“What you need to do is simple,” she went on. “Just aim for the windows—those wooden shutters you see. The more experienced among us will handle the rest.”
“Wait—what?” Jessie and I asked variations of the same question.
“Anna, I’ve never used a gun in my life!” I said. Well, I had briefly handled one of those ancient guns back in our colony, but there was no comparing that to this. Jessie was in the same boat.
“I’m perfectly aware that is likely the case,” Anna replied calmly. “Which is why I’ve asked you to do this. These weapons are intuitive to use; there’s only one button to press.” She pointed to the smooth button near the gun’s handle. “And we’ve given you a broad, easy target: the wooden shutters.Consider this your training on the go. We like to see how you cope under pressure, and this really is not much in the grand scheme of things.”
I suddenly felt incredibly thirsty, but no amount of water in my flask would quench it. It felt insane that we hadn’t even been allotted a practice shot before going in. Andheredefinitely wasn’t the right place to do it. The noise would attract attention.
“So, we’re going to be shooting at… people?” I asked. I had experienced her idea of pressure in the pre-screening she’d put me through, but this felt different. As real as those simulations had felt at the time, they had been controlled simulations. But everything about this was real. There would be no reversing whatever we did out here.
“You’ll be shooting at the shutters,” Anna replied. “As I said.”
But there could be people behind them, who could get hurt?my mind asked in a smaller voice. Yes, it was supposed to be an equipment base, but it seemed unlikely that it would be completely devoid of people. I wanted to incapacitate the nomads, but wielding this gun against someone else’s base, where there could be people around, living out their day unsuspecting… it still felt like a massive jump. I hadn’t expected to do anything like this on the first day.
“The windows,” Jessie breathed, as if trying to instill confidence in herself.
“And you will stay in the pod, I should add,” Anna said. “This glass is bulletproof, so it’ll help keep you safe in case there’s a counterattack. The key is to be cool and not lose your head. Remember, that’s always the key to success in outreach. And we’re in a good position: we have the element of surprise.”
“So… the purpose is to wreck their building,” I said.Andleave whoever may be inside to die, completely abandoned in the snow. Did anyone really deserve that?
Maybe some people did. But suddenly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be the person to mete out that punishment.
Anna nodded, but I wasn’t spared further moments to consider it, since our fifteen minutes were gone. All the aircraft lifted into the air in unison, before plummeting down into the valley.
THIRTY
The pods landed silentlylike bugs in the snow, about thirty feet from the target building. Without warning, the sides of our glass capsules opened, letting in a wave of freezing air. I hurriedly zipped up my suit, my grip clammy around my gun.
I caught a glimpse of others in the nearby pods and saw a young woman I didn't recognize who looked as terrified and pale as I felt. And then I had no time to look anywhere except right in front of me.
“Fire,” Anna commanded.
Jessie and I leaned out on either side of our pod. My arms and hands shook from far more than just the freezing wind. My forefinger found the simple metal button on the gun’s grip. I tried to steady my aim at the wooden shutters closest to me. I gritted my teeth and pulled the trigger, trying not to think yet praying I would not somehow regret it.
The force of whatever barreled out of my gun almost threw me backward. A deafening sound reverberated in my ears and I dropped the gun after the ammunition left it. The next thing I knew, a massive explosion erupted at the spot I had targeted.Bellows of a dozen other explosions ran out concurrently or split seconds later. Then the building was ablaze. Fire licked the openings we had shot, spreading up the walls. The bullets—or missiles?!—we had just fired were so powerful that part of the building was almost crumbling. I had thought they would be bullets. I hadn’t the slightest clue they would be so strong. Anna hadn’t warned us.
Screams pierced the air. But they weren’t only the screams of men. I heard the screams of women.
I heard the screams of children.
It felt like my world suddenly fell apart around me as I stared at what I had just done. At the flaming devastation I had just caused—that we had all, willingly, just caused.
“Why are there children in there?” I rasped, my left hand already fumbling for the cockpit’s exit. “Th-There are children. We have to help them!” I screamed.
Before I could even consider my actions, I leapt out of the cockpit, my boots sinking into the snow. It immediately engulfed me up to my knees but I thrust myself forward, desperate to reach whoever those cries came from, desperately needing to help.
I heard Anna swear behind me, and yell, “Guys, they may have got their intel wrong. This wasn’t supposed to be a family base!”
My blood froze at her words. What did that mean? Gotten their intel wrong? How could they have made a mistake such as this? Didn't they have a whole team dedicated to this—to finding suitable targets? How could they have been sostupid?
“Tani!” I heard Jessie scream behind me, and then what sounded like more boots sinking into the snow and I was sure she was following me, but I couldn’t think of her now. I couldn’t think of anything except trying to undo what we had just done... even if that was impossible.
Movement caught my eye from the right, and I saw figures spilling out from somewhere behind the building. They ran toward the edge of the valley for cover. They were a group of at least a hundred men, women and children. None of them appeared to be armed with anything more than knives. They weren’t equipped with the slightest piece of technology. All of them looked helpless. No one resembled anything like the nomads we had seen. They looked like wild people, with matted hair and animal skins for clothes. As I neared the building, I saw a fire pit behind it, over which a large, iron pot hung suspended. That was what had caused the smoke.
Anna's voice boomed through a loudspeaker. “We mean you no harm! This has, unfortunately, all been a terrible mistake. We thought you were part of an aggressive nomad group, but it appears somehow our information was misguided. It happens to the best of us, I’m afraid.”
I had to stop to turn on my heels and gape at her. The way she spoke, it was almost as if we hadn’t just decimated theirhome, and she was responding to some sort of clerical error.
