GEAR

“Marine—you are only as good as your wits and your weapon. Sometimes that weapon is your own foot, sometimes it’s your pulse riflfle and sometimes it’s a goddamn nuke. Whichever it may be, be sure to clean it regularly and stick it way up the enemy’s ass.”

—SGT. PHIL WLODARCZYK, 5TH COLONIAL MARINE SPECIAL OPERATIONS REGIMENT’S “SIN EATERS” CHARLIE TEAM

You are going into the shit—and what you carry in better be something that can help get you out. You don’t want to bring a knife to a gunfight, now, do you? You don’t step into the rain without your rubbers on and you don’t go to church with your fly open. So step-up, zip-up, and see what’s what, Marine—peruse these pages and get to know your own battlefield options—as well as what the enemy’s likely to bring along to fuck your day up. Assuming they aren’t sporting metal teeth and a spiked tail, of course.

If they are, screw it—just throw a grenade and run.

WEAPONS

PISTOLS

BIONATIONAL TX-9 CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL INJECTION AIR PISTOL: This short-range pistol fires darts that can be loaded with a variety of pharmaceuticals or toxins, including bioweapons in serum form. The pistol can also be used to deliver biochemical tracers. The tracer lasts for D6 days and can be detected with a CBRN kit from up to 30km away. Any AutoDoc can flush the trace elements out of your system, so find one and flush fast—who knows what’s tracking you out there. Armor is doubled against this weapon, and it can never cause more than one point of damage—which it also needs to do in order to deliver its payload.

VP-70MA6 SEMI-AUTOMATIC PISTOL: This pistol is a time-honored weapon dating back nearly two hundred years. For nearly seventy years the VP70 series was only found in the hands of USCMC officers from key influential military families. Over the past decade, it has begun to supplant the outdated M4A3 as the standard Marine sidearm.

WEYLAND ES-4 SEMI-AUTOMATIC ELECTROSTATIC PISTOL: Developed a century ago, this electrostatic kinetic energy projectile weapon uses charged elements to fire high-speed armor piercing rounds. Each bullet carries a charge that has a stunning effect. Any human target that suffers damage from an attack must make a hard STAMINA roll (–2, doesn’t count as an action) or be stunned for one Round, unable to act.

The ES-4 has a tell-tale blue muzzle-flash when fired. While a quality weapon, the pistol fell out of use before the Weyland-Yutani merger due to its cost and upkeep requirements—if not cleaned properly each day (takes one Turn), a shot fired will sometimes—if two or more Stress Dice turn up —stun the shooter as well.

While it can mostly be found in use amongst high level corporate security teams from the ICSC, a select number of colonial marshal offices are testing out a newer model as their standard sidearm on the Frontier—along with a pair of insulator gloves.