A Dance of Two Worlds

Love or No Love

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Love or No Love

When your world is at stake, you don't shy away from even fighting destiny

Elisium

5L 21/19/5/5

"Wow! Jennifer never thought we had such high-quality weapons."

Jennifer was having a close look at a snipe rifle. Her father had brought her to the weapons manufacturing unit for David's Army.

"That is one of the most lethal weapons we have," A young man said walking towards her. "The Star-Rock pellets fired from this rifle blow the target into pieces."

"He is James, the great-grandson of Matthews and in charge of this facility." George introduced him to his daughter. "I have to admit that all the children of Matthews are born with genius brains. That has been the case for many generations now."

Jennifer offered him her hand but James just kept staring at her face.

Another star-struck young man? Did you think that because he is a nerdy scientist he would be a little different? All these men see a halo around your head. You are not a girl to them, you are their savior angel. Their Holy Mother. Jennifer shook her head and audibly cleared her throat.

"Oh sorry, I am so so sorry." James stammered and fumbled with her hand.

Jennifer sensed his unease and tried to strike a conversation. "Tell me one thing James, the looters didn't pass us the technology to develop the weapons. So how did we end up making such good guns?"

James straightened his back and lifted his head. This seemed like his favorite topic. "The first delegation had brought few guns with them that were confiscated. Grandpa Matthews began experimenting with them and was able to replicate their designs. With the help of a few weapon-smiths, he was able to make a couple of guns that worked fine. He asked the Council for some funds to develop more weapons, but they weren't too serious about the threat from Aden and dismissed his request. You know that some of them called him a traitor because of his connections with Andrews. So those guns made by Matthews were dumped and never used in war."

"Then how did we develop these kinds of guns?"

"The formation of David's army prioritized the need for good weapons. My grandfather took out those Matthews's guns that had passed down the generations, and after a little bit of servicing they turned out to be in working condition. He also found some blueprints on how to make these guns. But along with these notes, my grandfather unearthed something much more interesting."

"What did he find?" Jennifer leaned forward to ask.

"He discovered the logs of Andrews's and Matthews's secret experiments on the military usage of the Star-Rocks. They had found out that when the Star-Rock is coated with a certain compound and shot at high speed it undergoes a chemical reaction that causes an explosion after hitting a surface. The quicker it is shot, the larger the explosion."

"Then why doesn't the Star-Rock explode when we burn it as fuel?"

"When we burn it, there is a steady chemical reaction, but when we shoot it from a gun, the gunpowder triggers the chemical reaction that turns volatile due to the fast traveling speed. There is a huge build-up of energy that is released in form of an explosion. During the Catastrophe, these rocks fell from the sky at enormous speed and as a result, had tremendous energy built up in them. That is why they blew up everything inside the Capital. Matthews and Andrews used this same principle and we followed their line of these experiments to develop our guns. And as you can see they work quite well."