Free Web NovelChapter 211: Chapter 204: Reality’s Answer
The fourth prototype had failed twenty-three minutes after dawn.
By noon, nobody in the Titanworks design room had found anything useful to say about it.
The broken feed assembly remained on the central table beside three warped components, a cracked cooling jacket, and the firing report that had ruined several weeks of increasingly confident predictions. Someone had left the final page open where the conclusion had been underlined twice.
Sustained operational reliability: unacceptable.
Brakka sat at the head of the table with both forearms resting beside the ruined mechanism. He had spent the morning at the range, the next two hours arguing with the inspection team, and the last hour discovering that anger did not improve metallurgy.
Ironbreaker occupied the chair opposite him, though he had turned it sideways and was leaning against the back as if conventional seating had become another failed design choice.
Gandalf had stopped pacing some time ago. He now stood beside the window, staring at the distant workshop roofs while the thin smoke rising from Titanworks drifted across them.
Maerath remained the only person in the room who still looked composed.
Brakka distrusted that immediately.
The communication set on the side table carried a faint hiss. Lucien had joined the discussion from Elarion nearly half an hour earlier and had wisely allowed the silence to continue.
Brakka finally picked up the fractured feed guide.
"The first gun overheated."(This is an extension of the anti air gun which ultimately failed )
Ironbreaker grunted. "So we strengthened the barrel."
"The second became too heavy to track properly."
"So we reduced the jacket."
"The third shook its feed loose."
"So we reinforced the feed."
Brakka dropped the broken guide onto the table.
"And the fourth tore the reinforced feed apart."
Gandalf turned from the window. "The firing sequence was longer than the approved test."
"It was twelve seconds longer."
"Twelve seconds under sustained fire is significant."
Brakka looked at him. "The enemy is unlikely to stop attacking because the approved test sequence has ended."
The communication set crackled softly.
Lucien’s voice came through a moment later.
"I assume that means the latest trial did not improve morale."
Ironbreaker leaned closer to the set.
"The gun attempted to distribute its internal parts across the firing range."
"It succeeded," Brakka added. "The distribution was excellent."
There was a brief pause from the other end.
"That bad?"
"The barrel survived," Gandalf said.
Maerath looked at him. "A triumph. Perhaps next time the rest of the gun can join it."
Gandalf ignored him.
The 20 mm weapon had once been close to production. Its first complete model had performed well enough during limited trials that several workshops had begun preparing tools for the initial manufacturing run.
Then the longer firing tests began.
Heat accumulated faster than the calculations had predicted. The barrel remained usable, but the changing temperature altered the action just enough to slow the feed. That delay created uneven cycling, which increased vibration, which damaged the very components that were meant to keep the ammunition moving.
They had corrected one weakness after another.
Every correction had revealed another.
The stronger barrel added weight. The lighter jacket allowed heat to concentrate. The reinforced feed system endured vibration but resisted movement when the weapon elevated sharply. A magical stabilizer solved that problem until mana fluctuations interfered with the firing cycle.
The gun had not failed because anyone had been careless.
It had failed because reality had examined their reasoning and found several places to laugh.(Then it laughed quite hard).
Brakka dragged the latest drawing toward himself.
"Again."
Ironbreaker frowned. "We have already done this again."
"We will continue until one of us says something useful."
"That may take longer than the Great Tear."
Maerath pulled another sheet from the stack.
"The core problem is the mechanical cycle. Every design depends on one action performing too many operations too quickly."
Brakka looked at him. "Your previous answer was to synchronize the entire weapon through a runic control lattice."
"It would work."
"It would require a trained mage to service every gun."
"A properly instructed technician could maintain the lesser channels."
Ironbreaker gave him a flat look. "After how many years of properly instructed study?"
"Three, perhaps four."
"Excellent. We will ask enemy to return after graduation."(An excellent thought)
Maerath laid the drawing down with more care than necessary.
Gandalf approached the table.
"The full lattice is impractical, but separating the feed from the firing cycle may still be worthwhile. A small mana-driven assist could maintain ammunition pressure without controlling the action itself."
Brakka shook his head.
"We tried that in the third prototype."
"The third prototype linked the assist directly to the receiver. I am suggesting a separate system."
"Which must match the firing rate under every angle, temperature, and ammunition variation."
"Yes."
"And when it fails?"
"The mechanical feed continues at a reduced rate."
Ironbreaker leaned forward.
"So we add another system in order to preserve the old system when the new system fails."
Gandalf’s expression tightened.
"That is one way of describing redundancy."
"It is also one way of describing two problems occupying the same housing."
Lucien’s voice came through the set.
"Could the rate of fire simply be lowered?"
Nobody answered immediately.
Brakka looked at the firing report.
"We tried."
"The fifth pattern," Gandalf said. "The reduced rate lowered heat and vibration."
Maerath continued for him. "It also reduced the chance of hitting a fast target enough that the range officers rejected it."
Ironbreaker rubbed one hand across his beard.
"A gun that cannot keep firing fails. A gun that fires slowly also fails. We have developed variety."
Brakka turned another page.
"What about a heavier receiver with a short recoil cycle?"
Ironbreaker shook his head before Brakka finished.
"Too much moving mass. It will survive, but it will fight the mount every time it fires."
"The mount is a later problem."
"No. The gun will eventually need to point upward, unless we intend to frighten aircraft by shooting nearby hills."
Gandalf tapped the cracked cooling jacket.
"Then the heat problem has to be addressed before the mechanical one."
"We already increased the dispersal channels."
"Within the same jacket."
Maerath looked toward him. "You want an external cooling assembly."
"A replaceable one."
Brakka considered it for several seconds, then shook his head.
"It gives the crew another component to damage, lose, connect incorrectly, or fill with mud."
"That is an argument against crews," Gandalf said.
"It is an argument based on crews."
Ironbreaker nodded. "Never design a weapon for the soldier described in training manuals. That man does not exist."
Lucien’s quiet laugh came through the set, though he said nothing.
Maerath pulled a clean sheet toward himself and drew several quick lines.
"The heat could be divided before it accumulates."
Brakka watched the shape emerge.
"Multiple chambers?"
"Alternating actions. Two barrels sharing one feed."
Ironbreaker rose from his chair and leaned over the drawing.
"That doubles the barrel weight."
"It halves the firing strain on each one."
"It also gives us two actions to synchronize."
"Which is possible."
Brakka studied the page.
The idea was not absurd. That made it more dangerous than the absurd ones.
"How do you prevent one action from drawing ammunition ahead of the other?"
"A paired control cam."
Gandalf moved closer. "The timing would have to remain exact as the weapon heated."
Maerath nodded. "The cam could be made from a lower-expansion alloy."
Ironbreaker’s expression turned grim.
"We cannot produce that alloy consistently enough."
"We could reserve it for this component."
"For every anti-aircraft gun?"
Maerath met his gaze.
"Yes."
Ironbreaker pushed the drawing back toward him.
"Then we can build six."
"Six is more than none."
"The enemy may be impressed by our exclusivity."
Brakka leaned back and pressed both hands against his face.
The room fell silent again.
Outside, a heavy hammer struck somewhere in the main works. The repeated blows travelled through the stone floor, steady and indifferent to the failure sitting on the table.
Lucien spoke through the communication set.
"What happened to the quick-change barrel idea?"
Brakka lowered his hands.
"It helped with heat. It did nothing for the receiver."
"Could the crews change more than the barrel?"
"During combat?"
"No. I suppose not."
Ironbreaker sat down again.
"We keep treating each failure as if it belongs to one part. It does not. The weapon fires too quickly for the barrel, feed, receiver, and cooling system to remain comfortable, but if we slow it down, it stops being useful."
Gandalf nodded slowly.
"The design is trapped between two limits."
Maerath looked at the damaged mechanism.
"Then the action itself may be the wrong foundation."
Brakka glanced at him.
"That is a broad criticism."
"It is meant to be. We have rebuilt the same basic arrangement several times and called each one a new prototype."
Ironbreaker’s eyes narrowed.
"You are suggesting we discard the entire line."
"I am suggesting that repeated failure may be attempting to educate us."
"Failure is rarely so polite."
"Neither are you, yet occasionally something useful emerges."
Ironbreaker looked ready to answer, then decided the remark was accurate enough to leave alone.
Brakka pushed the stack of drawings toward the centre of the table.
"Fine. We discard assumptions. Start again."
Gandalf took the first turn.
"A single barrel with a slower mechanical action and mana-assisted projectile acceleration."
Brakka rejected it immediately.
"The gun must still function without magical support."
Maerath followed.
"Two alternating barrels with a shared rotating feed."
Ironbreaker tapped the alloy requirement on the earlier drawing.
"Too difficult to manufacture in quantity."
Ironbreaker proposed a heavier manually cycled action supported by a powered ammunition rammer.
Gandalf shook his head.
"The timing would collapse under rapid elevation changes."
Brakka suggested dividing the ammunition into smaller linked feed sections so that less weight pulled against the receiver.
Maerath rejected that.
"The joins become repeated failure points."
They continued.
A revolving chamber proved too sensitive to dirt and deformation.
A dual-feed arrangement became too complicated for field maintenance.
A larger water-cooled jacket added weight while leaving the receiver problem untouched.
A runic heat sink worked perfectly on paper and consumed enough refined magical material to make Ironbreaker ask whether the gun was expected to defend Elarion or purchase it.
One proposal after another crossed the table and died there.
The afternoon light shifted across the workshop floor.
Nobody called for food.
Eventually Brakka stopped writing.
"We are out of ideas."
Maerath looked at the growing pile of rejected drawings.
"We are out of acceptable ideas."
"That distinction does not build a gun."
The communication set hissed.
Lucien had been silent for several minutes, long enough that Brakka had assumed he was reading another report or dealing with some fresh emergency.
When he finally spoke, his tone had changed.
"What if you stop asking one barrel to do all the work?"
Maerath looked at his abandoned two-barrel drawing.
"We discussed alternating barrels."
"I mean more than two."
Ironbreaker leaned toward the set.
"How many?"
Lucien hesitated.
"Six."
Nobody spoke.
Brakka looked first at Ironbreaker, then Gandalf, and finally Maerath. Their expressions suggested that each of them was trying to decide whether Lucien had offered a solution or finally surrendered to exhaustion.
Ironbreaker broke the silence.
"Six barrels."
"Yes."
"On one anti-aircraft gun."
"Yes."
"Do they take turns out of courtesy?"
Lucien ignored the tone.
"They rotate around a central axis. Each barrel fires only when it reaches the firing position. By the time it comes around again, the other barrels have fired in sequence."
Gandalf’s attention sharpened.
"So the heat and firing strain are distributed across all six."
"Exactly."
Maerath pulled a clean sheet toward himself.
"How is the ammunition supplied?"
"One continuous feed into a rotating firing mechanism."
Brakka frowned.
"That mechanism would be complicated."
"It would," Lucien admitted. "But the complexity would remain concentrated in one central assembly instead of forcing a single barrel and receiver to survive the entire rate of fire."
Ironbreaker rose again.
The exhaustion in his face had not disappeared, but it had made room for interest.
"The barrels rotate continuously?"
"Only while firing, or while preparing to fire. A powered drive turns the cluster."
"Mana-driven?" Gandalf asked.
"Mana-powered or mechanically powered. We can decide that after understanding the basic arrangement."
Maerath’s hand moved quickly across the paper, sketching a central body with six barrels arranged around it.
"The firing cycle could be divided by rotation. Feed, chamber, fire, extract, and cool would occur at different positions."
Brakka stood and came around the table.
He studied the rough drawing.
The idea was unfamiliar, excessive, and immediately irritating.
That was often a promising combination.
"The gun would be heavier."
"Yes," Lucien said.
"It would consume ammunition at an obscene rate."
"Yes."
"The rotating assembly would require precision beyond anything in the previous models."
"Yes."
Ironbreaker looked toward the communication set.
"You sound suspiciously pleased about these problems."
"They are new problems."
That silenced the room.
Brakka looked back at the wrecked feed guide sitting among the old drawings.
They had spent weeks solving the same failures in slightly different forms. Heat, vibration, feed stress, and mechanical timing had followed every prototype because every prototype demanded that one barrel and one receiver endure the entire burden.
Six barrels did not remove those burdens.
It divided them.
Gandalf pointed to the centre of Maerath’s sketch.
"The drive system must remain separate from the ammunition feed. If one controls the other directly, any fluctuation will disturb timing."
Maerath nodded.
"The rotation can provide the timing mechanically. The power source only maintains speed."
Ironbreaker traced a finger around the barrel cluster without touching the page.
"The assembly needs to be removable as one unit. Otherwise, field repairs will take days."
Brakka looked at him.
"And the barrels?"
"Individually replaceable."
"Shared dimensions?"
"Identical."
Gandalf added another mark to the drawing.
"A simple runic cooling band around the rear assembly could prevent heat from collecting near the chamber positions."
Maerath shook his head.
"Better to cool the central housing."
"Then the heat from all six barrels gathers in one place."
"Only briefly."
Brakka placed one hand flat on the page.
"Stop."
The others looked at him.
He studied the sketch for another moment before continuing.
"We are already trying to improve a weapon that does not exist."
Ironbreaker sat back down.
"That is how this room usually works."
"We begin with the mechanism. No mount. No targeting system. No grand magical cooling array. We build a hand-driven demonstration assembly first and prove that six barrels can rotate, chamber, fire, and extract in sequence without tearing themselves apart."
Maerath considered the limitation and nodded reluctantly.
"A reduced-speed model."
"A model worth learning from," Brakka said. "If it works, we add power. If powered rotation works, we increase speed. After that, we discover which new way reality intends to insult us."
Lucien’s voice carried a trace of relief.
"So you think it can work?"
Brakka looked around the table.
Gandalf was already calculating the likely mana load.
Maerath had begun refining the firing positions.
Ironbreaker had taken the broken feed guide aside and was using the empty space to sketch a central bearing assembly.
For the first time that day, nobody looked defeated.
"I think," Brakka said, "it has earned the right to fail once."
Ironbreaker grunted.
"High praise."
"Do not become emotional."
Lucien laughed softly through the communication line.
"What do we call it?"
Brakka looked at the six barrels drawn around the central axis.
"The name can wait until it fires."
"I may have one."
Ironbreaker sighed.
"Of course you do."
Lucien paused, then said, "Vulcan."
Maerath repeated the word quietly, testing it.
Gandalf looked toward Brakka.
Ironbreaker examined the sketch once more.
"A dramatic name for a machine that currently exists as charcoal marks."
Brakka pulled a fresh drawing board across the table.
"Then we had better give it something more substantial to be dramatic about."
The rejected plans were pushed aside.
The broken components remained where they were, reminders of the gun that had nearly reached production before reality exposed every weakness hidden beneath its promising trials.
No one pretended the new idea had solved those problems.
Six rotating barrels would create others. The drive would demand precision. The feed would need to keep pace. Ammunition consumption would become a logistical problem of its own, and the central mechanism would punish even small manufacturing errors.
Yet those were problems they had not failed to solve five times already.
Brakka took up his pencil.
Across the table, Ironbreaker began calculating the space required for the barrel cluster. Gandalf and Maerath argued quietly over whether the first model needed any magical assistance at all, while Lucien remained on the communication line and answered questions whenever the shape in his memory could provide something useful.
Outside, Titanworks continued hammering steel into the needs of a future that refused to wait.
Inside the design room, the remains of the failed 20 mm gun were moved to one side.
In their place, six circles appeared around a common centre.
