TOC Short Story: The Dark Hand

  Danni hunched down behind the crumbling brickwork of a rotting warehouse and clutched his long gun to his chest. He cursed Lady Luck under his breath as he rolled a few paces to his left and chanced a peek through a gap in the wall.

  The day had started out as normally as the rest of his days had been for the st three and a half months. The rebel forces of the Hegemony of Independent Systems had finally grown the balls to unch a ground invasion of his homeworld of Dreyvan II. It was just his luck that he had been back on a recall rotation for equipment renewal, the war had been dragging on for half a decade now by this point.

  He was tired of the fighting, tired of the killing, and more than tired of the Luck cursed pisschips that they called rations. If he never had to eat another freeze dried pre-prepared spaghetti dinner with extra garlic again it would be far too soon.

  His radio buzzed and he spped the call button in annoyance. “What is it Jester?” he asked, using his spotter’s nickname instead of his real one. His real name was hard to pronounce, full of gh’s and gurgling guttural sounds native to his people.

  In response a slightly gurgling voice issued “I have told you ten thousand times it's… nevermind.” his spotter just sighed. Jester was saveth, the scaled aliens looking simir to a humanoid shark or deep sea fish, minus the tail. His soulless bck eyes always making him look more than a little ominous to Danni’s eyes.

  Jester spoke again “Reports of sniper fire to our two-sixty-four. They moved again it seems.”

  Danni swore again and smmed a gloved fist into the gritty floor next to him. That son of a bitch, he had caught just glimpses of his enemy an hour ago while the sun was high overhead, the long carapaced body of a vinarfelien unmistakable. The rge insectoid species looking like somebody had taken an Earthly centipede from some children's nightmare and scaled it up into a six meter, three-hundred kilogram carapace armoured monster.

  He had started the day off well enough, the view through his SR-404’s scope had been the same as the st month of fighting. The small fshes of enemy troops turning to puffs of viscera when the rge calibre bullets he was firing tore through them. There were those that unironically called him the dark hand, a name that he secretly hated.

  He wasn't raised to be a killer, he had actually wanted to be a baker as a child. But trouble had nded him in a juvenile detention center and his quick to anger nature had seen him enrolled in the military as he turned eighteen. A path that he had been stuck in for the st twenty seven years. Every time he had felt he was close to getting out he was called back to service, another bad guy, another conflict. And now, war on a scale never before seen in the Sapient Congressional Union’s seven-hundred-and-seventy-five years of history. He nodded to himself, the thoughts of his past fshing away. He had a job to do, and he was obligated to do it in service to the Union.

  Danni crouched and snapped his heavy gun up onto the low windowless wall he had been sheltering behind. He took a moment to see if any fire was directed his way and then put his eye to the scope. As soon as he did his anxiety seemed to melt away, the sounds of carnage and gunfire slowly faded as he entered a state of mind he liked to call his serenity state. It was where he was most comfortable, the decades spent in the service to the Union as a marksman of unparalleled capacity meant that he was more comfortable behind the scope than in his own bed.

  He took a moment to scan the nearer roof and dark shadowed windows of the bombed out apartment complex across the thoroughfare. The town was not the rgest, but it was not small either. Before its evacuation it must have had a popution in the ten or fifteen-thousand range. All gone now, those that had failed to flee had been buried in the rubble of the war as it ground everything it touched to ashen rubble and cratered ruins.

  He had often heard tell that war was won by attrition, the side with the ability to sling the most men and munitions took the victory, but he liked to disagree. Wars were won by morale, and it was his job to be a constant morale drain for his enemies. Them just knowing he was on the battlefield had proven enough to turn the tides of small scale battles in his own biased opinion.

  ‘There!’ he thought suddenly, a small glint winking at him from a far building immediately drew his attention. Was it his opponent? It could be, but it seemed an unlikely pce for them to sit. The building was far too isoted to make good cover, he wouldn't have fired a shot from such a disadvantageous position. But then again, maybe his counterpart was not as versed in the art of hunting as he. He immediately dismissed this expnation. No, his opponent was every bit as good as he himself, in fact he had heard whispers that it was the legendary blue devil himself. The Hegemony sniper gaining almost as storied a reputation as his, though the st he had heard the blue devil was taking heads on New Yimiar.

  That was far to the gactic west, nearly nine-hundred light years from the Dreyvan System. Whatever the case, he needed to focus. He refined his scope’s zoom and looked closer. The figure he saw didn’t look like a vinarfelien, instead he could make out a faint trace of pink skin on a somewhat nky figure. A nerivith then.

  Danni adjusted his shot for windage and fired, the two-hundred-twenty meter shot childspy for his skills. As he had expected his shot was true, the distant figure jerking as a small cloud of blue erupted from their torso before they dropped like a sack of flour.

  He was about to search for another shot when the short hairs on the back of his neck seemed to stand on end. He threw himself to the side, and it was lucky he did so as not a millisecond ter a brilliant blue bolt fshed through the space his head had only just vacated. He rolled to the right as the distant crack of the shot was heard, part of his mind noted the disparity of two-point-eight seconds. In Dreyvan II’s atmosphere that was nearly exactly one kilometer from his position, and judging by the direction the shot had come from he now had a clearer picture in his mind of where the shot had come from.

  He had been able to recognise the sound of his opponent’s gun after the second hour of their duel. It sounded like a modified Specter 2 electromagnetic sniper. The Vinarfelien counterpart to his trusty chemical firearm, although much more potent.

  The main issue with the weapons was the fact that they were so remarkably heavy most species in the Union could not even heft them reliably. The vinarfel were known for their strength however, and the fact that they had ten arms helped at least a little bit.

  As he continued to crawl to a new position he mented his choice of position. The barren floor of the building was littered in broken gss and reef glider droppings. Why couldn't he ever fight in a clean carpeted house with lights and a refrigerator full of Ionade.

  He scooched into the shadow of a nearby pilr and sat to wait for a minute, as he did so his radio buzzed again. He answered it and almost immediately spoke reassuringly. “Yes Jester, I am fine. I know where the shot came from but I don't have a good spot to take a countershot from, I need a distraction.”

  A pause followed by a small sigh greeted him. The slightly gurgling voice of his spotter fizzed through the poor connection. “That’s good news, I was going to tell you that I saw their shot. They might be a quick pup of a slurge, but that gun of theirs makes far too obvious a contrail of inoised air, making it easy to pinpoint their st firing location.”

  Danni smiled at his friend’s reply. It was true, his gun might be considered many hundreds of years behind in raw technological development, but it had something that he valued. Unlike a ser, psma bolt or electromag projectile, his own bullets traveled through the air with no tell at all. Virtually invisible in comparison to more high tech options, sure the muzzle fsh of his gigantic sniper was a problem, but he had a fsh suppressor equipped to mitigate that as much as possible.

  No, his real problem was the fact that his human reflexes were no match for the lightning quick movements of his opponent. He wouldn't win this duel with speed or skill, he would have to rely on his years of experience to outwit his opponent. Get them to make a mistake.

  He looked around, he smiled as he spotted a rge piece of gss and an idea started to form in his mind. He lunged for it and scrambled back to the cover of the wall, he wasn’t sure how much of an elevation advantage his opponent had on him and had to assume they could see down into the room he was in. He carefully set the piece of gss up at an angle on the wall next to the pilr he was on. He made sure to angle it towards the suspected location of his opponent, his EVHUD goggles allowing him to see what Jester saw in real time.

  Using this information he moved a half dozen meters to the side and pulled out a handheld ser rangefinder from his belt. Setting his gun up against the wall in a ready position, he shined the ser on the gss, hoping his pn would work the way he intended.

  Almost a second ter he jerked as a white hot streak smashed the pane into gss dust. Without hesitation he bolted upright and sighted on the pce that Jester had just seen the fsh from. It was a rge six story building nearly nine-hundred-and-eighty meters away, far behind the front line. He took only the barest moment to calcute bullet drop and crosswind before firing. He wanted to watch the shot, but he knew in his heart that it was a mistake. His hesitation would cost him though as another brilliant streak would reach out towards him from that distant tower, his opponent already firing on him before his shot had even crossed the gap.

  Danni managed to jump aside, but his gun was not so lucky. The bulky SR-404 was smashed to pieces by the incredible power of his enemy's weapon, Danni hit the ground painfully. He could feel shrapnel embedded in his chest rig and shoulder, but nothing felt critical.

  Instead he watched a repy of the feed from Jester’s point of view, he saw the tiny pinprick of his enemy as they fired, and then smiled as a moment ter a puff of red indicated a solid hit. He couldn't be sure if it had been a kill shot though and instead reached for his radio while rolling onto his back with a groan.

  “Jester, I think it’s time to take a little bit of a break.”

  His spotter just replied stoically “If you say so sir. I'll call for medical right away.”

  Danni didn't reply, instead he just smiled. He got the feeling that his opponent had not gotten the best of him, and neither had he.

  End of Short Story