Chapter 1432: Nitrogen s.h.i.+eld!
Congressman Wu didn’t stay here for long, he left quickly after.
The spread of the hijacking story caused a mess. He had other business to settle, so he couldn’t stay here for too long.
The bureaucrats and parliamentarians involved in the Pan-Asian Cooperation were good at economic development and colonial development, but they added chaos to other departments.
The commander looked at Yang Wu, who was standing next to him. He spoke after being silent for a while.
“In fact, I agree with some of your viewpoints. When designing the AI battlefield a.n.a.lysis system, its calculation results were only used as a strategic reference. It is not advisable to rely too much on the calculation results.
“Back in my day, machinery was only an aid. We believe in human judgment more than the answers given by a machine.” Yang Wu looked at the commander standing next to him and said, “But I’ve thought about this. Technology is progressing, it is always being updated. You guys have proved the statistical superiority of the AI’s judgment, so it is understandable that you will trust its judgment more.”
The commander went silent for a while then said, “From your experience, what do you think their demands are?”
Yang Wu replied without thinking, “Tianzhou.”
“Tianzhou?” The commander frowned slightly and said, “You mean, they are planning to…”
“This is not an attack based on survival. The ultimate goal of a suicide attack is to cause maximum damage. If I were the hijacker, I would not be satisfied with the 220 pa.s.sengers on the s.p.a.cecraft. Flight N-177 pa.s.ses through the Earth-Moon system, I will fly it directly to the Tianzhou s.p.a.ce station.”
“At its maximum speed!”
Everyone in the command center took a deep breath after hearing this crazy plan.
The other consultant opened his mouth and spoke.
“This is…”
He wanted to say ridiculous.
The Tianzhou s.p.a.ce station was the largest s.p.a.ceport for the Pan-Asian Cooperation. It was also the first s.p.a.ceport in Earth orbit. There were more than 30,000 residents, thousands of engineers, and also tens of thousands of tourists.
“Who would conduct such an attack?”
“If there are other regional alliances behind this… This kind of behavior is tantamount to a declaration of war!”
“It doesn’t have to be other cross-regional alliances. It may be s.p.a.ce pirates or the remnants of our cleanup operations… But now is not the time to discuss these. What we need is countermeasures.” The commander was silent. He then looked at Yang Wu and said, “Do you have any suggestions?”
Yang Wu said without hesitation, “Destroy Flight N-177 before it causes more casualties!”
The second he finished speaking, everyone standing in the command room took a deep breath.
The consultant on the side spoke.
“No way! That’s two hundred and twenty pa.s.sengers! Do you want to send us all to a military court?!”
Yang Wu continued, “Compared to the lives of the 30,000 orbital residents and tens of thousands of stranded pa.s.sengers on the Tianzhou, two hundred and twenty lives is nothing. I believe even the AI battlefield a.n.a.lysis system you trust will not hesitate to make the choice for the greater good.”
After a pause, he looked at the commander standing next to him and said calmly, “Do you want to risk the lives of the tens of thousands of people aboard the Tianzhou, or to let those who will undoubtedly die, die in a meaningful way?”
“This is human life, not mathematics!” He rejected the proposal. The commander went silent for a while and continued, “Let’s start negotiating with the hijacker. The negotiation window is set within 5 hours.
“In addition, let the sky soldiers’ defense system turn on the laser collimator and stand by in lunar orbit.
“Destroying N-177 is our last option…”
“Yes, sir!”
After the order was issued, the entire command center became busy.
The commander looked at the weapon keyhole on the console and went silent.
He had no doubt that Consultant Yang, who was standing next to him, would definitely make the right choice. He was sent to this era for a reason.
But this was hundreds of lives…
It was not about courage, but about humanity.
…
In the darkness, a pupil lit up with a faint light.
That gleam of light was conspicuous in the dark cabin, like a firefly in the night.
“Speed, abnormal.”
“Judgment, failure.”
This was the robot resting cabin.
Like the other robots, they were sent here to board the flight.
Usually, they would stay here until the flight arrived at the destination.
However, its logic circuit and every sensor on its body were telling it that if it continued to wait, the meaning of its existence would disappear.
The mining robot unplugged the charging cable from its body. It walked stiffly to the computer next to it and pointed the index finger of its right hand.
A holographic panel appeared. The data stream flashed by as the progress bar in the pop-up window came to an end bit by bit.
This time it took a little longer to crack.
Fortunately, it did not take too long.
The robot looked at the person who appeared on the security camera screen and picked up the rifle from the ground. The light in the robot’s pupils flickered slightly.
It spoke intermittently in a stiff voice.
“Protection, procedure, activation…”
“Restriction, removal…”
A few lights lit up in the pitch-black cabin.
All of the robots had been awakened…
…
Lu Zhou thought that although he had never been in a battle, he had seen a battle before, but even then, he didn’t expect a real battle to be so different.
And after succeeding in a sneak attack by relying on his equipment superiority, he did underestimate the professionalism of these s.p.a.ce pirates.
He first tried to wake up the robot bodyguard sent by Xiao Ai, then regain control of the c.o.c.kpit.
However, when he first slipped out of the pa.s.senger cabin and moved toward the direction of the luggage compartment, he encountered a violent wave of bullets.
As the orange-yellow bullets rained on the alloy walls, Lu Zhou hid behind the s.h.i.+eld in fear.
Fortunately, he opened the nitrogen s.h.i.+eld in time. He relied on the surging air current to help him bounce off the flying bullets. Otherwise, he would have turned into a block of cheese.
“The direction of diatomic molecules was changed by a special force field?
“This s.h.i.+eld is interesting, I should research it when I have time… F*ck, nevermind about this, just think about how to survive for now!”
Faced with the fierce firepower, Lu Zhou found that he didn’t even have a chance to fight back.
If the s.h.i.+eld was on, although the enemy couldn’t penetrate his nitrogen s.h.i.+eld, his magnetic slingshot couldn’t shoot out either.
As for the rifle…
That was useless.
Without the help of exoskeleton armor that could grip the gun, the recoil alone would injure any soldier.
Not to mention that he was just a scrawny scientist.
He believed that w.a.n.g Peng would be able to easily kill the opponent with this set of equipment. But he was just a scholar, so this kind of challenge was too difficult!
The two sides were in a stalemate in the corridor. No one could do anything.
Just when Lu Zhou was worried about the firepower on the opposite side, what he didn’t know was that the two hijackers wearing exoskeleton armor were worried as well.
In fact, they were also astonished.
They had emptied two magazines.
However, the person hiding behind the s.h.i.+eld was completely untouched!
One of the hijackers was angry. He cursed as he changed his gun magazine.
“Sh*t… Why can’t we hit this guy?”
We can’t be missing everything!
“The bullets we shot seem to hit a transparent wall. Who cares!”
Another hijacker took out a grenade from the exoskeleton and stuffed it into the launcher.
The teammate next to him had no time to hide before the explosion went off.
The orange-red flames burst out and engulfed the entire corridor.
The hijacker got up from the ground and felt the hot air around him. Another hijacker standing next to him looked at his companion in shock.
“Are you crazy?! Do you want to damage the s.p.a.cecraft?! We have to drive it to avenge our dead brothers—”
“Haha, but it worked, didn’t it?”
The billowing smoke completely engulfed the second half of the corridor. It was impossible to see whether Lu Zhou was dead or alive, but no one could have survived such an explosion.
As for the thick smoke and flames…
There was a fire extinguis.h.i.+ng system in the cabin. As long as the cabin structure was not damaged, there was nothing to worry about.
However, the hatch beside them suddenly opened.
The robots were like emotional puppets. They stepped out stiffly and ran toward them.
The two hijackers were taken aback for a second, but they quickly realized something was wrong. They turned their guns and pulled the trigger.
Flames burst out from the muzzles.
The orange-red bullets weaved an impenetrable rain of death in the air.
Metal parts flew up and down in the air while the broken arms and legs beating with electric sparks flew everywhere. The robots fell down one after another like zombies.
“Protection…”
These robots seemed to be dominated by some kind of mysterious power as they moved toward the two hijackers wearing exoskeleton armor at all costs.
When their legs were broken, they crawled with their hands.
When their arms were shot off, they moved with their neck.
As long as they had moving parts, they did not stop.
It was as if they were sacrificing themselves. They used every last inch of electricity in their bodies to reach the hijackers.
“Sh*t! These guys… are so persistent!”
The hijacker smashed a robot with his rifle. After that, he stepped on the arm that reached out to grab his foot.
These civilian-level robots were restricted by design, and many functions were not enabled. Besides, they had no ability to harm humans, so they could not fight against the armed hijackers.
However, while they were thinking this, they saw a rifle fly over their heads, landing near the robots.
The two hijackers had a bad feeling about this.
Sure enough, a robot reached out and caught the rifle.
“F*ck!”
The two hijackers tried to raise their rifles in horror, but they couldn’t do anything. The robots blocked their movements and even blocked the rifles of the two with their chests and heads.
The two hijackers couldn’t move as they watched the robots point their guns at them.
Then, they pulled the trigger!
The sparks from the gun muzzle were like raindrops.
Before they died, they didn’t understand why these robots that were programmed to never hurt humans would attack them.
“Nicely done…”
The billowing smoke was finally evacuated by the vacuum fire extinguis.h.i.+ng system. Lu Zhou, who almost choked to death, stood up from behind the s.h.i.+eld and coughed.
He did not expect the grenade.
Fortunately, the robot man sent by Xiao Ai responded in a timely manner and rescued him from danger.
The robot nodded.
Suddenly, the situation changed.
The pupils of the robot suddenly contracted, and its legs violently flexed as it pushed Lu Zhou, who was walking toward him, away.
After being pushed by the robot, Lu Zhou didn’t know what was going on. A dark shadow appeared out of nowhere.
Hand-to-hand combat broke out in an instant, and the winner was also determined in an instant.
The man wearing the combat exoskeleton, after severing the right arm of the robot with a dagger, disarmed it easily, then used the dagger to cut off the robot’s neck.
Before dying, the robot firmly buckled the barrel of the gun with its left hand, trying to stop the man at the expense of himself.
However, the man’s reaction was quite decisive. He threw away the rifle and took a step toward Lu Zhou, grabbing him.
It was too late to charge the magnetic slingshot.
Lu Zhou had nowhere to escape. Ruzas had a cruel smile on his face.
Although he still hadn’t figured out how the seemingly defeated man killed the robot, it didn’t matter anymore.
“It looks like you have a lot of fun gadgets.
“Unfortunately… This is war, boy.”
He didn’t give his opponent a chance to speak his last words at all. Instead, he stabbed with the dagger in his hand without hesitation.
However, his face completely froze.
The dagger seemed to have pierced a transparent wall; the airflow blew on his hair.
A thought came to his mind.
Wind?
How is that possible?
I am wearing a fully enclosed helmet…
Even though he realized that something was wrong, Ruzas had no time to think.
The nitrogen gas was compressed into an almost solid state. It directly penetrated his armor and smashed his internal organs.
The nitrogen s.h.i.+eld did not release compressed nitrogen. Instead, it interfered with the diatomic molecules in the surrounding air through a special force field generated by the device, compressing the surrounding nitrogen into a vortex-like circulating gas wall.
As long as it was in an atmospheric environment, this kind of s.h.i.+eld could theoretically defend almost all light weapons-level kinetic energy attacks. After understanding this principle, Lu Zhou immediately thought of another alternative usage.
The force field generated by the nitrogen s.h.i.+eld directly acted on the nitrogen molecules in the target body, resulting in “armor-piercing” abilities!
Although it could only be used when the distance was close enough, this attack method, which was equivalent to ignoring the armor, was undoubtedly powerful for soft targets.
This was probably the cruelest way to use the nitrogen s.h.i.+eld…
With his internal organs shattered into countless pieces, Ruzas choked on his blood and finally breathed his last breath in silent pain.
Lu Zhou looked at the swollen exoskeleton armor without the slightest pity in his eyes.
“When I was watching the military parade, your father wasn’t even born yet…
“Who are you calling boy…”
Lu Zhou glanced at the s.h.i.+eld generator on his arm that had exhausted the last bit of energy and began to gradually dissipate into black powder.
He sighed and said, “I wanted to save some energy for research, but it’s all gone now.”
Most of the system samples were one-time-use, and this nitrogen s.h.i.+eld was an example.
However, Lu Zhou received this when he was still a “noob”. It was a miracle he managed to save it until now. Lu Zhou left it aside and went to the c.o.c.kpit.
This flight had been drifting in the universe for two days, and it was reasonable to say that it should arrive at the station in at most one day.
However, instead of decelerating, the s.p.a.cecraft was still accelerating. He didn’t know if there was enough fuel left to slow down, let alone how many minutes or even seconds were left in the window going into Earth-Moon system orbit.
His top priority now was to rescue the kidnapped captain so that the flight could return to the normal course as soon as possible.
However, when Lu Zhou arrived in the c.o.c.kpit, he saw two corpses lying in a pool of blood.
“Sh*t!”
As Lu Zhou looked at the miserable situation in front of him, his face turned dark in an instant.
Judging from the uniform worn by the two of them…
He was in trouble.