Cimbrean
“Legsy” turned out to be an enormous Welshman, who towered over Jen and seemed to take the whole world with irreverent good humour.
“Right! Ever handled a gun before?” He asked, fishing around in the back of a truck.
“Sort of.” Jen said.
“Whatcha mean?”
“We modified some of those shitty pulse guns to fire actual ammo. They were okay, but…”
“Awh, they’ll be nothing next to these bad boys!” Legsy said. “Say whatcha like about the fuckin’ Germans, those cunts know how to make a fuckin’ gun.”
“Pardon your French…” Jen muttered.
“Wha? Oh, right. Get used to it darling, I’m from Llanelli.”
He hauled something out of the truck’s bed. “Anyway, THIS” he held up a gun “is the HK G36C. Before I give it to you, d’you know the rules of firearm safety?”
Jen’s lessons with Adrian on a deathworld she had never learned the name of came back to her. “Always assume it’s loaded and ready to fire and the safety’s off.” she recalled. “Don’t point it at something unless you’re completely okay with that thing ending up dead or destroyed. Don’t have your trigger finger inside the guard unless you’re going to shoot. Be aware of what’s near and behind your target.”
Legsy handed her the gun.
“Safety, magazine eject, charging handle. Got that?“Jen repeated the identification, and he nodded, then pointed to something on the top of the gun. ” This here’s an OCOG—that’s Offworld Combat Operations Gunsight. Designed for use in different gravity, right? Aim it at that target down there…” Jen did so. “See how the chevrons tell you the range, and stay on target no matter where your head is? Okay, tuck it into your shoulder a bit more…right. You know how to hold one, anyway. Give it here.”
When Jen had done so, he demonstrated the correct way to load and charge it a few times before handing it back to her and watching as she repeated the motion. Satisfied, he handed her a magazine with a strip of coloured tape around it.
“Okay, this is a charged mag and that’s live ammunition. Fire off a few rounds at that target by there.” He said.
Jen looked at it. “How far is that?”
“Hundred meters, nice and easy.” Legsy said, happily. “That gun’s effective out to about eight hundred, but the furthest target we’ve got is six hundred meters, which would be that little one waaaay over there.” He pointed at a little speck hanging from a distant tree. “But we’re going to start nice and easy.”
Jen shrugged, turned, raised the gun, sighted, and fired. The recoil was surprisingly hefty compared to the repurposed pulse-guns she was used to and the first shot hit a bit high. She adjusted, and the rest of her shots formed a tight grouping smack in the middle of the target.
“Fuckin’ ‘ell!” Legsy said, clearly impressed. “Okay, recoil surprised you a bit there. Squeeze the trigger, don’t jerk it, and try to be breathin’ out when you fire. Go for that one over there with the orange stake next to it, that’s three hundred meters.”
Jen’s shots hit low. “Sights are off.” she observed.
“Or you’re just shit.” Legsy teased, grinning. “Nah, you’re right. That sight’s not been calibrated for Cimbrean’s gravity yet, you’ll need to adjust it. See that little dial on the side?”
Jen experimented with it, twisted it a bit, and saw how the chevrons moved and widened out a bit. She fired, hit a bit high, twisted the OCOG a little less, fired, hit smack in the middle, and something went click in her brain.
She grinned, aimed, and squeezed off all the remaining rounds in the magazine before laying the gun flat in front of her, pointing downrange.
“You missed.” Legsy said, examining the three hundred meter target through binoculars and sounding puzzled.
“Look at the six hundred meter target.” Jen told him. He frowned and raised his binoculars again, and Jen folded her arms and allowed a cocky smile to form as she watched the giant Welsh soldier’s jaw drop.
Brick, New Jersey
It really was very good coffee.
“Here on Earth, The Hierarchy would be just another conspiracy theory.” Singh told him, settling down into his recliner. “But they are very real. They have acted behind the scenes of galactic politics since the days when some of the older species were still around.”
“Still around?” Kevin echoed, questioning.
“Species come, species go.” Singh said. “You must have noticed that all of the civilizations out there are much of an age with us. A few thousand years older at most.”
“So…what, species just go extinct eventually?”
“Eventually. Usually after tens of thousands of years as warp-capable civilizations. But in time, well…it’s not quite clear why. It’s the grand unanswered question of alien sociology. But yes, in time they all enter a terminal decline. Every race up there is living on borrowed time.”
“No exceptions?”
Singh issued a slim-lipped, grim smile and set his coffee down. “Just one. The Hunters. There are references to them in archaeological archives dating back to the days when humanity was still just a balder-than-average ape with unusual posture. Nobody quite knows HOW old they are. But the rest? Eventually, they crumble, their works decay, they withdraw to their homeworld, set up shop and just…dwindle. They stop breeding and…give up.”
He leaned forward. “Except for the deathworlders.”
Kevin’s brow creased. “…But we’re the only deathworlders, though. Aren’t we?”
“We are, yes, but we shouldn’t be. Let me tell you my story…”