She scratches the back of her head sheepishly and grins, blushing a bit. "Eheheh... Oops? Um. Plural system, five girls crammed into one?"

"Okay?" There's a bit of skepticism in her voice. "I'm happy to call you Ruby instead if that's what you like. Does this mean I need to run you through the whole deal with loading and unloading and cleaning again?"

That tone of voice isn't fun, honestly.

Important question, though!

"No, ma'am!"

"Alright then, let's get you shooting. Even pistols have some recoil to them so make sure you have a stance that has some stability. The exact foot positions aren't important but if you're trying to shoot while off balance you could fall and that's usually very bad in a real fight. As for holding the pistol the best grip is like this." She demonstrates. "Before you load your weapon just show me that you won't break your wrist or end up smacking yourself in the face with a hot muzzle."

Shooting time! She can't help but grin as she nods, carefully taking a shoulder-width stance, mimicking Francine's grip precisely, pistol pointed into the ground at an angle out toward the field.

"Good, you're already thinking about overpenetration. There is some chance of ricochet especially with low velocity weapons like pistols but it's a good instinct, better than aiming up if you can help it anyway. Regardless I think you have it." She gets some ear plugs out of a pocket and sticks them in. "Your blessings protect you from hearing damage but I'm not so lucky. Anyway, show me you can load your weapon and then I'll let you actually shoot."

She turns to Emily, "You're already certified but since you're joining us here show me that you haven't picked up any bad habits since then."

"I absolutely have, but I remember the right way." She takes a stance and smoothly loads her pistol keeping her finger off the trigger.

She carefully loads the weapon exactly like Hailey practiced earlier, but does not chamber a round yet, weapon still pointed low and away, finger still resting against the guard.

"Okay, you're good, fire as you please, for now just keep to that arc, you can practice awareness while turning once you've gone through a couple magazines while stationary."

She smoothly, steadily brings her pistol up to sight at the target in front of her, grinning like it's Christmas and her birthday and New Year's all at once. Her breathing, though, is steady. She breathes in for four counts, holds for four, out for four, and pauses for four. At the second beat of the bottom of the cycle, she fires.

Her hands do not shake, her aim is steady.

The gunsmoke smells like coming home.

The first shot is three inches high. She's not used to these hands, or how this gun kicks in them.

It's been six years since they last fired a gun at all.

She repeats the cycle, again firing at the bottom of the breath. She's not changing anything yet, just feeling out exactly where she's going wrong. 

Two and three-quarters high.

She's not bracing right, she's not resisting the recoil the right way. She's keeping it from wobbling to the side noticeably, but it kicks high.

Okay. So she needs to strengthen this particular spot in her grip. She tightens up.

Another cycle of breath, another shot.

An inch low.

She's getting there. Overcorrected.

Loosens a bit, trying to adjust to somewhere in between. She breathes, she fires. Inch and a half high.

The process continues, little by little, as she spends her ammo on slowly correcting her grip. Her shots wobble between an inch and a half above and below as she gets used to it.

Eventually the mag runs dry, and she fires the last round in the chamber.

She lowers the gun, press-checks the chamber, ejects the mag, and turns to get a fresh one, gun still low and carefully not pointed at anyone.

"Nice job." Emily says.

"Agreed, that was well done."

While Ruby has been shooting Francine has mounted a couple small trays to the top of the fence and one of those has more magazines. "Feel free to take another mag and go again." She points.

She blushes and grins — resists the urge to scratch the back of her head sheepishly 'cause she's holding a pistol — and shrugs a bit. "It's good for hands I'm not used to and a gun I've never fired before, at least. It's not where I wanna be yet though."

She glances over at Emily's target. How's her grouping? And what's she shooting, for that matter?

Emily is also practicing with a pistol at the moment, her target is half again as far away but she's managed a fairly good shot grouping.

Empty mag goes on the tray, fresh mag slides snugly back into the gun. Press check, chamber's still empty as expected, rack the slide to chamber a round, press check, yep, raise the gun, sight the target, and take a breath. In, hold, out, empty, fire.

The second mag goes much like the first, but her grouping gets slowly smaller.

She takes a third and does the same. Manages to pick up a little speed without the grouping getting bigger. Doesn't wanna go much faster, though.

Tightens her grouping a little further still on the fourth mag, then carefully unloads and sets the gun down.

By the end of it, her cheeks are a bit flushed, and her grin is an unusual one for her.

"Woo. That is a very nice pistol."

"Yeah, they recommend good guns." Emily has been happily shooting away herself though her improvement has been a little slower.

She grins and runs her hands through her hair, reveling in the smell of cordite and the fact that she just put four rounds through an excellent pistol. She feels like she's come home in a way she hasn't before, not in any of her Earth memories.

Eeee.

Okay, check the time, does she have enough time before dinner to do more mags in this before switching over to the M24, or is it switch time?

Looking at her interface it's about three now. The launch day event is at seven so if she wants to have dinner before that she probably wants to stop in about three hours. How she wants to divide that time is up to her.

Great! She's absolutely got more time. Okay, she grabs another mag and loads it, snapping smoothly back into her steady stance, putting hole after hole into the virtual target, slowly tightening her groupings. She needs to get back to as accurate as she remembers.

After this mag, though, she lowers the gun and looks for a further target while she's reloading. Ah, that one's not in use, great. She lines up against it, sights down at it, and fires.

Her grouping spreads back out another inch or so for this mag, though she starts getting it narrowed in again a little.

Another mag, narrow it further. She loves this so much.

Then she lowers her weapon and looks up at Francine. "You said something about practicing awareness while turning?"

"Yes, I think you've got the basics down. Emily, are you okay to move to part 2?"

"Sounds good to me."

"Load Certification part two." The room shifts. The grassy field is still there but the targets have disappeared. "Okay, so I'm going to go through this first and then you can try." She draws her own pistol. "Start 90 degree arc." Targets rise up from the ground in different colors, "Red is for things you're supposed to hit one point each. Blue is fine to hit but no points. Green you lose three points if you hit." She narrates as she sites in on her targets. "Look carefully because it's possible for a green target to be behind a red one." She smoothly reloads once before the sequence finishes.

A computerized voice announces "17 points out of a maximum of 20, 20 enemy hits and 1 friendly hit. 3 neutral hits."

"Wow! That's so cool! It's such a good way to train target discrimination!" She bounces on the balls of her feet. "Is it timed?"

"It is but usually people don't hit the time limit. You only get thirty shots and especially when you're just starting out hitting consistently is a barrier when you don't have time to line up the shots."