both the original version and the variant used in season three, after Dark Star had been defeated and Space Man concentrated his efforts on fighting natural disasters—though, admittedly, no one else has ever seemed to be as impressed with my rendition of “Down These Space Lanes” as I’ve always been, not the least of which everyone I’ve ever crewed with.
The action figure was manufactured in Seoul in 2142, if the maker’s mark on the sole of his left boot were any indication. It was a constant companion throughout long, hot summers and rainy springs and trips to visit relatives in distant states. It was one of the few things I took with me from my parents’ house when I moved to Ethiopia to start college, and was in my meager mass allowance when I first boarded Orbital Patrol Cutter 972 . That little lump of vacuum-formed, colored plastic has survived the cold of space and the heat of explosions, firefights and fist fights, near drowning and borderline fatal dehydration, and still, I’ve never lost it. There was never a question that it wouldn’t be included in my mass allowance on board Wayfarer One , and I was glad to see him lying there on the bed, as crisp and clean as the day I bought him, ready for new adventures.
The cap gun I’d acquired in my early years with the Orbital Patrol.
Setting down the Space Man action figure, I picked the cap gun up off the bed and checked the action, gratified to see that it appeared to be in perfect working order.
An energetic personal handgun, the Merrill 4KJ Capacitor Gun was equipped with a revolving cylinder containing ten capacitors, each about the length and diameter of my little finger. In the stock was a miniature generator with the ability to recharge the capacitors once used, but recharging took time. In pressing circumstances, the capacitors could be ejected from the chambers and already charged caps slotted into place.
The Merrill 4KJ had two modes—beamer and needler. In beamer mode, it fired pulsed laser beams of variable intensity and duration. In needler mode, it acted as a gauss gun, accelerating slivers of metal to high speeds in the barrel. It also contained a small number of explosive flechettes that could be fired as alternative needler rounds.
Each capacitor packed four thousand joules, roughly the amount of solar energy received from the sun at 1AU by one square meter in three seconds. Emptying a capacitor all at once in beamer mode produced roughly the same kinetic energy as a 9.33g 7.62mm NATO round, but while it had more than enough stopping power to halt a full-grown man or a feral corvid miner in its tracks, it wasn’t likely to puncture a ship’s hull and cause an explosive decompression, and so cap guns were the weapon of choice for Orbital Patrolmen and space-side Peacekeepers.
Everyone serving in the Orbital Patrol was issued a Merrill 4KJ or an equivalent handgun from another manufacturer, but this one was mine , and had saved my life more times than I could count. Once I’d even had to rig a charged capacitor as a stand-alone explosive, but my ears still rang a month later, and it was an experience I was in no hurry to repeat. I wasn’t about to leave it behind when I was seconded to UNSA.
I slid a cartridge out of the cylinder, checked the power gauge, saw that it was at full charge, and slotted it back into place, careful to ensure that the safety was engaged. I put the cap gun back on the bed and picked up the handheld.
The handheld I’d bought in Vienna, just weeks before the launch of Wayfarer One . A portable computer and communications device, it fit in the palm of my hand, lightweight and durable, with more processing capacity and memory than any other handheld on the market—which meant that it was probably obsolete by the time I went down in my sleeper coffin. It had a touch-sensitive display, speakers, and audio pickup, though in those days I typically transmitted its video and audio output to a pair of glasses
The action figure was manufactured in Seoul in 2142, if the maker’s mark on the sole of his left boot were any indication. It was a constant companion throughout long, hot summers and rainy springs and trips to visit relatives in distant states. It was one of the few things I took with me from my parents’ house when I moved to Ethiopia to start college, and was in my meager mass allowance when I first boarded Orbital Patrol Cutter 972 . That little lump of vacuum-formed, colored plastic has survived the cold of space and the heat of explosions, firefights and fist fights, near drowning and borderline fatal dehydration, and still, I’ve never lost it. There was never a question that it wouldn’t be included in my mass allowance on board Wayfarer One , and I was glad to see him lying there on the bed, as crisp and clean as the day I bought him, ready for new adventures.
The cap gun I’d acquired in my early years with the Orbital Patrol.
Setting down the Space Man action figure, I picked the cap gun up off the bed and checked the action, gratified to see that it appeared to be in perfect working order.
An energetic personal handgun, the Merrill 4KJ Capacitor Gun was equipped with a revolving cylinder containing ten capacitors, each about the length and diameter of my little finger. In the stock was a miniature generator with the ability to recharge the capacitors once used, but recharging took time. In pressing circumstances, the capacitors could be ejected from the chambers and already charged caps slotted into place.
The Merrill 4KJ had two modes—beamer and needler. In beamer mode, it fired pulsed laser beams of variable intensity and duration. In needler mode, it acted as a gauss gun, accelerating slivers of metal to high speeds in the barrel. It also contained a small number of explosive flechettes that could be fired as alternative needler rounds.
Each capacitor packed four thousand joules, roughly the amount of solar energy received from the sun at 1AU by one square meter in three seconds. Emptying a capacitor all at once in beamer mode produced roughly the same kinetic energy as a 9.33g 7.62mm NATO round, but while it had more than enough stopping power to halt a full-grown man or a feral corvid miner in its tracks, it wasn’t likely to puncture a ship’s hull and cause an explosive decompression, and so cap guns were the weapon of choice for Orbital Patrolmen and space-side Peacekeepers.
Everyone serving in the Orbital Patrol was issued a Merrill 4KJ or an equivalent handgun from another manufacturer, but this one was mine , and had saved my life more times than I could count. Once I’d even had to rig a charged capacitor as a stand-alone explosive, but my ears still rang a month later, and it was an experience I was in no hurry to repeat. I wasn’t about to leave it behind when I was seconded to UNSA.
I slid a cartridge out of the cylinder, checked the power gauge, saw that it was at full charge, and slotted it back into place, careful to ensure that the safety was engaged. I put the cap gun back on the bed and picked up the handheld.
The handheld I’d bought in Vienna, just weeks before the launch of Wayfarer One . A portable computer and communications device, it fit in the palm of my hand, lightweight and durable, with more processing capacity and memory than any other handheld on the market—which meant that it was probably obsolete by the time I went down in my sleeper coffin. It had a touch-sensitive display, speakers, and audio pickup, though in those days I typically transmitted its video and audio output to a pair of glasses
Similar Books
