Terminator 3: Hunt

	Kyla held the rifle and explained its functions for him. “Smart’s rifle is really the polar opposite of mine, so it tends to play a different role in field operations.” She hefted the night-black firearm. In the glow from the overhead bulbs, Paul could make out places where the matte coating had been scuffed or abraded, then repaired with a careful application of paint. Kyla continued, “This is a variation on the standard plasma rifle you’re already familiar with. Unlike mine, which fires physical bullets, yours superheats a small quantity of matter to a plasma state, then launches it against a target. When the matter hits the target, it imparts a significant portion of its energy, resulting in a small explosion.”
	“So how’s it different from the standard plasma assault rifle?”
	“Basically, three ways. First, range.” She indicated the weapon’s extended barrel and its removable scope, the fold-up iron sights that would be locked in the up position whenever the scope was removed. “Second, rate of fire.” She turned the weapon over and indicated the spot where a standard plasma rifle’s selector switch would be. This weapon had no such switch, no way to change it from single-shot to autofire. “You get one shot per squeeze of the trigger, period, so you have to learn to make it count. Third, there’s energy. The plasma package this weapon delivers is bigger than those from the assault rifles, even though the battery and mass packs are interchangeable. So it just hits harder.”
	“Hard enough to put down a Terminator?”
	She shrugged and handed the weapon back to him. “On a really lucky shot, on the kind of day when the weather’s just right and you just won the whole pot at cards … yeah.
“Otherwise, it can be reliably counted on to put damage onto a Terminator or assault robot, but it usually takes several shots to put one down. And that’s just not something you can count on. Hit one of the machine’s hardpoints, like its torso armor, over and over, and you’re just not going to inconvenience it much.
	“Other differences.” She hefted her own Barrett. “Range. Plasma packages, because they don’t have much mass, slow down and are deflected by air friction even faster than physical rounds. In spite of the fact that this weapon is optimized for range, you’re just not going to get much accuracy beyond, oh, three hundred yards. Good hunting-rifle range. We’ve got two hundred yards to work with in this shooting range, and that’s a good maximum for you to work toward.”
	“How far is yours accurate?”
	“I get pretty good groupings out to a thousand yards. And I can damage a Terminator at that range.”
	Paul whistled.
	“I hope it doesn’t puncture your male ego that mine’s bigger.”
	“I’ll cope.”
Over the next couple of hours, Kyla gave him the beginner’s course in sniper-style shooting. He learned techniques of breathing, of meditation, of concentration. He learned patience—Kyla had designed herself an apparatus, a target on the end of a moving pole, that would swing up into position after a programmed delay that could be anywhere from a minute to ten minutes after the device was activated.
	He learned the care and feeding of the rifle, how to swap out the daytime optical scope currently installed atop the weapon for the bulkier, heavier starlight scope in a padded pocket of the rifle case.
	And he shot. He fired at stationary targets, at targets swinging atop Kyla’s apparatus, at designated portions of the earthen wall. Sometimes Kyla told him to shoot when it felt right; sometimes she told him to shoot on her command.
	And he did a fair job. The patience and meticulousness that were part of his work habit in other duties helped him here. Kyla looked over his groupings, over the charred craters his plasma fire had left in her earthworks, and pronounced him a promising beginner.