Animal Ship
Throughout the history of the firearm, innovation has set aside convention. The Spaniards fired arrows from a ceramic pot. In time, the weapon became a rifle. A pistol. Matchlock. Flintlock. Long rifle.
My weapon, the weapon for the ages was not from the long rifle. Not from the Pennsylvania or the Kentucky. Not rifled - stabilized. Not long - adaptable and with sufficient length to point. Point and shoot. Point and click.
Point and dead. Not a mag-forward. Not evolved into a bull-pup. Not an arm-load. Not a multi-frag. My firearm was just that, my arm. Ammo loads were like the arm-load. Barrels were like the bull-pup. Accuracy was like the mag-forward long rifle. Fire rate was like the old soviet models from the 20th century, only better.
Point and shoot. Point and kill. I pointed, the Explorer target died. The threat was gone. Dead threats are safe. Not threats. Winslow confirmed. Body life was dead. Explorer human was dead. Machines long gone. Can’t kill a human without nulling the machines first. The machines had long been nulled. Now the human was null too. Bugs would eat.
Winslow padded up to me, shaggy head lolling as he walked. I scratched his ears behind his head, the way the hound liked. Least I could do for the one who alerted me to the Explorer sniper. Foolish Explorers always trusted in their machines. Winslow only needed a few moments on a new planet to acclimate. Explorer machines needed hours. Cataloging. Catagorizsing. Aclimating. Winslow knew the world in moments. He sniffed out the sniper. Queued my senses. I deployed the bugs that errorred the Explorer machines. Winslow distracted. I shot. Explorer died. Null the machines then null the human.
We lived another day. With a thought I queued the bug packs on my waist. Ejecting the culling knife from my arm sheath, I sliced open the Exporer’s combat suit. The three micron vibrating blade sliced through the ablative ceramic armor. The stench of flesh caused the bug packs to release. When the bugs had finished, there would only be bone and technology left. The bugs would turn the flesh into meat, the meat into juice, and one day, the juice into soil. The planet would live with the death of the Explorer. Justice. Fate. Just another day.