Hot rail to hell deluxe.., p.1
Hot Rail to Hell Deluxe Edition (Conversant USA), page 1
Other Cenotaph Road Digital Books
by
Robert E. Vardeman
Science Fiction
Weapons of Chaos trilogy
Biowarriors trilogy
Star Frontiers trilogy
Moonlight in the Meg
Fantasy
Swords of Raemllyn (9 titles with Geo. W. Proctor)
After the Spell Wars trilogy
The Stink of Flesh
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The Resonance of Blood
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A Career Guide to Your Job in Hell
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Other titles, including short stories
Hot Rail to Hell
A Conversant USA Mission
by
Robert E. Vardeman
Author of Weapons of Chaos
CenotaphRoad.com
Hot Rail to Hell is © 2011 The Cenotaph Corporation
cover © 2011 The Cenotaph Corporation
photos used from Dreamstime,
composition done by Paulito Santos
The author has worked hard on this novel and hopes you enjoy it. Please visit the Cenotaph Road Store for other stories. Purchase there and become a patron of the arts by encouraging the author to write more by directly putting money into his otherwise lint-filled pocket. Visit the author's Web site for further information of what's been written and what is forthcoming.
If you find a typo or other errors and want to report them, send along an email to HotRail@cenotaphroad.com I'll try to correct them in future editions. Thanks.
Dedication
To Lyle Kenyon Engel for creating the original Baroness series and all those readers who enjoyed them and remained loyal fans over the years.
The usual "this book wouldn't have been possible without" is especially true with Hot Rail to Hell. Pauli Santos goaded me into writing the book, worked as first reader, made cogent suggestions (mostly used) and contributed his marvelous artistic talents to the composition of the cover. Thanks, Pauli.
Chapter One
"Kill the power! Stop the test!" Leonard Angel looked up from the readouts to be sure the technicians obeyed. His heart felt as if it would explode from the strain, and when he saw the spike on the thermocouple monitoring temperature for the superconducting rail his heart skipped a beat. He gasped for breath and knew his diagnosed arrhythmia was the culprit. A quick fumble in his shirt pocket, pushing aside a picket fence of pens and receipts from too many fast food joints, and he found his pills. He gobbled two of the yellow pills without water. The bitter taste went unnoticed this time.
Angel felt as if he would puke all over the controls when out of the corner of his eye he saw the flash of a khaki uniform and a hat covered with scrambled eggs. Captain Wellington was the naval officer in charge of this test and would want an explanation for the emergency shutdown.
"What went wrong, Doctor?" The naval officer's voice was deep and the barely restrained anger made Angel want to take a couple more of his heart pills. Or maybe just stroking out here and now would be the best he could do. Angel wasn't sure. If he had time, he could run the numbers and do the evaluations. But that was his problem. Time. He had run out of it with too many delays, and now the test shutdown threatened that timetable even more.
"We need to go over the equipment to see, Captain," he said. "A temperature spike ought to have shut down the test automatically but didn't. I ordered a manual shutdown."
"Is the problem in your superconducting rail again?"
The accusation cut to the bone and sent Angel's heart racing again. He swung around, shoved off from the chair arms and stood, staring up from his five-foot-eight height to the officer's six feet. Wellington had silently intimidated him too long, as he expertly used height to dominate those he thought to be his inferiors. Like Leo Angel. No more.
"It might well be instrumentation downrange. Your responsibility, Captain."
"I didn't shut down the test. Everything is fine on the Navy's side." The officer glanced to his left to a subordinate. Angel had never been allowed to speak with the commander but thought he was Wellington's technical adviser. The captain's background was in moving supplies. Angel tried not to think of him as the man in charge of toilet paper for the Pacific Fleet before being assigned to China Lake Naval Research Station as range safety officer, but he found it hard not to. Wellington demanded perfection, and the reason tests were run, especially out here in the godforsaken California desert, was to find where problems arose. The more mistakes found here, the fewer there would be when the weapons system was put into service aboard ships of the line.
Angel hated the idea, but the rail gun might actually explode. Unusual principles were being developed, tested, improved. Failures were part of the process. No advanced weapons system sprang like Minerva from the brain of Jupiter, fully conceived and without a mother. SC Research had developed a high temperature superconductor more than a year earlier that produced an incredible magnetic field perfect for sending a projectile along that superconducting track at high speed. The bigger the magnetic field generated in the superconductor, the faster the delivery of the missile. Angel had calculated his design could send a thousand-kilo warhead more than five hundred kilometers at supersonic speeds.
A naval warship could stand offshore and lob incredible payloads of explosives, conventional or nuclear, with pinpoint precision. Each firing cost a fraction of the price of a million-dollar Tomahawk cruise missile.
Angel became distracted. Part of his proposal was launching a cruise missile with the rail gun, then igniting the cruise missile's engine hundreds of kilometers away from the launching ship. Even orbiting detectors wouldn't be able to pinpoint the launch site using only heat sensors. Anything that forced the enemy to employ more sophisticated, more expensive detectors that might fail through complexity was a worthy goal.
"Doctor!"
"Sorry, Captain," Angel said. He felt the drugs slowing his heart and returning his blood pressure to normal. For this situation that might be 170/120, but it was still better than it had been when he ordered the test scrubbed.
"The Pentagon wants results now."
"Tell them what I've been telling you," Angel said, moving an inch closer and stopping short of bumping his chest aggressively against the officer's with all the fruit salad of ribbons on it. "The reason we test is to find problems."
"But you don't know what the problem is." The commander who followed the captain like a pilot fish near a shark poked about on the main control panel.
"It might be nothing more than a faulty thermocouple. A break in the circuit would show a temperature change." Angel considered telling the commander to step away, but he held his tongue.
"But you don't know. Report to me when you find out," snapped the officer. He performed a smart about-face and marched out of the control room. The commander pursed his lips, then tch-tch-tch'd before following his superior.
Angel watched the naval officers vanish through the heavy test bunker door, then sagged. All his ligaments might have been snipped in that moment.
"You want to get a team out to the site?"
Angel turned to his head technician. Lara Velazquez never got ruffled, no matter if the test failed or was a fantastic success. At least Angel thought that was the way she would react to a success. There hadn't been any significant ones so far. He had hired her away from Lockheed-Martin and was glad he hadn't scrimped on her salary.
"Find Hugh and go over the equipment with a fine-tooth comb. It might be nothing more than a broken bead in a thermocouple, but I need to be sure."
"Where is Doctor Flynt?" she asked. "He wasn't at his post during the test."
"Don't go spreading lies about me, now, you hear, Lara?" A laugh that echoed more like a cackling hen filled the room, making the others turn to look. Hugh Flynt waved to them, as if he were the grand marshal of the Rose Parade and they were his adoring onlookers.
"You weren't at your post, Doctor," Lara Velasquez said, her lips thinning as she kept her temper under control.
Angel wondered what she wanted to say but didn't. There wasn't time to deal with personnel matters. His heart began pounding again, warning he was getting stressed. Taking on too much with SCR wore on him. He was CEO, virtually CFO, was certainly head of research and development and here he was out in the miserable hot desert wrangling equipment that failed—and might never work. If the rail gun didn't produce results within the parameters he had promised to win the government contract, he would be ruined. His house, his car, everything he owed . . . all would be forfeited.
It had been so long since he'd been home he wasn't sure he hadn't already lost his wife and son, though Tom Angel was a teenager and going through "that phase." Nothing his father did was enough, or it was too much. There was never a balance, and there wouldn't be until he was out of high school in a year.
Leonard Angel hoped he lived long enough to see his son graduate—and speak with him in a civil tone again. At the moment, he wasn't putting money on that bet. His heart trip hammered and pressure from rising blood pressure pressed into his ears, causing a loud ringing.
"We'll discuss your absence later, Hugh. Now we need to check instrumentation first, then go on to the actual rail conductors and magnetic switches along the track. Save checking the carriage for last."
"You look a fright, Leo," Hugh Fly
"Doctor!" It was Lara Velasquez who protested. Angel was struggling to breathe. "That was uncalled for."
"You and him getting it on?" Flynt laughed harshly. "Can't see that. You look like the kind who'd go for kinky stuff, not plain vanilla sex he'd want, though he might go for a blowjob. Would you?"
"That's outrageous! I'm filing sexual harassment charges, Doctor," she said.
"Go for it, chica. I need something to keep me occupied. This project isn't doing it for me."
Angel grabbed Flynt's arm and swung him around.
"Apologize or I'll countersign her lawsuit."
"Aw, Leo, just blowing smoke up your ass." Flynt looked over the shorter scientist and leered. "Wouldn't mind blowing smoke up her ass." He laughed. "Relax. You know you won't sign anything like that, and you won't testify for her. The company'd be ruined. You'd be ruined, and it wouldn't have anything to do with your crappy superconductors. Carbon nanotubes. CNTs are not the way to go, not at all. You should have taken my suggestion and gone with that niobium compound."
"The one you patented and wouldn't lease to SCR unless I gave you enough to pay off California's entire sovereign debt?" Angel asked.
Flynt just shrugged and gave his sneer.
"I won't go out there with him. I'll quit first," Lara said.
Angel started to order her to go since she was the best tech he had, involved in every stage of the experiment, then realized she wasn't kidding. Flynt might be, though it wasn't apparent. He knew he'd have to fire Flynt soon, but he needed him right now.
As if the scientist read the panicky thought, he said, "Yeah, you do. I ought to put in for a bonus, but if she goes, that'll be bonus enough. How about you lean waaay over for me and get those britches of yours nice and tight on your butt?"
"I quit!"
"Wait, Lara, wait," Angel said. He felt everything crashing around his head. "You stay and run the diagnostics here. I'll go check the sensors."
"With me? I'm honored. The head of the company come to be my technician," Flynt said.
Angel saw how angry Lara was, and he didn't blame her. But she cooled down and pointedly turned to begin the check sequences.
"Let's go," Angel said, "and I swear you'll walk to Barstow if you say one word I don't like."
"What's a hundred miles in the desert heat? It beats going to the command center the Navy's got. What a hole. Five hundred sailors stuffed into a couple tin buildings, except the officers, of course. They've got a nice officers club." Flynt blew Lara a kiss, then followed Angel from the control room, down a concrete hall to a double door system intended to control not only temperature inside the bunker but also to act as blast doors.
As Leonard Angel opened the outer door, it felt as if someone smashed him in the face with a flaming pillow. Every part of his exposed skin tingled and burned from the intense heat. It had to be a hundred-ten outside. He wilted a little, then heard Flynt behind him and knew he couldn't show any weakness. The other scientist would use it against him, mock him, make him feel worse than he already did.
"You drive, Hugh. I'll go over the schematics to pinpoint the best place to begin at the test."
"Yeah, it's a stick shift. Doubt a big time scientist like you ever learned how to drive anything but an automatic."
"What the hell's wrong, Hugh? You are going out of your way to be a prick."
"Maybe that's the problem. My prick's not getting much action out here. I miss being back at HQ." Something about the plaintive quality made Angel perk up. He skirted hearing what actually bothered Flynt. It had to be more than the isolation at China Lake because his prickliness had gotten worse before they left Silicon Valley a week earlier. It was as if the strain affected him differently than it did Angel, but somehow Leo doubted that. Hugh had never been the worrying kind.
But then he had never been the arrogant misogynist son of a bitch kind until a month or two earlier, either.
Flynt slid behind the wheel and keyed the pickup truck to life. Angel barely had time to scoot into the passenger side before Flynt roared off in a choking cloud of yellow dust.
"There's more to your attitude than that."
"So fire me."
"You know I need you. Where would I get another researcher with your skill set?"
"Yeah, where? Not out here." Flynt gestured to the barren alkali plain that was flat to the horizon. In the far distance rose Maturango Peak in the middle of the Argus Mountains, but it was a day's drive in this weather. When the Navy had chosen this for a test site, they had sequestered themselves in the Devil's fiery crotch. An active radar system constantly monitored the airspace to keep out snoops, though most intruders were flying from Fresno and San Francisco through on their way to Groom Lake in Area 51 and had scant interest in the more open test range.
He had heard various countermeasures were used to hide what they did from Russian and Chinese surveillance satellites, though he had seen some detailed pictures from the civilian sats such as SPOT and Landsat. Range security was the Navy's responsibility, just as it was his to keep his staff worthy of their top secret clearances.
Flynt drove along the road at breakneck speed, then crammed on the brakes less than three minutes after he first tromped on the gas pedal. Skidding to a halt, he was out before the engine died.
The test unit looked simple enough. A single superconducting rail stretched twenty meters. Most units used dual rails. Angel hoped the single rail design could double the effectiveness of his proto-weapon. Two rail guns for the price of one. Twice the payload delivered in the same cycle time.
The rail shined brightly in the bright desert sun. The carbon composite material inside the stainless steel tube held nanotubes all precisely aligned to become superconducting at close to room temperature. Pressurized liquid nitrogen dewars—man-tall thermos bottles keeping the nitrogen liquid—fed into what looked like a common garden hose stretched along either side of the rail. Although the superconductor was high temperature that didn't mean it operated at room temperature—or at the desert heat. The Navy had insisted on China Lake for a worst-case test. Angel had to admit they had been successful in that. He couldn't imagine a worse place to test a liquid nitrogen cooled superconductor that had to be at 77 degree Kelvin in spite of 320 degree K heat.
"At least the shed roof over the dewars works," Flynt said sarcastically.
"Get to it. I don't like being out here in the middle of the day." Sweat already plastered Angel's shirt to his pudgy frame, and he strained to breathe. He rummaged in the truck cab and found under the uncomfortable seat a gimme cap with an LA Dodger's logo. It wasn't much protection but would keep the top of his balding head from getting sunburned.
"You got the key to open the telemetry box?"
"What? Oh, yeah, here. Lara gave it to me before the test." Angel fumbled at a large key ring and found the right key. It was more complex than that for an automobile's electronic ignition system. He had lost his car key and had paid almost a thousand dollars to get it replaced. That had given him the idea of using a similar system for his monitoring equipment. He didn't trust the Navy pukes and wouldn't put it past Captain Wellington to steal the data just to cut SCR out of the picture. Once a civilian contractor was thrown off the reservation, who could say what projects the Navy might pursue? Even one stolen from that same contractor.
Angel mopped at his forehead using his shirt sleeve until it was wringing wet. He was getting more paranoid by the day, and why not? Nothing worked right.
And it should. He had gone over his calculations a hundred times and everything was perfect. The rail gun was exactly what the Navy needed to replace not only the Tomahawks but also their Aegis defense system. Those SM-3 anti-ballistic missiles currently used were potent but expensive as hell. And if they missed, the ship was vulnerable. Even using the computer controlled backup MK-15 Phalanx high cyclic rate 20mm gatlings were effective over only a close range. The SCR rail gun could knock down an incoming fighter or even an anti-ship missile at extreme range. And Angel was sure it could match the MK-15 because a warhead could be hurled out filled with a ton of flechettes in a deadly shotgun pattern. As Angel began checking the connections on the pumps feeding the liquid nitrogen to the superconducting rail, he wondered how effective it would be using the already developed SCMITR. Double duty. A weapon already available delivered better, faster and cheaper.
