Chapter 11 Chapter 11 Velociraptor’s Delicious Snacks——I

The moment Holloway discovered that both of his ship's front rotors had failed, he was on two minds.The first one is what the hell?Because it is common for one rotor to fail, it is very rare for two to fail at the same time. Second thoughts are bad!Because Holloway was alone in the middle of nowhere, if he had landed on the jungle floor, the beast would have eaten him. Holloway slapped the manual pilot mode on and pulled the steering wheel of the spaceship.He can worry about being eaten later, now he needs to avoid falling.If he could get the ship to the ground without breaking, he might be able to fix it and get away.If he fell and the spaceship fell to pieces, he would most likely become digested meat within the day.

Holloway reached to the ship's control panel and pulled the tab on the emergency rotor.All rotors are powered by energy supplies located under the passenger compartment in the middle of the spacecraft, and are controlled by computers rather than humans.But if the transmission shaft is damaged, the hardware program response times out, and the spacecraft at an altitude of one thousand meters above the ground will encounter great trouble.When encountering such an emergency, the small engines installed under the rotors are activated. The small amount of kinetic energy they generate is not enough to support the flight and lasts only a few minutes, but it can stabilize the spacecraft and prepare for an emergency landing.

Holloway grabbed the tab of the front rotor with one hand and pulled it down with all his strength.The pull ring tightened, stretched to the limit, and snapped off the activation pin of the emergency rescue system.If Holloway survived, he would have to recharge the emergency life-saving system and replace it with a new pull tab and activation pin.The factory setup of this device is too complicated to repair by yourself, only to a skilled licensed professional, they will charge the system, and all parts will have to be reinstalled and cannot be replaced.It would cost Holloway 1,000 credits, and he would yell and curse.

But now Holloway doesn't think about these issues at all. For a moment, he prays that the emergency life-saving system is functioning properly. The last time he replaced it was more than a year ago. Fortunately, the system is normal.The front rotor turned to the initial position, turned and whirred.A timer popped up on Holloway's message board: He had two minutes and 30 seconds to land.Holloway minimized the timer window, turned on the landing gear cameras, and searched for a suitable landing spot. Holloway had been surveying the area for three days as ordered.The jungle is too dense.Piloting the ship among the thick tree canopies was difficult enough, and he couldn't get close to the ground, so he had to operate a small remote-controlled robot to install the acoustic monitoring and data collection device.This method is feasible, but if the spacecraft can be close to the ground, it will be faster to use the on-board digging and drilling equipment.

But right now he can't care so much, no matter how dense the jungle is, he has to rush in.Holloway started the rear rotor of the spaceship, and rushed towards a relatively sparse canopy on the tight tree wall.After checking his seat safety at the same time, he pressed the emergency landing button on the panel. The seat belt tightened instantly, making it almost impossible to breathe.Holloway heard a "snap", and the head shield inflated and popped over his head, blocking his view.His hands and feet were also fixed and covered.The seat rotated to the forward position, and Holloway couldn't move, relying on the spacecraft's automatic system to decide life or death.Holloway was a little thankful that he let Carl stay with Isabel and Momo.The landing was definitely bumpy.

very bumpy.The spaceship tilted steeply and sank rapidly, making people feel nauseous. Holloway prayed that the computer control would still work. The speed of descent was faster than the vertical fall caused by the gravity of the planet. The mass and volume of the spaceship crushed dense branches and smashed away One way, the violent vibration in the cabin and the non-stop rumbling "click" sound of breaking told Holloway that after landing, the ground must be full of broken branches and a mess. Seven meters away from the ground, 12 small flamethrowers on the landing gear were ignited, adjusting the firepower according to the current position of the spaceship, slowing down the landing speed, balancing the spaceship, and landing on the jungle ground as steadily as possible.As soon as the flamethrower ignited, Holloway felt his guts jerk painfully down again at a falling speed a few millimeters before being dragged down by the rest of him.There was a frighteningly loud landing, and Holloway knew that this was not a "soft" landing, but probably a "hard" landing.

Seat safety gear pops open, inflatable shields deflate with a hiss, and power to the ship's rotors shuts off.Holloway struggled out of his seat and reached for the information board to check the latest data.The surface of the spacecraft was dented, and the control device for the left rear rotor was knocked out during the descent.If Holloway can still make the spaceship fly, it can only go up and down but not forward.But overall, the craft withstood the onslaught, and Holloway landed successfully without crashing the craft. Holloway stopped fussing about the details once he got the general picture.Now that he's landed, he has other things to worry about.He walked through the ship's cockpit to the storage bay, opened the door, and pulled out the emergency rail pack.

"Go ahead," Holloway said to himself.He opened the top door of the spaceship and climbed out the side. When the spaceship landed on the jungle floor, crashed or not, there was a lot of movement.Most nearby creatures, evolved to perceive loud noises as danger or predator, would immediately scatter in all directions.But eventually they will come back.The predators come back faster, and their instincts tell them that after the loud noises subside, some weak and helpless creatures may be injured and unable to walk, so that they can bite and will not encounter any resistance. This means that Holloway has about two minutes, more than three minutes, and less than a minute to enclose the emergency barrier.Once the time is up, large, hungry creatures will rush over to see what to eat.

Holloway didn't waste a second. He quickly installed six guardrail posts firmly around the spaceship, with a maximum limit of two meters between them.When he was done, he pulled out the magnetized guardrail barrier and snapped it into place on each guardrail post.The enclosed area is not large, only around Holloway's spaceship.The spaceship is big, and the fence isn't big enough. Holloway snapped the last barrier to the first post, the base of which contained the electric device for the guardrail.Once activated, the electrical device serves two purposes.First, it will turn the guardrail into a stronger and huge electromagnetic net. As long as the guardrail posts are installed properly and firmly, it will be difficult for any creature to knock down the guardrail; second, when it senses an impact, it will charge the guardrail with two Fifty thousand volts of high-voltage electricity, any creature will be scorched as soon as it touches it.

The power unit can last twelve hours on a full charge.After the tragedy of Sam Hamilton (and his monkeys), Holloway always made sure his emergency barrier power units were fully charged. Holloway checked again to make sure the guardrails were in place, and pressed the green button to turn on the power unit.He took a step back, waiting for the five-second start time, and the rustle of electromagnetic current passing by. Nothing happened. Holloway looked down at the electrical installation.The LED light next to the start button was blinking, and Holloway didn't need to read the explanatory text next to the light to know that it meant the power unit was dead.

"Are you kidding!" Holloway yelled.Holloway was sure the electric unit was fully charged.He checks the gear every month when he counts it. He noticed something moving outside the fence, and when he looked up, there were two Zara Velociraptors thirty yards away, also looking at him, whether they were curious, hungry, or both.Holloway calmly withdrew from his parapet as if nothing had happened, climbed into his spaceship, closed the hatch tightly, and started looking for a shotgun. Zara velociraptors aren't named for anything else—they're reminiscent of the small predatory dinosaurs that once roamed the Earth, but luckily velociraptors went extinct millions of years before humans showed up on their menus.Like velociraptors, Zara velociraptors were also reptiles, apparently carnivorous, and ran upright on their strong, powerful legs. On the jungle floor, they could both run long distances and nimbly jump to avoid various energy stumbling blocks. Down the human barrier.Unlike Athlon, Zara Athlon's head is not protruding, a bit like a cat, and its forelimbs are also very powerful, with front paws with opposite fingertips.Therefore, it is possible to grab prey and clamp their limbs so that they cannot escape from the sharp teeth. Before coming to Zara 23, Holloway and other new surveyors were required to watch all kinds of videos of Zara Athlon attacking and killing vulnerable humans, such as surveillance cameras, security videos, and even a video by an unfortunate self-viewer. Footage taken by an overrated surveyor.This section is the most difficult to watch directly, not only because the surveyor's blood splashed on the camera, the sight is blood red, but also this film shows that even if the human brain is very intelligent, compared with the speed, claws and fangs of Zara Velociraptor Still vulnerable. With the ship sealed, Holloway feigned composure, knelt down by the small locker next to his seat, opened the door, and pulled out his shotgun.The gun is not big and the barrel is short.Except for close range shooting, it is useless.Holloway thought that was exactly the kind of gun he needed right now.He bought it when he first came to Zara 23, but never used it.It seems that there is a first time for everything. He opened the magazine to load it, so he looked for the box in the locker, which he always kept next to the shotgun. Bullet is not there.Holloway felt a chill. There was a sound of metal clashing outside the spaceship, and Holloway looked in the direction of the sound.Zara Athlon has reached the guardrail, trying to pull it down. guardrail. Holloway suddenly had a desperate and crazy idea, because now he had nothing but desperate and crazy ideas.He reached for the information board just as a Zara-dragon had ripped through the barrier between the guardrail posts. Holloway's spaceship is pretty much the basic configuration.He bought the ship from another surveyor.The surveyor is broke and trying to trade everything he can before rolling back to Earth.The design of the spaceship is not too particular about aesthetics, but mainly for practicality, with a large cargo space, simple interior equipment, and a retractable roof skylight on the top.The four corners of the spacecraft are equipped with four huge rotors to hover in the air and propel it forward. The rotors are covered with protective shells to prevent flying creatures or surveyors passing by accidentally from being rolled into pieces. Holloway has hardly improved the boat since he bought it.He also likes luxury spaceships—he’s been a lawyer, after all—but luxury spaceships exist to show off, and who is he showing off to on Zara 23?People here are only obsessed with making money and don't care about showing off their wealth.So there was nothing to brag about, and it was a relief in a way. Holloway, however, paid big bucks for one thing.The ship's original owner installed just a generic speaker for practical purposes—playing notifications from the ship's systems and information boards, talking to contract surveyor representatives, and so on.Holloway couldn't understand that, if he was going to spend most of the day on the ship, he'd want to listen to music and audiobooks and stuff so his eyes and hands would be busy and his mind would be a little entertained Activity.Holloway wants to install a sound system. The sound system he installed was ridiculously expensive, not because he really wanted it but because it was the only one in the Zara Group store.The clerk told him that most surveyors wear headphones to listen to music, and the spacecraft is equipped with ordinary speakers, and then persuaded him to buy a pair of super-value headphones that are guaranteed to fit comfortably on the ears.However, Holloway couldn't accept anything smaller than an elbow to be stuffed into his ears, so he gritted his teeth and bought this frighteningly expensive stereo. Zara Velociraptor had knocked down the emergency barrier and was circling the ship, trying to figure out what it was and how to dig out the thing's hard shell to get the crunchy human snack inside.Holloway concentrated, trying not to pee his pants in fright, while trying to find a way to start the tuning process of the sound system. One of the reasons the system is so expensive, according to the clerk, is its ability to play sounds at frequencies outside the range of human hearing—the system plays between 2 and 44.1 kilohertz.Although the human ear cannot hear sounds outside the range of reception, these sounds can still have an impact on the overall acoustics.Traditional ordinary speakers only retain sounds that are smaller than the range accepted by the human ear, but this set of speakers restores everything. According to the clerk, this can achieve the best sound effect in the real world. At the time, Holloway told the clerk directly that he thought it was all sales bullshit, and the clerk admitted that it was probably a gimmick, but since Holloway was going to pay so much, it was good to know why it was so expensive. Zara Velociraptor began to knock on the window of the spaceship, first with its claws open, and then with its fists.The windows swayed a lot but were not broken. These windows were tempered glass windows, which could withstand the impact of birds flying at two hundred kilometers per second.Athlon's fist they can withstand. One of the velociraptors ran away from the ship, and Holloway couldn't help staring at it.The velociraptor looked down at the ground, as if looking for something.Suddenly it stopped and bent over, and when it came back it held a huge stone in its hand.It looked up at the ship and swung its arms in a motion uncannily similar to that of a cricket pitcher. Ha, will use tools.Something in Holloway's head said, I'm going to tell Isabel.Immediately after, Holloway dodged with his head folded reflexively, the big rock drew a straight line in the air at high speed, right in the middle of the window at the front of the spaceship, leaving a clearly visible small crack. Harlow forced his attention back to the information board, to the tuning program for the sound system, which was now loaded. After Holloway bought the stereo, he spent half an hour researching the painfully complicated supporting program, trying various frequency tuning and sound setting functions.In the end, he decided: life is too short, why bother with the stereo, so he returned to the initial interface of the program and clicked on the automatic operation mode.From then on, the program took care of itself, and Holloway could only listen to music and audiobooks.However, Holloway is now full of dots on the operation screen and wants to call up the manual adjustment mode. The information board interface was refreshed, and a page of menus with no obvious logical order popped up.God damn retarded user interface!Holloway cursed secretly, and finally found the option of frequency adjustment when Zara Athlon slammed the stone on the window vigorously again, opening the crack by another millimeter. Holloway clicked on the frequency adjustment, and a pleasing introduction page popped up, accompanied by a pleasant male voice, how the full audio coverage of the Newton-Baden sound system can bring the audience an unparalleled acoustic experience . Furious and frightened, Holloway let out a growl, searching desperately for the option to skip the intro.He finally found it when another velociraptor picked up a rock and started pounding on the same window.At this time, the two velociraptors began to take turns smashing stones.The window cracked open as Holloway started to open the program he was trying to find. Holloway quickly backed away from the window, reaching for the only sound-related control knob on the man-operated platform: the volume knob.He firmly grasped the knob with one hand, a velociraptor had knocked open the shattered glass of the window with its claws, pulled out a hole, poked its head into the cabin and sniffed around, apparently intending to squeeze into the spaceship.Another velociraptor waited outside, waiting for Holloway to escape in a panic. Harlow waited in awe-inspiring manner, and it took his utmost willpower not to be incontinent because of the fright. The Zara-dragon got into the spaceship and approached him by half a meter.Just as it was about to move forward, Holloway pressed a button on the information board.The sound system starts up abruptly and starts playing test audio in the 22.5 to 28 kHz range.Holloway then turned the volume knob, turning it up quickly and hard. Zara Velociraptor by the window let out a horrific scream, kicked its limbs wildly, and frantically slammed its fangs head towards the side of the spaceship, trying to break through the spaceship and escape outside.After Holloway's terrified few minutes, the velociraptor finally climbed out of the ship and staggered out the window, where another velociraptor ran to join him.Holloway's whole body relaxed for an instant, and he almost cried. But although the two Zara Velociraptors were afraid of the sound, they didn't escape too far.After a while, they started circling the ship.Holloway was a little confused at first.Then he played the test audio again, turning the volume up, and opened the top of the ship and the windows. Zara Athlon was impacted by all-round high-frequency noise, and was in great pain. He roared angrily and fled into the woods. Holloway watched them go, momentarily in disbelief.Then he started the recording program of the information board, and after confirming that it could record high-frequency audio that humans cannot hear, he recorded the entire test audio and played it in a loop. Five minutes later the forest was silent, save for the rustling of the leaves in the wind.Apparently Zaravelosaurus is not the only animal that hates high-frequency noise. Holloway found that he was starting to get a headache too, just as Aubrey had said a few days earlier.But headaches are nothing right now: either they have headaches, or their brains are ripped open and eaten.Holloway was willing to live with the headache for now. He picked up the board again and called up the front rotor diagnostics.The program shows that there are no hardware failures on both rotors and everything is indexed normally. Holloway looked around to make sure his high-frequency noise barrier was intact before running a diagnostic on the software system, retrieving all rotor-related subroutines.Everything also seems to work fine.Diagnosis of the main driver program did not find any errors or file corruption. If there is no problem with the hardware and the software, is it just an accident this time—there is a temporary glitch in the system?Holloway admitted that such a thing was possible, but he didn't believe it.In that case, it would be an accident if his bullets were lost, and it would be an accident that his protective fence was out of power. Only two of the above three things happened, Holloway can still believe that it was bad luck or retribution.But when the three things collided, in his opinion, it could only be someone's conspiracy.This might be like persecution paranoia, and he is not the kind of person who is seriously suspicious, but what else can it be if it is not a conspiracy?Someone wants his life. Who can get close to the spaceship?Holloway himself obviously could, but unless he sleepwalked and was suicidal while sleepwalking, he wasn't a suspect. Isabelle spent a week in his treehouse, so she also had a lot of access to the spaceship.But even though Holloway had pissed off Isabel so many times since meeting her, he still couldn't believe that she really wanted to kill him.She is not that kind of person.Even if she really wanted to kill him, Holloway thought bitterly, Isabel wouldn't do it secretly, she'd just come at him. But then there was no one else, and there wasn't much human interaction in Holloway's life.The only people he had seen in the last week were Isabel and Aubrey and his valet.But neither of them ever came close to the ship.Langdon was close, but— Holloway felt a sudden chill at the back of his head, as if he had been frozen.He finally remembered who else he had seen last week. He clicked on the message board and did a diagnostic search of his ship's operating programs, looking for programs that had been tampered with or overridden in the last week.He found two.The rotor energy supply program has been tampered with.A new program was also added four days ago.The program wasn't described, but Holloway could guess what it was doing, who had installed it to disable Holloway's shields. "Son of a son of a bitch!" Holloway snarled.He fiddled with the information board and began to reinstall the system, restoring factory settings.It was time-consuming, and Holloway didn't want to risk staying in the jungle, but he didn't want to pilot his ship right now.Not going anywhere until he restored the operating system to system defaults and killed God knows what that new program. It took a full two hours to reload, and Holloway developed from a little headache to a migraine attack. The pain made the eyes dim and the nosebleeds kept bleeding.Holloway survived the last half hour by lying on the floor chewing aspirin and stuffing first aid gauze up his nose. By the time Holloway was finally able to get the spaceship up again, the sun was almost setting.He called Isabel, but she didn't answer.This wasn't surprising to Holloway, she was probably too busy watching Momo solve function problems or teaching them metaphysics or something.Holloway waited patiently for the voicemail prompt. "Isabel, I'm Jack," he said. "Look, I'm going to Aubrey Town to take care of something. It should be over soon, but I want you to do me a favor. If I don't You call me back and I want you to find your new friend and ask him to come and see me. Because if you haven’t heard from me by midnight, I guess I’m going to need a lawyer anyway.”