Inferno Snippet 4

 Into chapter 3:

Chapter 3

 

Selma's Junction, Omicron Sector

 

The sniper teams had a lock on the tango but were waiting for confirmation from higher to engage. According to their betting they were sure they were going to get the go ahead.

They were up in the trusses, a hawk's perspective of the people moving around 100 meters below them. The distant people seemed like ants. It was hard not to think of them as such. People were going through security, but that was a bottleneck so they'd allowed the tango through but tagged him to follow him.

The tango had changed his haircut and hair color, added some piercings, and had a grunge look going for him. He had wraparound sunglasses and a facial tattoo. He had been picked up on several cameras though; you couldn't avoid them in a busy spaceport.

The gray hoody just made him stand out even more, well, that and the A.I. thing that was covering his tracks electronically.

Based on what they knew, each changeling was a clone of someone that had gone to what most people now called the Xeno galaxy, or the galaxy from hell at some point. The more prominent were the ones who had been on some of the lost ships.

Each changeling seemed to have an A.I. watch dog or partner. The spooks weren't certain if the A.I. was controlling the clone like a meat puppet or if there was some sort of parasitic or symbiotic relationship. Given that they tended to suicide rather messily when cornered, taking one down in a spaceport was what he'd thought of as a bad idea.

Not that anyone had asked his opinion.

"We have confirmation. Facial recognition is within ninety five percent. We're a go," Scrounger, the team's A.I. stated.

Lieutenant Lansky cleared her throat. "Take him out."

PO1 Max Sittero surveyed the group of civilians below. There were a couple of dozen people milling about the area, waiting for their shuttle's boarding call. He noted a couple of kids playing tag near the tango. "Are you sure ma'am? We've got a lot of eggs in the basket," the Neodog asked carefully. He knew the LT wouldn't come back on him about breakage unless he really screwed up, but he wanted his furry ass covered anyway.

There had been recent stories of a couple of unfortunate kills that had turned out to be innocent civilians. The media had ran a story about it but there hadn't been much traction over it... at least, not yet.

He knew that in time, some things can and will come back to haunt them. They therefore needed every I dotted, every T crossed.

"Better the bunnies traumatized than dead. Do it."

"Roger that."

He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them, refocused and breathed out. He refocused on the target and waited for him to have a little bit of room around him with no one on the other side. He didn't want collateral damage on his conscience. Between heartbeats he stroked the trigger ever so gently.

As expected the shot surprised him as much as it did the changeling who was on the move. He felt the slight recoil, something the designers of the weapon had deliberately left into the weapon. It didn't ride up though; his scope was dead on target. He saw the .50 caliber shot went through the tango's torso below his left arm, through his left spine, tearing him apart and liquefying whatever passed for his internal organs these days.

There was a startled pause as people around them turned, some noted the blood and bits splattered on them and then the screams began.

"Great shot, except for the splatter. You know all those people are going to need to be decontaminated for nanite exposure now right?"

"Oops?"

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Lieutenant Anabella Lansky heard the 'oops' and shook her head. It was probably like that all across the galaxy as teams hunted the changelings. There were bound to be some breakage. She checked the feed again. No, no one else seriously hurt. The round had been a single shot that had passed through the tango and into the planter nearby. That had been fortunate.

Hell, there was plenty of breakage, she thought with a pang. She heard the stories, saw the reports. Some changelings, when cornered went nuclear if they could get the time and material to do so. Others went full on nanite rampage; it apparently depended on the being. If they could go to ground they did though.

Twenty changelings in their sector had gone nuclear in the past month. That sucked. Two of those changelings had managed to take out the teams chasing them. The hunters had all been advised to be damn careful about spooking their prey. So far she hadn't lost a single SEAL. She didn't intend to let down her guard and get sloppy. She knew Chief Gomez felt the same way.

This was their third hunt of the week. Normally they'd leave such things to the FBI or some other agency but the President had signed off on the Changelings being considered enemy combatants. That meant they were legally fair game to the military personnel hunting them.

Not that military personnel hadn't been used before the politicians had come in to neaten everything up and give their official blessings.

The good news was at the moment they only had to deal with the changelings. There were forces moving to the gates and bridge jump points to the other sectors, but so far none of the aliens had shown up in their sector.

At least, not yet at any rate.

That meant they were tasked with hunting for the changelings and helping with security until something changed. She'd already heard scuttlebutt that once the changeling hunts were wound down they would be trained to handle planetary or habitat evacuations, or even be tapped to be inserted behind enemy lines to do some recon. She wasn't looking forward to that last thought, it seemed rather stupid. Not that anyone had asked her opinion.

Just another day in the life of the SEALs.

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