Reincarnated: Vive La France-Chapter 108: "You might be a bastard, Major. But you’ve built a bastard of a weapon. I respect that.”
Chapter 108: "You might be a bastard, Major. But you’ve built a bastard of a weapon. I respect that.”
Saint-Étienne Arsenal, Loire.
France
The factory reeked of hot oil and scorched steel.
Sparks burst intermittently from a grinding wheel where an apprentice honed bayonet blanks for rifles no one wanted to carry anymore.
Steam hissed from the pressure ducts, and through it all moved Lebesgue grizzled, cursing, commanding.
"You’re balancing that spring with your gut again, aren’t you?"
Moreau said, arms crossed behind him, watching from the threshold.
Lebesgue grunted without turning. "I’ve been balancing springs longer than you’ve been eating solid food, Major."
"And yet your last one jammed on the second round."
Lebesgue looked up, wrench in hand. "Then we call it French craftsmanship makes every shot feel earned."
Moreau smirked, stepping further in. "And if I wanted a paperweight, I’d have asked Renault."
They had been at this for days six, to be precise.
The Saint-Étienne Arsenal had granted them a cordoned corner of the old machine shop, half-shuttered from the rest of the line.
It was cold, noisy, and filled with the ghosts of aborted prototypes.
It was perfect.
With them was Loren, barely twenty-three, chain-smoking his nerves away and muttering to himself in rapid technical jargon.
If he didn’t know an answer, he measured it.
If he couldn’t measure it, he guessed and called it "ballpark engineering."
Day One.
The extractor arm snapped during dry load.
Day Two.
The bolt assembly locked mid-cycle and fractured when forced.
Day Three.
They tried a simplified stamped housing. The entire frame warped under chamber pressure.
Day Four.
They adjusted tolerances on the feed ramp and reshaped the ejector.
Day Five.
Version 3A showed promise.
Now, on Day Six, Version 3B lay disassembled in parts trays, each one cataloged in pencil on a greasy clipboard.
Lebesgue leaned over the breech housing. "Too tight," he muttered.
"You shaved it down yesterday," Moreau said.
"And today I know I shaved it wrong."
Loren handed over a fresh file. "We need 0.3 millimeters more clearance if you want reliable chambering. The feed lips are rubbing."
"I see it," Lebesgue muttered. "Let’s fix it before Major Reims over here decides to invent the next goddamn war."
"Not inventing," Moreau said dryly. "Trying to make sure we don’t lose the one that’s already coming."
Later that afternoon, they reassembled the latest prototype.
It was ugly.
The receiver was half-machined, the grips sanded from salvaged stock, and the charging handle a repurposed bolt from a Chauchat’s rejected crate.
"Weight?" Moreau asked.
"Three point nine kilos," Loren replied, checking the scale.
"Too much."
"Steel isn’t made of feathers," Lebesgue snapped. free𝑤ebnovel.com
"I’m asking you to do the impossible," Moreau admitted. "I just need it done yesterday."
As the sun began to set behind the iron-framed windows, they loaded five inert training rounds.
"Dummy feed first," Lebesgue said, passing the weapon to Loren. "Let’s not have her bite anyone."
The bolt slid forward with a mechanical slap.
One round chambered.
Ejected.
The next jammed at a slight upward angle.
Moreau squinted. "Magazine seating?"
Loren nodded. "Needs a tighter lock. I’ll reinforce the front catch."
They reset it.
This time, all five cycled through smoothly.
By the evening, they had something crude, but breathing.
Moreau leaned back in a folding chair, feet up on a crate. "It’s ugly."
"Good," Lebesgue said. "Pretty things get displayed. Ugly things survive."
"Looks like a German birth and a Soviet baptism."
Loren grinned. "That might be what we need."
By May 1st, the first live-fire prototype was assembled.
The barrel was steel-reinforced with vent slots near the muzzle.
The feed mechanism was reworked for smoother action.
The stock still temporary was carved from surplus rifle wood, hastily filed into a stubby rear grip.
In the underground range a dim, cinderblock bunker meant for munitions proofing they lined up their first target.
A silhouette of a soldier painted on a steel plate.
"Three rounds. Single fire. Let’s see if she kicks or bites," Lebesgue instructed.
Loren stood at the booth, nervous sweat on his brow. "And if it explodes?"
"We get to rebuild," Lebesgue replied, not blinking.
Loren took a breath, pulled the trigger.
CRACK.
The recoil surprised him but didn’t bruise.
CRACK.
A smoother motion this time. Loren adjusted.
CRACK.
Three center mass hits.
"She lives," Loren breathed.
"Try burst," Moreau said.
Selector clicked.
Loren aimed again.
BRRRRT.
Five rounds spat out in less than a second.
Two struck the head.
Two caught the upper chest.
One skidded off the target’s edge and pinged into the back wall.
"Climb’s too sharp," Moreau said.
"She’s light," Lebesgue admitted. "Needs a counterbalance. Maybe a muzzle brake or weighted buffer."
"We’ll prototype one tonight," Loren said.
Over the next forty-eight hours, they iterated like madmen.
Version 3B.1 introduced a simple ported brake.
Version 3C revised the stock with added weight.
Version 3C.1 featured a redesigned recoil spring tighter coil, smoother compression.
Lebesgue sketched improvements between sips of coffee and barks at Loren. "That screw placement’s going to shear with carbon steel. Swap to moly-carbide or go home."
Loren snapped back, "Then we need to re-cut the bracket housing."
Moreau raised his voice, "Cut it. File it. But don’t bring me another stovepipe jam on test fire."
They argued.
They bickered.
Loren threatened to quit twice. Lebesgue threatened to replace him with a blind dog.
Moreau threatened to make them both test it while standing in front of the target.
But by May 3rd, they had it.
Two completed units.
One tagged for stress testing.
One wrapped, oiled, and packed in a velvet-lined box Moreau salvaged from an old medal set.
He opened it, staring at what they had made.
A short, sleek, brutal thing.
Stock compact, barrel thick, rear sights minimal.
Bottom-fed 30-round box.
Blowback.
Side charging handle.
Matte blued steel that gleamed in the soft light.
Lebesgue crossed his arms. "It’s not elegant."
"It doesn’t have to be."
Loren ran his thumb along the top of the casing. "It smells like victory."
Moreau said nothing.
He snapped the lid shut.
"No name yet?" Loren asked.
Moreau looked up. "Not until it earns one."
Lebesgue handed him the approval form, signed in pencil by Beauchamp’s office.
"You’ll get a test window. Two weeks. No more."
"And then?"
"And then the General will either fund it... or pretend he never saw it."
Moreau shook his hand. "Thank you."
"You might be a bastard, Major," the old engineer said, voice hoarse. "But you’ve built a bastard of a weapon. I respect that."
Outside, the air was cooling.
The forge was silent.
Inside the crate sat Serial #001.
Pistolet Automatique de Proximité, modèle expérimental
Test Pattern CQB / For Pilot Review Only
Ugly.
Unnamed.
Untested.
