Human Weaponry

Chapter 1: The Meeting

"Call it insurance, we don't necessarily need to go get weapons to repel boarders. We also don't have any claws or natural armor like you."

It made sense. It is just a different doctrine. It still was a bit perplexing, that many armed individuals, accidents are bound to happen.

"Very well, I look forward to learning about your weaponry."

"Right this way s-- ahem, Sir? Ma'am?"

"My species is not sexually dimorphic like yours, just call me Ozis."

"Apologies Ozis, we're still getting used to this whole interacting with alien species thing."

I followed the two men through the hangar, where I saw several smaller military craft. Most of the passing humans looked at me if only for a moment. We made our way through two doors, then one that took the two men putting their eyes in front of a scanner to open. Inside was a large internal hangar, filled with industrial looking equipment, wall mounts filled with small arms, small and larger vehicles, as well as what looked like a testing range.

Sergeant Gerrick turned to me, "Thomas here can fill you in on any technical questions you might have, where would you like to start?"

I glanced curiously at the fearsome-looking vehicles, a strange form of propulsion, it looked as if it moved on large metal belts on either side of the main bulk, which had what looked to be a large cannon, as well as many smaller ones. Those could wait though, we have time.

"On average your soldiers carry two weapons correct? A primary and a secondary?"

"That is correct, standard American military infantry are issued with an MA-27 Rifle, as well as a SIG M23 for a sidearm. There are other weapons used in more specialized roles, but these are the basics."

He showed me to a table, which looked to feature everything an American soldier carried. It included several armor plates including a helmet, the "rifle," sidearm, and several rectangular-shaped objects that I did not know the use for. There were also two ball-shaped items and an extremely sharp-looking metal stabbing weapon with one serrated edge.

"At the most basic level, how do these weapons function?"

The one called Thomas addressed me, "Human weaponry fires metal projectiles called bullets, they can vary in size and purpose, but the basic ones look like this." he held up a small metal tube with a point, the point was a different color than the base, a light red compared to the golden tint of the base.

"This red section here is what is launched at the target. The base is filled with a combustible substance known as gunpowder. This piece on the back is called a primer. When inside a firearm, a trigger pull causes a small hammer to strike the back piece of the bullet, igniting a small explosive inside called a primer. This small explosive causes the gunpowder to explode, launching the small projectile at very high speeds."

The longer he explained, the more confused I was. They are using kinetic weapons? Kinetics were obsolete hundreds of years before my species became space-faring. Not only that, but to have a small explosion that close to yourself? That had to be dangerous.

"You use kinetic weapons? How can you use kinetic weapons? They must not be effective at penetrating even my natural armor."

"On the contrary, these bullets are fired at well over supersonic speeds, they have no problem penetrating."

That could not possibly be true.

"You have managed to create weapons that can throw a projectile faster than the speed of sound? Do they stay controlled? The explosive inside doesn't harm the user?"

I tried to keep my composure, we switched to plasma weaponry so long ago because of how slow kinetics are. Yet somehow these humans have figured them out. This could be invaluable, as plasma's main downside is its lack of penetration capability.

"No, they're relatively harmless to the user."

"How do the smaller, err, firearms work?"

"Same concept, just a smaller bullet." Thomas picked a smaller cartridge off the table, "this is nine millimeter, armor-piercing."

He handed the small object to me, such a little thing, there's no way it could do any significant damage.

"How do you load the bullets into the rifle?"

Thomas gestured to the rectangular objects on the table, "These are magazines, standard capacity holds 45 cartridges each. They are inserted into the bottom of the rifle, where they automatically feed into the chamber every time a round is discharged. When fired, the casing that holds the powder is discarded through the side of the gun."

It just sounded so... off. My only conclusion is that I must be biased, as what the human was saying made sense. It was just so different than anything I had experienced before. I wanted to keep my professionalism, "I am beginning to understand, will I get to see a demonstration?"

"Of course," Thomas gestured toward the area full of what must be targets behind him, "that's what the range is for, but we can test them all at once if you want to see the other items."

I gestured to the two circular objects on the table, "What are those?"

Thomas chuckled softly then responded, "Those are hand grenades, small explosives you throw."

That is ridiculous, they must be very weak explosives, so it won't hurt the thrower. How could they think that was a good idea? There's no way they can throw that accurately. Though they did seem to proportionally have quite a bit of upper body strength.

The human called Thomas picked one up, "The way this works is, this pin on the side is removed, once this happens, after the lever on the side is released, it will detonate on a timer. When it explodes, the staggered metal squares that make up the sides of the grenade are thrown in all directions, hopefully taking out enemies with shrapnel."

What was this human talking about? Do they mean to imply that they kill enemies with dirty shrapnel bombs? Not only that but they throw them? How could they possibly expect to be able to throw it far enough and accurate enough? Composure be damned, I had to know. "How can you possibly expect these to be effective?"

The two humans looked a little puzzled by my question. It looked as if they were trying to figure out how to respond. Finally, Thomas looked to me, "The average human in their prime could throw one of these roughly 25 meters per second, on our homeworld's gravity anyway..."

Ah, that made sense, their homeworld must have very weak gravity if they could throw it that far and fast.

"...we can't test them here though, as we've halved the gravity generator production in preparation for your arrival, knowing your homeworld's gravity, you would have been extremely uncomfortable in ours for an extended period of time."

I feel like the longer this human talks, the more confused I am. The gravity on Earth was at least twice that of mine? No wonder human weapons are so strange, they were made to fight on a literal Hell of a planet.

I composed myself, they explained it, time to move on. I gestured to the large vehicles on the side of the room, "what are those?"

This time Sergeant Gerrick smiled, "those are tanks."