[Horizon's Key] Job 01: Shakedown (Chapter 1)

"Hurray, waiting. Wake me up when you need me to start loading cargo, I'll be in my quarters Gem." Eliot said, leaving the bridge and winding through the Key to his quarters.

"The guns are safely tucked away." Nicholai replied. "Which reminds me, any of you guys ever fired guns?" Nicholai's eyebrows arched as he asked. He had a feeling Gem had used some before, she seemed like someone who could handle herself, Elliot had probably fired a few before as well, but Kassi was who Nicholai wasn't sure about. She just looked too young, too innocent. Of course, she was a 'spacer, it's not like Nicholai knew a ton about them.

Kassi replied, "I have not ever fired a handheld gun before. I've used cannons when aboard ships, but never fired one from the hand. It's a dangerous universe out there, and if I could get some training in that regard, I would be most grateful."

Gem sat down at one of the side stations, her expression turning thoughtful as she swiveled the chair so she was facing the main screen and listened to the others talk. She just nodded at Eliot as he left, and then looked at Nicholai when he asked about firearms training. He was right, she had some practice with pistols and rifles, so she didn't answer.

Eliot dissappeared from the bridge and headed down to his quarters. Once he arrived, he fished around in the pockets of his duffel bag and brought out a small flask of brandy. He removed the cork and took a swig, then put the flask back in his bag and laid back against the wall.

In seconds, he was asleep.

Guess he ain't much of a talker. Nicholai thought as he turned to face Kassi. "All right, I'll teach ya how to use pistols then. Heck, we might even be able to do rifles. Ma'am is there anywhere we could practice these things at?" Nicholai asked. "I don't really recall there bein' a place, but I might be blind." Nicholai rubbed the back of his head as he spoke.

"Huh?" Gem turned from staring at the star-scape on the main viewscreen and looked at Nicholai. "Oh. Uh, th' Lower Bay's 'bout fifty meters end t' end, nah much f'r gun-practice. An' ah dunno what y'r gonna use as targets. I'd like to keep mah hull free o' holes as long as I can," she said with a half-smile. "But, if you c'n find a way, an' are willin' to fix anything you damage, be mah guest."

Kassi put the ship into autopilot mode, and set it so that if anything abnormal came up, she would be notified immediately. Once they neared New Kohana Kassi would be alerted as well. "I would be much obliged, Nicholai. Let's go see what we can dig up for targets." She smiled, obviously eager to learn.

"'ey, just thought of somethin'. We don' have any targets or anything aboard, but if ya jus' wanna teach 'er the mechanics of shootin', y'can go to the wardroom an' use th' volumetrics up there t'show 'er how t' aim an' fire," said Gem, sitting up a little in her chair. "Jus' ask for program 'FR-46', the computer'll know what t'do. An' you won' even need t' bring a gun, it'll make ya a holographic one."

Gem had gotten board earlier on her way to Pisces and had created a virtual firing range using the projectors in the Stargazer's Seat (her name for the wardroom). The program created a virtual weapon around the user's hand and tracked their movements, at the same time projecting targets that appeared to be outside of the wardroom's large forward window, ahead of the ship. The user 'fired' the weapon by pantomiming a trigger-pull (in fact, the entire chosen weapon was interactive via pantomimed actions). The only downsides were that the system was all light-projection, the user couldn't feel recoil or even the weight of a gun.

Kassi nodded, "It should be enough for now at least." And with that, she walked off, heading for the wardroom. Once she got there, she prompted the computer, "Please set up program FR-46."

Instantly, a firing range appeared all around her, complete with a pistol of some make, though kassi would not have any idea which one. She turned to Nicholai and asked, "So, Mr. Nicholai, what do I do now?"

Nicholai followed Kassi down to the range. Holographics are fine and all...but what I'm really concerned with is the actual recoil. I don't know if she can handle it... Nicholai thought as he followed behind the spacer. Once they were in the room and the holographic program was active he picked up a holographic firearm. "Y'said you've fired cannons before right?" Nicholai asked as he inspected the holographic gun. "Then this isn't too different, save the recoil." Nicholai walked up beside Kassi and held his gun out in front of her.

"This is the safety, flip it off and you can shoot the gun. Obviously, you can't while it's flipped on. If you don't intend to shoot someone, leave the safety on. Also, don't ever point the gun at someone unless you intend to shoot them." Nicholai pointed his gun at one of the targets and pulled the trigger. His shot hit below the targeted area, Damn recoilless pistols. Nicholai thought as he shot twice more, this time hitting his target. "Take a few shots at the targets." Nicholai suggested.

Kassi tried a few shots, and found the mechanism itself quite easy to understand, after all it was "point, click." The sighting caught her a little off guard, but she soon adapted. However, any accomplishment made here would be near to useless in the field, as noise and recoil made a lot of difference. Kassi had just the tip of her tongue through her lips in concentration, trying to hit a target a ways off. She sqeezed one off and missed it by several 'meters'.

"So, Mr. Nicholai, how much does this recoil actually make a difference?" Kassi asked after trying again to hit her target. "These guns seem a lot like the cannons aboard the ships I was on. Point, shoot, things explode."

Nicholai watched as Kassi fired of the rounds, then turned back to her as she spoke. "Well, for starters, you can just call me Nicholai. No need for Mr . You call nice people, educated people mr., I may be nice, but I ain't no mister. Second, a great deal actually. I think I may have an idea on how to 'simulate' it, but it'll take me a little bit to get ready first. We'll worry about that later though, I just remembered we could use the Mazer's that we just got." Nicholai said as he turned toward the entrances to the side armories. "One second be right back." he said as he quickly walked out. Less than a minute later, Nicholai came back in with a GP-5 MASER Pulse Rifle. "So, this here is the GP-5. She fires MASER rounds, which means, little to no knockback whatsoever." Nicholai said. "Here is the clip," Nicholai said as he pulled the battery pack from his pocket.

"Great thing about this baby is it's rechargeable. Not just that, but it does decent damage." Nicholai handed the gun to the girl, but paused halfway to handing her the clip. "We don't wanna be firing live rounds on board, but I want you to be able to load, unload, and ultimately be able to maintain it, so practice loading her until you feel comfortable doing so, then when you're done with that take the clip out and take a few practice 'shots'." Nicholai said before handing over the clip. If she's fired cannons before then this shouldn't be an issue. Nicholai thought quietly. "What's it like firing ship cannons while being all wired in like that?" the ID-SOL asked.

As Nicholai left the room, Kassi considered what he had just said. Well, he sure is nice enough for me to call him 'mister'. If he wants to be more familiar that's just great too.

She smiled as Nicholai came back with a different gun than before, one that was more curved than blocky, and looked more powerful as well. "So you say this works much like a cannon, Nicholai? Just point it and click the trigger-thing?"

As she was told, Kassi took the clip out and looked it over before putting it back in the gun. It seemed to be simply a black block with some contact points on it as well. From that alone she could tell it was definitely an energy weapon and thus capable of a lot more than a standard firearm. Practicing a couple times, Kassi became quite proficient at the task of ejecting and replacing the clip.

Before practicing with the gun itself, Kassi turned to Nicholai and said, "Well Nicholai, it actually feels amazing to be linked to so many systems pouring all of their data into you and all being at the tip of your proverbial finger. It's quite intoxicating really, especially when controlling something very large, much like this ship. You should try it sometime." Kassi told him with a chuckle.

With that, she aimed the GP-5 out of the window of the wardroom and 'fired' it, without the clip of course. A simulated line of light traced itself away from the ship and into a simulated target. The target had its shoulder blasted off by the weapon. "Did you see that Nicholai? I actually hit it!"

Nicholai watched as Kassi fired. Once she was done, he looked back toward the spacer. "Good job, just keep doing that until you can hit reliably and we should be good. Go ahead and fire a few more shots." Nicholai motioned for Kassi to fire again as he spoke. Once Kassi was done firing again, Nicholai spoke up again.

"I ain't sure I'd like to be hooked up to so many systems. Too much fer me I guess." Nicholai said thoughtfully. "Well, think you got the hang of it?" Nicholai asked. "We can stay as long as you'd like, I ain't got nuthin' to do. Else, might as well get some shut-eye or sumthin'."

Speaking of shut-eye...

Eliot was passed out in his bunk when Nicholai and Kassi arrived in the conference room. When he woke up, he assumed that things were pretty boring, so he thought "Ah what the hell", got up and started wandering the ship.

Eight hours and thirty minutes later...

"This is Captain Gem Tabier, commander of th' independent transport vessel Horizon's Key, t' th' station in orbit of New Kohana. Please respond."

Gem released the key for the radio broadcast and waited. It was hard trying to clear up her normally heavy accent, but she thought that was a pretty good job at it. "Maybe it'd 'ave been a good idea t' make res'vations first," she whispered to herself in wry fashion.

The Key had dropped out of FTL after a long nine hours, during which Gem had accidentally dozed off in the center chair. Fortunately she had awoken with an hour left in their journey, and passed the time playing checkers against the computer with little success. More out of boredom than suspicion, she also had the computer display a map on her datapad with the locations of her new crew on it. Hey, she had time on her hands and she might as well know where they'd already explored.

Now, however, the time for waiting was at an end. The time for waiting to arrive, at least. Now was the time for waiting for replies from the space station that she didn't know the Kohanians had. It looked Nepleslian in construction...maybe it was a donation? "I don' remember that bein' in the file," she said, pulling up the info file on her datapad, closing the tracking program.

Gem quickly received a reply to her message from a perky sounding female voice.

"This is the KSS Imhotep to the Horizon's Key. We have been watching your approach, Commander, and if you would like to stop for a while before heading to the surface, you are welcome to use Docking port 12A if you would like. Will you be needing an escort, translator, anyth-"

The transmission was cut short, or at least was supposed to be cut short, but an argument seemed to have broken out between the original speaker, still quite perky, and another female voice, seeming much more mature, and slightly lower in pitch.

"Please contain yourself and don't try to pawn yourself off to every ship and shuttle that goes by, Breeze. Now try again, and this time, be more professional."

Soon the voice of the first person came back, this time speaking slower, and articulating more, like the other was watching over her shoulder.

"Commander Tabier, you are cleared to dock with the station and gather needed supplies before heading to the planet, or at the very least we encourage you and your crew to join our welcoming staff for a short orientation of planetary customs and things to watch out for. Please proceed to docking port 12A and we will have someone there to greet you."

And then the transmission was cut.

Gem smiled as she listened to the greeting's interruption. "Got it. Horizon's Key'll begin approach t' Docking Port 12A," she replied, then closed the channel and keyed on the shipwide intercom.

"This is your capt'n speakin'. We're now approach'n the Kohanian space station w' an ETA o' 3 minutes." She paused, then added, "So could y'all head on up t'th' bridge? Thanks," she finished, smiling again. As much as she tried to be the professional commander, Gem couldn't help but drop back to the easy-going style of the captain she had grown up with, the one her parents had served under all those years ago. Eh, this wasn' no military or corporate ship anyways, she could run it whatever way suited her. While the crew was on their way, though, she decided to let the comp bring them closer. The final docking approach she preferred to have done manually.

"Computer, lay in a course t' th' Imhotep an' bring us in within a hundred kilometers, then hold 'til Miss Kassi can finish th' job."

Eliot clomped his way through the quarters, heading slowly for the bridge. After about a minute he had made it to the ship's center.

"Morning Gem. Time for culture shock, eh?"