Life On Helghan.

OK then here's the next chapter, I'm managing to keep busy even though PSN's down (can't wait till it's back up though lol) so finding time to write has been difficult last chapter was...whoa a week ago OK didn't realise it had been that long, well let's begin.

Chapter 13.

We followed the signs to the lab and went inside, I went over to a scientist.

"Captains Lente and Hakha reporting for weapon testing."

The scientist turned to me.

"Oh it's you I recognise your voice."

I recognized his, it was the scientist I'd spoken to back in the Tharsis Refinery.

"Oh glad to see you again, how's your project going?"

"You're about to find out, follow me."

I called over to Hakha and the scientist led us to a sterile room, inside he turned to me and said.

"You were wondering how my project was going well look at this."

He went over to a sealed metal box and opened it, he took an odd-shaped weapon from inside and brought it over to me, I clicked on when I saw a small jar on the underside of the gun, it was glowing green.

"You actually did it? Wow unbelievable."

"Yeah, it took months but I finally managed to stabilize the petrusite to be fired in charged bursts, but building the weapon wasn't easy, we had to work out which metal wouldn't give an adverse reaction from exposure to irradiated petrusite, the final choice was titanium, this solved the melting problem then we just had to figure out how to expel the stuff without the gun blowing up in your face, one of my men had a brainwave, he began conducting experiments of accelerating the petrusite through a glass tube lined with magnets then finally attaching four to the rim of the tube, this was invaluable as he discovered that the petrusite began to gather on the magnets at the end and after enough buildup or if energy was denied it would launch away at high speed, I didn't even realise this stuff was magnetic but the fact it is made building the weapon so much easier, have a look at it you'll notice the four magnets at the front and the titanium frame but once I discovered it was magnetic I rethought the weapon's design and decided to pack several electromagnets inside the petrusite storage jar and the housing chamber, this has resulted in the petrusite actually becoming somewhat intelligent and able to pass around any solid object and upon impact with a biological target the reaction is astonishing, not a good way to die oh no but scientifically fascinating, try it out and see."

With that he pressed a button and a large metal door opened in the wall revealing a firing range but there were no weapon racks, I guessed this room was exclusively used for prototype weapon firing, I made my way over to one of the test booths as the scientist was giving the captain one of the guns, when we were both in position he gave us a few words of advice.

"OK boys a couple of things you need to remember, this weapon is charged so the longer you hold the trigger the more powerful the energy fire when you let go, also there is an overheating issue, charge too long and the gun will expel the energy automatically to combat potentially catastrophic overheating, it CAN still blow up in your face if this happens so be careful."

And he pressed a button which opened a panel in the ceiling of the firing range and a large crane arm lowered a small cage containing four prisoners into the range, after lowering them the crane arm lifted back through the ceiling and the panel sealed, the scientist simply said to fire when ready, my finger instantly squeezed the trigger and I could hear the gun charging and could see green energy gathering on the magnets getting brighter, I let go of the trigger and a large green ball followed by what I could only describe as trail ribbons launched from the gun.

Upon contact with one of the prisoners it actually lifted him off the ground and dragged him through the air like a ragdoll and I was utterly shocked by what happened next, it exploded and all that was left of him was red mist, I could not believe it and was stood there staring rather than killing the other one of mine, the captain killed him instead and then came around to my booth and put his hand on my shoulder.

"A bit too much? Don't worry I get it."

I turned to him.

"Yeah...yeah."

It had been too much of a shock for me this time to easily recover and the captain knew this, I collapsed to the floor in utter shock and lost my grip on consciousness, eventually I woke up in a bed in the sick bay, I looked around wondering why I was lying in bed and saw Hakha and Stahl over at the door so I called out to them.

"What the hell am I doing here?"

Hakha spoke first.

"It turns out the sight of those men exploding coupled with the weapon you were firing did a serious job on your brain, you passed out from the shock and I brought you here to be examined."

Then Stahl spoke to me.

"It's an understandable reaction to what happened, you're lucky that's all that happenend it could have been a lot worse."

I laid my head back on the pillow and asked.

"How long do I have to lay here?"

The captain answered as Stahl turned to leave.

"Well you've been in here for nearly a day and the doc said you should be all right by tomorrow so you'll have to spend the night here."

"(Sigh) Fine, what about you? Anything the chairman needs doing?"

"Yeah I've got a job to track down a group of ISA marines who've been causing us a lot of problems, wish you could come with me."

"OK Hakha, I'll see you hopefully when you get back."

"Likewise, see you mate."

And he turned and left, I had nothing to do but close my eyes and try to sleep most of this time off.

End of chapter 13.

Ah now I'm betting you didn't expect that eh? I just hope Stahl wasn't a bit out of character being there with Hakha, ah well leave me a review and I hope you liked this one, to be honest I'm REALLY happy with it.