Zero Drift
Copyright© 2026 by Charlie Foxtrot
Chapter 4
Sergeant Veraine handed her a small notebook before formation. It fit in her thigh pocket perfectly, which was good because she had no time to return it to her bunk or review the material it contained. Sierra Squad was moving out, off the range.
“Fall in!”
By now it was second nature to assume her outlier position one person behind Monitor Kentaro. Even with their full kits on their backs, the formation was the same.
“Right Face.” This was new. The range was to the left and had been the direction they moved every morning, afternoon, and night. The shuttle field was to the right, but no shuttle had landed.
“Forward, march.”
She stepped off. Doing otherwise would break the pattern of movement now ingrained within her. Being the odd person in the fireteam, she took half-steps until she reached the end of the second string, then fell in behind them.
“Route step, march!” The command gave them permission to break step, ignore the cadence of footfalls from formal marching. Nara stayed in step. Everyone else did as well.
They crossed the field, entered the thick brush and found themselves on a worn path of rocky sand and gravel. The crunch of their feet was the only sound. Nara thought it was too loud.
She thought about the miss. Her sight picture had been perfect. Her breathing was right. If the round had drifted that much, there must be another explanation for it. Every detail was replayed in her mind as she marched.
“Squad, halt. We’ll take five. Hydrate.”
The command to drink was not ignored. They had been marching for over an hour. Any sounds from the field or firing range were well behind them now.
“Where are we going?” Rusk asked the fireteam.
Monitor Kentaro stepped up. “Another training camp. You’ve proven you can shoot. Now you’ll learn how to patrol. Shooting was the easy part.”
He wasn’t wrong. It took them most of the day to march to the next camp. Nara noticed the scent of water first. It danced in the air with a feeling of increased humidity after their last rest. The rocky soil softened to be more sandy, making their calves burn as they trudged along. Finally, they crested a small rise and saw the camp laid out between them and a blue sea.
“Quick step, march!” They regained their measured cadence and tightened up formation.
“Mark time, march!” They stopped their forward motion, but continued to march in place. Nara moved forward, paralleling Kentaro and Vesk to resume her third-row spot.
“Squad, halt. Left face.” They stopped then pivoted together. Sergeant Veraine was standing before them.
“This is patrol camp. We are here to make each fireteam an effective patrolling agent. Ninety percent of our time on this moon will be patrolling. It may be easy to think this is nothing, meaningless instruction. It isn’t. Pay attention.”
She paused, looking across the squad. “Monitors, bunk assignments, chow, then special instruction. Tholren, find me after you eat. Dismissed.”
Shadows felt heavier in her tent and Sera avoided eye contact. She ate a ration pack, then needed to deal with the weight in her stomach as she walked to Sergeant Veraine’s tent. The sergeant was sitting outside on a comfortable looking field chair.
“Recruit Tholren, reporting as ordered, Sergeant.”
Veraine’s cold eyes scanned her up and down. They lingered on her thigh pocket.
“Did you review that book or just tuck it away?”
“I stowed it for the march, Sergeant. I haven’t had time to study it yet.”
“Get it out, and stand a rest for goodness sake. You won’t learn what you need if you’re at attention all the time.”
Her tone was gruff, but the words were almost friendly. Nara retrieved the small notebook. It was titled “On the Firing Line”, and had a MEC logo on the cover.
“That is your new religion, recruit. It will walk you through proper firing technique for prone, sitting, and standing positions. It will instruct you how to hold your weapon, how to adjust in different environments. I want you to study it. Memorize it, but most importantly you need to practice it.”
But I scored perfectly in qualifying.
“You have a natural feel for shooting, that’s evident from your qualifying scores,” The Sergeant continued. “But your form is wrong. It’s why you missed the shot from the ridge. Form is more than a feeling. Proper form gives you a base to stabilize the weapon. Proper form makes you the weapon. We’ll be spending three weeks at this camp, practicing patrolling techniques. You and I will spend every day and night rebuilding your shooting foundation.”
Veraine held her gaze. “Questions, recruit? Now’s the time to ask.”
Nara wanted to make the shot she missed. More than anything she had felt since leaving home. But her rotation with Sierra Squad was only two weeks long. One week was finished already.
“My rotation,” she began.
“It’s changed. You’ll stay here, with Sierra Squad for a second rotation.”
Recycled? Everything’s a test.
Veraine seemed to read her. “You are not washing out of special assessment, if that’s your concern. You’re a natural shot out to 800 meters. Your reaction time is damned near perfect on the Field Firing Range. You have the fundamentals to perform overwatch. MEC needs that. Such skill is rare. I’ve been tasked with seeing if you can develop into one such person.”
This wasn’t about a qualification mark. She had shot Expert. This was more. MEC wanted it, but she sensed it had something to do with the Integration. But she wasn’t even designated by the system yet.
“Read the first two chapters. Ask me questions if you have them, then assume the prone firing position as it’s described in the book. Begin.”
It was after lights out before Veraine let her go, though the tidally locked moon kept the camp lit with reflected light from the planet. Her coverall was filthy from lying in the loose dirt and sand. Every minute of the practice felt unnatural. But she had finally produced the form Veraine was looking for. Sleep in a bunk would be her reward.
The form felt wrong on day two. It felt wrong on day three. It felt wrong on day seven. It felt wrong every time Veraine told her to practice, which was anytime the squad took a break from a practice patrol.
She learned the fieldcraft by failing it first. On day three the thermal blanket squares masked her IR signature but the chameleon coating had locked on the wrong terrain palette. Sera spotted her in seven seconds. Camouflage was more than hanging thermal blanket squares off her coverall and web gear to break up her IR signature, more than adjusting the chameleon coating of her gear to mottled patterns and colors of the surrounding terrain. It was a calibration she now ran every time she stopped, the way she had once re-checked her survey grid for drift. Patrolling was a mindset she needed to adopt. The Integration would only flag and sometimes ID what a person consciously spotted. A lot of their practice was attempting to spot Fireteam Baker while patrolling. The rest of their time was spent avoiding being spotted.
“Why do you move when we stop?” Veraine asked her during one patrol.
“Sergeant?”
“You try to find a high point. Why?”
“Better fields of view for observation, Sergeant.”
“Good. From now on, while on patrol when we stop, I expect you to find not just a high-spot, but a proper shooting spot. Think about the terrain, our path of advance, what cover and concealment is available. Then take an appropriate shooting position. When we resume our patrol, you’ll explain your decisions to me. Move.”
She moved. After that, the firing positions still felt wrong, but being in the proper spot to assist and protect her team made it feel less wrong.
Day and night did not mean much to them on Varex. The variation in available light was minimal. But patrolling when your body thought it was time to sleep added a stress to them all. Nara concentrated, feeling reenergized after any break where she took an overwatch position.
“Who watches your back when you’re watching ours?” Sera asked on day nine. No one envied her special sessions every night with the Sergeant, which gained her some sympathy, not that she wanted it. They asked easier questions on patrol breaks. That was the acceptance she could read.
“I guess I do. If I pick a spot someone can sneak up on me at, I failed.”
Sera shook her head. “When you graduate, you’ll get a spotter as a partner. They’ll have your back. Scout-snipers always go out in pairs.”
Sniper. That’s no occupation for a lady, Nara!
Knowing how her mother would react almost made it a reward worth earning.
Can I kill in cold blood?
That was a question to ponder. In her next overwatch post, she thought about it. Depending on the rules of engagement, if a hostile was threatening her fireteam or imperiled her team’s mission, she thought she could pull the trigger. Scanning the terrain through her scope, she thought some more. A target popping up two hundred meters out, with a visible weapon would need to be a nearly instant shot. At six hundred meters, she’d have a little more time. Beyond a thousand, it would feel like days of time. She could call that contact in and get instructions.
But what if the instructions are to fire?