The Plains of Pluto
Copyright© 2025 by Lumpy
Chapter 21
Factorium
“Empress,” Hortensius said to Lucilla, as she and her guards were ushered onto the firing range. “Your timing is perfect. We’ve just completed our final checks.”
She could smell the harsh scent of spent powder, suggesting that he’d already been testing the weapon this morning, which was good. The news from the front had not been good lately, and they needed this weapon out of testing and into the hands of the soldiers as quickly as possible.
“I trust this demonstration will prove more successful than our last, Hortensius.”
She didn’t intend for the statement to come out as caustic as it had, but it was hard to keep her concerns from coloring everything she said.
“Without question, Your Majesty. The problems we encountered were entirely in the cartridge manufacturing, not the weapon itself, and they have been sorted.”
“Good. Then let’s proceed with the demonstration,” Lucilla said.
“Indeed. Manius, if you would.”
Several praetorians and assistants had been standing off to the side when she’d arrived. One of them stepped forward to the table. He lifted the rifle, checking its mechanisms briefly before loading cartridges into the magazine and moving to the fire line. Bringing the rifle to his shoulder, feet planted in a stable stance, he took aim at the nearest row of wooden silhouettes positioned thirty paces downrange.
He paused, looking to Hortensius.
“Ready when you are,” the manufacturer said.
Turning back, Manius fired the first shot, a loud crack split the air and startled Lucilla, even though she knew it was coming. Without lowering the weapon, he worked the lever mechanism, sending a brass cartridge cartwheeling out of the weapon and landing a few steps away.
A thump could be heard downrange as a hole appeared in the wooden silhouette.
As soon as the lever clicked closed, he fired again. Then he repeated the process, fire and lever, fire and lever, in a steady rhythm. Seven shots, seven holes in the target, all within the span of fifteen seconds.
She’d seen this once before, of course, but that time, the weapon had jammed after a few shots, even after being broken down and reassembled.
This time, there was no such delay.
As with that demonstration, she was impressed by how quickly it fired. Seven shots in fifteen seconds was much faster than the three shots a minute their best legionaries could manage with their current rifles.
“Impressive, although I do remember it firing all seven rounds in one of the last demonstrations as well.”
Hortensius smiled. “Watch.”
Manius lowered the rifle, reached for the ammunition box, extracted seven fresh cartridges, and fed them into the bottom of the weapon. The entire process took less than twenty seconds.
“From empty to fully loaded in under half a minute,” Hortensius said. “In battlefield conditions, perhaps slightly longer, but still remarkably fast compared to our current rifles.”
Once more, Manius brought the weapon to his shoulder and fired. Seven more shots rang out in rapid succession. Seven more targets showed impact marks. Not a single misfire or jam interrupted the sequence.
“We’ve conducted over three thousand test firings with the refined cartridge design,” Hortensius said. “The failure rate is less than one in five hundred, which is unfortunately impossible to eliminate entirely, and is about the rate of failures for primers in our current rifles as well.”
“Good,” Lucilla said.
Hortensius motioned to another praetorian. “I did want to add a bit to the demonstration. Avitus here has never fired this rifle before today. He received basic instruction this morning, fired it once, and that’s it. You’re aware of how long it takes to teach new recruits to load and fire the current weapon in a reasonable amount of time. I think, beyond the direct benefit on the battlefield, once these are generally in service, it should also help decrease the amount of time needed to train the men. By a bit, at least.”
Lucilla nodded thoughtfully. With their manpower consideration and all the conscripts about to enter service, that would be helpful.
The second praetorian took Manius’s place at the firing line. His handling of the weapon lacked the grace of his more experienced counterpart, but he loaded more rounds without difficulty.
“The targets at sixty paces, if you please,” Hortensius instructed.
Avitus raised the rifle and fired at the more distant row of targets. His first shot missed, but he quickly adjusted his aim. The next six rounds all struck their targets. A little slower and with somewhat less precision than Manius had demonstrated, but hits nonetheless.
“Most importantly,” Hortensius continued, “the rifle’s operation is intuitive enough that soldiers familiar with our current weapons can quickly master it. A few days of training should suffice for basic proficiency.”
Avitus reloaded and fired another series of rounds, this time hitting all seven targets.
“The rate of fire is about four times that of our current rifles.”
Avitus finished his demonstration and stepped back from the firing line. Hortensius turned to the third target range, where human-shaped silhouettes stood way in the distance, right up against a high, dirt berm meant to stop missed bullets.
“Those targets are over a thousand paces away. Manius, if you please.”
Manius returned to the firing line, loaded more rounds into the weapon, and took aim at the distant targets. It was impossible to tell what happened with the naked eye. Hortensius picked up a spyglass from the table and handed it to her. It took Lucilla a moment to find the target, but when she did, she was able to make out a neat hole in the center of the wooden figure.
Manius continued firing, working the lever with remarkable speed. As she watched, three more found the target. The remaining must have missed, but it was hard to see where they impacted looking through the spyglass.
“The rifle’s effective range is about the same as the current rifles, although I’m to understand the new powder Sorantius is working on will greatly extend that,” Hortensius said, and then looked at Cynwrig, who’d been standing a few steps behind Lucilla. “Captain, would you care to try the weapon? As someone with no prior experience with this particular design, your assessment would be valuable.”
Cynwrig looked to Lucilla, who nodded her approval. He stepped forward, accepting the rifle from Manius with the careful respect of a veteran warrior handling an unfamiliar weapon.
“The loading process is straightforward,” Hortensius explained, demonstrating the procedure. “Insert the cartridges here, pointed end forward, and then slide the next one in behind it, and so on.”
Cynwrig loaded seven cartridges into the magazine, his fingers hesitating between each round. Unlike the demonstrators, he was much slower in loading the rounds. Even still, he had them all inserted within about thirty seconds.
“The lever serves two purposes,” Hortensius explained to him. “When pulled down and forward, it ejects the spent cartridge and cocks the hammer. When returned to the starting position, it chambers a new round.”
Cynwrig nodded, then raised the rifle to his shoulder. He squinted down the sights at the closest target and squeezed the trigger. The rifle’s recoil jerked his shoulder back. He blinked once, then worked the lever down with a stiff motion. Brass ejected out the side as the mechanism clicked. By his third shot, his hand moved the lever in one smooth motion, the mechanism flowing from fire to reload without pause.
All seven rounds struck their targets. Though half as fast as Manius, Cynwrig was still able to empty the weapon in under thirty seconds, a fraction of the time needed with a muzzle-loading rifle.
“Your impressions, Captain?” Lucilla asked.
Cynwrig hefted the rifle, testing its weight and balance. “I’m impressed. It’s lighter than our current rifle, and much easier to use since it’s not so long. The balance is good, although being able to use that weapon as a spear in moments of combat was a noticeable advantage.”
“And maybe not needed since you can fire the weapon so much more quickly,” Hortensius pointed out. “But, we have also developed a new bayonet for it. Yes, it doesn’t have the reach of the current rifle, but you also aren’t facing phalanx spears any longer.”
Cynwrig shrugged and handed the weapon back to Hortensius.
Hortensius offered, holding it out to her as well. “Would you care to try the rifle yourself, Your Majesty?”
Lucilla considered the offer. As Empress, she rarely handled weapons, though over the last several years, Ky had taught her to shoot, just in case she ever found herself in need.
Also, because she enjoyed the experience.
“I would.”
Hortensius smiled and checked the mechanism personally, quickly clearing it before loading new rounds into it and presenting the rifle to her.
“Loaded and ready, Your Majesty. Simply aim and squeeze the trigger. Be prepared for the recoil.”
Lucilla accepted the weapon, bringing the stock to her shoulder and taking the stance Ky had shown her. She could hear Cynwrig let out a wry chuckle as he did every time she showed how capable she was. She drew a breath, aimed the rifle looking down the barrel as she’d been taught, and squeezed the trigger.