Shooting Skeet by Linda Burklin

Shooting Skeet

“Wanna go shoot some skeet, little bro?”

“Did Dad say it was okay?” Ben was skeptical.

“Well, he said we should get all the practice we can before the competition. And Len showed me a cool game setup near here where we can shoot all the skeet we want for free.”

“Len? You said he was a jerk!”

“So, even a jerk knows something. After all, we just moved here and don’t know our way around yet. Get your gun and let’s get out of here.”

Jon revved up his old junker and floored the accelerator.  Before long Ben got his first look at the gaming program Jon had talked about.

“Wow!” he said. “That’s really cool-looking!  It’s round—and it’s so big! It kind of reminds me of what they had at the regional championships, only better. I mean, I’ve never seen a setup with that much water. The blue background is awesome. So where are the skeet?”

“Just watch. You never know where they’re going to come from, and they’re really small. You have to be ready to shoot the instant you see one.”

Ben tensed his trigger finger.

“There,” said Jon, pointing to a little black dot. “It’s all yours, bro.”

“It’s barely a speck!”

“That’s what makes it fun. Now are you going to get it or not?”

Ben shot but missed.

“Don’t worry,” said Jon. “You’ll get the next one. They come up pretty often, and once you get a few, a lot more will come up. The game adjusts to your skill level.”

The next one was Jon’s and he blew it away with practiced skill. Ben waited for the next one. There it was. This time he took the speed and distance into account before pulling the trigger. The target disintegrated.

“Score!” he yelled.

“See? I told you this was better than dad’s old machine.”

Ten minutes later the boys had shot seventeen targets out of the air, though Jon was much better at it than Ben. He had twelve hits compared to Ben’s five. As Jon had promised, the game adapted. Swarms of targets were thrown into the air and the brothers had their hands full trying to shoot them down.  Ben was so focused on the challenge that he barely noticed how much he was sweating.

“This is intense!” he said. “Are you sure it’s free?”

“I know. I tried to tell you! And the more you shoot, the more it sends up!”

After an hour, Ben was tired and feeling a little jumpy. Surely it wasn’t normal for so many skeet to burst into flames like that? They should just break up when hit.

“I hear my supper calling me, Jon. Let’s go home.”

“Yeah, me too. I’m just gonna get these last two, okay?”

He got the first one and was tracking the second when they heard Dad’s voice coming from the onboard communicator. The “you’re in big trouble” voice.

“What in the world do you boys think you’re doing?”

“We’re shooting skeet, Dad!” said Ben. “Have you seen this game? It’s incredible!”

“It’s incredible, all right,” said Dad as he pulled up beside them. “Don’t you know that’s an inhabited planet? Who told you it was okay to shoot here?”

“Len told me about it,” said Jon. “It can’t be inhabited, Dad. It’s too small.”

“There are plenty of sentient life forms that are tiny by our standards, boys. Remember the Goropin back in the Yarch sector? They were practically microscopic, but they had a fully-functioning technological society.”

Ben did remember them. They were kind of cute.

Dad continued, “I’m telling you, you’ve been shooting down manned aircraft. And Len most certainly knows that.”

“Manned aircraft? With people inside?” Ben’s stomach churned.

“Of course with people inside! I think Len’s dad and I need to have a little talk. You boys better go home before they send up something that could take out your cloaking device.  And plan on being grounded for a long time. You could have wiped out the civilization I came here to study!”

Jon turned his creaking clunker around and drove back to their space yacht which was moored behind the largest planet in the system, the one with the big red storm on one side.

“I’m so sorry, Ben,” he said. “I honestly thought it was a game. I had no idea.”

“We’re murderers, Jon! We must have killed dozens of people if all those craft were manned! Now I’m kind of glad I missed so many.”

“How do you think I feel?  I’m not sure I even want to compete anymore. And Len is so much worse than a jerk. Just wait till our dad talks to his dad!”

 

 

Colonel Jane Flynn knocked on the door of the conference room at Strategic Command before entering.

“What is it, Flynn?” asked General Peters. All the brass in the room turned to look at her.

“Do we have any answers?”

“Uh, no sir. Commercial and military jets from eighteen countries were shot down in the last two days.”

“How many in total?”

“Two hundred and sixty-three, sir.”

“Were they all from NATO nations?”

“No, sir. They were from all over the globe.”

 “What kind of madman would target so many nations at once?”

“Sir, I did email you a report stating that several of the surviving pilots claim the deadly fire came from space.”

“Well, that’s ridiculous. Nobody’s got that kind of firepower in space, and if they did we would have detected it.”

“What kind of statement do you want me to release to the press, then, sir?”

“I guess we’ll have to say that this is a new, broad-based terror attack by a group that hasn’t identified itself yet. But we’re going to get them no matter what it takes.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And let’s hope they’re out of ammunition!”

“Yes, sir.”

 

THE END

 

AUTHOR BIO: Linda Burklin started telling stories to her brothers in grade school, and later progressed to writing them down. A teacher and mother of seven children, she grew up in Central Africa before settling in the piney woods of East Texas, where she lives with her family and three odd cats.

ILLUSTRATOR BIO: Nathan Wyckoff has been an illustrator, painter and writer on the scene for over a decade.  Between gallery shows, Nathan frequently publishes illustrations and fiction in numerous magazines, recently being nominated for an AWP Intro Journal Award for his weird poetry.  His online illustration portfolio can be viewed at nathanwyckoff.squarespace.com.