Chapter 23 Chapter Twenty Two

Quinn was sitting in the driver's chair of the spaceship, watching Thorsen and Estrena get into the steel armored car and waved goodbye to them, then closed the car door and prepared to leave in the dust. He couldn't help being very sad. "The future of humanity," Mindy muttered. "It's on their shoulders!" Quinn shivered in half sympathy and half worry. "Maybe the Saints won't kill them; maybe Claudio Baraka will let Olaf build his engine; maybe we'll be able to defeat the space monsters; maybe human civilization will survive." "Maybe not maybe—I don't think we'll ever know."

Sosen started the car and climbed up the long snowy slope towards the mountains.Mindy and Quinn watched silently as the car crawled slowly and finally disappeared at the end of the hill.Only then did Quinn carefully examine Thorson's engine.The heat generated by the engine melted the ice and snow under the spaceship into water, and then evaporated into water mist, which shot straight into the sky, as if trying to cover the ugly black cloud in the sky. The spaceship shook a few times, and then rose up. After they lifted the spacecraft above the black cloud of water mist and radiation dust, they saw the armored vehicle.Looking down from the air, it is slowly climbing eastward along the white mountains, leaving a clear trail in the snow.Mindy suddenly grabbed Quinn's finger and pointed, and Quinn saw a group of black chariots crawling out from the west, chasing along the trail.

"The saints," Mindi exclaimed in a low voice, "sitting on the captured tanks, they tried to catch us but found it was too late, but they will soon catch up with Olaf and the others." "It turns out—" Mindy shook her head. "We're afraid we'll never know the answer again." The spaceship pushed forward at full speed into the air, and the small black spot on the earth disappeared in an instant. They found a new bomb crater beside a meandering gray river to the west. It looked like a crude mine pit, and black cinders were flying all around far away, like a pool of discordant ink on the snow.The dirty yellow smoke over the city of Azteca gradually thinned out as their flight altitude continued to rise.Mindy receives a distress call from Solar Fleet.She talked anxiously on the walkie-talkie for a long time, then turned to Quinn and said, "It's from Jason's flagship, Sun Kirvan, and they're stuck on the equator with no supplies. They mistook us for Jason." Jason, fly the spaceship to rescue them. They don't know Jason is dead yet."

She was silent for a while, staring out the window with a heavy heart at the earth sinking into the boundless darkness. "The officer who sent the signal is a partner I know." Although she turned her head back, Quinn knew that she was not looking at him, but fell into the memory of the past. "We used to go to dances together. He taught me how to navigate a toy rocket and gave me orchids, the first orchids I got in my life." She noticed a look of jealousy on his face. "But those are a thing of the past." She smiled slyly. "He soon fell in love with another girl, a beautiful woman from Brazil with a bright sun mark on her face.

They had always lived together, but she happened to be back on Earth in Rio de Janeiro when Skynet crashed, and she was with the two children he was desperate to hear about now. " She looked sad. "What can I say? He's stranded on a ship with no food and no air. And the wife is far away in Rio de Janeiro, a woman with the sign of the sun—” She shuddered and turned her eyes to the side. "People might treat them kindly," said Quinn to himself. "He also said something about the situation." She turned to look at him. "When they returned to Earth from the aperture station, they tried to get in touch with Jannott," she said, shaking her head uneasily, "no news."

"We may be a step late," Quinn nodded, "but as long as we have breath, we should do our best." The round earth is almost swallowed by darkness.It occurred to Quinn to see if other cities were burning, but it was too far away for him to see clearly. Mindy initiates the flight procedure.In space, once the flight program is set up, the flight process can be ignored.They set the flight destination on the Trojan asteroid. "Before Skyfish wakes up, let's not get too close to the Trojan asteroid," Quinn told Mindy, "because the searchers' lair is near the asteroid. In addition, the weapon left on the Newlin ship, It's impossible for us alone to find it."

They dropped the ship's propulsion from full speed to one-half G and moved Skyfish into the blanket over the aerial chart so she could manipulate the display as soon as she woke up.They noticed that the sky fish's gray skin slowly turned white and began to glow with life. "Only eight days to get there," said Quinn, "and maybe by then—" Freed from the pull of the earth's gravity, Quinn felt much better.He felt that the two of them were heading towards freedom and peace, and the anxieties and troubles of the past days had disappeared like smoke, and he seemed to have breathed the "star fog" that Clay sent from the space nebula.

He tried his best to warn himself that the road ahead was long and full of dangers.Especially the people on Earth, who just escaped from the clutches of the Saints, may soon fall into the clutches of the searchers.They seemed doomed to live in famine, fear, pain.Unless—Quin didn't dare to continue thinking, he turned around and found Mindy bending over to observe Tianyu.The world that was dying was over for both of them, but it was over.He feels nothing now but joy. "Mindy-" He softly called her name.Mindy turned around and looked at him with puzzled black eyes.For a moment, he smelled the ancient wood fragrance emanating from her body again.Time flies back to Janenot's carefree days.

Excited all over, he stretched out his arms to wrap around Mindy's slender waist. "Don't do this!" Mindy twisted her waist to avoid it. "Don't touch me—don't do that!" "Mindy!" Quinn withdrew his hand sadly. "I'm not trying to—" "Please—forgive me, Quinn!" Mindy begged in a low voice, "I just can't—can't let you touch me—" "I love you Mindy, I mean love you." "I love you too," Mindy shook her head sadly, "but now, Benito Baraka..." The more she spoke, the lower her voice became, until finally she broke down in tears.

"It's not—it's not important." Quinn murmured with a burst of heartache. The spacecraft's engines worked perfectly, and they were not attacked by searchers along the way.They took turns on duty in the cabin.When Quinn was not on duty, he went around the cabin casually.Check out the fission engine, study the technical data left by Thorson, or just sleep in the bedroom that Benito Baraka designed for himself. After learning the flying skills of the spaceship, Mindy sorted out the food and water in the spaceship and made a list. She also took on the responsibility of taking care of Lu Ensang, the sky fish.

She never mentioned Benito Baraka again, but she could see from her eyes that he was not forgotten.Quinn tried to persuade her to go to rest, he knew she had hardly slept. Quinn felt really hard when he was on duty.He didn't feel better until Tianyu showed signs of recovery.Tianyu's soft skin slowly warmed up, and the gray wings were covered with blood.When Mindy came to change shifts, Tianyu's long nose moved, and its three slender fingers rested on a metal frame. During the rest of the shift, Quinn heard his mother's weary, small voice: "Quinn—" He was taken aback, and turned around to find Lu Ensang's body touching the display screen.Her mysterious eyes have opened, and her wings are rising and falling to the rhythm of the sound. "Quinn, welcome to space." "You—" Quinn heard his own voice was very small, as if worried that if it was too loud, it would frighten Lu Ensang, "Are you okay?" "I was injured," Tianyu's raised wings fell down, and Quinn heard his mother sigh, "I'm fully recovered now, and the recovery is very slow." "Is there anything we can help with?" "You have done as I hoped." "If the ship is propelling too fast, we can drop to—" "Don't do this!" Lu Ensang stopped in a hasty tone, "If we hope to defeat the searchers, we have to find my sister Xuehui as soon as possible, her life is dying..." Lu Ensang's voice suddenly disappeared, the luster of his whole body faded away, his gray wings drooped weakly, but his fragile body still had breath.She slid away from the display and rested three fingers on the metal stand to receive the message. When Mindy was on duty, Lu Ensang spoke again.She claimed to have made contact with her sister, Xue Hui was still breathing, and was not seriously injured to death. She originally planned to lead them there, but due to the distance, the signal was very weak. Quinn switched shifts.This time he found Lu Ensang looking at him with bright and mysterious eyes.His mother's voice sounded much louder as she told him the details of Jason's attack on the snow-gray ship. It was a short encounter. Due to the extremely fast flight speed, although Xuehui dodged the missile fired by Jason, the laser weapon used by Jason killed her two partners, and Xuehui was also seriously injured. But she persevered tenaciously, repaired the only remaining engine on the spacecraft, and flew towards the searcher's lair until she ran out of energy. "My sister is now determined to see us before she dies." Lu Ensang got up again and again to modify the flight route after receiving the faint signal sent by Xue Hui through the fiber of the spacecraft.At this moment, Quinn could fully imagine what was left in that spaceship. They were finally approaching snow gray.Quinn slowed the ship's propulsion to a free fall.Lu Ensang appeared to be full of vitality at this time, with a silver light shining all over his body.Jumping with joy, she asked Quinn to give her some energy to fly.Quinn gave her a little water, and she took a few milliliters from her body. After Quinn told Mindy to stay in the cabin, he led Lu Ensang into the landing gear of the spaceship. As soon as he opened the hatch, Lu Ensang couldn't wait to swim freely and comfortably towards her sister.He followed her and swam into the snow-gray main cabin. Jason's laser weapon had burned half of the spaceship, and the debris from the explosion scattered all over the place.Quinn noticed that the two snow-gray partners were tightly entwined like snakes, their bodies were covered with scars, they looked black and cold, it was really horrible. Ruen San pulled her sister out of a tattered net that looked like a flying device.They were really alike, only now the snow-grey sunken eyes were closed, and one wing had been burned off.Lu Ensang hugged her tightly with rose-colored wings. She swam with her sister in the debris-filled cabin for half a minute.There was a gleam of light about her, growing brighter with each gleam.Quinn noticed a gleam in the snow gray mysterious and lifeless face, and her eyes opened slowly, a little green flashed, and then closed permanently. The luster on the snow gray face quickly faded.Ruen-sang released her wings and placed her gently next to the two partners, and her sister died!She swam silently around Xue Hui for a few laps, and then motioned for Quinn to follow her into the cabin. They found the weapon in a small cabin intact.The weapon is huge, two meters long, and looks like a cannon with seven launch tubes. The tube wall is thick, as if it is made of gold, and it contains black projectiles. They move weapons into their ships. "Snow Gray's life is on us now." When Lu Ensang's hand touched the display screen, Quinn heard his mother's distressed voice. "She will smile at Jiuquan because she didn't die alone." The distance from the Trojan asteroid group is still far away, and the telescope has not yet seen it, but Ruensan has turned its shiny wings into a radar shape, receiving the infrared light emitted by the asteroid where the searcher is located.Inside the monitor, a thick black object suddenly appeared, in the shape of a square brick, about thirty kilometers in length.It turns so slowly that the scars on its surface from a long-ago collision with comet remnants can be seen. "That's the Seeker's Lair." Before the sun's rays hit the asteroid from afar, Ruensan had seen it. "I saw the monster, it has been alerted to our arrival." When the flattest surface of the asteroid is illuminated by light, a large halo appears around a hole-like opening in the center of the asteroid. "That's nickel-iron shining, excavated from the hole." Lu Ensang explained. The image on the monitor became clearer and clearer, and the black metal blocks excavated from the inside of the asteroid were welded together to form a wall.In the middle of the wall, a round black spot continued to enlarge, and finally enlarged into a circular mine hole with a large diameter. They found the Seekers stalking the mouth of the cave. "That's the queen." Quinn's mother's gentle voice came from the monitor, just like the bedtime story she told him before going to the Empire of the Sun. "Her eggs are deep in the bottom of the cave, and now she has to guard them until they hatch. The missiles we launch carry all kinds of viruses in them, and once her eggs or newly hatched little seekers If you get infected with the virus, you will be vulnerable." "Are we—are we going to break into the hole again?" "Yes, that's the only way." Quinn seemed to hear his mother sigh wearily, like she was tired of Jannot's life. "Once those little monsters rushed out of the hole, they were fully grown, with armor, and immunity to all viruses." "At that time—" Quinn was too nervous to speak. "I think we'll have to go in." Mindy's hand was on his shoulder, and she was also trembling. "I never thought--" The queen's image on the monitor was getting bigger and clearer, and Min Di swallowed the rest of the words in horror.Quinn had seen this nightmare monster before.She was milling around within the enclosure, watching them intently with her giant red eyes.She changed position as the asteroid turned, making sure they couldn't escape her sight. Quinn leaned closer to the monitor and found that half of the monster's body was missing under a pair of wings. He had seen her with a big belly and a thin tail before, but now it was all gone. "Is she hurt?" "No, it's for her children." His mother explained patiently. "She must have flown a long time before she found a place to make her nest. The way they reproduce is indeed cruel. The newborns eat the flesh of their mother, even her armor, so that they can grow their own armor. After the mother hatches her child, she eats the broken egg shells to grow new armor." Quinn was amazed by the strange way of life extension of the searchers. He silently watched the queen turn to the dark side of the wall and stop still, but his pair of red eyes still kept following them around.She flapped her wings, as if to create some wind in an airless environment. "How do we—" whispered Mindy, "how do we—" "It's impossible for us to bypass her and enter the cave together," Quinn interrupted her questioning, "There are two options—" He noticed that Lu Ensang's mysterious eyes were staring at him with green light. "There is no choice," his mother's voice sounded unmistakable. "You are full of energy and need a challenge, and our actions deservedly belong to you." "Okay!" Quinn accepted the order happily, and made a face at Mindy. "When the ship circled behind the asteroid and the searchers couldn't see us, I swam down and landed secretly. She's so big and I'm so small, maybe she won't notice me." A cold light appeared on Tianyu's body.His mother exhorted softly from the display screen, "I'm glad you will go, but I want to remind you that maybe your physique is not suitable for the living environment in the cave." "As long as I live long enough to fire off the virus-laden missile—" He stared into Mindy's eyes.Those red eyes were wide open, and suddenly the pupils dilated, adding a thick shadow.She leaned against him, sobbing softly.But only for a moment, suppressing her grief, she pushed Quinn away. "We'll keep the monster spinning around, too busy," she whispered, "and if—we'll rush in!" Lu Ensang brought Quinn to the weapon and taught him how to use it. She repeatedly reminded him that the virus would only take effect if the seven missiles penetrated the undeveloped weak spot of the Little Seeker's armor. "What if seven missiles are not enough?" "You don't have to worry, just one shot is enough to eliminate them. They are fierce by nature, and they also attack each other. Those infected with the virus will spray the virus on their companions, and then die together." Quinn asked Mindy to stay in the cabin, stepped into the landing gear and waited for the hatch to open.He watched the rocks on the asteroid slowly turn.The wall was gone, but the Queen's fiery eyes watched them still, and now the strange peaks and black nickel-iron loomed slowly into the sunlight. The hatch slammed open, and he swam out with his weapon in his arms.The weapon weighs about half a ton, and even holding it in free fall would be uncomfortable.He paddled toward the metal-rich peak, and when he arrived and looked back, the ship had disappeared into the jagged horizon. Worried that the rocket propulsion units that launched the missiles would radiate heat and attract the attention of searchers, he disassembled them before proceeding cautiously.Although this asteroid is smaller than Jannot, it has a lot of mass, but its gravitational force is similar and weak, so he doesn't find it difficult to move.He pushed his weapon and jumped from place to place, trying to be careful not to jump too high. With more than ten kilometers to go, Quinn noticed that the nickel-iron that had been formed for tens of millions of years was covered with thick carbon-black dust.There are many holes of different sizes on the surface of the asteroid. The edges of the holes are jagged, and it can be seen that hard metal is next to harder metal. The spacewalking equipment he brought was stiff and awkward.Although Benito Baraka was about his size, Baraka's gear didn't quite suit him.Every time he squats down to jump, something touches his knee.He had only traveled half the distance before he was completely a Negro. With the help of starlight, he jumped forward, grabbed something, and then used his strength to jump forward.Suddenly the air valve failed.Maybe it's due to temperature changes.The air valve is the device he uses to gauge how much more oxygen is still produced.Immediately after a small Zinc sensed that the valve had failed, a melodious imitation of a bird's song came from his helmet, telling him how to find and install a spare valve.After finishing all this according to the instructions, he was already panting and sweating profusely. What's worse, he drifted away in the dark without paying attention to the weapon.He turned on the headlights and searched for a long time before finding it.At the risk of damaging the weapon's firing mechanism, he flew to grab it and throw it over the cliff behind him before jumping back himself. Just as the sun was just above the horizon, he saw the spaceship again, a small silver toy, shining against the dark sky.The spaceship was navigating for him.He turned on the headlights, indicated his position, then pushed the weapon and continued to move forward.He stopped at last under a knife-edged rock face and looked up. He could see the wall the seekers had built, about three kilometers ahead.He didn't find the queen, so he boldly leaped forward, flying over the nickel-iron piles and black dust all over the place.He flew low and felt slow too. He finally approached the wall in horror, stopping at the rough junction of two pieces of metal the size of a spaceship.He put his head lightly against the weapon, and climbed up the wall along the sharp cracks. He looked around cautiously and found the queen. She was curled up beside the den, with her back to him, although it was about two kilometers away, Quinn still felt her majesty.He was even more terrified when he saw her dark lair.That was the way he had to go. He leaned against the wall, his heart pounding, he felt hot all over, and drops of sweat were already oozing from his arms.Is the air valve failing?Certainly not, for there was no bird chirping cue. Are you worried about something?He convinced himself he had nothing to worry about.At least he wasn't worried about himself; as for the others, he was still worried.He worried about the fate of Thorsen and his engine, and maybe the fate of the whole earth; For a moment, he wished he was Jason Cowan, taking risks and challenges, and maybe feeling better.Yet Jason Cowan is dead. He watched the queen closely.The queen raised her thin black wings, stretched out her black claws to fiddle with the feathers, and then stood up, as if about to pounce. Quinn was too shocked to make a sound.At this time, the spaceship flashed out of the darkness, and Lu Ensang and Min Di were trying their best to divert the queen's attention.The ship shot straight down, as if about to force its way into the cave.However, at the moment not far from the entrance of the cave, the spaceship turned around and flew towards the far wall close to the ground. The queen is chasing after the spaceship. Her movements look a little clumsy, perhaps because her stomach is left for the child to eat. For the sake of body balance, her wings cannot be fully opened, but she is still a terrifying monster. In her eyes, it was just a handful of delicacies, and the quickness of her movements was enough to make Quinn dumbfounded. Quinn stabilized his figure and estimated the distance to the cave.Worried that the monster would sense the heat from the emitter, he threw it first, then slid down the wall along the weld. The delay he slid down the wall seemed like a long, long time! The Seeker was moving a hundred times faster than him, and she had turned to this wall.At this time, a cloud of white mist was sprayed from the spaceship to cover her, she jumped up suddenly, and her black claws grabbed the spaceship above her head. That's when she found Quinn! There was a red light in her eyes, which made the white mist covering her head crimson.She came out through the fog like lightning, and turned around to block Quinn's way. Quinn turned on the transmitter mounted on his body, pushed the weapon, aimed at the center of the cave and shot it. It looks so far away! The queen came so fast! The Sun has deviated from its elliptical orbit dozens of times during its orbit around Black Companion, but has failed to escape.This time, it and the nine planets and the nebula in the solar system move to the nearest place to the black companion again.The sun is lucky.While light from black holes and comets colliding with them have a history of mass extinction of life on Earth, members of the solar family have mostly escaped doom in its orbit around its black companion. The star in front of the sun, however, was not so lucky.Its orbit is a curve, which is easily sucked in by the black hole and thrown out again, so that it can never return to the original orbit.Because it runs too close to the black mate.The star itself was not damaged, but one of its unfortunate satellites crashed into a moon-sized levitation, turning it into a rapidly rotating disk. The high-speed rotating disk is like a terrible vortex, it swallows everything it collides with, whether it is a planet or a satellite, it will first tear them apart, crush them into dust, melt them into water vapor, split the atoms into ions, and finally Suck into the black hole in the middle of the disk. Although no light could be seen escaping from the black hole, rays from the disk pronounced the moon's death.