Any of the capture pieces would be a pain in the rear end, bottom line. They were 'other empire's weapons', which meant there were no spare parts or ammunition available even if John could pull a functional weapon together from the mismatched parts. Nothing irritated a professional more than knowing that either the weapon had failed or the operator had failed resulting in the weapon being left on some battlefield somewhere. Bad operators are one thing. But to take a risk on a bad 'weapon' that had already sold one operator down the 'River Styx'... that was a risk even John Smith was unwilling to take.
Maybe he was just getting superstitious in his old age.
John dug deeper into the box and contented himself with sorting parts into piles, while shifting and shuffling and steadily claimi
