Undercover Finale

Written for the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge with a word limit of 300.


The prompts: This story must contain the words: sleeve, traffic, knot


Undercover Finale

The bullet tugged the right sleeve of his body armor as it passed through. Shinto thought that he had been hit for a moment. Before he could feel any relief, another round found its target, taking him in the calf, just below the knee.

Damn hunter/seeker bullets, he thought as he tied a tourniquet knot just above his knee. Hopefully, they don’t have too many more of those things. The next round fragmented a few meters overhead, spraying him with small metal slivers.

Where the hell are they getting this stuff? Shinto was used to being outnumbered. Being outgunned was a different matter. Unfortunately, the Jindaro drug cartel on Jupiter’s moon, Io, was willing to traffic in arms as well as the high-end Opium Spin Derivatives.

The air thickener grenade wrote the end of the story. Shinto was not going to make it. It took considerable effort to move at all. He felt as if he was submerged in gelatin. With a flick of his wrist, he activated the small singularity kept just under the skin. The green glow indicated the micro-worm hole was open.

This is going to hurt a little, he thought as he struggled to get his knife so he could dig his bio-implant out of his heel. He needed to send it home through the wormhole or his life would end right here.

He could hear them as they ran into the room. They released a static charge, neutralizing the thickening effect. That gave Shinto the time he needed. He quickly dug out the chip and tossed it into the glow, which vanished with its prize.

He bit down hard, releasing the adrenal-charge in his tooth and then stood up to face his attackers; weapons firing on full automatic.

Shinto hated dying alone.

Word count 297