Hours later, after a bit of sleep, Jack, James, and Jody venture off to the other side of Cryton to get in Jack's first round of target practice before the big showdown with the Sabaku No Ei. "Alright Jack, look alive", James says as he, Jack, and Jody disembark from the transport craft. "Was I sleeping that hard on the ride back here?", Jack says while carrying a breakfast smoothie they got on their way in. "Definitely didn't think you were dead back there", Jody quipped, "you snore like a Porixian." "Just when I'm asleep while sitting up. Your seat doesn't go back far enough, James." "My ship's meant for combat, not kicking back and getting your beauty rest in. Now, you guys ready for this or what?"
"I'm ready, but what's Jody doing here? I thought it was just the two of us, and plus you and Jody were like… not cool with each other for a bit there", Jack says, realizing he should've asked this earlier. "James and I do have some philosophical differences we need to work through, but he at least acknowledged that I am better at certain kinds of gunfighting than he is, so he thought this would be a good way to extend the olive branch. ("What's this got to do with olives?") I'm gonna teach you how to fire from a standing position, and work on your accuracy against a moving target…" "And then, I'm gonna get into stuff like firing under pressure, and moving through a gunfight without getting smoked. Basically, she's gonna teach you how to fight like a cop, and I'm gonna teach you how to fight like a mercenary." "And we're gonna have to do all that, and get to the ambush site in… seven hours, so um… tick tock."
Once Jack nods in agreement, Jody walks over and hands him her laser pistol. "Alright Jack, the first rule you need to understand about these things is that they're incredibly dangerous. Do not, I repeat DO NOT point this at anything you don't want to stay alive. The safety is on right now, so just twist that knob to turn the safety off, and we're gonna start with some air blanks." "What're air blanks?" "They just shoot little blasts of air instead of hard laser blasts. It simulates a gunshot in terms of accuracy, kickback, and firing speed, but won't do much more than knock a metal can over."
Jack takes the gun and examines it a little, turning off the safety, and letting out a soft sigh in despair. "You ok?", Jody says, wondering why he isn't in as much of a hurry as she and James are. "Yea, I just… didn't think I might be… you know… shooting people when I signed up for all this. I just wanted to save Kate, and didn't think about what it would take to do that." Jody nods beside him, trying to empathize with Jack. She looks over to James, and sees if he knows what to say here, gesturing to him with a look of distress on her face. She knows how to help people who need things, but not people who need emotional support. James isn't much better in that regard, but he walks over and pats Jack on the back, which Jody mimics, trying to seem like she knows what she's doing here.
A few tears start running down Jack's face, as the other two offer him the support he needs. "I just really miss her…", he says as puts his head into his hand. Unfortunately, as he does this, he accidentally fires the pistol in his other hand, and a sharp blast of air hits Jody in the belly, doubling her over a bit. "Jody! Are you…" "I'm good, don't worry. We got shot with these things in training all the time", she says as she tries to catch her breath. As she does, James takes the pistol out of Jack's hand, and turns the safety back on.
"Look, Jack. I know we told the Don that you'd be there, but if you don't want to do this, he won't be that upset if you're not at the battle. He probably just wants me there anyway", James says as does his best to be sympathetic, and is sort of doing that in a very pragmatic and somewhat harsh sort of way. "Like, maaaaaaaybe you could stay in the ship and provide covering fire from the turret. That way you can stay out of danger, and you don't have to… be in the crossfire?" "I mean… does it matter? I'd still be doing it, no matter how far away I'm firing it from", he says with a sharp wince on his face. He looks over at the gun in James's hands, and reaches out to get it back. "For Katey…", he says to James, ready to do what has to be done.
As a freshly-recovered Jody shows Jack the proper stance to stand at to fire the pistol properly, James takes a bag of trash from his office, and sets up several targets for him to fire at, like some bottle cans and old holograms of people James has hunted down before. Jack's only knowledge about weaponry comes from watching old movies, so Jody needs to correct nearly everything about his stance. She faces him forward instead of standing sideways. She makes him place both hands on the pistol. She makes him spread his feet apart to get a wide stance. She makes him use both eyes instead of having one closed. She keeps moving and adjusting parts of his body, and eventually Jack looks at Jody with a flirty look on his face from all this physical contact. A look that's promptly shot down by a look of upset annoyance from Jody. Upon seeing that look, he snaps back to attention, and tries to look as focused on the task at hand as he can.
"OK, that should be enough targets to last you for a little while. Let's see how you do." "Alright Jack, take a deep breath in", she says as she does the same thing to show him how it's done. As Jody exhales, she says "aaaaaand fire", and Jack lets a shot go on his exhale, missing it just to the left. She goes behind him, and stands on her tiptoes to try and look down his sights to see what he's seeing. "Try and make sure he's not leaning forward any", James says from the sideline. "James, I thought we said we wouldn't interfere with each other's lessons." James looks frustrated and upset, and knows that Jack was leaning back a bit, but he did agree to do that, so he bites his tongue and stays silent.
Jack notices himself that he was actually leaning forward a bit, and corrects it without input from Jody. Once she stands clear from him, Jack takes another exhale and fires again. This time, he clips one of the cans and sends it flying. He looks over at Jody and James in excitement, like he just made his first soccer goal and is looking to Mom and Dad for approval. Jody tells him to keep shooting, while James nods after noticing him following his advice. Jack looks back at the cans, and starts firing at them. It takes a few shots for him to hit some of them, but he hits all of his targets without needing to reload.
Next, James sits against a tree a little downrange, ready to toss cans across the field while Jack tries to shoot them out of midair. "Alright Jack, remember you're not trying to shoot the cans, you have to shoot where they're gonna be by the time your shot gets there, ok?" "Aren't the lasers like, instant? Like you just push the button and then boom, light?" "Yes, but the time it takes for your brain to tell your fingers to push the button, and the computer in the gun to form the hard laser takes enough time that your target might be a few inches to the right by the time the laser gets there."
Jack nods and tries to visualize what that means, but everytime he shoots, the blast goes through where the target was when he fired. "A little to the right, Jack. You're gonna be aiming at a blank area when the gun fires, but it'll meet the blast when the laser gets there." This still isn't quite landing with Jack, but he aims a bit to the right, and starts hitting the targets. He even hits a couple when James changes the speed or angle of the throws. ("The cans don't wanna get hit, so they might move at a different speed or to different cover.") Jody thinks about admonishing him again for interfering in her lessons again, but she'd probably ask him to increase the difficulty of the shots eventually, so it's fine. For now.
When James gets his turn to show off his knowledge to the young fella, he gets extremely excited, not just because Jody had been holding him back, but also he hasn't got to show anyone the ropes of combat fighting in years. Jody gets into position behind a bush and starts laying down a long wave of laserfire, like she's trying to simulate multiple people firing at Jack and James, who're hiding behind a pair of trees. "OK, Jack. The first thing we need to do is figure out where exactly the laser blasts are coming from", James shouts to him over the sound of the laser blasts. "Gotcha!", Jack eagerly says, as he sticks his entire head out from behind the tree to try and locate her, and takes an air blank directly to the face. "That makes us even!", Jody shouts from her vantage point.
James has to hold back his laughter, and only partially does so. As he laughs though, his hair sticks out from the side of the tree he's standing behind, and Jody shoots an air blank right through his pointy hair. "NO MERCY!", she shouts as the shots keep ringing out. Jack starts to sit back up with a bruise starting to swell up his cheek. He lets out a painful moan before turning to James and saying "she's behind that log right there". "OK, good job, but don't do that in the field." "Yea, got that, so how am I supposed to locate her?"
"Well, for starters, if you poke your head out, do it just enough to see her with one eye. That way she has less to aim for." Jack looks out there and tries to see where she is again, this time managing to locate her before she can get another shot on him. "OK, now you might have to blind fire a little to get her to take cover herself", he says while firing his own laser with blanks around the corner until the fire stopped from her direction. When that happens, Jack sees an opening, and leans out from around the corner to fire back at her. After a few shots whiz over her head, she fires a couple rounds into the air, signaling that he's passed that part of the lesson.
The three of them practice a few more drills together over the next several hours, redoing a few lessons they had done earlier to make sure that they'd stuck. As they get closer to the end of their training time. James is showing Jack how to move from cover to cover, a useful thing since the goal of the mission is to keep pushing Goroh's men back to their ship. James starts by running with his head ducked down low to reduce his chances of getting hit, then rolling in behind a bush, smooth as butter.
"Now, when you get to about fifteen feet from the bush, you're gonna use your left hand to plant down, making three points of contact with your hand and two legs. Then you're gonna lean forward and to the right a bit, imagine you're a chair with a missing leg, and you're just gonna roll all the way through, and land right into the cover. This'll make it so that on the last stretch of running you're doing, you'll be even lower to the ground and more compact, meaning less space is shootable." Jack nods and starts running, trying to get some momentum going, but when he rolls, he faceplants right onto the dirt.
"You have to tuck your head!", Jody shouts from a distance. James looks at her with an annoyed look. "Really, Jody?" "What? There's only one to actually do a forward roll like that, so it had to be said." "And you didn't think I was gonna do that?" "I didn't say anything when you were showing him how to shoot from behind cover, and it nearly took an hour." "How was that my fault? That's like the hardest part of the whole process!" "Well, maybe it wouldn't be if you would listen." ("Hey guys…") "We both agreed not to interfere in each other's processes, I kept my mouth shut when you were doing your lesson, but now that it's my turn, I have to listen to you?" ("Guys?") "Well, when you're doing it objectively wrong, then yes. Otherwise someone might get shot when we do this for real." ("Guuuuuuys…") "OH REALLY? And what did I do objectively wrong? This should be good…" "GUYS!"
James and Jody turn to see Jack looking at them, a little mad that they're wasting time bickering, and not seeing his progress. He gets another running start, plants his hand, and rolls through fairly elegantly, although the landing is a little rough. "Ta-da…", he says with a big smile while laying on the ground. James and Jody look at each other, and know they can't keep arguing like this and expect to succeed together. "Good job, Jack", Jody says tiredly. "Yea, it seems like you've got a good handle on the basics", Jack says as he looks over at the horizon, the sun is about to start going down for them, and since they're on the other side of the fairly small planet, that means the sun is about to rise at the battlefield. "I think that's all we can do for now. All that's left to do is head out there and show those Goroh grunts what you've learned."