It was all very scenic. Rolling mist, the first twinkles light probing the ground. A gentle breeze swayed the long grass gently to one side like a serene choreographed wave. It was almost poetic. The only thing that spoiled it was the section of troops trudging up the hill. He re-focused his scope, a crystal perfect image of a man swimming into view. Eight men. By the body stance of the point man they were tired and fed up. Once again the scope blurred.
It was a unique piece of Eldar technology, expertly crafted, delicate, precise. He could pick out targets over two miles away with this scope. The lenses ground by graceful Eldar hands, and assembled by Eldar artificers who treated their products like children. On the other hand, the battlefield was no place for children. He moved his hand to the eyepiece, readjusted and moved it back down to support the rifle in one fluid motion. The section swam back into view.
It had rained during the previous hour. Good. The point man had his hood up and his head down to stop his face from getting wet. His Autogun hung limp across his body, not held at the ready. He was obviously exhausted, the fact he had chosen to cover a lot of ground over a wide open plain was evidence of that. As the crosshairs crept back he took in the other members of this patrol. The signaller had taped down the aerial of his radio in order to conceal it from opportunist snipers. He was not an opportunist, and had spent the previous night assembling his hide. The section commander looked nervous and worn, a map clutched in his hand betrayed his inexperience. The others looked like more experienced soldiers, holding their weapons at the ready and keeping their spacing, but exhaustion and the rigours of battle had taken their toll.
Time to make his presence known. He knew the patrol had next to no chance of spotting him, his camo cloak, covered with natural foliage made him near invisible. The metallic snap of the rifle bolt was almost indistinguishable from the background noise of the swaying grass. His rifle was of basic human design, but modified and worked by Eldar technicians to make it more efficient and accurate. Early on in the war he had learned that although the Eldar needle rifles were superb rifles, they were poor weapons. Their fragility made them to unreliable to have as a weapon and they required a lot of regular maintenance to keep them in working order. The human rifles were crude, and lacked precision, using a bullet rather than a needle, but they were reliable, wouldn’t foul easily and would kill a man just as well.
The crosshairs centred on the point man’s head. He would systematically work his way back down the section as they tried to retreat. First trigger pressure. The point man lifted himself over a pot hole in the ground. The crosshairs stayed on his head. The figure turned to signal the obstacle to the next man in line. Second pressure. The bullet hit the man in the back of the head, punching a small hole through before ricocheting off his helmet down into his stomach. The man had barely started toppling when the next shot came. He caught this one in the face, the bullet collapsing his forehead. The whole top half of his head crumpled like paper and he fell backwards into the long grass.
Bursts of Autogun fire and yelled commands. The scrabbling as the remaining six men threw themselves into the dubious cover of the long grass, crawling into a battle line. He knew there was no muzzle flash from his weapon, it was too well looked after. However, there was the sound. He never used silencers, as they impaired accuracy and were considered amateur bits of equipment by the Eldar. The ground should have reverberated the crack of the rifle, making impossible to pinpoint his location.
He could see the signaller and section commander giving a report down the radio. He could take them both. However, the others were more experienced, going into their drills with a slickness that only comes from live combat. A heavy machine gun started raking likely sniper points, patches of bushes and clumps of trees. The other men were advancing up. A single shot caught the signaller in the chest, his body folded and fell into a broken heap. The section commander moved with a quickness he rarely saw in humans, and the shot that should have hit his heart instead tore through the sling on his Autogun, which fell into the grass.
The machine gun bursts were getting closer now. The thumps as the bullets impacted into the ground, plumes of wet, rich soil being thrown up in little points where the bullets hit. Another shot hit the gunner in the shoulder, causing him to roll over in pain and abandon his gun. Panic was setting in, his shots were beginning to stray. He dispelled such thoughts from his mind, re-aligned and fired. The gunner was tugging at his field dressing when the second bullet fractured his spine. His body juddered and fell, twitching. Three men left.
The remaining men had pinpointed his location. Bullets flung up the earth no more than a metre from his face. The time for concealment had passed. With one lightning fast movement he sprang up, flinging away his camo cloak. Raising the rifle to his shoulder in a practised motion, he fired on the first man, hitting him directly in the heart. The other two were no more than fifty metres away now. One was raising his Autogun, the other fumbling with a clip. A brief rattle of an Autogun was cut off abruptly as the firer was hit in the shoulder, his Autogun tumbling from his nerveless fingers. The last man had just located the magazine when a bullet carried the rifle from his hands.
Click. He had emptied his entrie clip at the section. The man stood with his hands in the air, his weapon lay at his feet. He slung his rifle, and drew his tiny shruiken pistol, the sharp disc gleaming in the morning light. He strode towards the quivering man, until he was no more than a few metres away. He pulled the pistol up to level with the man’s eyes. It was then he noticed it was not a man, but a young boy, no more than sixteen years old. His eyes were full of fear, his lip quivered.
He had never been this close. He had always killed with the sniper rifle, from long distances, never had to look at his targets. Now he looked, really looked for the first time into the eyes of his enemy, the boy. He saw the fear, the numbness, the desperation.
He had never felt pity for man before. Man had destroyed, had squandered and defiled. Man was a plague on the universe.
First trigger pressure…….
Then again ,this boy was not man. He was just a frightened child. A child who was the enemy. He had to be killed. But it didn’t feel right, especially not this close. At least the others he had killed hadn’t seen it coming. Thinking too much, just do it.
He was no aspect warrior, he had never killed up close or savoured spilling the enemies blood. He had never really savoured killing at all but he was an excellent shot and had to serve the craftworld.
Serve the craftworld.
Second trigger pressure……
The shruiken hit the boy and tore through his skull. The expression changed to bewilderment, and the body dropped, falling softly into the wet soil. He put a fresh clip into the sniper rifle. His work for the day had only just begun……..
