Author Notes:
Short as it may be, I think I had way too much fun writing this new GSS chapter. Like, I think my inner anarchist and childish imagination somehow mixed together and gave birth to... Well... whatever the new chapter/mini-arc is? Regardless, I hope you all enjoy and can picture just what is about to come.
Though, please, don't forget to give me a chance at trying to write something fun for you all to read. There's no way in hell that this fic and the coming chapters will be 'lore-accurate', so just sit back and enjoy the experience casually. I have fun de-stressing while writing this fanfic, hopefully you should too while reading it.
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For my fics:
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Alrighty then~! How can one deal with an Astartes, the Imperium's finest transhuman existence?
Obviously, a contest of strength is out the window. One can't hope to survive a walking tank that can solo an entire Imperial Guard Company and maybe even live to tell the tale. To make matters even worse for us, most people tend to forget that these walking tanks are outfitted with the best sensor suites, built-in into their armor. These built-in scanners enhance the Astartes' already impressive sensory abilities, which are more than capable of echolocation and staring down at a flashbang without any issue. It's near impossible for a normal Guardsman to approach an Astartes undetected, much less throw fisticuffs at one. Near impossible is not impossible, however. And as mighty as they are, Space Marines aren't undefeatable. These are the two truths that I have been drilling into the heads of my Platoon.
Of course, to an Inquisitor, these thoughts are borderline heretical and shall be purged. However, this is our way of showing respect to the challenge, the spectators outside the simulated arena, and our soon-to-be-opponents. And, as any good underdog would do, we make it perfectly clear that we won't be taking a Salamander's punch head-on.
Oh, no~! We will prepare. We will plan. We will scheme~! Pretty darn sure that the current spirit of 3rd Platoon would make a certain Cain proud. Speaking of that certain commissar, I wonder what that Hero of the Imperium is doing. He should be at least a century and a half old by now, right?
Shaking my head to clear out the stray thoughts, I clap my hands together before starting my work in making a whole bunch of improvised explosive devices. What? Do you have a problem with that mate? Have you seen where we are? Dense urban setting, dilapidated streets and houses, messy environment... This is a perfect setup to pull something at the same level if not beyond that of Vietnam and Afghanistan in my old universe. Booby-traps and IEDs, wonderful stuff, and quite thankfully not something outlawed by the Imperium. If I had more materials, I would have 3rd Platoon make the best of our grace period and rig the whole bloody simulated city to blow. And no, this is me without injecting recaf. Imagine what sort of marvel I could have done with but a whiff of caffeine. Alas, it's not meant to be as Weiss has been monitoring my recaf intake lately, much to my chagrin.
With Scorpin and Johnson in the mix, I swiftly gathered a sizeable amount of chemical ingredients and whatever scraps I needed to cook up a whole lot of IEDs, enough to blow up the tower we set up in and a few city blocks surrounding it. If those aren't enough still, we can make another trip back to the warehouse where Scorpin looted the ingredients. However, when dealing with Space Marines, the size and scale of the blast ain't matter all that much. A Space Marine is a walking tank, that isn't just an exaggerated comparison. They really are armored like a tank, which means common anti-personnel explosives won't be enough to cut it. To bypass their power armor's protection, we will need actual anti-tank weapons, hence our plasma guns and melta charges. To make my IEDs effective against armored targets, however, I will have to outfit them to be explosively formed penetrators or directionally focused charges.
An explosively formed penetrator is a special type of shaped charge designed to penetrate armor effectively, from a much greater standoff range than standard shaped charges, which are more limited by standoff distance. As the name suggests, the effect of the explosive charge is to deform a metal plate into a slug or rod shape and accelerate it toward a target. A conventional shaped charge generally has a conical metal liner that is forced by an explosive blast into a hypervelocity jet of superplastic metal able to penetrate thick armor and knock out vehicles. A disadvantage of this arrangement is that the jet of metal loses effectiveness the further it travels, as it breaks up into disconnected particles that drift out of alignment. An EFP operates on the same principle, but its liner is designed to form a distinct projectile that will maintain its shape, permitting it to penetrate armor at a greater distance. The dish-shaped liner of an EFP can generate several distinct projectile forms, depending on the shape of the plate and how the explosive is detonated. However, EFP's penetration is more strongly affected by the density of its liner metal compared to a conventional-shaped charge. An EFP with a tantalum liner can typically penetrate steel armor of a thickness equal to its diameter, or half that amount with a copper liner instead. By contrast, a conventional shaped charge can penetrate armor up to six times its diameter in thickness, depending on its design and liner material. Although they're lacking in effectiveness compared to any other option, IEDs in the form of EFPs offer a certain degree of subterfuge. A thing that a rocket launcher sure can't achieve well under the scrutiny of multiple Astartes. While an EFP may not knock out a Salamander outright, a well-timed and well-hidden one can still cause no small trouble for any of them. Things like disability hit or damaged equipment is what I am aiming for.
A directionally focused charge, on the other hand, is very similar to EFP, with the main difference being that the top plate is usually flat and not concave. The plate is also made from cheaper cast or cut metal. When made for fragmentation, the contents of the charge are usually nuts, bolts, ball bearings, and other similar shrapnel products and explosives. If it only consists of the flat metal plate, it is known as a platter charge, serving a similar role as an EFP with reduced effect but easier construction. Being much simpler in the design, I can fabricate more of them.
That said, just me alone isn't gonna cut it if I want to produce any of these things in a large quantity. A one-day period isn't quite enough to both make and hide them all over our line. It's why I rope in Scorpin and her girlfriends as well, having them help me make the IEDs while Weiss and the rest go about deploying and camouflaging them. Knowing Johnson's ingenuity and Weiss' keen mind, I can trust them to make the best out of the IEDs and our limited quantities of military explosives.
As for how to make an IED... An IED has five components: a switch (activator), an initiator (fuse), a container (body), a charge (explosive), and a power source (battery). However, a battery is optional and is dependent on whether or not you want to remotely detonate your IED. For the most part, my bomb crew only makes a few of these remotely detonated IEDs, opting to build a bunch of mine-typed EFPs and DFCs instead. The remote-controlled IEDs, however, are made to be a true high-explosive menace for disruption purposes and to facilitate our ambush attack. To further the lethality in some of our IEDs, I wire multiple of them in a daisy chain. The idea is for these daisy chains to be spread out along a roadway and hopefully catch multiple Salamanders in their combined blast radius.
Unsurprisingly, one can see that I am a bit too passionate about making all sorts of explosives. There's even a quite positively dangerous smile as I pull out all the stops in my anarchist cookbook. Explosion is an art, in my opinion, and I take to the task of fabricating numerous IEDs with a zeal that far surpasses that of Scorpin and her girlfriends. While Scorpin may be our special weapon specialist, her enthusiasm when handcrafting bombs still pale when compared to mine. Understandably, my eagerness to get things ready to blow has earned me a few deadpan looks from the trio already. Apparently, some of my ideas in bomb-making have been, quite frankly, mind-blowing to them, especially when I instruct Weiss and Johnson on how to best camouflage the IEDs to be mundane trash on the road. I can only hazard a guess as to what expressions Mama and the spectators outside are having.
Moving on, when the trio and I are done with our explosive task and handover the last of our finished product to Johnson and his Squad, do you know what we're going to do next?
Hehe, a Cosmic Cookie to you if you guess that: 'We're going to turn that warehouse with all those chemical ingredients and fertilizer into one big explosive trap!'
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...
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Eh, the whole warehouse may not become a bomb, really, it's more like we will off-load its entire storage so that we can make a big freaking bomb, but you get the idea~! I can promise that the end result will be a surprise to be sure, but it'll be a welcome one! I can't wait till the Astartes come to see the matrix of pain 3rd Platoon has invented just for them. Getting up close and personal will be the last thing the Salamanders want to do in this spar between us. I can feel myself getting all giddy for the near future, and I wish I could see the look on the Salamander Space Marines when the time come.
Sometimes, my genius is... It's almost frightening.
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...
Hold up.
Wait a minute.
Something ain't right~!
Why am I all energetic when I didn't even drink a sip of recaf, huh?
I then start wracking my hyperactive brain over what could have kicked me into overdrive, only for it to grind to a halt at a specific memory.
Mama fed me a rare pastry, a piece of cake... It has a distinct hint of coffee beneath its cheesy and sweet taste.
Yeah... Yeah, that tracks...
This may trigger someone but should I shout 'Emperor protects' when I detonate an IED beneath a Salamander's foot? Asking online for a friend, awaiting opinions.