Rogue(76)

That was an impressive method, but silly. There were several things that could go wrong with it, such as the wrong victim, a failure of materials, being IDed on entry or exfil, vehicle changes. It certainly was visually outrageous, though. That was the M.O.

The problem I faced is that there are just too many thousands of exotic ways to do people in. I couldn’t possibly plan for or even list all of them.

How many jobs did he have lined up here? At what point did he plan to retire, and where?





CHAPTER 17





I wasn’t keen on a house anymore, given the recent tail and other issues. I wanted to be able to fly in a second, and have the protection, distraction and concealment that large crowds of people provided. However, we needed somewhere to fabricate tools. I found a small house in a quiet, lower-middle-class area just in from the port. It had one bedroom, one common room and services, a starter house for a couple without kids. I left enough cash to cover two months, and called it fair. Then I bought another car, and we repeated the registration scam. That made me nervous.

It had a covered garage, and Silver went to work, as did I. We installed a “barbecue” we could use for disposing of evidence and with a controlled air feed so we could do some basic metal treating. She adjusted, dismantled and modified parts of the car for better chase functions. I worked on some weapons. In between, we followed data and tried to figure who was next. We moved our car into the garage, our few possessions inside, and I made a quick trip to the store for an airbed and some thriftstore utensils.

NovRos has some weird laws. They do allow weapons, unlike Earth. Their restrictions are all over the place, the requirements can vary by model, and the difference between a “sporting” arm and a military arm can be purely cosmetic—color or style of stock.

At an outfitters, I looked at a “sporting shotgun.” I’m not sure why it’s more “sporting” to shoot at targets or game with a five hundred year-old design rather than a new one, but I don’t make the stupid laws. Again, due to a quaint local custom against anything effective, it had a two-round magazine. The barrel was seventy centimeters, which was fine for hunting, but far too long for combat work. While asking about it, I found out that there’s a law against camouflage clothing. Apparently, if terrorists and rebels can’t buy camouflage, they grow despondent and won’t fight. At least I assume that was the logic. These fools held to the insane theory that inanimate objects create disorder and chaos. I nodded politely about how pretty it was. It actually was a very nice gun, just useless to my needs. It also had ID plates embedded in every component. I thanked them and left.

But I had done the basic improv weapons course, and I did have machinist experience, a Special Projects instructor, and a shop full of basic tools. We’d grabbed a pocket coordinate machine with lathe head at a farm supply store.

Steel or ceramic of a grade to make weapon barrels or liners was available in town, but I wanted to be discreet, so we settled for a shaft from a vehicle transmission from a cannibalizer. I straight-bored it and turned it on the lathe, not worrying about a forcing cone, rifling or choke, as this was a close-range combat weapon. A few strokes with the mill and a welded ring made it fit the receiver, then a pass through a fire while wrapped airtight in foil, and I had a forty-centimeter shotgun without filing paperwork with the government. It was not the lightest, strongest, most accurate barrel I’ve fired, but it would work, and safely.

For the receiver, we chose plain steel. It wouldn’t be as durable as a professional product, but I didn’t expect to need more than a few shots before I abandoned it.

In the 1920s C.E. by Earth reckoning, Hiram Maxim created the first “silencers,” correctly called suppressors. His goal wasn’t to overthrow a government or enable assassination. Instead, he wanted to quiet a shotgun so he could hunt ducks without the flock scattering at the first blast. Also, no effective hearing protection existed back then. Suppressors are a very practical device and used on most projectile weapons today . . . except on civilian weapons in nations where people are paranoid about such things.

All I did was drill a series of slightly rearward-facing holes around the barrel and back ten centimeters from the muzzle. I added several narrow, helical slots in among the pattern. We built a can with inner baffles and vent holes, stuffed it full of wire wool and slid it over the holes in the barrel, tacking it in place with a fusion welder. It protruded another ten centimeters. Not elegant, not efficient, not low profile, but it would quiet a kaboom down to a loud thump.

The receiver was a problem. It took several passes, and I finally stepped aside and let Silver do it, swallowing my pride. I’d never been formally trained, but relied on my wits, and I’d never been trained to build guns. I did, however, mill the internals. Then I cut a small bag and wired it with hooks. No need to leave shells around that could be traced to this weapon. All of this took about a local hour, plus time waiting for the heat-treat. While that happened, I folded two new sheet-steel magazines with bent wire for magazine springs. They loaded and cycled flawlessly no matter how ugly they looked, but we’d have to see how they handled combat. The originals held two shells, as I’ve said. Mine held five.