Jethro Goes to War (Wandering Engineer Jethro's tale) by Chris Hechtl Page A

All the math is done in the
computer, you just have to point and shoot,” he said, amused as
the growing concern on some of their faces was slowly wiped away.
    “ There are
different rounds for different applications. There is your basic
slug, then the incendiary slug, and a tracer slug. From what I
understand there was also a sensor slug but we don't have any to play
with. They are a pain to make and use.” He turned, flicked a
selector switch and fired first tracer rounds, then incendiary rounds
down range. Both looked like a laser weapon with short gaps between
rounds. In the daylight conditions of the park bay it didn't stand
out as well as he had hoped.
    “ Note the play
for the slug in the barrel. There isn't any if your manufacturer is
smart and does his job right. That is because if you have any, the
slug can strike the inside of the barrel, either gouging out a part
of the material or leaving a smear of it's jacket behind. Either one
is bad in combat.”
    “ By now you
have noted the power pack,” he said. He held up the clip and
turned it. He jacked off a one centimeter by four centimeter
rectangular block. “This is it. Each ammo clip has it's own
battery pack. Earlier rail guns needed a large power source, making
them extremely heavy and hard to aim. This reduced their weight and
made them easier to handle. But they can fail like any other part of
the weapon.”
    He handed the
corporal the weapon then picked up a larger weapon. It was over two
meters long, with a wide bulbous end that was split along its
vertical and horizontal axis. He turned and braced himself before
firing.
    A blinding white,
blue, and purple shot leapt down the range and tore through the armor
plate at the end. The plate exploded outward, raining molten pieces
half way back up the range in a spectacular display. Energy crackled
and sizzled. They could hear the atmosphere pop as they rose from
their instinctive crouches and uncovered their ears.
    “ Plasma gun.
Like the needler it uses a rail gun to accelerate a plasma round down
range. But it does so by turning hydrogen or some other material into
plasma in a plasma bottle. Which is energy intensive. Which is why it
has these massive battery packs. This is usually a crew service
weapon. We've got smaller ones planned, ones that use micro force
emitters, and we've got bigger vehicle mount ones planned. This will
make or break your day depending on which end you’re facing,”
he grimaced. “Don't screw around. You see someone on the other
side with this take them out fast. A plasma gun will go through just
about anything we've got fast. Even shielded systems will only take a
couple hits before they go down.”
    “ Yeah,”
Sergei breathed. “I have so got to have one,”
he breathed. The gunny shot the big Liger a look and then set the
rifle down.
    “ Here is
another weapon system,” he said. He held up a rifle. “You've
seen a stunner. This is its big brother a microwave laser also called
a maser. It will superheat a pinpoint area on a target in a
nanosecond. It can be used for sniping but it can easily be detected
and localized. To localize the SR-2204 you need a bunch of sensors to
triangulate.”
    “ One of the
interesting things we discovered is this weapon can blind visual
sensors. Couple that with a stunner and you get a great long range
distraction.” Jethro made a mental note of that one. That trick
might come in handy in the future.
    “ This is a
grenade launcher,” the gunny said. He put the laser down and
then hefted a small blocky weapon in matte green plastic. “We've
got two different versions, the dedicated one which this one is, and
another that mounts as an underside attachment to your standard
assault rifle. The underside one pulls your barrel down and makes it
harder to get on target fast so be aware of that.”
    “ Most of you
know the basic three grenades. We've got a couple more. EMP grenades
can fry electronics in its attack radius. Bouncing betties