Somewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy, enroute to the Mezotis System
Jonuth Kidravia’s Ship - Abi
August 30, 2019
16:34 Ship Time

Tich noticed that I was silent while we waited for Abi to drop out of hyperspace. “What are you thinking about?”

“The crystals,” I answered. “My father didn’t send a fleet back because it would’ve taken too long to traverse the vast distance, but technology has come a long way since then. It should only take a modern fleet about two and a half to three months to get there. I’m thinking about having Xigios and the Indomitables make the trip, and then I will rendezvous with the fleet just outside of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy. It should take us what, three weeks to get there, Abi?”

“Just over twenty days,” she replied.

“So twenty days there, a few days to check out the situation and recover the crystals, if possible, and twenty days back.”

Tich chuckled. “I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself there. There is going to be a lot to do before now and then. It’s safe to say that you’ll have a lot of support when it becomes time.”

I nodded in thanks.

“Dropping out of hyperspace in five..four...three...two...one...zero,” Abi said.

As soon as we dropped out of hyperspace the view of the area outside of the ship changed dramatically. Taking up a good thirty to forty percent of the total viewscreen was the nebula that Abi had told us about. It was a myriad of different colors, though red and purple dominated it. Along with the beautiful colors were hundreds of stars, some within the nebula itself and others many light-years behind it.

It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen, and Vixa seemed quite taken by it as well. She had had her eyes closed as Tich stroked her fur, though she opened them when everyone on the bridge went quiet. Even though everyone on the bridge, besides Vixa, was a Scyftan, only a few of them had seen a nebula before. Everyone’s eyes were glued to the phenomenon as we all slowly drifted through space.

The nebula didn’t seem to be moving closer or further away, and the only sign that we were moving was that stars were slowly moving away or towards us. It meant that the nebula was either incredibly big, or relatively close. Or perhaps both.

A small timer appeared on the viewscreen where it wouldn’t obstruct the nebula, showing the amount of time until maintenance would be completed. We would have two hours and six minutes to enjoy the majesty of the nebula before continuing our journey. Rather than take out my phone to take some pictures, I had Abi do it for me. She had hundreds of cameras located all around the ship to give us a panoramic view, so it was simple enough to have her set a good portion of them to record and take stills as we sailed by.

“You never get used to a sight like that,” Tich said softly. “It’s as if someone went around the universe using the remnants of planets, stars and other celestial bodies as paint and space as the canvas.”

It really seemed that way. In the back of my mind I knew it was just a collection of gases and dust that was being illuminated by the surrounding stars, but it was hard to imagine something like that being formed naturally. Hearing movement to my left, I looked over and saw my friends entering the bridge with their parents in tow.

“Oh, wow!” the twins mother, Johanna, exclaimed.

“C’mon Mom, you’re blocking the entrance,” Anja giggled.

“Oh, sorry!” she said, quickly moving further in so everyone else could enter.

“Impressive ship you have here, Jonathan,” Ben’s father, Michael said.

“That she is. I hope you all don’t mind standing, the bridge wasn’t designed to seat so many people.”

“It’ll be fine,” he replied. “We just wanted to get a look at the nebula and Ben said that this would be the best place to see it from. It looks like he was right.”

“Yeah, we started making our way to one of the observation decks but there were lines just to use the teleporters. That’s what took us this long to get here,” Ben explained.

“Well there is plenty of room. Just make sure not to press any buttons and you all can stay as long as you like,” I said.

I was taken up on my offer and we all stayed on the bridge chatting as we looked at the nebula. A few additional people showed up as well, and none of them left without snapping a few pictures or recording it on their phones so they could look upon it later. We did end up leaving the bridge before we jumped back into hyperspace, just so we would be able to beat the rush to the mess for dinner. We had taken a seat after loading our plates with food, just in time for the ship to vibrate slightly, signaling the jump into hyperspace.

“I hope everyone enjoyed the distraction, as short as it may have been,” Abi said, her voice coming over the intercoms again. “We’re over halfway to the Mezotis system and a little under halfway to Veria. We will arrive in the Mezotis system in five days, nine hours, two minutes and fifty-three seconds, or on September 5 at 04:07, ship time. I would suggest setting an alarm if you wish to view the planets as soon as we exit hyperspace. Thank you, and enjoy the rest of your trip!”

“Ugh, why can’t we arrive at a normal time?” Mason groused.

“We have that day off if that's any consolation,” Ben said. “You can go back to sleep if you want.”

“And miss out on exploring the planets a bit while we wait for the dragons to finish unloading everything? You did bring the Grasshoppers, right?” Mason asked me.

I nodded as I finished chewing the food in my mouth and swallowed. “They wouldn’t fit inside of the ship, but we figured out a way to bring them along. They’re secured up on the dorsal hull, pretty much directly on top of the upper observation deck.”

“You’re talking about the shuttles, right?” Anja asked. “Why did you call them Grasshoppers?”

“It was Ben’s idea,” I replied. “The design is based on the Puddle Jumpers from Stargate, but the ones Abi made don’t travel through artificial wormholes. So far we’ve only been using them for short hops, like a grasshopper, so the name fits pretty well.”

“It does. I like it,” Sonja said.

“I imagine you’ll be flying around scanning as many animals as you can,” Ben said. “How did your learning go, by the way?”

“See for yourself,” I said, closing my eyes.

When I opened them again a few seconds later, one eye had a yellow iris with a large black pupil while the other had a lighter yellow iris and a vertical pupil, like a cat. It was a little disorienting for a second since I was receiving different information from each eye, but I quickly got used to it and was able to look around without any issue.

“That’s pretty cool. Is that an eagle and some type of cat?” he asked.

“Eagle and lynx,” I answered. “I can only change my eyes to those of a couple of different animals right now, but if I sat down for an hour or two then I could change my eyes to pretty much anything. Kiri did say that I haven’t scanned anything with really weird types of vision, but once I do I’ll have to sit down with her to learn a bit more. Some brain modification will need to be done so I’m actually able to process what I’m seeing.”

“So have you created any forms yet? Or did you just mess with your eyes, primarily?”

“She had me try out a few things, like swapping out my human arms for dragonkin arms. That required nothing more than resizing the arm so it would be the same size and messing with the veins and arteries a little bit. They didn’t quite line up properly, but I was able to re-route everything and attach them.”

“I also modified my human form to have dragon wings but it will be a while before I will actually be able to fly with them. Kiri had me modify my frame to be able to support them, and then ‘wire’ them up so I could control them. So now I’ve got three different human-hybrid forms. The first of many, I think.”

“What about a form with Scyftan fox tails?” Anja asked. “Then you could scan your surroundings without having to switch into the actual form.”

“It can definitely be done. The tails themselves are pretty easy, but I would probably have to modify my brain to be able to interpret the information I would get from the tails. It’s all done automatically when I shift into my Scyftan fox form, but it isn’t as easy when modifying a different form.”

“What about breathing fire while in your human form?” Ben asked. “I know you can’t do it now, but you might be able to with a slight modification.”

“I’m not sure about that one, actually. I’ll have to ask Kiri tomorrow. It would be pretty nice if I didn’t have to switch to my dragon or dragonkin form to be able to use my different breath weapons.”

“What about your telekinesis? How is that going?” Mason asked.

“I’m up to about twelve pounds now, which reminds me,” I replied, taking the Beacon out of my dimensional storage and then taking three items out of it. “I was looking for something heavier to lift than the ten pound orb I was working with, so I ended up going through my suit’s dimensional storage where these were found. We’ve got a rare chest piece, a rare ring, some Skill Gems to look at.”

“I’d forgotten as well. Do you want to do the chest piece and ring first, while I take a look to see what the Skill Gems are?” Ben asked.

“Sure,” I replied, tossing him the pouch containing the Skill Gems as I placed the other two items in the middle of the table. “Everyone take a look and let me know if you’re interested.”

Gurg’s Shinplate
Rare
+24 Strength, Agility or Intellect, whichever is highest.
+12 Constitution
+5% Physical Damage Reduction
+5% Magical Damage Reduction

Enchanted Manaband
Uncommon
+12 Intellect
+10 Constitution
Increases your base mana regeneration by 5 mp/s.

“I pass on the ring,” Mason said. “That chest piece though… How am I going to roll without my phone?”

“I can add you to the roll, even without you having your phone on you,” I replied. “Anyone else passing on anything?”

“I pass on the chest piece,” Anja answered. “I’ve got a pretty good one right now.”

No one else spoke up, so four of us would be rolling on each item. I started with the chest piece first, adding Mason and then opening it up to everyone else. As soon as Ben and Sonja entered, I hit the button to roll. It ended up being not even close. I rolled a ninety-six while Mason, Ben and Sonja rolled at fifty-one, forty-eight and fifty, respectively.

“Grats, Jonathan!” Anja cheered.

“Thanks. Okay, the ring next and then we’ll get to the Skill Gems.”

I left Mason out when I restarted the roll, instead opening it up to everyone else immediately. This time it was a lot closer when I hit the button to roll. Ben and I weren’t even close to winning, but it was nearly as close as it gets for the twins.

“Here you go, Anja,” I said, sliding it over to her.

“Thank you,” she said, putting it into her dimensional storage.

I put my new chest piece back into the Beacon and then looked over to Ben. “Have you figured out what all of them are?”

“Just finished,” he answered. “We got two duplicates, which are Levitate which does exactly what it sounds like it does. Aside from those, the other nine are all different, and none of them are useless ones either. Well, one of them is useless right now, but it won’t be, eventually.”

“Why is it useless now but it won’t be later on?” Sonja asked.

“It’s Ravage, a Tier C skill that you use in conjunction with a pet. None of us has one right now, but when we do it will be a nice skill.”

“I think we hold off on rolling that one then. The first person to form a bond with a pet will get it, just so it doesn’t remain useless if the person that gets it doesn’t form a bond right away,” I said.

“That’s fine with me,” Sonja nodded.

Everyone else assented, so Ben put it back inside of the pouch and we moved onto the remaining ten Skill Gems. The first three were rather boring ones, being the two aforementioned Levitate Skill Gems, as well as a Water Walking Skill Gem. Ben and Anja claimed the two Levitate Skill Gems, while the Water Walking Skill Gem went to Mason.

The most exciting Skill Gem out of the bunch was probably the Minor Attributes perk which grants an additional Attribute Point per level, applying retroactively. Both Mason and I had the Tier A and Tier D versions, respectively, so we passed on it. It was a relatively close contest, with Anja rolling an eighty-eight while her sister rolled an eighty-one and Ben rolled a seventy.

Next up was the Minor Hemorrhage perk which allows each attack to apply a stacking bleed on the current enemy. It disappears if you switch from one enemy to another, but it allows some consistent damage to be done, even if the person with the perk is forced to back off. Anja had it already and Ben wasn’t interested, so it was down to three of us right away. It was my lucky day, it seemed, as I rolled twice as high as the next person for the win.

“Minor Multistrike is up next,” Ben said. “It grants a four percent chance to strike an enemy again whenever you deal damage. I don’t think it works with spells, so I’ll be passing on it.”

“I’ve got it already, so I pass as well,” Sonja said.

I looked over to Mason who just nodded, so I added him to the roll and opened it up so Anja could join. As soon as she did, I hit the button.

“Ooh, close one,” Anja said. “Congrats, Mace.”

“Thanks,” he said, receiving the Skill Gem from Ben.

“Okay, the last spells are probably not worth rolling on, because they line up decently with different members of the group,” Ben said, sliding two Skill Gems over to Sonja. “Those are Cyclone and Arcane Shot. The first one creates a vortex of air that deals damage over time, and can trap enemies inside, assuming you can keep up with the mana consumption. The second is one that deals magical damage based on a combination of your ranged damage and your intellect, scaling with the latter rather than the former.”

“This one is Aura of Frost, so I’ll be taking it, leaving this one for last,” he said, learning Aura of Frost as he picked up the last Skill Gem. “It’s Curse of Pain, a spell that does periodic damage as long as mana is spent to maintain it. The damage and mana cost scales with how long it is active, so on boss fights it can be particularly deadly, especially if it ends up being a long one. I figured I would leave this one up to you, Jonathan.”

“I’ll probably get more use out of it in the short term,” I said, holding my hand out for it. “Which brings up something else I need to say.”

I quickly learned the skill and then looked around the table to my friends. “So as much as I would love for us to stay at our current power level, we can’t. Not with everything that has happened and everything we have learned in the last two and a half weeks. The universe is larger than we had ever imagined and it isn’t a very safe place. There was already one assassination attempt and there will undoubtedly be more.”

“Our current power level isn’t a match for what is out there, so I’ll be purchasing a set of Skill Gems when we get to Veria, assuming they aren’t insanely expensive. If I can get a good price then I will get a set for each of us, but I need to pick one up for myself at a minimum. I need to ramp up the speed at which Abi is growing and make it much, much harder for people to kill me. Unfortunately that will end up making dungeons absolutely laughable for us, at least until we get to higher level dungeons when things start evening out a little bit.”

“Not true on how easy it will be,” Ben said. “There isn’t any restriction on what level you need to be to enter a dungeon, it’s just not a good idea to go into a dungeon that is much higher level than you are, unless you’ve got the perks that you’re talking about. Legendary Jack of All Trades effectively increases a person’s level by five times. So we’re level thirty-five now and could fight enemies at around level one hundred seventy-five. We wouldn’t be able to do it well until we got some better weapons, but we could do it.”

“We would also be much stronger than you would be if we had a set of perks,” Anja chimed in. “I think we would get an immediate six hundred percent boost, while you don’t even get half that right? Because of the way multiplicative stacking and your bond with Abi works.”

“You’re right,” I nodded. “I would only be getting a two hundred sixty-four percent boost to my stats, but that would increase by twelve percent every time Abi grows. The six hundred percent boost will happen for me once Abi reaches rank fifty, and then it will increase even further as she continues to grow.”

“You know, each of us getting a set of those perks does have one pretty damn nice upside,” Ben said. “We could go into a level one hundred dungeon which wouldn’t be very hard, and we could level up Siphoning Shot and Siphoning Strike without running into the same issue that we did last time. I think I’ll also pick up Siphoning Bolt and then all of us could take advantage of it.”

“Everyone but Anja, but that’s easy to rectify. You bring up a really good point though. I’m really surprised about the lack of pushback though,” I said.

“What do you mean? Everything I’ve heard sounds perfectly fine with me. It would’ve been nice if Ben shared that little tidbit about there not being anything stopping us from entering much higher level dungeons,” Mason said. “In all seriousness though, we kinda knew this was coming. I think the only reason that you weren’t advised to get them sooner is that there was a timetable to keep.”

I nodded. “I think adding the legendary versions of Jack of All Trades, Attributes and Intellect would increase my mana regeneration by almost eighty times. With me generating that much mana, it should take Abi less than seven hours to accumulate enough mana for her twenty-fourth growth. If I didn’t learn the perks then it would take about twenty days at my current regen. I’m not sure how that will change our return time table. I’ll have to talk to my parents about that.”

“We’re staying on Veria for about two weeks, right? I don’t think you’ll have any issue, especially because you’ll be able to sleep in your Seotross form on the way back. Abi would be about five days into a nine day growth cycle, so those four days needed will quickly triple or quadruple. You’ll also be able to leave Precognition active constantly because the mana regeneration reduction won’t have nearly as much of an impact.”

It was getting pretty hard to hear without shouting to each other, so I looked around and saw that the mess was completely packed and there were still people filing in. Many people had just grabbed plates and were standing along the edges of the room while they waited for tables to open up.

“You bring up some good points. We should probably get out of here, though. We’ve been hogging this table long enough as is,” I said, standing up and heading over to drop off my dishes.

When I looked back, I saw a big group of people swarming the table we had been seated at, almost like a pack of piranhas closing in on some food. Since my friends had tiny rooms that they had to share, I instead invited them over to my room which had plenty of room to spread out and relax. We ended up discussing our plans for our time on Veria while we watched TV. A few days were planned for us already, but we would have seven or eight days to ourselves.

It was well past midnight when my friends headed off to their own rooms, having put our heads together to find out what we wanted to do. We had decided right off the bat to divide our free time evenly, with half of our time dedicated to checking out Pygmaean dungeons and the other half dedicated to checking out what Veria, and the surrounding planets, had in store.

Veria happened to be the Pygmaean homeworld, but it was by no means the only habitable planet in the system. There was another planet and a small moon that had been terraformed about two millennia earlier. They all had their own attractions, but the moon was probably the most interesting of the three.

Alade was a moon that was in perpetual winter, which meant that it was a prime attraction for those who enjoyed winter sports. There were plenty of large frozen lakes, but those were primarily used for fishing rather than recreation. There was really no limit to the amount of stuff I could bring, so I ended up filling Abi’s dimensional storage with as much stuff as I could.

I definitely wanted to hit the slopes while I was there, but there was something else I wanted to do more. That was to introduce the local population to ice skating, and maybe a little hockey if I could get enough people for a game. The lack of ice skates wouldn’t be an issue. I had a plan.

---

Somewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy, enroute to the Mezotis System
Jonuth Kidravia’s Ship - Abi
12:56 Ship Time
September 2, 2019

Like the previous week, we had been given a time limit of noon to get our new customized pulse rifles in for inspection. With such a wide variety of parts, it was no surprise that all of our pulse rifles looked very different from one another. None of us used any of the more unique barrels, instead opting for ones similar to those we used in our first build.

“Alright, so there has been a slight change in plans this afternoon. Rather than spend the next few hours with the pulse rifle, each of you is going to do two runs of the course. One with the stock pulse rifle and then a second with your new ones. After that we’ll move onto a different weapon entirely. Going forward, our days will resemble this one, so you know what to expect,” Ryx explained, before gesturing to the table. “Mason, you’re up first.”

“What, no show and tell this time?” Mason asked, taking a seat in front of the stock pulse rifle.

“Nah, that was just a one off,” he replied with a chuckle. “It’s just a little exercise I like to help me understand each of your thought processes. I prefer to let the weapon do the talking.”

“Oh. I’m ready.”

“Okay, begin on the whistle.”

The moment the whistle sounded, Mason began working on disassembling the weapon in front of him. Lifting it up, he removed the hand grip with a quick twist and set it off to the side, once it was off the gun, he unscrewed the barrel, gave it a quick scrubbing with the cleaning tool, and then peered through it, checking for any damage. Having determined that nothing was wrong with it, he set it down and checked over the remaining items, making sure nothing was broken or loose.

After that, reassembly went quickly. He didn’t have telekinesis to help him, but he was still faster than the rest of us. I would have to put that to the test now that I was able to lift a lot more and could control multiple objects. He had the weapon assembled and was back on his feet in under thirty seconds, entering the course as he slammed the power cell home.

The rest of us turned our attention to the screen, watching him run through. He was doing pretty damn well for his first run, though that may have been because he spent the entirety of the previous day traveling back and forth between his room and the range. When he exited the range and disassembled the weapon again, he put up two new records; a time of 2:29.90s , and an accuracy of 94.60%. Both were rather minor increases, but increases nonetheless.

When it was my turn, I sat down and waited for the whistle to be blown. As soon as it did, I sprang into action, lifting the weapon with my telekinesis while removing everything at once. The barrel was being unscrewed even as the hand grip was rotated and pulled off, and the butt stock and pistol grip were removed just as quickly. Grabbing the cleaning tool, I started cleaning out the barrel while physically picking up the pistol grip followed by the butt stock, making sure that they were fine.

They were, of course, so I reattached them while directing my attention back to the barrel. The cleaning tool had done its job, so I just raised the barrel up to my eye to make sure that it was still in working order. Satisfied, I guided it back over to the receiver and began screwing it in. It only took a moment to look over the hand grip and it, too, as attached securely. Hitting the button with my telekinesis, I got up and ran into the course as the power cell caught up to me.

I was bringing the pulse rifle up just as the power cell was locked into place, immediately firing off a shot at the first target. The next few targets came up rather quickly. I winced when one of my shots nicked a hostage’s neck rather than the bad guy standing behind her, but I continued on, shooting the rest of the targets that had appeared. I didn’t hit any more hostages, but I did have a few missed shots here and there, which would lower my score slightly. Exiting the course I saw that my scores only improved marginally. I would need to do better with my customized pulse rifle.

Ben followed after me, followed by Anja and then Sonja. Ben had the biggest improvement of the entire group, completing the course in 2:48.60s and finishing with a total score of 77.40. The twins improved as well, but it was only a slight increase, like my own.

With the warm up round done, we went in the same order with Mason going first. It took a little bit longer for all of us to disassemble our weapons and look them over, but not a lot longer. While there were many more parts on the weapons, not all of them had to be looked over to see if they were in working order. Accessories, such as lasers didn’t need to be checked at all, because they weren’t essential to the workings of the gun. Even buttstocks weren’t essential, though they did help with accuracy and would help with recoil when we started using ballistic weapons.

Just like last week, all of us had some pretty good improvements with our customized pulse rifles, allowing us to move through the course much more quickly while placing more accurate shots. By the time we were done, Ben had breached the eighty point mark while the rest of us were at, or above, the ninety-point mark. Mason was at a ninety-three, but he had put in a lot more work than we did.

“Good work, all of you,” Ryx said. “You’re all putting up noticeable improvements with each attempt. Remember to keep practicing and those numbers will continue to go up. Now, though, let's move on to another weapon. I said that we would be moving on to a pistol next, but it is a rather unique one at that.”

Turning around and opening up a new case that had been placed on the table, he reached in and then spun around, giving us a side profile of the next weapon we would be learning. Chrome in appearance, it looked similar to .44 Magnum, but had a longer, rounder barrel and lacked the usual cylinder.

“Meet the WA Mk. XI Gauss Pistol. This is a weapon that was made by Warvyn Arms about two hundred years ago, for use by Spectres. It’s been modified heavily over the years, but it is now the sidearm of choice for almost every Spectre nowadays. As the name suggests, this is a coil gun which uses a series of coils along the length of the barrel to propel a solid projectile at incredible speeds.”

“You’ll notice that there isn’t an opening for rounds to be inserted anywhere, but that is because there is a small dimensional storage built into the gun. While the safety is on there will never be a round in the chamber. As soon as you flick off the safety, a round will be transferred from the dimensional storage into the chamber, allowing you to fire. Every round thereafter will be loaded a tenth of a second after you fire, allowing you to maintain a decent fire rate.”

“This is the power cell used in the pistol while we’re in public,” he said, removing it and showing it to us. “It contains the exact same amount of power as the power cell we’ve been using with the pulse rifles, which is also compatible with this pistol. It will allow you to carry around only one type of power cell, rather than multiple.”

The one he pulled out of the pistol looked very much like a regular pistol magazine, and would likely pass as one if someone only got a quick glance. He placed it down on the table behind him and then retrieved the practice power cell that we had all been using. Giving us a side profile, he slid it into the bottom of the handle and then let go. It stayed in, though it did look pretty odd.

“The beauty of gauss guns and railguns is the fact that ammo is often easy to find and is easily interchangeable between different guns. In a pinch, you can make your own ammo from scrap metal, and skills that allow you to heat up said metal. Spectres usually carry a mold along with them, allowing them to easily and quickly make rounds, should a situation arise where they have run out of ammo. Come up to the table and I’ll show you what kind of stuff this thing can fire.”

Once we were all standing around the table, Ryx grabbed a smaller case that was inside of the one that held the pistol. Opening it up, we could see the familiar sight of an ammo case, square grid and all. The main difference was that every single round was different. Some tips were flat and others were pointy, while others were somewhere in between. He grabbed one of the pointy ones first, which was clearly a miniature discarding sabot round.

“This is a tungsten armor penetrator. The fins make sure that it remains stable in flight, and it’s small size ensures that it is easily able to penetrate armor. If someone is firing one of these at you and you don’t have some sort of shield up, it’s going to go right through you. Now tungsten isn’t magnetic so the coils can’t propel it, and the penetrator is too small to insert a core made out of a ferrous metal. To get around that, the sabot is an aluminium-iron alloy which is magnetic, and can be propelled by the coils that run the length of the barrel.”

“Everything else from the full metal jackets to the incendiary rounds to the extreme penetrators all use tungsten in some form in order to get the best penetration as well. We do also use rounds made using depleted uranium since it is magnetic, but I don’t have any of them with me. Today we’ll be using these practice rounds,” he said, putting the sabot round back in the case and taking out a small, bright yellow bullet, made out of plastic.

“We had to come up with something to use as practice rounds, because of how far rounds are able to penetrate. These have a very thin cylinder of aluminium-iron alloy on the inside which allows the round to be propelled, but without doing damage to stuff that we don’t want damaged. They can’t be accelerated up to the same speeds as regular rounds can without disintegrating mid-flight, but they move fast enough.”

“I’ll give you a quick breakdown on how to disassemble, clean and reassemble the weapon, and then you’ll practice that a few times before we head to the range. I think we’ll end the day with each of you going through the course once, but today is about familiarizing yourselves with the gun.”

He took a seat and ran us through the disassembly and reassembly process. It was both easier and more complicated than the pulse rifle had been. A tool was needed for this one, but it was just a pin that was inserted into a little slot at the muzzle of the pistol. When the pin was inserted, it allowed the ‘slide’ to be lifted right off the gun, displaying the inner workings. The most interesting thing about it was that the barrel wasn’t even secured to anything inside, and nor were the coils that were around it. As soon as the ‘slide’ was off, he lifted both the barrel and the coils out of the rest of the gun.

“Very easy to disassemble, right?” he said, looking around at all of us, who gave him a nod. “Once you have the barrel out, just slide off the coils and that will allow you to clean the barrel and inspect it for any damage. I’ve also got a non-functional coil here, just so you know what to look for. There are actually five coils hooked together, so if one breaks you can still fire, you just won’t get as much power.”

The non-functional coil looked identical to a functional one, with the only difference being a small, thin crack that was maybe a millimeter or two in length. The coils need to handle incredible amounts of power, so I could see how cracks like that could form. If there is a weak spot in the coil then repeated fire will make it weaker and weaker until it finally fails.

“So electricity is required to power the coils which propel rounds, right? If there is a crack in the coil, how does the user not get electrocuted?” Ben asked.

“Good question,” Ryx answered, flipping the ‘slide’ up so we could see the lining, as well as the place where the barrel sits inside of the gun. “There is a rubber coating that prevents electricity from being transferred to the metal and then to you. You will need to check the coating periodically, but it is meant to last for years before needing to be replaced. Now I’ll put it back together and then each of you will be given your own practice pistol. Once you’ve all reassembled it a few times we’ll head over to the range and you can try it out.”

---

Though it was rather simple to disassemble, the fact that we had to scrutinize every last millimeter of the coils meant that it took much longer. Not one of us was able to disassemble, clean and reassemble our pistol in under a minute. Not even Mason, because there were at least fifty or sixty feet of coil to examine.

After about thirty minutes of disassembly and assembly, Ryx came over and placed an ammo case containing fifty of the practice rounds we would be using today.

“Now that you’ve got the hang of it, I’ll show you how to actually load the pistol. It’s extremely easy and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it,” he said.

With that, he held his gauss pistol in one hand and placed his hand, palm down, over his own ammo case that lay on the table. A few seconds later, he lifted his hand up and we could see that all the rounds that were in the ammo case had disappeared.

“It’s as simple as that. While holding the pistol in one hand, all you need to do is hold the ammo you want to load in the other hand, or just do what I did. The dimensional storage built into the pistol can hold roughly five hundred rounds, though that depends on the weight of the bullets themselves. Okay, let’s head over to the range.”

There weren’t enough lanes for all of us to line up at once, so we ended up taking turns firing off our fifty rounds before loading another fifty and waiting until it was our turn again. The gun behaved much less like a gun that fired projectiles and more like a gun that fired energy, in that there was very little recoil. It seemed like that was a byproduct of the light rounds we were currently firing, and Ryx confirmed as much.

“There is no gunpowder involved, so the amount of recoil is directly proportional to the weight of the round you are firing. So a round measuring two inches in length will have much, much more recoil than a round only a half inch in length. It’s something that always needs to be taken into account. While the five of you will eventually be strong enough to negate the majority of the recoil, the materials used to make pistols won’t be. If you fire a round that is too big, then there is a very good chance that the main body of the gun will rip off the grip and hit you in the chest or head.”

After five turns on the range, each, we headed back to the main room. It was time to put the gauss pistol to the test in the training course.

“The training course will remain the same, so all of you already know what to expect. We’ll go with the same order, so you’re up first, Mason,” Ryx said.

He nodded. As soon as the whistle blew, he began disassembling the weapon that he had just put two hundred fifty rounds through. The pin needed to remove the ‘slide’ was also stored inside of the small dimensional storage, but something was done to it so the gun couldn’t fire it. It appeared in his left hand as soon as he picked up the pistol with his right, and he wasted no time inserting it into the slot so he could get at the inner workings.

Removing the coils from around the barrel, he looked over them to see if there were any issues. There didn’t seem to be, as he placed it back on the table and then picked up the barrel next. After cleaning it, he examined both the outside and the inside, making sure that everything was solid. With the important stuff done, he slid the coils back around the barrel and then inserted both items into the correct spot and closed everything up. He held onto the barrel while twisting the pistol grip to make sure that it was tight, and then slapped his hand down on the button.

We would be using the same practice power cells that we had previously, so he picked that up on his way by and inserted it into the bottom of the gun. He did forget something on the table, but it wouldn’t detract from his score at all. His ears just might be ringing a little bit when he was done.

The pulse rifles hadn’t been very loud at all, but that wasn’t true for the gauss pistols. The fact that the projectile being fired out of it was supersonic meant that it was pretty hard on the ears. All five of us had been given, and were using electronic earmuffs which reduce the sound of weapons fire or explosives, while still allowing people to hear each other, even in the midst of a heated gunfight.

He ended up finishing with a time of 3:05.1s, with an accuracy of 84.2%. Both were much worse than his usual times, but the gauss pistol took longer to disassemble, examine and reassemble, while also being less accurate than a rifle is. It was still good enough for a score of eighty-seven, so it seemed like he did very well.

The rest of us went one after another, finishing the first run through in about twenty-five minutes. We weren’t as bad as we were when we started with the pulse rifles, but we were still pretty bad. We were all close, but none of us were able to break a score of eighty. Our times were also roughly twenty seconds behind Mason’s, but we would have plenty of time to improve.

One of the biggest difference makers in our respective times was the fact that we had to reload at least once during our run. We were only given fifty rounds to start with, just so we would get used to reloading while moving. Even Mason made the mistake, pressing the trigger a few times without anything happening before he finally picked up one of the rectangular tubes that was in his chest rig.

It looked identical to a magazine, because that was exactly what it was. It just wasn’t inserted into the pistol like a normal magazine would be. Instead, he held it in a harries hold with a thumb touching the round. After that, the spring inside of the magazine did the work for him. Each time a round touched his thumb, it would automatically be loaded into the gun’s dimensional storage.

While it looked identical to a regular magazine, it wasn’t, at all. It used the same ‘Enlarge’ enchantment that was used in ammo boxes for heavy machine guns, like the minigun that Mason was so fond of. While the magazine looked like it could only hold twenty rounds, at maximum, it could, in fact, hold one hundred. When it was empty, all he needed to do was put it in his dimensional storage and grab the next one on his rig.

We spent the next two hours going through the course before ending things for the day. All of us had improved, but the biggest surprise was Ben. He was the worst of the group when it came to pulse rifles, but he was quite a bit better with pistols. He was the first person behind Mason to finally break a score of eighty, and ended up finishing third, just behind Sonja for the highest scores for the day. It seemed like pistols might be right up his alley.

After the last run was over, Ryx called all of us over and had us sit.

“Good job today. As all of you can attest, it is much harder to maintain your accuracy with a handgun than it is with a rifle, especially when the handgun has recoil and the rifle doesn’t. This isn’t an actual representation of how it will be to shoot a gauss pistol with regular rounds, but it is sufficient for our purposes, for now. I’ve spoken to Abi and she has agreed to make a course for us, to my specifications, for the trip back to Earth. For the trip back, you’ll be able to use non-practice rounds, at destructible targets.”

“For now, though, I’ve got some more homework for you. While it may not look like it, WA Mk. XI Gauss Pistols are quite customizable. A weapon box has been delivered to each of your rooms with everything you’ll need to customize one to your liking. You don’t need to rush and complete building yours today, but have it by the time we meet on Wednesday. Dismissed.”

Mason immediately started running out of the room, leaving the rest of us laughing as he made a beeline to the teleporter. Nothing ever changes.