TITLE: Asymmetrical Warfare
AUTHOR: Sarah Segretti
RATING:  PG
SPOILERS: Existence
SUMMARY: For a desk jockey, his aim is still good. 155 words.

 
Rules of engagement forbid shooting a man who has surrendered, but Krycek
hasn't. Even as Krycek pushes the gun away with his plastic hand, Skinner
knows that.

This isn't traditional battle. This is a shadow war.

Krycek breathes something desperate about bullets and a thousand lives
that makes no sense, and begs him to shoot Mulder.

Shoot Mulder. Skinner glances at him, frozen in place near his damaged
car. Mulder's father. Scully's abduction, her sister. The nanobots.
Skinner can almost hear the thought running through Mulder's head,
matching his own: I've had enough.

He fires. For a desk jockey, his aim is still good.

The echo of the gunshot dies away. Mulder is talking, but Skinner doesn't
quite hear. He's signed his own death warrant. He's free. He can't decide
which.

"Are you with me?" Mulder asks.

"You just go," Skinner says. He walks away from Krycek's bloodied body.

He's decided. No regrets.

-30-