Heroes and Men #2

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I also post this quest on Akun if you like to read it that way. I also have map keys and fun extra stuff (planned) in there.
https://fiction.live/stories/Heroes-and-Men/8bPBtqbzBirk87YmB/home

I have a twitter you should follow if you like this:
https://twitter.com/DarjeelingQM

Lastly I apologize for not being able to update much and for this thread being a month later. I was so busy with my new job that I just ended up collapsing in bed every time I got home. I'll repost the updates from the abandoned second thread and post the planned update that I never got to post.

>[x] Identify yourself and get to business

While you would love to mess around and spook the man who just fired off a warning shot, there was a war to fight and you needed to get down to business as soon as possible.

"Captain James Gardner, the man stuck commanding your sorry asses!" you shout back "And your Lieutenant as well!"

The man leans forward to get a better view of you and Flemming. Realizing his mistake, he quickly clambered down from the barn roof and ran to the fence to unlock it for you.

Now that he was closer, you could see more of the rather tall man's features. He was darker skinned and rather tall but on the thin side if you were honest. He had a 5-o'clock shadow and his face and hands were dirty, as if he had been doing some physical labor recently.

He quickly got the fence opened and stepped aside to allow you and Flemming to enter. You considered breaking his balls a little for shooting first (at his superior no less) and asking questions later but decided not to. You were at war here and there were more important things to do.

The sharp intake of breath you heard coming from Flemming's direction indicated that he thought otherwise. Before he could open his mouth, you held your hand out.

"There are more important things to do than yelling at an over vigilant watchman Lieutenant," you said.

Surprisingly, Flemming headed your words. Perhaps he was simply too tired from the march to bother arguing with you.

"Now who might you be?" you ask the soldier.

"Rifleman Miles Lee, sir!" the soldier says.

Well now you have a name to a face.

"Well Rifleman Lee, I could have you punished for your reckless action earlier, but I realize we are fighting a war right now, all our sensors are down and we don't know if the enemy has landed forces on this planet from right under our noses," you say trying to calm him down, seeing how nervous he was "so I'll let this slide this one time. Please be less reckless next time."

"Yes sir, thank you!" Lee says saluting.

"Oh come on now, none of that," you say "I'm a common man, same as you."

Once again, Lee seems embarrassed by his mess up.

"Gardner, while you are a commoner, a certain decorum is expected from an officer, do not become so familiar with the ranks," Flemming pipes up.

You sigh. It seems Flemming has found his voice once again.

"I'll keep it in mind," you say "Now let's meet the rest of this sorry excuse for a company. Could you take us there?"

"Yes sir," Lee says "Follow me."

Lee walks off and you and Flemming follow. Lee leads you to the farmhouse. As you approach it, you hear some yelling from within.

"Anything we should be concerned about?" you ask.

"Ah it's probably nothing," Lee says with resignation.

It mustn't be the first time this has happened. You reach the door and Lee opens it for you. What greets you is a strange sight.

>>1692464
"That rabbit is mine, fair and square little girl!" a burly man who is more hair than person bellows.

"Finders keepers!" a younger voice says.

You look around for the source but have no luck finding it. You lower your line of sight, being clued in by the man mentioning a little girl. Right near your feet is what you assume is the little girl. Dressed in overalls and a flannel shirt, the only hint that the child is female are the girlish pig tails. In her hands, a rabbit leg. Judging from her sticky face and a rabbit leg you see already thrown away, you assume she already ate the other leg.

To the side, you see the other two people in your "company" cheering them on and judging from the money they were holding, likely betting on the outcome of this showdown. One was freckled with short hair, likely even younger than Flemming. The other was the striking image of what you thought of when you pictured an absentminded professor.

"The only thing you'll be finding is a long and unpleasant time out young lady!" the bearlike man said before diving at the girl.

She jumped away with unnatural grace. Now that you look at her longer, you notice that her face is off from a normal human's. The eyes a bit too big, the ears longer, the features longer and more angular. Is she perhaps one of the Sylvians you were here to fight for?

Well you could ponder that later because at the moment, you have a massive man currently heading straight towards you with no way to stop himself with the momentum he had built up.

He bowls right into you and both of you end up outside outside on the dusty ground. The wind is knocked out of your lungs by the large man.

"Oh, what's this then?" the large man says noticing you under him.

He quickly gets up and helps you to your feet, futilely dusting off your uniform.

"Ah well, it would have gotten dirty in the field anyway," he said after seeing that his massive hands were doing a better job knocking the wind out of you than cleaning your uniform.

"Now who might ye be?" he asks.

Flemming stares horrified at this lack of professionalism and the audacity of these mere rank and file soldiers to be so familiar with their commanding officer.

>>1692468
>[x] Now, I demand a clear explanation ONE AT A TIME, what is going on here!

"That is SIR to you Corporal, and it is Captain James Gardner!" you say to the huge hairy man before gesturing to Flemming "and this is Lieutenant Gordon Flemming!"

The three soldiers trade uncomfortable glances at each other. Even the small girl is nervous.

"Now, I demand a clear explanation of what is going on here," you say, and before you get swarmed by different responses you add "One at a time."

After glancing at each other some more, the youngest soldier steps up.

"Well sir-" he began before being interrupted by Flemming.

"Name and rank," he says none to kindly.

"Private Phillip Jenkins," the now identified Private Jenkins says.

"Continue," you say, motioning for him to keep going.

"Well sir, after landing on this hunk of rock and pushing off the enemy invasion force, the four of us were taken out of our regiments and placed into this experimental company. Well so called at least. We're one sorry excuse I've got to say."

You sigh.

"That'd be my fault," you say "I'm a commoner and not too many people are happy that I'm an officer. The people over at Cardinium have been dragging their feet in giving me any men so it'll just be us for now."

From their expressions, you could hear the sighs they would have let out had they not been so tense at the moment.

"Until then, we have been attached to one of the companies in the 60th Praetorian Regiment of Foot," you continue "Now keep going."

"Uh well, then we got assigned to keep watch on this abandoned farm here, in case any enemy forces had stayed hidden on the planet and were going to attack the base," Jenkins continued "With so much Zephyr particles being emitted by all the warships in orbit, every sensor around here is useless so we have to check everything ourselves."

You nod. That was in line with what the Brigadier had said.

"That still doesn't explain the unauthorized presence personnel here!" Flemming exclaimed.

Jenkins recoiled slightly.

"I'll explain that," the large hairy man said "Corporal O'Sullivan at yer service, sir."

You nod at him to continue.

"Well when we got here, we assumed the farm was abandoned like the intel had said. There was evidence that the enemy forces had attempted to burn it down before our forces forced them to retreat," he said "We found three corpses, obviously the family that had lived here. Mother, father and older sister. I won't go further into detail on what the enemy had done to them out of respect. We buried 'em and got set up here and by chance, Private Miles found that this little one was hidden out in the barn. Seeing as this her home, her family were dead and we're just uninvited guests here, we kind of just kept her around."

You nodded once more. What do you do with this information.

>[x] Be understanding

"I guess we can keep her around," you say to the delight of your men "but we can't ignore procedures forever. We are fighting a war and can't be her parents."

You walk towards the girl and kneel to get down on her level.

"I can't say that I know what it's like to lose a loving family, but it can't be easy," you tell her "You'll have to move on soon though, sorry to say. Tell me when you're ready, okay?"

You could hear Flemming sputtering indignantly in the background. Surely you were going to get a talking to about not following protocol later.

The girl slowly nods her head. You smile at her before getting back up and resuming your usual expression.

"Now that still doesn't explain the commotion I walked into just now," you say to the gathered men.

O'Sullivan rubs the back of his head.

"Well Captain, if you don't mind me saying, the rations we're given are dog shite. As a former enlisted man yourself, I'm sure you'd understand," he says "and we haven't run into any enemies in any of our patrols. We occasionally hunt some rabbits and other animals for food and well, I made the mistake of leaving some rabbit legs I just cooked on the table unguarded. You saw what happened next."

You could hear the little Sylvian girl giggle smugly. O'Sullivan's eyes narrowed slightly at the provocation but he didn't do anything otherwise.

"Hmmm, so you throw away our generous king's rations and use his ammunition to hunt some wild game which I'll remind you were imported here from his personal hunting reserve," you say looking as if you were about to chew them out.

No doubt Flemming was quite happy at you following protocol.

"Well honestly I can't blame you," you say after a pause "The rations truly are quite shit."

You hear some more spluttering from Flemming's direction.

Your men have a small, nervous laugh.

With everything cleared up, it's time to get to business.

>[X] Get a demonstration of the rifles.
>[X] Do some PT. The men have had it easy for too long.

>>1692472
"Now I'd like a demonstration of this new Dynamo Rifle that everyone's making such a fuss over," you say to your gathered men.

The men all look to the older man with slightly wiry salt and pepper hair. His face is what you thought of when you pictured our stereotypical absentminded genius.

"Well I suppose I'll do it," the man said, his accent giving you the impression of an intellectual despite the surroundings "Lance Corporal Sigismund Longstreet at your service sir."

You motion for him to get on with the weapon demonstration, he nods and begins.

"This is the Dynamo Rifle, the cutting edge in infantry weaponry," he began explaining "Developed by the Baker Firearms Corporation, this rifle is an attempt to bring energy weaponry up to the standards we expect of our conventional weaponry."

He unslings the rifle and holds it in his hands.

"While we won't be seeing self aiming energy bolts any time soon, this is an important step forward," he said "As you know, only energy weapons can pierce through infantry shields and machines of the past such as combat aircraft and tanks simply couldn't fit a large enough generator to remain mobile, power an energy weapon and maintain an adequate shield and have such become obsolete in the modern battlefield. Modern infantrymen because they have a smaller area to cover can have a powerful shield while carrying a relatively small power source but run into problems piercing an enemy's shield. The first generation energy muskets could generate powerful enough bolts of energy to rip through shields and kill instantly but were rather inaccurate. This is the solution."

He points to the handle sticking out of the side of the rifle.

"This hand crank here generates power with the super dynamo within this rifle," the said "powering the strong electromagnetic coils within the barrel to shape and better direct the bolt of energy. What results is an energy bolt that is more accurate than the type fired from standard muskets and retains its cohesion across longer distances."

You nod your head, this certainly was a very good piece of equipment on paper. Now to see how it actually worked.

>>1692625
"Now first we load the rifle like a normal musket," he said opening the breech and putting in an energy cartridge "and here comes the disadvantage."

He begins winding up the dynamo as fast as he could but even at that speed, the indicator light is slow to change.

"How long does that usually take," you ask.

"Well depends on what you want to shoot," he said "When the indicator is red, you can't fire at all. If it's yellow, you can fire but it'll be about as accurate as a musket shot."

He keeps winding until the light turns green.

"This is where you want it," he said "now of course you can crank it up some more and the indicator will turn blue. You will get a more powerful and longer range shot, but it causes stress to the rifle that it was not designed for and you might break it explosively. We are told not to do that unless there is an emergency."

"Makes sense," you say "Now, let's find something good for you to shoot at."

"How about those?" the little girl says pointing to what appears to be some flying fluff balls off in the distance "They eat all the crops and are good for nothing. We always shot at them to make them go away."

Your hand finds it's way to your chin as you think on it. On one hand you aren't supposed to cause too much damage to the local fauna and flora of a planet as part of official army policy. On the other hand, those fluff balls were annoyingly cute and were apparently pests.

"Take the shot," you say.

"Yes sir," Longstreet said and took aim.

>>1692630
After a few seconds he pulled the trigger. The acrid smell of igniting Dust filled the air as the volatile substance activated. Mined on only a few planets, Dust was what made modern civilization go round. It powered FTL drives, shields, energy weapons and made heavily miniaturized energy generators and storage possible. It was amazing how a previously hated substance that was a danger to miners looking for valuable resources became one of the most important substances in the galaxy.

A brilliant blue bolt flew out of the rifle as the a sharp crack emanated as the air was suddenly heated and then replaced by cooler surrounding air. The destructing energy spiraled its way to one of the pair of fluff balls. The bolt struck true and the creature was instantly killed, not even registering what happened before being cooked to death in under a second.

"Now obviously shields dampen some energy so enemies won't be burned to ashes like that poor creature, but perhaps it would be better if they were instantly killed," Longstreet said filling the silence.

O'Sullivan snapped out of his amazed expression first and gave Longstreet a slap on the back.

"You old bastard, is there a shot you can't make?" he bellowed "I thought for sure you wouldn't make that."

"Well, I've yet to find it," the mild mannered former professor replied with an embarrassed smile.

The rest of the men begin congratulating him, also snapping out of their amazement. It seems that this wasn't the first time Longstreet had made such a shot although they couldn't help but be amazed every time. You still are somewhat slack jawed. The shot that the older man had just made would have been impossible for someone with a musket. Hell, even someone with a rifle would be hard pressed to make that shot. Longstreet was one of a kind.

You snap out of your amazement and ask "So this rifle, how many shots per minute get it get off?"

"Ah another disadvantage," Longstreet said managing to get the rest of the soldiers to give him some breathing room "At best it can fire 3 shots per minute. Fewer under less favorable conditions."

You sigh.

"Well we can't have everything I suppose," you say "Every up has its down. I see why Gallagher was so dead set on having this weapon be introduced however."

>>1692635
"Shirley Gallagher? As in the man who is in charge of this theater Shirley Gallagher?" Jenkins asked "You know him?"

Ignore the excited boy's breech of proper protocol when addressing an officer, you answer him "Yes, that Gallagher. I knew him from the Colonial Wars. We're acquainted."

You didn't want to appear to close to the famous commander for fear of alienating the men and further angering your second in command. Speaking of which, Flemming was silently fuming at the disregard for military protocol.

"That's amazing sir," Jenkins said "I'd like to meet him meself someday."

"How about you focus on PT before you start fantasizing about our genius general," you say.

"Yeah I suppose you're right sir, I sh-" Jenkins start before cutting off "I'm sorry, PT?"

"Yes," you say, a slightly evil smile appearing on your face "You lot have had it too easy without anyone watching you. It's time to get back into shape. Remember, this is the military, not some social club for men without a good woman to live for."

In the back of your mind, you note that you might be projecting your lack of success in romance onto the men but that's no matter.

The men all collectively sigh. Flemming looks terrified.

>>1692648
Time passes and the sun makes it's journey across the skies. By the time you're done with the PT, it's a little after 1300 hours. You worked up a sweat but the men have worked up significantly more. Flemming looks the most winded. You wince, almost feeling sorry for the boy. Obviously PT with the enlisted men was not what he had in mind when he had his officer commission bought. The look of disbelief he gave you when you ordered him to join almost made you laugh.

You give the order to stop, an order your men are most grateful for.

"You nancy boys can't even handle some light exercise?" you say tauntingly.

Your ears pick up someone saying "I'm gonna kill 'im" under their breath but you can't tell who. Judging from how all your men are panting and hunched over with their hands on their knees, it just might have been all of them.

"Come on you bastards look fresh," you say "I'm not done with you yet."

You hear a few groans.

"We're not going to eat the trash they call rations, you say, so we're all going hunting," you say.

Flemming, despite almost collapsing still manages to get offended.

"Ah alright then, I'll go get-"O'Sullivan begins before you cut him off.

"With no firearms," you say "Ropes and knives. Wilderness survival without reporting your position to the enemy with the Dynamo Rifle is a skill, too."

Jenkins and Lee shrug, having already had experience with hunting for food in that fashion. O'Sullivan has an annoyed look on his face. Longstreet looks excited to try out something new. Flemming is still on the verge of collapsing.

"Oh calm down, I won't be having you hunt food for me, from what I've seen from your lot, you'd likely give me a diseased rabbit after your all pissed on it," you say "Flemming and I will also be hunting."

"We are?" Flemming wheezed.

You ignore him.

"Now go get some rope and knives and hunt as many rabbits as you can before 1600 hours," you say "So get a move on."

"Yes sir," the men say.

They all salute before heading to the shed where they kept the equipment and splitting off to go hunt after acquiring equipment. Soon it's just you and Flemming.

"I've been watching everything you're doing," Flemming said "Don't think this behavior would fly in Cardinium. You're lucky we are under information blackout or I'd have already informed everyone about this. You'd be demoted faster than-"

"Yeah, yeah," you say "Worry about that when you survive to carry out your threats. We have some hunting to do. Shall we?"

You hold out your hand. He scoffs and stands on his own unsteadily. You can't do anything about his disrespect and haughty attitude just yet or you'd make enemies you'd rather not have, but hopefully you can make him grow up before he does something stupid.

On your way to the equipment shed, you decide on where you want to go hunt for prey.

>[ ] The vegetable patches
>[ ] The forest
>[ ] The hills
>[ ] The plains
>[ ] Write in

It's 3 AM here so I'm gonna be off to sleep. I'll count the votes when I wake up. Update probably won't be for a while because I have work and I probably won't have time to write anything worth posting.

>>1692703
>The hills and rabbit warrens
>consider possibility of planting something on a rabbit in the future. If the rabbit drops it in the warren, it would be very hard to retrieve.

>>1692703
The plains would be terrible for hunting more than small game. Try the forest.

>>1692703
OP is a faggot

>>1692741
This.

>>1693627
Rude desu

>>1692999
This pls