It was dark all around, there was frost in the ground  /  When the Tigers broke free.  /  And no one survived  /  From the Royal Fusiliers Company C.  /  They were all left behind,  /  Most of them dead, the rest of them dying.

That old Roger Waters / Pink Floyd song kept on spinning in my head.
Sure, it wasn't dark all around - it was broad daylight - and there wasn't any frost in the ground - it was late summer and the dust and insects were getting stuck in the mixture of sweat and "black-is-beautiful" camouflage cream on our exposed skin. But we were definitely up against this war's equivalent of the Tiger tank, no doubt about it.

The IR-1 attack robot had yet to be killed in battle. Initial skirmishes had been costly because the smaller bullets of modern assault rifles simply bounced off their thick steel casings, while their twin belt-fed AK-47 forearms fired deadly bursts - the robots controlling their rate of fire to stop the weapons from overheating. And we could only speculate about the tactical advantages that their Human/Machine Interface (HMI) computers gave them ...

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We knew that these HMIs were very small, very light, very low-power-draining VIA NanoBooks with long battery life, wireless internet and Bluetooth capabilities. What we could not know then was that this NanoBook had already given the robots’ human handlers the capability to remotely analyze data from the sound of our insertion helicopter – and to predict our insertion point and ambush position.
Would the IR-1s break free today, leaving all of us behind in this field, most of us dead, the rest of us dying?
My morbid thoughts suddenly flew out of my mind as I sensed movement toward the mouth of the ambush zone. My hair rose on my scalp as I made out the humanoid forms of one, then two, then four camouflaged steel monsters appearing over the rise, 300m away.
I looked to my left and right and saw in the frozen stares of my closest team members that they had seen it too. Pebbles were carefully flicked to warn those who did not seem aware of the threat. Soon, the rhythmic progress of the four robots were being scrutinized through the gunsights of ten FN FAL high-velocity automatic rifles and two shoulder-fired rocket launchers.
We were lying in the same hidden positions we had taken two hours earlier – in two perpendicular lines on either side of the clearing. The plan was to let the robots come into perfect range before Sarge would fire the first shot, after which we would all open fire at close range. The two rockets would fire at the two outside robots while the FN FALs’ tungsten-tipped bullets would be fired at the skulls of the remaining two robots, hopefully penetrating the armor and destroying the processors while leaving the NanoBook computers in tact.
The rockets would be aimed at the chassis under the head of each robot. We hoped that each rocket would destroy its target robot's electrical motor system while leaving the processors in the head in tact for later study. Of course, these rockets would probably also destroy the NanoBooks housed in reinforced chambers behind the robots’ rear bullet silos, but we figured that two intact NanoBooks and two intact robot heads would give us the best of both worlds.
The robots reached the 100m mark and one by one each one of us reached forward to flick the rear gunsight’s distance adjuster to the “close range” setting.
The tension was like an electric current running down the two firing lines. I used my black face towel one last time to wipe the sweat from my brow, lifted the rifle and tried to slow my accelerated heartbeat and breathing, while fighting the urge to get up and run for my life.
Would our bullets kill these monsters or just bounce off?
The robots were only 50m away. I closed my left eye and lined up my right eye, my rear sight and my front sight with the head of the second robot.
At 40m the robots suddenly stopped.
The one I was aiming at looked straight at me …
A shot rang out and suddenly the air turned into a thunderous ba-ba-ba-boom as the firing pins inside our weapons detonated their projectile propellants almost simultaneously.

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Visitor

Wednesday, 15 August 2007

Which Pink Floyd song is that quote from?

Visitor

Monday, 20 August 2007

:cry marching into hell

Visitor

Thursday, 30 August 2007

That quote's from 'When the tigers broke free'. It was on The Wall album and in The Wall movie. Hair-raising movie with some heavy and cool scenes!