Designation: Rapid Fire Blaster

Physical Description: A heavily modified stormtrooper rifle, a three barrel design. The triple barrels, together with an ingenious cooling system allows a very high firing rate. During operation the cooling liquid is being pumped around and the excess heat released through the vents of the topmost cylinder. The pumping of the liquid is done by using the thermal expansion of the liquid itself, making it flow between the barrels and the cooling cylinder on top of the weapon. Because of this, the blaster is able to fire up to seven rounds per second. Unfortunately, the energy consumption has not been improved in any way. The blaster uses standard energy clips, they last only for a few series of shots.

"Solo, are you feeling stiff?" Arachnoid, Wolfshead 9, had been the flight leader on this patrol. "You know how tight that shoebox is, and still you keep carrying around that monster of a gun you have there."

He was motioning at the heavy blaster rifle Solo had hanging over his shoulder. Solo patted it with some affection.

"This here is my life insurance, you never now when it may come in handy. Let me show you how it works!"

"Sure, Solo. I'll meet you down at the shooting range. I have to file our flight report first."

"How are you supposed to aim this thing with all that junk in the way of the line of sight?!"

"Well, I usually don't have to aim. Just point at the target and pull the trigger, you can always adjust the aiming while firing. Ok, Diego, you look all set now."

"How can it deliver that many shots and not melt?! Vyper's special forces blaster has problems with overheating and has a third of this firing rate!"

"I believe it's the cooling system. This small cylinder here is where the heat is released, you see these coils? That's where the coolant is pumped around between this cylinder and the barrels." He smiled and went on: "But I don't really know how it works in detail, I didn't exactly get it with a manual."

"Sounds like a story I want to hear. We're off duty for another 36 hours, what do you say I buy you a drink in the Bomb Shelter and you tell me how you got this... thing?"

"I say you got yourself a deal!"

"So, what's the story with this gun of yours?"

"It was a few years back, when I was still a space trader earning my living by trading and transporting goods and passengers all around the Outer Rim. Me and Boone, my Sullustan co-pilot, had come to the Mos Eisley spaceport on Tatooine to pick up some goods. This was before the incidents with Skywalker and the Hutt crime lord, so Tatooine was a real center of commerce, legal and illegal. Anyway, our contact wasn't going to show up for another day so I decided to try my luck at a Sabbacc table down at the Cantina..."

"The what?" Cardinal whispered.

"The Cantina, some of the galaxy's best freighter pilots used to hang out there. That place can get quite rough", Sparks whispered back.

"...Boone thought that was a really bad idea of course. He always said we would have been millionaires if not for my ability to loose money in card games, he was right of course, but I didn't care. I like the game, there is nothing quite like sitting with a perfect hand and luring the other players to raising their bets..."

Vyper motioned Solo to carry on: "And the gun, Solo?"

"Right! Anyway, I went down to the Cantina and after a few games with bad luck I was finally shaping up. I had won back my initial losses and was holding an unbeatable hand, so I carefully raised the bets, as not to spook the other players. I succeeded a little too well. One of them, a fellow Correllian by the looks of him, had betted a little more than he actually possessed. When it was time to show the cards he accused me of cheating, I wouldn't tolerate such an insult of course, so we had a fight. I was doing quite well when one of his shipmates caught me from behind, judging from the length of his scaly arms I could tell it was a Trandoshan, I knew I was in trouble. The lizard held me in an iron grip and the Correllian pulled out this strange gun."

Solo took another sip of the brandy and cleared his throat before continuing.

"So there I was, almost feeling the fangs of the scaly beast already closing on my neck when suddenly the grip loosened, I heard a strange hissing and gargling noise behind me. I spun around to see what was going on! It was Leech, the game table manager, he had brought a very large weapon and two of his Gammorrean 'friends' with him, one of them held the Trandoshans neck in a firm grip. The Correllian, Del, looked like he wanted to continue the fight, but apparantly changed his mind when the other Gamorrean chuckled and took a fighting stance. Then Leech held a short speech, preaching the virtues of men who honour their gambling debts, Del got the general idea and decided to offer me whatever he was carrying. I took the cash he had and the odd-looking gun he was packing, thinking that way I wouldn't be looking down the wrong end of those barrels again. The next day we received the cargo and blasted off from Tatooine, not thinking twice about the recent events."

"Nice story, Solo!" Arachnoid, checking the contents of his glass twice for any traces of orange juice before downing his drink, rose from his chair, but Solo motioned him back.

"Sit down Diego, it's not over yet! As I said, we were on our way to a mining colony, shipping supplies. It was a milk run, nothing seriously illegal in the cargo hold, and the colony was but a few days away. We were looking forward to making some easy credits, we were wrong, terribly wrong. As soon as we excited hyperspace all alarms went off, we had been ambushed! Heavy turbo laser fire was quickly depleting our shields, Boone raced for the guns while I tried to get us out of the line of fire. We were undermanned and outgunned, it didn't take long for the pirates to immobilize the ship. The sub-light engines had died, slagged by expectedly aimed laser fire. Sparks were showering out of damaged consoles, the ship computer was in a really bad mood, not complying with any of my requests and complaining about 'headache'. Boone had gone aft to try and put out the fires in the engine room and to asses the extent of damage on the ship. I finally got the computer to give me an estimate on the time we had until the pirates would board us, it was less than a minute, giving us very little to hope for.

I launched the emergency beacon, knowing how futile it was. This was probably going to be over before the distress signal had reached the colony, and long before any help would reach us. I hoped the pirates would be merciful, but hope abandoned me when they hailed us. The Trandoshan appearing on the viewscreen barked out a few insults and threats in the hissing Basic of the lizard like people. We had been attacked by the Hunters, a loosely held group of pirates/mercenaries mostly composed of Rhodians and Trandoshans. I realized that my new acquaintance, Del, must have had a few contacts on Tatooine, relaying our destination to these pirates!"

Vyper nodded approvingly and said: "I remember hearing about the Hunters some years ago, the Empire hired them at times to do their dirty work, tracking down smugglers and such. They were known to be very thorough."

"Right, but Boone and I were not intending to go down easy! We still had a little time before they breached through the airlocks, barricading ourselves in the cargo hold. Arming myself I noticed the odd looking rifle that had come into my possession a few days back, I grabbed it and jumped behind the crates where Boone handed me an oxygen mask. I barely had time to fit it over my head before they broke through the airlock, tossing flares and gas grenades to try and lure us out. But we were prepared, hiding behind those crates and covering the faceplate to avoid being blinded. Moments later, the firefight began. Boone was first out of the hole, blaster in each hand firing wildly. I followed closely and squeezed the trigger as soon as I had a target. At that point the battle was practically over. I think we were as surprised of the outcome as our assailants, although they were on the losing end. We simply outgunned them, with Boone covering me as I changed clips we drove them back, into the airlocks. I don't know what happened then, maybe one of my blaster shots struck a weak point in their docking tube, maybe one of the Hunters misfired an explosive, but they lost hull integrity. The docking tube was ripped apart by the atmosphere rushing out into the vacuum, I saw the pirates being sucked out and so would we hadn't it been for a safety lock that was activated by the sudden loss of pressure. Boone and I slammed into the now closed hatch, when we realized we were still on board we went crazy with joy, jumping around and shouting! There was a terrible noise coming from the outside of metal breaking up, we stopped our celebration, realizing that it wasn't quite yet over. The pirate ship had collapsed, its hull crumbling under the sudden decompression, and we were stuck with it. Luckily, the colony had picked up the distress signal from the beacon. It took the miners a few hours to weld us loose from the wreckage, and another couple of hours to get our engines back online, but we didn't mind, we were alive!"