“So this is the armory,” Captain Ricci said as she opened the steel door, “Take whatever you want Sergeant.”

Evans looked around the room. To his right was a rack of Standard Ethslin Rifles, the most commonly issued firearm of the Ethslin Army. Next to that were a few Blaire Auto Guns, a kind of machine gun that was light and fired pistol rounds. It was across from the Automatic Ethslin Rifle, about the heaviest gun a single person could operate and still be able to run with. It fired rifle rounds as fast as a machine gun, but still could be carried on the attack. There were also a few Frost Guns, the standard issue pump action shotgun of the Ethslin Army. There were also a few Bennet Pistols in a cabinet.

There were a few that Evans couldn’t identify. He looked at Captain Ricci, “What’s the other rifle?”

“New, just introduced last month. It’s… Semi Automatic. That means every time you pull the trigger, it shoots one bullet, then automatically cycles the next, but you still have to pull the trigger again to shoot again. Like with a Bennet.”

“And what are those SER’s with the weird bolt?”

“A failure of sorts. It’s a bolt redesign that fires Semi Automatic. But it fires pistol rounds. So while it is more accurate than an Auto Gun, it’s larger and heavier. And while it fires faster than an SER, it isn’t as accurate and is prone to jamming. Plus it’s damn expensive.”

“And the–”

“Yeah that was a terrible idea. We’ve been testing it the last few weeks and it is a hard no. It’s a cut down Blaire Medium Machine Gun, with air cooling and a harness to go over your shoulder and an attachment for a box containing the ammo belts. So it would constantly overheat, and only about the strongest people could fire it at a target. They could stumble forward slowly, but only on flat, hard ground. Reloading on the move is basically impossible without help. And Joshua forbid you take fire while carrying this fucking thing. The only reason we’re still testing it is because some fucking General’s kid is a wannabe inventor and we can’t just dismiss it outright. My orders were to basically keep this “in trials” until he gets distracted by someone else. They were tested in Newacre, but the guy kept hanging around the testing facility.”

“And the big metal boxes?”

“Grenades. We’ve got a few types. First is the regular five second fuse shrapnel. Second is impact. It goes off once it hits the ground, but it can be a bit finicky. Third is Incendiary Grenades, which are a no. Could be confusing in the pictures. Fourth are Concussion. They don’t chuck shrapnel, three second fuse. They have to land close to someone to work though.”

“Alright then. I’ll just go with the Auto Gun, a Bennet, and regular old Shrapnel bombs. Don’t want to accidentally blow myself up with any fancy new Bombs.”

“You know they’re called grenades. At least officially.”

“Yes Ma’am. I’ll use your fancy name Captain.”

“It’s not my name, it’s just proper language Sergeant,” She paused, then said, “Do you know how to operate a camera Sergeant?”

Evans shook his head, “No Ma’am. We don’t have much of that fancy stuff out in Halton”

“Very Well then. I’ll have to make sure not to die then.”