White camouflage blends perfectly with the landscape. Tactical gear. Night vision goggles give them the appearance of demons. They move in a diamond formation, covering their sectors, weapons raised.
Hunters.
Boyd waits.
He lets them get closer. Fifty yards. Forty.
He’s not just a shooter. He’s a predator waiting for the perfect angle, the perfect moment when their confidence makes them careless. He waits for them to commit to the slope where the footing runs treacherous.
One of the soldiers raises his hand. A fist.
“Heat signature. Eleven o’clock.”
A radio mangles the voice, but it carries in the crisp air.
They see us. Or they see him.
“Contact.”
The forest detonates.
Boyd fires.
Crack-crack.
The lead soldier drops. The rounds catch him in the thigh, bypassing the ceramic plate of his body armor. He goes down without a sound, disciplined even in injury, rolling into the snow to minimize his profile.
The others return fire instantly.
Thwip-thwip-thwip.
Suppressed rounds chew into the bark of Boyd’s tree, sending splinters flying like shrapnel. Quiet in a way that’s wrong, just the hiss of gas and the wet thud of impact.
Boyd moves.
He doesn’t stay static. He dives to the next tree, rolling through the snow, firing as he goes.
Crack.
He hits another man in the shoulder, spinning him around.
One man holding a squad. For a moment, he does it. He holds them. He uses their confusion, their fear of the dark, the very storm they use to hide. He makes twelve rounds feel like fifty. He’s everywhere at once.
But they have the numbers. They have the firepower.
“Flanking left.”
The leader barks the order.
“Suppress him. Move up.”
Two of the soldiers break formation, circling wide through the trees to cut off his retreat. They box him in against the ridge, closing the kill box.
Boyd sees it.
He pivots. He fires at the flankers, forcing them to take cover behind a fallen log.
His slide locks back.
