Chapter 224: Jessica Morgan Gives In

Chapter 224: Jessica Morgan Gives In

In the woods outside of an abandoned quarry on the surface of Raylesh, Bella Morgan, Jessica Morgan's great-granddaughter, fidgeted nervously and checked her phone.

A young man, even more nervous than she was, paced back and forth in front of a folding table upon which rested several weapons.

Her great-grandmother was almost an hour late.

Bella felt nauseous. Jessica was nearly obsessive where punctuality was concerned. She often said that it was a sign of respect and how much you valued someone's time.

This did NOT bode well.

Eventually, a gravitic armored personnel carrier decloaked above them and landed nearby.

The doors opened and several grey-clad humans in light combat armor, each carrying a sabergun, debarked and rapidly swept the area and secured a perimeter.

"Area clear," a woman in her early fifties said into her helmet.

She then approached Bella and the young man.

She looked at the table and shook her head.

"You've dun goofed, kid." the old Morgan Security soldier said. "You've got about thirty seconds to start running."

Bella squared her shoulders and grabbed the young man's coat, preventing him from doing just that.

Moments later, a gravitic armored car decloaked and landed with an angry "thump".

The door swung open, and Jessica stormed out of it, nearly charging her great-granddaughter.

"Bella, this had BETTER be a fucking joke," she said, pointing at one of the weapons on the table.

"You said you wanted an iconic 'porkie gun'," Bella said as she picked up a simple submachine gun consisting of two round tubes, the larger one to the rear having a long channel cut in it revealing a compression spring. "You can't get more iconic than this! The Terrans had their AKs, and we had these! Everyone knows at one glance what—"

"You called me all the way out here, exposing both myself and you, for a fucking nail gun?"

"With these simple open-bolt arms, our people were able to protect themselves during our exile in the cold dark and then during our early days in the refugee camps and..."

"We're done here." Jessica snapped. "You!" she barked at the terrified young man.

The man tried to respond, but the only thing that came out was a strangled little wheeze.

"Who the fuck are you?"

"Someone working for me!" Bella exclaimed forcefully as she stepped between the doomed man and her enraged great-grandmother. "This is my project... and my decision to bring it to you."

"Then you are the one who's taking the fall for it!" Jessica snapped. "I made myself quite clear about thousand-year-old tech! Still, you insisted that you had something 'special,' so I am on the surface, risking my men, so you can show me a scavenger's STEN?!?"

"A-actually..." the young man stammered behind her, "It is much more like a Swedish-K..."

"Shut up!" Jessica Morgan snapped. "You're lucky that Bella here is stupid enough to bet her life on the fact that I have the misfortune of sharing blood with her!"

She glared at Bella.

"It is an electrostatic round," he said. "Inside, there is a fully charged Zeta ultracapacitor that, upon impact, breaks open, releasing the stored potential in a single blast."

"That's it?" Jessica asked, a bit surprised.

"In theory," Gregor replied, "yes. In practice, it was a bit trickier to pull off. To get the intended result, the capacitor has to be fully charged to extremely high voltages before being embedded in the round. The bullet then has to have the right resistance to both electricity and impact to be handled and fired safely and yet still detonate on a rapid deceleration regardless if it is a hard surface or flesh. It was, in a word, tricky."

"I see," Jessica smiled. "How quickly can these be produced?"

"The Xeta ultracapacitors are already manufactured here on Raylesh and are in the supply chain. Millions of them can be diverted today. The bullet polymer is a simple enough formula and could be made just about anywhere. There are a few other components in the round, but they all lend themselves to high-speed production. The only limiting factor is charge time. But, that can be easily addressed, and the assembly of the round could be safely performed by only slightly modified precision industrial machinery we already have in place."

"...and the 'nail gun' is iconic..." Jessica snickered. "And could be just shit out by the millions. We could arm everyone, and the designs would be easily replicated by just about any species..."

"And we could sell them all bullets!" Bella exclaimed happily. "Federation go boom!"

"How does the yield of these compare to Imperial electrostatic charges?"

"Well over fifty percent greater, ma'am," Gregor replied. "It's our Old Earth capacitor technology. As far as we know, we are the only people still mass-producing the Zetas. They aren't true supercapacitors, but they pack one hell of a punch."

"Why don't the Terrans still make them?" Jessica asked.

"I think they have fallen victim to inexpensive components streaming in from the Empire," Gregor replied, "They can get a thousand capacitors that are, for most typical applications, almost identical performance-wise for what it costs us to make one Zeta, but even so, the Zetas are still cheaper than one of their front line bullets several times over. The Zetas also require certain rare earth elements that aren't required for the Imperial and Terran caps."

"Is that going to be a problem?"

"Not for a long while, ma'am," Gregor replied. "As long as we hold Raylesh, we can make them."

"Can these be used in higher-power rifles?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"What about gauss arms?"

"I would strongly advise against it," Gregor replied.

"Goddammit!" Jessica shouted to the heavens. "A fucking thousand-year-old slug thrower! Fuck me!"

She started loading a magazine.

"So..." Bella asked, "I get to go back home?"

"Nope," Jessica said as she continued to load rounds.

"No?" Bella asked in alarm.

"You're wasted there," Jessica replied as she slapped the magazine into the submachine gun.

She leveled it at what few scraps remained downrange.

"You are coming back with me."

Jessica grinned as Hell was unleashed at six hundred rounds per minute.