Crosshair
14 Dec 2016Niatra
There it was again. After disappearing for a split second, the target showed up again. He vanished behind a crate and it seemed the opportunity was missed. The wind was clear, nothing that leads to expecting a change of trajectory. There was nothing obstructing sight nor vector. The moment was his. The fresh air moving through the lungs made his hands shiver, he held it for a second and with the controlled exhale he pressed the trigger, the shot was fired, the bullet detatched itself from the barrel, moved with tremendous speed through the space between the red dot and the smoke that arose and founds its goal, the heart of the guard. No sound, no splurging, just the silent “thump” of the bullet leaving the rifle and another “thump” when it entered the objective. The body fell down onto the cold metallic floor, lying there, waiting to be discovered.
Niatra pulled back the handle, pulling out the empty cardrige and letting the new one snap in place. Calmly he searched for his next target, but not another guard came into sight. The red dot moved away from the fort, was disabled and the rifle flung around Niatra’s shoulder. He moved it to the back and started to silently move closer, jumping and rolling over the uncomfortable terrain. Just before entering the turret’s deadzone, he stopped, preparing a marker and waited. No sound was to be heard apart from the turret scanning the area outside it’s automatic deadzone with an infrared camera. He ducked down behind the rock, hoping the shot he took whilst fighting the patrol of five has not disabled his suit’s thermal deflection. The red rectangle passed his position without making an obvious sound of detection and moved on. Niatra took another deep breath and threw the sensor far over into the walled off area. The far clanging of metal on metal was to be heard within the base and the footsteps of a guard could be heard, curiously walking towards the emergence. Niatra lifted the rifle again, searching for the target and he saw it standing near the gate, half a click off to the west. The guard was putting in the code, supposedly lowering the forcefield but he never managed to push the last button. The heat emerging from the wound, vented into the cold atmosphere of the moon, leaving the dead one freezing, his eyes opened in surprise.
A roaring was becoming louder and louder. In the distant a ship was to be seen, decending onto the outpost. Alarms went off and the back-up squads of the security forces rushed into their combat gear, loading their weapons. The cutter stopped above the base and started to surgically take out turret after turret firing multi cannons, due to them being marked by the equipment still sending to the Imperial Combat Network. After a few minutes of constant laser fire and huge calibre guns emptying clips into metal, silence fell like a blanket onto the moon again. Niatra got up, and started to stroll back to his drop pod. His silenced headset transmitted the code that got translated onto his little screen on his left wrist. It read “mission successful, awaiting your transmitter at the drop zone”.
Still smiling, Niatra got up, collected his supplies from the pod and looked back at the base, but his yaw dropped down in the surprising sight.
A wing of federal corvettes had appeared and the cutter in their midst was only black smoke, emerging from the moon’s surface. Niatra lifted his rifle to see the insignia on the combat vessels but before he was able to make anything out, the butt of a pistol smacked him in the back of the head, leaving him blind and unconscious.