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Chapter 44 — The Sledge
The current from the salvaged Specter plasma cores didn't just ignite the buried fuel cells; it turned the entire three-way junction into a localized star.
The explosion was a brilliant, blinding wall of violet and white thermal energy that completely erased the front fifty ters of the automated rail-car in a single microsecond. The massive iron cow-catcher plow disintegrated into liquid slag, and the sheer, multi-ton montum of the vehicle slamd the remaining chassis straight into the buckling stone ceiling of the junction.
The mountain itself seed to scream as the explosion tore through the ancient structural pillars. Thousands of tons of solid basalt rock and tallic ore collapsed downward, a massive, grinding avalanche of stone that completely buried the rail-car and the enforcers trapped inside, sealing the eastern transit line in a tomb of solid mountain.
The concussive blast wave hit Mira’s position like a physical punch, throwing her and the miners flat onto the ash-covered floor.
Mira coughed violently, dragging herself up through the suffocating cloud of dust and sulfur smoke. Her ears were ringing with a deafening static, but as she looked toward the junction, she saw exactly what she had hoped for: a solid, impenetrable wall of collapsed stone. The eastern front was gone. The path to Sector Zero was blocked.
"Report!" she gasped into her radio collar, her fingers frantically adjusting the frequency to link back to the high observation deck. "Kael, the eastern line is down! The tracks are completely buried! What’s your status at the chimney?"
There was a long, agonizing pause of raw static, broken only by the distant, muffled sound of heavy explosions echoing from the center of the facility.
Then, Kael’s dual-tone voice broke through the channel, entirely calm, level, and utterly chanical.
"The vanguard has been purged," Kael reported flatly. "But Director Vance has just initiated a secondary sequence. He is overriding the safety governors on the primary industrial drill. He isn't trying to deploy troops anymore, Mira. He is going to drop the entire rotating rig straight down into our core to grind this facility to dust."
Mira’s blood ran cold. "Kael, that rig weighs over forty tons! If the main shaft drops without its winches, the impact will shatter the baseline foundation of the entire sector!"
"I am aware of the mass equation," Kael replied. "Return to the residential blocks. I am terminating the connection."
Before she could scream his na, the data-link snapped shut.
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