Chapter 18 - THE COLONEL’S CRACKING FACADE
For nearly three seconds, there was nothing.
The bullet was in flight, traversing seventeen hundred yards of hostile, swirling atmosphere. It climbed nearly thirty feet above the line of sight at the peak of its trajectory, screaming through the cold upper currents before descending along its parabolic arc toward the limestone ridge.
Colonel Vance had his eye glued to the high-magnification spotting scope. His breath was held so tight his lungs burned.
*Hit the dirt,* Vance prayed desperately in the dark, petty corners of his soul. *Miss the mountain. Hit the brush. Anything to prove she isn't what they say she is.*
Then, through the lens, Vance saw the white silhouette.
*PING.*
The sound took five full seconds to travel back across the mile of open valley, but through the glass, the visual confirmation was instantaneous: a burst of gray lead-splash erupted directly in the dead center of the white paint. The heavy, half-inch-thick steel plate whipped violently backward on its chains, spinning with such kinetic violence that it sheared the right-hand mounting bracket clean off.
"Direct hit," Major Sterling whispered, his voice trembling. "Center-mass. At seventeen hundred and sixty yards."
General Campbell let out a low, slow whistle. "Sweet mother of God."
Vance pulled his face away from the scope, his eyes wide, pupils dilated in shock. "It... it hit. But the plate... the plate is swinging. She can't follow that up. The target is moving!"
Emma didn't wait for the target to stop moving.
Her right hand worked the smooth bolt of the *Aegis* in a blur of mechanical efficiency. The spent brass casing flew out in a high, shimmering arc, clinking onto the concrete floor, and a fresh round was driven into the chamber with an unbroken, single stroke.
She tracked the swinging plate through the glass. She didn't wait for it to settle; she calculated the pendulum motion in real time—the harmonic oscillation of a thirty-pound steel plate dangling by a single chain in a twenty-knot gust.
*Lub-dub.*
*Roar.*
The second vapor trail carved the sky.
Three seconds later, through the spotting scope, the swinging plate was struck precisely at the apex of its upward swing. The bullet punched through the exact same spot, its kinetic energy driving the plate upward until it wrapped completely around the crossbar of the target frame, locking itself in place upside-down.
"Target immobilized," Donovan shouted, a grin spreading across her battle-hardened face that she couldn't hide even if she tried. "Two for two. Second round struck the exact same impact crater."
Emma didn't celebrate. She didn't smile. She smoothly cycled the bolt a third time, chambering the final round.
"Private Carter," General Campbell said quietly, stepping up to her side. "Hold your fire."
Emma instantly froze. Her finger came off the trigger and indexed along the receiver, straight and clear of the guard.
"Yes, General?"
Campbell looked out at the distant bluff, then looked down at the twenty-one-year-old girl sitting calmly behind the weapon of a legend.
"You don't need to waste the third round on a piece of steel that's already dead," Campbell said, his voice rich with authority and something approaching reverence. "You have proved everything that needed to be proved."
He turned slowly to face Colonel Sterling Vance.
The Colonel was shaking. His hands, clasped behind his back, were visibly trembling against his tailored tunic. His career, his reputation, and his authority had just been dismantled on his own range, in front of his entire senior staff, by a clerk he had tried to humiliate over an inventory discrepancy.
"Colonel Vance," General Campbell said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, icy whisper that made every man on the deck stiffen.
"Y-yes, General?" Vance stammered.
"Effective immediately, you are relieved of your administrative command over the battalion's tactical training division," Campbell declared. "Major Sterling will assume acting command of the range complex."
"General, please—" Vance started, his face pale as paper.
May you like
"You will return to your quarters and await further orders from Division headquarters," Campbell cut him off, not raising his voice by a single decibel. "You displayed gross negligence, personal malice, and an utter lack of strategic comprehension regarding the assets under your command. You are dismissed."
***
