Chapter 9: Weapons from the Past
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As soon as he stepped into the little room, Hao felt more out of place
than in the room he had just left.  All around him there were hundreds if
not thousands of things he had never seen before in his life.  Odd-
looking poles that tapered to an end, but had holes in them, little
round things with pins in the top of them, and various other things he
did not recognize, the only thing he did recognize were the backpacks
Maru was holding out to him.

"Take these and fill them with grenades," Maru ordered.

"Grenades?" Hao asked.

"Those," Maru sounded irritated as she pointed to the little round things
with pins in the corner.  While Hao filled the backpacks with grenades,
Maru went around searching the rest of the room.  Over and over again Hao
heard her complain about "low power" and other nonsense he didn't understand.

By the time he had filled the backpacks up, Maru had returned with a
belt and several other things.  As she handed him a belt, Hao sat the
backpacks down on the ground and then fastened it around his waist.  Then
she handed him a pistol.

"What's this?" Hao asked.

"It's a plasma pistol," Maru answered.  "You just point it at what you
want and pull the trigger.  But we'll have to use them sparingly, cause
they're almost out of power."

Ten minutes later, after they had gathered a few more supplies, including
pouches full of recharge clips for the pistols - it had taken them most of
that ten minutes to find 20 clips that were 1/4 full or better - they
returned to the main room of the cave.  Now Hao noticed that Maru had
also added a fairly huge sword to her arsenal of grenades and a pistol.

Going over to the computer, Maru picked up a small object and studing it
for a moment.  Then smiling, she walked back to Hao.  "It's low on power,
but it will get us to this small town on the main continent.  And maybe
another gate after that," Maru said.

"Gate?" Hao asked.

"You'll see," Maru answered, then address the computer.  "Set
auto-destruct sequence."

"Auto-destruct sequence set," a pleasant voice ansered.

Auto-destruct.  Hao didn't like the sound of that, but before he could
protest, he was jerked through a portal.