Section 99: A Gun Store in St. Joe's

Experience an important part of Section 99 and its lore: the weaponry.

Today, we're going into more of the Port of St. Joseph's Experience, and a big, big part of what makes Section 99 what it is, in terms of me striving to make it feel like lived-in space opera: weapons that border on the functional and understandable, but also the fantastic and the horrifyingly powerful. Y'know, like a disintegration ray that still has a very readable safety, magazine release and takedown lever, in addition to having a grip and trigger.

What you're getting here isn't just more text as well, but also visual and even audio design as well- I've still got the makings of a prototype game here, remember. You're getting a bunch of stuff with these updates. This is just the first of a few- consider this my way of getting a lot of stuff I haven't shown yet out there.

Oh hey, if you want to know a quick idea of what Freelanders base their currency, the Royale, on? Fusion-fuel, with 1 Royale equalling enough contained elemental hydrogen to fully charge a handheld plasma cutter... basically. It's also one 600ml canister of purified water and 1 enriched candy bar, by specific design, as keeping a fed and hydrated population is sorta important in the Freelands.

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Vanguard Secure Solutions, like the name might suggest, is a low profile, sell-by-reputation sort of place that exists on the border between Canal Basin and Portreach. It is largely patronized by SecVols, as well as other colonial security personnel, not to mention the occasional 99er. While neither sprawling nor ostentatious, the laminate floors are nicely sealed and polished, the glass on the cases are the same nice smoky quartz panels that are common in the rest of city, and the sales floor is wrapped in surround-screen walls. When you’re buzzed in, they’re currently showing ambience from the Mayonaka Forest, on Evergreen- vast trees with broad boughs, their bioluminescent needles casting neon green, orange and violet haze in misty shadows, with moths swooping through the nimbuses of light that are occasionally dive-bombed by big, swallow-like birds with glowing eyes and wingtips.

Your clerks for today are the Gauge Twins, Rachter and Skip. They make themselves easy to tell apart- Rachter’s got the blue eye-glow, Skip’s got the amber, Rachter keeps his nametag on the left, Skip on the right. They’re friendly and efficient, two synthetic folks who know how to make a data-dump on a piece of hardware they’ve committed to hard memory sound like a range buddy casually discussing the pros and cons of a given gun. Given that they were originally built to bodyguard a Terran Loyalist CEO, and their first act of freedom was a brotherly double tap into the dyspeptic bastard’s back, this mild mannered politeness and contentment in providing customer service tells you everything about how much happier these two are nowadays.

Here’s what’s on sale:

Firearms: Apprentice Cert

Aboard space stations and nomad ships, sale of firearms and munitions to Apprentice-certified firearms users is limited to weapons chambered in conventional pistol cartridges, small bore shotguns and their rough equivalent output in directed energy. This is to prevent neophyte users, overeager and overconfident by their newly bought gun, from fragging the occupants of a bodega while mistakenly thinking the shadows cast by a dumpster looked like a Ragman terror squad, thus causing them to magdump an auto rifle through a wall that was too thin to be protective. Understand, in places where shooting through a wall can mean opening up exposure to space, this is the sort of safety imperative that crosses the line through ethical, and lands comfortably in the moral grounds of necessity. Granted, you’re not going to manage that sort of carnage via overpenetration in St. Joes’, but that doesn’t mean they mess around with ballistic risk factors within the city limits. You want a hunting rifle or a full-caliber shotgun and you don’t want to take the extra classes? Go live on a planet, where those things are harder to be accidentally lethal with if you’re a donkey while handling them.

"Vittorio" Modello 88

Semiautomatic kinetic pistol; short recoil, hinged locking breechblock, single/double action. Chambered in 9mm EVO- other model lines exist for other calibers, including one that’s a pulse laser that’s kinda a stylish curiosity, but one that still at least works properly. Magazines come in 16, 18, 20, 24, and 30 round magazines from the first party, and all are reliable when manufactured with materials of sufficient quality. Design and original manufacture by Belotti Firearms, Nuovo Brescia, Cyrus. By all accounts, a very, very pretty 9mm kinetic pistol, to the point that many non-Terran species look to it as an easy example of Terran artistry in weaponry. Accuracy and relatively low recoil impulse means that in tandem with that visual appeal, the Modello 88 has attracted a number of users from species that prefer lower recoil weapons, like the Iryzani and the Evex. Older productions have a squishy trigger that’s become infamous; this design flaw remains mostly ironed out, though many say it still has a little too much uptake before the break. Illuminated sights and a digital “power meter” style ammo readout with chamber-loaded indicator come stock, with the readout located on the pistol’s beavertail. A fine buy of a pistol at 380 Royale.

Variants

• Modello 88R “Raffica” - Originally commissioned for the colony of Fanikan Beach, a colony founded by both homeworld and Terranized Rhidlings that’s a neighbour to Nuovo Brescia. While a mostly quiet fishing and sea-farming community, they still have a force of Security Volunteers, meaning those folks needed some standardized weaponry.  Not feeling any particular technological allegiance to either species, they instead went the pragmatic route, and bought from the folks down the road. The optional ergo kit designed to better fit the weapon to a Rhidling hand is the minor change to the design; the major ones are that it now has a 3 round burst fire mode, at 1000 rounds per minute, with a folding stubby foregrip along the lower forward portion of the frame, a slightly lengthened, ported barrel. While chunky for a pistol, it is svelte for a PDW, meaning in the rare cases where their SecVols are called to respond to violence, they’ve got some shockingly spicy sidearm firepower. That said, be prepared to present Master-level certs to buy this thing- burst and autofire is an elephant in the thin-walled room of space station living.

• Modello 88C - The expected compact model, fitting a shortened 10 round magazine. One of the great examples of how something that’s a completely normal, natural and unsurprising move can still be a quality and popular product. The hammer is semi-shrouded, allowing it to still be manually set, but minimizing chances that it’ll get caught in a pocket or on a waistband.

• Modello L2000 - The aforementioned fancy laser model that’s mostly a curiosity. Mostly, because for a full-sized pistol, it’s a hard 9 shots to a Type-10 cell, with a transference of energy that’s merely acceptable for a light pulse laser. Even still, the combination of style, the fascination it’s pulse and not kinetic, and the complete non-recoil on trigger press means that it still has its earnest users- older shooters and folks with chronic pain issues favour it as self defense, for instance.

Firearms: Journeyman Cert

A Journeyman’s Cert aboard ship and station denotes an individual with the correct level of safety standards and weapons manipulation training (and possible even practical application) that denotes an individual who understands that a firearm is a highly specific solution to a problem that is already out of hand, and that sometimes those highly specific solutions break down into even more highly specific solution. In other words, demonstrate a functional understanding of ‘right tool for the right job’ with your ability to both responsibly handle a firearm, and make its output connect with steel on the target range. Demonstrate that you don’t use a bazooka to swat a fly, and so you wouldn’t be tempted to do so in a condensed city space. Then you can have something with a bigger caliber- you aren’t jumpy, you can handle these if you need to.

"Tombstone" PA-12

Naval model depicted- note the short barrel and foregrip.

Manual-operated kinetic shotgun; double-tube fed pump action with no trigger disconnect, allowing slamfire. Chambered in Modernized-12, with a heavier duty 10G model, as well a 20G model for the hunting and sporting market. 10 or 12 round capacity in the twin tubes. Design and original manufacture, Travis Frontier Arms, Prosperity Knocks, Ometochtli. The pump action shotgun will never die; high technology was supposed to wipe out all archaic manual action weapons, like the sudden arrival of a new epoch, but it didn’t. Turns out, when you’re on the Frontier of space, be it in an artificial environment or one of the precious gems of worlds and moons we’ve discovered that are habitable, it turns out having weapons systems that are semi-muscle powered is the ultimate reliability fix, which is why you still see bolt actions, lever actions and pump actions. Yes, you wouldn’t take your dad’s hunting rifle to the frontlines against a Consortium incursion; but if said Consortium trooper was a part of an expeditionary force that wasn’t ready for the hazards of your barely habitable backyard, and they find their autorifle or pulse laser nonfunctional, your pumpgun probably won’t be if you have to personally escort them offworld (or off the plane of existence). The Tombstone is purpose built to be that pumpgun, something made to be charged with manshot or deadlier as its default. The barrel is rifled, allowing for more accurate delivery of slug-style projectiles. It uses a dual tube feed system to pack a high capacity into a similar length to an older model trenchgun. The feeds can either be drawn from alternatively with every pump, or from a single tube only with the turn of a switch, allowing the shooter to load different shells in different tubes to react to evolving situations. Never load less lethal alongside lethal; it never works out well for anyone involved. 500 Royale, for the sheer simplicity of it all.

Variants

• PA-12L “Field” - Also known as the Graveyard Shovel, because of its longer barrel and the adjustable choke that makes it slightly longer still. Holds a whopping 16 shells, with a loading port modified for a linear stripper clip catch. To those living in 203X, this thing’s a hunting shotgun for long trips. To folks who survived the War of Green Flags in 199X, this was the gun that turned Consortium open-country charges into an even bigger disaster than they already were.

• PA-12N - The Naval model, which travels in the exact opposite direction of the design parameters of the Field: short, pointable, with an opened choke pattern to allow a slightly wider dispersal of scattershot shells. Even with the cut down length and mag tubes, it still holds 8, plus one in the pipe, plus a ghost load if you want to go the extra mile of pulling that trick on a platform that prefers not to.

• PA-12SC - Slim, Compact, the smallest and lowest capacity version, that’s made to be worn across the back and used as a high speed lockpick. Naval length barrel, with one mag tube, meaning only 4 + 1 capacity. Extreme low-tech effectiveness, in a tiny package.

Firearms: Master Cert

If you’re looking at this part of the store, you’re either window shopping, looking for something to take to the rental range for a few magazines worth of fun, or you’re someone who has some very unpleasant job functions in your role as station or ship security. Y’know, a short way of saying “if someone starts shooting, it’s your job to shoot back way, way harder.” Because of this, if you’re Master-certified, you can be trusted upon to deploy select-fire weapons into the dicey situation of super-urban areas, something not a lot of people in the galaxy actually can be trusted to do. Many think they can be trusted, and then they cause an atrocity because of a threatening shadow. And if you’re wondering why things like precision rifles are in this category, consider the few uses a sniper rifle has aboard a space station or supership, then consider why they’d want to keep checks and balances on that stuff being issued.

"Barracuda" AC300

Kinetic automatic carbine; gas operated short-stroke piston w/ rotating bolt. Chambered in 7mm Tula, with a cyclic rate of fire of around 700 rounds per minute on auto. Standard capacity magazines come in 30, 40 or 50 round flavours; 100 drums are fun, but they’re cumbersome and questionable in a real fight. Design and original manufacture, Vortex Arsenal, Horizon City, Breakwater. The Rastorguev is a venerable design of a weapons platform, one that’s still updated and modernized for its myriad of users across the Freelands. Like all venerable designs, however, there’s frequently room for competition by newer, more sophisticated platforms, especially ones with a more focused design, and less a general one with a hundred variants like the good ol’ Rasto has instead. Behold, the Barracuda: more focused, more specialized, and shiny-new. Developed with a foundation of decades of combat data on the 7x40mm Tula round itself, an intermediary rifle round with a reputation for its high-weight, low-velocity knockdown power and overall suppressability, the Barracuda is made for fights in naval-close conditions. Its relatively short length and folding stock makes it very pointable in close quarters, it’s very good at stopping targets without overpenetrating and it comes stock with a small, purpose-built suppressor that isn’t so much for stealth, as it is for not deafening the person fighting alongside you if they had to get into a fight without grabbing proper ear protection first. A fantastic buy at a mere 1000 Royale.