Ron's Worst Nightmares
Crawling in Filth
By Pat Squared
"Sick and Wrong."
The boy who once boasted about having nothing but "Air beneath the hair", was stuck with one of those moral dilemmas that a long forgotten Middleton High School philosophy professors described.
Back in Middleton High, Ron, having the attention span of a gnat, promptly fell asleep in class, slept through the lecture and thus the answer, earned an hour of detention with Mr. Barkin, which he bribed his way out of with some cake he cooked up in home economics. However, he never learned the answer to the moral dilemma question.
Today, he would kill for the answer.
Option One – Call in an air-strike. A couple five hundred pound iron bombs would level the place. Pluses: No dead marines; Lots of dead enemy; and it would take only five to fifteen minutes depending on air support. Negatives: Lots of dead innocent civilians; Loss of possible intelligence; and a chance that the air-scout would miss the target and bomb the marines instead.
Option Two – Assault the warehouse. Pluses – Less dead innocent civilians (hopefully); Possible intelligence; and positively no chance of being mistaken for the enemy by the fly boys zooming in at over 400 knots and at 20,000 feet. Negatives: Potentially lots of dead marines; the assault could take hours; and the enemy could slip away to fight again.
Kim would have figured out a way to get all the bad guys to surrender or knock them all out. However, Ron was not Kim.
For the past nine months, Fate and the United States Marine Corps molded Ron Stoppable into a killer. Not the psychotic kind (Hopefully), but Ron got to the point where he accepted killing as a way of dealing with the bad guys.
The old Ron would gibber incessantly about eewh, an icky job. However, the young blond-hair, freckle-face marine officer only took in a deep breath. A decision had to be made and he would have to do it.
The marines of 2nd platoon, alpha company would take the warehouse.
There was no debate, no vote. The military might fight for democracy, but the military was not a democracy. Ron's was the only vote that mattered. But if he made the wrong decisions other would pay with their lives. Here everyone voted with bullets and explosives.
Literally, Ron crawled through the shit that flow through the sewer. He was already missing the villain lairs of his youth. They at least were clean. Here he was covered in shit.
Up ahead, Ron could hear someone walking towards him. Slowly he shouldered his Colt SMG with the Gemtech Talon SD integral sound suppressor. He took a couple deep breaths praying that the walker would turn around. His sensed went into overdrive. He could not only smell the sewage, but could almost bite down upon the scent.
The steps were getting closer. Ron tightened the telescoping butt stock of his weapon against the pocket of his shoulder. His right thumb flipped the lever from safe to semiautomatic fire. He place the post of his sight on the head of the approaching figure.
Ten more steps and Ron wouldn't have to shoot. Ten more steps and all he had to do was whack the guy with the muzzle of his weapon. However to do so would compromise his presence to the enemy gathered in the warehouse above.
Think small, Ron. Be a little dung beetle. Be a little dung beetle happy to roll in this shit. Be calm and they will look past you. Be calm and they won't see you. Be calm and enjoy this fresh pile of shit. Enjoy this shit, Ron because it's purer than your soul.
Ron gave into temptation and let the building pressure in his bladder out. Pissing on himself did not matter, he was already covered in filth. The scent of his fresh urine mingled with the urine and shit slurry floating down the sewer.
The figure was four feet away. Ron's weapon was now trained on the figure's pelvis. He heard more than saw the figure open his fly and let loose a fresh stream of urine that landed inches away from Ron's prone figure. It took all of Ron's self-control to not shoot the guy's lizard off.
Ron prayed that the asshole was not the type to shake his snake during the communion with the toilet goddess. However, God always had a habit of ignoring Ron's prayers. Ron heard of golden showers, but he never quiet figured out why some people enjoyed them. Now he could caulk up the experience of receiving one to his resume. He only hoped that he had a chance to piss on this idiot's corpse once the battle was over.
Thankfully, no one else saw the event.
After a couple more shakes, the jerk turned around and started walking back. Probably he would not think to wash his hands or zip his fly.
Slowly, the pissed-on marine officer crawled forward covering more of his body in shit. He wanted to fantasize about soap and limitless hot water, but he had to keep an eye out for booby-traps.
Today, there were infrared beams, waterproof sensor mats, seismic devices, and a host of ways to trigger an explosive welcome. However, these guys went low tech. GI tripwire was GI tripwire around the world. Soviet, Chinese, American, or French it was a fine steel wire painted olive drab.
Despite signing the Ottawa Convention, France still had its share of landmines. All nations did. It was the yin and yang of war. If you want to defeat something, you must know how to use it.
In front of him was a French MAPED F1. The MAPED F1 was an analogue to the Vietnam era M18A1 claymore mine, that every US marine and solder learned to use in boot camp. Upon detonation, the mine would launch ball bearings or shrapnel in a sixty degree cone of death. Taking advantage of the Misznay-Schardin Effect, the M18A1 claymore mine and its cousins such as the MAPED F1 did very nasty things to infantry.
Slowly he traced the wire. Trained as a combat engineer, Ron knew that professionals would always use multiple devices to defeat enemy combat engineers. Whoever set up the mine was definitely not a professional. Ron breathed a sigh of relief when he noted there were no anti-tamper devices on the MAPED mine. Looking around confirmed the fact. There was no second device to ready to kill anyone who got too cocky after the first mine.
Reaching into the pockets of his BDU, Ron removed one of the spare grenade pins and inserted it into the detonator, before unscrewing it from the main body of the mine. He retrieved the shit encrusted mine for later use. He planed to return the party gift back to the owners.
Kim Possible broke down when they finally allowed her to see her daughter. There was not doubt about who the father was. Melody Anne (Anastasia) Possible had hazel eyes, her father's blond hair, and the beginning of the three freckles the doted each one of her father's cheeks.
The latest Possible was too busy sucking on the bottle to note the fact that her mother was crying uncontrollably.
Even if they let her out, Kim would be confronted by the image of the young man she inadvertently killed. Kim knew that she did not deserve to have the honor of being this child's mother, but she was the only parent left. She remembered hating Ron. She remembered planning to get an abortion and terminate Ron's child.
Looking down at her daughter, Kim wondered what kind of monster she became. She had a beautiful little girl who looked at her and let the ugly, red headed bitch hold her and feed her. How was she going to react when Kim had to tell her that her daddy died because Kim lost her sanity?
Kim started rocking her baby and cooing like all new mothers instinctively does. Slowly the little girl, having been feed and burped, closed her hazel eyes. Melody's blond hair was a mess just like Ron's use to be.
Kim wondered what would happen to her child when they hauled her away. Kim was already going stir crazy from being confined to her room. Kim curled up in bed with her daughter wondering when she would finally go over the edge and try to end her life.
Frau Doktor Mueller examined the chart of Kim Possible. Kim exhibited troubling signs far beyond the post partum depress that sometimes plague new mothers. She was exhibiting paranoid behaviors, having alternating periods of depression and hyperactivity, and would often be seen crying. Kim would not open up to anyone,
Mueller respected Dr. Parks of the United States Army. He filled in some of the blanks. However the blanks he did fill in did not paint a pretty picture. Kim's lover and father was a marine officer fighting in France. Rather than just accepting the fact, Kim was living in a fantasy world where Ron was dead. Medication was dangerous, because of Kim's insistence on breast feeding her daughter; Mueller could not simply medicate the problem, but have to seek the underlying source of Kim's neurosis.
Mueller knew that she was up against a time limit. Should this behavior go on too long, Kim would permanently slip into schizophrenia. At that point, Kim would have to be forcibly separated from her child. Mothers with schizophrenia have been known to perform mercy killings or exhibit other dangerous behaviors that could seriously injure their children.
Kim could not stand to be separated from her child. Unless Kim snapped out of her self-destructive path, Dr. Mueller might have to have social services remove Kim's daughter.
Ron examined the door that lead up into the basement of the warehouse. It was an old fire door, probably rated at 60 or ninety minutes. It was constructed of heavy steel with some serious hardware. There was no way that that the assault team could batter down the door without waking up the dead and losing the element of suprise. With the ninty degree bend in the coridoor, using an anti-tank rocket or grenades to knock down the doorwas not an option. The hinges and locking hardware was tough enough to require explosives. Figuring that the door had a standard thickness of 1&3/4 inches, Ron calculated the amount of detcord needed to free the door from its mounting hardware. However, explosive breeching was not certain. It was based upon assumptions, assumptions that could kill the unwary.
Ron whoever had a different idea. Let them open the door for the marines.