Chapter 32 - Rain of Dirt

"3 more days…" Edward Teach mumbled to himself. It would be close but they would be able to get all of the incubation pods ready for the mass release.

"Margo, have we received any intel about the Hegemony's progress?" Edward asked.

"Sir, based upon our last report, we have determined that we are ahead of them in terms of military hardware capacity and will be better prepared once the Eurasia Treaty expires." Said Margo.

Edward nodded his head with affirmation "And the sea transports will be able to get the general infantry mech forces over to Europe and Africa in time?"

"It will be close, based upon my calculations we only have 1 hour 43 minutes and 17 seconds of spare time, if we are unable to make it, we can just limit the amount of players allowed to join for a few days and blame it on servers being overloaded." Replied Margo

"Good, lastly, do whatever is necessary to get as many players into Alterra Online as possible."

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"Caleb, what is the best bait for rats?" asked Gray

"It depends upon the species of Rat. If the species is unknown, peanut butter is the best type of bait for all rats, otherwise dried fruits and even nesting materials work. Rats will not just eat anything that is given to them, they need to smell a combination of Carbon disulfide and a food odor to feel comfortable eating a new food." Said Caleb

"You're really taking this human encyclopedia thing all the way aren't you…" said Geoff

Caleb shrugged and said "It's just knowledge, having it and using it are two different things."

Gray suddenly turned to Stacia and asked "What kinds of food did you bring along in that basket?"

Everyone else looked questioningly at Gray and Stacia, Geoff said "Why would you bring a basket of food on a mission, especially one involving killing things?"

"Ummm, I thought it would be nice if we could all have a picnic together after the mission." Stacia replied shyly.

"Fair enough, but it's not exactly a picnicking environment now is it. What did you take out of the basket and stuff in your backpack?" asked Gray.

"Umm, a jar of peanut butter, jelly, and a loaf of bread. I just… I just sometimes get hungry and want a snack and for some reason I found that it happens in this game too!" said Stacia hurriedly.

Gray and Geoff looked at each other with a knowing glance remembering the ridiculous amount of food they ate last night and had to agree with her.

"One jar won't be enough by itself, but we only need to attract them though, not feed them." Said Gray. "Let's make a kill box for the whole family of rats. We're going to need an ideal location and probably all of your fuel in the flamethrower, so I'll break down what I need everyone to do once we find the ideal location."

"What would be the ideal location?" asked Geoff

"An open area with at least one side at the bottom of a very small cliff, but given the lack of cliffs, we can make do with steep hill if needed." Said Gray.

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The group looked through the forest for anywhere with a small cliff and fairly clear area, but they soon realized that the area they were in was very flat.

"Well, that didn't go as planned." Said Gray.

"Might I suggest a crater then?" said Caleb

"Ummm that would be perfect actually if it is deep enough. We never came across any of those and digging one would take too long." Said Gray.

"I never said dig, but we can blow one up."

Yurika's eyes shone brightly at the thought of blowing something up.

"How… we only have 2 blocks of Cocrystal HMX explosives and a few frag grenades." Said Gray

"And we will only need those 2 blocks and one frag grenade. Cocrystal HMX, while not the strongest explosive ever engineered, is still used widely by the military mainly because of the stability and shock resistance. Still, a single grenade is more than enough to destabilize it, and trigger an uncontrolled explosion." Remarked Caleb

"Destabilized uncontrolled explosion, sounds like Yurika's personality" Gray thought.

"Ok, worth a shot, so I'm guessing we'll need to bury the explosives a little bit so it blows the ground up instead of just scorching the surface?" said Gray.

"Indeed, but too deep and we'll just unsettle the ground, too shallow and the crater will not be deep, I recommend 4 meters as sufficient depth." Said Caleb

"Time to get digging" said Gray.

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Gray and Geoff took turns digging as they only had the one shovel that Stacia brought as an engineer. Stacia and even Yurika offered to help dig as well, but Gray and Geoff felt that it was a man's obligation to not let the girls do this sort of labor. As for Caleb, he insisted he was management.

"Whew, all done." Said Gray as he finally tossed the shovel up and out of the hole that was now about twice as deep as Gray was tall. It was mid-afternoon as they finally finished digging the hole so they needed to hurry as they still had to shove all the dirt back in once they buried the explosives and the grenade.

Caleb took a single grenade and loosened the pin slightly on it then borrowed Stacia's field medic kit and removed the suture thread, the thread only had 4 feet on the tiny spindle so Caleb took it from everyone's medic kit and tied it all together into one long thread and tied one end to the pin on the grenade. Caleb asked Stacia to place the 2 blocks of explosives in the hole.

Stacia walked over to the hole as Gray was still trying to get out and said "Catch!"

When everyone else saw Stacia drop a block of explosives casually down the hole they got wide eyed and started to run directly away from hole. Gray who was almost out caught the block after it only fell half a meter, then after looking at what he caught broke out into a cold sweat and felt himself pee his pants a little.

"DO NOT DROP THE EXPLOSIVES!" Gray said with a shrill voice

Stacia got very flustered and apologized profusely.

"Cocrystal HMX is very stable and shock resistant. That doesn't mean you can drop it 4 meters and expect it to not explode! Standard plastic bonded explosive HMX has a max drop height of roughly 60 centimeters, Cocrystal HMX increases that by about 30% depending upon the CL-20 and HMX ratio." Said Caleb with his voice shaking slightly as well.

After scaring everyone, Stacia handed Gray the other block of explosives once he had gently brought the first one down and climbed back up again partway. Caleb then tossed the grenade on a string to Gray at the bottom of the hole and he placed it gently between the two blocks while keeping the ring of the pin pointed up. Gray crawled back up and out of the hole and everyone but Geoff started to push the dirt back in as much as they could while Geoff was using the shovel to get the dirt that couldn't be pushed back in.

Everyone got back about 50 meters and behind a fallen stalk of corn that was about 1 meter in diameter. Gray held the other end of the suture thread and was still only about a meter from where the hole was since they didn't have much thread. Gray pulled it gently until he felt it tense up, then gave it a sharp tug and ran as fast as he could to get behind the nearest stalk which was still 20 meters from his current location. These grenades had a standard 4 second fuse so Gray didn't make it to the tree when the grenade went off followed by the massive explosion from the military grade explosives. Gray was blown from his feet almost and pushed forward causing him to stumble and then face plant the ground hard. He opted to stay down and just gave his helmet a squeeze to keep it in place as the expected shower of dirt dumped on top of him.

When the dust settled, Gray realized he was buried and couldn't move so he messaged the others through his armlet to dig him out. After getting dug out, the others looked miserable as well since the dirt rained on them, just not enough to bury them completely.

"Both blocks of explosives may seem like it was overkill, but given the distribution of force in all directions, I was worried it may not have been enough." Remarked Caleb.

Gray and the others finally got to look at the remains of their explosion and saw a shallow crater had been blown away. Most of the dirt around the explosives had liquefied instantly then boiled up to the surface. Any water in the soil instantly turned into steam that was within a few meters of the explosives while the ground that was blasted up formed a bowl shape after settling down. Caleb explained that the spot where the explosives went off was not visible since it had been buried by the dirt from what wasn't evaporated, the crater itself isn't created by the explosion but by the liquefaction and evaporation of the ground near the explosives. As for the dirt that was blasted over everyone, that was a result of the compressed gases forcing their way to the surface through the unsettled ground causing it to flow out in a wave of dirt and heavy sand.

"This should do, now, time to kidnap a baby!" said Gray enthusiastically.