Stars rain down by Chris J. Randolph

Author:Chris J. Randolph [Chris J. Randolph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SF
Published: 2010-09-19T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24:

Remedial

The midsummer sun was brutal. Jack Hernandez lay on his stomach, looking down the sights of a matte-black assault rifle while sweat ran off him in rivulets. He was wet from head to toe, the sweat making his weapon slippery as a fish. Fifty meters beyond the tip of his barrel sat a target in the shape of a man. A man who was mocking him. He might have imagined that last part.

Everybody else had qualified on their first day at the range, including Leonid Nikitin who hit every target with ease. He claimed he could blind a suicidal king at three hundred meters, and it was probably true. Shooting was second nature to that man, but Jack wasn’t so lucky. He was now on his third straight day of shooting, and the brass had assigned him a personal tutor as a last resort.

“Go ahead and take your time,” his little brother Charlie said. “There’s no rush today. Line it up so the post is right in the middle of the notch, then put it on your target.”

Jack thought it was lined up, but he wasn’t sure. After all, he’d thought it was lined up every other time he pulled the trigger, but that blasted target was still in one piece.

“Is it lined up, Jack?”

“I think so.”

“I need you to know it is, bro.”

“Fine. It’s lined up.”

Charlie sat down in the dirt next to him. “Relax. I know you’re frustrated, but I’m trying to help. Just put the post on the target, alright?”

“Okay,” Jack said. He shifted the rifle left and right, watching the space on either side of the post shrink, then he centered it again. The top of it was level with the top of the notch, and it was sitting dead in the middle of his target. “It’s lined up.”

“It helps to focus on the post, so the target is blurry behind it. Got it?”

“Done.”

“Now take three slow breaths. At the end of your third exhale, go ahead and squeeze the trigger.”

Jack filled his lungs and let the air slowly escape, then again, and one more time. At the bottom of the last exhalation, he pulled the trigger and the weapon barked. The butt-stock bit into his shoulder.

Charlie raised a pair of binoculars to his face and sighed.

“I didn’t hit it, did I?”

“Nope,” Charlie said. “Tell me what you did wrong.”

“I don’t fucking know, Charlie. I did everything you said. Maybe the sights are off.”

Charlie shook his head. “Weapon was adjusted before it left the armory, and I test fired it myself. It’s fine. Now tell me what you did wrong.”

“Why don’t you tell me,” Jack growled through gritted teeth.

“Alright. Two things. First, you closed your eyes right before you fired. Don’t do that. You can’t hit what you can’t see. Second, you pulled the trigger. I told you to squeeze it.”

“And what’s the difference?

Charlie chuckled, and Jack didn’t know what was so damned funny. “When you’re dancing with a pretty girl and you’ve got her hand, you pull her to you.

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