Anti-material rifles were among her favorite weapons. She'd brought one with her just in case, but for now, it sits behind her on the rock she perches upon.

  As she looked through her range scope near the top of an overlooking mountain, the hangar was bright and clear through her night vision.

  An attempt at artillery fire was going about as well as she expected. In awful weather such as this, even rifles become unreliable past a couple hundred meters, yet alone big fat artillery shells.

  That's half the reason most use laser weapons.

  But a laser gun's main issue is a limit to the power of the payload. No such issue with a fifty seven cal. It can make people's heads explode like luxury melons. Her suit was so black that even lightning wouldn't give away her position. It's thermal signage as cold as the ambient air that surrounds her.

  As she looks through her range scope, the winding road to this base is easy to see. She can see the cliff face which stretches down into the valley between her and her targets. It looks like there's a shooting range just beyond the cliff edge at the top.

  She looks around the hangars, a couple heat signatures making themselves known through the cracks in the seams. Flesh bags waiting to be punctured.

  Looking on the outside, she sees what looks to be a man jogging between the hangars from right to left. She couldn't make much of his figure. Maybe it was some sort of coat.

  She looked away from her scope and disabled the night vision of her mask for a moment. Other than the occasion bolt, or some missed explosion, the world was rather quiet. Calm, yet peaceful. Like a false vacuum.

  And very, very dark.

  Especially as the Neosun slipped below the horizon.

  Tiny lights emerged from behind one of the winding mountain passes from her left, climbing from the bottom of the valley.

  Their light twinkled through the angled rainfall. It was beautiful.

  It was Cerberus’s enforcement forced to finally do more than escort. Or execute. Or raid innocence as a private policing contractor.

  She turns the night vision back on to see clearer. The escort was of older model troop transports and a couple APCs that looked out of place compared to the tech. Yet looked perfect all the same as she looked back at the hangar. And through her scope.

  A team split off from the main escort and into the valley, towards the cliff edge on foot. The bombardment had stopped. The eerie silence turns deadly as she gets bored and grabs the anti-material rifle behind her, racking the bolt to chamber a round. An empty cartridge flies out and makes a metallic tap on the weathered stone, then cascading down the mountain like a rock. She closes the chamber forward, loading another round.

  She keeps a fired round in the gun during storage so it can be fun when it pops out after racking the bolt again.

  No more fun and games. She looks back down the scope.

  A radio message comes to her as the escort stops just before the final turn towards the airfield. “This is assault team. We're in position. Waiting on your call.”

  Her eye peers down to the second team at the bottom of the valley. They're still moving towards their location.

  It takes about a quiet minute for them to be ready, and so, in the meantime, she fixes her sights on a hot spot through a rust hope.

  But then finally, they get in contact. “This is flank team. Waiting on your ca—”

  The thunder of her bullet outmatched anything in the sky.

  It was impractical. You can't suppress a thing that big.

  And as her nameless target's head explodes, it's obvious that it was overkill too. Glowy goo splattered all over the place like a water balloon stuffed with a grenade.

  Of course, that was her signal. As she re-racks the bolt, the lead starts flying. It sounded like little crackers going off in the distance. Like the sound of microwave popcorn being muddied through the filter of a groaning, watery microwave. Little sparks would flash then disappear in her visor— the lights of gunfire. Though far more popcorn than there was lights yet.

  She tries and finds another target, one situated in some sort of watch tower. The wind picks up as she pulls the trigger, and damn, she's missed. But pulling the trigger was fun, as was re-racking the bolt.

  Another shot and… another miss. Oh! Nope, looks like one of the enforcers got them as they tumble back into the tower out of sight. What a silly place to perch at.

  Another round in the chamber— about four left. Three in the magazine and one in the chamber.

  She was about to look elsewhere, but then, some traps were sprung, as a big explosion went off just past one of the base’s barbed fences.

  She observed as enforcement bogged down near the entrance to the airfield. They wisely used the APCs as cover directly ahead, two squads splitting across to the far side near the husk-trees.

  One of them disappears behind a building, only for a big hot cloud to come rising in the air, soon followed by the sound of the blast.

  Safe to say those enforcement are mincemeat.

  Hmm… who to shoot next… Ah! A few people nested up on one of the roofs. She adjusts her sights slightly to accommodate the wind— God knows SERaMACs won't be doing it for her at this stage.

  Another explosion, a big one, disrupts her focus for a moment.

  She removes herself from the scope to have a look. A vehicle has blown up on the airstrip. Looks like one for the resistance.

  Enforcement appears to be shooting more at the tarmac than they are at the enemies. The APC begins laying fire blindly into the buildings, each shot a high-explosive piece of ordinance. They tear through the buildings and would mystify anything they hit.

  Enough theater. Looking down the scope, the people have moved.

  The rain goes more sideways as lightning strikes close to her position. Her mask does a great job at making what would otherwise sound deadening sound very cool.

  She acquires a new target, another hotspot through a crevice. She pops another round off, which misses the hole. But that's okay, as it tore straight through the metal next to it and seems to hit whatever, or whoever, that was behind it.

  No satisfying splat but that's okay, for she chambers another round. Two remaining in the magazine.

  A bulb turns on behind her eyes, and she looks back to her equipment pack. Leaving the battle for a moment, she turns and crawls back to check if she packed what she's supposed to.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Laser batteries? Check.

  Pink band-aids? Check.

  Extra rounds? Check. Wait… no. No extra rounds.

  Where there would've once been swearing, there is now silence, for she forsakes to ever speak again as her master ordered. That doesn't stop her from kicking a stone down the mountain in frustration as she goes back to her perch.

  Lightning strikes, big whoop.

  She keeps the rifle aside for the moment. If there are any high priority targets that appear, she'll want to save those for when.

  Instead, she peers back through the range scope in passive observation. Her eyes, something her master can rely on. The fidelity is slightly better than the scope, which helps.

  She disables the hearing protector to keep her senses totally unaltered. She'll speak again before that happens.

  The rain has more texture, it's noise now with depth. Lightning is actually loud. The popcorn sounds more like deep cracks in the distance. There are faint screams. Cries. Grenades. Faint engine whining. It is all a part of the atmosphere.

  What she sees is more chaos. One of the enforcement vehicles has exploded on the tarmac in a trap. The secondary team is almost at the top of the cliff, but it seems the enemy roof team has relocated to fight them.

  How did they know they were there?

  Maybe the tall one with cyberlegs could see them from high up.

  Haha.

  Some bodies are slowly piling up. Mostly enforcement it seems, as the corpses are in uniform. Those which aren't must be resistance, wearing olden-time plate armor and old-world military surplus. The way they fought was so… vehement. It's like they were fighting for more than a job.

  Enforcement, on the other hand, appeared scared and timid. Like they'd come for a cake walk, only to be met with spikes. Very literal spikes. The fight wasn't going very well even if it was only a matter of time.

  She puts away her scope for now, contemplating whether or not to come closer.

  This was the best vantage point but… enforcement is really struggling.

  But no, she thinks. If it's really that bad they'll be ordering reinforcement. Something catches her vision from the corner of her eye to the right. Turning her head to look, the tiniest of red-and-green lights flash suddenly and faintly in the distance. The far distance. But they're getting closer quite fast and… there's quite a few of them.

  She looks back down the scope to see… is that reinforcements? A swarm of about ten… maybe fifteen rotocopters coming towards the base. She continues to look as they grow. As they grow, what they are becomes more obvious. There are not rotocopters, but medicopters. For the wounded? No… since when have they given a shit about private military healthcare?

  Her conclusions end at the fact that whatever they are, they shouldn't be there. And so she switches back to the rifle, very happy she'd brought it after all. Three shots left with one in the chamber. She waits for the winds to die down and… She’d almost forgot to enable the sound dampeners. Luckily, the wind has still died down and so she takes a shot. Nice miss.

  And so, there are two bullets left in total. As she re-racks the bolt, that makes one in the chamber, and one in the magazine. Thus, she bites her time and simply… observes.

  The medicopters are still coming closer, the battle still raging.

  She looks again to her left to see that enforcement has made small but visible progress. The cliff team is relocating further down— it appears like a game of whack-a-mole meets cats and mice.

  She considers shooting at the tall dude but… nah. That wouldn't be that helpful. Those medicopters come further into view now. Blanket lighting from behind them shows that they're splitting up. About three maintain their heading while two lower their altitude. The others split off left and right from there.

  What are these pilot fools up to?

  The two that lowered altitude began to slow down where the other three are seeming to speed up.

  She looks back to the enforcement line, and finally, it looks like they're about to make progress. There must be at least forty dead at this point.

  While the color through night vision isn't great, it's clear that the water of puddles on the tarmac are closer to the maroon of the clouds than the clearness of water.

  There is a bit less screaming now too, so the herd must be thinning out.

  Back to the medicopters now. The fast three are losing altitude fast. They are about to fly over the base. They're about to crash into the base…

  Jesus Christ, they just kamikaze into the vehicles of the enforcement lines near the road. With speed close to those of a bullet, the crash echoes through the values as the boom cloud rises high into the skies, and fire engulfs half of those holding positions.

  What sort of pilot would do that? Was it autopilot?

  The exposition shuts up the fighting for a moment. The quiet static of wind and rain encompasses her for all of a moment. The chopping of medicopters blades grows in the distance as those two are preparing to land. Those ones that split off went for who knows where.

  She throws aside the range scope for her anti-material sniper.

  Two bullets with special names written all over them. About thirty seconds have passed, and not a single shot extra has come.

  Through the ambiance she picks up the sound of engines starting.

  Those medicopters finally make touch down, and enemy heat marks start rushing all over the area.

  The wind and rain calmed down again.

  It was like that last explosion satisfied them for the time being.

  She decides to take a potshot and one of the exiting vehicles. It goes straight through one of the rear doors and hits someone inside by the looks.

  One more re-rack. One final bullet. This one she'll save for whoever is last to leave. A few minutes pass her by, though not without being recorded and stored in her brain.

  One car sped into the tree-husks on the far side… and they emerged far down the road towards the direction of where those split-off medicopters were flying.

  A few more vehicles follow them, slowly; the number of skittish heads to pop mark lowering by the minute.

  She looks back to enforcement, where those who have survived are in hiding with a tail between their legs. Some literally.

  Finally, a group of about four people left for the medicopter on the farthest side of the runway. She was tempted to fire her shot into the cockpit… but autopilot… SERaMACs would probably fly away anyway.

  She was curious as to how many would be in this last one.

  And finally… It's a boy and a girl.

  The boy is the one she saw running between the buildings earlier.

  And the girl? Well, she was just short. A small target.

  The wind is pretty bad and they're moving pretty fast… she has a rough guess of where to aim and boom! Dammit! She managed to take his left hand clean off but the bastard is still alive.

  And so the boy and girl run like animals into the back of that last medicopter. And then, it shuts up, and flies off unceremoniously. And so the base was more or less dead. The only lights coming from the dead uniforms of enforcement. The first wrecks of those planes and APCs.

  And… that was it. The Neosun has gone by now.

  She takes a stand on her perch and holsters her rifle across her back. At least the climb down from the mountainside will be fun. It'll be cool all the different ways the mangled bodies will be contorted too.

  The silence of the death of the battle yields two things.

  One, investigation of the premises and… two.

  Compensation on behalf of the enforcement for any trauma.

  Not in credits of course. Some coupons will suffice.

  She puts her kit up with her and begins her descent across the ruins.