The World Union for Space Policy was founded in the hope that humanity could cooperate peacefully in space and leave conflict behind on Earth. Unfortunately, political turmoil, economic inequality, and human nature soon motivated the first settlers in space to settle their differences through the use of weapons.
Firearms in space face challenges not known on Earth: they must withstand extreme variations in temperature, while wet lubricants will boil away in the vacuum. In the close confines of ships, space stations, or asteroid habitats, an errant bullet may puncture the hull, while ejected cartridges may themselves become a lethal hazard in microgravity. Bullets behave counterintuitively in spin-gravity centrifuges, and an unwary shooter may well accidentally shoot himself in the back. Recoil management also becomes more important in microgravity, and World Union service firearms are fitted as standard with a recoil management mechanism: an inertia block, typically installed under the barrel or behind the magazine well, tilts when the weapon is fired, transmitting energy downward rather than rearward and reducing felt recoil and muzzle climb.
Civilian weapon ownership is subject to extensive licensing and permits by the World Union. By law all civilian and commercially-owned firearms must be loaded exclusively with reduced-power, frangible ammunition to minimise the risk of collateral damage to habitats. Cartridge-based firearms must be fitted with brass catchers to minimise the risk of spent casings becoming flying debris.
The World Union for Space Policy has been unable to stop either the flow of arms into space, or the illegal manufacture of weapons by pirate organisations: while industrial fabricators contain safeguards designed to prevent the user from creating weapons or their components, these can be bypassed by a skilled programmer, and it is not possible to fully stop the manufacture of precursor chemicals for explosives and firearms propellants. Manufacturing effective improvised firearms is a trivial task for a skilled pirate or terrorist group.
Pistols
The Ivanov Arms Concern’s P-9 pistol is one of the most common weapons in criminal and terrorist hands in the 22nd century. The P-9 is a lightweight, easily-concealable weapon that retains much of its reliability in space. The P-9 fires 9mm cased ammunition from an eight-round magazine, though it is generally ineffective against an opponent wearing body armour. A larger but more modern weapon is Blacking Armaments Ltd.’s G-19. This electronically-fired, short-recoil pistol fires 9mm caseless ammunition from a 17-round magazine. It sees extensive use as a civilian self-defence, commercial security, and police sidearm, and is in limited World Union service as the M5 pistol.
Owing to its historic reputation, clones and copies of the Colt .45 pistol are not uncommon sights in the hands of pirates or history enthusiasts, though its loud report and large muzzle flash make it somewhat impractical as a weapon aboard a ship or habitat. Its bullets will dismay a target wearing body armour but will generally not penetrate, though illegal armour-piercing loads are regular finds in pirate nests.
Revolvers, which have fewer moving parts than semi-automatics and do not eject spent brass, have undergone a renaissance as personal defence weapons in space. One such model licensed by the World Union for concealed carry is the Caruso Arms Bronco 33. Unlike traditional revolvers, the Bronco 33’s barrel is aligned with the bottom of the cylinder, directing the recoil in line with the shooter’s hand and so reducing muzzle rise. The Bronco 33 achieved a certain notoriety after the pirate captain Angelo Loya, of the Nyasa Freebooters, was pictured wielding a gaudy, custom-made model with a polished nickel finish and vat-grown ivory handgrips. Other technologies, previously abandoned as unviable, have experienced a resurgence: the Brisbane Arms B-47 is a four-barrel pistol that fires twenty-eight 9mm rounds. Seven rounds are stacked each barrel and fired in sequence by electrical impulses, creating a weapon that has almost no moving parts and does not eject spent casings.
The Blacking Armaments M7 pistol is the standard service pistol of the Space Patrol Service and Deployable Operations Group, largely replacing the M5. The first weapon to be designed following the experience of the Pirate Crisis of 2106, the M7 is an electronically-fired, delayed blowback weapon that fires 5.7mm caseless ammunition from 20-round magazine, and can fire either frangible ammunition for shipboard use, or full-power, steel-tipped armour-piercing ammunition. Designed for use by an operator in a fully-sealed suit, the M7 has attachment points for laser aiming modules and helmet-linked sights, and can be fitted with a suppressor. Control of illegal sales and clones of the M7 and its ammunition is an overriding concern for the Patrol and law enforcement agencies owing to its ability to penetrate body armour.
Submachine guns and personal defence weapons
Blacking Armaments also manufactures the M11 Personal Defence Weapon, a submachine gun that is issued to pilots and vehicle crews. The M11 fires the same 5.7mm ammunition as the M7 from a top-mounted 50-round magazine.
Space Patrol Service boarding teams, however, found the M11 to have excessive report and muzzle flash for the close confines of spacecraft compartments and corridors, even with reduced-power ammunition. The Patrol approached Wellman and Hewitt GmbH to produce a caseless, 9mm submachine gun specifically for boarding teams. Wellman and Hewitt’s M14 submachine gun is less than 350mm long and can be fitted with a suppressor and a retractable stock. As well as the Patrol, it has been embraced by law enforcement tactical units.
Rifles
As on Earth, the most common assault rifle to be found in space is the Ivanov AE-32. Produced in vast numbers in Russia for the wars of the 21st century, surplus rifles flooded the black market following the formation of the World Union, and today the AE-32 is the favourite of terrorists, pirates, and would-be revolutionaries. The AE-32 is a short-stroke gas-operated rifle that fires 6.5mm cased ammunition from a 20-round magazine. The weapon’s reliability is legendary, despite being designed long before large-scale combat in space was dreamed of, and it is more than capable of penetrating the armour of the World Union’s Panoply Integrated Fighting Uniform.
The M35 rifle was the United States’ answer to the AE-32. The M35 pioneered the use of caseless ammunition, reducing its weight compared to the AE-32, and later making it ideal for use in space. The Commonwealth Armament’s R-277 Spacemaster is derived from the M35’s design, making use of vacuum-rated parts and lubricants. The short-stroke, 6.8mm caseless weapon was in World Union service as the M8 rifle before being replaced in 2119 by the M19, and still sees heavy use in police forces and private security companies.
The Wellman & Hewitt GmbH GW15 assault rifle, in World Union service as the M19, is the first of a new generation of firearms designed from the ground up for use in space. The M19 is an electronically-fired, gas-operated, rotary-breech bullpup weapon that fires 4.73x33mm caseless ammunition from a fifty-round magazine. The M19 has a rate of fire of 800 rounds per minute and a range of up to 400 metres in Earthlike gravity. The M19 is also the base for the short-barrelled M20 Carbine and the long-barrelled, accurized M21 Designated Marksman Rifle variants. A fenestrated handguard acts as a rail attachment system for sights and ancillary weapons like the M84 underslung grenade launcher and M31 underslung shotgun. The standard sighting system is the Pythia Industries Oracle 21, in service as the PSG-51 Fire Control Optic. The Oracle 21 combines a laser rangefinder and ballistic calculator with 4x telescopic and reflex sights. The reflex sight enables firing while in a sealed suit, while the telescopic sight is linked to the firer’s helmet-mounted display and provides both bullet drop and Coriolis corrections for fighting in different gravities or in centrifuges.
Shotguns
Shotguns are especially effective in the close-quarters confines of ships, stations, and asteroid bases. Caruso Arms’ Selvaggio 28 is an 8-round, 12 gauge semi-automatic shotgun that, modified for use in vacuum, is in Deployable Operations Group service as the M23 Close Assault Weapon System. Every operator squad is equipped with a shotgun as an anti-drone weapon.
The M19 rifle may also be equipped with Brisbane Arms’ M31 Modular Underslung Shotgun, a 5-round, superposed load 12 gauge ancillary weapon. Both the M23 and M31 can fire buckshot, reduced-power frangible, slug, breaching, flechette, and less-lethal beanbag and electroshock rounds.