Eden's Hammer - By Lloyd Tackitt Page 0,45
leaders throughout history.
“It’s my firm belief that you are of that quality, and it’s backed up by what I’ve been hearing from the troops. You have my complete confidence and trust, and I feel good about you having my back. It’s a solid feeling knowing you’re here and that I can rely on you. Now I think it’s time for you to go out on a scout and see the enemy for yourself. Choose who you want to go with you— it’s your choice—and be back in short order. I’ll keep the training going while you’re gone.”
Linda’s head was reeling. She felt an involuntary surge of pride and confidence welling up from Adrian’s faith in her. She suspected that was exactly what he had intended, to bolster her confidence in herself, but the feeling was undeniably heady all the same. Suddenly, she realized that she would march into Hell with a bucket of water if he asked her to. This, she thought to herself, this is what a good leader does; he motivates by showing trust and respect. I’ll take this as a lesson and use the same technique myself. He’s proving his trust in me by sending me out on a scouting mission, choosing my own people to go with me. Damn, he’s good at this.
Linda said, “Thank you General. I promise, I will not let you down.” Her smile was kept on the inside as she said it.
“Good. I don’t expect you to. Now let’s go over the duty roster name by name. I want to know what you think of each person.”
Later that day, Matt invited Adrian and Linda to observe a test firing of his pipe cannon. “This is basically a large single shot shotgun. It can be reloaded and reused, but it takes two people half an hour to set it up again—too long for any battle I can think of. As you can see, I’ve set pieces of plywood downrange to get an idea of the maximum effective range as measured by spread of the chain sections. My calculations indicate that the best range will be forty yards. The cannon has rudimentary sights welded on top for horizontal alignment. Elevation is set by using this carpenter’s level. At forty yards, we’ll need only a few degrees of muzzle elevation for the chains to hit at a three-foot height. I’ve estimated the muzzle elevation at ten degrees. I’ll measure where the chains actually hit and recalculate from that. Once I know for sure, the level will be marked to show the leading edge of the bubble. This test will also give me an idea of the most efficient length and number of chains to load. These are eight inches long. I love the way the chains can be rolled up and then loaded; they go in very compactly, so I can get a lot of them in there.
“Fully loaded, this thing weighs in at one hundred and sixty pounds. I’d thought I could do it under one hundred pounds, but I can’t. Still, if three women shoulder this, they’ll each be carrying fifty-three pounds. Put four women under it, and they’ll be shouldering forty pounds. It’s very portable. I’ve also welded lugs on each side of the barrel to tie off with. If the cannon isn’t anchored, the recoil could throw the barrel back several feet. An easy way to anchor it is by doing it the way I have for this test. Two spiral anchors—like these that were used for mobile home tie downs—are screwed into the ground using a longbar for leverage, and then the cables are connected from the anchor on each side to the lug on each side. It only takes a few minutes to set the whole thing up. Sandbags, tree trunks, rock piles—almost anything can be used to rest the barrel on. But I think I have time to weld adjustable bi-pods on them like this one. Two pieces of pipe, one just small enough to slide inside the other, with holes drilled through them and a pin inserted through the holes make it easy to set these up.
“Firing it is as easy as pushing a button. Instead of using capacitors, I’ve used a nine-volt battery. I found some while looking for the chainsaw chains. Okay, ready to see it go boom? Stand back over there and cover your ears.”
Linda and Adrian stepped away as he’d suggested. Matt followed them, stringing out wire. “I’m certain it’s safe to stand