A rock burst was not an act of divine malice. It was merely potential strain energy converted into moving speed.
At Milepost Eight, five miles beneath the frozen spine of the mountain, the tunnel bore was a howling whirlpool of dust. It screeched metal, and human panic.
The twenty-five-foot circular steel cutterhead of the Iron Mole was wedged fast in the rock face.
A fourteen-inch sideways tearing force along an active fault line had pinched the forward shield like a nutcracker.
The twenty high-pressure thrust rams were pegged at their maximum relief pressure of six thousand pounds of pressure, venting atomized high-pressure oil in high-pressure white mists against the tunnel ceiling.
Overhead, chunks of shattered dark rock were peeling away from the unsupported crown, crashing onto the steel deck of the trailing gear with ear-splitting clatter.
Thirty miners and dwarven mechanics were scrambling rearward along the narrow walkways. He dropped their air hoses and wrenches in blind terror.
“The mountain is falling,” a dwarven mechanic screamed through his breathing mask. “The roof is coming down on us.”
