Read Online The Guardians of Sol by Spencer Kettenring - Free Book Online

think we call Sergeant Mace “Shot-put” because he competed in his younger days?” Which he did, but that wasn’t the reason for his call sign.
    “Hm… Good a reason as any, I suppose. Anyway, I think we have something that should fit your squad’s new moniker quite nicely. Follow me.”
    We traversed to yet another area, to the experimental section of the surprisingly large engineering bay. Behind a Blind door, which shielded the rest of the bay from sound, light, and occasionally blasts of radiation; we came to an area with rubble piled in the corners and several stacks of concrete bricks with metal sheets stretched over one side. Strangely there were several sledge hammers leaning on a rack by the doorway.
    “Stay here for a second,” Ruiz told me as he went through another doorway to an observation room. “Alright, now, take hold of the sledge with the wood handle, and give that first stack a good whack.”
    I did as I was told, hitting the metal plating with all my might. All the blow did was numb my arms for a few moments. I turned to the observation window, and I am sure I looked strange, trying to glare and express my confusion at the same time.
    “Don’t worry, that was supposed to happen. You might have chipped or broken some of the concrete but that metal is part of a sample of the Adamantium alloy we put over your armor’s vital areas. No way could you expect to even dent it with that thing. Now, grab one of the ones with metal handles, and hold on for a second.” Ruiz hit a few buttons on his control board, before turning back to me. “Go ahead and hit the stack again; you don’t even have to hit it that hard.”
    I shrugged, and slammed the new hammer into the metal plate. The bricks behind it practically exploded, and what was left of the base was instantly turned into dust. The plate still stood tall, quivering slightly. I looked from the hammer to the rubble, and back, amazed. Then I turned to give Ruiz a huge grin. This was the best thing that I had seen since Haywire and Shot-put had used stolen chemicals from the research base to blow up a tree stump during one of our off duty shifts. A thought occurred to me, though.
    “This isn’t going to make me go sterile, is it?”
    “Always get the smartasses. Non-ionizing radiation is fine and specialized and even if it did cause problems there are treatments for that kind of thing now…” The man grumbled under his breath.
    “I heard that,” I told him, but I was mollified.
    “Just a moment, Castle,” Ruiz hit a few more keys. “Hit the plate again, if you will.”
    With much greater enthusiasm, I hit the nigh indestructible metal. This time, the effect was not as immediate, but the plate let out a long ringing wail that quickly increased in volume. After a few seconds, a crack appeared, and then another, and yet another. Finally the whole plate shattered, more like glass than the most durable substance yet created by man.
    My eyes may have gotten rather large from awe and general amazement; I couldn’t even bring myself to utter the few words I was thinking: “I want this.” With a silly grin on my face I just kept looking back and forth from the hammer to Ruiz sitting contentedly in his booth.
    Back in Ruiz’s office, he handed me a few data pads. “Just sign those and we can begin fabricating the hammers for your team. It will take us a couple more weeks to build and integrate them into your weapons array so that they can draw power from the reactors like the rest of your armaments, instead of having to use a battery. I would also suggest getting some practice in with some two-handed hammers if you’re sure this is what you want. ”
    “Oh, I’m sure. Sounds great, and my team really will need the time to get used to fighting with war hammers,” I remarked, signing my thumb to the appropriate options on the pads.
    “Yeah, yeah, just don’t do anything too stupid in the meantime.”
    “Good doing business with you, Chief…