Chapter 63: Keeping the Promise Part 1

The heavy blast doors of Briefing Room Bravo hissed shut as the last of the tactical staff filed out into the brightly lit corridor.

John rubbed his eyes, letting out a long, exhausted breath. The session had dragged on for nearly three hours, covering everything from drone telemetry and munition consumption to troop rotations and future forward operating base layouts. He stretched his arms over his head, feeling the joints pop after sitting under fluorescent lights for so long.

He had barely taken two steps toward the exit when a pair of light leather boots stopped right in front of him.

Elenore stood waiting. True to her word, she had spent the entire duration of the briefing standing ramrod straight against the back wall, quiet as a ghost while watching glowing screens full of infrared maps and satellite feeds. Now, her amethyst eyes were wide, clear, and fixed entirely on John.

"Commander John," Elenore spoke up, her voice regaining its crisp, purposeful tone. Her long ears stood perkily through her silver hair.

"Yeah, Elenore?" John asked, rolling his neck.

"The tactical discussion is concluded," she stated plainly, tilting her chin up. "And you made a formal promise at the festival last night."

John blinked, his tired brain taking a second to connect the dots. Then it hit him.

"The firearms training," he muttered.

"Precisely," Elenore said, stepping closer with an earnest, unyielding expression. A subtle, expectant tilt touched her brow. "You agreed that after the celebration, you would teach me how to wield your thunder weapons. You promised this morning. A commander of such power would certainly not break an oath, would he?"

John stared at her eager face, feeling the sheer weight of his sleep deprivation catching up to him. Between leveling wyvern nests, dealing with Lyra’s intense advances, escaping her bed at midnight, and sitting through three hours of logistics briefs, all he wanted to do was crash on his bunk for a solid eight hours.

He let out a defeated sigh, shaking his head with a faint grin. There was simply no escaping the women on this continent.

"Alright, alright," John said, raising a hand in surrender. "A promise is a promise. I won’t back out."

Elenore’s face brightened instantly, though she quickly clamped down on her smile to preserve her dignified ranger composure. "Then where is the proving ground?"

"Not inside this facility, that’s for sure," John replied, turning toward the tactical operations center desk. He grabbed a radio transmitter off the wall, keying the flight ops frequency. "TOC, this is Commander Smith. Prep a bird for the south spit. Range Bravo."

"Copy that, Commander. Bird is spooling up on Pad Two."

John tightened the sling on his SCAR-H, settled it securely across his chest, and gestured for Elenore to follow. "Come on. The infantry training range is on the southern end of the island. We’ll take a short hop over by helicopter."

Elenore fell into step right beside him, her boots matching his pace with fluid lightness. "What kind of weapon will I learn first? Something small, or one of the long-range metal staves?"

"We’ll start with the basics before you blow your ears out," John chuckled, pushing through the heavy exit doors into the coastal wind. "Standard service rifle. Let’s see how well an elven bow translates to modern rifling."

Ten minutes later, after riding the Black Hawk across the length of the island, the helicopter touched down near the southern shoreline.

The training complex was a massive, open expanse carved into the rugged coast. High dirt berms walled off several wide shooting lanes, backed by reinforced concrete backstops. Steel silhouette targets and paper bullseyes were staged at intervals stretching from twenty-five meters all the way out to five hundred. The distant crack-crack-crack of 5.56 rounds echoed from an adjacent bay where a squad of infantrymen was running transition drills under the watchful eye of a range safety officer.

John led Elenore down the metal ramp toward a designated firing station equipped with a sturdy wooden bench, several ammo cans, and a row of target monitors.

"First rule on a live-fire line," John said, stopping by a table and picking up a pair of olive-drab electronic over-ear protectors. "Hearing protection. Your senses are sharp enough as it is. Without these, modern gunfire will rupture your eardrums in seconds."

Elenore eyed the bulky plastic headset with visible suspicion, tilting her head as her ears twitched. "You expect me to clamp these strange contraptions over my head? How am I to read the wind and the subtle shifts in the air?"

"You don’t need to read the wind at fifty paces, Elenore," John said dryly, holding them out to her. "You need to keep from going deaf. Put them on, or we turn around right now."

Pouting slightly at his firm tone, she reluctantly tucked her silver hair behind her shoulders and slid the headset over her pointed ears, carefully adjusting the soft foam cups until they sealed against her head. Her eyes widened slightly as the ambient ocean breeze and turbine hum suddenly dropped to a faint, muffled whisper.

"Everything sounds... muted," she remarked, her voice sounding strange to her own ears.

"They’re electronic hearing protection. The microphones pass normal voices through, but the instant a gunshot goes off, the circuitry compresses the sound and shuts out the blast wave," John explained, slipping on his own pair.

He unslung his FN SCAR-H and rested it on the bench.

"This is the FN SCAR-H," John said, turning the battle rifle in his hands so she could examine the layout. "Standard-issue service rifle for our frontline forces. Chambered in 7.62x51mm NATO. It’s got range, punch, and enough stopping power to drop an armored target in its tracks."

Elenore leaned closer, her amethyst eyes narrowing with analytical focus as she traced the sharp, modern angles of the receiver, the rail systems, and the heavy, ribbed magazine.

"It looks heavier than the weapons your soldiers carry down the bay," she observed.

"It is," John said. "Those guys over there are running standard carbines. But the SCAR-H is what you’ll see in the hands of my primary units out here. It hits twice as hard. If you’re going up against monsters, this is what tears through it."

He pressed the magazine release, catching the straight twenty-round box magazine with his off hand, then pulled the reciprocating charging handle back with a sharp, metallic clack to verify the chamber was clear. He set the rifle down flat on the bench, muzzle pointing safely downrange.

"First lesson: four golden rules," John said, holding up four fingers. "One: treat every firearm as if it’s loaded, always. Two: never point the muzzle at anything you don’t intend to destroy. Three: keep your finger straight and off the trigger until your sights are on target and you’ve made the decision to shoot. And four: be sure of your target and what’s beyond it."

Elenore listened with complete stillness, nodding slowly.

He gestured toward the bench.

"Pick it up. Firm grip on the pistol grip with your dominant hand, support hand on the front handguard. Let’s see your stance."

Elenore approached the bench with quiet grace. Her slender fingers closed around the textured polymer grip, lifting the heavy battle rifle with surprising ease. She brought the folding stock up toward her shoulder, leaning back slightly into the wide, bladed stance of a traditional elven archer.

John immediately shook his head. "Stop. You’re set up for a recurve, not high-caliber recoil."

Before she could question him, John stepped up close behind her. He placed one hand on her right shoulder to square it forward, his other hand reaching down to gently tap the outside of her hip.

"Feet shoulder-width apart," John instructed, his chest close to her back as he adjusted her posture. "Lean your weight slightly forward into the gun, nose over toes. If you lean back like you’re drawing a bow, the 7.62 recoil is going to knock you right on your ass."

Elenore stiffened slightly at his touch, the tips of her pointed ears flushing a faint, unmistakable pink under the headset cups. She cleared her throat, blinking rapidly, but forced her body to hold the aggressive, forward-leaning firing stance he commanded.

"I am... leaning forward," she murmured, trying to keep her tone cool and collected. "Is this acceptable, Commander?"

"Much better," John said, stepping to her side and tapping the selector switch near her thumb. "Thumb on the selector. Flip it from ’Safe’ to ’Semi’ when you’re ready. I’ll load a three-round mag. We’re aiming for that steel silhouette at fifty meters."