Wrath and Retribution

Preface-8

He hesitated and said weakly, "Sir, students aren't allowed in workshops."

Growing furious at that young man's impertinence, he snapped completely, "Shut the hell up, open the God damn door, and stop stalling Candidate Rockpoint. I am about a micrometer away from dragging your sorry a*s into the expulsion board for a laundry list of offenses."

Utterly defeated, Samson unlocked the outer door and admitted the class.

When he cracked the inner door and started to step into the workshop, as they flooded in, one of his classmates in the lead of the pack chuckled, "Oh my God! The i***t did actually piss his pants! Can you smell that?"

The laughter stopped more abruptly than it started when the Applied Sciences Professor began in a slow long drawn out and low pitched growl, "Holy-s**t-on-a-stick!" Samson turned around from opening the door, in time to see his professor's eyes wide and brilliantly lit with excitement, "That's the coolest thing I have ever seen in my life! We just got to try out this thing! This thing looks like it really works!"

As the class poured into the room, the babbling sea of voices was lost on Samson. He could still smell his own piss and shame, and that was all he could think about. He was so embarrassed that he immediately crept around the far side of the work bench to get as far from the class and the contraption as possible. He cut and shuffled more lengths of the trigger ropes to occupy his hands.

The hand on his left shoulder startled him to look that direction. His History professor spoke quietly, but was still easy to hear over the dull roar of the class, "I think it is safe to say you won our wager and you are still passing my class."

Still miserable and shocked, Samson replied, "How can I be passing your class? I can't even get the stupid thing out of the room!"

For the first time since he met the man, Samson saw his History professor actually smile a 'pleased' smile with no real malice or sardonic intent as he prepared to t*****e one of his students. He saw the cords that Samson was preparing and laid a few lengths out for Samson to cut. "I think our young Sciences professor will think of a way to remove your device from this room in short order. He wants to play with your toy more than you do apparently."

Samson looked back up from his cord, with questions written all over his face.

"Don't worry about that. Samson, did you know that the soldiers all those thousands of years ago who built those things were all not only professionals but they had blacksmiths traveling with their Legion camps to fix their weapons? And that they could custom make special parts? And that the soldiers were all specially trained and could work together to make these things? And that they all worked in teams to do that work?"

Samson shook his head 'no'.

The History professor nodded, "Building those monsters was a team effort. Do you realize that in a week, you alone, using only the components in this shop created a piece of siege equipment? You built a full sized ballista." Amazingly he smiled again, slowly shaking his head up and down with a please little smile, "I really didn't think you could pull it off."

Now Samson was really confused, "What do you mean you didn't think I could pull it off? I didn't tell you what I was building."

"When you sent me that comm message you attached all those plans by accident. I knew what you were thinking about. I just didn't think you could do it in a week. Maybe a month, I gave you credit for that. I will admit I was considering ways to give you a way out of our wager, but not a week, I had no idea you could do it in a week."

Samson recalled the conversation and realized his history professor must have been playing with the research he had done on his own side of the screen during their conversation.

Samson and the History professor looked up to the sound of the Applied Sciences Professor on the workshop's comm. " ... Oh no! Send a bunch of guys. This thing is frickin' huge ... No, we need to take it up to the 'real' range. And get something for ammo. No kiddy ranges for this mama! ... Right, thanks, see you in a minute."

Samson was uncomfortable when the Sciences professor politely interrupted and steered them both, Samson and the History professor, over to the ballista. He then asked Samson to explain the workings.

While he was detailing the class's principles and the parts and how he put it together he repositioned the pulley system and tied one of the cords to the back of the sling.

Samson was mortified as commissioned Guardsmen in uniform, professors and eventually the Academy's headmaster poured into the room. There were eventually so many adults that students were being crowded on top of each other and into corners.

His classmates were crowded out of the front row almost entirely, leaving him to explain how to take apart the ballista, for transportation, to the Guardsman heavy weapons training ranges, on the upper levels of their building; explaining all that to adults was nerve wracking. Just the thought of trespassing on the restricted training levels of the Empire’s elite soldiers set his hands shaking.

Before he knew it his project was gone like it had never existed. Had he blinked he would have missed it. While his two professors were trying to herd him out of the room and up to the ranges to play with the new toy, he ducked under them and picked up a handful of his tie cords, and slipped his scissors into his academy uniform pocket.

The absurdity of the thing left him feeling like he was floating along the corridors and up the elevators his year group was not allowed to use. They traveled up and up to the levels he would ordinarily never access for at least another seven and a half years.

The room he was led to was the biggest single space he had ever seen when not looking out a window. The room was easily three hundred meters long and one hundred fifty wide, with a fifty meter ceiling. His class was looking confused and lost, huddled against the back wall under several floors of overarching observation decks over and above their heads.

The floor of the room was covered with sand and grit, and reeked of something acidic that many years later he would recognize as massive quantities of explosives residue. There were odd, partially formed buildings and structures scattered all through the open space often overlapping but still well spaced. The partial structures looked like hastily constructed buildings from concrete blocks.

Five armored Guardsmen stepped silently around the startled boy. He hadn't even heard them until they were past. Their automatic grenade launchers pointed down the range. Unknown to Samson, they had received a 'cease-fire range closed' notification that had pissed them off fiercely. It had even resulted in a profane shouting match over their comms between the senior Guardsman and the range control officer.

But when they saw the 'new toy' they were as curious as the rest of their gathering brothers. The armored heads nodded to the Academy Headmaster as they passed him. They were somewhat placated about losing their range time.

Samson became concerned when Guardsmen began showing up with ... 'things' was the best way Samson could describe them. One had a bowling ball, another had a frozen chicken, another had a piece of stereo electronics, and the whole affair was turning into a mad house.

And he was at the center of it.

And he didn't like it at all.

Samson was asked to explain the working model ballista to everyone present. Since the range was closed, the press of adults and students alike spilled onto the firing range itself. Samson talked through the various concepts from class and their application, from the wheels, to ballistics, to levers, and torque. His Applied Sciences Professor and the Headmaster nodded repeatedly as he enumerated his lessons. His History professor leaned against the wall and was silent, with a small smile. The students watched silently, wrapped in their assorted gaggle of forgotten Applied Sciences projects.

Samson stepped around the back right of his ballista, to his most irritating 'H' crank, all while explaining the pulley lever and its purpose on the machine. It was set up against the back wall and between two of the widely spaced building support columns sheathed in extra thick ballistic armor. Samson continued to talk as he laid the pulley and its ropes smooth and flat behind the relaxed torsion arms, then retied one of his cords to the base of the sling.

With the pulley secured with light tension to the ballista's bow string, Samson explained the elevation mechanism on the bottom, and how the lever system increased the elevation from zero to approximately twenty degrees, by slipping angular blocks into place in catch notches, dropping the back of the device.

Once it was locked into place, with the elevation set in the rear and locked in to place in the front, Samson explained that you add tension to the rope springs. While he pulled the crank and laboriously pulled the tension into the device, the eleven year old Samson ran out of things to explain. He cranked as fast as he could with nothing else to fill in the time as he felt hundreds of eyes clawing at his back and he watched the arms inch back as the cables he was using for a string slowly pulled the bow string back to the rear.

Finally the popping of the tension springs was nerve wracking enough that he twisted with the last of his strength and pulled to set the bent locking bar into place, along the carriage.

He ducked past the firing point and explained that he would load and fire from the opposite side so he didn't get hit by the crank if it slipped. He stood straight and shrugged indicating he was done with his presentation. Samson really didn't know how to end a presentation in front of Guardsmen, some of them in armor with real grenade launchers in hand, teachers he had never met, administrators and the Academy Headmaster. He knew how to deal with classmates, but this was something new.

The armored Guardsman with a cleared grenade launcher lazily slung over his shoulder pointing down range in the front of the crowd barked through his suit's external speakers, "Clear down range!"

All the people who had gathered to the front of the Ballista scattered to the sides of the open range. While Samson was watching them move out of the way one of the spectating guardsmen, the one with the bowling ball, stepped forward and loaded his siege weapon.

Since a Guardsman placed it, Samson shrugged and figured it was 'okay'.

The Academy Headmaster blinked several times, pointing but remained silent, as he considered the process.

The History professor buried his face in his hand and shook his head with his eyes firmly closed.

Samson aligned the siege engine one last time with a concrete wall down range, the near side of three, on a partial building, about two hundred meters down range.

He had no idea what the ballistics results would be, so the five degree elevation was probably fine. The worst case was that they could walk down the range and pick up the bowling ball from the concrete dust and sand floor, and fire it again, with more elevation to reach the target.

He turned and asked his Applied Sciences professor, "Should I fire it?"

"We are out of the way and waiting for you. The range is clear for the demonstration."