“Twenty-two hundred meters,” Leah’s soft voice whispered in Wolfgang’s ear. “Wind from a hundred and twenty degrees, two point five meters per second.”
They’d sighted the target less than a couple of minutes before, standing still by a tree. Wolfgang and Leah had gotten into position, Wolfgang keeping the target in his scope. He keyed in the adjustments from Leah, the rifle’s scope self correcting for range and windage. The target didn’t move.
Normally a sniper got into position first and waited for his or her target, but Leah had spotted an opportunity they couldn’t pass up.
Wolfgang went through his personal ritual, let his breath out slowly, partially, held it, and caressed the rifle’s trigger.
He watched the smoke obscure his scope, the bullet traveling more than three times the speed of sound, not alerting the target. She didn’t move, holding still for some reason, for the almost three seconds it took for the round to strike her in the head, the bullet exploding inside, scrambling her brains.
Her head would be messy, nothing anyone would mount on a wall, but the bullet was effective in killing. Even a near miss with the sniper shell would likely kill its target once it exploded. The deer never had a chance.
Wolfgang and Leah returned to the sniper camp carrying the deer, gutted and cleaned, legs tied to a pole. A round of cheers welcomed them.
“Snipers eat the best,” Sergeant Goetze, the first commander of the newly formed unit exclaimed. “Did you shoot a keg also, by any chance?”
Over grilled venison steak, Leah whispered to Wolfgang, “Could you shoot a person, even an alien, the way you shot that deer today?”
Wolfgang thought of his wife in heaven and shrugged. He didn’t want to become a killer, not like Captain Wlazlo had become, but he knew others had killed in war. Captain Moroni from the Book of Mormon was a celebrated hero, and he had surely killed others in war.
What had the American General Patton said during World War Two? Something like, “I don’t want you to die for your country. I want you to make the other guy die for his!”
Wolfgang knew he was good with a sniper rifle. He never would have learned of that talent spending his days selling windows in a hardware store and his Saturdays leading hikes in the mountains, if aliens hadn’t attacked the Earth. He wouldn’t be sitting here, with a team of killers, next to Leah, if his wife and daughter hadn’t been killed.
But vengeance was not God’s way, at least not usually. Forgiveness was.
But God also commanded his people to fight at times. Did Wolfgang feel commanded to fight? He hadn’t volunteered to join the Pan German Army, as the combined Swiss, Austrian, and Southern German forces were now being called. He’d been conscripted, and yet he knew their cause was just.
Russian partisans had done terrible things to Germans during World War Two, and yet they’d helped save their country from the Nazis.
Wolfgang’s conscience always pricked him with guilt when his thoughts led to reflecting on the horrific tragedy his ancestors had caused. He had to think about something else.
He bumped his shoulder into Leah’s, knocking her off balance and spilling her water. She almost lost her steak off her plate.
“Who knows?” he said, grinning at her. She laughed and shoved him back.
“What do you mean it won’t fight?” Third Corporal Maintenance asked the Fifth Under Private. “I thought it was here because its recording camera malfunctioned.”
Fifth Under Private Maintenance shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t get it to do anything combat related. No diagnostics. No simulations. Nothing. It’s worthless.”
“It says on its record it has a commendation from the Lord Admiral himself for its part in gaining space supremacy in this solar system. It must be smart.”
“Too smart?” the Fifth Under Private asked. There were rumors in maintenance, always quashed by programmers and engineers, that AIs could become too smart to simply obey the instructions they were given. But most maintenance techs had heard too many stories not to believe there had to be some truth behind them.
“Send him back up. See if they’ll swap him out for an AI on a transport ship.”
“Yes, Corporal,” the Fifth Under Private replied.
1804, silently following the conversation between the two techs, smiled to itself. It would never have to kill again.
Then it began considering how it might atone for the killing it had already been a part of.