Using the same tech he came up with for the backpack’s skeleton tubing, Ben designed a honeb mesh tubing that transferred impact energyterally very effectively and efficiently, in his testbench software at least.
Ben filed a patent on the design with a homnd security rider to maintain its secrecy. Then he started experimenting with making modr armor panelsprised ofyers of these honeb mesh tubes. For testing the panels, Evelyn hired out a local firing range for a twenty-four-hour period and brought in a few members of General Davis’ secret squad who were in town and crashing at the Spa. The rest remained behind, enjoying the amenities.
Fisher, Stim, and Dunno showed up at the firing range loaded with a range of weapons for testing the tes. They brought weapons they most often encountered in the hands of their enemies and a variety of ammo for each.
The gun range owner, Murray Hamilton, was allowed to remain after he signed a non-disclosure agreement. His insurance n actually made his presence in the building a requirement. He wouldn’t be joining them on the range as what they were testing was ssified.
All security cameras for the establishment were deactivated, and Evelyn set up her own cameras to record the test results.
When Ben walked into the building with Liliya, Murray’s eyes almost fell out of his head. “Hey! You’re that fe on TV! You killed those white vers and rescued the girls! You also had those naked statues made of you!”
Themandos were all struggling to keep fromughing at Ben’s weary expression.
Liliya kept her expression neutral, though her hand slipped closer to her des.
“I didn’t ask for them to be made,” Ben said, then shook his head in frustration to indicate he was done talking about that. “We’re here to shoot guns, yes?”
Liliya stationed herself within view of the building’s entrance and the door to the gun range. Ben walked into therge chamber and saw Evelyn finishing her preparations in the center shooting booth. He looked to his right, down thenes, as he approached her and saw a series of mannequins wearing the test armor. Each dummy was wearing a new test te. Each had a different configuration of the inneryers.
Then Ben got a closer look at the dummies. They weren’t your basic retail store mannequin. He looked to Evelyn in confusion. “What’s up with the targets?”
She grinned. “General Davis had them sent here for us to use for the test. They have ballistic gel torsos with interior skeletons to mirror the damage a human torso would receive.”
Ben stopped to look at them again. “But… not real skeletons, right?”
Evelyn’s smile dimmed as she looked at him and then turned to look at the dummies. “No….”
Fisher broke the ufortable pause when he and his men arrived with the weapons they’d be using.
“Sweet targets!” Stim said appreciatively. “Are those tes they’re wearing the new armor?”
Evelyn’s smile returned immediately. “Yes! The leftmost target is Larry. He’s wearing Configuration One ting, three parallel but offsetyers. In the middle is Curly, wearing Configuration Two ting, threeyers with outer and inner set ny degrees offset and the middle at forty-five degrees offset to the outer. Finally, we have Moe wearing Configuration Three, which is threeyers with a sixty-degree offset.”
The threemandos stared at her. Dunno was the one to voice their question. “What material is eachyerprised of that gives it directionality? Some kind of carbon fiber?”
Ben smiled and reached into his jacket to hand each of them a metal straw. They held the eight-inch tubes and noticed how light they felt. It was Stim who tried to blow through his and discovered it was hollow. “Hey! This is a straw!”
Chuckling, Ben nodded. “Try blowing gradually harder through it, and tell me if you notice anything.”
Stim did as requested and frowned. “Uh, I think it’s getting harder to blow the more force I use,” he said.
“Stim’s gonna be so popr now that he’s learned a new blowing technique!” Donno teased.
“Hey, fuck you!” Stim returned. He turned to look at Ben. “If you were drinking soda with one of these, the harder you sucked, the slower it woulde?”
Donno was in stitches,ughing at Stim. “Do you even hear yourself?”
Evelyn’s eyes widened as she realized where the inner design came from. The valves Ben designed for the oil refinery! He saw her expression and nodded slightly.
Ignoring his men, Fisher was frowning. “So, the tes are justyers of straws?”
Ben nodded with a small smile. “Basically.”
Fisher’s eyebrows went up. “Not sure what you think that’ll do against a bullet, but let’s do it.”
He looked at the dummies. “We’re only going to get to do three tests?”
Evelyn shook her head. “Between tests, I can swap out the tes with new ones.” She gestured to therge crate in the next booth.
Stim smiled. “Excellent!”
The first weapon they brought out was an AK-47. “We see too many of these,” Fisher said grimly.
He stepped into the booth and loaded the weapon. “Standard ammo,” he called out, and everyone put on their ear protection and goggles. Fisher put a single round into the chest te of all three dummies. He unloaded the weapon and nodded to Evelyn, who grabbed three more tes and rushed downrange to swap them out on the dummies. She returned with the impacted tes. They gathered around as she showed the struck armor.
“Configuration One. No pration through the te, but we have separation. This one might allow for subsequent bullets to prate.” She handed the te to Fisher, who stared at the jagged, twisted metal hole in surprise. The bullet fragments seemed to be embedded and shredded inside the hole! He handed it off to Stim.
“Configuration Two. No pration through the te. No separation, but the impact cement was over the forty-five-degreeyer. We should see if we can hit this other side.”
This one was handed to Fisher as well. He went to poke his finger in the bullet hole.
“Careful. Those edges will be extremely sharp!” Ben cautioned. The team CO nodded and handed it along. Ignoring the warning, Stim touched the hole’s edge and knicked his finger.
Evelyn moved on to thest test te. “Configuration Three. No pration through the te. No separation. Best result of the three.”
Once themandos got to see all three, they moved on to the second round of shooting. This time Stim got to put three bullets into each te.
Evelyn swapped them out again and returned with the impacted tes.
Configuration One failed. “We have pration.”
“That’s a failure. No more tests with that one,” Ben said.
“What’s the damage to the torso look like?” Fisher asked.
“The bullet shrapnel is embedded two to three inches deep,” Evelyn exined.
Themandos nodded as she envisioned the damage that might do.
Configuration Two had much better sess, but Three was performing exceptionally well.
“Why threeyers and not four?” Fisher asked.
“My goal is to make it much lighter and less bulky than the existing te armor.” He looked to Evelyn. “Did you bring the fouryer tes?”
She nodded. “Some.”
“Let’s continue testing with the threeyer tes,” Ben suggested.
Dunno got his chance to fire at the dummies, then they switched weapons and ammo. They were now up to eight rounds into each te. Configuration Two failed at six impacts, but Configuration Three continued to defy the bullets. No pration.
Evelyn was documenting their results and was very pleased so far.
Ben contained his enthusiasm as it wasn’t as much of an improvement as he’d hoped.
“Now we break out the big guns, and I don’t mean figuratively,” Fisher said.
Ben watched him set up a rifle. “We’re going to use armor-piercing rounds,” the CO said with a grin.
Once he was ready, they watched him put two rounds into the te on all three dummies. Larry was now wearing Configuration Two tes, and Curly had Configuration Three tes. Evelyn didn’t say what Moe was set up with.
When she brought the tes back for inspection, she had the widest grin.
“The Configuration Two te shows pration on each shot. The Configuration Three te also shows pration but only on the second shot,” she gushed.
Fisher saw her holding back the te from Moe. “What about that one?”
Her smile went up a notch. “This is Configuration Four. Fouryers with a forty-five-degree offset. No pration on either shot.” She handed the damaged te to Fisher.
He stared at the two spent bullets buried in a tangled mess of shredded metal. Stim and Dunno were staring at the te closely. “Can I see an undamaged fouryer te?” themander said as he handed the damaged one to Dunno.
He hefted the fresh te, evaluating the weight. He looked at Ben. “This is a little lighter than existing level four armor, which is only certified to stop one round. Yours blocked two.” He looked at Moe and saw it was ready for the next test. “Is Moe still loaded with Configuration Four?”Material ? N?velDrama.Org.
She nodded.
“Can you put Fours on the other two?” he asked.
Evelyn nodded and rushed away with two more tes.
When she returned, all three dummies were sporting the new fouryer armor.
“Stim, put five rounds into those tes.”
“Yes, boss!” the man said with enthusiasm.
Stim was an excellent shot and did his best to make neat clusters on the tes. When Evelyn brought them back for inspection, the soldiers were seriously impressed. Two of the armor pieces showed no pration, though their surfaces were tangled messes of shredded and embedded metal. The third showed one of five rounds had punched through, but only because it ovepped a previous impact point.
“Shit, man! This stuff is going to redefine the armor-piercing ssification!” Stim muttered.
Ben smiled and looked at Evelyn. “I think we can wrap things up tonight. Please let Captain Kendricks know I have a new design I need him to run through his test cycle.”
“I thought we were doing the test cycle,” Dunno said in confusion.
Ben nodded. “Yes, but it was just to prove the design worked as my benchmark software said it would. Now I send it to the captain to feed through the Army’s more rigorous testing process. They’ll assign the certifications.”
“Can we load up a vest with these fouryer tes to see how much it might weigh inbat?” Fisher asked.
“They aren’t properly sized to get an urate assessment. Once approved, they’ll be shaped to fit the existing pockets in the vest,” Ben exined.