LUX-4: Interplanetary (LUX and the New TECH) by Ken Pence

Author:Ken Pence [Pence, Ken]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2023-03-31T00:00:00+00:00

Spitballs from Hell

Lux was going over circuits with Anna. He sent the files to have the circuits printed that would go in the 1.5 cm balls. The ball shells were being printed in Lux’s hangar. The many layers of the shell and magnet wire coils on the inside left little room for the circuits and the supercapacitor that powered everything. The integrated circuit was essentially just a timer and oscillator that would vary power for the short time it was turned on. The supercapacitor would be charged when the ball was passing through the tube. The ball would turn on as it got out of proximity to the ship. It used powerful springs to fling the balls forward. The balls would be programmed to stay on for the time it would take them to reach just past a target. They could be set to stay on longer if needed. The balls would vary from minimally on to high power - thousands of times a second. They would go through any matter, making 2 cm holes and then dissolving so they couldn’t be analyzed.

Lux took the first one that was assembled and placed it in a little spring contraption. He gingerly charged the ball and released the spring, which was supposed to send the ball through the tube. The ball turned on before leaving the tube and sheered away the bottom of the tube, and went 20 meters into the ground. His hands shook a bit. He went into the circuit programming, found the glitch, and rewrote the code. He planned to use this as a close-in weapon in space. The projectile ball would cut through any matter and be light enough that it wouldn’t cause significant recoil. It still wasn’t working right. He got disgusted at himself and went over to the side of the bunker where Rodney and Robert were practicing pistol disarming with Shilea, Ford, and Marie. Lux slid on some goggles so he could watch.

The guns looked real and cycled but only shot little yellow pellets. He had an epiphany. “Rodney. Do you have any of the rechargeable ones we use? I need to dissect one. Do you know the specs on these that use the four AAA batteries?” Lux asked.

Robert answered instead of Rodney with a big grin. “These are Ow and Ouch. The rechargeable ones are - DAMN! I’ll get you for that!”

“Thanks. Very enlightening,” Lux said as Rodney handed him the rechargeable model.

Lux started looking at the specifications of the pistol that was made to look like the new US Army sidearm. This one fired little 6 mm plastic pellets. The literature said the pellets traveled at 55 meters per second (180 fps). Lux couldn’t wait to tear down the mechanism and see how it functioned. He took it apart and put the parts on a scanner. Anna adapted the mechanism sizes to accommodate the 1.5 cm projectiles. The pellet projectiles were much larger in diameter. She printed several balls to use as projectiles that weighed nearly the same as the deadly ones.

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