Target Practice

Posted on 10 Jul 2016 @ 4:43pm by Commodore Harvey Geisler & Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale

3,127 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Risky Business
Location: Deck 4 || Firing Range
Timeline: MD 5 || 1900 hours

Harvey couldn't believe he'd been at his post for sixteen hours. Well, truthfully, he could. As the day progressed, he could feel the tension rising throughout the ship. The crew had been eager to get their job done, but all they could do was wait. If only they had a way to find or track the Chimera and Cochrane...

Alas, they were helpless, and that only served to steadily increase the tension. Harvey had begun to feel tension in his own body. He nearly snapped at a bridge crewman who tried to give him a simple report. Sadly, the young ensign was not the first to push Harvey's buttons today. Harvey had vowed to stay on the bridge, or at least near it, until their targets were sighted. In light of his feelings, he chose to take a break and find a way to relieve some tension.

Except nothing sounded like it would help. He had walked through the arboretum, rec areas, and even Talons. Harvey had thought about paying Joey a visit, but even that didn't seem right. It was no surprise to him then that he approached the Armory and the attached phaser range. Though he signed up in Starfleet as a Doctor, Harvey had performed his fair share of taking lives. Of course, to him, a fair share meant more than zero. One did not fight in a war or lead Away Missions without having to face combat and make life-and-death decisions.

Firing a phaser at moving targets seemed to be the perfect way to find relief tonight. Or, at least, to reduce his tension enough to make him more approachable to the crew. Harvey entered the armory to find a Master-at-Arms present. The Captain requested a Type-III phaser rifle for training purposes. The Tellarite behind the desk complied without question, checking the firing chamber and energy cell before handing the weapon over to the Captain. Harvey was then directed to the firing range, a dark, circular room with a central platform for two officers.

Harvey stepped onto the platform and checked over the rifle. Thoughts of his life aboard the Schuster, his last assignment, came back to him. It was hard to believe that it had been a year since the accident that forced him to take medical leave. Yet, the last time he held a rifle had been at least a year before that. He was more than out of practice. Harvey only hoped that he wouldn't make a fool of himself in the process.

He raised the rifle, set for level one, into a starting position and aimed it into the darkness. "Begin," he instructed the computer. Orbs of light began to randomly appear and float throughout the room. Harvey took careful aim and fired.

When the Master-at-Arms had notified Camila that the Captain was at the firing range, the Chief of Security had dropped what she was doing, put her uniform back on and headed to the range. Something had to be wrong if the Captain were there practicing, but he could just want to blow off some steam or get in some practice. She had a feeling that he was anxious about the hunt for the Chimera and Cochrane, not to mention the rumored Romulan warbird.

As she came into the firing range, she saw the Captain already armed with a Type III phaser rifle and shooting at the probes which were designed to fire back at personnel with extremely light bursts of phaser fire. She armed herself with a Type III rifle and a pair of safety glasses, than a pair for the Captain before she approached. "Those things shoot back, Captain," she said after she had waited for him to take a break between the shots he had been firing at the probes. "You may want a pair of these." She held out the safety glasses to him.

"Huh?" Harvey asked, surprised to hear the voice of his Chief of Security beside him. He noticed the glasses that she wore, and then looked down at what was in her hand.

A stinging sensation suddenly rippled up from his thigh. It felt like a bee sting, but was nowhere near intense. If anything, it was just enough to surprise him. He grunted instantly, but rather than rub his wound, Harvey said, "Computer, pause." Instantly, there was an affirming tone and the floating lights disappeared. "Thanks," he told Camila, accepting the glasses. "Shouldn't you be sleeping on a night like tonight?" he asked, almost wondering if he should ask why she wasn't in the company of Commander Bast.

"Night before the storm, Captain," Camila said, wincing when she saw the probe score a hit on him. She probably should have paused the program before interrupting him. "I keep checking and re-checking everything that can possible go wrong and going over a hundred scenarios in my head. Is this why you're here, if I can ask?"

"Something like that." He took note of the rifle she carried, wondering if she planned to join him or step up to the platform when he finished. It was likely the latter.

She nodded at his non-answer, but she didn't figure that he'd give her a straight one. He was a Captain and she was a Lieutenant and it didn't matter if she were senior staff or not, he was most likely not going to share with her. Hefting her phaser rifle, she stepped up into the next spot beside of it. "Want to see how many we can take down before we reach one hundred?" She asked him. "Loser gets to buy the winner a drink."

His gaze followed her as she stepped up to the range, sizing her up the moment she came to a stop. After a moment, he raised his rifle and said, "Seems kind of unfair, really. Maybe, if my hits count for two, I might have a chance."

"Right," Camila said with a laugh. "You're probably pulling a fast one on me, but I'll give you that, Sir. I'm ready when you are." She brought the Type III up and flipped the holographic targeting reticle up and put the rifle to her shoulder.

Harvey left his reticle down, having once been used to not using it. "Computer," he said, inhaling deeply. "Resume." The floating lights returned and began to zip around them. Harvey instantly fired two shots, missing both targets.

"Lead the targets, Captain," she said as she tracked two of the drones and did a quick double burst on the first one and then swung around to eliminate the second one with a single shot. "Keep them in mind, but think ahead to where they're going to be."

With Camila already in the lead, all Harvey could do was grunt. Of course he knew to lead the target. Was he really that rusty? Taking her advice, he followed a drone for a couple moments before squeezing off a single shot, eliminating the drone. Another appeared beside it, and that was just as quickly eliminated. "It's easier when you can see them," he pointed out. "Maybe we need to fill this room with nebula gas."

"Computer, simulate nebula gases with a mix ratio of seventy part parts per million, medium drift," Camila ordered. The computer hesitated for a moment, then non-harmful vapor began to pour from the vents and circulate as she had ordered. "You're getting much better," she said as she took out another drone. "Should I increase the drone speed as well?"

"This is good for now," Harvey said, struggling to get another shot, only to shoot ahead of the target. He wasn't surprised that Camila had taken his suggestion seriously. "You have a hundred scenarios?" he asked, referring to an earlier statement.

"Three hundred and twelve, to be exact," she said as she squinted into the drifting vapor and fired off a double shot which eliminated one drone, but felt the sting as the other drone targeted her and fired a shot to her chest.

Harvey kindly fired at the drone, only to graze it. A second shot disabled it. "I don't even think I have ten, Camila," he said, looking back into the gas that surrounded them for another target. "What's Number Two Hundred and Forty Seven?"

'We lose seventy-five percent of our away teams and the Consortium controlled personnel board the Black Hawk. A fire fight results in the repulsion of the boards with the loss of another twenty personnel," Camila said as she fired at another drone and took it out.

Harvey blinked in response, not because she had it memorized to the exact detail, but because of the numbers and percentages she quoted. "I thought we were sending just two people over to the other ships. How do you lose seventy five percent?"

"That was for the Romulan ship, Sir," Camila said. "The scenarios for the other two ships all range from a ten percent to a ninety percent chance that they'll be killed before they ever return based on their actions and the actions of the crews on the Chimera and Cochrane. I've been through training scenarios with Corwin and she only died in one of them, and Cooper has run scenarios but didn't die."

"What?" Harvey asked, his head whipping around to face her. Two drones took the cue, firing stinging shots at both his left leg and right shoulder. He'd known that there was a chance that Joey would perish in her efforts to disable one of the Consortium ships, but this was quite a sobering thought.

Camila was surprised at his response considering she told him they could suffer staggering losses in the boarding of the rumored Romulan warbird, but it wasn't her place to ask why he had a different reaction to the news of one person dying. "Computer, freeze," she ordered and the drones stopped, but the vapor remained. "It was at level ten difficulty and she was placed n the bridge of an enemy ship. They wouldn't surrender and she set two phasers on overload. She tossed one and held the second until it exploded and killed everyone on the bridge."

"Level ten..." Harvey muttered. "In war, there's no such thing as levels of difficulty," he told her, lowering his rifle. "You get shot or you don't. You die or you don't." The Captain sighed, and lowered his head for a moment. "That's one hell of a scenario, Lieutenant." And she had over three hundred.

"It is and I agree," she said. "The best scenarios are the ones with no loss of life, we capture the ships without difficulty and we become heroes when we get back at Unity, Sir."

Harvey nodded, not exactly keen on being labelled a hero. He was certainly aware of the implications of successfully bringing home the Chimera and the Cochrane. Doing so would certainly give Starfleet the upper hand they would need to end this conflict, especially where they were concerned in how to identify Consortium agents. A total game changer. "Given your number, what would you give us for a success rate?"

"Over all, we have an eighty percent chance of success," Camila told him honestly. "And that's with some casualties, Sir. It's not a number that I like, but I was told in Academy that I didn't have to like anything as long as I was honest about a tactical analysis."

"They weren't wrong," Harvey said. He'd been through enough conflicts and heard too many tactical reports to last a dozen lifetimes. "And this is one of the times where that twenty percent chance of failure is pretty damn scary."

"It is, and I have no desire to be the cause of that twenty percent chance," she said soberly. "I'm still too new as a Chief for something like that to happen. I won't lie to you, Sir. I'm nervous about this and wish I had better plans. I never expected to be made Chief so soon after coming aboard, but I'll be damned if I'm going to shirk my duties or the responsibilities that I have."

Harvey looked down at his rifle and found the retractable strap. He pulled it out, attached it to the hook in the front of the rifle and slung it over his shoulder. "Years ago," he said while doing this, "after being captured, Starfleet took one look at me and placed me right back into service. I'd never been a department head, but I was suddenly expected to be the Chief Medical Officer for a transport vessel. A whole Marine battalion. Unfortunately, or fortunately, that ship didn't last long. Not long after, I found myself in command red for the first time."

He sighed. "I guess there's no real point to this other than we're often never ready for the challenges presented to us. All we can do is do our best out there when the time comes. You've already proven to me that you can do that. Now you just have to prove it to yourself."

"I don't think you'd want me to be impressed by what Starfleet did to you, Captain, but I am impressed by you. You're a good man and a great leader, Sir, and I'll follow you anywhere," Camila said. "And I'll buy you a drink any time you feel that you want one."

For all his humility, all Harvey could do was smile. "I'll have that drink, but only after I beat you here. Computer, resume." The drones returned. Harvey quickly drew his rifle back up and fired three shots, taking out two drones.

"Oh, that was dirty," Camila said as she brought her phaser rifle back up and began firing at the drones. "Computer, increase drones." Now twice as many drones appeared and began firing as she began a elaborate combat dance of turning sideways, ducking down, side stepping and more. Four drones fell under her barrage in the next thirty seconds even though she was hit two more times.

Harvey too kept getting hit. He didn't dance like Camila, but he did well in tracking and firing at targets that spun around him. His accuracy improved with every shot, though he still missed every fourth drone. As the drones increased, Harvey found himself missing more, but those he hit were good, clean shots.

Camila watched the Captain taking his shots and saw him picking and choosing his targets, but the pattern of him missing every fourth drone started to worry the back of her mind. She considered ways to suggest an improvement on it, but in the meantime she kept firing at her targets, missing one in five or six as the computer kept sending out more.

It was impossible for Harvey not to notice that the computer continued to send out drone after drone. It was one thing dealing with five targets, but gradually increasing to ten and fifteen didn't seem to help much. He felt he was being stung more than he was striking targets. In fact, he suspected he'd find burn marks on his skin and uniform when this was over. Still, he continued to fire, thinking his accuracy was improving with every shot. A glance at Camila told him she was still doing better.

Then they were done to ten drones and the speed had increased subtly until the stings were coming in swarms and the number of drones left were darting in and out of the vapor clouds like killer bees. Camila had a five point lead on the Captain and the strain was showing on the young woman as she frantically reloaded another clip in the phaser rifle and struggled to bring it up to her shoulder for the remaining volley.

Harvey's energy cell had expired as well. He replaced it without being stung by another drone, perhaps the most miraculous feat of the day. As soon as the rifle was ready, he closed the gap to two points. They were getting closer and closer to the end, and Harvey could feel his tension and aggression decrease with every pull of the trigger.

Camila grunted as the Captain took out two more drones and was tempted to switch to the wide beam setting on her phaser rifle, but knew that wouldn't be fair. With an effort, she swung the Type III in and arc and took out three more drones and nearly spun around more than she wanted to. "You're...good," she panted. "But...I'm the Chief....of Security."

He chuckled, but rapid beating from his lungs forced his aim to waiver. The beam lancing from his rifle missed its target, and the drone emotionlessly stung Harvey's left shoulder in response.

She raised her phaser again and fired two more times, taking out one drone and taking a sting from the second drone she fired at. "Come on, Sir," she said. "Don't tell me that youth is going to overcome experience."

"More like training over rusty aim," Harvey remarked, making to strike one of the remaining four drones. He fired at a third, only to graze it.

Camila took out another two drones and missed the third one as it sent her dancing out of the way of another sting from it. "We'll get you back in shape in no time, Captain," she said.

Harvey had to adjust his stance to avoid being struck by the dancing Camila. He thought of the time he'd walked in on her in the holodeck. The memory was not permitted to linger as Harvey caught sight of the final drone in the gas. He trained his sight on it and fired. The beam squarely struck the drone, immediately disabling it. With an affirming tone, the computer announced the simulation had completed. On cue, the gas was sucked back into the ventilation ducts and the disabled drones beamed away.

The computer then announced the score, confirming Harvey's suspicions. Camila had won, but not by much. Harvey smiled, flipping the safety on the rifle and lowering the muzzle. "Not bad for not firing a phaser in months, I'd say."

"Not too bad at all, Sir," Camila said as she put the safety on and took her safety glasses off. "Very well done, in fact." She took the spent clips and headed over to recharge them and set the phaser rifle down for the Master-at-Arms to break down and clean. "Drinks at Talons?" she asked him.

Harvey followed Camila. He set his rifle next to hers, as well as the glasses she'd given him when she arrived. "Gladly," he said with a smile, feeling that most of his tension had disappeared. If nothing else, he was grateful for that.

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