[quotable_muse] 94 - "Suddenly it came over me that everything would go wrong."
94 - "Suddenly it came over me that everything would go wrong." - 'Double Indemnity'
I was fourteen years old the first time I ever fired a gun.
Even being a kid, I was never the kind who had a fascination for guns and bombs and stuff blowing up. Growing up around soldiers, on a battlestar, it makes you get it: weapons were a fact of life, and they were things to treat with care and respect, and they were a necessity when you were a race that had been running for its life for twenty years. They weren't cool, and they weren't fun, but they were important, especially when you were planning on being a soldier yourself.
Fourteen was my first year of ROTC. After the novelty of uniforms and regulations and insignia had died off, and we were all deep in the actual school and studies part of it-- that was when Captain Chiang decided it was time to introduce us to firearms.
We had the firing range all to ourselves for the afternoon. Even though pretty much every room on Galactica shared the same cold metal walls and doors, there was something imposing about that place. We'd already been briefed on proper handling, and could recite the rules off the tops of our heads, but this would be the first time any of us-- at least as far as I knew-- had handled a weapon.
It was heavier than I thought it would be. I'd seen them on the hips of every corpsman and on the pilots flying combat sorties. Hell, I'd even seen my mother and father go down to that very range for their yearly re-qualification to wear a sidearm.
I raised it, checked the breech, slid the magazine home and pulled back on the slide to rack one round into the chamber. Cupping my left hand under my right in the isosceles hold we'd been taught, I aimed lined up the sights at the paper with the concentric rings.
My mind wandered for a second. One day, I'd be doing this for real, drawing a pistol on a Cylon invader that had somehow breached the ship, or down on a planet that we were trying to claim as our own. I didn't want to hesitate. I didn't want to be the one who didn't fire and cost one of my crewmates, or one of my friends, their lives.
One day, I might hold a gun just like that and not pull the trigger when I had to.
There were so many ways it could all go wrong.
I squeezed the trigger firmly, not jerking it, and braced myself against the recoil.
The pistol jumped, I yelped, and the shot went high by about a third of a meter.
I've gotten a little better since then, I hope.
(458)
I was fourteen years old the first time I ever fired a gun.
Even being a kid, I was never the kind who had a fascination for guns and bombs and stuff blowing up. Growing up around soldiers, on a battlestar, it makes you get it: weapons were a fact of life, and they were things to treat with care and respect, and they were a necessity when you were a race that had been running for its life for twenty years. They weren't cool, and they weren't fun, but they were important, especially when you were planning on being a soldier yourself.
Fourteen was my first year of ROTC. After the novelty of uniforms and regulations and insignia had died off, and we were all deep in the actual school and studies part of it-- that was when Captain Chiang decided it was time to introduce us to firearms.
We had the firing range all to ourselves for the afternoon. Even though pretty much every room on Galactica shared the same cold metal walls and doors, there was something imposing about that place. We'd already been briefed on proper handling, and could recite the rules off the tops of our heads, but this would be the first time any of us-- at least as far as I knew-- had handled a weapon.
It was heavier than I thought it would be. I'd seen them on the hips of every corpsman and on the pilots flying combat sorties. Hell, I'd even seen my mother and father go down to that very range for their yearly re-qualification to wear a sidearm.
I raised it, checked the breech, slid the magazine home and pulled back on the slide to rack one round into the chamber. Cupping my left hand under my right in the isosceles hold we'd been taught, I aimed lined up the sights at the paper with the concentric rings.
My mind wandered for a second. One day, I'd be doing this for real, drawing a pistol on a Cylon invader that had somehow breached the ship, or down on a planet that we were trying to claim as our own. I didn't want to hesitate. I didn't want to be the one who didn't fire and cost one of my crewmates, or one of my friends, their lives.
One day, I might hold a gun just like that and not pull the trigger when I had to.
There were so many ways it could all go wrong.
I squeezed the trigger firmly, not jerking it, and braced myself against the recoil.
The pistol jumped, I yelped, and the shot went high by about a third of a meter.
I've gotten a little better since then, I hope.
(458)