Mark 8 Laser Pistol

The Mk. 8 Laser Pistol is a laser pistol, designed for the United Defence Directive as one of its sidearms. What it lacks in power per pulse is its ability to keep firing for hundreds of shots, and keep an immediate charge on hand at all times.

• Two-Stage Energy Reservoir technology, allowing for rapid shots in quick succession.
  • Main battery holds bulk of laser's shots, up to 100 to 150 depending on desired output.
  • Secondary buffer battery to main capacitor holds four to five shots worth of pulse.
  • Main battery recharges buffer after a couple of seconds not firing, or upon depletion.
• Iron Ring Sights.
• Charge Shot and Single Fire modes.
• Fires in space reliably, few moving parts, and toughened against radiation and EMP.
• Reliable and easily replaced parts and Hellenium construction.
• Quick-Replace Focus Lenses.

The action between the buffer battery and the laser's primary capacitor activates a laser diode, passed through a solid-state laser assembly, tuned to the infrared spectrum for ultra-short, extremely high power pulses. They sound like a thundercrack, and leave a light fizz in their wake.

It utilises an infrared laser to dump the buffer battery's power into a target material, exciting atoms and frequently causing the point of contact to flare into a plasma state. Aside from the initial burst of plasma generated by discharge, secondary damage is caused via heating material. This tends to light the target area, and potentially their possessions and clothing on fire!

The focus lenses of the Mark Eight are made to be quickly popped out of the weapon and replaced, knowing that the charge shot functionality would be used or abused eventually by someone on the field. Wear components required frequent changes as a result.

The Mark Eight's design was borne from a design problem with energy sidearms from across the galaxy. A single-stage battery to output system was taxing and didn't properly scale down for pistol-sized laser weapons. This lead to slow rates of fire, which weren't ideal for soldiers who had need of their sidearms, and their situations demanded faster firing speeds. To this end, the Mark Eight has a secondary 'buffer battery' inside the body of the pisol, just beneath the 'slide' portion of the pistol¹⁾. The battery magazine inserted into the handgrip of the pistol charges this buffer battery with the energy necessary to fire multiple shots in rapid succession. Between firefights, the buffer battery gets recharged on the go.

Engineers quickly realised the above configuration could also fire its accumulated payload at once, leading to a 'charge' function, activated by holding the trigger down past halfway. A chirp will sound and visual feedback will appear below the rear sight of the pistol. Fully depressing the trigger then fires the entire buffer battery's contents. Otherwise, pulling the trigger normally fires a single shot, and using the charge function effectively can take some practice.

Many soldiers go without using the charge shot just fine. Repeated use of the charge shot places considerable stress on the focus lenses, necessitating a quick-change system. For the civilian-retail version of the weapon, the charge functionality was removed. However, it isn't impossible to kludge it back into the weapon with some shady aftermarket modifications.

Join the United Defence Directive and pass basic training, and they'll give you one, in addition to a Service Rifle, and a term of duty to defend Traveller and the Unity Protocol!

Otherwise, buying a civilian-grade Mk. 8 without the Charge-Shot functionality can be done in any decent gun shop on the moon colonies of Traveller for ¤600⁰⁰ to ¤900⁰⁰, depending on secondhand status and retailer.