Free A Choice of Treasons by J. L. Doty

without power those areas had gone fully transparent. The telltale visible in the upper right corner of the visor still functioned, but only the upper half of the silhouette of the armored marine was visible, with the lower half cut off at the waist by an offshoot of the crack. The helmet and torso sections of the telltale were blinking an angry red at him, and his vision was oddly limited.
    Beyond the visor he saw his chest plate; it too was blackened and scorched, with power arcing across a large crack like small bolts of lightening. His breathing only came in shallow gasps, and any effort to breath deeper punished him with excruciating pain.
    Beyond his chest plate his legs were splayed out into the middle of the hall and tangled in Stacy’s still form. York lay on his back in the hallway, his back and shoulders on the floor, his head propped up uncomfortably by the wall.
    His com chattered incessantly with angry and frantic voices. For a moment his vision dimmed while he struggled to hold onto consciousness.
    Suddenly a pair of armored feddie legs hurtled over Stacy then disappeared out of sight down the hall. York turned his head to the left carefully, and slowly, just enough to see the turn in the hall where a cluster of feddie regulars were huddled staying out of sight of whatever lay beyond. York hoped it was Palevi and his marines that lay beyond.
    Evidently he and Stacy had been taken for dead. Again he turned his head carefully and slowly, but now to the right. At the rubble-strewn entrance of what was left of the broken stairwell another cluster of feddies stood in the open, gesturing as they conferred about something. York guessed the situation was a temporary stalemate, though that wouldn’t last long.
    He looked about for a weapon of some kind, careful to keep his movements to a minimum. Stacy’s rifle lay near his ankles, still attached to its umbilical, though whether or not it would function was academic since it was too far to reach quickly.
    His eyes settled on a short, dark cylinder clipped to the boy’s hip: a nuke, a big one. He kept his eyes on the feddies at the stairwell, had to gamble those at the turn in the hall were too busy with Palevi and his marines to pay attention to their backside. He inched his hand slowly toward the grenade, freezing whenever he thought someone might look his way. He reached the grenade, fumbled momentarily at the clips, panicked at the thought he might not get it free, but then it suddenly came loose and he had it in his hand. He kept it close to the floor, between him and Stacy, while he looked carefully at its face.
    He wanted to cry. It had a forty-pound rating, and it wasn’t adjustable. What he needed was a small two-pound chemical charge, not a forty-pound nuke. He swore that if he got out of this he’d kick Stacy’s ass across Hangar Deck for carrying non-issue explosives. But now he had no choice, so he set the dial on its face for a ten-second delay, then keyed the arming sequence on its side. A small red indicator lit up.
    “Computer,” he said. “ Kikker , execute.” He felt the sting on the side of his neck as his suit flooded his system with a special mixture known as a combat kikker : adrenaline, phets , painkillers, anything that might help a badly wounded marine.
    His thoughts cleared for a moment and he keyed his com, spoke into the middle of all the com chatter. “Palevi,” he croaked.
    His com grew suddenly silent, then everyone started shouting at once.
    “Shut up,” Palevi shouted. “Shut up, god damn it. Cap’em, is that you?”
    “Ya. I’m gonna blow a forty-pound mininuke at the busted stairwell then hit the rest from behind with Stacy’s rotary.”
    “We’re ready when you are, sir.”
    York looked again at his chest plate. His suit computer had cut power from the area around the breach and the arcing had stopped. Otherwise it might short, and the energy available from his reactor pack could easily cook him alive in his suit.