Chapter 18 Chapter Seventeen

"If we can get out, let's get out!" Quinn said. "I'm injured and can't move." His mother's gentle and calm voice came from the monitor. "let me help you." Because the Skynet has been cut by monsters, they are now floating in the dark and boundless space.Quinn gradually felt like a fish in water, very relaxed.He kicked his feet against the steel pillars of the cage, and swam to Lu Ensang. Lu Ensang floated in the darkness with a very graceful figure.Her whole body was glowing, like a string of silver water drops, which gradually became smaller from the beginning to the end, and finally became a little thinner.Quinn stretched out his arms to embrace her, feeling that her whole body was weak and boneless, and her skin was smooth, warm and full of elasticity.He smelled the mysterious and fresh breath emanating from her again.One of Lu Ensang's wings was tightly attached to Quinn's body, and the other wing was shining with golden light to explore the way ahead.

When they hit the ceiling, Quinn flipped in the air, kicked his feet up, and floated the other way.They floated past a black panel, and just as they were about to slide past the spaceship, he reached out and grabbed the open hatch. Skyfish clung to the door to shine so Quinn could find the launch controls.The engine stalled, and he had to crank it up with difficulty, then close the valve inside and clamp it tight.After he put on his spacesuit, he asked Lu Ensang if he was used to the absence of air. "Get used to it." His mother's voice came softly from the display screen in Lu Ensang's arms. "We don't need oxygen."

He put on his space suit and found that the manual valve was still open, and the air squeezed in from there, whining.So he fumbled again, cranked it shut and clamped it tight, and swam into the cabin with Ruen San. He felt a little overwhelmed at first.He had flown the spaceship around Jannot before, but this time the spaceship was on the edge of the earth's gravity well, and everything was different. He sat uneasily in the driver's seat, looking at the red pointer on the instrument panel.Luckily there was a program in the flight controller that taught him how to activate the auxiliary propulsion.The spaceship broke away from the control platform, first flew in the dark for a certain distance, and then entered the twinkling stars.

Those stars look friendly.Walking among them, Quinn felt at home.At last he found the Earth, a black disc with a glow all around it.It's because the sun shines from behind it. However, near the black equator, there is an intermittent and unusually straight line, faintly glowing.When the radiant sun behind the earth leaped into view, Quinn suddenly understood what the line meant.fire! Where Skynet crashed, the fire is spreading. He put on a pair of filter glasses to avoid the sun's glare.After his eyes adjusted, he saw that the space laboratory was falling rapidly, and soon disappeared into the boundless darkness.

"Where's the Seeker?" he asked softly. "Where's the Seeker?" Lu Ensang didn't answer.She lay on the seat next to him, and the screen she was holding was thrown aside.Her slender hands rested on the metal edge of the window, her eyes were closed tightly, and her whole body was dull. Quinn looked away from her, continued to learn the operating procedures, and prepared to force-land the spacecraft on the earth. Since the propulsion force of the auxiliary propulsion device was too small during the landing process, he had to keep the auxiliary propulsion device running to slow down the flight. speed.However, their first attempt to land near the equator was not only unsuccessful, but deviated further from the earth.

When the spacecraft made an emergency landing, he scouted the earth carefully, but found no trace of the searchers.The fire near the equator was slowly dying out, from where white clouds rose and drifted toward the sun.He thought those white clouds were probably concentrated water mist. The flight operation program set in the flight controller has been completed.He tried the signal receiver on the ship, and there was no signal from the radio or the display, all he heard was the creaking static current.For a long time he sat expressionless, trying to imagine what they would see if they landed alive.

unimaginable!He never knew about Earth, nor had he ever wondered what it would be like, let alone what it was like before Skynet crashed.Although he had thought of Jannot, he had never imagined that disasters on Earth would be so different.He couldn't describe it. A terrible sense of loneliness came over him.Jannot seems to be far away, like a dream, maybe it has disappeared, just as he wanted to have a decisive place in the sun family, didn't this romantic long-cherished wish disappear like a puff of smoke?What is he doing on earth?What's the use of getting here?Here, he couldn't find enough energy to support him to fly back to the distant Jannot.

He has been thinking about Mindy.This mistress who killed his father and enemy was the only woman he really needed in this life.Is she an accomplice in killing her father and enemy?He thought he would never know the answer again.Although the Solar Empire Security Department collected some evidence, these have undoubtedly been destroyed, and were burned when Skynet fell, and even the ashes were sent into space.Maybe Mindy died the same way.He tried his best not to let himself think about her voice and smile. Lu Ensang is now his only companion.She was lying beside her, motionless, her mysterious eyes were closed, her drooping wings were dull, and her slender hands were still resting on the window.He reached out and touched her, but she didn't respond, her smooth skin was cold.

The disaster dazzled him. One of the greatest empires in history was destroyed like this.The disaster came too fast and fierce, and he couldn't react for a while.Terrified, he thought foolishly of the fate of the people on Earth.He suddenly thought, aren't the crowded people on the earth just like the cells of a dismembered person?And many cells are destined to perish today. Without Skynet—he dared not think about it. The monitor is just above him to the left, half a meter high and hemispherical.He projected celestial bodies and planets on it for a while, and displayed images of the continents of the earth for a while.He ran the flight procedure again, preparing to land again.

Their first attempt near the equator took more than two hours, and the second almost longer.When he was about to land for the third time, Lu Ensang moved beside him.Silver light began to glow on her body again, the hand leaning on the window was retracted, and the display screen that had been left aside was embraced again.She was looking at him brightly. "We're looking for the Seekers." It was his mother's voice, and it reminded him of the lullaby his mother sang when he was very young. "It disappeared. We caught its last scream. It got caught in the net while cutting the skynet and fell into the Pacific Ocean."

"So—there are other Seekers attacking?" "Not yet. We searched all the way to its lair, and found no trace of other searchers." "Perhaps your sister has wiped them out?" The silver light all over Lu Ensang's body gradually dimmed, and after a long silence, he replied: "She failed." His mother's voice sounded very sad, like what she said when she wanted to leave him and Clay in Jannot as sad. "We got in touch with her again. Her boat was wrecked and her life was in critical condition." "Where's the weapon?" he asked. "Destroyed too?" "Maybe it's just a little bit broken. Snow Gray is too badly damaged to fix it." "Lu Ensang—" Quinn trembled all over, and reached out to touch her. "Maybe we'll be able to find the main magnet, fly to get the weapon—" Lu Ensang's silky-smooth skin had a silvery glow, but it disappeared after a while. "Don't you give up and still hope to defeat the searcher?" "You've got to support me. We've got to give it a try." "As long as—" Quinn frowned and saw her smooth skin move, her wings glowing red, "as long as you have confidence!" "First of all—" he mused, "we have to find the reactor first. Thorsen took it with him when he left the laboratory. The people from the security department didn't find him, and the possibility of us finding him is very slim. I think We'd better start with Sudada Barraca, not far from Azteca." After the Kirwan family cut off Thorsen's research funding, Benito Baraka hired him to build a private spaceship.Although Quinn faintly felt that there was something going on here, he couldn't figure it out for a moment. Azteca is far north of the equator.In order to prevent unexpected situations, he first checked the local situation on the monitor. A map appeared on the monitor, and the bright spot on it was the city of Azteca, which was still vaguely visible.With the rotation of the earth, he finally determined the specific location of the city.The sky above Azteca was covered by black clouds, and it was the time when the sun was setting. When the clouds cleared, it was already night, and Azteca was like a gloomy will-o'-the-wisp.He knew the city was burning.They had just lowered the ship, but thick black smoke obscured their view. It took a long time for them to land.While waiting for the landing, Quinn turned on the signal receiver again. Except for the hissing sound of static electricity, the surrounding area was still dead silent. After he went to the cabin to check the water and food, his heart was slightly relieved.Twice he almost fell asleep in the driver's seat, thinking that Lu Ensang would definitely wake him up in case of an emergency. Lu Ensang lay beside him quietly, and she was attentively waiting for the information in space most of the time.Suddenly she moved and told him there was still no Elder information, no information at all.Quinn seized the moment to express his concerns after landing. "I think we're going to have some trouble," he said. "There's no information on Earth, so it's hard to predict what's going to happen. The only thing that can be predicted is chaos. I'm worried about you, especially that other people will see you.The Revelators have taught people on Earth to hate anything that comes from space. " He thought that the roads and farmland must be overcrowded now, and there must be a large number of refugees who escaped from the burning city.The terrified people dodged the Seekers, morbidly cursing any living beings from space. He imagined that Lu Ensang had fallen into their hands, he was startled, and hurriedly continued to search.A gust of wind blew, and the black clouds over Azteca moved on the monitor. In the southwest of the city, a brown open space was exposed. There were no farms or roads nearby. "It looked empty in there, I don't know why—" Lu Ensang lay quietly, not listening to him, his body was dull, and his fingers rested on the metal edge of the window, as if he was catching information from space. Quinn programmed the ship to land in what appeared to be an empty space.The spaceship spread its stubby wings and swooped down.Only then did he see clearly that the place where he was going to land was a rolling hill, not a clearing.He was just about to turn the nose, but with a muffled sound, the spaceship fell.The brake is on fire!Thick smoke quickly engulfed everything outside.The spaceship swayed, hit the hill, and stopped. They finally landed safely. Quinn looked sideways at the partner beside her, she was still lying quietly on the seat, because she was not used to the oxygen on the earth, she looked as if she was dead, her mysterious eyes were tightly closed, and her fingers were still resting on the window , head thrown back.Quinn reached out and touched her, feeling her dull skin was cold. Thinking of her feelings now, he couldn't help feeling sad.She was alone, tortured and maimed, and came to a world that hated her helplessly, with little hope of escape.He suddenly realized how important it was to keep her alive. He vowed to find the main magnet that Suo Sen had taken away, and then send her home. He turned and looked outside, the smoke from the actuator fire still covering everything outside.He waited for the thick smoke to dissipate, and a trace of longing suddenly rose in his heart. This is the earth - his mother! He seemed to have forgotten everything around him, and walked into an ancient dream again: the blue sky, the emerald green sea, the gentle wind, the green plants growing wildly, and the flying birds singing—this is the earth, the ancient cradle of human beings. . His spirits were always high.When the thick smoke outside was blown away by the wind, he could clearly see gravel everywhere.The spaceship landed in a narrow valley, and on both sides of the valley were two piles of rubble and endless straight mountains.No overgrown greenery.Don't hear the singing of the flying birds.He looked up, but he couldn't see the blue sky, only a piece of gray and yellow.He thought it might be the yellow smoke rising from the burning city. The mountain of rubble puzzled him until he saw bits of rusted metal strewn across the slopes, and he remembered what Clay had told him long ago in far-off Jannot, about the sand barrels containing the ore. Slide down along the sky network cable, once the sky network cable breaks, ore will rain from the sky. He suddenly realized that this place was a terminal of the sky network cable, and space waste was sent back through the network cable for power generation.It's a dangerous place, so few people come here. Lu Ensang moved a little.Although her wings were still drooping on the seat, they already had a gleam of life.She took her hand away from the window to reach for the screen that had been thrown aside, and Quinn moved it to where she could reach it. "We've landed," he told her, "and I want you to stay here until I find the reactor. If I can't—" "I'll wait for you." His mother's patient voice came from the monitor, "Good luck." "If I don't come back—" She raised her glittering wings and touched his hand gently.Quinn's heart suddenly became warm. "I sense that you also have an Elder power." His mother whispered as if to say that she would love him forever. "The power of the Elders keeps our wings shining until death." She took them away from his hand. "Quin, honey—" his mother warned him, "I have news for you, and we just received it." "About Earth?" "The first one has to do with space and is a distress call from what you call the Trojan asteroid swarm, which is home to the searchers, and someone on Earth is answering." "What did they say?" "I don't know the content." His mother sighed. She used to live too tired and always sighed like this when she couldn't finish the housework. "They're using the fleet code, which I can't decipher." "You say someone on Earth is responding, can you pinpoint their location?" "Many are far away, maybe on other continents, but one is nearby. This is also the strongest message I have received, and it is sent from our west, about seventy kilometers away. " He projected a map of Azteca on the monitor, with green dots flashing on it, indicating their current location.With the green point as the center of the circle, a circle of dark green lines indicates the distance from the center of the circle.Quinn found that where the green line 70 kilometers to the west crossed was a large yellow disc with black words on it, "Developer of Azteca Terminal." "There may be the Azteca branch of the Solar Empire," Quinn said. "The fleet may still be active in space, and they are now trying to get in touch with the troops on the ground in order to return." He frowned and glanced at the yellow sky. "If the Kirwan family still exists, I think they will go to Thorsen. They need his fission engine to replace the destroyed gravitational power generation." He frowned and looked at the map again.The Sun Company is located in the middle of the city, like a glittering golden island.It is surrounded by green urban suburbs.He found the Kodo terminal, the barracks of the ground troops, the Kovan commercial center, the spaceship port, and hotels, parking lots, and residential areas. A small piece of light green residential area facing south is located on the hill at the bend of the river, which looks very grand.Sudada Baraka.He focused on this spot and zoomed in on the image. The map shows Credores Baraka, Torres Baraka, Baraka Monte. Across the river is Onepto Baraka - a possible destination for the spaceship, and a hill further across the river is Kasha Baraka. He whistled and fell into deep thought. "Sudada Baraka," he said suddenly, "I see that the only hope is—" Lu Ensang didn't answer.Her eyes were closed tightly, the luster on her wings had faded away, her soft hands rested softly on the seat, as if she was already dead. Noel tried hard not to think about those days in the aperture, though Jason Cowan was so haunting to her.Whenever she thought of Kirvan, of those months with him on the Solar Kirvan, she felt blissful in heaven.Those memories are too precious, too sacred. Jason is handsome, smart, and good at making love.Noel is completely overwhelmed by him, intoxicated by him, happy for his bright future in the Kirwan family. She never mentioned Jason to anyone.Clay adored her.She tried to feel the wonder that Clay saw among the shining stars, and his surprise at the mysterious universe close at hand. She also tries to share his pride and pride: because Clay has always been committed to keeping Jannot safe and working on solving the problem of human survival in the aperture.She loves every new friend around.Jaymo adores her too.He said she was a princess, and she would surely have a little princess in the future. She hadn't told Jaymo that she didn't want children.Janenot is too young, too lonely, too desolate, she doesn't want her child to spend her life here in depression. She grew up in free Skynet and Sun Country.She likes dinners and dances, shopping for fashion, making friends, traveling, going to great restaurants, going to the theater, listening to music, and seeing art exhibitions. She never mentioned that she missed it all.She just wants to live happily and prepare a clean and tidy home for Clay.But Clay was used to being single for long periods of time, and the cold tunnel they lived in under the ice was too narrow to need much attention. She volunteered to help Clay with his work.But all he did was monitor for strange sounds, which he had never heard before.The most unbearable thing for her is the boundless darkness, she can't sleep alone, and Clay is still there waiting for the aliens who may never visit.She also thought about helping him in the hydroponics garden, but that also required some special techniques that she had never learned.She wants to live an exciting life, with news and weird things happening.However, the life here, day after day, year after year, is like water in an ancient well, with no waves.There was no news from the Sun Empire from the Neptune Station, and perhaps never again.The days passed like plain water, and if there was any change, any difference, she was sure it would only get worse and more boring. Sometimes, she couldn't help thinking that maybe she should forgive Jason.The son of the sun giant, after all, has never learned how to get along with others.Instead of despising his love and his smooth promises, she thought it would be wiser to keep all these in her heart. But she had already made a choice.She tried her best to hide her deep dissatisfaction with life.After all, she still loves Clay.The exiles around her were kind and did what they could to help them.She believes that sooner or later she will adapt to the cold climate here, the isolated desolation, the never-eliminating threat, the narrow tunnels and the artificial food provided by the space laboratory. Even if she didn't get used to it all, the day would come when Jomo could no longer keep the energy-generating machinery going and all their difficulties and troubles would come to an end. Azteca: The capital of Mexico and the United States is also its largest city. It is located on the banks of the Canada River in Oklahoma and is the largest gravitational power generation base on earth.