Friday’s Flash—About Face

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Last week we had a short joined-worlds fantasy. This week, it’s a very short piece of military science fiction that forms the February 8th entry in 366 Days of Flash Fiction.
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About Face

“Do you want to live forever?”
If I never heard that phrase again, I would be a very happy girl. For now? For now, I shouted ‘Sir, no sir!’ with all the rest, and ran right out into the ambush. When I went down, it was under the Sarge, the machine-gunner and the comms carrier. It was a good thing the tiktaks left the dead where they lay. A good thing, and almost the end of me.
By the time the rescue team arrived I was having trouble breathing; the smell of carrion surrounded me, and the weight of the dead bore down on more than my soul. They all thought I was crazy when they dug me out and I picked up the nearest rifle, sedated me before I got fully to my feet.
Dayum—I wasn’t crazy; I was mad. Some dumb sonuva had dropped us right into the middle of a bunch of hostiles, who’d shot us all to shit. And I wanted to know who, and why. Fortunately, Odyssey take people like me, and then they use our interests to their best advantage. It wasn’t the tiktaks I was itching to kill, but the traitors upstairs.
It was just my good luck that Odyssey needed an assassin for the very same thing.


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You can find the first two flash fiction collections at the links below, until the covers are updated. The third collection will be released later this year.


books2read.com/u/bap506
books2read.com/u/3J21B3


Location: Canberra ACT 2601, Australia

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