Stage 1 Drive (VSmgAB)
Stage 1 Drive (Shift Happens)
Stage 2 Drive/Camp (Shift Happens)
Stage 2 Camp (VSmgAB + Shift Happens)
Stage 3 Camp (VSmgAB + Hillbilly Rollers + Aeromad + Ambassadors) Part 1, Part 2
Stage 4 and 5; “send it!”
Stage 6 and 7 “Catching Up” (VSmgAB)
Stage 8 “Target Practice” (VSmgAB and Shift Happens)
It was only fitting, Kayden thought, that Shitbox Rally started with a bit of “before the race” target practice, and now it ended with some “after the race” target practice. The range they’d set up the day before was still intact, their backdrop still out to sea, the targets now having a fine layer of wind-tossed sand dust clinging to them. In other words, the range was almost exactly the way they’d left it.
The end result was that everyone in Shift Happens had come out for a bit of shooting. Kivenaal, Takaraya, and Malavera carried their rifles out to the range while Kaylie, Kayden, Jayde, Kasiya, and Rukari brought pistols with them.
They hadn’t been at the range too long before they had some added company, though it had been long enough for Jayde to have a 4-inch group of 6 shots on one of the 100 meter targets.
That company was in the ‘speshul forces’ a good 30 feet further down the beach near the firing lanes, themselves preparing for their target shooting exercise.
The group of now 5 was stood around a rather crude fixed-wing drone with a Nitromethane engine up front.
Next to it, a banner of sorts just laid there in the sand.
“Alright. No enemy is just gonna stand there like a cardboard cutout and wait for you to shoot them.
Which is why we are aiming for moving targets today. A target is attached to the drone, which in turn will drag the target behind itself.
We shall take turns piloting and aiming.” Constantin explained, gathering a wave of excitement from the recruits.
Only a couple of minutes later, the drone was ready as the Nitrometh-Engine screamed to life, followed by a couple pre-flight checks to make sure everything was functional.
Constantin was first to pilot, with Jacques to take aim at the banner behind.
As soon as the tiny screaming two-stroke screeched to life, everyone in the Shift Happens crew knew it, folding ears flat against the noise despite having hearing protection in.
Kayden watched as the small aircraft gained altitude, then said, “I get that it needs to burn fuel to reach the range requirements, but there is nothing stealthy about that drone.”
Jayde stared at the target streaming behind the drone, mentally judging whether he thought he could hit it if he was given the chance. After a moment of thought, he decided to speak up with, “Constantin, after everyone else has had a chance, mind if I try six shots against the target? Completely understandable if you say no, it’s military equipment and I’m not military, but I have to ask.”
Kivenaal looked over at Jayde, then said, “Jayde, there’s no fucking way you can hit that drone target with your pistol. Even I couldn’t do it.”
Jayde, almost in an act of defiance, stepped to one of the 200 meter lanes, cocked the hammer, and put a .44 Magnum bullet low and to the left of the target, but still quite visibly on the target board.
“O…kay, then. Don’t mess with the pistol sniper,” Kivenaal quipped, realizing that now that Jayde knew where the bullets were going at that distance, he might be able to hit the target properly next time.
Kaylie laughed. “Well, at least we know Jayde has some limits with that gun. That said, target board’s the size of a man. 200 meters with a pistol is a hell of a shot.”
“If the drone is still alive by that point, go ahead.” Constantin confirmed while piloting the drone out to sea for the first pass, “The drone is de-facto civilian tech and not even meant to be stealthy. We have an electric scout drone that has far longer endurance, but not enough power to drag the banner along with it.”
Soon after, the drone went parallel to shore, when Jacques sent his five rounds towards the banner.
A couple of them hit, which still garnered considerable praise from the others.
His performance got rewarded with the remote and he took a moment to adjust to it’s controls before making his pass along the shoreline.
“Patel. Your Turn. Don’t fuck up the drone.” Constantin called out.
“As if he is gonna even come clo…” William started, interrupted by Rohan.
“LOOK! I’M A BOFORS GUN! THIHIHI!” he shouted, followed by an entire magazine of 7.62mm NATO being unleashed at the drone instead of the banner. In a remarkable (and decidedly unlucky) feat of marksmanship, a slew of them manage to connect, turning both wings into finely-cut swiss cheese.
“I SAID DO NOT FUCK UP THE DRONE GODDAMNIT!” Constantin blared.
“I Got this, i got this. Still flies good, somehow. Still good” Jacques repeated, “though he did good in aiming at the wrong thing…”
“Yep. His turn.” William and Hans added, not necessarily because he deserved it, but more because they wanted to see the world burn after Rohan got the helm.
Having gotten at least loose permission from Constantin that, provided the drone was still flying by the end of this, he’d get his chance at shooting the target, Jayde decided he’d better work on his accuracy. Lining up on the 200 meter target again, he took the remaining five shots, making a slow, creeping, steady line from where his first round had hit until he was within a fist-sized distance away from the bullseye.
“Merciful Dancing Sisters, Jayde! How the fuck do you do that?” Kivenaal said, staring at Jayde’s target. “A few more of those and you’d be in the center.”
“That’s a good…” plop “Shot…” -Constantin
Not even ten seconds after Rohan has been handed the remote, one could see the drone disappear into the ocean
“I crashed it,” he called out to hysterical laughter from the remaining recruits, joined by a rather confused Valentin.
“May i ask what is going on here? Heard a screaming 2 stroke and figured to check things over here.”
Wheeeze “Rohan just… breath Kamikaze’d the drone… breath into the FUCKING SEA!!” William replied, still within the laughing fit of the century.
“No target practice for whoever it was that asked. Imma go get it, then…” Constantin grumbled before running out to sea, still in full uniform and everything.
As soon as the drone nose-dived straight into the ocean, Jayde sighed. “Well, that’s just great. And here I was figuring I might get a chance to really test my skills.”
“From where I’m standing,” Kayden said, “that’s 5 out of 6 shots on the target at 200 meters with a pistol. And that’s a four-inch barrel, not some 8 or 10 inch hunting barrel, either.”
When Valentin came over, Jayde still had a slight scowl on his face, looking out at the now-crashed drone bobbing up and down in the water. Shortly after, he opened the cylinder, dumped out his six spent cartridges, reloaded the revolver, and holstered it. “So, now how am I supposed to improve my skills?” Jayde grumbled.
Takaraya shrugged, then held out his rifle for Jayde. “Shorten the stock up a little bit and you should be able to fire this. Valentin managed it, so it should be safe for you.”
Jayde accepted the rifle, taking the magazine out and making sure the chamber was empty while he adjusted the stock length to something a bit more comfortable. Still unloaded, he aimed at the target he’d shot with the revolver to make sure his adjustment was good, then set the rifle on the table, put the unfired round back in the magazine, and loaded it back into the rifle. Once Constantin returned with the drowned drone, Jayde picked the rifle back up and aimed at the target.
Click.
“Safety’s still on, Jayde,” Takaraya said.
Constantin’s recovery of the drone was rather unremarkable as he dragged it back to shore like a raft of sorts, even getting to witness the laughing fit die down as he waded out of the shallow end of the beach, dropping the drone, banner included, by Rohan’s feet.
“You just got promoted to Civilian. Congratulations,” Constantin stated, soaking wet and full of anger, “go get civvie clothing.”
“ Worth It. Anyone got cash i can borrow?” Rohan asked into the group of people present.
“Hold on… let me get my ‘wallet’,” Valentin sighed and went to turn around, heading back to Robert II.
“You have local currency?” Rohan asked, knowing that Valentin obviously is not from here.
“Won it last year by setting a rail speed record…” Valentin quipped back nonchalantly, still walking away to fetch the funding.
With everyone on the proper side of the firing line once again, Jayde looked at the controls on Takaraya’s rifle. He knew one position was full-auto, the other was semi-auto, but couldn’t remember which was which, and couldn’t read the Khalan letters used either. Selecting the middle position, Jayde racked the charging handle, shouldered the rifle, took aim at the 200 meter target, and squeezed the trigger.
Unfortunately for Jayde, he’d picked the wrong setting, and after the first round went off and hit the target, the spent shell casing flying casually off to Jayde’s right, another fired straight afterward. Jayde froze up at the unexpected second shot, pinning the trigger down as he fought to keep the weapon pointed safely down-range. In ten seconds, it expended the full 30 round magazine, leaving a rain of empty .50 BMG shells tinkling on the ground. No sooner had the weapon stopped firing, Jayde dumped the empty magazine on the table and set the rifle on it soon after, rubbing his now-rather-sore shoulder.
“That was… Quite an unpleasant experience,” Jayde said.
While Valentin was away, the remaining military personnel more or less followed him back to the trailers, where they would cautiously unpack the other, still functional drone for some totally-legit scouting of the area surrounding the beach. ( 
)
Upon returning, Valentin just saw Jayde after his unintentional mag-dump:
“Well at least your shoulder survived the full magazine. I have doubts that mine would hold up as well,” he chuckled, before handing a couple Silver Syrkals to Rohan.
“72 USD in local currency. That should get you until… tomorrow afternoon, i think,” Valentin spoke as he closed the suitcase back up, setting it aside where it would not bother anyone.
Without much of anything spoken, Rohan practically ran off giggling with his newfound ‘wealth’ to get clothing procured.
“I somehow have doubts that i am getting that money back… Anyway,” Valentin said, now addressing the Shift Happens Crew present, “i am a man of word and i shall keep it. A few days ago, i said that i would try your handguns some other time. Now i am here, if that is okay with you.”
Jayde rubbed his shoulder, then said, “I’m just glad that I fired it like a right-hander would. If I’d done that properly, I would have absolutely hammered the hell out of the old bite scar. Not sure I want to fire any more out of that thing.”
When Valentin mentioned that he wanted to try some handguns, Kayden and Kaylie smiled. “Heard about that, yeah. Let’s line 'em up and give Val a choice,” Kaylie said. She started the lineup of options by putting her Walther P99 on the table, then watched as everyone else who had one drew a pistol and set it on the table.
Kayden set down his modified Colt 1911. Kivenaal set down one of his Smith & Wesson Model 500 revolvers and then took a moment to pull his replica Colt Peacemaker out of his boot. Rukari set a black Desert Eagle on the table next to Malavera’s brushed-stainless Desert Eagle, and Jayde set down his Smith & Wesson Model 29 revolver. At the end of the gun selection, two rather-quite-large pistols joined the collection, with Kasiya drawing a fairly large revolver and setting it on the table with a slight thud, and Takaraya placing his service pistol there as well.
Kayden looked at the collection of guns, then sighed. “Hey, can we please order these in some way that makes sense? Seriously, guns with higher recoil go over on the right, lighter recoil to the left,” he said.
Eventually, the lineup ended up making some sense, from the P99 sitting next to the 1911, the Colt Peacemaker in .357 Magnum next to the 1911 on the other side, then Jayde’s .44 Magnum, Malavera’s Desert Eagle, Rukari’s Desert Eagle, Kivenaal’s .500 Magnum, then Kasiya’s heavy revolver, and lastly, Takaraya’s service pistol.
Kasiya looked over at Kaylie, then said, “I’m not entirely sure why Takaraya and I need to have our wrist-breakers on the table. Or Kivenaal and Rukari, for that matter.”
What already happened with the rifles a few days prior repeated itself, but with greater magnitude. Valentin, having shot a gun all of twice, was filled with insecurity.
“Back to square one, are we? I know that the Glock i shot once either already has more than ideal recoil or simply was too small for my apparently massive hands. Probably both…” Valentin mentioned, looking at his outstretched right hand to prove his point to himself.
Meanwhile at the Speshul Forces Camp, they were in the process of preparing the second drone, which was considerably quieter than the first, being electrically powered and substantially lighter.
Also, confidence in it surviving was greater, now that the worst possible pilot now cannot crash the drone anymore.
Kayden looked over the table of handguns, then back to Valentin. “We organized the weapons so that the ones with the least amount of recoil are on the left, the ones that will kick the hardest are on the right. I know Kaylie carries with the safety on, I don’t carry with a live round in the chamber, and that .357 revolver next to my gun is single action with an empty chamber under the hammer. Kaylie’s gun might be a bit too small for you, but I’m hoping my pistol, this one here, will be at least somewhat compatible.”
After a moment, he then asked the group, “Of those with semi-automatic handguns, who here carries with a live round in the chamber?”
When only Rukari and Takaraya raised their hands, Kayden smiled, then said to Valentin, “Okay, looks like once you’ve made your choice, you’ll have to pull back on the slide to chamber a round. Looks like most of us like the added gun safety of not having a live one in the chamber.”
“Had a close call about two years ago,” Malavera said, “when drawing my gun from the holster.”
“In fairness, I thought he did it on purpose at first. His bullet hit a scorpion on the floor,” Kivenaal said, “so I simply yelled at him for it being overkill. When he explained that he’d drawn it to unload it and clean it, however, I had to smack him over the head, several times, for putting his finger on the trigger when he had no intent to shoot.”
“Less recoil sounds good, i guess…” Valentin said as he mentally discarded everything to the right of the .357 Peacemaker, also conveniently ignoring the accidental discharge story.
The P99 to the far left also was practically ignored, since it seemed similar in size to the known-to-be-too-small Glock that Val was vaguely familiar with.
As such, the lowest-recoil weapon on the table was Kayden’s Colt 1911, which Valentin took a hold of, taking care to not handle the gun in any way that could even remotely be deemed unsafe.
“Okay… Safety is there… this more than likely is the magazine release. Trigger is obvious… hmmmmm…” Valentin quietly mumbles to himself while inspecting Kayden’s gun for anything not already familiar to him from earlier. Getting a feel for what the grip was shaped like, he was both startled and surprised.
“I know it presumably is molded to your hands, but it somehow feels… secure… like i can use my full hand to grasp the grip,” Valentin mentioned as he pointed the still-not-chambered weapon down-range for test aiming.
Kayden chuckled. “We do have similarly sized hands. I’m a bit bigger across the palm, but it looks like we have fingers that are close to the same length,” he said in response to Valentin’s mention that he could use his full hand to hold onto the grip. “That, and I hate finger grooves, so it’s smooth, which means you’re not dealing with where I usually put my fingers.”
By this time across camp, the small drone is airborne and making laps around camp and it’s immediate surroundings, initially piloted by Constantin to show the intended flight path. Soon after, the remote was handed off to William, who… managed to not crash immediately.
Valentin, meanwhile, moved over a couple of lanes, thus freeing up the other guns for their respective owners to take as well as shoot at a target that he deemed as being more manageable to hit.
The slide was racked and soon after, the first round went downrange.
While nowhere near centered, it actually managed to hit the rings of the target slip.
“Well… my wrists are not dead.”
With Valentin having chosen a pistol, the rest of the crew holstered the remaining weapons, choosing to watch as Valentin did a little bit of target practice.
Kivenaal, not wanting to miss an opportunity to show off a little, drew all four of his revolvers and fired a four-shot volley at his chosen target, managing to land all four on the paper, though in a bit of a messy group.
Valentin was too focused on his own thing as the second round went towards the target near the first but still nowhere near the bullseye.
Elsewhere, William seemed to have the time of his life and felt comfortable enough doing some… less-than-civil maneuvering.
“Knock it off…” Constantin warned, still annoyed at Rohan for having FUBARd the other drone.
“Alright alright…” William replied, managing to keep his composure for all of 15 seconds before he was back at it, at which point Constantin lost all hope and decided to just wait it out and let stupidity solve itself.
Stupidity DID solve itself when William went to ‘have a look’ at the range, where he promptly lost control of the drone similar to how Rohan did it.
“Oh Fuck,” he called out before seeing the drone plonk down somewhere near the gun range.
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