“Yes, ma’am,” Attie said, reaching down and putting a bag on the table. “When I was given this mission, and the mission to prepare the gear, I had to think hard about it. I’d planned on MP-5s…”
“They’re not all that good with these things,” Randell said. “Five point five six is worse.”
“And then I got that intel in the middle of the night,” Attie said dyspeptically. “Which threw a wrench in the works. The optimum was a forty-five-caliber SMG that was small, light and robust. Unfortunately, the state of the art is still the Thompson in forty-five. The problem with forty-five is recoil and muzzle climb. The traditional way to deal with that has been weight. The weight of a Thompson is, looked at that way, a feature, not a bug. And they’re tough as hell.”
“Tell me they’ve at least been reworked,” Barb said with a sigh. “The last Thompson I fired was practically mint in that nobody had ever changed anything on it. Which meant it was a piece of…it was not a very good weapon.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Attie said, smiling slightly. “But then I got to thinking. SOCOM has been evaluating a new forty-five SMG. It’s barely out of the prototype stage but it’s been passing every test with flying colors.”
He opened up the bag and drew out a small-very small-submachine gun.
The distance from the rear of the weapon to the barrel was barely fourteen inches. The extended magazine was nearly as long as the weapon. And it was very close to a square, as opposed to the longer, more tapered style of weapons. Instead of a trigger guard, there was a full hand guard around the trigger area, and a pistol forestock. Forward of the trigger/hand guard was a large boxy area that Barb couldn’t figure out. And the barrel actually extended directly from where the middle of a person’s trigger hand would be instead of being above it. That meant the chamber was in front of the operator’s hand, which was a bit nervous-making.
Barb’s initial reaction was one of disdain. The majority of the weapon’s body was polymer, and she had never seen a polymer weapon that worked. And every time she’d seen the “newest thing,” it had turned out to be an old thing in new, and usually less capable, packaging. And small SMGs generally shot very poorly. Trying to control the recoil was just impossible in anything that small. She’d shot a Czech Skorpion, one of the most popular “cool” guns in movie and TV “action” shows, and keeping it in the area of a human silhouette, much less any sort of actual accuracy, was nearly impossible. She didn’t think this weapon could be much better.
“And that is?” Barb asked.
“The TDI Kriss Super V,” Attie said, dropping the magazine and ensuring it was clear, then handing it over to Barb. “It’s a forty-five SMG that uses a style of recoil damper that drops the muzzle climb and recoil. It’s also got fewer parts than a standard SMG, so it’s reliable as hell.”
“Sounds nice,” Barb said, doubtfully. “Sounds like you work for their PR department.”
“Which was my reaction when I first played with one,” Attie said, nodding. “Thing is, they’re right. Little fucker…”
“Language, Master Sergeant,” Barb said.
“Sorry, ma’am,” Attie said, rolling his eyes. “Little sucker shoots like a rail, ma’am. Full auto or single shot. The only problem is getting used to it ’cause it feels unnatural to shoot. There’s recoil, but just enough you can tell you’ve fired. And you keep wanting to fight the muzzle climb and it’s not there.”
“How?” Barb asked, interested.
“Basically, the bolt hits a metal buffer that goes down instead of back,” Attie said, shrugging. “That shifts the momentum of the recoil and automatically fights the muzzle climb for you. Takes a couple of magazines to get used to it. After that, well, it’s kind of like what you’d think a laser would feel like firing. I mean, there’s some recoil, but nothing you have to fight. You can shoot it offhand, easy. And you can’t say that about any other SMG on the market in any caliber.”
“Hmmm,” Barb said, ensuring the weapon was clear then targeting with it. She had to admit it was a very smooth -feeling weapon. Except that it just felt too damned small. Which in a cave was, again, a feature, not a bug. Unless you wanted to hit your target. “Reliability?”
“Would you like the results of the official test or the unofficial test?” Attie asked, grinning.
“Unofficial?” Barb asked.
“AWG has its own testing regime,” Attie said.
“AWG?” Janea interjected.
“Asymmetric Warfare Group,” Attie replied. “Don’t ask. Just say they need weapons that work. They’ve got their own testing regime. First, they dunk a weapon in mud for three months.”
“Ouch,” Barb said.
“Yep,” Attie said, grinning. “Then they clear out the barrel and fire four thousand rounds through it. If it doesn’t break completely, they’re happy. The standard is that it has to successfully fire the first hundred rounds without detail cleaning. After that, it can only be detail cleaned. If it has to be repaired, it’s a fail.”
“The AK test,” Barb said.
“Right,” Attie said. “Then there’s the dust test. Dust and mud do two different things. So they put it through a three-day simulated dust storm. Same standard. Then they fire eight thousand more rounds through it. The weapon can’t break during the final fire run.”
“And the AWG test?” Barb asked.
“They never detail cleaned it,” Attie said, smiling. “They only detail clean if there’s indications that it’s necessary due to repetitive jams. They had a total of eighty-seven jams in the whole test series, ten thousand rounds. An M-4, by comparison, has an average of one hundred and eighty jams and requires frequent detail cleaning. The only other weapon that makes the same standard is the AK, and it’s a piece of…” He paused and looked at Barb. “It’s robust, but not very good otherwise. This is robust, mostly because it’s got very few moving parts, and one he…heck of a weapon. The Kriss is the shi…It’s the best weapon to come along since the Ma Deuce.”
“You’re gun-geeking out on me, Barb,” Janea said.
“Military fifty-caliber machine gun,” Barb said, looking at the weapon in a different light. “Okay, I’m still taking my H amp;K, but this sounds like the right system for the mission. What else?”
“I was worried about bouncers,” Attie said.
“We’re not going to a bar,” Janea said, frowning.
“Ricochets,” Barb said.
“Right,” Attie said, smiling. “So it’s frangible ammo. My only question is if it’s got the penetration for the threat. So we’ll mostly carry frangible with ball backup.”
“Okay,” Barb said. “Can we use anything heavier in there?”
“Caves aren’t mines, ma’am,” Attie said, dubiously. “You don’t want to use much in the way of explosives. Cave-ins happen.”
“I’d really like to avoid that,” Janea said.
“So we’ll be carrying some frags,” the master sergeant said with a shrug. “I don’t recommend using them under normal conditions; they’ll bounce all over the damned place. But if we have to use them, we’ll use them. Other than that, standard caving gear. I’ve got combat harnesses for your stuff. We’ll have to be taking them on and off…”
“And thus we get to what a lovely adventure this is going to be,” Janea said. “Are we done gun geeking? Can I wake up now?”
“Just one thing,” Barb said.
“Got to have some range time with it, ma’am,” Attie said.
“Oh, great,” Janea said. “Can’t I just use an axe like normal?”
The FBI Command Center had come rather completely stocked, including basic materials for a range. So it had been a matter of less than twenty minutes to get in place and get ready to test out the new weapons.
The Kriss had a folding stock, which Janea had dutifully folded out and tucked into her shoulder. She took a good two-point stance, leaned into the weapon and prepared to fire.
“Ma’am?” Attie said, cautiously. “They say to always let people fire the weapon the first time their normal way. But you’re leaning way too far into it.”