Spear Gun

He led them to a room that was lined with lockers. In each was one of the strange-looking spear guns that Josh had seen the mariner guards carry.

“This is what you'll use as your primary weapon,” Valar said. He pulled down one gun and a quiver of arrows. Basically, the gun looked much like a rifle, except that it was made of some very lightweight metal.

“Really, it's very simple. You put your spear in like this—” Valar demonstrated carefully, sliding a spear with a three-foot shaft into the chamber made for it “—then you put your weapon off safety.” He raised the spear gun and aimed it at a wooden, rounded figure down the hall. “Then you pull the trigger.”

Zing. There was a hiss of air, and when Josh looked, he saw the spear quivering in the wood figure.

“If that had been an enemy, he'd be dead,” Valar said in an offhand fashion. “We'll practice in here, loading and unloading. That really is the hardest part. Actually, all you do is point your spear gun at the enemy and pull the trigger.”

For the next two days, they trained as hard as they could, learning the use of the spear guns. Josh discovered that there were different types of spears and that the best mariners carried some of each. There was the armor-piercing spear, which had a tough tip on it, very sharp and keen enough to pierce the hide of a hammerhead shark. There was another that had a strange-looking lump at the tip.

“That's compressed air in there,” Valar informed them. “The spear passes through the fish, usually a big one, and instantly the compressed air explodes, forcing the end of the spear out into jagged shreds that'll cause concussion and instant death.”