It takes about forty muscles to frown, about seventeen muscles to smile, but it takes just three muscles to pull the trigger of a good rifle.
Pff. Twentieth century memes. Richter cycled the bolt on his Kraber, loading another 14.5mm round into the chamber, waiting for captain Bogowicz to confirm his kill, so major Smith could order his retreat.
"Hit confirmed. Damn, that's messy." Bogowicz voice sounded in his comm. "That might be one of the longest shots I've ever seen."
"Clear comms, captain. Lieutenant Richter, good job. Enemy radio confirms target destroyed. Move for extraction."
Richter hefted the giant rifle and turned around. Even without confirmation he had known that his bullet had hit. The huge red cloud suggested such. Nobody survived a hit from a Kraber.
One and a half hours later, he was back with the fleet. The briefing room was barely lit, just the blue glow of the strategic map casting some light on the people present. General whatever, major Smith and captain Lienna Bogowicz.
Right now the general was going on about how he had done a great service to the Militia's cause. How no one else would have been capable to do so and most importantly how much his target had deserved what had come for him.
Sure, Richter knew that. He had stalked the man for about half a year in order to formulate his optimal plan of attack. He knew when official Seisner got out of bed, how he drank his coffee, when he drove his daughter to school and when he got back from work. He knew how he and his wife fought over petty things and how they would resolve it in the bedroom. Richter exhaled audibly through his nose, making Smith throw him a warning glare. He knew how much these speeches disgusted him. Killing a man was one thing, sadly necessary at times, revelling in his death... oh how Richter hated that general.
No matter how hard he tried, it was impossible for him not to think about what was going to happen now in the Seisner household. His daughter was probably just wondering by now, why nobody picked her up from school, already a sad thought in itself. His wife would probably be the first to find out, when she came home. She would find him on the floor, head blown clean from his shoulders, vaporised and sprayed on the wall behind him. She would be utterly shocked first, then realising what had happened, then... who knows what she would do. Worst case scenario, Richter had not only killed a high ranking IMC official, but also an innocent woman and her eleven year old girl.
The general, as usual was much too dense to grasp the long term consequences such an action could have. It was not the first time too. His first suggestion was using a simple carbomb when the whole family was on their way off to the countryside. Richter himself had been the first to object to that, followed closely by Smith and Bogowicz. Nobody wanted the blood of a little girl on their hands, not when it could be avoided. Still, the blood on Richter's hands was thick.
The general concluded his ramblirambling about what a madman Seisner had been. How many people had died because of his actions and that he was oh so incredibly proud to serve the Militia and her talented followers. Not that the Militia never conducted carpet bombings on populated areas. Not that the Militia's groundforces never plundered and raped. Not that the godfuckingdamned Militia never ordered assassinations on civilians. No of course not.
But the Militia still had a leg up over the IMC. They hadn't killed Richter's girlfriend. No, that had been Admiral Locke. He and this fat fucking pig of a Fleet Captain, whatever his name had been. Richter hadn't even bothered to find out the man's name. He had just walked in on the bridge, still in his dirtied and singed wargear and ripped his gluttonous body open with a burst from his rifle. He had been ready to kill anyone who would have stood in his way. Luckily nobody did.
Captain Lienna Bogowicz had been the first to speak to him after he and the three other troopers he had brought with him on the dropship, had been picked up by the Militia cruiser "MSC Terror". It had taken almost five months until they had decided that he was indeed not a spy, but a deserter.
"Hephaistos?" She had asked. "We lost that fight. You and your buddies sent us running."
"Yeah. Nothing left to be fighting over now."
"What do you mean?" Richter swallowed hard.
"They glassed it. The whole colony. Now there's nothing left but unchartered wildlands."
"Oh shit." Bogowicz had had a massively crestfallen look on her face as she heard it. Somehow she seemed to suspect that there was something behind his short description of events. "Where are you from, trooper?"
There was almost a minute of uncomfortable silence while the IMC deserter just sat there, shadows hiding his face from the dim light overhead in the interrogation room. Suddenly he broke the silence, his voice like that of an old man. It made Bogowicz feel sympathetic in a way, but something beneath that betrayed a deep, controlled anger. Like a bullet in the chamber, ready to fire. It put her on edge.
"You know, Rachel was all I could have wanted. Maybe even the only reason I fought your pretty little club. I just wanted to be left alone with her."
The man practically hissed while he spoke to her. By then she knew that he was not a spy and he didn't just stumble into the Terror by accident. This man, Richter, the son of a former IMC-merc wanted blood. Well they would give them blood.