FLASH FICTION FRIDAY: CHOICES

This weeks flash fiction friday story. Now that I've started class, I figured my time would be consumed writing for class but I got my story out on time and on budget; it's funny what happens when you prioritize.

Choices

He takes the bullet between his shoulders.

The Grunt does not feel the impact, nor does his suit report anything amiss. 

The Grunt is about twenty klicks from the Squad main body. His orders were to flank the 'surgent lines and attack targets of opportunity, while the Squad conducted a frontal assault; all part of a larger, platoon level assault on the 'surgent city-state. 

The Grunt is busy clearing a 'surgent Fires Team when the Shredder makes an appearance. One on one, Grunt versus Shredder, the Grunt wins: barely. Grunt iron still provides some advantages over Shredder flesh; it is an arms race where both sides constantly change leads, where metal contests with meat.

The Shredder catches the Grunt from the side, just as his alarms trigger, and slams him into the shipping container the Fires Team had been unloading. The Grunt and Shredder rip through the container wall. As they fight, the Grunt releases a couple of hip pocket grenades; they roll up against the stored rockets. The Grunt grips the Shredder and waits as the microseconds tick by...996, 997,998,999...one second.

The explosion is phenomenal.

The blast blows the Grunt and Shredder into the air; they continue to wrestle with each other. The Shredder attempts to disentangle himself, but the little motors in the Grunt's battle suit dampen the Shredder's attempts to generate a primitive quantum field. 

"We go up, we come down," thinks the Grunt to himself.

As they hit the ground, the Grunt's suit, sensing an opportunity, extends sharpened phalanges; they impale the Shredder to the ground. The Grunt withdraws the phalanges and rolls off the Shredder; he looks.

The Shredder's neck is nearly severed to the spine; one arm is clean cut off and burns mark the rest of his body.

"Injured," thinks the Grunt, as he quickly calculates the Shredders recovery time. Not long.

The Grunt's suit merrily advises him that he's taking AK-74 and RPG fire from behind. The Grunt turns and eliminates the threat. The Shredder is what concerns him. He doesn't have time to do a full wipe on the Shredder: finding and ripping out the modifications, jelly packs, nodules and nodes that make a man a Shredder is long, wet, work. 

So the Grunt runs. Ten minutes and ten miles later his suit makes a pithy observation and dies, immobilizing the Grunt in mid stride. He switches over to manual diagnostic and spies the problem: a bullet penetrated the small heat exchangers in the back of his armor, consigning his nuke battery to a slow death.

Damn. 

The Grunt punches manual eject and pops out of his armor. He reaches around and unbuckles his S.E.R.E--survival, evasion, resistance, escape-- kit and does a quick inventory: four chocolate bars, a bag of gold coins, four wafer thin hard drives, a smart cloth that samples languages and displays the appropriate message and a single shot Seppuku 9mm pistol.

The Grunt remembers his S.E.R.E. training:

"You can run two hundred, two hundred fifty miles at a time; that's straight line, no stress. If you are evading, then halve that distance. That's your escape radius." said his instructors. "If your suit goes down, it's backups will scream bloody hell. We'll be coming for you. In the mean time, run. Leave the civilians alone, unless it's to seek shelter or barter trade goods--that's what the gold and stable memories are for. Civ/Mil conversions are fair game. If there's a Shredder on your ass, well... your choice. You can let it catch you, or you can use the Seppuku."

The Shredder is probably back up and dusting off his slicks. 

The Grunt runs.