Let's Make a Deal (Bob and Nikki Book 11)
one bullet scar on that knife aimed at Greg. I know Jane wouldn’t miss, since it was aimed at Greg, so I must have. That’s not something that needs to happen again.”Nikki giggled. I asked, “What’s so funny?”
“Jane thinks she missed. She’s been on the range every day since.”
“It’s for sure one of us needs the practice.”
“No, actually, it’s not. I had Jackie take a closer look at that knife. To the naked eye, it looks like there is only one bullet mark. If you look close enough, you can see that there are two, right on top of one another.”
“No kidding? We both hit? Right in the same spot?”
“Yep. You both have been worried for nothing.”
“And you didn’t say anything because?”
“It was fun to watch you two sweat for a change. I get tired of you two being so much faster than me.”
“After the kids are born, jump in the ‘doc, and get enhanced. If I can’t take care of them for a day or two, with all the nanny bots there are running around on this ship, something is bad wrong.”
“I may just do that.”
We got to the range, and Jackie set me up with some moving targets. Nikki went to another lane. After a few mags, it became clear to me that Nikki must have been right, because I wasn’t missing. Jackie turned up the difficulty, but as long as the targets had a predictable path, I did fine. When she snuck in some that turned in midair, I started to miss, until I got the hang of it. I was beginning to get tired enough to start missing again, when Nikki came back and said, “Convinced, Caveman?”
“I am. Let me clean my weapon, and we can go get something to eat.”
Jackie said, “Boss, there’s one more thing you need to try before you leave. I can clean your pistol while you do, if you would like.”
I replied, “Okay, what do you have, Jackie?”
“We need to go to the longer range, Boss. Nunya sent over the designs for the carbine. She wanted your approval, before she sent it to the fleet.”
“Have the Gun Grannies passed it, yet?”
“Mrs. Cachi has. Mrs. Sloan didn’t get a crack at it until their fleet came out of FTL, and she has been too busy to give it a proper test, since then.” When we got to the other range, she handed me an odd-looking carbine. I knew it would work, if Nunya had designed it, but I had to take it all in. The lower was pretty much standard M-4, so muscle memory would tell most of us how to run it. The upper, well, that was a whole different story. Remington Model 8, drawn by a steampunk artist on an acid trip, is the best description I could come up with. For all its weirdness, it looked good and rugged. The red dot sight was nice and clear. I asked, “How’s the battery life on this sight?”
Jackie said, “It charges from the battery in the magazine. As long as you shoot it on a regular basis, you never have to worry about it.” I put a few rounds through it, and handed it to Nikki. I had to help her at first, since she had never used an AR before. After a couple of magazines, she said, “This is nice, Caveman. Light, and easy to shoot well.” I turned to Jackie and asked, “I’m assuming Beatriz tested this thing every way she could think of?”
“She did. She even had Zoom run off some dirt in the printer, so she could do a mud test.”
“It passed?”
“Not the first two times. Nunya didn’t like her much for awhile.”
“I bet not. How many rounds will it fire before it gets too hot?”
“That’s another thing Nunya got upset with Mrs. Chachi about. She had Zoom build a test rig that would power it from ship’s power, and feed it projectiles without stopping. It seized up after a thousand rounds of full auto.”
“That should be adequate, I would think.”
“You might think so, Boss, but Nunya went back through, opened up a couple of tolerances, and handed it back to Mrs. Chachi. She couldn’t get it to stop working, even after leaving the trigger tied back all day. It gets fairly hot, but it won’t stop. As long as you don’t touch the barrel shroud, you should be fine.”
“Is anybody working on frangible ammo for it, so we can fire it on a ship, without worrying about letting out the air?”
“The standard ammo is frangible, Boss.”
“Lordy! Anything else amazing I should know about it?”
“I think that’s about it, Boss. Do you think it’s good enough to issue to the fleet?”
“You bet your tin heinie I do. All you were waiting on was my okay?”
“Yes, Boss.”
“Why didn’t you ask me to come down and check it out sooner?”
“You’ve been a little busy since the rest of the fleet got back, Boss. I thought I would have to wait until the next Squirrel fleet had been taken care of, to ask you about it.”
“Well, Jackie, I like this at least as much as Lincoln liked the Spencer. Start production across the fleet ass-ape.”
“On it, Boss.” Nikki asked, “You hungry, Caveman?”
“Now that you mention it, I could eat.” We headed off to the galley. I said, “Let’s walk.”
Nikki replied, “Oh no, your spider sense is tingling, isn’t it?”
“You have been hitting the culture pack. No, I just feel like a little exercise, Space Cadet.”
“We’re hosed. You said the magic words.”
“What do you mean?”
“You never find anything when you go looking. It’s only when you say, ‘I just want a little exercise’ that the crap hits the fan.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
We strolled along, and made it all the