Chapter 45

Alexander finished setting up the last plate of armored steel against the backdrop of a rocky outcropping. They were about half a mile from the facility, and nowhere near where any people or mining was taking place.He quickly crossed the distance separating him from where the gun was situated. Alexander joined the twenty-odd people who had come out to see the test. Some of them were Travers people, but it seemed like Damien, Lucas, and Gabriella had heard about the test and wanted to watch as well. Not that Alexander minded the audience. The rest were just random mercenaries who were on their downtime and looking for any entertainment.

"So, you're making weapons now?" Damien asked as he approached.

"I'm testing weapons so I can come up with a design to build defenses," Alexander replied calmly to the man's question.

The man only grunted in reply, wandering away with his perpetual scowl on his face. At least Damien was predictable. Alexander might have been concerned if the man was suddenly excited that he was making weapons. The fact that the martial artist didn't seem to care one way or another spoke volumes to his character, even if the man wasn't the most likable person. He had gotten a briefing on Damien's history from Matthews and the Field Leaders; A decorated martial expert and defacto leader slash security officer for Eden's End. A rather impressive resume for a guy who seemed to dislike everyone and everything.

That briefing also included what the Hawks found on their initial sweep of the facility. From what he learned, the only guns the Hawks found were the ones they confiscated from a group of men and the one man who tried to shoot them when they first entered the facility. There were also a few pulse rifles that the Hawks had returned after Alexander and the locals had come to an agreement.

The fact Damien and his people had been able to repel or kill off pirates with only improvised weapons and a few pulse rifles was a testament to the man's ability to plan effectively with very little. He could appreciate that fact, even if he didn't like the man all that much.

Alexander had thought of producing more of the sonic weapons for the locals. He probably would eventually. When the Hawks left, there needed to be a capable group of security people to defend the facility. He only hesitated at the moment because he didn't know these people enough. He left figuring out who could be trusted for the Hawks as they trained some of the locals per his extended agreement.

Once they were trained up, Alexander should be able to print out pulse rifles for them. The devices were surprisingly sophisticated. He would not be able to get away with cobbling together a 20th-century computer chip to replace the electronics in the rifles. Making the flechette or CQB rifles, as the Hawks called them, orders of magnitude easier. But he didn't trust these people that far. He knew the pulse rifles were useless against him, but he couldn't say the same about the flechettes. In time, if the people here proved trustworthy, maybe he would produce better arms for them.

To be fair, Alexander would prefer to be building pretty much anything other than weapons. He wasn't naïve enough to believe pirates or other unsavory sorts would simply leave them be once he started actively building in space though. That was why he had gone straight into building the defensive railguns instead of focusing on designing and building the engines he wanted. Putting off defending the facility was simply not an option. It was best just to get it done as soon as possible and while the Hawks were still here to cover for the lack of defensive options.

The defenses were to protect Yulia, his operations, and the people on Eden's End, in that order. He didn't tell them that though.

Alexander arrived at the tripod. A slew of thick cables ran from the back of it to a box. The large bulky box was a series of batteries and supercapacitors with a wide umbrella of solar panels over it that produced the only shade for miles around. Everyone who didn't have vac-suits was understandably crowded under the umbrella. So only Damien, Lucas, and Gabriella were standing in the shade. All the other mercenaries had their suits sealed and their visors set to reflective. S~eaʀᴄh the NôvelFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

They didn't need it to breathe the thin atmosphere out here, but it did provide thermal regulation and protection from the UV radiation of the blue star, which the thin atmosphere did little to filter out.

Alexander's interface barely registered any heat, but the radiation would give you a sunburn in ten to fifteen minutes. The locals managed by covering any exposed skin and wearing darkened goggles. He wondered where they got them.

He checked over the weapon one last time. Everything looked in order. The batteries were at full charge and everything looked good on the power pack. He entered a security code into the simple keypad and a slow whine began to build as the batteries dumped their energy into the capacitors. He used both because batteries could store power for much longer without it bleeding off, but they couldn't dump power as fast as a capacitor could.

As the whine built, he picked up one of the pencil-sized sabots and slid it into the open breach. Once it was inserted, he closed and locked the breach. Then he aimed the weapon at the first target two hundred yards down range. It was a ludicrously short range for a railgun, but he wasn't testing range at the moment.

The single layer of dense armor plate should be equivalent to what the Hawk's augment suits might have. Or so he assumed after studying the things walking around the facility. He really wished he had an old-world equivalent to compare the augment suit's armor to, but he didn't. Alexander dialed the energy output to twenty percent.

With little fanfare, he yelled, "Firing!"

There was a click followed by a sensation of static as the capacitors dumped their energy into the railgun. The weapon kicked back along the shock absorber as a flash of light left the barrel, followed by a deafening boom.

He could see the two halves of the sabot separate and drop away but even Alexander's enhanced eyesight wasn't quick enough to track the projectile. But he wasn't trying to, he just needed to watch the destination. Almost instantly there was a flash of light and a spray of molten metal from behind the target sheet. The round hardly slowed down as he noted a puff of dust on the distant hillside.

"A bit overkill," Travers stated. "Then again, that's kinda what railguns are known for."

Alexander readjusted the gun to the next set of targets. The first plate, while armored was only about a quarter inch thick. The next target was two of the plates sandwiched together.

The tungsten penetrator at the core of the sabot easily tore through the two sheets at the same power output. But he noted there wasn't any impact on the hill behind the target.

The third target was the same two plates, air-gapped to simulate front and rear armor. The round easily tore through the first plate, but when it reached the second, there was a bright flash of light. He wouldn't know the results until he inspected it after they were done, but he suspected the pencil lead-sized penetrator had either come apart or tumbled after going through the first plate.

There was no comment from Travers or anyone else.

He adjusted the gun again, this time moving to the targets at six hundred yards. It was the same set of tests so he expected similar results. It was similar, at least on the first target. The small dart must have lost too much speed to penetrate the dual layer of armor. There was a bright burst of sparks between the sandwiched sheets before the welds holding them together came apart, sending both halves crashing to the ground from the force.

"That's one way to do it," one of the mercenaries called out, earning chuckles from a few others.

The third test gave no real surprises. The dart tore through the first armor and exploded against the second. It should have gone straight through, but Alexander was beginning to think the penetrator was simply too small to hold together from the force of impact.

The third test was at twelve hundred yards. Before he ran that, he checked the batteries and capacitors. They were holding up fine, although they were getting slightly hot from the energy discharge. He made a mental note to add some sort of thermal management to them.

The third set of tests went about the same as the second. The only change was that the second target didn't explode apart and the flash from the third target wasn't nearly as energetic. The round seemed to be losing more speed than it should at that range. A flaw in the aerodynamics of his design? It wasn't as if he had a step-by-step tutorial for designing railgun rounds. He just put something together based on what little knowledge he had.

For the final tests, he cranked the power output to the full one hundred percent. This was to test for any failure on the gun or batteries at full load.

The last target was a series of six plates with about six inches between them. They were set at the same twelve-hundred-yard range as the third test.

The three people huddled under the shade of the solar panels moved away as the whine built.

"Why's it making so much noise?" Gabriella asked in concern.

"I'm using the full power output. You may want to move farther away from the energy pack in case it fails."

The three moved away from the device. To be fair, the mercenaries moved farther away as well.

Alexander loaded the round. The air was practically buzzing with energy as the capacitors whined to release their stored power. He obliged them as he fired the gun.

The kickback was so forceful that if Alexander hadn't caught the weapon, it would have been launched back into the energy pack. Down at the targets, there was an increasingly bright flash as the round tore through the armored plates. The last target produced the brightest flash of light, but also a series of bright orange sparks. This was likely the tungsten carbide shattering against the last armored plate.

"Alexander, behind you!" He didn't need to turn around to see that the energy pack was throwing sparks as the heat melted the components inside. He did turn his avatar though, to assure everyone that he was aware of the issue. As he turned, he yanked the power cables out of the gun to prevent the internal components from being damaged by a surge of electricity.

He stepped back to join the others as they watched the pack reduce itself to a half-molten pile of slag. It could have been worse he supposed. At least these weren't like the old lithium batteries that burst into nearly unstoppable flames. The energy just discharged into the surrounding material, heating it up and breaching more cells until everything was too hot to remain solid.

"Well, it looks like I have some things to work on. Shall we go see the results of these tests?"

"I'm going back inside before I get burned." Alexander watched Damien and his group walk off. He just shook his head.

Once they were gone, he went to join the other mercenaries who were already inspecting the closest targets.

He went straight for the third target in the closest row. The entry hole was a tiny thing but the material it blew out the opposite side was impressive. The cone of molten material was about the size of a tennis ball. Considering the penetrator was the size of a piece of pencil lead, that was a whole lot of damage. The back plate had a nice spray pattern where the molten metal impacted and hardened, along with a series of deeper craters in the center, likely caused by the remnants of the dart.

The projectile had indeed broken apart. When he inspected the second test in the closest row, he found just a small hole bored through until the back of the target blew out. The first test matched the same pattern. He would need to check on where the round impacted on the hillside after he looked at the other tests.

The second row of tests showed a similar damage pattern. The sandwiched plates showed that the first plate blew out, which is likely what caused the plates to burst apart. There were signs that the dart had gone into the second plate, but it seemed to have exploded before making it all the way through, leaving a large crater and caving in the hardened material.

The third test was much the same, only with less damage. The tungsten dart didn't even manage to get through the two plates that were welded together. There was also less blowout, showing the speed of the rounds had become significantly reduced over the short flight time.

The full power test was interesting. It looked like someone had taken a plasma cutter to the plates. After the first plate, each showed multiple holes melted through from the material of the previous one. It was only on the final few plates that the material had cooled enough to weld itself to the plate instead of melting through. The last plate had a small dent from where the round finally shattered.

Considering how much energy he had dumped into the gun for that test, he had expected more damage. If he had used a larger penetrator, he probably would have seen better results. The small size of the one he used just wasn't meant to transfer that much energy. He would look over his video later and determine the speed the projectiles were flying. It would also help him determine why they were slowing down so much.

Before leaving the range, he walked over to the spot on the hill where the first round had gone. It would have been hard to spot for anyone else, but Alexander quickly located the tiny hole drilled into the tan surface of the rock. He couldn't see how far into the rock the penetrator had gone, but it had clearly gone quite far. What he did notice was the hole didn't have any indication that the fins impacted the surface. Had they been ripped off by the first impact? He filed that fact away for later. If the fins were being broken or torn off, it might explain why the rounds weren't working as expected.

With the tests over and his curiosity sated, he packed up the surviving components and headed back to the facility alone. All the other mercenaries had left some time ago, their interest waning shortly after the fireworks were complete.

As he made the walk back, Alexander realized this was the first time he had been alone in a long time. The last time he was truly alone was after Yuri up and left, and the first few weeks after he opened his shop on Petrov Station.

While he wouldn't give up his current life, no matter how hectic it had become, he was glad for the moment of peace and quiet.