The Curious Demise of Cobb

It was raining pretty bad when Xanthiana pulled up to the farm house. She could see an erep vehicle out front but no people. She also saw Sagaran's roller, it too was empty, no sign of him or Tex. Elly was running scans of the area, but she wasn't coming up with anything. Something felt wrong, it wasn't the mercs, that much she was certain, she hadn't run into them very often, but this didn't seem their style, too indirect from what she's seen of them. This was something else entirely.

"You said Cobb said to meet him here?"

"Yes he gave specific instructions."

"And yet Cobb is not here."

"Correct, Cobb has apparently stepped out." Xanthiana sighed, she didn't want to have to be here to begin with, and now it was even worse that Cobb wasn't even there. She was about to get in her car and drive off when suddenly Cobb dialed her in.

"Are you hear now cat lady." Xanthiana sighed.

"Yes Sergeant against my better judgement I have arrived, what do you want?" The tone of his voice was a little off putting, Cobb always had an accent but now it was more pronounced, he almost sounded drunk.

"Come to the back of the house I left you a present." Xanthiana didn't like where this was going, but she figured whatever game Cobb was playing if she didn't play along, things were about to get bad. She got to the back of the house and there was a sniper rifle sitting next to the railing, the bad feeling in her stomach immediately got worse.

"What's going on Cobb?"

"We're going to play a game you and I, if you win you and your votanis parasites get to live, if I win, well the opposite happens."

"Xan I've done a scan I've found the farmers, your friend, and his companion, they are currently five hundred yards away with what appears to be nooses around their necks standing on chairs."

"Fuck you Cobb I'm not playing your game."

"If you try and walk off that porch I'll put two bullets right into your ugly eyes, you'll play my game or you'll die, now I know you aren't experienced with a sniper rifle so this will be your first lesson, you got ten shots for five people that gives you two shots a person, or if you don't particularly care for any of them but one, ten for one! After your first five shots its my turn, I'll be shooting the chair legs, now I'll even be fair and wait till you have failed to kill each of them." Xanthiana felt so angry, but she knew it did her no good, Cobb had set this game up, and she was but a player.

"I can help you Xan, with the aiming."

"Elly I don't need your help."

"You said you don't know how to use a sniper rifle."

"That's not what I said." Xanthiana took up the rifle and sighted it down, the rain made the shots hard, but not impossible, the rifle was of human make with a bolt action slide, probably a hunting rifle. Cobb was an asshole though, the bullets in the hands of an amateur would in no way be able to cut one of the ropes as he claimed. "Elly I'm going to need you to do me a favor, Cobb is out there, I'm sure he's masking himself somehow, but he won't be able to mask the shots, can you triangulate from where he's firing from?

"In theory yes, but you'd have to be able to shoot him Xan, I doubt the Sergeant will make it easy."

"Just do as I say please." Xanthiana took up the rifle and propped herself on the railing. The ropes were attached to what looked like an old metal swing set, which was rusted but still holding steady, it looked to be her best chance to get them all down at once.

"I'm waiting on you cat."

"Cobb I want you to know I've never really taken much pleasure from killing, I've done a lot of it over the years, but when I kill you, I'll take so much pleasure."

"You can try pussy cat, you can try."

Xanthiana fired the first shot wide, it hit the dirt with a thud, Elly popped up helpful indicators on her vision but she shrugged them off, she missed on purpose. The next one slammed into the support of the swing set, but didn't do enough, she could hear Cobb laughing that she hadn't come close to any of the ropes. The third shot hit the other support, it also didn't knock down the structure, but she could tell she had damaged it and that one seemed to be the weaker link from what she could see, for the fourth shot she missed entirely.

"My rifle jammed Cobb you'll have to give me a second to unload it."

"That'll count as a shot cupcake, now watch a real man in action." Cobb's shots were all to the point, each one weaked the chair of each person swinging from a rope, one of them even hit three chairs with one shot. He was not playing around.

"Elly did you get a reading on those."

"It'll take me a moment, I'm calculating, stall." Xanthiana sighed.

"Cobb this rifle is really jammed, can you give me another?"

"If you don't shoot in the next thirty second I'll kill all of them and then you."

"Elly."

"I'm working on it Xan, one moment."

"Time's up." Cobb's opening shot knocked the leg off one of the chairs and the farmer young daughter started twitching. He seemed to stop to appreciate the young votan hanging as he didn't fire another right away.

"Elly!"

"GOT HIM!" In front of Xanthiana's eyes a line drew from the gunshot up to a spot on a mountain. Xanthiana fired five shots in quick succession, each slammed into the support base Xanthiana had tested earlier, on the fourth shot it snapped and the whole thing crashed over, but the fifth was just to make sure.

"Hey Cobb you might want to learn how to speak english, I said I had no use for one, I never said I didn't know how to use one." With her final shot Xanthiana put a bullet into Cobb's surprised face. She cycled the bullet out and the casing hit the ground with a thud, the rifle was empty and Cobb was dead.

"Wow that was pretty amazing Xan."

"Thanks Elly, though I did break a promise to do that, I guess I am truly damned now." Xanthiana sighed and went to check on the people who almost got hung. At least if she was damned it was for a good cause.