Gun Practice
Gun Practice[edit]
Following the return to the Summer's Gift, Nika pokes her head in to check on Arden (and sort of on Christian too). "Hey, doc... how you holding up?" She's kind of figuring today was not up his usual alley.
Arden looks up from washing his face. His eyes are a little wild and wider than usual. "Oh great. Doing fine. Guns and me, well, let's just say that this is going to take practice." He sighs deeply. "None of us hurt and we've still got the ship," he says with a weak smile. "Could have been worse."
Leaning a shoulder on the bulkhead at the hatch, Nika studies him quietly. "None of us is hurt, ship's being repaired, and we're leaving town tomorrow. And hopefully we slowed their progress. It's all you can hope for." She looks far older, wearier, than she has since he met her. She's generally pretty good at hiding that she's seen so much, but not today. Today? She's a soldier again. "You want to learn how to use a gun properly?" she asks.
Arden actually grins, "Yes! I mean I know how to shoot and I at least imagine I am better than the average gun nut, but actually really use a gun? Yes! Maybe we can convert one of the unused cargo cars into a range?"
Nika looks a little surprised by his enthusiasm, and she's forced to grin at him. Cuz anyone who wants to learn to shoot? Yeah, can't be all bad. With a soft chuckle, she nods at him. "Let's see what we can manage. If we're going to be starting to take cargos for this group, I think we all better be good shots." She shakes her head a bit. "Never thought I'd be on a rookie crew for this kind of run, though," she admits quietly.
You lost me," Arden says, "what kind of run?" He stops pauses and his eyes are haunted a bit, "You mean the mess we just left? Or.... is there something coming up that I haven't been told yet?"
Nika shakes her head. "I was referring to what we just did... it's not the first such activity I've been involved in. But I suppose if we continue to take runs for this group of people, we're likely to run into others." She looks at him thoughtfully. "You going to be okay with that?"
"Don't know. As soon as I figure it out, I'll let you know."
later after some target shooting
As Arden cleans his gun, taking it apart, and going over the metal with a wire brush, he looks quickly at Nika, "So where did you learn to shoot so well? I know that you were a brown coat once upon a time.... was that where you learned?"
Nika seems reasonably impressed with Arden's handling of his pistol, and she spends the time with him helping him learn better rifle use -- long-range sighting, the differences between the two types of guns in terms of how they handle, things like that. With regard to his pistol on the target range, she comments they need to start working on moving targets with him -- target shooting's all well and good, but rarely is your target going to stand still if you have to shoot at him. All in all, it's a companionable way to spend several hours together.
As they work on cleaning the weapons up, it's probably the first times she's been entirely at ease since he met her. She sits cross-legged on the ground, checking out her rifle's bore. She glances up and says, "Nope. I grew up on a ranch out on Boros. My dad was a practical sort -- made sure my sister and I could both shoot and ride practically from the time we could walk. Never know when you might run across varmints... animal or human." She smiles a bit. "What about you? Where'd you learn?"
Arden looks off into the distance for a moment. "It's a long story," he begins hesitantly. "Are you sure you want to hear it?" Despite the hesitancy in his voice, the look in Arden's eyes belies that. There is something inside that wants or needs to get out.
Nika looks up at him as she works and smiles faintly. "Wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to know." She's kinda straightforward like that.
"Perhaps you know a little bit of the society that I come from?" Arden looks at his companion, and then continues.
"No? Well, it isn't the most... social of places. People are created for a specific caste, or job. Then they are trained for that job their entire life. They are taught no more, or no less, than what they need to keep the society at its Utopian norm.
"Well, I was raised to be a doctor, but due to cost and other things, they had to send me off world to get the training as a physician they wanted. As I studied I became aware that the Verse was much much bigger than where I came from. And they led to dangerous, at least for my superiors, ideas.
"It also led to other things. My first roommate was a man named Olivier Samson, from Regina. Oliver taught me guns, how to use them and handle them. And he also introduced me to Regina, his sister."
Arden sighs, "A lifetime ago." He shakes his head. "Olivier taught me firearms. He's a good friend despite."
Nika listens, her hands never ceasing in their movements to clean, check, and reassemble her weapons. Her eyes come up to him periodically to show him that he still has her attention as he talks. "Your home world sounds pretty heavily structured. Not real surprising that you might get better ideas once you had the chance to see something more than what they wanted you to see. Probably a risk to send you off world to start with," she observes.
"How much trouble are you in for dodging your caste system?" she asks instead. Because that could potentially impact the ship, after all. And then she quirks a grin at him. "And how much trouble you in with your friend for tippin' his sister?" Cuz well... it makes for interesting conversation.
"How much trouble are you in for dodging your caste system?" she asks instead. Because that could potentially impact the ship, after all. And then she quirks a grin at him. "And how much trouble you in with your friend for tippin' his sister?" Cuz well... it makes for interesting conversation.
"As to the home world question, I don't know. I was willing to go back and rejoin that life. I thought I had in fact, until my car blew up." He shakes his head. "Perhaps it was a coincidence, but the longer I live, the less I think coincidences are just one way the universe has of telling you you are missing something.
"In any case, that was the beginning of my life on the run and what led me to here." He gestures around at the ship. "I don't know if someone is after me, or not. I don't know if there is something they want, if they are after me. All I really know is that something is going on that I have absolutely no clue about. It makes me nervous."
"Oliver on the other hand, was cool," Arden grins. "He thought Regina and I made a good couple and he encouraged us to date. And Regina, well, she was vivacious out going, adventurous, exciting.... all those things I wasn't. It was like a moth to a flame; our relationship. And you know what happens to the moth, eh?" Arden grins.
Nika laughs softly... not at him, but with him this time. "Oh, honey, do I ever." She rolls her eyes. "I've got one of those too -- a guy I just can't say no to. Anytime he's in ten feet, we set each other on fire." Her grin is easy, cheerful. "Don't get to see him much, but eh... sure is worth it when I do."
She looks thoughtful, though, and her next comment is in a mild tone. "Seems to me there isn't any such thing as coincidence. Fate, the Verse, whatever you want to call it... we're all put out here and we run into certain people and situations at certain times cuz we're supposed to be here. I don't think the 'Verse is random... seen too much out in the Black to believe that, you know?" She raises a knee from her cross-legged position to prop her elbow on it and look at him. "So you go people chasin' you and you don't have a clue why? Might be something we oughtta look into at some point."
"Oh," Arden says fervently, "I agree. It is something to follow up on, but right now everything is so…. New and different (at least for me) that it isn’t one of my top priorities." Arden stops and concentrates on cleaning the firing pin of his pistol, then looks up, "I have a finely tuned sense of self-preservation – somehow I look and notice what I need to right before the ca-ca hits the rotating blade of iron." He punishes the scrub with the iron brush then carefully puts the firing mechanism back together. While not automatic like Nike, Arden also knows the parts and pieces of a firearm.
"But all that is for the future, right?"
Nika shrugs slightly. "Depends... if no one's after you, might be nice for you to be able to relax. If someone is after you, could bite us in the butt later on if we leave it too long. Since you're settling in one place. I'd say once we're done with this run and see what's what, it's maybe time to sit down and figure out what you were doing just before your ..." and she grins here, finding his phrasing terribly cute, "ca-ca hit the rotating blade. Don't want the back splatter to wipe out your new life, right?" She watches his hands move and nods slightly, apparently pleased with his level of expertise.
"Absolutely," Arden slips the safety, double checks it, and then chambers a round just verify that the action is clean with no catches or hangs.
"So," Arden starts, "How about an introduction to the rifle now?"
Nika grins at him, putting the pistol back together with economical moves and setting it on the rag in front of her. "Sure. Let's move to rifles. We've got time." She moves to stand up, gathering up the cleaning supplies and her weapons. "You got one that's yours, or we gonna have to get you one from stores to adopt?" she asks as she heads toward the ship to stow the handguns and fetch rifles.
Arden shakes his head, "No rifle in my gear, just the gun that Olivier gave me when we graduated. What should be looking for in a rifle? I mean, what makes a rifle a personal weapon? Pistols I can understand since every person's grip is different, but a rifle? The only thing I can think of that is different from person to person is the length of their arms."
