He didn’t expect this level of physical torment.
Three hours later, he was convinced that Garrett was determined to break him, or forge him into a finely tooled instrument of warfare. After obstacle courses and cardio for that length of time, he was panting nonstop. This lack of sweating thing was a bit of a pain, but no one else seemed to be bothered by it–he and Claire were starting with the recruits, volunteers from the village who would go through the basics.
The start had been laps. A dangerous effort that left him scrambling to not trip on his own two feet, and keep his wings tightly tucked behind him. Claire made it look easy, but he’d never questioned her athletics. Though, she couldn’t quite keep up to pace with the Aveeran, the Vorhunde, or the Vulpines. She came pretty close, but Garrett shrugged.
“Claire, keep up pace with your teammates! Remember, you all work together!” Garrett and Regia had taken perches on a low tower, watching their progress, and Shawn slowed the pace a little. The other recruits followed suit. Another Aveeran, with black feathers and blue eyes, and two Vorhunde, along with two human males, sweat gleaning off their bodies. The Aveeran and the Vorhunde could run faster without effort.
Okay, minus the 'covered in feathers part' I guess digitigrade legs lend themselves to a distinct advantage, he realized.
He pondered why he was running when he could fly. Then again, there were some limitations. He couldn’t fly in close quarters, and maneuvered on the ground more quickly than in the air, once he got the feel for it.
“And, carry!” Regia barked out. The ‘carry’ portion of their test was to lift a shortened log of timber, and carry it over a distance of a hundred meters a few times–all in cohesion.
They’d dropped it only once, and luckily, no one’s feet had been flattened. Shawn had course corrected, and had the Vorhunde switch sides on the carry, saying the weight wasn’t balanced. It had been much easier after that, and the male Vorhunde nodded, a rugged grin crossing his muzzle. He was dressed in a thinner shirt, with lengthy dark brown fur across his body, and powerful limbs showing muscle tone. He had a short muzzle, bright white teeth, and hazel eyes flecked with green.
“New in town, huh?” he asked as they took a brief water break. Shawn tipped his canteen with care and downed it a little too fast; a dribble went down his lower beak. “You and the lean mean one.”
“The lean mean one has a name,” Claire huffed. “It’s Claire Ryker, if you’d kindly. I’m no slouch. That’s Shawn Pentecost.”
“Ah, gotcha. Name’s Trask.” Shawn extended his hand and got a sweaty, hand-crushing handshake from the man, who grinned. “You're tougher than the other Aveeran, I've noticed. You're not built like that brick-shaped bird Varrick, but decent.”
“I spend time hunting and wilderness tracking,” he replied, still feeling the grip of that man's hand afterward. He filed a memo to never get in a fight with a Vorhunde. “We uh, got lucky on the escape from Secturas sanctuary. I was there for some consulting on some engineering work." It was mostly the truth.
“But you're doing this? Why?”
“Good way to meet the people I’m working with. I'm not afraid of putting in the hard work, and I’m unfamiliar with this part of Valtiria. Garrett tells me that zealots aren't the only worry.”
If Bandersnatches and Jabberyowls were any indications, there was worse, out there.
The man relaxed and gestured to the other Vorhunde, with lighter brown fur and green eyes, and a bit of a mohawk cut on his scalp. “Well, welcome, at any rate. This short stack is my brother, Raine.”
“Ah piss off, you’re one centimeter taller,” the man replied with a surly tone, only to give his brother a hearty slap on the back. “He’s taller, but I'm the sweet talker. After we heard about the birdy queen crash landing, we volunteered for the militia. We already hunt proficiently. He can spear a fish at ten meters. I can pip one of those nasty razorbeaks that like to dive bomb folks and tear them up, with a shot from four hundred meters away or more.”
“Good skills. Gestalts?” Shawn inquired.
Raine chuckled. “He can evade wherever there’s a deep absence of light. Useful, when you're in the deep woods or the plains further east of here. Me? I have some means of detecting most living beings nearby when I don't have a line of sight or my normal vision can’t pick them out. I don’t miss very often with my shots,” he added. “You?”
“Force barrier. And one other tied to controlling heat,” he added as he pulled a trickle charge from his core to show his barrier, and they looked on, fascinated as he flexed his fingers. “Haven't used them much, but they're...huh?!"
He heard the sound like a fire hose blasting and reacted out of instinct, whirling around and expanding the barrier. A torrent of water bounced off the golden hexagons, running off and soaking Trask and Raine, and he felt the force on his palms. He dug his talons into the earth to withstand it, gritting his beak.
The impromptu soaking ended. While he only got a light dampening, the others got soaked. He heard a cackle at a distance, and Regia fluttered down from her perch, eyes alight with mischief.
“Recruits, pay attention! There are always unexpected surprises. Including rain showers!" She laughed, before firming up her expression. “First, you two, you got soaked! Bad placement! Shawn, next time fully shield your teammates! You're lucky that it was water, not acid, fire, or necrofumes, or they'd be dead!” She pointed at Claire, who remained dry. “Good dodge, you were paying attention! There are no safe spots in Vea’lant, not after what you witnessed yesterday when hungry predators jumped over the wall.”
“Ah come on, bird brain, we’re on break!” Trask protested, wiping the water from his face and looking utterly dejected by the soaking.
“Break's over, then!” Regia replied coolly. “This a good opportunity since you're all cooled off.” Trask and Raine both rolled their eyes at this, before she pointed at Shawn, her claw tapping on his beak while she smiled. “We need a demonstration of firepower. Since no two gestalts are quite the same, and come in great and small scales of power, every unit we compose is custom-tailored.”
She likes getting cozy with you.
Not helping my focus, Halsey! He tried not to react and stuck to a formal response. “Yes, Ma’am–”
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
“Regia's fine.” He was more surprised at the lack of formality, though he had seen standard uniforms with a few different ranks stitched on. “Fire range, five minutes. We'll start with our ranged bread and butter."
After enduring a small marathon of athletics, Shawn smiled as he got his hands on a rifle. The beat-up targets downrange in the forest clearing had seen use, and Regia defaulted to him to show the recruits how to operate the rifles.
“Me?” he asked, then added as he nodded firmly, “Yes. Allow me to go through the basics.”
He was lucky this firearm was functionally almost identical to the rifles from Earth; though the lever action mechanism was a little different. The mechanism reset the trigger only after cycling a round. Once he'd studied it, he showed the components, the ammo, and the operation. Regia and Garrett nodded silently, while they ran through it.
Then, they got confused as he went prone, and protested. “Aveeran’s don’t lie down in the dirt!” Regia fumed.
“They do if they want maximum accuracy and minimum exposure against counterfire.” He loaded five rounds, then frowned as he noted no adjustment on the elevation or windage. “Your maximum range target is five hundred meters. But you only have most shots at three hundred. Hang on. Need to test something.”
He aimed at the closest target, set at a hundred meters. He hit the target with a sharp metallic ping sound, then cycled. He produced the same result, at two hundred meters. At three hundred…the shot sailed over the target and impacted behind it.
He frowned. “Strange. That should have hit.” They didn’t have a calibrated distance on the rear sight, which was a simple circle and post, with two faint glowing dots on either side to account for a ‘leveled’ rifle.
“Aim was too high,” Garrett pointed out, kneeling by him. “You’re accounting for gravity, yes?”
“Of course–”
He smiled faintly. “Ah, I know the problem.” He realized he’d forgotten one smaller aspect: the lower gravity constant. That meant the round would have a flatter trajectory, and less vertical drop, compared to Earth gravity. He aimed a tad lower and cycled the round before firing again.
Ping.
A smile crossed his beak as he hit the head of the target, just barely. “Solved the problem, or just a bad aim?” Regia teased, leaning in.
“Solved the problem.” He took a few more shots at the three-hundred-meter target and noticed the rounds were accurate.
The problem was, he suspected they were lower velocity than they should be, based on the time between when he fired, and when he saw the round impact. His visual fidelity let him gauge roughly how long–
Shawn, the velocity of the rounds–given your rough calculations–is only about six hundred–make that six hundred and twenty meters per second. Accounting for the standard gravity that Telga gave us, this explains your over-aim. Also, it explains why the rounds were ineffective against the foes on the station. The stopping power is low.
I was getting to that part, he thought silently before he fed more rounds into the ammo tube, and cycled an expended round–except, the round didn’t extract. He frowned and examined the tube. “Malfunction. Stand by,” he called out and checked the feed port. The round hadn't been extracted after he pulled back the action gently, and he reached in and extracted it with a careful pull of one claw.
“Ah, that happens. The alchemical cartridges sometimes get stuck,” Garrett explained. “Bad casings, and we do reuse them.”
“Brass would work better, steel if you can't get it in supply. As a note, you’ll warp the casings to hell if you reload them continuously, or risk a malfunction if the casing ruptures. Realistically, you can only reload them a few times before you should scrap them and melt them down,” Shawn stated before cycling a new round in. “Honestly, you should only use them once, depending on the material.”
“Is that your experience talking?” Regia asked, eyes lit with curiosity.
“Research, and my hobbies. The casings could also stand to be tapered, you have straight cylinder casings which can get stuck in the chamber. A tapered chamber would help immensely with extraction.” He fired again at the four hundred meter target, putting the round dead center in the head of the target.
The five-hundred-meter target fell without effort. But, he also knew at that distance, the power of the round would not be as substantial. Never mind the idea that proper gunpowder, or magical rounds, could up the possibilities, if someone hadn’t already beat him to the punch. “Varrick’s a gunsmith, yes?”
“He knows more than he claims,” Garrett said with a slight scowl. “Old bird might just have a bad history with it.”
“Well, I’m gonna need him, and every book you guys have on these rifles, and their construction. I can think of a lot of improvements. Chief among them, a windage and adjustable sight to account for bullet drop. Glass optics would help, too. I saw one or two rifles with glass optics, but I'm guessing those are prized possessions." He emptied the feed tube by cycling the action, then checked to see if the chamber was empty, before handing the weapon to Garrett.
“Great. I could use better weapons. Because swinging magical weapons at a beast up close, isn’t my thing,” he added with a chuckle.
“I’m decent with some close-range stuff. Daggers. I previously used a sledgehammer for a job when they tore down buildings,” Shawn shrugged. “Not as good with a bow as I am a rifle, but I can do it.”
“That’s impressive. What was the draw weight?”
“Ah…what’s the number…maybe forty-five kilos?” Shawn pondered. Nobody in this world likely knew the imperial system. “Anyway, I thought we had a two-parter here, using our gestalts.”
“Eh, let’s let people have their target practice, first,” Regia shrugged, before peering at him intently. “You, however, are gonna be showing me fowlpower.”
“I think you mean firepower,” he corrected, even as she laughed at her pun. He furrowed his brow. “Oh great, you’re picking up puns from Claire, now?”
“Sisters!” Claire beamed while grinning evilly at him, and high-fiving Regia.
“Let’s just get to the burning stuff once we’re done.” While the rest of the recruits were taking turns practicing, he sat cross-legged–or, cross-clawed, he supposed–and worked on his focus on his core. Garrett was watching intently, when he dared to crease open an eye.
“What are you doing, indeed?” Garrett asked, as he sat down.
“This is a little technique I developed to get me through some stuff.” Shawn could feel that pulse of energy in his core–likely, more replenished since yesterday. It was different from his normal muscular endurance–a second reservoir of potential since he didn’t have difficulty feeling it. Garrett leaned in, curious. “You see…I had two things in my life that went wrong. Only one of which, I had any impact on."
“Your sister drowned…and likely got stolen by one of the Radiants, here,” he said quietly, green eyes focused on him, while he felt for that strand of current in his body. He found it faster than before, now that he knew what to feel for.
“Yeah. The first thing in my life that could have broken me for good, was…awful.” He mentally tugged at that current, like operating an ethereal switchboard. The one that made it feel like an inferno, in his veins. He could feel a trickle of it, pulsing weakly, no stronger than the warmth of a campfire in his core. It was different than the feeling of an electrical pulse from the force barrier. Distinct. More untamed. He had to throttle that power tighter, to achieve the same level of restriction to his claws.
"You mentioned something about your father, when we were walking to Vea'lant." Shawn nodded, softly while focusing on that spark of warmth.
“My father was not a good man, Garrett. I worry constantly about becoming just like him.”
“So…you took up some kind of meditative approach?”
“Yeah. It…helped take the edge off the day. Some people choose alcohol. Some drugs. Some choose despair. After Maggie disappeared…I chose this, and when I could, forays into the wilderness to go hunting, putting myself into survival mode, to help rebuild my focus. And, maybe my compulsive need to build stuff."
He let a small trickle of that hot energy go, coursing through his core, and he felt the spark of flame on his claw tips. He didn’t open his eyes, but he could feel a tiny spark of flame, hovering over his palm, gentle and warming. “When I was practicing with my gestalt earlier…it helped keep my focus. It’s probably the most important thing I ever learned. Nothing my father imparted to me, ever came close. He tried to make me like him, and pushed me as far from that outcome as possible.” A bitter laugh ensued. “My mother taught me patience, calm, and control after he was gone. She might have also saved my life.”
Garrett let out a grunt of acknowledgment. “What did your father do that was so bad?”
Shawn opened his eyes and glanced at Garrett, the flame rising in height and temperature, but he kept that power flow restricted. Mentally throttled. He would not let his anger direct the intensity of this power.
“He hurt us. And did worse, to others.”
Yeah. Shawn's father was not a nice guy.
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