Gear

Some things are easier to explain with specifications. If you need colors and anatomy, that’s Refs. If you need dimensions, Numbers. This page is for things that go clang.

8-gauge boarding shotgun

8-gauge · bullpup · 900 mm overall · 9.5 kg unloaded · 7-round box / 14-round drum · vacuum / low-G rated

Short enough to keep out of doorframes and hatches, heavy enough that nobody mistakes it for a human-sized shotgun. Short-stroke gas piston, rotating bolt, 500 mm barrel, a lot of recoil management, and controls sized for my hands rather than somebody else’s.

The usual optic is a 1× prism with night / thermal overlay. The balance sits far enough back that I can keep it controlled one-handed when the other hand is occupied with a shield, casualty, handhold, or something that has stopped cooperating.

The ammunition is deliberately boring to identify and very different once it leaves the barrel:

• Punch — AP sabot for armored targets.
• Brash — tight multi-flechette load for close work.
• Hinge — frangible breacher for locks, hinges, and hardpoints.
• Tangle — less-lethal neuromuscular disruptor.
• Thump — blunt-impact load when penetration is the wrong answer.
• Tongue — thermal engineer round for hardware that needs persuasion.

The important rule is not the caliber. It is knowing what is behind the target. Hulls make consequences unusually literal.

The bar

~900 mm · ~6.5 kg · fork / pick / hardened steel butt

It does not have a formal designation. I call it the bar.

It’s a breaching and prying tool descended from a Halligan: wide fork at one end, short reinforced pick at the other, enough shaft to get useful leverage without becoming impossible in a corridor. The pick also makes a decent zero-G anchor when there is nothing convenient to brace against.

It is not designed as a weapon. The distinction gets academic when somebody is close enough to grab it.

Sidearm

12.7 × 30 mm caseless · 8 rounds · 2.4 kg loaded · vacuum-rated

This one is boring on purpose. Heavy-frame semi-auto, sealed action, oversized controls, simple sights, no interest in being clever.

It fits my hand, works when I need it, and stays out of the way the rest of the time. That is what a sidearm is supposed to do.

Hardsuit

sealed pressure suit · ~55–65 kg base mass · mag boots · closed-circuit O₂ · thermal batteries + deployable radiators

The suit is built around the assumption that atmosphere is a consumable and hull integrity is temporary. Pressure layer first, armor second. If the suit cannot keep me breathing, the quality of the chest plate stops mattering fairly quickly.

The helmet has to accommodate a muzzle, ear fans, and a crest that would prefer not to be compressed into a sealed trough. It works. I still dislike wearing it. Reduced head movement, worse peripheral awareness, worse natural hearing. Vacuum remains unconvinced by my objections.

Mag boots matter more than they look like they should. At my mass, recoil and leverage in zero-G stop being minor handling problems and become navigation.

Heat is the other constraint. Thermal batteries handle short high-output periods; deployable radiator panels buy time when the shooting stops long enough to expose something fragile. Continuous hard work eventually wins anyway. Physics is tiresome like that.

Nothing on the suit quite matches anymore. Nothing is decorative. Everything works.

What comes out when

Boarding / vacuum risk: full hardsuit, shotgun, sidearm, the bar, engineering tools, trauma kit, extra air and thermal capacity.

Stable atmosphere / security work: lighter station kit, sidearm, tools and medical supplies scaled to the actual threat instead of the most dramatic one imaginable.

Off duty: civilian clothes. The point of being off duty is generally not carrying the entire wall with me.