A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [118]
“Run a full analysis and safety check on all tunnel junctures. There’s no telling what—” Then he froze, and his jaw dropped. “The railgun! Shut it down!”
On the surface, the railgun launcher was nearly a kilometer long, precisely aligned and powered with high-energy capacitors, firing solid ingots of ultrapure heavy metals to distant pickup points. As fast as shipments could be loaded, buckets hurled canisters in quick succession out into space. At peak efficiency, the railgun could launch thirty projectiles a minute in an intricately choreographed blur.
Now, along its kilometer length, the seismic shudder had knocked the capacitor-studded beam off its alignment by no more than ten centimeters, the gentlest of bends. But it was enough.
Canister after canister of heavy alloys hurtled down the rail, accelerated magnetodynamically to escape velocity. When the ground shifted, the struts bent and the long launcher became unstable.
Kotto knew they could not possibly shut down the continuous sequence fast enough. He groaned as his mind raced through the consequences, already imagining the worst.
Gradually, gently, the rails bowed. Friction built up. A constant, rapid flow of heavy projectiles slid off the hoppers and onto the launch rail, one every two seconds as the problem worsened.
It took less than half a minute for utter disaster to occur.
One heavy ingot scraped the damaged track, ripping out the capacitors, tearing up the length of the rail. A second and third projectile slammed behind it, knocking the entire system catastrophically off-line.
Kotto didn’t even wait to see the end of the string of impacts. He ran through the tunnels, climbing up ladders until he reached the hot suit-up chamber. He had everything invested in the operations here. Panting, full of urgency, he climbed into a silver reflective suit, sealing his thermal gloves and helmet in place. Panicked thoughts hammered through his skull, and he hoped nobody was out on the surface, in the line of fire.
Before he climbed into the air lock, though, he took two steps back into the harshly lit room. Kotto knew better than to rush out unprepared. He double-checked all the seals and cooling systems, astonished to find one slightly loose connection that might well have turned him into a cinder if he’d skipped this important step before going out to the railgun site.
By the time Kotto got outside and climbed into a terrain buggy, it was much too late. Already, suited engineers were swarming out from the loading bunkers. Ore-processing machinery had ground to a standstill as the workers stared aghast at the ruins of the launcher.
Kotto brought the buggy to a halt and peered through his polarized face shield at what remained of the inoperative railgun. It was a miracle that none of his crew had been killed. That was the most important thing. Still, everything else was a mess.
Many systems on Isperos had been breaking down, and his engineers spent much of their workday patching breaches and repairing overloaded machinery, just to keep the facility operational.
Kotto’s mind worked through this new disaster with a desperate intensity. It was just a problem, and problems could be solved. He had always believed that. Under optimal circumstances, he might have been able to repair the railgun, though it would require rebuilding at least half of the systems. How could he justify it? To do that, he would have to divert all of his maintenance and engineering crews to the job of reconstructing the long, perfect runway.
Would the Roamers tell him to just give up? Could he surrender this massive dream of his? He didn’t want to contemplate that…not out of any bullheaded pride, but because he had always defined failure as “giving up without considering all possible solutions.”
Kotto felt sick in his heart. This place was his challenge, and he would not surrender unless there was no other alternative. With so much falling apart, could he afford the manpower?
As Kotto