Chapter Three

It sounded somewhat like an engine backfiring, but Collin's collapse before the open door made it clear that something else entirely had happened.
"Get her away from there. Doc, do what you can; I want my Sergent back."
Two men pulled her back. The small explosion was heard again, he could tell it was coming from the room through the open door.

"Someone get in there and shut that thing down."
"Aye sir"
A trooper dashed to the door and turned sharply into the room beyond. Thrice more was the explosion heard, this time in rapid succession. The trooper grunted in pain before collapsing, armor clanging against the cold steel floor.
There was no mistaking it this time, someone was attacking them from within the chamber.
"Doc, what happened to her?"
"Cap'n looks like some sort of dart. High velocity, no poison or nothin. She'll live, just a bit of a scarin' on her shoulder's all. Give her another hour or so to rest and she'll be up and runnin'."
"What kind of dart?"
"Like half a pill, only a bit sharper on the one end."
"Could it be launched by an explosion?"
"What an absurd theory, launching things with combustion. What would have given you the idea?"
"The explosion that preceded her collapse. Jor, you worked on a farm, right?"
"Aye sir, I think I know what you're thinking and the theory seems sound."
"What kind of velocity does it take to penetrate imperial armor?"
"I know what kind of force it would take, but velocity; that I'd have no idea."
"Does anyone here know physics?"
A chorus of nervous nays rose from the corridor. The men were scared enough of the mysterious dart without having to compound their woes with the thought of complex mathematics.

"If a piston weren't connected properly, how much force would it exert against the first thing it hit?"
"It'd wound a man or dent steel. Provided the engine was working properly of course."
"What if the piston were a pill, with the same force behind it?"
"I'd guess at something like this sir."
"Doc?"
"I'm a medic, not a mechanic. How am I supposed to make anything more than a guess at what a pill being shot out of an engine would do to a man?"
"Just guess then."
"Probably this," he waved at Collin.
"Then it's settled, something is launching pills at us using an engine. Now we just have to reach it, beat it into submission, and force it to show us how it did it."