"It's heavier," Dinah said as she lifted the coilgun.
"Nope," I said, lounging close by as I watched, "Feel it again."
She glanced at me with a slight frown, shifting the weapon in her hands, hefting it slightly, "...You're right, it's not heavier. It resists my movements a bit."
"You wanted an internal inertial dampener," I told her, "You get an internal inertial dampener. It dampens inertia."
Dinah frowned, "Gonna make it a bit awkward to use."
"Can't just turn it on for a millisecond when you fire," I explained patiently, "It takes too long. You can spike it when you fire, but it has to be at a certain level already."
She nodded and loaded a magazine. The weapon whined softly for a second and the back of it turned green. She raised it towards the target some thirty meters away, visibly braced herself before she took aim.
Then she pulled the trigger.
There was a sharp crack of displaced air as the metal dart that was the projectile exited the weapon at several times the speed of sound and absolutely obliterated the watermelon.
The dart had actually been one of the more interesting things in the project. The rest had been fairly simple, some even using off the shelf components, it was just a matter of putting them together.
But the actual projectile I was kinda proud of. It used the same kind of aerodynamic properties as hypersonic in atmosphere crafts used to minimize sonic booms. Because of the size and the sudden impact with air at the end of the vacuum filled barrel, you couldn't be rid of all of it.
Even so, it wasn't any louder than slamming a book on a table.
What more, the default version was designed to collapse into a kind of, almost dust like material when it impacted anything more solid than air. Which at that speed was almost anything. So not only was there no risk it'll go straight through half the ship or puncture the hull, it also put all of its energy into the target instead of wasting any of it by going straight through. It had significant kinetic energy.
There was also a version that was just a solid penetrator.
When you did want to puncture the hull or armor of something instead of making the target explode from hydrostatic shock.
Dinah lowered the weapon and worked her shoulder, "That's a lot better," she admitted, "It still kicks a bit, but nowhere near as much."
"Can't spike it any higher in that short a time."
She nodded and flicked a small switch with her thumb before she frowned and moved it back and forth, "You added another fire mode."
"Three round burst," I agreed, "A middle mode."
Dinah nodded and moved the selector to it before she raised the weapon again and took aim at the respawned melon.
Craaak.
It exploded once more.
"That didn't feel any stronger," she commented.
"More time, so it can ramp it up higher," I agreed with a nod.
Dinah nodded slowly, "Any progress with your drone idea?" she asked.
I snorted, "I dropped the manager idea, it wasn't feasible with the time and resources available. I have a new one. The ship has plenty of bio-neural gel packs in use. I'll have the drones offload that part of their processing to the ship. I'm working on the software to make it as seamless as possible."
She frowned a bit, "Isn't there a danger that they won't work right in an emergency?"
I glowered at her, "So get me an example of how to make working positronic matrices and I'll get you an army of Datas. I can only work with what I have access to. The Federation has the resources of hundred and fifty member worlds. What do I have?"
"Alright, alright," she agreed and flipped the switch, taking aim and bracing before she fired a long burst.
The melon never knew what hit it.
"Damn," she mused, lowering the weapon, "Didn't kick at all, it just pressed against my shoulder and held there. Kinda difficult to shift my aim though."
"Inertial dampening resists movements," I agreed, "Kinda in the name."
"Yeah, yeah," she agreed as she reloaded, "What's the idea with the sight on this thing? I haven't seen an iron sight since the last time I was at a war museum."
I shifted my wings to mimic a shrug, "Backup when everything else fails. Figured I'd keep it simple for the prototype. You can fit whatever you like on the mounting spots on top."
She nodded, "Hey, could you give this thing smart ammo? It does not have the aim assist of a phaser, so I was thin-" she trailed off as she saw the look I was shooting her.
"Dinah, do I need to remind you how many hours a day we have?"
"...No..." she admitted, "Sorry. So underslung phaser is out too?"
I snorted, "I can get you a roll of tape and a hand phaser."
She grinned, "Yeah, I guess we can just carry a regular hand phaser too. This is a bit of a specialty weapon, isn't it?"
"Yep," I agreed, "In pretty much every situation where the target is not immune to phasers, phasers are a better choice. They give you more options, easier to resupply, easier to use, easier to repair."
"You know," Dinah mused, looking at the weapon in her hands, "I bet it would work great against Borg."
"Possibly," I agreed, "To my knowledge, nobody has tried projectile weapons against their drones. But it seems like such a blatant weakness that I can't see them not having shields capable of dealing with it. What I can see is them being less efficient about it. Projectile weapons are not exactly common, can't see them having specialty equipment on them for it. They would need to tune the personal shields for kinetic projectiles. That's… not efficient for personal shielding."
They ground out against the floor whenever you move. Maybe they had a way around that, but as it was not a common thing to need to do, I would bet against it.
Dinah nodded, "You're likely right," she said, "Alright, seems to be working a lot better now. I'll bring my team in and we'll run it through its paces in the holodeck, see if we can find any bugs and how it will integrate in doctrine. Assuming we find none, how fast can you make them?"
I shook my head, "They're nothing special, they replicate just fine out of the box. Only thing that needs anything exotic and doesn't replicate is the power cells and they take standard phaser ones. Once you have what you want, I'll put somebody on translating it into a replicator schematic from the hologram. Say another week or two building one by hand from the replicated parts to make sure it's actually serviceable and then you can replicate however many you want."
"Awesome," she agreed and then looked thoughtful, "Can't see us needing more than half a dozen really. Phaser resistant beings are not that common."
"Dinah, you're talking to one."
"And how many others have you met?"
I tilted my head, "On my first away mission I beat the crap out of a giant alien lizard that took phaser blasts to the face and didn't even care."
"Alright, but in the context of the galaxy it's not common."
"If it was, we'll be armed with slug throwers and not phasers," I agreed, "But having options just in case is a good thing. We're Starfleet, our backups have backups."
"Damn right they do. Now... dinner?"
I shook my head, "Not if Neelix is there."
"Damn, forgot. He's not that bad, just a bit musky as he gets close."
"Dinah, you're human. Your species is as close to nose blind as any in the galaxy. Mine is a lot better. Not full spectrum, but I can smell blood and smoke from kilometers away. And his... natural scent... is smack in my highest perception area. I suspect I could seal him in a spacesuit and still be able to detect him."
"That does make things more difficult," she said, "I see your point, we could eat at the lounge? I have some replicator rations."
"Alright," I agreed.
