One Hour Ago

A very short tale about a fire mission gun nuts.

She stared through the scope again. Its rubber ring socketed easily into the hole of her right orbital. The gunnery seat moved up and down with millimetric precision and the scope stayed firmly placed even as the vehicle ground over the broken and rock-strewn landscape. "I see you Brosus. I see your trail." She whispered as if talking to herself.

But the machine heard her and replied. "Yes, I see the thermal bloom from their engine. I suspect he has lost track linkages and is retreating."

She ignored the machine and continued whispering. Her hands now reaching forward to curl about the twin pistol grips of the cannon's fire command system. "I seee you!" She sang the words now. And abruptly pulled the left trigger.

The vehicle bucked and, through her scope, she saw the giant boulder that she had been aiming at suddenly burst apart as the sabot round impacted.

Her sight momentarily occluded she stomped down with one foot and hissed a command. "Back. Now! We missed!".

The machine responded instantly. "We did not miss, Gunner Layana. We did not fire at anything."

The woman's only return was a further hiss then a curse. "Damn you Brosus. You think you can hide. I will see you."

The machine interrupted her. "Gunner. We are exposed in this sector and recommend retreat to location zero alpha." The machine trilled an alarm. "We have been painted by remote guided munitions."

Layana ignored everything and squeezed the other trigger.

In that moment the loitering anti-armor missile that Brosus had fired an hour earlier found her. And plunged down into the heavy armor of the turret, slicing through the hatch and then exploding inside the armored vehicle.

The detonation reduced the contents of the vehicle to burned and melted plastic ash and organic compounds.