GPS LOCATION ERROR!
(R)etry, (I)gnore, (A)bort
>I
2/19th Special Weapons Group
CANNOT LOAD UNIT SPECIFICATIONS
(R)etry, (I)gnore, (A)bort?
>I
SECURE AREA
CRC FAILURE  IN BOOT SECTOR ADDRESS
(R)etry, (I)gnore, (A)bort
>I
WARNING! TIME/DATE STAMP ERROR
CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURES!
(R)etry, (I)gnore, (A)bort
>I
I

I

    I was laying under the camo'd tarp, the old M14 rifle socked into the socket of my shoulder. My Father was laying next to me, looking through his binoculars.
    "He's at three hundred yards, boy. Remember, just behind the foreleg, you don't want him to suffer," My Father said. "Otherwise, if you wing him, we'll have to track him down so he doesn't have to suffer."
    "Yes, Father," I said, my voice cracking. I was 12, my first hunting trip where I'd carried a rifle. I looked through the scope, moved the scope slowly until I could see the buck. Eight points each antler, he was large and obviously had managed to escape hunters.
    "He'll be good eating, you get him," My Father said. "You don't have to fire, boy. You can let him go if you want."
    I looked at him and he smiled. "When you're hunting, boy, the option to not kill is always there. You weigh what have available to eat against what your shot will provide. Now, you know we've got food, but we always need more food. We've got a lot of mouths to feed."
    "And Sissy makes venison sausage," I said.
    "And Sissy makes delicious venison sausage," My Father chuckled.
   I fired.
   "Nicely done, boy. Now let's go get him. We'll carry him out and dress him," My Father said, standing up. "Get your canteen cup though, there's one more thing you have to do."
    I nodded.
    It was time. I'd made my first kill.
    It was time to drink the blood...
   ...eat the heart...
   ...and take my first steps toward manhood.

The memory shattered as I put pressure smoothly on the trigger until the M5 Winterized Trigger system went back and the hammer hit the primer of the 7.62mm NATO round. The primer went off, igniting the cordite, which exploded, rapidly expanding in gasses and explosive force, which tried to create space by pushing the only things that would move. The bolt, and a heavy grain full metal jacket bullet. The bolt went back against the recoil spring, driving the weapon against my shoulder, against the pins and clips holding the muscles and tendons into the spots where they were naturally attached on normal people. The bullet travelled down the barrel, the rifling putting a spin on the heavy round, which exited right before the burst of unburnt propellant, which caught fire as soon as it was exposed to the oxygen of the air, causing a bloom of flame from the end of the M14A1 7.62mm battle rifle.

The barrel rode up, and I let it go, allowing it to drop naturally back into position, just maintaining my grip. It dropped just like it should, right back into the sweet spot.

I ignored the pain in my shoulder, staring through the sight. There was a BDU clad figure down in the snow, a flashlight beam sweeping onto the body. Grinning as I panned left, I followed the flashlight beam. Someone was standing there, staring, holding the flashlight.

...center mass...

The trigger went back easily. The retort was loud and I saw snow shiver off of the trees as the heavy caliber round plowed through their stomach. When the scope dropped back down I could see them kneeling in the snow, screaming. The scope brought their screaming face into focus with crystal clear clarity.

Female. Brown hair with a few curled locks out from under the hat. Green eyes wide and full of tears that were freezing on her cold whitened cheeks. Wide open screaming mouth with yellow teeth and a white coated tongue.

I pulled the trigger again, and the round punched through her open mouth.

Someone had knelt down next to the woman I'd just killed. The crosshairs were aligned just at the top of their head.

I felt a popping feeling in my chest and opened my non-firing eye.

Frost and snow was shivering off of the tree tops, heading toward us. Even with my blurry vision I could see it.

I exhaled and closed my eyes.

My ears popped, pain flared in my chest, and for a second I almost puked as my inner ear went wonky and the pressure dropped noticeably. I opened my eye and panned the scope over where the targets were.

Four were down besides the two in blood spray. Other people were kneeling next to them.

I counted fourteen total.

A quarter of their combat power.

Another trigger pull, another down.

One was looking toward me and I put a bullet between their eyes. Another started to raise his hand and I shot him in the throat. One started to run and I put a bullet in his hip, leaving him screaming in the snow. Two others raised their rifles toward me. I shot the one on the right in the face, the rifle dropped down lined up with the second and we pulled the trigger together.

His bullets slammed into the rock and ice below me.

My bullet hit him in the mouth.

Back online.

Three more trigger pulls, three more down.

One ran. I put one through the lower part center mass and left him kneeling in the snow, screaming, trying to hold in his guts. Two others ran to help him.

I killed them both.

...don't hurry...

...take your time...

...line up your shots...

...prioritize your targets...

...herd the enemy in the direction you want them to go...

Two ran for the trees and I tracked them. They got close it, pushing their way between the limbs, thinking that the tree would provide cover.

The both vanished as the snow beneath their feet gave way and they fell the distance. I knew that they were bouncing off limbs, breaking bones, and would land at the base of the tree in a crumpled heap.

Another was firing his weapon wildly and I watched him, waiting. His bolt locked back, and I shot him through the torso.

One woman was kneeling, praying, her weapon laying in the snow. She was crying, her lips moving, her hands clenched in front of her.

I shot her in the face.

Beyond them a wall of white was sweeping toward us. The low pressure band had preceded the storm dropping snow all over the mountain. I didn't have much time, so I dropped the scope back down, panning for targets. That's when I saw it.

Four people screaming. Another down on their knees, screaming in terror and agony.

Tandy stood in front of the one on their knees, one long finger stuck in his eye. That jagged torn grin showing too many teeth as he looked away from his victim and the witnesses. The snow was thickening, about to wash over Tandy, his victim, the four witnesses.

He was staring at me.

The lizard hissed and slapped the button.

...time to go...

I rolled to the side, slinging the weapon, and got to my knees. The men and women downrange had lost interest in me. Probably more interested in not being outside in the snow with a homicidal maniac and Tandy.

Step, shake, step, shake. I moved along the ridge, toward the chow hall, heading for the Dispensary. I was hoping that Charlie Company would be in better shape, more likely to listen to reason.

Less likely to try to kill me and eat me.

Henley laughed at me from the back of my head.

"You shouldn't be out here, Ant," Westlin told me.

"No choice," I told her.

Step, shake, step, shake.

My shoulder hurt where the butt of the weapon had slammed skin and muscle into the pins embedded in the bone. The cold icicle driven through the joint was dark fire. My knee throbbed with each step. The middle of my thigh was ground glass scraping together every time I put my weight on it. The brace squealed with each step, the frozen metal protesting the movement.

Every second I kept breathing, bringing oxygen into my body, more knives stabbed deep into my chest. I knew what was happening. The air was too thin, too cold, each breath causing crystallization in my lungs, the water vapor from inhaling freezing into micro-shards that sliced at my lung tissue.

The snow hit me like a wave, making me stagger back as the wind sliced into me. If I hadn't had the extreme cold weather mask on it might have smothered me as it coated me instantly. The wind shrieked and howled around me.

Someone behind me screamed my name.

That pushed me forward faster.

"Aaaaant," the whisper came from my left and behind me.

...Don't rush, don't hurry. Haste is lethal out here...

I still picked up the pace, moving faster.

"Aaaaant," the whisper was ahead of me, discernable from the hiss of snow.

The snow cleared suddenly as a band of crystal clear air swept over me. The stars were needle sharp, the air crystal clear, and I was inhaling at that exact moment the low pressure band swept over me, trapped me like an insect in amber for a long second.

Static shot through my vision as my inner ear went crazy, my equilibrium shattering as I pitched over to the side. The lizard watched the O2 alarm go off and slapped the button.

My chest filled with pain and I gasped like a fish, fumbling for my O2 bottle as I gasped under the starlight. The air I kept pulling past my teeth was colder than it had any right to be. The wind was gone, the night frozen in one perfect eternal moment as the stars shined down on me, needle-sharp on black velvet. The Fenrir vomited half-moon stared down on me, a single cold eye in the sky.

I stared up to the stars as I managed to get the O2 bottle up to the extreme cold weather mask and push the rubberized end under the cloth protection. I twisted the nozzle, inhaling deeply. The O2 flooded into my mouth and down into my lungs, somehow warmed than the air I was pulling from outside.

I closed my eyes as my ears popped painfully. I felt a trickle of blood run down the side of my head as something inside my ears ruptured.

Then it was past. Snow swept down on me and the wind picked back up. I took another hit off the O2 bottle as the lizard sprayed the burning wiring with his fire extinquisher, then tucked it away and struggled to my feet.

"Gonna be a bad night, Ant," Westlin burbled. The blood that flooded out of her mouth and down her chin froze, a bloody beard of ice hanging off her chin.

"Got things to do," I gasped, moving forward again.

"Why? Because Henley told you to?" She asked, moving away from the cliff face she had been leaning against to march next to me.

"Duty," I told her.

She laughed at that. That silver bell tinkle of a laugh that always hung and shimmered in the air out at Atlas. "Or revenge? That sounds more like you, Ant. Revenge for leaving you bleeding out on the floor of your room after you tried to be nice to them?"

I shrugged under my parka, moving forward through the snow and wind.

"Maybe," I admitted.

"You just like killing," Westlin giggled. I glared at her. "I don't mean helpless victims, Ant, I mean you love combat."

"Well, that ain't nice to say," I told her, stopping to lean against the cliff face. My chest was killing me and I'd been suppressing the urge to cough for awhile.

She giggled again, leaning against the cliff face with me. "I was there. I was with you. You take particular joy in fighting, Ant." She leaned toward me until her lips brushed my ear despite the hood and cold weather cap between us. Her breath was warm as she whispered.

"That's why you never fought. That's why you stood there and took it. Because you knew, even then you knew, what would happen when your safety was taken off," Her whisper wound down into my brain and several of the lizard's panels lit up.

"Keep that shit to yourself," I snarled at her, pushing away from the rock face and into the snow.

I took three steps before I realized my mistake.

I'd been leaning against the cliff face as it soared up another fifty meters to face the glacier.

I had gone straight forward.

My third step was into mid-air and I didn't realize it at first. I windmilled my arms, trying to lean back, trying to keep from falling forward. I felt a warm hand press against the skin of my lower back and I pitched forward as the hand shoved.

I heard Westlin laughing "Airborne!" behind me as I fell through the air.

...bitch...