Wrapped an arm around her shoulder, "Yeah. I know. Miss him all the time."
It came to me,
"Umm, he had a scribble book. In his box of shit." W
alked us to his workshop desk, went through the draws,
"He tried to explain how a magnetic trigger device with its own little battery supply source initiated by another magnet when it got close to metal or something like that. He drew a pic... here it is. I'd smile at him when he started talking about a lot of this stuff but you'll know what he's on about." Steph grabbed the book and she was gone.
The delivery vehicle: I'd sussed out what I wanted but we weren't rolling in stuff to build anything anymore. If some form of wheeled torpedo was where Steph was headed then it gave me a bit of direction. We'd be looking at a short vehicle height, off-road but armoured against heavy machine gun or cannon fire.
Back in the day there was a company had a fleet of gas and well drilling trucks that would fit the purpose. The trucks were British. Over engineered, all wheel drive and fit for the purpose. Before the
'big shit'
hit the company went bust and the drilling rigs sold. The remains went to a truck wreckers and sat. The wreckers yards still there full of old trucks. Only problem is its under eight feet of water.
The Bejerk wanting to stop access to their kingdom blocked and damned a tributary with whatever they could get their hands on, tree stumps, logs. The dam flooded the town. The wreckers yard was up on a rise and while it would of got the water I was hoping stuff may've escaped being submerged. The downside was with all the shit and hot weather mixed with stagnant water, the whole area stunk. I rang Art about doing a demo job for me.
Rags wrapped round our faces, Steph and some young'uns in tow we watched Art go about his work laying charges and running cord, "Geezus John, there's a shit-load of skeletons in this pile. I hope ya kids have got strong guts mate."
"I'll keep 'em back Art."
Art blew the base away first and it all slowly untangled and when the next charge went on the water side the pressure did the damage. Thankfully all the body parts went in the initial wash. As the flow picked up and debris washed towards the bay we watched the progress. Bit of luck, two hours could see a good change.
A large knarly log, a good twenty-five feet or so in length, slimy green the bark covered in silt. Momentarily it blocked the outlet until it bumped debris clear. As the
'log'
passed we watched it, "That was fucking dead wasn't it John. What the fuck is that even doing this far fucking south!"
"Yeah mate, pretty sure. Weren't moving no more. Otherwise it would've been up on the bank, all pissed-off you tried to blow it up mate. I'd say it prob'ly started out as pet."
Steph came up beside us both, "Was that thing a..."
Silently we nodded,
"Please tell me it's dead." We nodded again.
The wreckers yard escaped getting drowned, wet feet but. The downside was, the fact it was dry. Snakes. The young'uns caught what they could to milk the venom. We'd share our ride home with Taipan, various Adder and Bandy bandy as well as some of the biggest Browns I'd ever seen. The yard turned into a goldmine for parts, steel and tools we never had. Four of the trucks were complete and with coaxing we got them started and loaded with booty. By the time Constantine and his crew got through picking up the rest there'd be nothing left.
In short time we had the first truck stripped to what we needed, it looked a bit different. The driver position was lowered down beside the diesel power plant with reconfigured steering, braking and clutch control. Gearbox links took a bit of working out. It drove well so the young'uns started on the other chassis's.
A hand operated sprocket and chain system to move the weapons along the underside of the chassis, enough room to store six. The weapon was lifted and held between two sets of large finger clamps affixed to a weapons carriage. When the chain came to the end of its travel the weapon carriage engaged into a track leading to a turn-table. A cable lowered the carriage for weapons delivery, the turntable allowed delivery from left or right hand side of the vehicle.
Unlike the BeserkerToo 'Crudie' bikes that delivered torpedos on the move this vehicle needed to be stationary during the weapons delivery.
One person could do the loading while another did target selection, aiming and firing. Sighting, aligning and syncronising the weapon took a bit for Steph and her team to work out going by the amount of swearing going on. The weapons operator and weapons loader were seated back to back on the opposite side to the driver. The loader had a reasonable crawl space to access the weapons. The vehicle had no defensive weapons other than smoke canisters.
I still needed an outer shell to protect the operators and the vehicle. The armour plate on both the pit-vipers and hippos worked well but this vehicle would be in close vicinity to the enemy all the time during an attack. Das, one of our young'uns came up with a solution, "You need to go see Derek."
His Sister, Xanthe replied, "We know where he lives I'll give you an idea how to find him." I took them both with me. It was a ways out south. Derek lived in a old disused dump in a cottage made of anything he could lay his hands on. He was a bit of a recluse and didn't seem that happy to see any of us except Xanthe. He had very little and food was a scarcity. It took a while but eventually he warmed to me and Das.
I asked him if he liked living where he was, "Nahhh John. But its me life now mate. Chucked out with the rubbish. In more ways than one."
He was a metallurgist in another life. Found a job with an outfit specialising in heat treatment. They made hardness-toughened steels for industry especially heavy mining, oil and transport. It all went in the big shit along with Dereks passion. He left before he ended up like his mates, dead. The process that the company were proud of was a steel made as armourplate. It was superior to the stuff the steel mills made, more uniform and no flaws.
We let him tell his story. When he'd finished, "Derek we need your skills. Right now. I can't offer you much but your own roof over your head, three squares a day and a lot of work." Didn't have to use much persuasion, the enthusiasm of the other two definitely helped. Two boxes of his possessions and we were off.
The prototype was parked waiting for its shell but we could only fit two more in our workshop and there wasn't enough room to move, the young'uns were getting grouchy with each other.
Constantine came to the rescue. He has big heat treatment ovens, capable of reaching temperatures that Derek needs. We introduced Derek to Constantine and they got on like a house on fire. Derek was of one mind:
'show me the ovens.'
Constatine gave me a knowing smirk. Derek didn't know what he was getting himself into.
Constantine's engineering empire was getting bigger all the time. He'd recovered a carbon arc furnace, two ovens and several hydraulic presses all powered by a huge diesel-generator powerplant to run it, all from the railway workshops Bejerk had abandoned. He already made his own diesel fuel so Derek would be pretty much straight into it.
We were watching two of the young'uns about ready for fisty-cuffs when I stepped in telling them to stand-down for half an hour. Constantine passed a critical eye over our operation, "John why don't you take back the pit-viper line and we'll take the trucks minus the proto, we'll leave that to you to finish but we can start on parts and fab. Give you more room, we've made more gear to help build the vipers easier and it'll fit in here comfortably. Those four trucks will fit in one corner of my workshop and your kid's will get their favourite toy back to build."
I'd never realised what the pit-vipers meant to the young'uns. Steph didn't either but we kinda left them all outta the equation in our quest to leave our old lives behind. Most cut their teeth on the vipers, learnt skills and looked over the shoulders of Jigger, Viv and Noosa. Katya and the others.
When I told them to finish the jobs they were doing, pack up and move the trucks out and the reason: jubilation.
It took a few weeks to get the formula right, one of Constantine's stamping mills acted as a test tool. The plates were shaped before they were heat-treated and done in sections, front to rear. The only flat surface on the plates was the top six inches which was angled like a low pitched roof. That, I was hoping may help with shell deflection over the top of the cabin area and engine. The rest of the six armour plate sections were rounded, overlapped and covered the wheels. A half tube on both sides gave intial guidance to the torpedo after firing. Final vehicle height was seven feet.
Steph explained the operation of the torpedo to us lesser mortals in simple words, "It's the traction motor to the rear wheels that sets the whole system in motion. A self-retracting break away cable arms, disarms and switches the torpedoes built-in battery on and the breakaway works 'til the weapon clears the armadillo." And just like that the new vehicle had a name.
For the tests we used dummy torpedo's, Steph checked out both the loader and the weap-op positions. The torpedos didn't like rough surfaces to travel over but other than that, only little niggles. Constantine had the plans to finish the other armadillos. The first vehicle was released to TCP for live tests. I guessed it would go to either OP 'J' or 'K'.
It was an OP 'J' driver and his two man crew that turned up for training. Marcus drove the second pit viper that hit the chemical plant so he wasn't a stranger to any of us.
We caught up, "I haven't seen you since the attack but I guess you've heard all the shit that went on at 'J'?"
Nope. Steph and I looked at each other and shook our heads,
"Well straight after you gave my viper to Gale, Judge Golding told Gale it was needed to provide cover at 'K' while that OP was rebuilt. Gale refused, repeatedly and that ended when Golding and city forced their way into 'J' and took the viper and four 'hippo's Gale hadn't told TCP about, he had nine, entitled to four so he got to keep an extra. I was part of that deal, Golding arrested me because of my connection to the viper and six others and took us with him. Gale went nuts. Anyway Golding apologised to us but I think one of the others pulled out that day may've been one of Golding's spies."
This wasn't the Alan Gale we'd served with up north. Wasn't that guy. Steph was battling with her own demons. She'd worked with the guy for a few years and they became lovers until I stole her away. Well, back. If we were mystified before we were a bit stunned now.
Marcus continued, "There's some serious bad blood between Gale and Golding but nobody knows why or when it started. Now, all the vipers, hippos and armadillos too, operate out of Menzies. The OPs call them when they need 'em. Gale has gone silent on the rest of us, we don't hear shit from 'J' and they don't welcome outsiders. Anyone from TCP goes there its handled outside the fortress gates and one of our guys reckons they're fully armoured up. Like anti-aircraft guns and howitzer armoured up."
Marcus said he didn't miss Gales temper or ravings but he missed the vipers. Two days later Marcus and his team became the first operational armadillo. Steph and her team took on testing and training. Me, I had squat to do.
The young'uns needed parts, steel for two viper builds. They got grouchy I wasn't helping so we headed to the wreckers yard. I thought it would've been stripped bare, surprised Constantine had left anything. Young'uns got all of what they needed plus extra. I just needed to find a way to get what I wanted home. Constantine's salvage gear helped with two truckloads.
It consisted of: Two low-loader trailers: a four wheeler towed by a twin axle articulated unit we'd build a front dolly wheel-set for. Fifth wheel Tractor unit. No diesel powerplant. The trailers and tractor unit were bare chassis, single wheel, early nineteen-fifty's era British units. The tractor unit was twin axle, twin steer.
Jigger faced Beserk here, at our home when he died and that fact I hadn't ignored. There were more young'uns here now, all calling this place home. In the knowledge they're safe. I mean to keep it that way. This unit would allow us to provide protection in any direction. Mobility would help us to be able to call the shots defensively or offensively.
It took time to build but the young'uns fair poundered on it. All but the rear trailer is eight feet tall. The rear low loader trailer is nine and a half feet tall, fits a pit-viper bay and a small rotary wing observation drone. Young'uns named the drone the Storm Petrel which apparently has the ability to hover, who knew. The drone bay roof opens and the bay houses the amplifiers, transmitter and recievers for the flight controller and camera. The ammo magazine is in front of both bays.
The front trailer houses control room. Two remotely operated rotating-turreted point-fifty caliber M2 heavy machine guns at the front and back of the trailer provide defence against light armour. A turreted eight rocket
'letterbox'
launcher fitted to a turntable with limited angle adjustment, also remotely operated sits between the two gun turrets. An observation deck at the rear of and above the drivers cab has a mounted L7, a spare for the viper.
