Chapter 2 - Coffee Lady
Thirteen men had missed before Norah ever touched the rifle.
Not rookies. Not weekend shooters. Decorated snipers with polished reputations, custom equipment, and contractors from Aegis Dynamics standing behind them with tablets glowing like expensive promises. The program was called Oracle, and everyone had arrived that morning expecting it to win a contract, validate a doctrine, and make Major Reeves look brilliant.
Norah had arrived at 0500 to sign for ammunition crates.
That was the version of her people preferred. Logistics. Clipboard. Bottled water. Dead batteries. Missing pallets. Coffee if someone thought he was funny enough to ask.
“Coffee lady,” Morgan had called earlier, walking past her table with a rifle case worth more than her truck. “Tell me you packed donuts.”
His friends laughed.
Norah checked the serial number on an ammo crate without looking up. “Sorry. I only serve humble pie after noon.”
The laughter thinned.
Morgan stopped. His sling sat half an inch too low, fresh powder marked his right glove, and all morning he had been jerking the trigger and blaming the wind.
“Careful, Captain,” he said. “This is a sniper event. Wouldn’t want you too close to the dangerous toys.”
Norah looked up then.
“Then try not to miss with them.”
Major Cole Reeves appeared before Morgan could answer. Polished boots. Clean jaw. Career-officer eyes always searching for the highest rank nearby.
“Captain Hayes,” Reeves said, voice lowered, “logistics stays behind the line today.”
“I know where the line is, sir.”
“I’m saying stay in your lane.”
Norah glanced toward the firing line, where the Oracle tablet was already displaying numbers too clean for the wind snapping across the desert.
She had learned long ago that some men feared being corrected more than being wrong.
May you like
So she returned to her ammo table.
And waited for physics to embarrass everyone.
