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That evening, Jack sat down to finally review the small arms lockers that formed the row of benches below his stern gallery. These housed the only official small arms on the Roth, aside from the officers’ personal weapons.
His first thought on unlocking the lockers and swinging their lids open was that there were too many guns there for a typical transport. Roth must have been assigned to a particularly dangerous route on some prior occasion, then somehow retained the guns when she was reassigned. There was an even mix of kinetic and energy weapons, mostly M79 Douglas submachine guns and Navy Colt space service revolvers.
He started with the M79s, noting with satisfaction that most of the magazines were of the more reliable 20- and 30-round stick variety rather than the 50-round drum. The bluing was mostly intact, showing the usual wear, and the polycarbonite crips showed the usual scuffs. He pulled one of the guns free.
It was a familiar weapon; Jack had trained with an M79 in the academy and the gun had enjoyed a long production run with few changes. Pulling back slightly on the top-mounted bolt, he peered into the chamber; it was empty. He ejected the magazine, checked the chamber again, and cycled the action. The gun felt solid, definite, deadly. The safety slid firmly into and out of place, and the fire selector clicked firmly into each position.
Field stripping the gun took less than a minute. Setting aside the stock and barrel, he considered the receiver: there was light wear and a little dust, but the parts moved freely and he saw no oxidation. Satisfied, he reassembled the gun and turned to the magazine, ejecting the rounds one by one and standing them up on the the table so they wouldn’t roll away. The first rounds rose easily, but the follower spring was old or had been too long compressed, and it failed to raise the last few into position. When he tipped the top of the magazine into the light, he saw that the casing of the next round had begun to tarnish. The brass of the rounds on the table was bright.
“Well,” he said. After a moment's indecision, he reloaded the magazine and reassembled the gun, and replaced the gun in the rack.
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