Range Time

Posted on Fri Dec 14th, 2018 @ 2:52am by Ensign Amanda Turell

2,802 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Negotiations and Apothecaries
Location: Holodeck 1
Timeline: 17th feb 2395

ON:

Gabe brought his babies out of their home in his weapons locker and placed them in the secure transport crate which he would carry to the holodeck. He had slotted some time to bring the girls out to play and was looking forward to it. It was, of course, a holographic firing pin/ammo run today but it would still be enjoyable none the less. As he got all of the weapons placed neatly in the carrying case he tapped his comm badge.

=/\= Chief D'Anconia to Ensign Turell. =/\=

=/\= Go ahead chief. =/\= Amanda replied after hitting her combadge.

=/\= If you meet me in holodeck two in about five minutes you may get your chance to play with the boom sticks.=/\=

=/\= I'll be there. =/\=

Gabe cut the comms link and headed to the holodeck. He had been thinking on the way there and had decided to go with his personal firing range he had set up at the Academy.

== holoeck 2 ==

He reached the holodeck and typed in the program. As the simulation began the doors opened and he stepped in pushing the weapons forward. To the immediate right was the range desk where he put the extracted weapons from the crate and began outfitting them with perfectly replicated holographic firing pins.

As he worked he checked under the desk to make sure the normal allotment of ammo was present and he grinned. He placed the weapons smallest to largest on the desk as he completed the installation of the pins and then set about loading the clips. There was, of course, a second section under the desk that held all the clips they would need pre-loaded but he enjoyed the routine of slipping rounds into the clips. It was an enjoyable period and he always used it to test the weather and air. He had set the program to have varying weather patterns and would occasionally shoot in the rain, at night, and in heavy fog.

He looked out at the slightly cloudy but otherwise bright summers day and nodded to himself. It would be good enough for the Ensign. he thought they would start on the firing line and if the Ensign was proficient enough he would show her around the hothouse located to the left of the range.

"Good morning chief." Amanda called out as she entered the holodeck, she wore her standard uniform but had bought some gloves and earplugs with her, what Gabriel couldn't see was the support strapping all across her right shoulder.

"Mornin' Ensign. Set on up to the bar and pick your poison." he waved his hand over the weapons in front of him.

Amanda approached the table and ran her hand over some of the weapons. "Some good choices."

He nodded "I figure we'll go with the long rifle as primary, shotgun secondary and 1911 as the side. After a few drills, well break out the typewriter and you can blow through some clips. You ready?"

"Sounds good to me." She picked up one of the 1911 pistols and checked it was clear before stepping to one side allowing Gabriel to choose his weapons first as they were his weapons.

"As I believe in the laws of hospitality and you are my guest here you get the real deal. I will use the holographic items." he grinned and pointed at the Garand "That's a better rifle for plinking which we'll be doing, to begin with." he patted the M16 "Don't worry baby, you'll get to go pow too before we're done. Computer, D'Anconia tactical rig in Ensign Turell's size please." A tactical molly vest with belt and drop down thigh holster appeared next to the table "I believe the people of the time called it 'tacti-cool'. Also, replicate each piece of small arms on the adjacent table."

As the clone weapons appeared on the table beside the first he moved to a hangar where the same rig was dangling in his size and began to slip into the vest before securing the belt around his waist and clipping the securement bands of the leg holster around his thigh.

"You can't really be using old school weapons like these with more modern gear." Amanda watched him get kited up. "I prefer to try and have right period gear for the weapon." She picked the vest off the table and kitted up herself even though she found this kind of vest very restrictive. When she'd finished she started to load the pouches on the vest with ammunition for her three weapons.

He snorted "This is the protective and tactical gear of the era. Most ancient police forces and militaries used this gear." He said loading the mags into the vest then putting the 1911 mags into the belt pounces. He was meticulous in the orentation of the mags as he loaded up the vest and belt.

"I mean like using a ww2 period weapon with 21st century equipment, doesn't feel right." Amanda picked up the M1 garand and slung it over her shoulder.

He snorted "That piece of iron and wood you got in your hands Ensign, that was in service well into the 2000's retired from military service in the 1960's but continued in various civilian and policing well into the late 2010's as a marksman/sniper rifle. In other words, it's a classic bad ass that served the world and the rough men who weilded them well."

"True" Amanda remarked. "Right then. What do you have in mind?"

He grinned "Well if it dosen't get your pretty fingernails dirty, some 100 meter range time, followed by a leisurely walk through the hot house." He nodded to the range then chucked a finger over his shoulder to the building made of old tires.

"Sounds good to me." Amanda said, she glanced over at the course of tires.

He grinned winningly and reached down to press a button on the table which caused the targets down range to turn sharply towards them. "Ladies first." he said walking to the range line and laying down prone resting the M1 easily on the bag.

Amanda lined herself up with the target next to Gabriel's and knelt down, pulling a clip from a pouch she loaded the rifle with its eight rounds.

Gabe snapped the rounds into his rifle and eyed down the peep hole to center on the chest of the target in front of him. He waited till the Ensign loosed a round before he would respond in kind.

Taking her time Amanda flicked the safety catch off and aimed at the target before squeezing the trigger and puttng a hole clean through the centre of the taget.

Gabe grinned as he looked at the ensign and nodded "Not bad, get a little more range time in and I'll up the difficulty." he sighted down the rifle and matched her shot, breathing in deeply then exhaling halfway. He paused his breath and squeezed the trigger until it snapped and a round founds it's way down range into his target before he exhaled compleately.

Amanda looked away from the sights down at Gabriels prone form. "Hitting stuff at 100m with a rifle is nothing." She told him before firing of several more rounds all landing within an inch of the original hole.

He snorted "I'll remind you that you said that." he turned his head from looking at her to looking at a nondescript location down range before he spoke again.

"Computer, stress level III." he said simply the soft chime of the computer filled the air before the hum of new holograms appeared and explosions went off in the distance. Each lane now had a soldier lying prone on the ground squeezing off rounds and four DIs appeared in smoky bear hats screaming at the unsuspecting soldiers. Within a few seconds, a short squad DI came running down the line to the Ensign.

"Get that lead down range buttercup! I want to see hit dammit! I SAID NOW MAGGOT!" he bellowed at Amanda.

Amanda tried not to laugh as she smoothly fired off the remaining rounds in her rifle, watching at the empty clip pinged out of the now held open bolt. This instructor had a loud voice but it was nothing compared to that of her dad who when he shouted orders she reckoned you could hear him from over a mile away.

Gabe grinned as he watched the woman fire her weapon quickly, efficiently and with grace as the DI continued to yell at her to move faster. There was an explosion on the other side of the range that shook the earth and he smirked, the artillery was beginning. When he activated the stress factor in his range time it was set to increase by one level every five minutes. This included distractions other than the DI's and the other soldiers firing off their weapons. The artillery would steadily get closer and louder until at the max setting it seemed as if the shells were falling less than 50 yards from their location and the range shifted from a normal 100-meter range to that of a bombed out battlefield.

"Reload!" he yelled over the din of the explosions "You still got at least four more clips!" he fired off the last of his rounds two in quick succession, one followed a half a heartbeat later by two more before the metallic ping of the ejector told him he was empty. He slapped the clip down into the internal magazine and smoothly worked the bolt forward before finishing off the smiley face on his target with three more rounds.

Pulling another clip from the pouch Amanda reloaded the rifle and started to put more rounds down range, the artillery fire was a little unnerving but she'd done simulations just like this before to steel herself against the fires of combat.

Gabe grinned he knew how this would play out they plinked along as the DI's delivered kungfu knife hands at them to punctuate their curses all while the artillery inched closer. Two large shells went off just behind the berm then two more landed spraying shrapnel along the two further targets. The holodeck shimmered and before them was a battlefiled water lapping at their legs as men in green GI uniforms yelled and charged a beachhead.

"GET YOUR ASSES OUT THERE AND GET THEM NIPS!" yelled a Marine NCO behind them pushing at their feet "MOVE IT MARINE!"

Taking the hint even though it was completely against her preferred tactics Amanda ran forward with the rest of the marines, she noticed that the targets they had been shooting at had changed along with the scenery to representations of ww2 japanese troops. As she ran she saw a machine gun emplacement turn towards her and she dived into a crater made by an artillery shell moments before a string of rounds hit the ground around her.

Gabe laughed loudly as he ran forward before diving in the crater beside her. The sounds of war raged around them as more mortars exploded and machine guns screamed. "The name of the game is analyzation, adaptation and domination Ensign." he grinned as a round sprayed them with dirt.

"And trying not to break some several hundred year old weapons that don't belong to me." Amanda said, she rolled onto her front and shuffled to the lip of the crater. Taking careful aim despite the fire around her she fired a shot and silenced the machine gun for a few seconds before the assistant gunner took over firing, adjusting her aim slightly she fired again dropping him too.

"IF you break it you buy it!" he grunted and laughed as several more rounds from the ridge above sprayed them with sand. He rolled over onto his belly and took aim before firing two quick rounds dropping a pair of charging Japanese soldiers. His eyes twinkled as he saw what the soldiers had been carrying. "Ordinance Ensign, cover me!" he bellowed over the sound of the guns and explosions. The deep rumble from the battleship's guns was a physical whump that twisted the insides when they fired and the whistled, then rattle of the rounds could be felt as they soared overhead. He pushed himself up and crawled to the bodies pulling four stick grenades off of the soldiers throwing two of them back to the Ensign before moving forward to a small sand hill.

Luckily Amanda saw Gabriel throw the grenades towards her, she grabbed them and stuffed then in a pouch on her vest then took off after him, meeting him at the small hill.

Gabe looked to his left and saw a man get hit and fall then to the right as a group of Japanese infantry charged. He noticed the flash of Japanese steal in the hands of several of the men and knew it would be a bad idea to let them get close. He grunted at Amanda pointed and pulled a grenade from his pocket priming it to be thrown.

Seeing the group of charging Japanese herself Amanda grabbed one of her own grenades and three it near to the one gabe threw. Both grenades exploded flinging lethal shrapnel into the bodies of the soldiers. Through the haze of sand thrown up from the explosion they kept coming.

Gabe popped up and let rip with a few quick shots from his rifle before the ping of the empty chamber brought his attention to the fact that his rifle was now a paperweight. He dropped it reaching down for his sidearm and cleared the holster bringing it up to eye level and firing off three quick rounds with practiced fluidity in his movements.

Out of the corner of her eye Amanda saw another group running, this time straght towards her, she swung the rifle up and started firing downing three of them before the ping of an empty chamber sounded. With the remaining two now only a few paces away she had no time to draw her pistol so she gripped the rifle tightly and prepared to defend herself.

The first soldier stabbed at her with his bayonet, Amanda dodged to the side and bought the butt of her rifle slamming into the side of his face dropping him to the floor. The second only a moment behind the first barreled straight into Amanda sending them both tumbling down into the crater. Amanda landed hard onto the dead body of another soldier, she heard a pop and a stab of pain across her right shoulder. "God dammit!" She shouted out through gritted teeth. "Computer pause program."

Gabe watched the three soldiers down the sights of his pistol and pulled the trigger blinking as the bullet froze in midair. He turned his head and looked at Amanda then the first aid training he had received kicked in. He bounded over to her and did a quick triage.

"What wrong, were you hit? Did the safties fail?" he looked for blood watching her expressions.

Amanda shook her head. "No, I'm not hit. I just busted my damm shoulder again."

He grunted and unfastened her battle rattle watching her to see which arm was wounded before pulling his belt from his trousers and fashioning a sling for her.

"Just don't move it to much Ensign, lets get you out of the weapons and gear and down to sickbay." he said the gruffness in his voice replaced with actual concern. Something reserved for those in his squad.

"Don't worry too much Chief, it does this all the time," Amanda said, she let him carefully take the weapons off her and hoped that she'd not damaged any of them in her fall.

He grunted as he continued to take off her gear. "Lets get you to sickbay, dont worry about the weapons." He flashed a dazzling grinn at her "If there's anything wrong with them that just means I get to spend more time with my babies."

"Now for the fun part." She said as he unfastened the molle vest, there was only one way it was coming off; upwards and that meant lifting her arms up.

Gabe laughed "Computer initiate D'Anconia Emergency Protocol One, target Ensign Turell." As he said this the molly gear along with the leg holster hazed and the weapons that were connected to the gear dropped away several inches from her body then lifted up as if held in a weapons locker.

"Your not the first one to get injured on my ranges. I have protocols for that." He said offering her his hand while attempting to not nudge the injured arm.

Amanda took his hand. "Right, 1,2,3." on three they pulled her to her feet.

OFF:

Ensign Amanda Turell
Sec/tac Officer

&

Gabriel D'Anconia
Senior Chief Petty Officer
Armory Officer
USS Wolff

 

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