Fairy Tale: PT 2, Guns, guns and Jerry!
Alright gents we're back and ready to rumble.
Major thanks to @bullethead who managed to get my depictions of the characters perfectly (Because he's a better writer than me.
) but who also did the painstaking research and monumental effort to create a post essentially giving us a crash course on the Next Gen weaponry used by the SGC.
He also wanted me to mention that the disassembly of the RM-277 is purely conjectural because there's no data available on how that works. As per usual, he still does an immaculate job.
So with much thanks, eternal gratitude and praise for his skill.
Episode 3 heats up.
Cheyenne Mountain complex: August 14th
“Man, it’s good to have the whole team back under one roof.” O’Neill muttered between sips of coffee that Hammond was convinced was half Skara’s moonshine. Not that he could object, the boy had fashioned for himself one hell of a distillery over the last half decade and for someone who grew up near the border between Louisiana and Texas, well the Admiral wasn’t a stranger to half mad swamp runners and the nitroglycerine they passed off as booze.
Carter was the last to come through the gate, the blonde was seated on the first of what would be many carts filled with gold, Naquadah and diamonds that came back from Abydos. Her arm injury having healed long ago and the Abydonian sun leaving her with a healthy tan. She’d spent the bulk of the summer helping them set up the communication systems and doing what she could to study and quantify and reactivate as much technology within the pyramid complex as possible. With her was Daniel Jackson, who looked like he’d finally gotten used to sleeping alone again as the dark bags under his eyes were lessened of late.
“Speaking of that, Admiral I was wondering if I could accompany Teal’c next month to that” Kowalski who was standing next to Jack began his pleading and Hammond cut him off with a gruff, “No.”
“But... it’s in Vegas sir.”
“Son, you suck at cards, you suck at craps and you still owe me for that time in the DR.”
Kowalski grumbled something about how Teal’c got to have all the fun. Which was somewhat true, the man was treated less like an alien defector and more like a visiting dignitary, one that happened to also be assigned to an SG team. That had been a sticking point for Teal’c, he understood how valuable his knowledge was and was more than happy to also assist in training SG teams and he seemed content to agree to pretty much all the demands the President had for him but his one sticking point that he wanted to fight alongside Colonel O’Neill. There was some flailing in the Pentagon of course, such a valuable asset at risk but there was no way they wouldn’t agree. Carter, Jackson. Teal’c, Hammond would have preferred more soldiers on the flagship team but then again, Teal’c and O’Neill were sufficient and he doubted the team would be in many dangerous areas on their own.
Between Carter’s legs was a duffle bag that he realized she was partially sitting on, and he nearly threw his own coffee. “Damnit girl! Is that the Naquadah generator?!”
“Yep!” Carter grinned tapping the bag in a way that caused something to light up. “Don’t worry sir its quite safe, Teal’c gave me specs for something that’s powerful enough to light up a small town or two, just something to test out and reverse engineer.”
Area 51 would be producing the damn things for military use in a year or so and soon after, “leaking” the new mineral and schematics to small defense companies and family-owned mining operations. That had been a smart move. Too many cartels in places of power for the United States to easily survive an enemy like this. He noticed the other thing that came through the gate was cart filled with seeds of various plants that after having passed Doctors Fraser and Lahm’s quarantine procedures were to be transported to a facility in Tennessee for study, evidently one produced a substance that sped up and enhanced tissue regeneration (Which they saw work on Carter and one of the Abydonians) and another that produced ten times the oxygen normal plants did. So far, this venture was paying off, though Kasuf was a hell of a businessman. The Army corps of engineers had sent a group of their best to help them improve their agriculture and there were a few experts in age of sail era ships being hired to be send to Abydos as well. The Abydonians were an ambitious people, they realized Ra had stolen much of their future and they wanted it back but they were also smart enough to avoid being dependent on their allies in the long term.
“You learn faster than Abydonians do Doc, you’ll get that thing working in no time” O’Neill remarked, Carter was a little bit crazy but there was no denying how smart she and Daniel were. How fast the two worked and how quickly they implemented what they worked out. “Thanks sir!” Carter smiled proudly before hopping off the cart. “Means a lot considering they’re genengineered to learn fast.”
“Have we proven that yet?” O’Neill asked, that had been a hunch of his since the first mission. Teal’c further alluded to it when he mentioned the Goa’uld were very skilled with genetic engineering and selective breeding. His comments about the snakes themselves having a sort of genetic memory that allowed their youngsters to learn skills their parents knew from muscle memory and use instinct to learn newer skills faster made him think the best response to a hostile snake was a quick bullet to its head within a head. Jaffa had a slightly less comprehensive variant of that written into genetic code by the snakes and it explained just how fast Teal’c learned new skills or how quickly he picked up sports.
“Not yet, Fraser and Lahm think they see evidence in blood samples, but they lack the equipment to do a proper study of it for now. So, they’re sending a bunch of samples over with the next shipment.”
O’Neill nodded -Guess Doc Fraser is going to come back here soon then and Lahm is going to send her with a request for more equipment. - He would have to suggest allowing SG-2 to be based out of Abydos, so Kowalski could be close to his wife. Given how often there’d be movement between Abydos and Earth it wouldn’t hurt to put him there, both to help Skara continue his build up the Abydonian militia and Lorne could only do so much.
“Briefing in ten and then you’ve until seventeen hundred for downtime.” Hammond cut in with a glint in his eye.
O’Neill perked up. “We’re finally going out huh?”
“Don’t get too excited Colonel, you’ll be chasing after Teal’c’s mushroom.” Hammond warned “And escorting a few biologists.”
“I’ll bring the beer!” Carter offered. “You even old enough to drink?” O’Neill quipped eyebrow raising.
“Ppfft even if I wasn’t, if the Government had an objection to my underage drinking, they probably shouldn’t have let me go up into space.” Carter chirped back with that look in her eyes that made O’Neill wonder if he should have that generator inspected to make sure it didn’t come with a loony toons style dynamite lever.
“I’m kind of curious, we’ve only been to two different planets’ using the gate. This will be the first time we’ve gone elsewhere.” Jackson cut in. “And it’ll be the first time we’ve gone to a world outside of Goa’uld space. It’ll be fascinating to see what the areas outside the Empire are really like and if we can make any friends.”
“Big guy says the world’s uninhabited.” O’Neill reminded him. Jackson nodded enthusiastically and seemed to regain a measure of himself after the horrors of Chulak. “As far as he knows Colonel, I mean by our calendar the last time Teal’c visited that world Warren G Harding was still President.”
“You think someone could have settled that planet since then?” Hammond asked skeptically.
Carter interrupted here, hopping down from the cart, and rubbing her shoulder slightly. Abydonian drugs may have done wonders to speed up the healing process but there was something truly nasty about Jaffa knives. Carter thought it was the ionized particles on the edges of the blade that almost made them lightsabers. “Well, I’ve been thinking about that sir, Teal’c says there are ancient Ori drone ships flying around the cosmos dumping gates anywhere they think there’s a chance for that world to support life, he says the System Lords and the Asgard do the same with modern sophisticated gates”
Hammond could see where this was going, the System Lords maintained the Gate Network itself across the local galactic cluster, it seemed ludicrously easy to access. “You think “developing” worlds like ours might use the gate system to deal with issues like population and food?”
“Trade in General Admiral, Teal’c mentioned that the Tollan’s have trade outposts, but no one really knows where they come from, and he said they’re about a century to fifty years behind us. I wonder if there aren’t other groups of people that wander the galaxy as middlemen, maybe like Bedouins in space?” Carter looked to Daniel for confirmation on her theory and the man was nodding animatedly. “In truth sir we could be running into anything, but it would be good for us to make contact with some semi advanced worlds at some point.”
Teal’c had provided a few gate addresses for worlds that were either ten to forty years ahead of Earth or twenty to a hundred behind them (with the exception of two that he believed were several centuries behind them.) that he thought would be open to some form of economic ties as they were fond of doing business with everyone they met, which at times did include minor nobles in the Imperium. but Hammond wanted to do a little more discrete exploring before moving to any major world, the area of cosmic diplomacy was still in its infancy and Secretary Weir and Woolsey couldn’t be everywhere much as they both clearly enjoyed it (To the eternal dismay of the secret service agents who had to do off world security detail).
“Sir, if SG1 is finally going out on a mission, then I think giving Teal’c a refresher course on our weapons might be a good idea. I know he’ll be bringing his Zat gun and staff but it never hurts to be ready, just in case.” Kowalski stood in front of Hammond’s desk, at ease, but with just enough formality to show he was serious.
Hammond raised an eyebrow. “I thought you gave him high marks when you ran him through weapons training a few weeks back, during all the downtime.”
“He’s a fast learner, sir. Better than a lot of the boys and girls I was training before Stargate Command reactivated. But it’s clear the most advanced automatic weapon he’s handled prior to the ’48 would have been something analogous to an old west Gattling gun. He admitted that in his Jaffa days, most of what he went up against were cap and ball or flintlocks – black powder stuff, sir. He said he had one firefight against some bank robbers on a planet when he was still a junior officer where he encountered what sounded like a space alien version of a Tommy Gun. So, I’d rather spend an hour or so going through everything again now, getting him used to how to deal with our weapons, than risk him being in a situation where we need him to man an LMG or grab a rifle and not have any idea how to work the thing.”
Not that the big guy would mind. It was refreshing to see the equivalent of a four-or-five star general (Was that the American equivalent to a War Master?) admit that it’d been ages since he’d fought on the frontlines or mastered any weapon more dangerous than a pencil as anything more than a hobby. The rest was pure muscle memory, and the big guy enjoyed the “tactile aesthetics of discharging kinetic weaponry” as he put it.
“Indeed.” Hammond said playfully copying Teal’c’s distinctive tone. “Planning to get Sheppard’s people and the new recruits involved?”
“I’ve already got a training session on the new guns scheduled for them in…” Kowalski checked his watch, “and hour and a half, sir. It won’t be a problem to add one more person.”
“Alright Kowalski, you’ve got the go-ahead. After that, you’re off for the night. Go see your wife for lunch or something and bring me back some of Skara’s moonshine.”
“Yessir!”
Kowalski snapped a sharp salute and headed off to the armory. When it came to the newest hardware, the major headache was that there was never enough to go around, especially when it was a hands on training session. He shook his head, glad that today’s session was just confined to going over controls and disassembly/re-assembly procedure.
Using his authorization card, he stepped inside the main area of base armory, the room full of racks of weapons, loaded magazines, radios, and several large cabinets that undoubtedly held untold numbers of small parts necessary for maintaining and repairing the dozens of firearms in the room. He spied a few M4 carbines that somehow hadn’t been transferred upstairs to the armory for the guards, along with several new weapons, fresh out of the box. A half dozen enlisted were crammed into the room, unpacking and handling paperwork, and it took a good half minute before anyone came to attention, which he waved off.
“Checking in on things before your big show and tell session, sir?” Sergeant Amanda Walensky was a fellow Marine transplant into the Space Force, and one with a reputation for being somewhat of a jokester. Kowalski didn’t mind that – she kept the guns in good working order, and if her people responded positively to her manner, he wasn’t going to get in the way of their esprit de corps.
“Caught me, Sarge.” Kowalski gave her a quick smile. “We good to go?”
“As long as you aren’t shooting all those guns,” she replied with a smile that promised mischief. “We still haven’t gotten the 6.8mm barrels for half the Mk. 48s we’ve got, but the…” She looked at the box for one of the new rifles. “RM-277-Rs are all in. We also got in a few of those KAC LAMGs, but we’ve only got two or three 6.8mm barrels for those. Don’t worry, they’re already installed, and we made a bunch of dummy rounds too.” She pulled open a drawer and handed him a pair of black plastic pieces.
Running his thumb over them, he could feel subtle ridges on the outside. “What, you guys make these on a 3D printer?”
“Got it in one, sir.” Walensky gave him another quick smile. “We got the True Velocity guys to give us a basic CAD model, and Watson over there—“ she tilted her head at a lance corporal filling out paperwork “—learned how to use a 3D printer in school. We’ve got a half dozen doing nothing but making dummies all day, so you’ll have about a hundred for any clearing drills you might want to run.” She looked at them again. “I don’t know how they’ll hold up though. We’re using cheaper feedstock, so they might all get torn up by the time you’re done.”
“Well, Sarge, if you can make replacements on demand on the cheap, I don’t think any of the brass hats will complain.” He gave her significant look. “How’s the ammo supply looking? I know they managed to get two of those fancy ammo making machines out of TV.”
The armory manager grimaced. “It only took us a day to get the thing running to spec – get everything adjusted to running in a bunker under a mountain, that sort of thing. We’ve been pumping out good quality rounds day in and day out, but honestly sir…” She hesitated a second. “Could you not get in a firefight for a few missions? Because Lake City has to do another custom run for these bullets, and they weren’t expecting to make this many for at least a year, not until the NGSW trials finish. We’re almost out of the ones they sent us.”
“You let the Admiral know?” If there was anyone who could bully the US military’s primary ammo production facility into meeting his demands, Kowalski knew it was George Hammond.
“Absolutely, sir, a few days ago. Haven’t heard anything on that front yet, but I’m hoping they’ll get us some bullets in the next few weeks.” Walensky snapped her fingers. “That reminds me, we’re not getting any of the NGFC scopes or the smuzzles until the middle of next month either.”
Kowalski sighed and shrugged. “Yeah, well, that’s the downside of working with prototypes. They need to exist before you can use them. Don’t worry, Sarge, we’ll try not to break your babies out in the field.” He paused a moment, and looked back at the table. “Think I can get one of those M4s for my training session? Don’t need ammo or anything, I just need it for a size comparison.”
“No problem sir, they’re not going upstairs until tomorrow anyway.”
“Alright, I’ll get out of your way. Keep up the good work, Walensky.”
With that, he stepped out into corridors and checked his watch. He’d burned a half hour chatting with the sergeant, so he quickened his pace to find Teal’c before the training session started. Thankfully, it wasn’t too hard to find the Jaffa – his stature and build made him pretty easy to spot in a crowd, never mind the emblem on his forehead. He was in a break room with O’Neill, watching Jerry Springer. With a start, he realized that it was an episode made within the last few years, based on the styles and Jerry’s age. Damn, it’s been forever since I thought about this guy.
“Who’s Jerry got on?” he asked, earning quick glances of acknowledgment from both men.
“This “hillbilly kung fu master” guy,” O’Neill commented, gesturing at the screen. “Then some chick who had a threesome with her friend and a male stripper, and some couple where the guy cheated on her right after their kid was born.”
Kowalski shook his head in disbelief. “Why are you showing Teal’c this?”
“Because he’s going to get bombarded by trash the moment he sets foot off the base, so we might as well prepare him in a safe environment, among friends,” O’Neill replied.
That made a good amount of sense, Kowalski had to admit.
“Colonel Kowalski,” Teal’c spoke in his deep, distinctive tone, “I have a question.”
Oh boy, he thought. “Sure, what is it?”
“Why do these people submit themselves to this treatment?”
“Jack tell you about how they get paid?”
The Jaffa inclined his head. “I am aware of that. However… it does not seem sufficient recompense for the dishonor they accrue by appearing before the people in such a manner.”
Kowalski and O’Neill managed to keep straight faces at that brutal assessment.
“Well, they might be thinking that this is the closest thing to fame… or infamy, that they’ll ever achieve in their lives.” Sighing, Kowalski looked at the screen again. “There’s seven billion people on this planet alone. The odds most people ever getting a slice of fame are super slim, even with all the new media with got these days.”
“So, Kowalski, what brings you here?” O’Neill asked.
“Just wanted to invite Teal’c to the training session for the new guys so he can get some more reps on our weapons. You’re welcome to come too, Jack.”
“Are Sheppard’s boys going to be there?”
“A few,” Kowalski admitted.
“I’m in,” O’Neill said. “Gotta get them introduced to the SGC the right way.”
Forty minutes later, the trio arrived in the mess hall, where the weapons and gear had been laid out on a half-dozen tables in a corner of the room. About 30 newcomers were there, some finishing up a meal, others simply conversing amongst themselves. They snapped to their feet upon noticing the colonels entering the room, which O’Neill waved off.
“Finish your meals, you’re gonna work up an appetite,” he said.
“I’m Colonel Kowalski, this is Colonel O’Neill, and this is Teal’c,” Kowalski said by way of introduction. “Teal’c is the former Jaffa War Master of Apophis, one of the Goa’uld System Lords, and your fellow student for this training session. He’ll be part of SG-1, so he might be saving your ass one day.”
Several of the men eyed Teal’c cautiously, but said nothing. Kowalski was grateful that the secret nature of the SGC prevented animosity towards Jaffa existing, outside of the survivors of Apophis’ raid on the mountain. Teal’c would at least get a fair shake from these men, and Kowalski was certain he’d earn their respect, if not friendship, without much trouble.
Once the men were finished eating, they crowded around the tables covered in guns and assorted parts.
“Alright,” Kowalski began, “I don’t know what they told you about the opposition’s gear when you signed up, and I’m sure someone will brief you if you haven’t gotten that info already. But here’s what we’re going to be using, at least for the foreseeable future.” He gestured toward the rifles. “Now, I don’t know how closely you guys have been following the news, but the Army is running the Next Generation Squad Weapon trials, and we’re running with some of the guns and ammo from that program, due to how good Jaffa armor is.”
“How good is that?” one of the men in the back asked.
“Level 4 equivalent.” Kowalski nodded somberly as the men in front of him made small expressions of displeasure. “Now, between the first Stargate mission and the SGC getting into full gear, I was training Space Force operators, and got hands on time with all the NGSW competitors. And I can firmly say, what we have here is the second best option, and a hell of a lot better than Sig’s sorry ass bid.”
“Second best doesn’t sound like ringing praise to me, sir.” That was one of Sheppard’s men, a dour looking fellow by the name of Montez.
“Well, look at it this way, Montez.” Kowalski patted one of the rifles. “Big Army dumped a ton of money into Textron’s bids, starting back when the program was known as LSAT. They’re better than what General Dynamics and True Velocity cooked up, but to be honest, their rifle was initially total dogshit, and I’m not entirely happy with their new version either. You think they’d let Space Force get their hands on a large supply of their golden boy’s goods?”
There was a united shaking of heads from everyone, except Teal’c (naturally).
“Alright, now that that’s out of the way, let me introduce you to your new best friend.” He lifted a rectangular rifle, with a nearly 45 degree slant just behind the muzzle, which was hidden under what looked like a squat mason jar. A rectangular magazine jutted straight down from the rear of the rifle, behind a standard, black M4 pistol grip and in front of a triangular, skeletonized support for the buttpad. The rifle’s shades of flat dark earth were broken only by the long length of sight rail on the top, the various control close to the pistol grip, the grip itself, and the light gray contraption over the ejection port, with various cutouts leading into the chamber. “This is the RM-277-R. This baby fires a 6.8 by 51 millimeter round at 3000 feet per second. This is one hell of a hot round, so every one of these is intended to be used with one of these,” he patted the muzzle device, “a fancy suppressor/muzzle break combo someone decided to call a ‘smuzzle’. It’s only an extra 3 inches to end of your rifle, which is fine, because this rifle is shorter than your bog standard M4.”
O’Neill helpfully held up the M4, stock collapsed, next to the RM-277-R. “Now, let me tell you, I’ve shot one these babies without that fancy smuzzle, and I don’t recommend it.”
“How bad is it when the smuzzle is on?” One of the new recruits asked.
“Not that bad,” O’Neill replied. “Somewhere between 5.56 and 7.62 NATO. Whatever science magic the R&D boys put in this thing works.”
Kowalski nodded in agreement. “Now, for all you eagle eyed observers, this is a bullpup – the mag and action are behind the grip. 20 round mags, like any 7.62 NATO rifle. Totally new design, but polymer… Ammo’s also polymer case, with a steel base, so it’s a lot lighter than the same amount of 7.62 ammo.”
There was enthusiasm in the newbies faces, but it was leavened by the fact that they’d all been on the receiving end of the military’s need to saddle soldiers with more gear, which meant more weight.
Kowalski put down the RM-277-R and picked up the version with a bipod mounted to the front. “This here’s the RM-277-AR. Basically the same gun, with a bipod and a longer, heavier barrel. The boys from GD say this thing is supposed to be used like the IAR some of you used with the Marines, so it’ll be more of a designated marksman rifle than an LMG. Now, both versions of this gun have an aluminum extrusion upper receiver, the same lower, a freefloated barrel, and the same combo short recoil/gas piston operating system. The barrel recoils on every shot – even with the bipod on, because the bipod has just enough clearance around the barrel for it to move.”
“That’s going to fuck with the accuracy though,” one soldier pointed out.
“True, but these guns are meant to be paired with these fancy smart scopes,” he gestured towards the table, “so they’re supposed to make up for that. Now, this gun has some fancy features to help us ground pounders live easier. First, there’s this fancy ejection chute that kicks the rounds forward. It can swapped to left side eject with just a simple field strip, so need for you lefties to bug the armory guys over getting special parts for that. There’s a slot up here,” he tapped the front end of the chute, where a rectangular opening was, “that lets you check the chamber, and in a worst case scenario, you can run the rifle without the chute, but that increases the odds of gunk getting in there, so only do it in an emergency.”
He shifted his grip on the rifle and used one hand to point at the controls above the pistol grip. “The fire control group on this rifle is way different than your M4… or most other rifles out there. At the back, we’ve got a safety, which just makes the rifle safe or ready to fire. In front of that, we’ve got a fire mode selector – semi or full auto. If you know your history, you may recall a few rifles, including the FG42, had that kind of system. And in front of that, we’ve got our mag release. You push against the top of the lever and the mag drops free.”
Kowalski then ran his finger a long a long, black plastic block above all three controls. “This is your bolt release. Just push forward and it does all the work for you.” He flipped the rifle. “This baby is fully ambidextrous, so you can do everything you need to, regardless of which hand you’re using.”
He put down the rifle and picked up one of the machine guns, which looked like a long rectangle with triangle cutouts on the front and triangular bracing on the side, along with an AR-15 style collapsing stock on it. “You’ll be getting some hands on time with the RM-277-R shortly, but before that, let’s look at our selection of LMGs. What we’ve got here is the Knights Armament Light Assault Machine Gun, rebarreled in 6.8mm. It’s going to be issued to our recon and diplomatic teams, to give them enough firepower to take and hold a position, but not look too scary.” There were some chuckles from the assorted military men. “This thing is 13.25 pounds, so it’s lighter than an M60, thanks to an aluminum extrusion receiver. There’s a quick change barrel, but no carry handle on the barrel, so do not do mag dumps with this thing. Restrict fire to controlled bursts, and you won’t overheat it.”
Kowalski patted the side of the machine gun. “What makes this baby special is that it’s got a constant recoil system, which means that you can actually shoot this from the shoulder and hit something, because the recoil is smoothed out.” There were some more chuckles. “Runs on an open bolt at a firing rate of about 600 rounds per minute, so there’s no semi-auto on this gun, just a push-button safety. Takes 200 round belts with pouches, regular links, so no need to worry about proprietary BS there.”
He set the LAMG down and picked up a much more complicated looking machine gun. He grunted a bit as he lifted the three foot long weapon, which was familiar to anyone who’d served in the military in the past forty years… or played enough modern military shooters. “Some of you may have used one of these, but some of you might mistake this for an M249.” Kowalski smiled and shook his head. “This is the SAW’s big brother – the Mk. 48 Mod 1. Normally, these are chambered in 7.62 NATO, but again, we’re getting these rebarreled in 6.8 x 51. We’ll be issuing these on assault missions or for search and rescue, because one of these is 18.26 pounds, before optics, attachments, and whatever else you’re going to be carrying on your person.”
There were exasperated groans from the men, for they had all experienced the US military’s habit of loading as much hardware on the infantry as possible.
“We’ve got a hot swappable barrel – each of these comes with a spare, which means it takes a lot longer to get these things delivered – plus a hand guard with plenty of rail space, rail on the feed cover, and a hydraulic buffer in the stock.” Kowalski put the supposedly “light” machine gun down, shrugging his shoulders. “Right now, all of ours have these fixed stocks, but if telescoped ones are more your style, talk to Sergeant Walensky down in the armory. She’ll put in the paperwork to get you hooked up.”
He picked up one of the smart scopes. “Now these are pretty slick, but also heavy and expensive as shit. What we’ve got here are two different smart scopes. 1 to 6 variable power, with laser range finders, built-in bullet drop and wind compensation, and whole bunch of other stuff that’s covered in the manuals you should read before going offworld with one of these. They’ve got internal batteries and can be powered by an RM-277’s smart rail, but if the batteries die or we find some kind of weird planet where electronics don’t work, you’ll still be able to shoot the bad guys at up to 900 meters or so away.”
“And for all that, you get to carry 2.5 pounds of heavy scope on your rifle,” O’Neill chipped in. “Just wait until they add the night vision gear too.”
Again, the men groaned.
“Not much more to say about these things, besides the fact that they’re tuned for Earth’s atmosphere and gravity, so no guarantees about performance. And we’ll probably have to make a long range training range on Abydos and any other planet so you can get the most out of the optics.” Kowalski looked at O’Neill. “I know we’re supposed to write reports on the performance of the optics, but how detailed can we get with gravity related problems?”
“Well, we are the Space Force,” O’Neill said slowly, rolling the problem over in his mind. “So I guess we can complain all we want about issues on planets with less gravity. For all the manufacturers would know, we’re secretly working on a moon base or something.”
Everybody but Teal’c chuckled, but that was to be expected – the Jaffa hadn’t had the time to learn the long and absurd history of the moon base idea.
“Anyway, since the NGSW trials only ordered about 150 each of the competing designs, Space Force had to put in a supplemental order. We’re only getting them in small batches, so for now, we’re assigning them to people on designated marksman duty. Everybody else gets ACOGs until we have enough to outfit an entire team.”
“Don’t drop the scope, got it,” one man joked.
“Smart man,” O’Neill said with a broad smile, as the rest chuckled.
Kowalski smiled as he began loading dummy rounds into the rifle mags. “Alright, we’re gonna start off with some practice drills on the RM-277s. Loading, unloading, that sort of thing. You’re gonna give me 4 reps, then you’re going to hand the rifle off to the next guy in line.”
He and O’Neill handed out rifles and mags to the men, then ran them through the drills, correcting their mistakes and showing them how to clear malfunctions. While the actual steps of clearing an issue were familiar to all the Americans, the mechanics of clearing a jam or double-feed took some getting used to, due to the rifle’s action being located so far back. However, each man sped up through each repetition, and by the time the last men finished, Kowalski felt they all reached a sufficient level of proficiency.
“Alright, that’s enough for today. I expect you all to put in some reps on your own time, because the last thing we need is somebody who can’t clear a jam on another planet.” He and O’Neill collected the rifles and began handing out the LAMGs. After cycling everyone through the drills to his satisfaction, he moved them to the Mk. 48s.
Now, Kowaski walked them through the disassembly procedure, mostly for Teal’c’s benefit, but allowed him to point out subtle differences in procedure from the M249’s disassembly. Each man ran through the process, twice, before he moved them to the LAMGs, which were much simpler to disassemble. Once again, each man ran through two repetitions, before proceeding to the rifles.
“Alright, gentlemen, here’s a world exclusive,” Kowalski announced with a lopsided grin. “Dunno why, but the guys working on this refuse to show the guts of this thing unless they have to. Not sure if they're afraid of someone stealing their ideas or they're just scared.” Grabbing an RM-277-R, he squeezed his fingers into the grooves that held the buttpad of the rifle on. “First, you’ve gotta press down here and pull off the butt…”
The black plastic piece slid off the rifle and went on the table, with Kowalski grabbing a dummy round in the same motion. “Then you pop these two pins from the left side with the tip of your bullet…”
He let out small grunts as he pushed the pins half way through, put down the dummy bullet, then flipped the rifle on its side and pulled on the other side of the pins, which had large, knurled heads. “These things are pretty tight out of the box… but luckily, these are all captive pins, so they’ll lock in place once you get them far enough.” Kowalski grinned as the pins hit their stopping point. “Of course, if you use too much muscle, you can pop them out, and then you’ve got problems.”
There were a few uneasy chuckles over that.
Pivoting the lower receiver, which contained the grip, fire controls, and magazine well, before pulling it off, Kowalski separated the rifle into its two main assemblies. He set the lower on the table, then held up the upper. “Okay, this is where you have to be careful, because if you do it wrong, you’re going to blast your bolt carrier and bolt into the next zip code. You’re gonna grab the charging handle and pull, just enough to pull the barrel back enough so it locks in place and releases the bolt.”
Kowalski demonstrated the technique, working with a slowness that might have seemed exaggerated, if it weren’t for the sheen of sweat on his forehead.
When the tip of the bolt carrier’s rear popped out of the upper, he gently released the charging handle and pulled out the bolt carrier. “Pretty normal bolt carrier, aside from these bits that help this thing stay locked until the barrel’s back far enough.” He pointed out the pieces in question. “Now, what’s nifty about this is that when you take apart the bolt, you can swap it between left and right hand eject just by flipping over the bolt and the cam pin, but that’s something that’s going to be done at the armory.”
Kowalski put the parts down on the table. “Technically, you can remove the barrel, but I wouldn’t recommend it for a regular strip and clean, because you’d have to remove the smuzzle first. Not worth the trouble, in my opinion, when we’re planning to have the armory folks do detailed maintenance at the end of every month to keep track of wear and things like that. I’d let the boys and girls with torque wrenches deal with the smuzzle.”
There were appreciative nods at this wisdom.
“Alright, now the trick to reassembling this is getting the bolt carrier back in, with the bolt assembled properly, then slapping the hell out of it to shove the barrel forward so you can reassemble it.” He put down the upper and picked up the lower. “Nothing much here, just your fire controls, trigger pack, and a lot of transfer bars. Keep an eye on those bars, people – that’s where gunk can accumulate and fuck things up. Trigger pack itself is a self-contained unit, just like most ones in military service.”
He quickly reassembled the rifle, then handed it off to one of the men before picking up and passing another, while O’Neill handed one to Teal’c and one of Sheppard’s men. Unlike the previous weapons, the RM-277s gave the special operations soldiers a hard time, mostly when it came to removing the bolt carrier group. Many curses were uttered as men pulled back on the charging handle, then felt the sudden release of tension and scrambled to let go before they hurled the guts of the rifle across the room. That led to near drops and many fumbles, which meant multiple tries before anyone got the required two reps done.
By the end of it, everyone was tired and annoyed, and Kowalski knew when to provide a smooth exit to his classes. “Alright, that’s enough for today. We’ll be scheduling live fire drills in within the next week or so, but as your duty rosters are drawn up, you’ll be given plenty of hands-on time with the new guns. Get as many reps as you can before you get sent off-world, and you’ll be good to go.”
As the group slowly dispersed and Kowalski called Walensky to let her know to retrieve the assorted arms and accessories, he noticed O’Neill and Teal’c heading off together. “Hey Jack, where’re you guys going?”
“Gotta give Teal’c here a palette cleanser after that Springer episode. Daniel and I are gonna sit him down with some good ole Star Trek, get him to see the better side of humanity and all that.” O’Neill paused and clarified, “None of that Discovery shit. Maybe Picard or Lower Decks, if those wind up being decent.”
“You didn’t invite me?” he asked in mock pain.
“I’m not going to get you in trouble with your wife,” O’Neill replied, “especially when you could pass the buck to me, and I’m not willing see if she’ll rope Carter into whatever she does to get back at me.”
“Good point, hell hath no fury and all that,” Kowalski replied with a chuckle. “Alright, I’ll see you two tomorrow. Try not to have too much fun, you nerds.”
Major thanks to @bullethead who managed to get my depictions of the characters perfectly (Because he's a better writer than me.
) but who also did the painstaking research and monumental effort to create a post essentially giving us a crash course on the Next Gen weaponry used by the SGC.He also wanted me to mention that the disassembly of the RM-277 is purely conjectural because there's no data available on how that works. As per usual, he still does an immaculate job.
So with much thanks, eternal gratitude and praise for his skill.
Episode 3 heats up.
Cheyenne Mountain complex: August 14th
“Man, it’s good to have the whole team back under one roof.” O’Neill muttered between sips of coffee that Hammond was convinced was half Skara’s moonshine. Not that he could object, the boy had fashioned for himself one hell of a distillery over the last half decade and for someone who grew up near the border between Louisiana and Texas, well the Admiral wasn’t a stranger to half mad swamp runners and the nitroglycerine they passed off as booze.
Carter was the last to come through the gate, the blonde was seated on the first of what would be many carts filled with gold, Naquadah and diamonds that came back from Abydos. Her arm injury having healed long ago and the Abydonian sun leaving her with a healthy tan. She’d spent the bulk of the summer helping them set up the communication systems and doing what she could to study and quantify and reactivate as much technology within the pyramid complex as possible. With her was Daniel Jackson, who looked like he’d finally gotten used to sleeping alone again as the dark bags under his eyes were lessened of late.
“Speaking of that, Admiral I was wondering if I could accompany Teal’c next month to that” Kowalski who was standing next to Jack began his pleading and Hammond cut him off with a gruff, “No.”
“But... it’s in Vegas sir.”
“Son, you suck at cards, you suck at craps and you still owe me for that time in the DR.”
Kowalski grumbled something about how Teal’c got to have all the fun. Which was somewhat true, the man was treated less like an alien defector and more like a visiting dignitary, one that happened to also be assigned to an SG team. That had been a sticking point for Teal’c, he understood how valuable his knowledge was and was more than happy to also assist in training SG teams and he seemed content to agree to pretty much all the demands the President had for him but his one sticking point that he wanted to fight alongside Colonel O’Neill. There was some flailing in the Pentagon of course, such a valuable asset at risk but there was no way they wouldn’t agree. Carter, Jackson. Teal’c, Hammond would have preferred more soldiers on the flagship team but then again, Teal’c and O’Neill were sufficient and he doubted the team would be in many dangerous areas on their own.
Between Carter’s legs was a duffle bag that he realized she was partially sitting on, and he nearly threw his own coffee. “Damnit girl! Is that the Naquadah generator?!”
“Yep!” Carter grinned tapping the bag in a way that caused something to light up. “Don’t worry sir its quite safe, Teal’c gave me specs for something that’s powerful enough to light up a small town or two, just something to test out and reverse engineer.”
Area 51 would be producing the damn things for military use in a year or so and soon after, “leaking” the new mineral and schematics to small defense companies and family-owned mining operations. That had been a smart move. Too many cartels in places of power for the United States to easily survive an enemy like this. He noticed the other thing that came through the gate was cart filled with seeds of various plants that after having passed Doctors Fraser and Lahm’s quarantine procedures were to be transported to a facility in Tennessee for study, evidently one produced a substance that sped up and enhanced tissue regeneration (Which they saw work on Carter and one of the Abydonians) and another that produced ten times the oxygen normal plants did. So far, this venture was paying off, though Kasuf was a hell of a businessman. The Army corps of engineers had sent a group of their best to help them improve their agriculture and there were a few experts in age of sail era ships being hired to be send to Abydos as well. The Abydonians were an ambitious people, they realized Ra had stolen much of their future and they wanted it back but they were also smart enough to avoid being dependent on their allies in the long term.
“You learn faster than Abydonians do Doc, you’ll get that thing working in no time” O’Neill remarked, Carter was a little bit crazy but there was no denying how smart she and Daniel were. How fast the two worked and how quickly they implemented what they worked out. “Thanks sir!” Carter smiled proudly before hopping off the cart. “Means a lot considering they’re genengineered to learn fast.”
“Have we proven that yet?” O’Neill asked, that had been a hunch of his since the first mission. Teal’c further alluded to it when he mentioned the Goa’uld were very skilled with genetic engineering and selective breeding. His comments about the snakes themselves having a sort of genetic memory that allowed their youngsters to learn skills their parents knew from muscle memory and use instinct to learn newer skills faster made him think the best response to a hostile snake was a quick bullet to its head within a head. Jaffa had a slightly less comprehensive variant of that written into genetic code by the snakes and it explained just how fast Teal’c learned new skills or how quickly he picked up sports.
“Not yet, Fraser and Lahm think they see evidence in blood samples, but they lack the equipment to do a proper study of it for now. So, they’re sending a bunch of samples over with the next shipment.”
O’Neill nodded -Guess Doc Fraser is going to come back here soon then and Lahm is going to send her with a request for more equipment. - He would have to suggest allowing SG-2 to be based out of Abydos, so Kowalski could be close to his wife. Given how often there’d be movement between Abydos and Earth it wouldn’t hurt to put him there, both to help Skara continue his build up the Abydonian militia and Lorne could only do so much.
“Briefing in ten and then you’ve until seventeen hundred for downtime.” Hammond cut in with a glint in his eye.
O’Neill perked up. “We’re finally going out huh?”
“Don’t get too excited Colonel, you’ll be chasing after Teal’c’s mushroom.” Hammond warned “And escorting a few biologists.”
“I’ll bring the beer!” Carter offered. “You even old enough to drink?” O’Neill quipped eyebrow raising.
“Ppfft even if I wasn’t, if the Government had an objection to my underage drinking, they probably shouldn’t have let me go up into space.” Carter chirped back with that look in her eyes that made O’Neill wonder if he should have that generator inspected to make sure it didn’t come with a loony toons style dynamite lever.
“I’m kind of curious, we’ve only been to two different planets’ using the gate. This will be the first time we’ve gone elsewhere.” Jackson cut in. “And it’ll be the first time we’ve gone to a world outside of Goa’uld space. It’ll be fascinating to see what the areas outside the Empire are really like and if we can make any friends.”
“Big guy says the world’s uninhabited.” O’Neill reminded him. Jackson nodded enthusiastically and seemed to regain a measure of himself after the horrors of Chulak. “As far as he knows Colonel, I mean by our calendar the last time Teal’c visited that world Warren G Harding was still President.”
“You think someone could have settled that planet since then?” Hammond asked skeptically.
Carter interrupted here, hopping down from the cart, and rubbing her shoulder slightly. Abydonian drugs may have done wonders to speed up the healing process but there was something truly nasty about Jaffa knives. Carter thought it was the ionized particles on the edges of the blade that almost made them lightsabers. “Well, I’ve been thinking about that sir, Teal’c says there are ancient Ori drone ships flying around the cosmos dumping gates anywhere they think there’s a chance for that world to support life, he says the System Lords and the Asgard do the same with modern sophisticated gates”
Hammond could see where this was going, the System Lords maintained the Gate Network itself across the local galactic cluster, it seemed ludicrously easy to access. “You think “developing” worlds like ours might use the gate system to deal with issues like population and food?”
“Trade in General Admiral, Teal’c mentioned that the Tollan’s have trade outposts, but no one really knows where they come from, and he said they’re about a century to fifty years behind us. I wonder if there aren’t other groups of people that wander the galaxy as middlemen, maybe like Bedouins in space?” Carter looked to Daniel for confirmation on her theory and the man was nodding animatedly. “In truth sir we could be running into anything, but it would be good for us to make contact with some semi advanced worlds at some point.”
Teal’c had provided a few gate addresses for worlds that were either ten to forty years ahead of Earth or twenty to a hundred behind them (with the exception of two that he believed were several centuries behind them.) that he thought would be open to some form of economic ties as they were fond of doing business with everyone they met, which at times did include minor nobles in the Imperium. but Hammond wanted to do a little more discrete exploring before moving to any major world, the area of cosmic diplomacy was still in its infancy and Secretary Weir and Woolsey couldn’t be everywhere much as they both clearly enjoyed it (To the eternal dismay of the secret service agents who had to do off world security detail).
“Sir, if SG1 is finally going out on a mission, then I think giving Teal’c a refresher course on our weapons might be a good idea. I know he’ll be bringing his Zat gun and staff but it never hurts to be ready, just in case.” Kowalski stood in front of Hammond’s desk, at ease, but with just enough formality to show he was serious.
Hammond raised an eyebrow. “I thought you gave him high marks when you ran him through weapons training a few weeks back, during all the downtime.”
“He’s a fast learner, sir. Better than a lot of the boys and girls I was training before Stargate Command reactivated. But it’s clear the most advanced automatic weapon he’s handled prior to the ’48 would have been something analogous to an old west Gattling gun. He admitted that in his Jaffa days, most of what he went up against were cap and ball or flintlocks – black powder stuff, sir. He said he had one firefight against some bank robbers on a planet when he was still a junior officer where he encountered what sounded like a space alien version of a Tommy Gun. So, I’d rather spend an hour or so going through everything again now, getting him used to how to deal with our weapons, than risk him being in a situation where we need him to man an LMG or grab a rifle and not have any idea how to work the thing.”
Not that the big guy would mind. It was refreshing to see the equivalent of a four-or-five star general (Was that the American equivalent to a War Master?) admit that it’d been ages since he’d fought on the frontlines or mastered any weapon more dangerous than a pencil as anything more than a hobby. The rest was pure muscle memory, and the big guy enjoyed the “tactile aesthetics of discharging kinetic weaponry” as he put it.
“Indeed.” Hammond said playfully copying Teal’c’s distinctive tone. “Planning to get Sheppard’s people and the new recruits involved?”
“I’ve already got a training session on the new guns scheduled for them in…” Kowalski checked his watch, “and hour and a half, sir. It won’t be a problem to add one more person.”
“Alright Kowalski, you’ve got the go-ahead. After that, you’re off for the night. Go see your wife for lunch or something and bring me back some of Skara’s moonshine.”
“Yessir!”
Kowalski snapped a sharp salute and headed off to the armory. When it came to the newest hardware, the major headache was that there was never enough to go around, especially when it was a hands on training session. He shook his head, glad that today’s session was just confined to going over controls and disassembly/re-assembly procedure.
Using his authorization card, he stepped inside the main area of base armory, the room full of racks of weapons, loaded magazines, radios, and several large cabinets that undoubtedly held untold numbers of small parts necessary for maintaining and repairing the dozens of firearms in the room. He spied a few M4 carbines that somehow hadn’t been transferred upstairs to the armory for the guards, along with several new weapons, fresh out of the box. A half dozen enlisted were crammed into the room, unpacking and handling paperwork, and it took a good half minute before anyone came to attention, which he waved off.
“Checking in on things before your big show and tell session, sir?” Sergeant Amanda Walensky was a fellow Marine transplant into the Space Force, and one with a reputation for being somewhat of a jokester. Kowalski didn’t mind that – she kept the guns in good working order, and if her people responded positively to her manner, he wasn’t going to get in the way of their esprit de corps.
“Caught me, Sarge.” Kowalski gave her a quick smile. “We good to go?”
“As long as you aren’t shooting all those guns,” she replied with a smile that promised mischief. “We still haven’t gotten the 6.8mm barrels for half the Mk. 48s we’ve got, but the…” She looked at the box for one of the new rifles. “RM-277-Rs are all in. We also got in a few of those KAC LAMGs, but we’ve only got two or three 6.8mm barrels for those. Don’t worry, they’re already installed, and we made a bunch of dummy rounds too.” She pulled open a drawer and handed him a pair of black plastic pieces.
Running his thumb over them, he could feel subtle ridges on the outside. “What, you guys make these on a 3D printer?”
“Got it in one, sir.” Walensky gave him another quick smile. “We got the True Velocity guys to give us a basic CAD model, and Watson over there—“ she tilted her head at a lance corporal filling out paperwork “—learned how to use a 3D printer in school. We’ve got a half dozen doing nothing but making dummies all day, so you’ll have about a hundred for any clearing drills you might want to run.” She looked at them again. “I don’t know how they’ll hold up though. We’re using cheaper feedstock, so they might all get torn up by the time you’re done.”
“Well, Sarge, if you can make replacements on demand on the cheap, I don’t think any of the brass hats will complain.” He gave her significant look. “How’s the ammo supply looking? I know they managed to get two of those fancy ammo making machines out of TV.”
The armory manager grimaced. “It only took us a day to get the thing running to spec – get everything adjusted to running in a bunker under a mountain, that sort of thing. We’ve been pumping out good quality rounds day in and day out, but honestly sir…” She hesitated a second. “Could you not get in a firefight for a few missions? Because Lake City has to do another custom run for these bullets, and they weren’t expecting to make this many for at least a year, not until the NGSW trials finish. We’re almost out of the ones they sent us.”
“You let the Admiral know?” If there was anyone who could bully the US military’s primary ammo production facility into meeting his demands, Kowalski knew it was George Hammond.
“Absolutely, sir, a few days ago. Haven’t heard anything on that front yet, but I’m hoping they’ll get us some bullets in the next few weeks.” Walensky snapped her fingers. “That reminds me, we’re not getting any of the NGFC scopes or the smuzzles until the middle of next month either.”
Kowalski sighed and shrugged. “Yeah, well, that’s the downside of working with prototypes. They need to exist before you can use them. Don’t worry, Sarge, we’ll try not to break your babies out in the field.” He paused a moment, and looked back at the table. “Think I can get one of those M4s for my training session? Don’t need ammo or anything, I just need it for a size comparison.”
“No problem sir, they’re not going upstairs until tomorrow anyway.”
“Alright, I’ll get out of your way. Keep up the good work, Walensky.”
With that, he stepped out into corridors and checked his watch. He’d burned a half hour chatting with the sergeant, so he quickened his pace to find Teal’c before the training session started. Thankfully, it wasn’t too hard to find the Jaffa – his stature and build made him pretty easy to spot in a crowd, never mind the emblem on his forehead. He was in a break room with O’Neill, watching Jerry Springer. With a start, he realized that it was an episode made within the last few years, based on the styles and Jerry’s age. Damn, it’s been forever since I thought about this guy.
“Who’s Jerry got on?” he asked, earning quick glances of acknowledgment from both men.
“This “hillbilly kung fu master” guy,” O’Neill commented, gesturing at the screen. “Then some chick who had a threesome with her friend and a male stripper, and some couple where the guy cheated on her right after their kid was born.”
Kowalski shook his head in disbelief. “Why are you showing Teal’c this?”
“Because he’s going to get bombarded by trash the moment he sets foot off the base, so we might as well prepare him in a safe environment, among friends,” O’Neill replied.
That made a good amount of sense, Kowalski had to admit.
“Colonel Kowalski,” Teal’c spoke in his deep, distinctive tone, “I have a question.”
Oh boy, he thought. “Sure, what is it?”
“Why do these people submit themselves to this treatment?”
“Jack tell you about how they get paid?”
The Jaffa inclined his head. “I am aware of that. However… it does not seem sufficient recompense for the dishonor they accrue by appearing before the people in such a manner.”
Kowalski and O’Neill managed to keep straight faces at that brutal assessment.
“Well, they might be thinking that this is the closest thing to fame… or infamy, that they’ll ever achieve in their lives.” Sighing, Kowalski looked at the screen again. “There’s seven billion people on this planet alone. The odds most people ever getting a slice of fame are super slim, even with all the new media with got these days.”
“So, Kowalski, what brings you here?” O’Neill asked.
“Just wanted to invite Teal’c to the training session for the new guys so he can get some more reps on our weapons. You’re welcome to come too, Jack.”
“Are Sheppard’s boys going to be there?”
“A few,” Kowalski admitted.
“I’m in,” O’Neill said. “Gotta get them introduced to the SGC the right way.”
Forty minutes later, the trio arrived in the mess hall, where the weapons and gear had been laid out on a half-dozen tables in a corner of the room. About 30 newcomers were there, some finishing up a meal, others simply conversing amongst themselves. They snapped to their feet upon noticing the colonels entering the room, which O’Neill waved off.
“Finish your meals, you’re gonna work up an appetite,” he said.
“I’m Colonel Kowalski, this is Colonel O’Neill, and this is Teal’c,” Kowalski said by way of introduction. “Teal’c is the former Jaffa War Master of Apophis, one of the Goa’uld System Lords, and your fellow student for this training session. He’ll be part of SG-1, so he might be saving your ass one day.”
Several of the men eyed Teal’c cautiously, but said nothing. Kowalski was grateful that the secret nature of the SGC prevented animosity towards Jaffa existing, outside of the survivors of Apophis’ raid on the mountain. Teal’c would at least get a fair shake from these men, and Kowalski was certain he’d earn their respect, if not friendship, without much trouble.
Once the men were finished eating, they crowded around the tables covered in guns and assorted parts.
“Alright,” Kowalski began, “I don’t know what they told you about the opposition’s gear when you signed up, and I’m sure someone will brief you if you haven’t gotten that info already. But here’s what we’re going to be using, at least for the foreseeable future.” He gestured toward the rifles. “Now, I don’t know how closely you guys have been following the news, but the Army is running the Next Generation Squad Weapon trials, and we’re running with some of the guns and ammo from that program, due to how good Jaffa armor is.”
“How good is that?” one of the men in the back asked.
“Level 4 equivalent.” Kowalski nodded somberly as the men in front of him made small expressions of displeasure. “Now, between the first Stargate mission and the SGC getting into full gear, I was training Space Force operators, and got hands on time with all the NGSW competitors. And I can firmly say, what we have here is the second best option, and a hell of a lot better than Sig’s sorry ass bid.”
“Second best doesn’t sound like ringing praise to me, sir.” That was one of Sheppard’s men, a dour looking fellow by the name of Montez.
“Well, look at it this way, Montez.” Kowalski patted one of the rifles. “Big Army dumped a ton of money into Textron’s bids, starting back when the program was known as LSAT. They’re better than what General Dynamics and True Velocity cooked up, but to be honest, their rifle was initially total dogshit, and I’m not entirely happy with their new version either. You think they’d let Space Force get their hands on a large supply of their golden boy’s goods?”
There was a united shaking of heads from everyone, except Teal’c (naturally).
“Alright, now that that’s out of the way, let me introduce you to your new best friend.” He lifted a rectangular rifle, with a nearly 45 degree slant just behind the muzzle, which was hidden under what looked like a squat mason jar. A rectangular magazine jutted straight down from the rear of the rifle, behind a standard, black M4 pistol grip and in front of a triangular, skeletonized support for the buttpad. The rifle’s shades of flat dark earth were broken only by the long length of sight rail on the top, the various control close to the pistol grip, the grip itself, and the light gray contraption over the ejection port, with various cutouts leading into the chamber. “This is the RM-277-R. This baby fires a 6.8 by 51 millimeter round at 3000 feet per second. This is one hell of a hot round, so every one of these is intended to be used with one of these,” he patted the muzzle device, “a fancy suppressor/muzzle break combo someone decided to call a ‘smuzzle’. It’s only an extra 3 inches to end of your rifle, which is fine, because this rifle is shorter than your bog standard M4.”
O’Neill helpfully held up the M4, stock collapsed, next to the RM-277-R. “Now, let me tell you, I’ve shot one these babies without that fancy smuzzle, and I don’t recommend it.”
“How bad is it when the smuzzle is on?” One of the new recruits asked.
“Not that bad,” O’Neill replied. “Somewhere between 5.56 and 7.62 NATO. Whatever science magic the R&D boys put in this thing works.”
Kowalski nodded in agreement. “Now, for all you eagle eyed observers, this is a bullpup – the mag and action are behind the grip. 20 round mags, like any 7.62 NATO rifle. Totally new design, but polymer… Ammo’s also polymer case, with a steel base, so it’s a lot lighter than the same amount of 7.62 ammo.”
There was enthusiasm in the newbies faces, but it was leavened by the fact that they’d all been on the receiving end of the military’s need to saddle soldiers with more gear, which meant more weight.
Kowalski put down the RM-277-R and picked up the version with a bipod mounted to the front. “This here’s the RM-277-AR. Basically the same gun, with a bipod and a longer, heavier barrel. The boys from GD say this thing is supposed to be used like the IAR some of you used with the Marines, so it’ll be more of a designated marksman rifle than an LMG. Now, both versions of this gun have an aluminum extrusion upper receiver, the same lower, a freefloated barrel, and the same combo short recoil/gas piston operating system. The barrel recoils on every shot – even with the bipod on, because the bipod has just enough clearance around the barrel for it to move.”
“That’s going to fuck with the accuracy though,” one soldier pointed out.
“True, but these guns are meant to be paired with these fancy smart scopes,” he gestured towards the table, “so they’re supposed to make up for that. Now, this gun has some fancy features to help us ground pounders live easier. First, there’s this fancy ejection chute that kicks the rounds forward. It can swapped to left side eject with just a simple field strip, so need for you lefties to bug the armory guys over getting special parts for that. There’s a slot up here,” he tapped the front end of the chute, where a rectangular opening was, “that lets you check the chamber, and in a worst case scenario, you can run the rifle without the chute, but that increases the odds of gunk getting in there, so only do it in an emergency.”
He shifted his grip on the rifle and used one hand to point at the controls above the pistol grip. “The fire control group on this rifle is way different than your M4… or most other rifles out there. At the back, we’ve got a safety, which just makes the rifle safe or ready to fire. In front of that, we’ve got a fire mode selector – semi or full auto. If you know your history, you may recall a few rifles, including the FG42, had that kind of system. And in front of that, we’ve got our mag release. You push against the top of the lever and the mag drops free.”
Kowalski then ran his finger a long a long, black plastic block above all three controls. “This is your bolt release. Just push forward and it does all the work for you.” He flipped the rifle. “This baby is fully ambidextrous, so you can do everything you need to, regardless of which hand you’re using.”
He put down the rifle and picked up one of the machine guns, which looked like a long rectangle with triangle cutouts on the front and triangular bracing on the side, along with an AR-15 style collapsing stock on it. “You’ll be getting some hands on time with the RM-277-R shortly, but before that, let’s look at our selection of LMGs. What we’ve got here is the Knights Armament Light Assault Machine Gun, rebarreled in 6.8mm. It’s going to be issued to our recon and diplomatic teams, to give them enough firepower to take and hold a position, but not look too scary.” There were some chuckles from the assorted military men. “This thing is 13.25 pounds, so it’s lighter than an M60, thanks to an aluminum extrusion receiver. There’s a quick change barrel, but no carry handle on the barrel, so do not do mag dumps with this thing. Restrict fire to controlled bursts, and you won’t overheat it.”
Kowalski patted the side of the machine gun. “What makes this baby special is that it’s got a constant recoil system, which means that you can actually shoot this from the shoulder and hit something, because the recoil is smoothed out.” There were some more chuckles. “Runs on an open bolt at a firing rate of about 600 rounds per minute, so there’s no semi-auto on this gun, just a push-button safety. Takes 200 round belts with pouches, regular links, so no need to worry about proprietary BS there.”
He set the LAMG down and picked up a much more complicated looking machine gun. He grunted a bit as he lifted the three foot long weapon, which was familiar to anyone who’d served in the military in the past forty years… or played enough modern military shooters. “Some of you may have used one of these, but some of you might mistake this for an M249.” Kowalski smiled and shook his head. “This is the SAW’s big brother – the Mk. 48 Mod 1. Normally, these are chambered in 7.62 NATO, but again, we’re getting these rebarreled in 6.8 x 51. We’ll be issuing these on assault missions or for search and rescue, because one of these is 18.26 pounds, before optics, attachments, and whatever else you’re going to be carrying on your person.”
There were exasperated groans from the men, for they had all experienced the US military’s habit of loading as much hardware on the infantry as possible.
“We’ve got a hot swappable barrel – each of these comes with a spare, which means it takes a lot longer to get these things delivered – plus a hand guard with plenty of rail space, rail on the feed cover, and a hydraulic buffer in the stock.” Kowalski put the supposedly “light” machine gun down, shrugging his shoulders. “Right now, all of ours have these fixed stocks, but if telescoped ones are more your style, talk to Sergeant Walensky down in the armory. She’ll put in the paperwork to get you hooked up.”
He picked up one of the smart scopes. “Now these are pretty slick, but also heavy and expensive as shit. What we’ve got here are two different smart scopes. 1 to 6 variable power, with laser range finders, built-in bullet drop and wind compensation, and whole bunch of other stuff that’s covered in the manuals you should read before going offworld with one of these. They’ve got internal batteries and can be powered by an RM-277’s smart rail, but if the batteries die or we find some kind of weird planet where electronics don’t work, you’ll still be able to shoot the bad guys at up to 900 meters or so away.”
“And for all that, you get to carry 2.5 pounds of heavy scope on your rifle,” O’Neill chipped in. “Just wait until they add the night vision gear too.”
Again, the men groaned.
“Not much more to say about these things, besides the fact that they’re tuned for Earth’s atmosphere and gravity, so no guarantees about performance. And we’ll probably have to make a long range training range on Abydos and any other planet so you can get the most out of the optics.” Kowalski looked at O’Neill. “I know we’re supposed to write reports on the performance of the optics, but how detailed can we get with gravity related problems?”
“Well, we are the Space Force,” O’Neill said slowly, rolling the problem over in his mind. “So I guess we can complain all we want about issues on planets with less gravity. For all the manufacturers would know, we’re secretly working on a moon base or something.”
Everybody but Teal’c chuckled, but that was to be expected – the Jaffa hadn’t had the time to learn the long and absurd history of the moon base idea.
“Anyway, since the NGSW trials only ordered about 150 each of the competing designs, Space Force had to put in a supplemental order. We’re only getting them in small batches, so for now, we’re assigning them to people on designated marksman duty. Everybody else gets ACOGs until we have enough to outfit an entire team.”
“Don’t drop the scope, got it,” one man joked.
“Smart man,” O’Neill said with a broad smile, as the rest chuckled.
Kowalski smiled as he began loading dummy rounds into the rifle mags. “Alright, we’re gonna start off with some practice drills on the RM-277s. Loading, unloading, that sort of thing. You’re gonna give me 4 reps, then you’re going to hand the rifle off to the next guy in line.”
He and O’Neill handed out rifles and mags to the men, then ran them through the drills, correcting their mistakes and showing them how to clear malfunctions. While the actual steps of clearing an issue were familiar to all the Americans, the mechanics of clearing a jam or double-feed took some getting used to, due to the rifle’s action being located so far back. However, each man sped up through each repetition, and by the time the last men finished, Kowalski felt they all reached a sufficient level of proficiency.
“Alright, that’s enough for today. I expect you all to put in some reps on your own time, because the last thing we need is somebody who can’t clear a jam on another planet.” He and O’Neill collected the rifles and began handing out the LAMGs. After cycling everyone through the drills to his satisfaction, he moved them to the Mk. 48s.
Now, Kowaski walked them through the disassembly procedure, mostly for Teal’c’s benefit, but allowed him to point out subtle differences in procedure from the M249’s disassembly. Each man ran through the process, twice, before he moved them to the LAMGs, which were much simpler to disassemble. Once again, each man ran through two repetitions, before proceeding to the rifles.
“Alright, gentlemen, here’s a world exclusive,” Kowalski announced with a lopsided grin. “Dunno why, but the guys working on this refuse to show the guts of this thing unless they have to. Not sure if they're afraid of someone stealing their ideas or they're just scared.” Grabbing an RM-277-R, he squeezed his fingers into the grooves that held the buttpad of the rifle on. “First, you’ve gotta press down here and pull off the butt…”
The black plastic piece slid off the rifle and went on the table, with Kowalski grabbing a dummy round in the same motion. “Then you pop these two pins from the left side with the tip of your bullet…”
He let out small grunts as he pushed the pins half way through, put down the dummy bullet, then flipped the rifle on its side and pulled on the other side of the pins, which had large, knurled heads. “These things are pretty tight out of the box… but luckily, these are all captive pins, so they’ll lock in place once you get them far enough.” Kowalski grinned as the pins hit their stopping point. “Of course, if you use too much muscle, you can pop them out, and then you’ve got problems.”
There were a few uneasy chuckles over that.
Pivoting the lower receiver, which contained the grip, fire controls, and magazine well, before pulling it off, Kowalski separated the rifle into its two main assemblies. He set the lower on the table, then held up the upper. “Okay, this is where you have to be careful, because if you do it wrong, you’re going to blast your bolt carrier and bolt into the next zip code. You’re gonna grab the charging handle and pull, just enough to pull the barrel back enough so it locks in place and releases the bolt.”
Kowalski demonstrated the technique, working with a slowness that might have seemed exaggerated, if it weren’t for the sheen of sweat on his forehead.
When the tip of the bolt carrier’s rear popped out of the upper, he gently released the charging handle and pulled out the bolt carrier. “Pretty normal bolt carrier, aside from these bits that help this thing stay locked until the barrel’s back far enough.” He pointed out the pieces in question. “Now, what’s nifty about this is that when you take apart the bolt, you can swap it between left and right hand eject just by flipping over the bolt and the cam pin, but that’s something that’s going to be done at the armory.”
Kowalski put the parts down on the table. “Technically, you can remove the barrel, but I wouldn’t recommend it for a regular strip and clean, because you’d have to remove the smuzzle first. Not worth the trouble, in my opinion, when we’re planning to have the armory folks do detailed maintenance at the end of every month to keep track of wear and things like that. I’d let the boys and girls with torque wrenches deal with the smuzzle.”
There were appreciative nods at this wisdom.
“Alright, now the trick to reassembling this is getting the bolt carrier back in, with the bolt assembled properly, then slapping the hell out of it to shove the barrel forward so you can reassemble it.” He put down the upper and picked up the lower. “Nothing much here, just your fire controls, trigger pack, and a lot of transfer bars. Keep an eye on those bars, people – that’s where gunk can accumulate and fuck things up. Trigger pack itself is a self-contained unit, just like most ones in military service.”
He quickly reassembled the rifle, then handed it off to one of the men before picking up and passing another, while O’Neill handed one to Teal’c and one of Sheppard’s men. Unlike the previous weapons, the RM-277s gave the special operations soldiers a hard time, mostly when it came to removing the bolt carrier group. Many curses were uttered as men pulled back on the charging handle, then felt the sudden release of tension and scrambled to let go before they hurled the guts of the rifle across the room. That led to near drops and many fumbles, which meant multiple tries before anyone got the required two reps done.
By the end of it, everyone was tired and annoyed, and Kowalski knew when to provide a smooth exit to his classes. “Alright, that’s enough for today. We’ll be scheduling live fire drills in within the next week or so, but as your duty rosters are drawn up, you’ll be given plenty of hands-on time with the new guns. Get as many reps as you can before you get sent off-world, and you’ll be good to go.”
As the group slowly dispersed and Kowalski called Walensky to let her know to retrieve the assorted arms and accessories, he noticed O’Neill and Teal’c heading off together. “Hey Jack, where’re you guys going?”
“Gotta give Teal’c here a palette cleanser after that Springer episode. Daniel and I are gonna sit him down with some good ole Star Trek, get him to see the better side of humanity and all that.” O’Neill paused and clarified, “None of that Discovery shit. Maybe Picard or Lower Decks, if those wind up being decent.”
“You didn’t invite me?” he asked in mock pain.
“I’m not going to get you in trouble with your wife,” O’Neill replied, “especially when you could pass the buck to me, and I’m not willing see if she’ll rope Carter into whatever she does to get back at me.”
“Good point, hell hath no fury and all that,” Kowalski replied with a chuckle. “Alright, I’ll see you two tomorrow. Try not to have too much fun, you nerds.”
