#sniping

No Fly Zone

Inspired by

https://x.com/YourNerdWonder/status/1769402396596224159?s=20

My people’s allegiance with the humans has brought me to this mission. It was a rather basic alliance, borne of mutual respect and benefit gained from protecting each other’s backs.

I was glad to have learned some human body language as this human didn’t seem to talk much. They smiled, which is a good sign they’d be easy to work with. Our mission was stealth-based which should be easy enough for me; I wasn’t so sure about the human though, with their size and epidermal tones. I landed us a fair distance from the enemy's base, keeping us undetected. Turning off the engines and leaving with our supplies, I was pleasantly surprised to find the human walking silently by my side. Perhaps this would be simpler than I had anticipated. No one had to see. No one had to know.

The enemy base was located in a temperate forest, hidden between the trees and thicket. Our post was on a nearby tree, unseen, unheard and unknown to anyone who may be lurking nearby. With our weapons secured to our backs, we make our way up the tree, the thick branches easily holding our weight and then some. It’s only when we get nearer the top do we stop, the branches getting too slim to hold us securely. I set up my weapon on a branch above the human as it wasn’t big enough to hold them, laying out its stabilizers and allowing my multiprocessors to assist in aiming my shot. I was surprised to look down at the human and find they were practically shooting blind, no auto shoot sensors, no self-adjusting stabilisers, no environment processors to adjust for wind, fog, and other conditions. Just a scope and a bipod.

I was starting to have second thoughts about our success and realised this mission landed on me with how unprepared this human was. Maybe they had simply not invented this technology yet? A strange thought, that I’d be fighting with a species that primitive.

Intel revealed the enemy had planned on leaving tonight. Perfect. This should be a quick mission. All I had to do now was wait. Our targets are Burnai’i, known for being cautious and secretive; I wouldn’t be surprised if this mission would require patience. Ironically enough Burnai’i were extremely brightly coloured, so they’d stick out like a sore thumb when they’d finally reveal themselves. More importantly, their blood was known to be highly toxic—which is why we’d been ordered to take them out at sniping distance and to not engage with a raid attack; it’d almost certainly backfire and kill us too.

I wait. And wait. And wait.....the planet’s sun had long dipped below the horizon and the cold of the night had thoroughly set in. Minutes turned to hours and I had to move from my position or else my bones might’ve given out. But the human, the human seemed undeterred. Other than a stretch or two they didn’t seem to take a break at all.

The Burnai’i were probably planning on making a quick exit in the cover of night. That wouldn’t be too difficult to account for. We take the night in shifts, sleeping on and off, waiting for our target.

The human still seemed fine even after such a spotty sleep cycle; unfortunately, I was much worse for wear. My eyes feel dry and itchy, my fur is cold and scratchy and I can hear my very bones creaking from staying still so long. The waiting game had stretched out into days. I began to wonder if we had missed them if they had slipped by and we had failed.

It had been almost three days of waiting; I was about to pass out from exhaustion before hearing the distinct thud-tch sound of gunshots. My fur stands on end, thinking we were getting shot at before getting an alert from my AI spotter declaring that three targets had been eliminated. I look down to find the human- still rigid and alert as ever- looking down their scope, locked onto their target, and taking another shot. I wouldn’t have believed it if it weren’t for my AI blatantly declaring the enemy's termination right before my eyes.

How? How could they hit their targets at this distance? They had no auto adjusters, no AI, no processors. They were shooting blind and yet they never missed. Did they have some sort of sixth sense? A sense that allowed them to determine exactly where their target would be to shoot. A sense could calculate their shot to the nanometer. No...that would be ridiculous. It’d take a computer to pull off those sorts of calculations that fast, it’s why I had them. But...then what could explain their accuracy? Not to mention how they had been sleep-deprived over the past three days just like me. Even on such little sleep...the human had managed this.

It was...almost scary.

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This was written for a prompt I saw from u/CraftyMcQuirkFace