The Best of The Best

“The best of the best,” Artemis muses, “that’s what they told me when I signed up.” He rolls one of the slugs between his thumb and forefinger. The motion looks practiced, as if he’s spent many hours like this. His gaze slides pass the chunk of metal and locks onto mine. It’s unnerving to say the least; behind his stare you can see the trajectories and velocity calculations working themselves out. He doesn’t so much look at you as target you. “What brought you here?” he says after a moment’s pause. Now there’s a tricky question. “Of all the units engaged in the 1 year war, yours was probably the most influential and easily the most secretive. I suppose I nee-“ Artemis snorts “No I mean specifically which ship brought you to me.” “Oh,” The question catches me off guard, so much so that it takes me a moment to remember, “The Lipras.” He nods, “Class?” “She’s a frigate if that’s what you mean; a lot of the warships have been retro-fitted for other purposes now that the fighting’s done.” He nods again “That’s a shame; some of them were things of beauty. I saw the fighting out at Titan’s Reach, ran from it actually. Lots of folks died there.” Artemis falls silent, staring at the rifle round again. “Each time I pulled the trigger, it cost us as much as the ship that bought you here.” --The idea was relatively simple. Sure, there was all this talk of our fleet blasting chunks out of continents from light years away (and that was as your propaganda more than our capabilities) but that was far too messy. Of course you’re going to sign up once you learn your city, even your planet could be nothing but dust within the week. But what if we convinced people we had the power to pluck individuals away whenever we chose? No fallout, no collateral, just one very dead person with no explanation and no way to stop it. Who would want to rise through the ranks when as soon as you become too important, you die without warning and without any kind of repercussion? It was that fear that won us the war, without sounding too big headed. Here’s how we did it. You fit a small two, maybe three man craft with warp capabilities and as much stealth tech as you can afford. You slip into enemy space and set up in low orbit around a planet, lights out, barely enough power to sustain life and enough explosives to erase any trace of you. There were days, weeks sometimes spent in complete darkness listening to the ships rumble passed heading off to war, knowing that at any moment one of you would have to hit the detonator. Secrecy was the key you see, they pulled me from the Vedeken Droppers by faking a descent mishap. A couple of us died every time we got into those god-forsaken pods anyway, so it wasn’t like I was missed. I was the designated marksman for the 403rd, served under a stiff bastard named Voss. Good man he was though, looked after us best he could y’know? They told me I was good, accurate I mean. I had no idea how good until the men came knocking.

“We’re putting a team together,” They said, “You heard what happened at Whitefield? We cannot ever let that happen again.” I had heard to. Sabotage, the way some people tell it, hundreds of thousands dead at the hands of one Mr General Mason. I know your lot like to remember him as a hero, but we hated him. I was all too eager to sign up. It was actually a lot more mundane than you would think. I spent the next 3 weeks on board a freighter where no one, not the crew nor the men who’d found me said a word about where we were headed or what we were hauling. I ran laps around the outer decks, I played cards with the engineers and I made small talk with the maintenance crews. What I missed though, was keeping my eye in. That all changed once we reached Daruss. That’s where they handed me my gun. --Artemis pauses and I put down the notebook. “Off the record,” I begin, “what was it like?” He stays silent for a moment before answering. “Scary.” “Scary?” He nods. “Not days before I had been willing to point my rifle at a man and take his life. But this… too much power for one man. I’m glad those days are over.” --From then on out it was training exercise after training exercise. All simulated, but it gave us a good feel of the guns, their quirks and little details.