| Chapter Seventeen - The Aether is Mightier than the Sword |
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Pulling hard on the rope before me released the guillotine, which came down through the air shrieking like a banshee, to be met with only a dull thud as it struck the alien armour. I sighed and wrote in my test log, "...sharpened cavalry sword dropped from height of 48 inches - effect on armour unnoticeable". "Damn!" I muttered in an ill-tempered manner. Since returning from the seabed, I had eaten lunch rapidly before retiring to my laboratory aboard our craft. I had then spent the last hour exerting various attacks upon a piece of one of the alien uniforms. So far a range of weaponry dropped at various speeds had done naught to effect damage upon the strange grey substance before me. Study under a microscope had revealed a crystalline structure, but this was of no more use to me than letting an infant see the inside of a computational engine and then asking him to replicate it. Walking to the bridge I stood watching Will glide us through the clouds, the steady growl of the engines driving us ever onward. Taking to my seat I drew out a pad and pencil and began to sketch random bits of ideas and innovations. This was often my way of getting the correct mindset for invention.
It had occured to me that so far the only way I had found of breaking through materials consistently was by immense heat, as Will had found when using my gas torch on the pipes. Anything, it seemed, could be melted given sufficient temperatures. I sketched out various heat sources that sprung to mind, none of which seemed of any use for now as a weapon. I had decided that it would be necessary for us to develop some form of hand to hand combat weaponry for use against the invaders. Though my Nex Eversor had proved a formidable weapon for now, I knew that in combat more often than not ranges would be closed, and the bayonet or sword would come into use once more as in the battles of old. "Inventors block Cap?" inquired Will light heartedly. I merely smiled grimly and nodded before heading back to my laboratory. I decided to look at my research up until this juncture, from a logical stand point. So far, I knew that I needed large amounts of heat to be focused into a weapon somewhat like a gas torch. I knew that taking the entire torch into combat was not the solution. Flicking through my fathers notebook I came across a section on what he called "extranaturally agitated aether states". I remembered the tests we had done on this phenomenon and at once I felt the resistant cogs in my mind turning - this was the key I felt sure. I heard Will rush into the room as I threw around materials and tools in my rush to cobble together a working aether exciter for testing. "New idea Cap? Time for an Earl Grey I'll venture!" he departed from the room as I pulled down my goggles and fired up the gas torch. After quite some time had passed I called Will into the lab for a demonstration of my new device. It was a marvellous piece of engineering though I say it myself. A pair of small pressurised canisters when activated released two gases. The first gas issued from a ring shaped outlet, followed by the second gas, which issued from a hole in the middle of the ring, making the first gas shield it from outside influences. In the center of the outlet for the second gas protruded a small metal spike. "Well Cap, it certainly looks interesting but it doesn't quite seem to have the beef of your torch". Will flipped down his goggles and passed the torch slowly through a corner of the steel plate making it drop off. "Appearances can however be deceiving Will my boy. Observe..." I adjusted my goggles and pulled the trigger on the device in my hand. Slowly I brought it into contact with steel plate's center, grinning with joy as the EAAS device almost instantly melted most of the center of the plate away to a smoking molten slag. "That Will, is power, and now I just need to find a way to harness it fully". I spent the long hours of the night drilling, filing and welding - the metal sword I began with now becoming unrecognisable. A cheap infantry sabre, I had brought it with me purely for sword practise and yet now under my hand and with the application of science it had turned into something far more than the sum of its parts. I hung a piece of one of the alien unforms on a piece of wood that I had propped against a metal pole. I first struck at the armour with another sword and noted that as expected there was no damage whatsoever. I put down the basic and now old fashioned looking sword. Reaching for the new weapon I clasped it in my hand, swung the sword at the target and pulled the trigger just before impact. A strange noise issued from the weapon like a dragon gasping for breath, a hot crackling noise that sounded as if it came from down a deep well, before the weapons agitated aether spat forth its firey stream. The target, part sliced and part melted, fell clattering to the floor. I whistled between my teeth, put down the sword carefully in its stand and walked into the cockpit. The cockpit was empty, the craft drifting silently through the dark hours before the dawn. Watching the passage of the water below us, the moon far above and feeling for the first time a wish for home. I suddenly felt tired and knowing that in a short few hours we would be arriving in India I decided to retire to my sleeping quarters. |
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