in2ebook Chapter 240 240: Geothermal Organism
Chapter 240 240: Geothermal Organism
Sure enough, after the middle transport vehicle cut its engine, the black swarm gradually lost interest and ceased their attack.
Even the black bugs clinging to the hull slowly took flight and scattered.
Jason breathed a sigh of relief. The theory held up! These damned bugs were drawn to the heat!
Looking out the window, insects continued pouring endlessly from crevices in every direction. It looked like a writhing, black desert, reminiscent of a swarm of scarabs from a horror movie. The sheer volume was staggering; it was enough to drive anyone mad with fear.
The hundred people huddled inside the transport were petrified, not daring to move a muscle. It was a miracle they had this shelter; otherwise, they would have been slaughtered.
The insect swarm fell into a frenzy, their wings buzzing violently as they surged relentlessly toward the crash site of the aerial base.
The trigger for this madness was simple—thermal energy!
The crashed spacecraft's engines were critically overheating. Core temperatures were spiking to several thousand degrees Celsius, and sodium vapor continued to burn intensely! Nearby, a ruptured water-cooling system was violently venting massive plumes of superheated steam.
The sheer heat radiating from the nuclear reactor far eclipsed the output of multiple incendiary bombs, acting as an irresistible beacon for the swarm...
In the lead tracked vehicle, several crew members observed a moment of silence for the fallen. The friends and family of the deceased sat in a heavy, grief-stricken silence.
Others murmured in hushed tones, their brows furrowed in deep concentration as they racked their brains for a way out of this crisis.
How had this subterranean ecosystem formed? Why did these insects secrete such highly corrosive acid? And why did they exhibit such an aggressive attraction to heat?
Time ticked away, and an hour and a half passed in a flash. Outside, the endless sea of insects continued to surge without any sign of thinning out. Jason's anxiety deepened by the minute...
Their time was running out. Everyone was acutely aware that the compromised nuclear engine would detonate in a matter of hours.
To be exact, they had six hours left! At their current proximity, the shockwave and radiation from the nuclear blast would absolutely obliterate them!
"We're still too close. We've barely covered a few kilometers. Taking a nuclear warhead to the face isn't exactly a survival strategy."
"Well, Doctors, do we have a consensus yet?" Jason demanded, his voice thick with tension. "We have no idea how massive this swarm is. We can't sit here forever! We need an extraction plan, and fast!"
A Senior Scientist, whose powered armor was heavily scorched from a near-death encounter with the swarm, hesitated for a moment before speaking, the terror still fresh in his eyes.
"After running the data, we've concluded that geothermal energy acts as the primary power source for this entire subterranean ecosystem. It plays the exact same role as sunlight does for surface plants. However, because geothermal vents are scarce and far less abundant than sunlight, the organisms down here are naturally hyper-aggressive."
"Only the most vicious species can secure and defend the prime feeding grounds."
"Our powered armor vents a massive amount of thermal waste, specifically from the primary exhaust ports on the lower right chassis. Those vents run at a minimum of forty to fifty degrees Celsius. That's why we became moving targets!"
Jason nodded thoughtfully. He ran a gloved hand over his own armor, confirming that the lower right exhaust panel had sustained the heaviest acid damage.
The fact that the bugs completely ignored the powered-down transport vehicle further solidified their theory.
Thermal signatures were the only things driving their behavior!
The biologist paused to collect his thoughts before continuing. "Based on the structural evidence, we strongly suspect that these massive cavern networks were literally carved out by the acid these black bugs secrete! The deeper they melt through the crust, the closer they get to the planet's geothermal mantle!"
"Surface plants display phototropism—an involuntary instinct to grow toward the sun. These subterranean creatures exhibit a radical thermotropism! Geothermal heat guarantees their survival. That's exactly why they are throwing themselves at the crashed carrier!"
"The crash site is a massive thermal anomaly. To them, it must register as an enormous, newly opened geothermal vent..."
Jason nodded slowly. He had a dozen urgent tactical questions, but he swallowed his impatience and let the scientist finish.
The biologist used a pair of tongs to lift a dead insect specimen. "As for the highly corrosive bio-acid they carry... we hypothesize it evolved specifically to dissolve subterranean bedrock. A brutal form of natural selection!"
"Bedrock located hundreds or thousands of meters below the surface is incredibly dense due to tectonic pressure. We're not talking about loose topsoil. Physically boring through it is near impossible, especially when hitting solid granite or basalt. And obviously, a swarm of bugs doesn't have industrial tunnel-boring machines."
"The only way to reach deeper into the crust was through millions of generations of acid-based erosion! Melting their way down, layer by layer, inching closer to the mantle! That thermal heat is their absolute lifeblood!"
Caught up in his own deduction, the scientist seemed to forget his brush with death, his voice rising with a mix of awe and feverish academic excitement.
Life always found a way. The fundamental laws of evolution were on full display here: survival of the fittest. Under the crushing weight of such a hostile environment, nature had forged an incredibly tenacious organism.
In a world totally devoid of sunlight, geothermal heat was king!
Out of that darkness, a bizarre ecosystem evolved, perfectly adapted to harvest thermal radiation.
Driven by an insatiable need to reach the heat, they would melt, burrow, and excavate through solid rock. doing absolutely whatever it took to survive.
They were entirely dependent on the planet's core. It was a vicious evolutionary crucible, far more unforgiving than anything found on Earth!
"Which explains why their acid melted right through our combat helmets. We're dealing with a biological solvent refined over millions of years, chemically designed to liquefy solid stone!"
That made terrifying sense...
The Federation-issue visors were forged from a nano-silica compound infused with organic polymers. Because they still contained trace amounts of silica, they offered zero resistance to an acid specifically adapted to dissolve silicates.
Another researcher chimed in, equally ecstatic. "We even hypothesize that in the highest-temperature zones, these black bugs can directly absorb thermal radiation and synthesize it into organic matter!"
"Could they be the foundational producers of this ecosystem? An insect serving the ecological role of a plant? Well... that remains a working theory. We'll need a proper laboratory to run full dissections."
"When they metabolize heat, they likely divert a portion of that energy to synthesize their acid reservoirs. They then use it to incrementally melt away the bedrock, deepening their hives... Factor in millions of years of chemical erosion, combined with the structural scouring of underground aquifers, and you get these impossibly massive cavern networks!"
"And I've noticed something else," the biologist added, tapping a data pad. "When this acid melts the silica and eventually cools, the resulting slag actually hardens into a super-dense synthetic rock! It actively reinforces the tunnel walls, which explains why these massive caverns haven't collapsed under their own weight!"
"Exactly! That has to be the answer!"
With that, the primary mystery of the planet's geology was cracked.
The sprawling, continent-spanning cave systems weren't natural geological formations—they had been excavated by swarms of black insects. It was almost impossible to process!
An engineering marvel of this scale, hollowing out an entire continental crust, was a feat that even the Federation's most advanced mining fleets couldn't dream of achieving. Yet, it had been executed by mindless, tiny bugs.
But then again, they had likely been working at it for tens, if not hundreds of millions of years.
The command team stood in stunned silence, absorbing the sheer scale of the revelation. Even Jason was profoundly humbled by the terrifying, awe-inspiring power of alien biology...
It was a brutal kind of majesty.
Even back on Earth, during humanity's golden age, an undertaking of this magnitude would be impossible. If you took all the great wonders of the world and combined them, they wouldn't even amount to a fraction of a percent of these subterranean networks.
After a long pause, Jason snapped back to reality, his focus returning to the ticking clock. "That's brilliant, Doctors, but how do we stop the bugs from tearing us apart? We're burning daylight, and we need to move out, now!"
The lead biologist hesitated, unable to give a full guarantee, but offered his best hypothesis. "Thermal radiation. It all comes back to their heat-seeking instincts. If we can mask or eliminate the thermal exhaust from our powered armor, they won't latch onto us! At least, in theory."
"They're incredibly averse to cold temperatures!"
But how on earth were they supposed to stop an active fusion-powered suit from generating heat?
Jason scowled, his mind racing through the tactical options. What was the play here? Strip off their powered armor entirely? Suicide!
Military-grade powered armor couldn't just have its engine cut like a transport rover. Ignoring the fact that shutting down power meant cutting off their life support and oxygen cyclers, a soldier simply couldn't move under the crushing weight of a hundred kilos of reinforced plating without the servos engaged...
But the moment they powered up the servos, the reactors would vent heat, painting a giant target on their backs for the swarm!
It was a complete catch-22!
If they had standard environmental EVA suits, it might be different. But even then, if a handful of bugs landed on the fabric and secreted their acid, the pressurized suits would instantly breach.
What were they supposed to do? Pack their armor chassis with cold mud like primitive hunters?
What they really needed was a localized, high-efficiency coolant!
Jason and his command staff racked their brains in desperate silence, desperately searching for anything in their inventory that could drop their thermal signatures down to zero.