Red Troop laid up for a rest stop about twenty klicks past a small town. They were trying to clear a route from the capital, Chandarra, to a city about ten hours to the southwest. Satellite imagery had shown mostly bitumen roads snaking across the desert, but no chances were being taken; if an armoured convoy could bridge the ten hour gap and link up with ground forces that were already starting to take control of the smaller city, the orbiting fleet would have a whole desert between the two cities to funnel landing ships into.
The six armoured personnel carriers had formed a rough circle with their rear doors facing inward for protection, perched on high ground. The two LCRVs were parked nearby, loaded up and ready to make a break for it if necessary. The twenty-eight cavalrymen were huddled around flameless chemical heaters, cooking their rations and heating water for coffee.
Veraa set three tins of fish paste on the ground, twisting them into the dust a little, then drew her bayonet. She punched open the lids with three short, downward jabs, twisting and shearing the metal away from the salty treat within. One of her comrades held out a tin of hot water, held gingerly by the rim between two gloved fingers. “Coffee, troop?”
She held up her steel mug while he poured for her. “Thank you, Corporal.”
“Sure. It’s Kul’hura, right?”
“Yes,” she smiled, dumping coffee mix and condensed milk into the mug. “Just transferred in from the School of Armour before we deployed.”
“I guess you’re still on your reinforcement cycle,” he said, then gestured at the long-barrelled and scoped rifle that lay beside her. “See you’ve been using a DMR lately.”
“Yeah, Designated Marksman was the only course I didn’t get to do in Caledonia. I was the only Scout in the class, so they left it up to the unit to train me.”
Corporal Vickers’ reply was cut short by a bullet exploding through his shoulder. In a strange flash of understanding, Veraa’s mind processed and recognised three distinct sounds in the few seconds it took her to grab her rifle and dive for cover under the hull of the nearest MCV: the wet thump of the bullet hitting Vickers, the smaller thump of the bullet striking the ground, and finally the echoing snap of the rifle as the soundwave caught up to the supersonic projectile.
Under the hull, Veraa crawled on her stomach, hooking an elbow through the rifle’s sling and dragging it alongside her, just as she’d been taught. She saw yellow flashes in the dark and dragged the rifle out in front of herself. From a pouch on her belt she produced a night-vision device, which snapped onto a rail that ran the length of the barrel. The thin moonlight was amplified by the device, fed into her powerful scope, and channelled to her eye. Through the greyish glow of the night scope she focussed on one of the bright little flashes, thumbed the weapon’s safety switch, and squeezed off two rounds. She moved from target to target, firing two rounds and moving on. She wasn’t there to verify kills, only to keep the enemies heads down; a hit was a bonus. More fire was coming from among the vehicles as her comrades mounted their defense, and she squirmed backwards under the hull. As she crawled out of the narrow space, she heard a voice shouting above the rest. “Where’s that DMR?”
“Here, Lieutenant,” she called out, moving to him and getting as low to the ground as possible. Rounds sizzled through the air like angry insects, seeming to hiss as they passed close to the ear; known as a ‘lead wasp’.
“Kul’hura, go with Peterson, try to take out their commanders.”
Life on the Fringes 