The man sighed.
"I'm an E4, don't salute me. I'm not an officer. And a salute is rendered arm at 45 degrees, finger tip touching the temple or brim of glasses or hat, slightly tilted down fingers kept together. You've got a lot to learn, and I don't have months to train you."
English
-
I shrugged, relaxing my stance, putting my rifle in the usual carry position. "Was worth a shot, at any rate." I sighed. "Hopefully I'll be more useful than just another piece of meat for the grinder."
-
"If you wouldn't be I would have left you in the 68th infantry regiment. Now come on, that gear is going to get you killed, you have to maintain your gear. And let's get you some uniforms." The corporal entered the armory and passed the desk sergeant.
-
I walked in behind him, looking at the state of disrepair of my wargear, then the pristine state of the gear in the armory. Yeah, it served in a pinch, but I could heartily agree that it was due time for an upgrade. I shook my head as the analogy to some sort of grim, depressing rpg came to mind.
-
Blackburn pulled carapace armor off a shelf and tossed it to him, along side the keys to a gun locker. "Take this, and these, choose some weapons preferably nothing that will get you killed."
-
[i]Well hot damn[/i], I thought, looking over the armor. From what little I knew of this world, armor like this wasn't given to your average rank-and-file soldiers. I quickly took the old flak armor off, and began to put on the new armor, before a thought stopped me. Much as I liked my old civilian clothes, they wouldn't last very long under the wear and tear of my new occupation. "You wouldn't happen to know where I could get my hands on some fatigues first, would you? Sir?" I added, silently cursing myself. I may not need to salute him, but he was still my CO, and that meant he deserved respect, let alone the fact he had several magnitudes the combat experience I had.
-
He nodded disappeared into a corridor of uniforms on shelves, he was gone for several minutes. He returned with three sets and handed them over, they were olive drab imperial guard.
-
With a nod of thanks, I set about donning one of my new uniforms, folding up my old clothes and placing them on top of the other two spare uniforms. Then I set about strapping on my new carapace armor. It took me a bit to figure out the straps, but when Blackburn approached to help I wave him off. It wasn't that difficult, all told, but I had never done something like this, so there was some trial and error. Checking the last strap, I stood, feeling significantly heavier - but the compromise for greater protection was gladly made. Then, I made my way to the weapons, unlocking and opening the door to look at the contents.
-
A variety of imperial weapons and non imperial weapons, as well as weapons from different universes lines the racks. "Pick two or three." Blackburn said, pulling an LMG off the rack and began to clean it.
-
Edited by Kell in a Cell: 7/2/2016 4:15:29 AMI whistled lowly, gazing at the various weapons. I recognized a fair few of them, but there were far more I didn't know the name or- Wait. Was that...? "No fückin' way," I whispered, gently picking up the weapon that had caught my attention: a DC-17m with a stock, though it was missing any other attachments. What there was present, however, was a plethora of ammo. A thought snapped me out of my fanboy stupor, however. "Hey, Corporal? What kind of stopping power does this thing have?" I asked, showing the weapon to my CO.
-
The marine raised an eyebrow, looking over his shoulder. "Don't know, that's a new one even for me."
-
I thought it over, before finally shrugging. There was plenty of ammo here, the clip was decently big, and he did say to get something else as well. With that in mind, I picked up a bandolier, putting numerous spar clips on it. Thankfully, neither the weapon or the clips were very heavy, though the placement of the mag well would take some getting used to. With that done, I looked around for something else. A sidearm would probably be best, for those moments where I didn't have time for a reload. It would need some decent stopping power, but couldn't be too big. With that in mind, I grabbed something a little more old-school: the ever-reliable M1911. Grabbing several extra mags for it as I strapped the holster to my thigh, I turned to my CO, nodding that I was ready.
-
He locked up the remaining weapons and threw the keys back to the desk sergeant who caught them and put them back on his desk. Blackburn turned to his subordinate. "Well, since you picked that weapon, you have to learn how to clean it. I got no clue, the colt 1911 however is straight forward."
-
"And that, sir, is the beauty of the DC-17m Interchangeable Weapon System," I said, patting the rifle. "While using the weapon will take some getting used to - as will figuring out a good way to holster it - maintenance is as simple as a calibration every once in a while." I paused. "Granted, I don't know how to do that just yet, but I tend to have a way with problem-solving."
-
"Well, that means you need to figure it out before tomorrow, that's first real operation. Nothing terrible, just a local patrol."
-
"Alright, then," I said with a nod. "So what next: meet the team, or should I head straight for the practice range?"
-
"You're it, still recruiting, so if you've come across someone who's fit for duty let me know and I'll see if I can train them up."
-
"Alright. Well, until we actually head out, I think it'd be pertinent for me to get a feel for my new weapons. Got a little bit of time to spare, show me how to clean the 1911?"
-
He nodded and took the pistol and showed the man how to disassemble and clean it. "Now your turn, I want it cleaned and assembled. I'll be back in an hour."
-
Seemed simple enough. I had payed rapt attention to the dismantling, so it wasn't too hard to copy it. Not satisfied with my speed, however, I cleaned it, reassembled it, then set about the process again. By the time the hour was up, I had done the whole thing through at least half a dozen times, and was approaching something resembling decent speed - in my opinion, anyway. When the Corporal came back, I was just finishing putting it back together for the eighth time.
-
He entered, picked up the pistol, examined it, nodded, disassembled it, nodded again, and put it back together. "If you're happy with that I'm not going to tell you not to be."
-
Edited by Kell in a Cell: 7/2/2016 9:55:08 PMI shook my head as I stood. "It'll have to be good enough for now, until I can get some more time to practice. Now, however, I need to work with this," I said as I patted my new rifle. "Which way to the range, sir?"
-
The marine pointed toward the back of the armory. "Down there, door on the right."
-
"Thank you, sir," I said, immediately setting out. The walk wasn't long, but my new armor would still take some getting used to. As such, I was hardly winded when I arrived, but I was already beginning to feel a slight burn. Shoving my mild discomfort to the side, I entered the range and took a look around.
-
The range was advanced with holotargets. The range had various target distances and settings, a few imperial guardsmen were already using it.
-
As I walked in, a few of the Guardsmen looked up at me. I nodded at them, and they responded in kind, before turning back to the range. The message was loud and clear: there would be time to socialize later. Now was about seeing it through the next firefight. With that in mind, I stepped up to an empty lane, looking over my deece as the target came up. Soon enough, I found the relevant parts: the safety, the fire-select, and the mag release primarily. Those found, I switched off the safety, put the weapon in semi-auto, and set about refining my aim. It was rough at first. Blind luck and adrenaline had served to make me far more accurate in my first firefight than I was now. Still, I had the basics of the stance and the mentality, so I had something to build on. I'm not sure how long I was in there, but when the Corporal finally came to get me, there were several empty mags laying around me and my arms felt somewhat heavy. Considering my fairly slow fire rate, that meant a considerable amount of time had passed. In that time, however, my aim had gotten much better. One might even say I was approaching competence. A quick check at the counter to the side showed I had somewhere around 70-80% accuracy. Hopefully it'd be enough. I turned to my CO. "Sir."