I took quick stock of my equipment - a half empty carbine, a MP-5 with two clips, a sawed-off shotgun loaded with buck, a crappy silenced pistol, and a half dozen grenades. Not ideal - I should probably have disengaged and slipped past, but what the hell, bandits are bastards and the opportunity was just too juicy.

The bandits are practically treading on each-others' feet, so I readied a grenade and waited. When the bobbing light passed within about 10 meters, I popped out from cover and tossed two grenades, one at either end of their little conga line. As I dodged back into cover, I heard bullets ricochet off the tree trunk, followed by shouts of alarm and running. Then two little explosions.

A peek around the tree showed me I got one of them, maybe two. I never got a good count. More importantly, I saw that they had spread out. Where exactly, I wasn't sure. The leader had doused his headlamp (clever boy!), so I could only see vague grey shapes. And I couldn't even see those for long - I was drawing automatic fire, with a side of buckshot. So I put my grenades away and backed off, disengaging to wait for a better opportunity.

I scrambled behind a low ridge, then turned and watched the ridgeline, waiting for one of the bandits to crest and create a handy silhouette. No such luck - they weren't taking the bait. So I sidestepped along to the right a couple dozen meters and popped over the ridge line, then behind a tree, looking for a flank.

The rest of the battle was a blur. I circled the remaining bandits, dodging behind trees, and cut them down with short bursts of 9 millimeter.

At the end of it, I had burned through nearly thirty rounds of 9mm, in addition to those two grenades. What I scavenged off the bandits' corpses barely refilled half of the SMG ammo expended and I had to write off the grenades as a loss. From a pragmatic perspective, the skirmish was an unnecessary waste. But, as I loped off in search of my real objective, I couldn't suppress an evil little grin.