I shot 5 magazines through the rifle and when I was finished, I realized my groupings were off. "Far Reach, do you think it's me, or the weapon?" I asked, as I unloaded the last magazine and collected the brass. I never want to leave a mess for the next person, even though it would probably just be me again anyway.
"You seemed to be squeezing too hard. Maybe the stress?"
I nodded. It has been pretty stressful lately. "One more then." I said, and slotted a fresh magazine. More than two thousand years since their invention and chemically propelled, jacketed metal slugs are still our projectile weapons of choice. I know the K'laxi tend to prefer energy weapons and the Xenni favor tiny rockets, but give me a good old chemical reaction driving a bullet downrange any day. The K'laxi complain that they kick too hard, and the Xenni call them barbaric, but who am I to argue with the results?
After taking a breath and slowing down, my accuracy did improve. As the shots rang out in the range I could see the spots on the target light up in a tight grouping. The center of the target was less important than all the shots being in the same spot. I ejected the magazine, cleaned up, slotted a new one, set the rifle for distance and tried the furthest target. This time, I used the magnification factor on the scope. Pushing the butt of the rifle hard against my shoulder so that my whole body could absorb the impact I put 8 rounds in a tight circle 4 cm across more than 100 meters away. That was good enough, I was back where I expected to be. I collected the brass, reloaded my magazines and took the rifle to the workbench at the other end of the room. Carefully and methodically, I took it apart, cleaned, checked, and polished it and then put it back together. All in all it took me about an hour, but I was going slow. I could strip and reassemble my rifle in minutes, but when I go slow it was almost Zen. When I was finished, the gun smelled of oil, and shone.
Lots of my friends were worried when they found out how skilled I am with guns, but really, it was not so bad. Like anything, skill comes with practice (and maybe a little bit of talent). This wasn't the Bad Old Days, I didn't keep weapons at home, I didn't worry about people coming to take them or me being attacked. For me, the fun was in gaining the skill, seeing how accurate I could be, how fast I could be, and how safe I could be. My favorite was my rifle, but I also knew pistols, submachine guns and shotguns. Pistols were the hardest to keep my skills with. I'd have to shoot every single day just to stay as good as I am with a rifle since pistols are incredibly inaccurate. I liked submachine guns too, but really they're mostly noise and intimidation. Even the toughest Xenni warrior stops when a human was chattering away with a submachine gun.
I decided that when we left to meet the delegation on the Starbase that I would bring my rifle and my submachine gun, but that I would keep them strapped to my back so as to reduce the intimidation factor. I wanted to say "We don't want to fight you, but also don't think you can push us around." I'm sure Vin'aren back home would call that "human to a fault." I smiled at the memory of them. I hope they are keeping our place clean.
Finished, I stood up and stretched. "Far Reach, I'm bringing my rifle and my submachine gun to the airlock weapons locker, okay? I'm going to bring them when we disembark."
"Weapon movement registered, Melody, thanks for letting me know. Lunch is in about an hour. Captain Q'ari wants everyone to eat together before we dock."
"Thanks Far, I'll be there." I trotted down the hall, my weapons bouncing lightly against my back.
I had just enough time to stow my weapons, press my uniform and take a lightning quick shower before lunch. Sure, I'll be in my pressure suit for the meeting, but I'll know I would be clean and sharp under it. When I got to the dining hall, Captain Q'ari was there already, and she flicked an ear at my sharp uniform, like a raised eyebrow. "I want to look my best for our meeting." I said, only a little sheepishly as I took my sandwich and sat.
"No, it's a smart idea." Q'ari said. "Well done. Look good, feel good." We all ate. It was a light lunch in case we find something to eat - or were offered a meal - onboard.
After the meal, the Captain stood. "Okay everyone. If everyone here is friendly, you will all get an opportunity to disembark and explore, but for now, it's going to be me, Lieutenant Mullen, Commander Perinem and Lieutenant Adel." Me, Selem, Fer'resi and Omar. That made sense. I can speak to them, Omar could give an idea about how friendly they looked, Fer'resi could help with their language and Selem could be the face of the expedition. "Mullen will be the only one who is armed, and she shall have her weapons stowed while aboard unless absolutely necessary. We will not be the ones shooting first. This first meeting will be done in pressure suits with our helmets open. If the environment is conducive to us, further meetings can be done in our uniforms." She looked around. "Does anyone have any questions?"
Omar said, "Why is Melody the only one who is coming out armed?"
Captain Q'ari's ears shrugged. "Because frankly, she is the best shot here, and we don't need anyone shooting anything accidentally. If we need to run, we run. Lieutenant Mullen will be mostly coming out armed to show that we are armed. We're not here to capture them, we don't need to go armed to the teeth."
Fer'resi spoke up, "Will we attempt communications with them, or are we leaving that to the Lieutenant too?"
Captain Q'ari's ears flicked, a raised eyebrow. "If you think you can communicate with them without causing an incident, by all means. We know Lieutenant Mullen can speak their language - somehow - so she should probably do the majority of the talking. Far Reach will be listening in, and you should be running recorders too so we can build a language model for the translators. Hopefully, on the next visit we can all speak to them at least a small amount." She clapped her hands. "Okay everyone. We're docking in an hour and disembarking sometime after that. Take it easy, but don't get complacent."
We all left the dining hall and I headed to the airlock where our pressure suits are kept. I decided to be extra methodical and cleaned and checked the suit before we needed to be ready. I wanted it to shine. Since it's a hard suit (mine is armored, everyone else uses a softer, more flexible suit normally) I'm able to take a little rotary polisher and apply some compound and really make it glow. When I'm done, it's not only clean and bright, but it's also smoother too. The blue of my armor looks deep enough to go fishing in. "Nicely done, Melody" Far Reach remarks as I put the tools away. "You're sure to impress when you get out there."
I laughed, "Thanks Far Reach, I hope so. I feel like there's going to be a lot of attention on me, so I want to look and feel my best. Do you think there's time for a coffee before we leave?"
"Just enough, Melody, if you go now."
I didn't have to be told twice. I headed over to the kitchenette and got out my coffee supplies. While I was working, Mei'la came by.
"Oh hi Mei!" I said brightly while I waited for the water to boil. "Did you have any trouble after we went to WEP?" Sometimes going to War Emergency Power caused undue wear and tear on the reactors and it's a hassle to clean up afterwards. It was still better than dying though.
Her ears said no. "Not this time. It was the first time we went to WEP since the reactors were overhauled, so we had headroom to spare." She shook her head. "If we have to do it a lot though, I'm going to be busy. We can be down three reactors at a time, but any more than that and we have to turn off systems to keep within our power budget and we're limited to linking only when the batteries and capacitors are charged."
Starjumpers tended to have between 4 and 6 human made power reactors. I say "tended to" because they've been built for nearly a thousand years, so there wasn't one singular type. Any really large ship that was originally designed to go between colony worlds at relativistic speeds is called a Starjumper. It's not like it was a class of ship.
Mei sees me thinking and comments. "Far Reach is a newer Starjumper though, so it was relatively overbuilt. They have 6 reactors so we have gobs of power."
"Why so many?" I wondered out loud, hoping Far Reach was listening.
"Mostly because when this Starjumper was built we were at war." Far Reach answers. "I wasn't Far Reach at the time this one was built, but looking through it, I can see the signs. It was built during the New Wellington/Parvati Colony War. It's massively overpowered so that it could fire the Stardrive and the laser batteries and the wormhole generator and support a crew.
"Wow," I said out loud. I remember reading about the war in school. Parvati and New Wellington got into an argument about trading rights or something silly with Earth and got into a war about it. Parvati launched a dozen multi-tonne lozenges of pure tungsten towards the colony at nearly 80% the speed of light. When they struck a couple of years later, it obliterated the colony. New Wellington was no more, and Parvati was a pariah for nearly a century. These days, many people from Meíhuā still have animosity towards people from Parvati. It's one of the reasons I didn't usually announce I'm from Meíhuā. We're a small, more insular colony and I didn't want people to judge me based on where I'm from.
Oops, I almost let the coffee over extract while I was daydreaming. I finished the pour and had just enough time to savor it - quickly - before it was time to go suit up.
Over near the airlock, I got out my suit and started putting it on. I was the first one here, but as my suit took longer, that made sense. When I had my pants on, everyone else showed up and started suiting up.
Since a pressure suit is vital to your survival, everyone made sure everyone else has their suit on correctly and it's in good order. We all looked over each other's suits and make sure the seals were clean, the environmental controls were active and working and that we had plenty of air. While we were suiting up Omar said "Melody, your suit is practically illuminated! Did you polish it?"
"Actually, I did." I said proudly. "I ran the mini buffer over it with a polishing compound. Like the Captain said, "look good, feel good." I grinned.
Captain Q'ari nodded as well before she put her helmet on. "The lieutenant is correct. Lieutenant Adel, you could take a lesson from her." Omar's suit was in fine order, but it was a little scuffed at the elbows and knees. Captain Q'ari's suit was spotless, as was to be expected.
"Yeah yeah, I'll clean and polish it after we come back," He grumbled.
Suited up, I looked more bulky and intimidating than I was outside of the suit. It made me a few centimeters taller and broadened my shoulders but it still kept most of my form and - if I say so myself - I could pull it off. I looked good. I walked over to the weapons locker and touched the handle. It registered my biometrics and the door popped open. I took my rifle, checked to make sure it was safe and loaded and slung it behind my back. Then I reached in and took my submachine gun, did the same thing and strapped it to my waist. I dithered over taking extra magazines and deiced that was a little too much. The full magazine in the rifle and in the sub would have to be enough. Like the Captain said, I wasn't expecting to shoot anyone.
When I was finished with the weapons, everyone else was suited up. Captain Q'ari looked at all of us and said "Are we ready? Let's go make history." and walked over and cycled the airlock.