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Spoilers through Lay Down Your Burdens II

Chronicles of a Sniper

Chapter 1

Seven Hundred Yards

Seven hundred yards is my favorite distance. Six hundred forty meters, for you metric people. From that distance, they never hear it coming.

How did I get involved? It started a couple weeks after day zero. The day the Cylons dropped the nukes, I was out hunting—well, not really hunting, even though I had my hunting rifle with me. I was out in the hills, a good distance from Delphi up in the mountains, scouting, looking for signs of game, planning for the upcoming weekend. My dad had started taking me hunting when I'd been ten, had started the father-son activity, and this was… would have been, the eighth year.

But the attacks ended that.

I didn't know what to do, but getting further away from the city seemed like a good plan. I had my rifle and knew how to use it, so I wouldn't go hungry. My dad was—had been, a sharpshooter on the city police force, and he'd made sure I could shoot. He'd been a woodsman in the traditional sense of the word, and I'd soaked up every bit of knowledge he gave me.

Not normal, you say? Strange, for a teenage boy to listen to his father? Well, I can tell you, there were plenty of other topics we didn't agree on. We argued about nearly everything else; my friends, school, study habits, the clothes I wore, the way I wanted my hair cut… but when it came to hunting, we were together. I'd wanted to be a park ranger because of what he taught me about the woods, about wildlife, about the ecology.

He would never realize how valuable that knowledge was going to be.

And so on the day of the attacks I headed away from the city; I could see it was war. At first I headed up, away from civilization, but I was worried about my parents, my friends, and not knowing what was going on drove me crazy. So I started looking for others who might have survived, and sixteen days later I met up with Sam Anders.

Sam Anders! The Samuel T. Anders, from the Caprica Buccaneers! I'd seen him play in person, once, in Delphi, from seats up in the arena's nosebleed area. He was my hero, every boy's hero, but the day I met him I didn't recognize him at first. He was tired, dirty, grim, and very wary of me at first. I suppose because I was also tired and dirty, and I had my rifle.

I also had the remnants of the smoked haunch of a deer I'd shot, and that food along with my hunting ability was my entrance fee to join his team. It was truly his team, his fellow Buccaneers and a handful of others like me, who'd been out of the city during the attack.

"What's your name?" he questioned once he decided I was okay.

"Danny Ellison," I said automatically, then cursed myself mentally. I'd spent a couple years re-training my friends to call me the more adult 'Dan', and here I'd gone and ruined all that hard work in seconds.

He gave me a sideways look. "How old are you?" he asked casually.

"Eighteen," I replied defensively. Then, more slowly, I qualified, "I'll be eighteen in a month."

He nodded calmly, and when he introduced me to the others, he called me 'Dan'. For that alone I would have followed him to the ends of the world, but I learned that was his way—he was team captain for a reason. He knew how to get an assorted group of individuals to work together as a team. He knew when to use quiet, impassioned words, and when to yell blood-stirring rhetoric. He knew how to plan, and how to listen to others who might have a better plan, and he knew how to apply the unique skills of each of us.

He used my unique skill at hunting to help feed our growing team. Over the weeks that followed, more people joined us, one or two or three at a time. Survivalists, campers, hikers, people like me who'd been out in the forests on the day of the attacks. They brought news; Cylons had attacked all the colonies; there were people actually helping the Cylons; it wasn't humans who were helping, they were actually human-looking Cylons. And, later, we found out that you couldn't really 'kill' one of the human-looking ones… they could download, pass their consciousness and knowledge on to another body. Chilling news.

From the beginning Sam organized raids to get supplies, especially the essential anti-radiation medication. When I joined his team, he was already thinking of how to strike back, and as our team grew, each raid also became a military operation.

Sam kept me out of the raids, convincing me that my contribution of fresh meat was just as valuable as any other supplies, and I never went out hunting alone. I knew how to field-dress the game, but for the number of people on our team, we needed big game. There was no way I could carry the kill back to our 'base', Delphi Union High School, by myself. It was always one of the Buccaneers who went with to help, which didn't hurt my ego any. Although I can't say I didn't wish we'd had a pack horse…

More news… two pilots from the Battlestar Galactica had shown up. I'd been out hunting, an overnight trip, and didn't get to meet either of them, but I saw them as they were leaving. Helo and Kara; and by the looks of it, Sam and Kara had—well, they were already an item. I felt jealous for a minute, of both of them, odd as that may sound. Jealous of him because she was hot… and jealous of her, too. He was 'our' Sam, our team captain, not hers. I could have resented her, but after she'd gone Sam told us she'd promised to come back, bringing reinforcements, to rescue us.

Since I'd joined the team, I hadn't thought of my parents or my friends or anything of the past—or of the future. All I'd let myself think about was day-to-day survival. Now there was a chance for rescue, for a future? It felt odd. I realized my birthday had come and gone and I hadn't even noticed.

I was out hunting about a month later, Derrin Campbell with me. 'Dare', everyone called him. I'd bagged a deer from a decent distance, and we started hiking to the carcass when, suddenly, some of them were there. Cylons, two of the human-looking blonde skin jobs, and one tin can. They were closer to the deer carcass, not very close to Dare and me, but they'd seen us.

My thoughts were calm and quick… everything around me was in slow motion. The tin can could shoot back, but neither of the skin jobs seemed to be armed. Both Dare and I had taken cover behind the trunk of a fallen tree, and I chambered a round; fired and chambered; fired again and chambered. Two skin jobs, down. As I'd expected, the tin can didn't move, didn't jump for cover, that eerie red eye scanning, the guns it had for hands scanning. I steadied the rifle, resting the barrel across the tree trunk. I breathed halfway out and paused… taking down a tin can would need careful aim. I caressed the trigger, a touch almost too soft to feel, and thought the round to the target, and chambered another round automatically. The tin can lurched back, and I fired again, at the same spot, the articulation of its waist. It fell over then slowly clambered back to its feet.

"Aim for the eye!" Dare hissed, but I already was, and fired even as he said 'eye'. He was armed too, a military weapon from a raid on an armory, but it wouldn't be nearly as accurate as my bolt-action hunting rifle.

That time it stayed down. We ran, ducking low, leapfrogging, a couple hundred yards, then stopped and waited. Listened. Nothing.

"Damn," Dare breathed. "You got the frakker right in the eye!"

I thought of things I'd heard my dad say. To me, to Mom, and to his cop buddies. He'd been a sharpshooter and knew a certain kind of war. Not this kind, but close enough.

"We need to make sure they're dead," I whispered to Dare. "And get the deer, if we can."

He stared at me. "You're a cool one," he murmured, but he was already heading back toward the bodies. I followed, my rifle ready. I didn't feel cool. I didn't really feel anything.

The Cylons were—dead. Or whatever. The skin jobs looked even more human, close up. Somehow the blood looked a lot redder than I'd expected. Maybe deer blood didn't seem as red, on their brown fur.

It was Dare who told Sam and the others what had happened.

"You okay, Dan?" Sam asked me.

"Yeah," I told him. "Fine."

I was fine, until later. When I was alone, long after dark, I started sweating. And shaking. For a bit I thought I was going to throw up. But then after awhile I felt okay. They were Cylons, not people.

Sam came and found me the next afternoon. He had a large case, a kind I recognized—a hard-sided rifle case. He put it on the table and opened it. "We got this on our last armory raid. Do you know how to use it?" he asked.

I gazed at the rifle. I nodded slowly, touching the stock. It was a weapon just like my dad had used, the same model, a sharpshooter's weapon. He'd taught me to shoot his, let me practice with it. I lifted it out of the case, made sure it wasn't loaded, and looked through the scope. I wondered where my dad's rifle was.

It was a sniper's rifle.

Sam was frowning at me.

"What?" I asked, defensive, putting aside thoughts of my dad.

He just shook his head at something he was thinking and asked me what kind of ammo I needed.

"If you want me to use this for what it's designed for," I told him, "I'll need to practice with it."

I zeroed it, and practiced. I wasted a lot of rounds… 'wasted' isn't the right word. There was only one thing that Sam would want me to do with this weapon, and to do it right, I needed to be good with it. After days of firing thousands of rounds, I dreamt shooting.

Sam came to check on me. "Frak, what are you shooting at, Dan?" he asked, crouching next to where I lay prone. I nodded to the spotting scope, and he picked it up, looking downrange. It took him a minute to find my targets, just pieces of paper tacked up at chest height on trees. "How far away is that?" he asked quietly, still looking.

"About eight hundred yards," I said. I aimed, fired, chambered the next round, fired again.

I heard him breathe out slowly. "How the hell do you know how to do this?" he questioned, finally looking at me.

I rested the butt of the rifle on the ground and sat back on my heels, easing my shoulders, stretching my neck. "My dad taught me," I said.

He used the scope to look at the targets again. "That is a damn long way away," he murmured.

"That's how it works," I said. I hesitated, and added, "Usually, there's a spotter, too."

He lowered the scope and looked at me again. I could almost see his thoughts. "I don't know that we have anyone who would know what to do… who's near as good as you are at this…" he said, gesturing down toward the targets. "And… I don't know that we have enough people to spare…"

I nodded. "I'll need to make a ghillie suit," I said.

"A what?" he asked.

"Camouflage," I explained. I didn't think he'd had any military training, and even if he had, this was a pretty specialized field. My dad would appreciate the irony. All the things he'd taught me, the things I'd actually listened to, were the things we needed the most.

I told Sam how snipers worked. Some of it he already knew—hell, anyone who'd seen more than one war movie would have at least a little idea—and some of it he hadn't known. He listened, though. And when he included me in the briefing for the next raid, he told the others how he'd changed things, to take advantage of what I could do.

One thing I can say about Sam, he knew how to plan. We had excellent maps of the area, some of them mine from my day zero scouting expedition. Detailed topographical maps that we all studied and memorized. Sam planned the raid like it was a championship Pyramid game, every possible contingency taken into account, every option drilled. And drilled. And drilled again. Each of us knew the others' roles perfectly. Everyone could fill in for someone else—except for me. My skills were unique.

It was an ego booster, but it was also frightening. The success of the raid depended on me, on what I could do from a damn long way away.

The raid was on a building that the Cylons had turned into some sort of medical facility; the purpose, to get medical supplies. They'd built a fence around the place, with a guarded gate, and that had been the difficulty when Sam had first thought of raiding the place. Because there was no way to get close enough without the guard alerting those inside.

It took me half a day to get into position, then hours of waiting for the cogs of Sam's plan to start turning. I was glad it was well into autumn, wearing a ghillie suit in the summer heat would have been like baking in an oven. I watched the guard, dialed in my scope, waited. Rested my eyes. Against all odds, dozed a little, then jerked awake. Berated myself for not paying attention.

And then it was time. I assessed the wind, the air temperature, the angle of the slope, the range for the thousandth time. Fired, worked the bolt, fired again. The guard was one of the generic looking brown-haired skin jobs; he went down and didn't move. I kept watching through the scope. Everything was still; then, long moments later, Sam and his team went in.

It was seven hundred yards, you see. Six hundred forty meters. At about six hundred fifty yards, a little less than six hundred meters, air friction and gravity slow a bullet to sub-sonic speeds, so the target won't hear that tell-tale cracking sound. As long as you don't hit anything nearby, you can shoot at a target all day and they'll never know you're doing it.

Seven hundred yards is my favorite distance.