A Lesson in Modern Warfare

[ningwofuren]

Date & Time: July 5th, mid-afternoon
Location: Firing Range, The Hold
Characters: Cáo Cāo [Dʏɴᴀsᴛʏ Wᴀʀʀɪᴏʀs] & Jim Raynor [Sᴛᴀʀᴄʀᴀғᴛ]
Summary: After much talk and debate whether or not it's possible to match the firepower of the United Earth Federation, Jim decides to show Cao Cao a demonstration of what futuristic firearms can do.
Warnings: Violent imagery, usage of firearms



A tinge of excitement and dread crept within Cao Cao as he stalked along the long corridors of the Hold. He was honestly curious as of what all the fuss was about in regards to firearms. In his day and age, no such weapons existed until the early 1700s. Foreigners hailing from Great Britain first arrived in China brandishing their fancy weapons for the locals in hopes of doing trade with the Chinese. However, historians will state that first gunpowder weapon was created in China during the year of 1277.

Lou Ch'ien-hsa and his troops used an alleged firearm simply known as the huo p'ao or 'the fire bundle', to shatter the fortress walls of their enemies in order to storm inside. While such facts are still a mystery to this day, it's safe to say that no such firepower existed during the age of the Three Kingdoms. While the thought of a gun crafted from bamboo shoots is amusing at best, the huo p'ao was most likely more a flamethrower than actual gun. Hence Cao Cao's reasons for not be able to comprehend as of what a gun might be. The word was completely foreign to him and he didn't have a single clue as of what a gun even looked like, nevertheless how it functioned. Yet judging from what others have told him, these firearms were far more deadlier than any blade. That thought alone caused him much dread.

"Hm?" Cao Cao's steps slowly came to a halt once he spotted a tall (very tall) fellow dressed in heavy black armor. He assumed this giant of a man to be no other than Jim Raynor, the gentleman he spoken with earlier regarding the topic of firearms. The King of Wei simply stared at the man while trying his best to understand how anyone could be alive and not crushed by that gigantic suit of armor.

Comments

[goinbust]

Standing there in his full power suit, at a height of nearly 9 feet when said and done, Jim was there, his pulse rifle on the table with a few clips of ammunition and a half smoked cigar in his mouth. The helmet was open so he nodded to the newcomer and offered his hand.

"So you the guy I was showing the damage a pulse rifle can do?"

[ningwofuren]

Surprise and perhaps hints of fear settled within Mengde's dark gaze as he eyed the armored suit with some intrigue. He never seen anything like it until now. It looked as if it was forged from scraps of metal and melded into the form of a man. Never in any of his days did Cao Cao believe he would see such a beast like this monstrosity before him. It didn't take much for him to imagine how powerful this nine foot behemoth was. There's no mortal man alive who could possibly defeat such a device with swiftness or ease. No form of blade nor arrow could break through such armor, and he knew it from first glance.

Hesitantly making his way towards Rayner, Cao Cao forced a grim smile to lips as he bowed before the pilot. Of course he wasn't very accustom with the modern handshake but he caught the idea rather quickly. He leaned up and shook the man's hand firmly. "That would be I." Mengde replied with a nod.

"I had expected to witness something...less grand than this."

[goinbust]

"This? This ain't nothin' where I come from. Every soldier has a suit like this and one of these rifles. That bein' said we tend to go up things a lot meaner than back on old Earth. Still. This is a CMC-400 command suit and a C-14 Hypersonic rifle. Has 100 rounds and you CAN fire it without the armor, but going on auto is probably going to land you in the hospital for a few days."

He waves over the gun and then puts a clip in it.

"Using 8 mm armor piercing rounds which are standard. I can get dumb-dumb rounds fairly easy here, but they're more mean and not too good against armor."

He points down-range to a wall about 30 meters out.

"Out there is a foot thick concrete wall, behind it I have two dummies that I put armor that I uh... Borrowed from the other side after the last fight on'em to give a brief view of it all."

[ningwofuren]

Mengde's gaze turned sharply to Jim once he began to explain more about the mechanized suit. "Every soldier in your force has one?" He repeated slowly in sheer disbelief. For a long time, the King of Wei was deathly silent as the soldier explained more about his weaponry. While Raynor claimed that the CMC-400 wasn't hardly as impressive as it seemed, Cao Cao had to silently disagree. It was easy for him tell that one command suit equaled and surpassed the strength of a hundred or so men.

"I see." He replied at last after a few moments of thought. "You've managed to confiscate some of the enemies weapons? Ah, fate smiles upon us." It pleased Mengde much to hear that. If the Initiative could possibly get their hands on this kind of weaponry, then the war could dramatically shift in their favor.

"Show me what it can do."

[goinbust]

"Well, armor. Needed something for cover when I was runnin low on ammunition. But sure."

He picks up the rifle and points it at the wall, there is a short burst of 10 or so rounds, the sound of a high powered rifle discharging at full auto for a second and a hole blown in the wall, where a dummy with a hole in its armor can be seen on the other side.

"Well, most of them have the 200 version, the 400's were for command but your average ground pounder doesn't need the com gear and tactical relays."

He sets down the gun and looks down range.

"That's about it, if you want to look at the dummy I'll clear the range so no shots are fired."

[ningwofuren]

Cao Cao instinctively took a step back once Raynor readied the hypersonic rifle. He didn't quite know what to expect when Jim prepared to fire a few rounds of ammunition, but the loud bang that erupted from the gun shook him to his core. It's a rather noisy weapon. Loud and boisterous like a bolt of lightning. However, it was efficient enough to tear through the wall like a hot knife through butter.

The King of Wei stood there gaping in pure fascination with his long cloak billowing behind him. "So this is the weapon of the future." He stated in mild awe as he studied how quickly every round loaded within the chamber of the firearm. "Quick, efficient, and deadly. Three very important factors to account for a war weapon."

The translator that the Initiative equipped him with was working rather fine for the most part. He could understand Raynor easily and in turn, Raynor could understand him. It was almost like magic, though Cao Cao wondered how the Initiative achieved such a feat in the first place. Apparently they didn't tell him about the microchip they placed under his skin, but that's a different matter all together.

"Com gear?" Cao Cao offered Raynor a curious glance. He didn't quite catch the meaning of that and it showed. "Ah, let us inspect our dear friend across from us. I will be surprise if the dummy is still in one piece."

[goinbust]

"Yeah, communications gear. Back home I led from the front so I needed to know where all my troops were. They'd check in and there's some mapping software here and communications gear so I could talk back with them. Had a range of a few hundred miles unless we had a ship in orbit. Then we could clear half the planet."

He set down the gun and walked over to the dummy which had a slightly larger hole in it than the wall did.

"Not my best work, but I'm not using any heavy firepower."

[ningwofuren]

It took Cao Cao honestly a moment to catch all that. He was still getting used to the idea of firearms nevertheless intergalactic warfare and fancy communication systems. That will take another week, if not months, to process. While he honestly appreciated Raynor's help for the most part, Cao Cao was starting to find all of this information a tad dizzying. "You could clear half the planet..." The King of Wei muttered in great disbelief. He wasn't even certain as of what Raynor meant by that but he listened intently to every single word.

"If that's not your best work, then I fear to see what your best would look like." Cao Cao replied as he approached. The dummy had a huge gaping hole through its middle, almost as if someone fired a gigantic cannon through its midsection. "Flawed or not, this is efficient work nonetheless." Cao Cao didn't mean to shower Raynor with praise, but he never seen anything do this extensive kind of damage in such little time.

"Is it safe to say that this is the kind of weaponry we need in order to win?"

[goinbust]

Jim frowns and shakes his head a little, letting out a sigh.

"It'll help, that's for sure. That and we have weapons like this, but 'lot of people aren't trained in them, hell, aren't trained in warfare. Or they're tanker pilots with no tank, or use some crazy mumbo jumbo stuff that I can't even begin to understand. Nobody here knows how anyone else works, and if you got a guy like me blowin holes in things and someone else who has a sword that can cut through walls like butter who don't know the other's attacking and well... You can figure out the mess. That and the initiative ain't all that keen on intel. They just tend to go 'Go get'em, we'll clap fer ya.' and that's that."

[ningwofuren]

Mengde let out a roar of laugh moment after Raynor's long rant. "It would seem that the two of us share the same problem, no?" He said with a lighthearted smirk. "I cannot begin to fathom how the technology of your realm compares to that of my own." He wondered idly if Raynor would believe that he actually does possess one of those fancy blades that can cut through walls. The Wrath of Heaven has served Cao Cao in many perilous battles. Forged by steel and laced with magic, the Wrath of Heaven is a blade that can literally freeze opponents in place.

"I suppose it shall take time to come to understand everyone's strengths and weaknesses in battle." His laughter died down. "It is necessary for us to know more about the weaponry that hails from realms not our own." Whatever the next mission will be, Cao Cao was determined not to have it end as badly as the one before.

"This is why I purpose we gather a group of able men rather than a large cluster of buffoons in hopes of limiting our causalities."

[goinbust]

"Truth be told an able man is a buffoon with no real intel. That's our biggest flaw. Men can be trained to deal with firearms, swords, even their bare hands but if they don't have a clue what they're doing everyone just becomes a big damn hero in their own eyes."

He shrugs and rests the rifle on his shoulder.

"Seen it with the Zerg, seen it with the Dominion, seen it here. Gotta have some structure to war or ya ain't much more than a simple bandit."

[ningwofuren]

Mengde could agree easily with that assessment. With no real acknowledgment as of what's happening on the battlefield, even the most well trained soldier will surely fall. A thoughtful hum escaped him as he stroked his beard. "Then that will be our first task." The King of Wei stated aloud. "Only a madman would fight blindly." Briefly turning his gaze towards the soldier beside him, Cao Cao smiled somewhat. Out of all the people he's met so far, Raynor was perhaps the only one solely devoted to the conflict at hand. This pleased him greatly. Mengde believes men like Raynor are sorely needed.

"Where should we begin in this endeavor? I would typically send out trained scouts or spies to find my adversary's camp, and lay waste to it through fire." Cao Cao hoped it would be possibly to do the same to the United Earth but in a metaphorical sense if nothing else. "I have one other person looking into the United Earth and their operations, but one person alone cannot handle this task alone."

[goinbust]

He shrugs a bit and rubs his chin.

"Honestly, can't say I know there. The people runnin this place may not know what's going on, or they may have been burned by an inside man in the past. That and the other side is too damn big and scary to keep a good eye on. A good first few steps as I see'em is to get someone on the inside of the Initiative as a liaison and to get us transports to actually learn how to work together instead of just get in a bunch of big damn hero moments."

[ningwofuren]

"Too many big damn heroes?" That comment won a slight chuckle from Cao Cao.

He understood exactly what Raynor meant. The transports as a whole were the most unorganized bunch of fools that Cao Cao ever seen. Most of the people here claimed they've trapped in this land for various months or so, and yet none of them bothered to establish anything concrete until recently. This all left Mengde in a rather somber mood for the most part. Just how is he suppose to win a war on two home fronts? The people of this realm won't submit easily to the idea of being ruled, but without order there is no stability.

"We need to unite our efforts with others who devote themselves to similar goals." Cao Cao stated after a moment of thought. "Have you ever spoken to a man named 'Cable', before?"

[goinbust]

"Cable... Yeah, dealt with him once or twice. Think he's looking to start a group of commandos or something. Considered joinin too, but really, I think I'd do more good helpin the newer kids. Just... I dunno."

He lets out a breath and shrugs a bit.