At four in the afternoon, the vast white tiered arena of the salt flats was ready for the ultimate trial.
One mile north of the lab wagon, Arthur Vance, Master Szabo, and twenty nomad wagon drivers had spent three hours erecting five massive simulated combat targets across the white bitter salt plain.
The targets were tough test structures, engineered by Szabo to simulate an entrenched heavy mechanized assault cell backed by Diamond-Rank man-made war-beasts.
Each target consisted of a five-ton heavy concrete ballast block. It was wrapped in double layers of four-inch caterpillar tracks from Mercer’s destroyed gun-trucks, braced by solid hard dark metal-steel iron rods spines, and topped with heavy steel boiler plates simulating the armored glacis of a Class-IV command carrier.
Behind the firing line, Toby Mallow stood atop a supply crate with his brass binoculars and a stopwatch, his ledger resting flat against his forearm.
“Target array confirmed at eighty paces, Arthur!” Toby called out, waving his pencil. “Every dummy is heavy to withstand forty tons of moving impact! If your four-pillar maneuver can crack these five slabs in under five seconds, there isn’t a military castle between here and Capital Metro that can stand in your way!”
