Kayla exhaled, squeezed her finger gently, and broke the trigger on her pistol. The slide jumped back, and the weapon barked loudly. She’d struck her target two inches left and below center at the hundred-yard range.
“That’s great, Barnes, but you’re still twitching the sights a little,” explained the shooting cadre next to her. “You’re anticipating the shot—moving to absorb the recoil before it even happens.”
Kayla grinned. “I guess I’m a little impatient to get to the point.”
“For sure,” the cadre smiled. “And I’m not saying that you should be trying to get that perfectly controlled shot in the middle of a gunfight. But, if you develop the basic skills as much as you can, you’re going to improve your performance under stress. Do you dry fire?”
Kayla shook her head.
“In your downtime, empty your service pistol and rack the slide to set the trigger, then aim and shoot, and be sure to watch the sights carefully.”
“Okay, I’ll do that,” Kayla promised, hungry for any advice that would make her better.
“Do it about a million times and you’ll be shooting at a high level,” the cadre finished.
The next part of the course was named Combat Phase, and the intensity didn’t let up. Before any of the girls were let near a weapon, they were ushered into classrooms to cover the basics of gun safety. The cadre began by showing them a graphic video from another class of a Ranger accidentally discharging her weapon and killing a nearby girl.
“Who wants to kill their best friend today?” The cadre asked dispassionately, while the stunned class watched the horror on the young woman’s face.
An accidental, or negligent discharge was one of the most serious crimes any member of the organization could commit—even grounds for instant dismissal. The girls saw this lesson driven home several weeks into the course, when a particularly excitable Ranger shot her rifle into the sand while walking back from a gun range. She was led away, begging and pleading, taken to the Physio-development center to have her nanite’s flushed out before being sent home.
The Rangers saw only expressions of contempt on the faces of the cadre as the class was lined up for a speech from the course’s director on the seriousness of their new profession.
“This wasn’t a one-off case,” shouted a furious officer. “You’re all starting to act like you wandered into fantasy land! Playing at wonder woman and getting high on life? Consider this your wake-up call because mistakes in this organization are usually rewarded with death; either yours, or your teammates. Is that clear?”
“Yes ma’am,” the class solemnly chorused.
They trained on every small-arms weapons system, from pistols and rifles, to shotguns, and machine guns. They learned to field strip, clean and maintain all of them, then went back and focused on the standard service pistol and carbine until they could reassemble them blindfolded.
“It’s strange,” Christie observed to a cadre member, “that you still depend on explosive driven bullets. Why don’t you use rail accelerated, or laser weapons? Other security forces do.”
“We use advanced charges to get high muzzle velocity, so you can shoot an effective round out to four thousand yards from the carbine,” explained the woman. “But ninety percent of all combat engagements will occur at around three hundred yards anyway. I don’t care how good a shot you are; you’re not hitting anything at extreme range whilst bullets are cracking past your head. But another reason is dependability—bullets almost never misfire, and mechanical stoppages are easy to fix. All the sophisticated weapons you describe are well and good in a controlled, civilized environment, but if you’re alone on a barren planet, and your fancy, electronics-dependent laser-rifle malfunctions, what are you going to do?”
“Panic?” suggested Christie. The other Rangers laughed.
“Exactly,” the cadre continued. “We always prepare for the worst-case scenario, and we’re not often disappointed. But consider the basic laws of physics. Energy weapons can be interfered with or neutralized, plasma can be dispersed, and there are electro-magnetic fields which can slow the beams from particle weapons. But there’s nothing besides a strong slab of matter that can block the destructive energy of a high-speed mass projectile.”
Once weapons were mastered, the cadre switched to basic infantry skills; movement to contact, reacting to ambushes, patrolling, and finally room clearing. Almost every drill Kayla practiced was dependent on smooth, coordinated execution by a team of Rangers. They were required to move and react in harmony, like dancers in a ballet. But sometimes, others in her fire team were slow or awkward, and she struggled to wait for them to catch up. Kayla couldn’t help feeling a flash of jealousy when she saw that Rose excelled in those drills.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Skill is engrained in muscle memory,” explained the cadre when the class showed less than total enthusiasm for repeating another exercise. “Combat is a terrifying storm of chaos and confusion. You will be high on adrenaline, you will be physically exhausted, shaking and unable to focus. The only thing that will save you is skill repetition, until you can no longer get it wrong. Most people believe that when fate calls upon them, they will rise to the occasion. They believe this because they live sheltered, comfortable lives that allow them to indulge in fantasy. But don’t take my word for it.”
The Rangers were told to stand in a widely spaced row in a field, while a distant sniper engaged targets placed between them. They were given a simple list of ten words to memorize and repeat once they got back, which they all failed to do. Kayla would never forget the terrible paralysis she felt as supersonic rounds cracked past her head. After that reminder, the class threw themselves back into the grind with greater energy.
“You’re going to be pretty useless in your first firefight,” a cadre told them, once they had completed the last day of Combat Phase. “Have faith that your experienced squad leaders will keep you shooting and moving as you should be. With time and experience, you’ll become the master of yourself and your abilities.”
“That is a big drop,” Thandi said with a grimace.
Kayla looked down the two-hundred-foot chasm. A thirty-foot gulf separated their squad from the opposite cliff face, beyond which lay the objective they were supposed to reach. She wondered if she could jump the gap.
“These contours don’t show any kind of ravine,” Rose muttered with frustration as she peered at a map.
She was the squad leader for the exercise, and therefore responsible for leading Kayla, Thandi, and five other Rangers to victory. They had entered the final Maneuver Phase of the training course, which had begun with classroom study of small unit tactics. Together with the basic drills they had practiced in the previous phase, the girls had learned how to confront realistic battle scenarios as a team. Now they were in full combat gear, armed with rifles loaded with wax bullets, and ready to shoot the training cadre’s ‘opposing force’, or get shot by them.
“I told you Rose,” Kayla said. “They gave us inaccurate maps.”
Rose’s brow furrowed. “But how do you know that?”
Kayla shrugged. “I expect the unexpected. Every-time they send us off on our own they start messing with us.”
She looked back at the rest of the squad and barely suppressed a snarl of frustration. The other girls had taken advantage of the confused pause in their advance to prop themselves against trees or boulders and let their eyes droop.
“Hey Cheng,” Kayla snapped. “What the hell happened to ‘everybody leads’? Why don’t you get off your ass and come take a look?”
Ranger Cheng Juan Shen’s eyes remained shut as she slowly shook her head. “We’ve overcome some difficult leadership challenges today,” she said, “and now we’re following Rose, which means we’re all going to get shot.”
A few giggles broke out from the squad, which Rose ignored, though her cheeks turned pink. Thandi inspected a distant tree line through her rifle scope, and said nothing.
Kayla inhaled slowly. The instructors punished mistakes with a merciless volley of harmless, but painful training bullets, and Rose had been making more than her fair share of mistakes. She also didn’t ask for advice, or listen to any that was offered.
Through a gap in the trees, Kayla saw distant rolling hills. Christie was out there somewhere, working on another scenario with other Rangers. Kayla yearned to join her, if only to get a break from her own difficult squad leader. But that was not Ranger thinking. Decisions had to be made, regardless of who was technically in charge. Everyone had to step up.
“Okay,” Kayla said. “We know this is the right approach to the hilltop, so let’s jump the chasm.”
Cheng sat up, her eyes snapping wide open. “Are you freaking serious?”
The other Rangers in the squad looked similarly concerned.
Thandi rubbed a deep blue bruise on her neck where an instructor’s wax bullet had made her pay for moving too slowly. “That’s a big gap. You don’t think we can go around it?”
Rose sighed as her finger traced a route on her map. “Not without leaving the cover of the trees. Unless we backtrack and head around to the eastern approach.”
“That’s too far,” Kayla said. “We’ll get a late penalty. Look, this is a totally manageable jump. You have to believe in your new abilities.”
“You’re stronger than us,” Thandi protested.
Kayla thumped her shoulder. “Only a bit—you can totally handle this.”
Thandi shook her head. “I can’t even begin to believe that.”
“Well, you have to learn it firsthand.”
“What if I fall?”
Kayla looked down the ravine again, to a stream that frothed white over nasty looking rocks. She had to admit that, although—according to the cadre—she might survive a fall like that, she wouldn’t necessarily want to.
“You’ll live,” she said. “Come on, you’re not going to flake out on me like you did on the big wall?”
Thandi’s jaw dropped. “It was a thousand-foot drop! Even the cadre told you to stop climbing!”
“Oh, okay. Sorry for ruffling your feathers.”
Thandi glared at her. “Lord how I hate you sometimes.”
“Stand back girls,” Kayla declared.
They watched with appalled expressions as she backed off a short distance, broke into a sprint, then leaped over the gap. She hit the other side and collapsed into a roll. Once she got back to her feet and dusted off her hands, she turned back with a smirk on her face. “Well, now you can’t leave me here,” she called. “That wouldn’t be teamwork, would it?”
“No sweat!” an angry-looking Rose yelled as she aimed her rifle. “I’ve got the perfect solution! Friendly fire happens all the time, right?”
“It’s not even a risk!” Kayla called. “You can easily make that distance.” She let her smile widen encouragingly, while she tried to ignore the part of her mind screaming at her in disbelief at what she had just done.
“You’ll catch me, won’t you, if something goes wrong?” Thandi yelled.
“No, I’ll probably just watch and laugh,” Kayla shot back.
“Yeah, funny! Oh, lord… okay. Um… get ready?”
Kayla walked to the edge and moved into a stance, ready to catch her friend. “I got you!”
Thandi backed away from the gap, broke into a run, and jumped at the last moment. She sailed through the air, collided with Kayla, and they both fell to the ground. Thandi screamed in delight and punched the air as she jumped to her feet. “That was awesome!”