Tila grinned sheepishly and put the rifle down on the counter. Then, under Marcus's watchful eye, she picked it up again, found the safety catch and flicked it on. She gripped the weapon tight in her right hand, keeping her fingers clear of the trigger guard and thumbed the release mechanism. The ammo clip concealed in the hand grip clicked free. She pulled it out with her left hand and placed it on the table. Then still using her left hand she pulled the slide free to show there was no round still in the chamber. She put the weapon on the table too, and looked at Marcus.
Marcus waited. Tila looked down, quickly swapped the position of the ammo clip and the weapon, and looked back at him. Finally he nodded, satisfied.
"You're getting faster at that," he said.
"My father always said practice makes perfect," she said.
Marcus released the toggle switch and the paper target Tila had been practising on floated to a stop. It was as perfect as the first time he loaded it, an hour earlier.
"I just don't understand how it's possible," he said. He pulled the target free of the clips and examined it more closely, turning it over in his hands. Nothing. Not even furring on the edge from a close miss.
"Did I miss it again?"
"You've missed it every single time. I don't know how. Chance alone should mean you hit something. The best you did was blowing out the target clips on range eleven."
Tila looked over at the lane they had started on. The target sat on on the floor, rippled onto itself where it had fallen. One edge was slightly charred where the hot metal clip had landed on it.
"I could try again?"
"We're out of time, and the navy can't afford the expense of all this ammo."
"Everyone else was putting me off. It was too noisy and distracting."
"They just got here. That marine on lane eight who's been watching you only showed up ten minutes ago."
"She's watching me?"
"She can't believe her eyes either, trust me."
"I could try the rifle again?"
"No. Please no. It's safer if you don't. Let me clear up here and sign these weapons back in and we can call it a day."
Marcus straightened the weapons and ammo and began removing unspent rounds from the M106 and replacing them in the box.
Tila looked over to lane eight. The woman wasn't watching her now. She fired her own ballistic rounds from a pistol at a target forty metres away, always in groups of three.
"What's the point of all the different guns anyway. Why not just use the best one?"
"What is the best one?"
"The strongest one, the most powerful."
"What about range? Accuracy? Rate of fire? Weight? Do you think a sniper wants the most powerful round, or the most accurate over a long distance? Do you even understand the difference between ballistic and energy weapons?"
"You're not allowed ballistic weapons on a ship. They're dangerous."
"They're all dangerous! Were you even been paying attention when I talked about energy dispersal patterns, and mass times velocity for ballistic penetration. Or how energy weapons are untraceable which is why they are banned on most planets?"
"When did you say that? Okay, I see your point. But any fight has the same principle, you hit them harder and faster and eventually the problem goes away."
"That's really what you think?"
"You're a solider. Isn't that what you do? You're trained to fight people. There's no point fighting if you don't intend to win."
"That's not true. Not every objective is captured with a fight. We don't know what we will need so we train on all of it. The optimum strategy is the one you are best prepared for, so we prepare for it all."
"You can't prepare for everything. Some things you won't see coming."
"That's true, but breadth of training gives us experience and options. More options means more possible solutions."
"If I can't hit anything the training isn't much good though, is it?"
"No, but you at least look like you know what you're doing now. You didn't even have that an hour ago."
Marcus finished with the rifle rounds and disassembled the weapon. A modern blaster had almost no moving parts, and was practically maintenance free. Ballistic rifles were a different story. He began cleaning.
More soldiers entered for their practice session. Over their talking the same three-burst pattern could be heard from lane eight.
Tila bent down to pick the empty shells off the floor. Some were still warm.
His voice softened when he spoke again. "Look, whether you like or respect me or not it makes no difference, but my join is to train the people under my command so they can survive. We don't know what's coming so we have to be ready at all times. I only want you to leave here with the same opportunity as everyone else."
"Because my mother told you to."
"That's true too, but now you're here you're in my hands, and I take that seriously. My feelings for you don't matter. Just survive."
"I've become good at that over the years," she admitted. "After the mission loss, before I ended up on the Juggernaut, I had to learn how."
"How long were you on the Juggernaut?"
"About eight years."
"That means you spent five years on your own."
"Something like that."
"Doing what?"
"Like you said, surviving."
They were silent for a moment. Marcus sensed Tila didn't want to tell him more, and Tila waited for the next question which never came. He finished cleaning the rifle and reassembled it. He gestured to the door and they started to leave.
"How long have you been a soldier anyway?" Tila asked as they walked.
"About twelve years. Why?"
"Oh. Same as me."
Behind them the woman in lane eight watched them leave. While watching them, she raised one arm and pointed a pistol at the target. She squeezed the trigger three times, moving her aim imperceptibly across the target with each discharge. She looked back at the target and put the weapon down.
She toggled the switch to bring the target back to her. It had three holes in it in a horizontal line. One was through the centre. Two more were spread left and right of the bullseye, separated by the breadth of two fingers. She smiled to herself and reloaded.
A perfect ellipsis.