A slo-mo montage of a clean cut military man shouldering a rifle at different angles, played ominously over some dramatic Inception-ass style music.

  "Welcome back to Slide Bite, I’m Slide, obviously nicknamed after the channel. Today on Slide Bite, the channel named after getting your hand pinched in a gun, we’re gonna talk about Crew Guns and can you get your hand pinched in them? In case you have no idea what a Crew Gun is, um, neither did we.” He said turning to Gizzy “Ever get your hand caught in a Crew Gun?”

  “No, Mister Bite. We do this thing where we just don’t put our body parts inside of the moving shit. Avoids that completely.”

  “There you have it, problem solved, folks. Now before we begin we’d like to thank STD, Standard Tactical Duty, where you can get a degree in gunsmithing but not one that will work on alien shit. We also like to mention PDI, Primary Desert Institute, where if you’d like to learn more about deserts, this is one of them. For legal reasons, obviously this is just Arizona. We’d like to thank our ammo providers, not the usual Triple A, American Arms Ammunition, because they don’t make alien ammo, but they make basically any other Earth ammo.”

  “950JDJ?” Gizzy asked.

  “They make most ammo you could need on Earth, Always, quality ammo, always made in America and not here in Arizona. However, today obviously our ammo provider is just Gizzy, and we can’t thank her enough, so we brought a peace offering of various candy.”

  “It’s free with the ammo, isn’t it?” Gizzy nodded.

  “Nothing gets past her, yea it’s free candy, we don’t want it. We’ve eaten a ton already, and we are just sick of it. Apparently they don’t want it either. I dunno. We had to try. We have boxes of this stuff piling up, and we can’t resell it.” he said, shrugging as the camera cut to him mid-walk and holding a small battle rifle in charcoal monotone. “But anyway, time is money, talk is cheap and Osirian ammo is…”

  “Like 14-90 bucks a shot. Grenades are like 600.”

  “Well, fuck me in the fox-hole. Someone get this woman some better gifts. As you can tell, we’re here today with the Infamous Gizzy, very excited about that, and uh, crew guns…what are they and why we do love them?” he said admiring the weapon.

  “Well, Slide Bite, as we apparently call you, as a name, Crew guns are customized guns for Special Operations among space crews. We believe the most effective way to arm a soldier is not to have a mass-produced gun that does everything kinda good enough, cheap enough, and fits everyone kinda close enough, and then hyper-training them all like clones of the same soldier, otherwise we would just clone the same soldier instead of having different members of a team. We can do that. We have. But every person not a clone of themselves is unique and has different reasons they can be effective on a team. Rounding them to an average for a weapon system that fits the average soldier is just stupid. It makes sense in some settings, like when a military needs to mass produce a gun for a lot of soldiers, and the main goal is to save cost and pocket as much profit as possible while keeping the soldiers just alive enough to not red flag the media, then yes, a half-assed gun for everyone is great, and forcing them to conform to a one-size-fits all training is very logical. Governments have military contracts with manufacturers and brands to supply a lot of troops, and without our advanced 3d printing, assembly line guns are the way to go for humans, and why buy new guns when you can just repaint old guns and pass them down with worn out rifling to new soldiers, and just put the taxpayer dollars into important things like your own pocket or lawsuits, or diddy parties?” she said, chewing on some sour apple taffy.

  “Not a fan of militaries, hu?” Slide cringed.

  “On the contrary, I very much believe in a strong military, and even with the ability to literally print a person back from the dead, we try and keep our soldiers alive to begin with, because they seem to prefer that, and our government is non-profit. So we have a huge spending budget and make literally nothing in-pocket. You know what I made last year in total income?” she asked, pausing.

  “Um, nothing?” Slide guessed.

  “Billions, a shitload of money, but all in consumer goods and off-world trade supplies, not a dime of it from taxes, let alone military taxes. Which is why special Op teams like the one for the Medusa Missions, had 2 million dollar rifles custom printed from scratch to fit their fighting style, and the ammo as well. But to keep it somewhat grounded and allow some level of overlap and modular adjusting, it’s built around the same modular platform, the reaper system, mentioned in detail already. I assume you saw the video we sent you.”

  “Multiple times. Autistically detailed gun videos are my pornography. So basically you train everyone on a modular standard weapon platform and then adjust and customize that to their training preferences as you go.”

  “Exactly. Maybe after some basic training, one soldier finds they prefer more powerful calibers, or prefer better recoil control, we can adjust that. They may find the guns too long or wish they had better range so we can adjust the barrel length, weight, and ergonomics. By the time they see real combat, they have conformed a weapon to their body and ideal fighting style that suits their physical and mental attributes, rather than conforming themselves to use a gun identical to everyone else. BUT, since it’s based on the same platform and it's fully modular, any humanoid can pick up any other humanoid’s discarded gun and still know how to use it, even customized for the fallen owner. The fundamental training still applies, the controls are the same, the parts interchange, because at the core, this is the same gun and works the same way. It’s just kitted out to work perfect for THAT soldier. Soldiers feel more confident and prepared, knowing their gun is unique to them and exactly how their body and instincts work best. So this here, as you’ve been fondling and Braden Hernandez now owns one of, is the common Reaper 20-50. Just as a refresher. Dual caliber, AR cocking lever works both upper and lower systems, both have an AK style bolt-lever as well, AR/HK selectors, all integrated semi and full auto, forward magazine for the lower barrel in standard Osirian rifle or pistol calibers, rear bullpup drum for the heavy rifle calibers or shotgun, and due to the stub system it takes any of about 65 different calibers and ammo styles that can be swapped out in seconds with a new barrel insert. The problem was that I designed this for an average soldier, and we ended up with some smaller humans with no training on the team at the last minute. Some found the gun bulky and overpowered, and as a bullpup, the stock length and overall size was not easily shortened. To get around this, I designed the Reaper Mikro. This here is the reaper Mikro, It is essentially the exact same bolt and grip system with one exception, we flipped the barrels upside down, so the larger one is on the bottom.”

  “Interesting, so I’m noticing that this is no longer a bullpup gun at all, and has an adjustable collapsing stock. So how did you get a dual caliber system without the bullpup half of the gun? On only see one ejector port.” Slide noted.

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  “Well, we just used the same recoil springs and carrier to load both calibers from the same ejection and loading area. One bolt, with two extractors lined up with two barrels that eject from the same port. The reason we can do this is because we moved the drum magazine from the rear to a top mounted P90 style horizontal magazine that lines up with the traditional magazine in front of the grip and trigger. Now this means the rear heavy rifle caliber is lost, in place of a pistol caliber option, and your standard rifle caliber on bottom becomes your heavy option. We swapped the roles.”

  “Doesn’t that kind of make the gun no longer a heavy modular rifle? Without the heavy caliber, doesn’t the Mikro overall end up less powerful?” Slide asked.

  “Actually yes, but the OG Reaper’s heavy bullpup side was a 20mm anti-tank caliber without insert, and smaller soldiers were just hesitating to fire, anticipating the heavy recoil, whereas a pistol caliber option gave them much more ammo storage for less accurate soldiers to lay down high volume fire. You gotta remember, the standard lower LIGHTER barrel of the OG Reaper was a 50BMG equivalent when maxed out with no inserts. So this still has 50BMG power capability in the lower side, and that’s about as heavy as some of the smaller crew could handle even with the recoil reduction system. This also made back-carrying with a sling easy for missions where climbing and maneuvering terrain was more important than just always having both hands on a big rifle. The Mikro worked so well I actually started carrying one. I just removed the stock entirely and pistol-gripped that shit. Yippy kayey motherfucker, indeed.”

  “Interesting. What were the downsides to this? Every gun has its pros and cons. What were the negatives to this gun. Sorry, we don’t sugarcoat anything here, we really like to nitpick the details and issues of anything. We're used to reviewing for viewers who can buy these guns, and unbiased review save lives.”

  “Fair enough. The 50 caliber shotgun shells just don’t have 20mm performance. A 50 caliber slug doesn’t have the breeching mass of a 72 caliber slug, and the payload even with the absolutely cheating Puckshot we use, to get more efficient buckshot rounds, they still don’t have the buckshot payload of the 12 gauge shells in the big 20mm bullpup barrel. Our 50 cal shotshells can compete with a human made 12 gauge, but that same technology means our 12 gauge is more like a human 8 gauge. Still very effective but technically a downgrade. The 50 cal grenades prove almost as effective as the 20mm with more ammo and less recoil, but the now shorter barrel cuts accuracy down. Don’t get me wrong, the Mikro can out-accuracy most human battle rifles, but the OG reaper could outshoot your sniper rifles, and now we have a gun that can’t quite hang with the human sniper rifles. Yes, the little Mikro has the same POWER as your Barrett M82A1 even in that short barrel configuration, but this honestly can't hit shit past 600 yards, whereas the full sized reaper has more accuracy and less recoil than the Barrett. The holo-glass optics are not really the best at 600+ yard ranges either, and though the caliber theoretically would be as accurate, the new upper magazine prevents the use of a longer range scope, and the lack of bipod or longer holding brace means you’re just shouldering that shit unsupported. This is just not a sniper rifle, and the grenades are anemic compared to the OG Reaper. So we ended up with a mixed arsenal depending on the mission details and user. Why have a sniper rifle and grenade launcher for someone who can't shoot for shit and is scared to fire grenades anyway? Now the sidearm isn’t very modular but frankly with 5mm, 7mm and 9mm options and a very comfortable grip and weight, even a 5 foot zero skinny girl can rock that 5mm mode without a problem, and someone like me can rock something like the 7mm BRUT with a shitload of heavy power out of the same exact gun. It wasn’t broke, so we didn’t fix it. The big reaper was just a lot for a small human with no rifle training. So the Mikro fixed that and gave options. Now these tables here have exact copies of the Crew’s customized weapons. We did have to upscale the OG reaper and the pistol for Vinn, due to his inhuman size, but the gun scaled up fine and his 30-20 reaper rifle and 20mm Scythe were fully custom.

  “I’m sorry, am I getting this correctly, his rifle was a 30-20, scaled from the 20mm over 50 caliber full sized rifle? Are we talking about a gun chambered in 30mm over 20mm?” Slide asked.

  “Yes. Which is a great place to begin our custom Crew gun Journey. We named this the Vinndicator” she said pulling the tarp off the table.

  “Holy fuck. Are you serious right now?” he smiled in disbelief.

  “Well keep in mind Vinn is Delmarian. He’s a damn 8-foot, 750 pound Jackelope who’s part of a species who breeds a military soldier class on steroids and performance enhancing drugs. The guy is a literal supersoldier. His hands can’t even grip the human guns. So yes, that is a 4 and a half foot long, 130 pound battle rifle with gold-plated bling, and I’m ashamed to say, Bad Motherfluffer engraved on the side. His idea, not mine. As the heavy ranges gunner of the team, his gun, even proportionally scaled back, has a longer almost 4 foot long barrel in 30MM. Now on this grayish green cloth we have some ammo, and you might be confused, seeing very long brass casings.”

  “Yea, that struck me as odd, since these don’t use brass and gunpowder.”

  “That is a visual display brass shell that shows you what kind of power it would have, if using a familiar brass and gunpowder casing. You can see the bullet comes right out and has the real live stub, but the brass casings are a representation, showing how efficient and overpowered the ammo really is. It’s purely for a demonstration visual today. That 10-inch-long total shell would not fit in the gun, but the 6 inch stubbed projectile can, and does fire. 143,000 foot-pounds of energy, sending a 6,300 grain warhead at over 3,000fps. The man was naval artillery on legs.”

  “Jesus, and he could actually fire that?”

  “750 pounds of furry supersoldier, bear that in mind, but he did repeatedly say the recoil, and a quote “sucks massive balls” and as someone who has fired this myself, he was understating that tremendously.”

  “You fired this gun? There’s no way.” He scoffed as Gizzy awkwardly lifted the gun and shouldered it, looking like a child trying to wield Daddy’s big gun.”

  “One time. For a desperate reason.” She smiled, looking dead inside and as if having flashbacks of traumatic experiences. Vietnam helicopters transparently overlaying the screen.

  “How did that not just throw you across the battlefield?”

  “You notice I said I fired this, not that I was still standing after it, or that I’ll be demonstrating it. I won’t be. This was not a fun day for me. Emergency situations call for really stupid decisions, and you worry about the landing after the threat is neutralized. Moving on. You can see here the variety of ammo for the 20mm side that I have fired in my gun and was still standing afterward, barrel burner Sabots, High velocity grenades, hypersonic 12 gauge and some 20mm rounds he liked for “light recoil” that to us is still basically a damn 50BMG brain-rattler. His sidearm used a very shortened 20mm or 12 gauge round that he never used because Vinn just likes rifles.”

  “You mean artillery cannons with a stock.” Slide corrected.

  “…that’s a fair comparison, actually.”

  “Unreal. So this table is your rig? I recognize the pistol color from the Demo Mike episode.”

  “Yep. A step-down from Vinn’s setup. I never could choose between the 20mm and the 50 barrel burners for long range. The 50 barrel burner is pretty much a 20mm Vulcan round necked down to a 50 cal to just almost reach 5,000FPS, so I carried a drop-in custom 50 barrel on me for both calibers. For my standard rifle I chose a 7mm loaded hot as hell because they stack super compact for ammo capacity while throwing a 400 grain sniper rifle round or a 400 grain subsonic about like an 8.6 blackout. So I kinda went rifle over rifle carrying the 50 top barrel in as a default, ready to ditch for the 20mm or shotgun if needed, and just leave the 50 barrel behind and if I needed it again, I could ditch my 7mm barrel and run regular 50bmg through the lower side. Go in with inserts, be ready to pull and go heavy if needed. For my Mikro I often carried as a sidearm or sometimes my main for lighter missions, I ran 50 cal no insert, raw doggin, and 7mm, using the 50 cal shotshells if needed. My pistol was always in 7mm running the 175 grain BRUT hybrids. It’s just skinny enough to stack high capacity and thick enough to perform like a rifle round.”

  “The hell is that sound?” Slide asked looking upward.

  “Cut the camera. Cut it.” Gizzy waved.