DOR Chapter 107 – Cthulhu Calibers

About time Cole got an upgrade. While the patient hunter rifle was fun, Curahee armaments are starting to be ineffective against some of the bigger threats.

Chapter 107 – Cthulhu Calibers

“Airborne, a word,” said Hard Tone as Cole pushed himself up from his chair. The rest of the team looked at him.

“Go ahead without me,” he said. “I got nothing planned for us today, so if you don’t got shit to do, go home. Tomorrow we’re picking our next assignment.”

The rest of the team nodded and let themselves out of the room. Hard Tone waited for Wes to pack up and leave, as well, before she leaned back on the table.

“This might be early, but what are your plans for your path as a Kicker?”

Cole raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“Come on,” said Hard Tone. “It’s obvious you’re punching above your weight class, here. You’ve got a team of black sheep and you’re working miracles with them. But if you didn’t spend half your missions wrangling them, you could easily pull scout for a more senior team. Better rewards, better loot, faster leveling. You get what I’m saying?”

Ah, a sales pitch. Cole shook his head. “It’s not me working miracles, Tone. You’re not giving my guys enough credit. Yeah, they might not be as effective without me calling the shots, but that’s all the more reason to stay with ‘em.”

A noncommittal grunt from Hard Tone told him all how much she agreed with that. “It can be hard to give up command of a team. But you also gotta think about what’s best for Airborne and best for the department.”

“That’s a distant bridge. We’ll cross it in course,” said Cole. “Need anything else?”

Hard Tone shook her head. “Thanks for the launcher, by the way. It came in clutch.” She pushed off the table. “You ever need anything, reach out to Wes.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Cole.

They made their way to the elevator and parted ways, Hard Tone heading to the Termlink lab and Cole continuing down for a visit to the armory. He badged himself in, already hearing voices from behind the service window. Cole continued through the security door, as well.

Jefferson was on the main level, arguing with Norn and Bjorn over an open hard case that Cole recognized as the one containing the otherworld rifle from Oak Ridge.

“What’s all the fuss?” he asked. It was rare to see the twins outside of the chilly underground lab beneath the armory. “Still haven’t logged it?”

Jefferson looked up. “Cole, c’mere right quick.”

Curious, Cole joined the trio. Norn reached down and picked up the rifle. The limp tentacles swung down beneath the receiver and the entire gun seemed to droop a bit, as though it had lost the will to stay rigid. Norn shook the gun, and it wobbled visibly. “Is squishy for gun, no? How useful, this?”

Jefferson huffed. “Now I seen some weird guns pulled from off world. Guns with fur, guns that bled like that shotgun Roxy’s got. But I ain’t ever laid eyes on one like this. Take a look here.”

He handed Cole an LF Analyzer, and Cole scanned the entry, brow knitting as he read. “What the…?”

<LF Armament detected, analyzing…

Error//114: Analysis incomplete, anomalous properties detected. No name logged.

Quality level: above average

Increase damage and recoil by 13%-25%

Properties:

Sympathetic: This weapon receives a portion of the user’s enhancements. Abilities and items which affect companions and minions affect this weapon.

??? Error//221: analysis failed

??? Error//221: analysis failed

Ravenous: This weapon has non-standard ammunition consumption properties. Further analysis required.>

“What are these errors?” asked Cole.

“It means Termlink is detecting affixes it can’t identify. Either because it’s never seen ‘em, or because the manifestations themselves are so anomalous they might as well be completely new. We used to get those two-two-one codes a lot in the early days of Termlink when the model was still being trained. Nowadays not so much. The short of it is, the analyzer has no idea what special sauce your gun has because it plays by different rules than other armaments.”

Cole took the rifle from the dwarf and hefted it. “Wild. Saying it gets a portion of my enhancement metrics is weird, too. Sounds like the thing Besson has with Nutmeg.”

Jefferson dug a hand through his red beard. “If you ask me, you oughta melt it right down. I talked to Howitzer, and he ya’ll were fighting some Cthulhu-lookin sons of bitches at Oak Ridge. Eldritch armaments are sometimes more trouble than they’re worth.”

“Maybe,” said Cole. “But this is a world we’ll be going to, eventually. Wouldn’t it be best to learn more about what we’re going to face there?”

“You ain’t lyin’.” Jeff considered for a moment, worrying his beard so much he’d probably rub himself a bald spot. “Tell you what. Grab your PPE. We’ll take this thing inside the LF range and put some rounds through it before you decide what to do. I’ll get the field warmed up.”

Cole grabbed his kit from his locker and pulled on his plate carrier and helmet. He was damned curious what it was about this gun that had Termlink so flummoxed. He went back to the case where the twins were still poking and prodding at the rifle as if it might come alive.

“Not going to join me on the range?” he asked.

“Is three inches of glass between us, here,” said Norn (or maybe Bjorn). “Have fun. Don’t die.”

Cole looked over at Jefferson sitting at the terminal that controlled the artificial field in the armory. “You too?”

“What he said,” said Jefferson. “What’s your poison?”

Cole shook his head and picked up the rifle. “7.62 NATO is what I’m running off-world. But this magazine well… is, well…” he looked at the slot, which drooped about as much as the rest of the gun. He sighed and opened up the ammunition locker and slotted a few magazines of bladed rounds into his vest pouches and then fitted his ear protection. “Alright, I’m heading in,” he said.

Jefferson unlocked the double set of doors to the LF range and Cole let himself through the first set of doors, waiting for them to close fully before opening the next set. There was no one else on the range, but good safety protocols had been drilled into him since before he ever went to boot camp. In the antechamber, his enhancements started to come online and the inky black surface of the accretion wraps crawled across his hands.

In his arms, the gun itself began to stir and stiffen, as though hydraulics were filling out the smooth surface and giving it rigidity. The tentacles, once limp, began to quest toward his arm. A faint steam began to rise from the joints in the receiver. He resisted the impulse to drop the gun on the ground, instead proceeding to the inner range and deeper into the LF field.

A muffled, distorted electronic drone buzzed at the edge of his hearing. Cole reached up and hit his ear-pro’s pass-thru button.

“Check, check,” said Jefferson over the intercom from the armory.

“Lima charlie,” called Cole.

“How’s it lookin?”

Cole glanced down at the gun. The tentacles had worked themselves into a loose loop around his right shoulder and left armpit, creating a sort of one-point sling. Cole released the weapon, surprised to find it held fast to his front. A much smaller tendril from the receiver looped around one of his mag pouches. Gingerly, he peeled the gun away from his plate carrier. A flash of annoyance shot through the back of his mind.

“This may sound weird,” said Cole. “But I think my gun is… I don’t know, cranky, maybe? Do LF armaments get cranky? Is that a thing?”

Jefferson laughed from the armory. “Believe it or not, yeah. When a powerful item’s key passes through a lot of people, it can start to take on traits from its owners and even speak and activate abilities. When that happens, they sort of become both lock and key, transcending the usual LF key limitations. But we’re talking about generational heirlooms passing through dozens of owners. I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. If it’s getting your stats, my best guess is it’s aware in some way, and the LF key gives you a mental bond with it.”

Cole hefted the rifle. “This one feels like it’s got a Sunday morning hangover.”

“Maybe because the artificial field is so low-power.”

“Maybe. Alright, I’m proceeding.”

“Good copy.”

Cole pulled out one of the magazines and looked at what he thought must be the magazine well. But when he pressed the aluminum magazine to the side of the gun, a mouth opened, with little sharp teeth crunching into the metal as two small tendrils looped around and pulled it in.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” shouted Cole, pulling back his fingers that very nearly got a bite taken out of them in his gun’s haste.

“What happened?” called Jefferson.

“The gun just fucking ate my mag!” said Cole.

“What? Like a dollar in a bad vending machine?”

Turning the rifle in profile, Cole held the gun up so that Jefferson could see the last of the gunmetal grey magazine disappear into the receiver. A receiver that was absolutely not wide enough to hide a twenty-round magazine of 7.62 NATO rounds.

“Huh. So… does that mean its loaded?”

Cole turned his rifle this way and that, looking for any change. “I… I have no idea.” A pang of satisfaction twitched in the back of his mind. Cole pinched the bridge of his nose. The gun had no obvious charging handle or ejection port, either. “Ok. Let’s just… assume that it is.”

He put his left hand on the black shell of the barrel’s heat shroud, which protruded slightly at his touch and gained a slight stippling texture to make a more comfortable hold. As soon as he pointed the muzzle away from himself, the tentacles looping around his shoulder became rigid and created a solid anchor point. The top of the receiver was smooth, lacking even a front bead. An optic, or even basic iron sights would be nice. But that wouldn’t really matter for this.

As Cole lamented the lack of optics, a V shaped pair of spines rose from the the receiver with a thin membrane stretched between, glowing so softly that Cole didn’t even think he would have noticed it without heightened Acuity. He sighted down the organic optic. Sure enough, a tiny, bioluminescent dot was being projected onto the membrane from a small bump just aft along the receiver. It even had proper parallax when he moved his head to either side.

“Here goes nothing,” said Cole. He lined up the first target and squeezed the trigger.