It took Jason a while to realise that perhaps he had been lied to. The boy was under no illusions about his lack of knowledge about hacking but he knew that the materials Anri was gathering were of no use to them if they intended to crack code.
His stress levels were increasing as they meandered through the boneyard looking for something Anri had described as the perfect tungsten counterweight. All this while he was also under constant harassment by a disgruntled Soren who seemed to think it was his national duty to grind down Jason's self-confidence and sanity.
"-muscles or no muscles, a little bitch is still a little bitch."
Jason was seized by the desire to sock Soren on the face so it would teach him exactly what his muscles were good for.
"What's your problem?!" He finally snapped at the redhead after being called donkey for the thousandth time. "I apologised for what I did, didn't I?"
"Your apology means shit to me," Soren replied. "This is a fucking exam, loser. You don't get to ruin it for the rest of your team and then pretend an apology is enough."
"I didn't ruin anything! What exactly did I ruin?!"
While they were fighting, Anri was messing around with a discarded rotor and Nova was guarding the cart and acting as a lookout.
"My mood, dipshit. Your little stunt could have cost the team if Nova and I were as fickle as you."
Jason forced himself to remain silent. He had to for the sake of his task.
"Let's move," Anri's voice cut the tension in the air. "We're heading for the ship. No more stops."
____
There was no action for another half an hour. Team purple had settled down close to the ship and was clearing the area to create a wide berth between the ship and the position where Anri had placed the cart.
"Any guesses as to what they're up to?" Yve asked the prefects.
"Making a gun," Levi joked. He was interested in the developments that could occur if the boneyard didn't already strip the ships of their explosives and batteries before bringing them in. This was the primary reason Starfield had chosen the boneyard as a location to safely conduct its exams.
"I don't have the faintest clue," Helena replied.
"Your guess is as good as mine," Bruce added.
____
"Jason, you look stressed," Nova said to the boy who was watching Anri's every move. Time was running out for him but he was as clueless now about the plan as he had been an hour ago.
"I do? I guess it's because of the exam," he replied.
"Right," Nova answered. Her long slender fingers were busy building a spring-loaded device that Anri needed for imparting an initial acceleration to his tungsten slug. It was a very simple design that worked like a toy gun but on a larger scale.
"What do you think that is for?" He asked her.
Nova was almost done with the device. Her answer to Jason's question was an elegant shrug. Patting some dirt off of her clothes, she stood up to call Soren so they could test the finished device.
Meanwhile, Anri was tinkering at a spot further away from them. No one could tell what he was making because the whole thing was concealed under a makeshift lean-to fashioned from pieces of discarded rusting hull.
From his spot, Jason could only see Anri's back and two thick cables snaking out from between his feet. The cables weren't connected to anything yet so the teenager couldn't make any guesses as to what Anri was doing.
"Do you remember the rule about not using weapons against anyone?" Jason said to the others. "We're all going to get eliminated."
"There you go again," Soren called back. "What makes you think we're planning to hurt anyone? If you're so afraid of the consequences then go join another team. How about silver? There's no rule saying you can't."
Jason was struck by a small bout of panic at Soren's reply. Did they already know he was a spy? No, he was being paranoid. There was no way they could know about it. Utmost care had been taken to ensure he hadn't been followed or eavesdropped on when he'd met Loda.
"You're making a gun aren't you?!" Jason pushed on. "A spring-loaded gun! That's it, right? I hope you aren't dumb enough to think you can even make a dent on the spaceship with that."
"Jason," this time it was Anri who spoke. "You're getting on my nerves so make yourself scarce if you can't shut up."
The teenager was livid. How dare they keep treating him this way? Now that he knew what they were up to, there was no reason for him to stay and tolerate this unprovoked hostility.
"I'm fucking leaving," he told the others in a fit of self-righteous anger. "But I'll give you a piece of advice. Stop surrounding yourself with yes men and get some therapy for your narcissism, leader. You're such a joke. And you two, I'll say it again. You'll regret going along with the wishful fantasies of a fool."
"Piss off, donkey."
___
"A spring-loaded gun?" Loda said in surprise. He then burst out in amused laughter.
"Yeah, can you believe it?" Jason was smiling from ear to ear.
Ceasing his laughter, Loda patted Jason on his shoulder. "Come then, let's go meet the team of geniuses who are aiming to earn two hundred points. We'll congratulate them when they succeed."
___
"I think we're ready," Anri said to Soren and Nova who had successfully tested the spring-loaded gun. They were using a broken tungsten counterweight as their ammo, and it weighed about a few kilograms.
"You sure this is going to work?" Soren couldn't help but wonder.
"We have nothing to lose," Anri replied. "If it doesn't fire then we find team silver and force them to hand over the tags. For what it's worth, we might still get some points for it."
"Okay. Let's do phase two. Nova and I will clear the perimeter then give you the signal."
Anri dipped his chin once. "Good hunting, you two."
___
It was after Anri had gathered a pile of random materials that he finally uncovered the lean-to that hid his little project from the cameras.
The prefects were completely silent as they took in the sight of a frankensteined construction that they couldn't make sense of.
"Is that-" Levi wasn't allowed to finish his sentence because Helena immediately stood up, stared at the screen in horror and confirmed what the prefect of Cygnus had wanted to ask about.
"You were right Levi. He built a gun, a bloody rail gun." Helena wasn't one to use swears unless the situation really called for it. Thus, Anri had unlocked an achievement and would never know about it.
"What? A rail gun?"
"How do you know that's a rail gun?"
"Look at it. The rails have been cut away and they're no longer at their original length but you can see the similarities. Anri is making use of the rails from a salvaged rail cannon he probably found inside one of the decommissioned ships."
"But what about a power source?" Levi asked the important question. "He can't fire it without a power source and some capacitors."
His words calmed the agitated Helena who had forgotten about that minor detail. Anri's projected confidence and her own belief in his abilities, coupled with the dangerous situation he was putting himself in had short-circuited her common sense.
"You're right," she answered. "The boneyard has no live power sources he can take advantage of. And there's no way he could have snuck in anything through the gate. Besides, a normal battery can't support the energy requirements of a rail cannon."
"Precisely. Now sit down, prefect industrious."
___
Anri, who was under a lean-to and hidden from the camera's view, heard the sound of a shrill whistle and he knew that the area had been scouted and found to be bereft of the other competitors.
He positioned himself far away and in a southwest direction to the rail gun because of how dangerous it was. For one, he could get hurt by the unbearable heat that the gun would generate. Another problem was the recoil. The force of it had the potential to send the whole thing flying backwards if his calculations were off.
To an onlooker, it might have appeared that Anri was holding the project down with mere hopes and prayers. But that was far from the truth because the sorcerer had done his math and was fairly certain about the force that he could generate from the set-up.
"Raila, bless my gun," the unbeliever once again prayed to the goddess he didn't believe in.
Hands clamping down on the cables that were at his feet, the teenager let out a burst of electricity from his left hand and it consumed more than half the amount of mana inside him.
The very next second, there was a loud explosion that had his ears ringing in pain. The teenager scrambled out from his lean-to and was greeted by the sight of thick smoke and a destroyed rail gun. Had he failed?
"Anri, you glorious bastard, you actually did it!" He heard Soren shout. "I see a hole in the ship!!!"
____
"You've got to be kidding me," Helena whispered in a daze. How? How? How? The question kept repeating like a broken record.
Firing the gun had destroyed the construction but the bullet had accelerated as Anri had intended. So many things could have gone wrong but they hadn't. Team purple could have just gone down the normal route and collected tags like normal people but they hadn't.
"I thought you said he didn't have a power source. So how did this happen, Levi?"
"I haven't the faintest idea, Yve. I'm about to combust from curiosity. This is a disaster." Levi was pained because clearly, Anri was a hell of a resourceful and smart teenager. But not everyone was going to look favourably upon what he had done.
There were only two outcomes that could be expected of this insane and daredevil undertaking. The examiners would no doubt be blown away by what team purple had done. Levi hoped that they were impressed enough to overlook the stupidest genius idea he had ever seen executed successfully in the history of Starfield's exams.
____
[A\N : I (butchered) took a lot of liberties with the science behind it. Don't fight me cause I already know how complicated it is. LOL!]