232-Valkyrie’s View: A Year Among the Stars
August 19th, 2552 – Live Fire Drills
Pilot/Mechanic/Jump-Gate Navigator/Grunt Kat “S-Kat” James Reporting
I don’t know who’s brilliant idea it was to have live-fire drills, but if I find them… I’m going to stick them in a ‘scenario’ involving bullets, lasers, and no weapons and see how well they do. Duct tape may be involved.
It started with a simple walkthrough of the course and an explanation of what was expected. Then the drill instructor demonstrated how it works. And then it was my turn.
I tried to protest and point out that my firearms had no bullets, but the instructor didn’t have time to listen to me and told me that he didn’t care. It was up to me to handle the situation and shoved me into the funhouse of horror.
Now, the goal was to get from point A to point B without getting shot, lather rinse and repeat for B-Q.
Once you were clear of a room, the stationary equipment was part of the past, but all the mobile equipment followed you. You could deactivate items by shooting them, but that was not an option.
After I managed to dodge my way through A-B and C, I had the stationary unit in D, two drones and three creepy little ground-based robots on my trail, and a drill instructor yelling at me to use my rifle.
So I did.
I managed to knock one of the drones into the stationary target of D, thereby deactivating both of them. I overturned a desk on two of the ground units and got singed by the third before side-stepping out of its line of fire and right into the flight of the second drone which was intent on strafing me. I threw my pistol at that one and followed that up with a trash can that kept it from flying, but it was working on shooting its way out by the time I got to E.
I’m not sure, but I think I side-stepped F-H, Used a fire extinguisher to distract the obstacles in I, dismantled the stationary shooter in J and used it to take out its compatriot in K. Luckily I am allowed to carry knives and the heat pack from my meal came in handy for giving out a secondary heat signal.
By the time I made it to Q I was actually enjoying myself— until the drill instructor had managed to end his apoplectic fit long enough to pull me out by my hair and start reading me the riot act.
He had just started into how ‘if I were in his army…’ when Tower and company showed up and while Kyrie started working on the wounds I’d received, Tower managed to remind him that I wasn’t in his army, that I wasn’t allowed bullets and I shouldn’t have had a firearm in the first place and that if he’d bothered to listen, read or otherwise pay attention he wouldn’t be risking the lives of pilots to make a point.
It seems Tower and the instructor have a history. In the end, it was decided that I needed time to heal and that wasn’t going to happen here. Tomorrow I’m being tapped for an assignment.
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