Sam chortled. “Okay, I’ll bite. What else can it do?”
“I’m glad you asked.” Grey rubbed his hands together. “You might not want to achieve a surgical-sized pinhole in your target. Instead, you might want something a little more… meaningful.” He lifted his chin. “I believe in the past, there have been a few of your adversaries that fit into that category, hmm, Captain Hunter?”
Alex just grunted, remembering his last mission — the creature he had encountered beneath the Antarctic ice was something that had evolved separately from the surface world. Maybe once it had been some sort of cephalopod, but it had developed into something massive, horrifying, and with a cold intelligence that had cost them a lot of lives. Back then, he’d wished he had a howitzer.
Grey went to one of the gun racks, and lifted something that looked more like a flattened box than a gun. The object had a shortened barrel and bottle shape molded into the square design.
Grey telescoped it out to a length of about three feet, turned it on its side and held it out.
“I present the RG3 — Generation-3 Rail Gun — field of combat ready.”
Alex took it from the diminutive scientist. It was heavier than it looked. He turned it over in his hand. There was a front grip, rear handle, standard trigger and guard, but with several studs on its side plus a small round dial.
“It’s got some weight.” Alex ejected a magazine that was about the size of a packet of cigarettes; this was where the bulk of the weight came from. He looked inside at the rounds — there seemed to be many hundreds, all packed in tight, like needles.
He also saw that they weren’t smooth but were more like tiny machines than solid material. He jammed the clip back in.
“How many?” he asked.
“Standard clip has a thousand rounds.” Grey beamed. “Some operatives may find they don’t have to reload for an entire mission.”
“We’ll take some spare clips. We might go duck hunting on the way home.” Sam held out his hand and Alex handed him the gun. Sam hefted it.
“The weight you feel is from the ammunition pack, but also in the lead casing for the radioisotope thermoelectric chip. It powers up the twin parallel conductor rails.” Grey leaned closer to point along the gun’s body. “Along here we have a sliding armature that would be accelerated by the electromagnetic effects of a current flowing along the rails, and—”
“Hey, aren’t electromagnetics susceptible to EMP weapon attack?” Alex knew the Russians were working on several devices to knock out battlefield electronics. “Be a pain in the ass to be caught in a firefight with a dead box in my hands.”
“Of course it would. You were paying attention when I mentioned the lead casing for the radioisotope, weren’t you? It has a nuclear power source, and is impervious to electromagnetic pulse. It only charges the rails for.003 seconds before firing. Even if the pulse wave knocks out that charge, it’s ready to fire again in under a second.”
Sam pointed to one of the target dummies. “Well?”
“Go ahead,” Grey said. “It’s currently set to single shot, but it can be ramped up to full metal storm if needed.”
“What about the heat?” Alex asked. “A thousand rounds, and using it on rapid fire, should generate enough friction heat to melt the casing.”
“Very good.” Grey waggled a finger again. “And it did with the earliest versions. But…” He grinned. “…that’s why we now use ceramics in the conductor rails.”
Alex nodded, satisfied.
“Only one thing left to do then.” Sam pointed and fired, only holding the weapon in one hand. He kept his finger down on the trigger. There was barely anything above a whisper. Alex detected the dummy moving fractionally, so he knew there’d been a strike.
“Did I hit it? What happened?” Sam looked at the gun. “I felt a little recoil, but…”
“Let’s see.” Grey went to a panel and pressed a few buttons, causing a small screen to lift. “I’m going to rewind.” He hummed for a moment. “Okay, now watch.”
Sam and Alex looked over his shoulder. The target dummy filled the screen, and just when Alex was losing patience he saw a tiny hole appear in the center of the head — even in slow motion the projectile was moving too fast to capture. All that was revealed was a small puncture in the dummy’s face, and then another indicating where the projectile had exited out the back.
“Oh yeah, in and out, I hit it good.” Sam nodded. “But you’re right, these pinpricks will have low stopping power. Some big badass might think he’s only been stung by a bee.”
“Hold that thought.” Grey grabbed the gun from Sam’s hands and moved the dial up to half way. “Now try.”
Sam walked back into position, raised the RG3 and fired. Almost magically a golf ball sized section of the impact gel vanished from the center of the head, splattering down to the end of the room.
“Whoa.” Sam grinned.
“Still think they’ll feel like they’ve been stung by a bee?” Grey cocked an eyebrow.
“Maybe a giant one.” Sam went to fire again, but Alex took the gun from him.
“My turn.” He set the dial to its highest setting, aimed and fired. The entire head of the dummy disappeared in an explosion of gel.
Grey folded his arms. “You can thread a needle, or put a hole the size of a softball through anything you aim at.”
Alex fired again, blowing away another section of the dummy. He looked at the weapon. “Oh yeah, this’ll do.” He smiled grimly. “And don’t forget our spare mags.”
“Really?” Grey looked unimpressed. “Just make sure you take it off maximum setting before hitting any ducks, won’t you?”
“Hey, I hear they’re pretty big ducks up there.” Sam took the RG3 back from Alex, and fired again at the remains of the dummy, obliterating the bottom half completely. Boom, he mouthed through his smile.
“I’ll have your weapons, spare ammunition and armor ready for you.” Grey scowled at Sam and took the weapon from him. “Now, I understand this will more than likely be an adversarial engagement, yes?”
“We hope to avoid it,” Alex said. “But they send HAWCs for a reason.”
“I know, expected confrontation,” Grey agreed. “So, now, something for defense I think you’ll both like.” He pressed a small stud in the wall and a drawer slid out. In it was what looked like gauntlets that fit over the lower arm. Grey took one out and slid it up his forearm.
“Um…” The scientist opened another drawer and selected a 9 mm pistol. He handed it to Alex. “Take this.”
Alex took it — a SIG Sauer SP2022 — he drew the slide back, but already knew it was fully loaded from the weight in his hand. He paused.
Grey adjusted something on the gauntlet, walked twenty feet down the shooting range and turned to face the two men. “Fire at will.”
Alex looked briefly at Sam, shrugged, and pointed the gun. Grey brought his forearm up and a faint whirring sound began. In front of him a three-foot disc shaped area began to become less distinct.
Alex fired twice directly at the man, and the bullets were pushed away — not ricocheted, but more like they hit something that absorbed their energy and then discarded them. Alex fired three more times — same result.
“Hold fire,” Grey yelled from behind the disc.
“Impressive.” Alex lowered his gun arm. “What the hell is it?”
Grey dropped his arm, the whirring stopped and the air in front of him cleared. He lifted his chin. “Personal combat shield — it’s basically ionized air trapped in a circling compression wave.” He grinned. “We accelerate the molecules in the air to near speed of light, and actually create an artificial gravity field using the centripetal force to keep it in a confined area.” He looked down at the gauntlet and patted it. “So far, we can only do it on a small scale, but we hope one day to be able to use it as a city-wide missile shield. Just think of that.” His eyes lit up.