One Shot, One Kill

I am unique. I always have been. When most people hear the word loner, they view it as somebody who is shy and doesn’t know how to start a conversation. In my case though, I stay away from people because I don’t want anybody slowing me down. I go out of my way to steer clear of other folks. When I joined the planet’s military, I signed up to be a sniper. My instructors were surprised when I refused to be a part of a sniper team or to even be assigned to a squad. They eventually came around to my way of thinking after my first battle against pirates from a nearby star system. Without being tied down by anybody, I was able to move across the battlefield quickly, taking out multiple enemy officers while dragging injured soldiers to safety. My superiors allowed me to become an independent soldier in the army and for a month I kept doing what I do. Now, our army was being deployed to put down a terroist organization in the only colony our planet has. The colony was on a moon in another star system. The planet that it circled was completly uninhabitable and the only other objects orbiting the system’s sun were a bunch of asteroids. Except for the planet, the moon was quite lonely for being the only other place to exist. The terroists were a group of people that hated colonization to the extent of taking up arms against their own government. What was really annoying to the politicians was that they had gone out of their way to colonize a world uninhabated and where the wildlife would be unharmed, only to still be facing criticism after everything they had done. When we began our landing on the colony, I was sitting in a transport with 20 other soldiers. I was doing my routine check on my gun when some newbie sergeant popped up.

"You, which squad are you in?"

"I’m not in a squad sir. I’m a lone sniper. I work alone."

"Hell to that. This army is one fat group. We work together to survive and win. You must have a death wish if-"

"Sir, I just do my job by myself. I never work with anybody. And I'm still alive, aren't-"

It was at that moment some anti-aircraft gun must have hit us with a shell. Because an explosion ripped into our ship and I blacked out. When I woke up, I only found bodies around me. There were too few of them though, so I figured that there were other survivors who left earlier. Honestly, I was only a little mad with this discovery. I simply grabbed my rifle and checked the bodies, just in case anybody else was alive. After I had no results, I grabbed any ammo I knew I could use and followed the tracks of the other survivors. Even I knew there was no way I could survive long out here. I'm a loner, not a hunter. An hour later, I heard screams and rushed to the top of a rock. I saw allies running to a transport while being gunned down by a heavy weapons platoon. The terroists were not holding back any punches. They even had some rockets to take down aircraft or tanks. I aimed my rifle at an officer first and began another killing streak. I was quick with my work. I never bothered trying to aim to kill. I figured that as long as the target is hit, that should be good enough. I avoided the wounded and those that came to their aid. I wasn't taking any chances with the guys armed with the rockets. They all had holes in their heads by the time I was done with them. I noticed that the surviving friendly soldiers were on board the transport now. That was when I realized that they had no idea I was still here. Before I could do anything, the transport was gone. I was stranded on a moon swarming with enemy forces. I truly understood what it meant to be alone. I hid in a cave and in the 3 months that I waged a lone war against the terroists, there were times when I was sure that everybody that knew me hated me for being so cold. I even thought that nobody even remembered me. When I look back on those moments, I'm not as surprised as I would have been before of how hurt I was with those thoughts. Granted, I am human like everybody else, so it is reasonable for me to fall victim to such emotions like everybody else. Finally, the army defeated the terroists, arresting the leaders while sending the followers to prison camps. I had been walking back to my cave after ambushing some terroists that were bullying a few civilians when I heard the sound of fighting. I took a shortcut on a path I was very familiar with and reached my sniping position for a farmer's field. Three terroists had almost wiped out a squad of allies. I saw that only one of the friendly soldiers was still shooting. The rest were either dead or injured. In quick succesion, I killed one of the terroists and injured the others. Inside, I was happy that I was finally saved. But I remained stoic. I may have panicked during my months of isolation, but it was able to toughen me up better than training ever did for me. I was surprised to discover that the soldier I had saved was the sergeant from before. Now though, he had been promoted to captain and had recklessly joined a patrol cleaning up any enemy resistance that remained.

"You? I can't believe you're still alive! After that crash months ago, I was sure that you were dead!"

"I never thought I would see you again. Three months and you're in command of a whole company. The army must be desperate if they promoted you to such a high position."

"Hey, I can't believe you said that to me soldier."

"Captain, you are certainly not the greatest tactical genius. Not even close-"

"I heard that you never talked with anybody. Yet here you are holding a conversation with me."

"Wh-Zip it. Just tell me where I can report in for duty."

"Just head back to town and go for the playground there. HQ is set up at that location. Man, everyone is going to go crazy when they see you."

"What are you talking about? I've been so invisible and unsocial for all my life, I figured that none of you even noticed I was gone."

"Do you know how many lives you saved during your first month? You're a hero. Everybody including the other snipers were so upset months ago because we all thought we would never get to know you. Or thank you."

"Gah-Whatever. Like I care."

"Well, guess I'll be the first one to do it. Thank you for saving my life. Oh, twice I guess. I just realized that you might have been the one that covered me months ago."

"Sure. Whatever."

"And welcome back soldier."

I turned my head away, blushing a little since no one had ever said anything like that to me before. After that, I started to become a little more willing to work with others, though I still tried to skip out of a group when they started to do something I found uninteresting. In the end though, you could say that I was never the same man ever again, at least in a small way.

THE END