Tunnel Rat-Chapter 385: "Ssssssss is sneaky, like a Snake, and we don’t like Snakes."

Somewhere between Limburger Hollow and the Engineer Outpost...

"Back it out! The drill head is overheating again! We melt another one and we'll fall even further behind!"

With much cursing and arguing, the Tunnel Tyrant crew disengaged the drill head's power and reversed the treads, slowly backing their machine into the large cavern a hundred feet behind them. The drill head was red hot in places, the result of spinning in place when the drill couldn't gain leverage against the hard rock layers they were hitting. Engineers armed with picks and blasting charges entered the tunnel, protected by their environmental suits. They emerged ten minutes later, moving at a jog. The other Engineers backed away from the hole. The small explosion blasted only a few bits of rock out of the hole, along with clouds of dust that filled the cavern.

"Blast it, where was the signal for setting off a charge?"

"Did you see us jogging and get out of the way?"

"Of course, we're not idiots!"

"See? Jogging is the signal. You think I'd move that fast for anything else?"

"Beer...lunch...cute pirates?"

"Err, point taken...we'll send someone out to warn you next time. This time we had a bet going on who could move the fastest in their suit."

"Ah, I can forgive you then. You were testing your equipment. So what did we hit this time?"

Another Engineer came over, holding a dark chunk of stone. "We're running into small veins of gneiss. The point of the drill is softer than the rock and it can't gain ground. The machine has the power we need, but we're going to need to mount a tougher drill."

"Which no one is going to give us. We'll need to put some thought into how to upgrade from Dark Steel to Hammer Steel. Can we move forward at all while half the team works on that?"

"Aye, we mined around the gneiss and then set off the blasting charge. The gneiss is a small enough layer that we can break through with Hammer Steel picks, but I wouldn't want to do it without the extra strength from the suits. Tough stuff."

"Fine, that's the plan then. Half of us will build a better drill head, the other half will use the drill when they can and picks when they can't. But that drill needs to cool down."

Foll𝑜w current novels on fɾēewebnσveℓ.com.

"Great, time for lunch and a few cold brews to keep our strength up."

"Race you!"

The crew of the Tunnel Tyrant jogged off for refueling, leaving their drill behind to slowly cool down.

A hundred feet over and a quarter mile back, The Pickaxe Express was grinding slowly along. The front of the machine used a circle of pickaxes that hammered away at the rock wall and slowly rotated. Rock fell onto a scoop at the front of the machine and was moved to the rear by conveyor belts. The machine was tireless, grinding away like a dozen miners, each stroke of a pick the shattering rock, but after four hours, the pace had slowed to only 37%.

"Pull her back and get some eyes on the front end. Something's wrong and it's getting worse."

The dwarven crew swarmed over the front of the machine and began to check over the Hammer Steel picks and mechanical arms, arguing as they measured each component and manually moved them through their arcs, measuring the angles at which they hit the rock, and checking their lubricants.

"Found the problem. Number 7 arm is three degrees off, the metal is slowly deforming. I told you we needed to line up the arms properly."

"That you did, at least seven times. And seven times I said that wouldn't leave enough room for the lubricant lines."

"And the picks would hit at an angle that would wear away one side, putting torque on the arms and deforming them."

"How are the picks?"

"Warn away on one side because the arms are at the wrong angles."

"And there's a hole in the bucket, dear Martha, a hole."

There was a pause, and then several voices yelling, "Shut up!"

"So, we rework the whole design, or get used to a two-hour break when one or more things screws up the efficiency of the machine and we replace parts."

"Two hours is unacceptable!"

"We already reworked the design three times. I say we start from scratch."

Sprocket was looking at the arms, then the part they bolted to. "Anyone ever watch the Gremlins race down in Nurburgring?"

That got him some confused looks, but Cogswell was curious, "No, and I question why you bring that up. Tell us about Gremlin's racing in Nurburgring."

"Well, the little suckers are harsh on their carriages. They don't go around obstacles, just drive over them. Hard on the wheels, axles, shock absorbers, and everything else. So when they come in for a pit stop, four of the pit crew unbolt the top, and they drop it onto a new undercarriage. Slick as can be. The old undercarriage goes to the repair shop. They keep a half-dozen ready for each race. I'm thinking we could do the same thing here."

"With the arms? That's still a lot of swaps, and each one is different."

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Hell no, he's talking about the whole assembly! We back the machine, pop a few bolts, and have a movable winch take away the old one, and the second winch positions the replacement. I bet we can do that in five minutes."

"Any better ideas? Fine, let's get some beer in us, design the new look, and get to work. We'll cast a few hundred of each of the parts we need and make an assembly line for the new pick and arm assemblies. This time tomorrow we'll be moving ahead at full steam."

"Race you to the beer."

Even further behind was the team running the Steel Wurm. This tunneler was a hollow steel cylinder with a circular cutting disc at the front. The disc spun like a rotating cheese grater, the ridges scraping away rock and dirt, then forcing it through holes in the disc. Several problems had popped up early with its deployment. The ridges wore down quickly and needed to be made of a harder material. The cutting head was removed, and rather than being cast from Dark Steel, a new one was made from Hammer Steel. Hammer Steel could not be cast. It was an alloy of several metals pounded together using drop hammers, folded, and pounded again. A large square of Hammer Steel was first cut into a disc, then interior cuts were made to form the rides. Each ridge was pounded out using smaller drop hammers or using the sheer muscle power of the stronger dwarven smiths. This new head worked well when bolted to the machine, and work on a second was begun.

The next problem was the length of the machine. It was so long that changing direction meant pulling it back to an area where it could be pivoted and aimed differently. They redesigned the driller, giving it the ability to change direction within a drill hole. Every four feet was a flexible joint that would let the Wurm slowly flex and change direction, each section following the next. When this was fixed, they attacked the problem of the over-engineered power train. The cutting disc spun too quickly, and the debris clogged the center of the machine. It went against their instincts to ever make a machine less powerful, but it had to be done. Control runes were added to cut down the flow of fuel and oxygen to the boiler to control the power. With these problems done, Steel Wurm began to catch up with its competitors.

Peen Hammer and his crew were coordinating with all three crews and helping them with design problems and sourcing materials. The other crews were amazed that somehow, Peenhammer had no trouble talking Sledgemonkey into giving him the materials needed for their redesigns. The odds of which dwarven team would make it to the halfway point first moved up and down. By contrast, it seemed the Ratkin drillers weren't moving and must have hit some obstacle. The dwarven crews were working around the clock now, only stopping for beer, food, and bragging about their machines.

Milo was spending his morning with the girls. Brutus had peeked at his foot and declared he needed another day. "You've got hard bones and tough skin, that can slow things up. Plus, that was a nasty burn, and those take a little more time."

As he was sitting and itching, Georgie ran up with the strange book and then the four silvery eggs. He was guarding them like a mother hen and curling up around them. The girls were immediately curious.

"Shiny! What are those?"

"Eggs? Like the eggs momma cooks from cave geese? Those don't look like goose eggs. Too little."

"Those are scarab eggs. I think they'll look like the ones we fought, but without the yucky stuff. This book is about training them as pets."

There was a moment of silence, and the two little fiends turned to look at Georgie. "But Georgie is a pet! Can pets have pets?"

Milo shrugged. "We'll find out. I mean, after all, who is going to take care of them except Georgie? Your Dad is a busy guard, and I have a pet already."

They jumped up and down, excited. "We want pets. We'll help."

Milo shook his head. "Sorry, but you need to read this book, and to read the book, you need to practice your letters and learn to read."

"Letters make my head hurt!"

"Arrrrss are hard to remember, and you sound like a pirate, and eee and efff are the same!"

"Ssssssss is sneaky, like a Snake, and we don't like Snakes."

"Georgie doesn't know how to read..."

The watch lizard growled and walked toward them, then used a sharp claw to make a G on the floor. Having defended his honor, he turned, flipped his tail at them, and went back to the eggs. Milo handed each of them a slate and chalk, which had been in the Wagon.

"Who wants to learn to read and get a pet?" Two little fiends sighed and raised their hands. Brutus returned from patrol to see Milo seated between them, slowly reading the book to them and pointing out the letters as they went, making them practice. Brutus made sure not to disturb them. His wife had been dubious of him taking the girls on expeditions, especially after they learned about cage matches. If Milo could teach them their letters, it would go a long way to getting him out of trouble and opening up a new world for them.