Day 289 - The War Corp. - Chapter 2.3 (1070 Words)

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THE WAR CORP.

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 2.3

The fabric of the clothes they all wore, the dirty camouflage blue of their parent corporation was very strong, very durable and would often be strong enough to deflect or stop a bullet. That was in the occasion where it was a glancing blow or a distant enough shot for the velocity to have fallen off sufficiently.  The bullet, or bullets because there were two of them after all, had come from near enough to pierce the front of the uniform but not enough to exit the uniform when exiting the body.

The first shot took a trajectory close to Brodie, the spray of blood and brain matter clouding in front of him in a red explosion, but the bullet carried on to fall somewhere behind him. The jump suit of the man who had been shot, the Red team member who was on point, at the bleeding edge of the small force invading their camp, was tented around the exit wound. The peak caused by the force of the shot was still poking outwards as the body fell, no longer supported by the will to stand, or the brain to instruct the limbs.

The body fell with a thud, and behind the now dead solider was another who spun around to check for the gunman, to see no one and nothing except his own death. A third gunshot rang out and the single bullet went into his head and stopped him in his tracks, without the dramatic explosions of the man ahead of him.

“Cover!” Yelled Brodie, and he cascaded the verbal command to his NINE, with the flick of a small button on his uniform, it was for circumstances where it was more efficient to speak an order than enter one manually to the NINE.

“Cover!” came a similar cry from beyond the ring of the hilltop, causing the men who were approaching to retreat and dive for whatever protection they could find.

It was too late for three more of the opposing team as they were gunned down from the invisible sniper on the small hill not too far away from the Blue Corp base.  Two of them were zeroed out in an instant; the third was hobbled by the first shot to the left leg. He had stumbled and fallen, then as he had tried to get up and crawl away the sniper struck again, this time pegging the man in the shoulder and making crawling an excruciating task.

Neither shot was fatal, because they had been chosen that way to smoke a member of the Red Corp team into trying to save the fallen teammate.

Liam Zero Six was the sniper, the small hill was the spot where he had been staring a few hours earlier, seeing it instantly as the spot where he would have taken watch if he was charged with killing his team, in this spot. He had gone to survey the location, and had been watching his own team members through the high-powered scope of the collapsible sniper rifle he had taken in the arms bag.

Now he was surveying the multiple cover spots where the Red Team had taken refuge to avoid the hot lead from his sniping position. The injured member was silent, but he could see from the scope that the pain was immense. He knew that as soon as the Team broke cover and got out of his range or made it to the ridge of the hill, they could make the forest and escape his trap.

Until then though he would liberate any and all stragglers or people foolish enough to get in his sights. He took in the gaze of any one looking his way, watching the life in them and seeing it deep and thoughtfully. The first target had been facing away, and the thrill was diminished but still there.  The second one though, that was the money shot for him. He saw in the moment, the hanging half second between target and squeezing the trigger, he saw in the moment that man’s life and then his release as the bullet hot home, squeezing past the eye socket, just on the inside of his nose, barreling into the brain and killing the light in the eyes.

That had shaken him as he received the gift, the reward for the right thing. He was releasing them, helping them out of the pain and immense weight of life, but he was also meeting objectives and saving his team.

Was there a conflict in him? Absolutely, it was a searing and deep cut that he was pouring salt into each time he looked down the sights of his weapon. The urge to kill, the need to protect and survive. The objectives in his NINE were the omnipresent voice of God, telling him to do the right thing. The nature of his being, the new paradigm being brought back from the dead had given him was a demanding and as important, but it was secondary.

A head popped up from behind a rock, but he did not take the shot, it was just a helmet masquerading as a person, and he was not ready to shoot unless he saw their eyes, or if they were on the cusp of affecting the team. They were trying top draw his fire, to tempt him into taking a shot so somewhere else another could take the opportunity to retrieve their fallen comrade or put him out of his misery.

Well then, no one was going to take a rash chance on popping out, they wanted to resort to deception and strategy. He would have to take that away from them, so he signaled Brodie and Sharpe with some quick on the field objectives to assist his plan.

Satisfied they had enough time to assimilate and prepare his orders, he sighted the downed recruit from the Red Corp and lined up a killing blow. Another helmet popped up behind a rock, this time with a face in it, but it was reflected oddly in some polished metal, to make it look like a head was in there. That was when Liam took the shot, and he had to take it as he could, the injured man had lost a lot of blood and was only semi conscious, unable to avoid the shock of crawling painfully on a gunshot leg and perforated shoulder.