Marko Kloos - Measures of Absolution

Her drop two days ago ran into a planned ambush. All of Lazarus’ troops, with home field advantage, with control of the security office, using the bottlenecks of the elevator banks. This drop, a whole battalion of TA descending on an unprepared enemy, is a much more even fight. There’s gunfire everywhere now—the floors above her, the plaza outside. Jackson finds a staircase and gets out of the basement, up to the atrium of the residence tower. She advances through the hallways, rifle at the ready. There are civvies rushing past her to get out of the way of the shooting, but they pay her no mind. Probably think she’s one of them.

When she gets to the gallery, the place is a madhouse. There are groups of TA troopers out in the vast expanse of the tower’s public space, exchanging fire with Lazarus’ armed civvies shooting down at them from the floors above, and welfare rats scrambling out of the line of fire. If she steps out into this circus, she’ll get drilled by the first TA trooper who spots her, oversized fatigues and stolen military rifle. She turns the other way and goes down a hallway that looks it may lead to one of the entrance vestibules, out of this place.

The plaza outside doesn’t look much better. There are TA troopers on the roof of the admin center in the middle of the plaza, shooting at targets Jackson can’t see. She dashes from cover to cover, sticking to the outside of the building, away from the fighting. Get into the clear, ditch the gun, find a way to a PRC that has a functioning police station.

Jackson is halfway around the perimeter of the plaza when she sees a group of armed and armored civvies, hunkered down behind a low wall, shooting at the TA troopers on the roof of the admin center. Lazarus is in the middle, directing fire teams and talking on his headset.

She brings up Olsen’s rifle, drops to one knee. The optic on Olsen’s gun works fine. She ranges Lazarus with the rifle’s laser. 110 meters, a shot she could take half dead or fully drunk. She puts the targeting reticle on the back of Lazarus’ head, switches the fire selector to single shot, puts her finger on the trigger. One round would probably get lost in the automatic weapons chatter that reverberates all around the plaza. They’d think the TA grunts on the roof hit him.

Maybe.

Jackson dials up the scope’s magnification all the way, She studies the shape of Lazarus’ head, decides where to put the round to cut the brain stem. He moves around a bit, but she has no problem tracking him. One twitch of her index finger, and their outfit loses their leader, maybe falls apart entirely.

She holds her finger on that trigger for what seems like a day and a half. Then she flicks her fire selector switch back to “SAFE” and lowers the weapon. With all the red she has on her ledger, she has never shot someone from behind who couldn’t shoot back at her. That’s not the way she does business.

The access ramp to the block is only eighty or ninety meters to her right. Beyond it, there’s open space—parks, plazas, recreation areas for the welfare rats. Easy to hide there, make her way out of the PRC, back to the urban wasteland in between, the shitty seams between the PRCs where the truly unlucky live, the ones that can’t even get welfare housing. Go to a different PRC, one where the public safety offices haven’t been infiltrated. Hitch a ride back to Shughart, report back to duty.

Maybe.

Jackson takes one last look at Lazarus through her scope. He may even pull this one out of the fire, if he’s lucky. Maybe he even deserves it. She has a feeling that she will see him again someday.

She steps back into the shadows between the residence towers and makes for the access ramp. Her side still hurts like a bastard, TA troopers will shoot her on sight in that outfit, but she has clean fatigues and a rifle, and she’s in charge of her own fate again. The day is looking up.