it was the unmanned reconnaissance drone in the sky or the zero zero that surrounded the area. The Marine Corps of the USS Fleet, none of them found anyone leaving this place, so where would these disappearing people go?

Ke Lan couldn't help but cast his gaze deeper into the cave.

Did these people go in with the Prophet?

Ke Lan picked up a can next to the bonfire. It was a can of luncheon meat produced by the military food factory of the Ark Field Force. Things, as long as they are sealed well, can still be eaten even if they are decades out of date, but the taste may become worse.

This can has been dug out in half, and the can is stained with a ring of white lard that has solidified due to low temperature, but the meat inside still maintains a certain degree of softness, compared with the unopened and frozen one next to it. The stone-hard cans are a stark contrast.

These people should have been eating before... They stopped in the middle of their meal, so there must be something important.

And for the exiles in the wilderness, there are probably few things more important than filling their stomachs.

Even if the "Prophet", the leader of the heretical sect, came, he wouldn't just throw the unfinished cans beside the bonfire.

Ke Lan felt more and more that something was wrong with this place...not only was something wrong with this place, but even Dr. Renee's defection seemed to be full of a strong taste of conspiracy.

First of all, judging from the surveillance video of the New Dawn and the traces at the crash site, Dr. Renee's defection was purely temporary—she didn't expect the incident to develop to that extent at the beginning, but when the metal can was in the crowd After the explosion, this matter slid down into an uncontrollable abyss.

Dr. Renee hurried back to the ark to grab Professor Smith's first-hand research materials—although Ke Lan knew that those materials had already been destroyed by the "Seraphim", even if there were some remaining clues, they had fallen by now. In the hands of the Undead Crew, it is impossible for Dr. Renee to pick up the leak.

But Dr. Renee didn't know these things. Judging from her enthusiasm for research and her crazy energy, it was completely reasonable to make such a move, and it didn't look like acting at all.

The possibility of Dr. Renee colluding with heretical sects in advance is extremely low, especially after uncovering Park Sang-woo, the undead crew will definitely investigate carefully the members of the research team sent to Yagunaktor, and try to avoid similar incidents. The incident happened again.

Ordinary members may still have secrets of heresy sects lurking, but if there is a problem with a leader like her, if there is a problem, it has already been discovered. It was simply killed, and there would be no chance of snatching the transport plane and escaping.

And the Prophet...or the substitute of the Prophet, the timing of his appearance was really a bit of a coincidence.The crash site of the transport plane was not far from Fleet Zero, and it was only more than an hour before and after the marines arrived at the crash site. But in this hour or so, Prophet not only found Dr. Renee one step ahead of the marines, but also And took her away without leaving any trace.

If it was purely a coincidence, Ke Lan felt that his IQ was being rubbed against the ground.

The Prophet clearly knew in advance that Dr. Renee would defect, and he even estimated the approximate location where the transport plane crashed, so he appeared there in such a timely manner!

Apart from Dr. Renee herself, there are only two people who are most suspected—the researcher who threw the metal can out, and the researcher who died after the crash while sitting in the co-pilot.

The former became the fuse of the conflict. He used his "mistake" to directly detonate the conflict between the two sides, and successfully forced Dr. Renee into a situation where he had to seize the plane to escape, while the other researcher was on the transport plane. During the crash, the crash site was controlled as much as possible within the reach of the Prophet—according to the record of the black box on the transport plane, Dr. Renee fell into a coma after the transport plane was hit by a laser, and after that, it was not until the transport plane During the touchdown and crash, the researcher sitting in the co-pilot's seat was manipulating the plane.

Although these two people are already dead, Ke Lan feels that death will not clear them of suspicion—if he can contact the Zero Fleet or the Undead Crew Club now, the first thing he must do is to let them focus on the investigation The background and details of the two researchers.

What made Ke Lan even more puzzled was not how the heretical sects placed these shadows on the ark, but the reason why the "prophet" forced Dr. Renee to defect—sacrificing two shadows buried so deep, and returning them to the ark. With the risk that the entire transport plane might be bombarded to nothing (if the Zero Fleet didn't choose to stay alive at that time), is it just for Dr. Renee?
If Dr. Renee died directly in the crash, wouldn't they be in vain?

It's not worth it, it's not worth it at all!
Although Dr. Renee is the top person in charge of Yaguna Ketor's research group, Yaguna Ketor's exploration operation has not started at all, and the research results that the research team can produce at this time are stacked together. It's just a thin stack of A4 papers. Although it doesn't mean that these documents are worthless, if the prophet is interested in this stuff, he doesn't need to "arrange" a scene of defection and plane crash. The "darkness" in the research team can steal this little thing.

As for Dr. Renee herself, apart from her body that is very easy to arouse the primitive impulse of men, she is at best a professor-level researcher. For a professor-level researcher like her, there are at least 200 people before the institute has an accident. .

Every professor-level research institute can indeed be regarded as an amazingly talented person, but without the assistance of the team behind her, without the favorable conditions and research environment provided by Ark and the research institute, she may not be able to study it on her own. something came out.

The prophet couldn't have taken a fancy to this woman's beauty, could he?
One is not for power, and the other is not for flesh, so what is he doing for it?
wait? !
Ke Lan was startled suddenly - because he remembered a very important thing.

Yagunaktor is not yet open to the public, so what was the project she was researching before Dr. Renee's defection?
"Damn it! What this woman has been researching...is me!"

Ke Lan suddenly felt a chill spread along the spine—the people in the research institute have actually been studying their own cells, genetics and other things, and the professor Smith on the ark died a big death, fiddled with Things like "memes" came out, so that the entire research institute was almost destroyed in the hands of Seraphim.

Ke Lan is still rejoicing that Dr. Renee didn't do anything terrible, but defected and crashed, so he couldn't die. Dr. Renee, who survived the crash, was given "" Pick up" arrived.

Ke Lan clearly remembered that when Dr. Renee defected, she was carrying a silver-white suitcase.That suitcase contained the research results of her period of time—and there was only one object of her research during this period of time.

That is Ke Lan.

The suitcase must contain things related to me, maybe some of my "clone cells" are also sealed!
Moreover, according to those marines who searched the crash site, they did not find such a silver-white suitcase in the wreckage of the transport plane.

Not only was Dr. Renee taken away by the prophet, but the suitcase full of "deadly things" was also taken away by the prophet.

Ke Lan even suspects that the prophet's first target is this suitcase... As for whether Renee is dead or alive, it is not that important.

If Renee is not dead, that is good news, but even if Renee is dead, as long as he can get the contents of the suitcase, then his purpose will be achieved.

Professor Smith created such a tricky monster just by injecting the cells of the Seed of Corrosion into the cloned tissue of Ke Lan's cells. If the cloned cells fell into the hands of the Prophet...

Ke Lan didn't dare to think about it anymore, he immediately quickened his pace and rushed to the depths of the cave.

……

……

Finally, after going deep into the cave about 300 meters horizontally, Ke Lan finally saw something different—on the passage wall at the other end of the maze, there were many cylindrical jars with a height of two people embedded in them. The crystal is the same material, hard, highly transparent, and has excellent conductivity... And the bottoms of these jars are indeed connected with a large number of metal wires.

It's just that these jars are empty, there is nothing in them, and they are as clean as brand new.

The top of the jar has a sealed cover made of metal, and the sealed cover has a serial number marked in Alpha characters-this is also the first time Ke Lan saw the Alpha civilization after entering the cave.

It's a pity that he didn't find any more information other than these serial numbers, and he couldn't judge the purpose of these crystal jars.

"A factory of Alpha Civilization? Or... a laboratory?" Ke Lan guessed wildly in his mind.

He suddenly recalled that on the "desert island" in the city under the sea, the black box of the 776 special team, Commander Ken also mentioned a similar "rock well".

The wall of the rock well was cut very flat, and there was a channel reinforced with metal structures inside... At the end of the rock well, there was a huge underground space. The 776 special effects team also found a large number of " Quartz Jar"...

The "quartz jar" that Commander Ken is talking about should be this kind of jar made of energy crystals. After all, this material is indeed very similar to quartz glass if you don't look carefully.

The tiny, filamentous crystal structures can only be seen if you get very close.

Ken also mentioned that in those huge jars, they were filled with cloudy liquid... only here, the record of the black box was interrupted.

Something must have happened in that underground space... But at least one thing is certain, the 776 special team was not wiped out there, otherwise I would not have found their wreckage and this black box in the cave.

Moreover, Ken also mentioned one point—the Seed of Erosion on the deserted island didn't seem to dare to approach those rock wells at all, and it was for this reason that the members of the 776 special team were able to survive being hunted down by the Seed of Erosion.

Why didn't the Seed of Erosion dare to approach the rock well?
Are they afraid of the well itself... or... what's in the well?
What is the relationship between the rock well on that deserted island and the cave I am in now?
A lot of question marks flooded out instantly, making Ke Lan's thoughts into a mess.

[PS Thanks to Zidu and the reward of 197 starting coins; thanks to Mao and Qiuyu for the reward of 100 starting coins. 】

[PPS is not feeling well recently, and the whole person's state is also a bit wrong, the update time may be very unstable, please bear with me. 】

(End of this chapter)