The thunder of the weapons discharging was overwhelming. Charlie managed to squeeze off three shots before the robot hit the ground. In the periphery of his vision he could see the two rockets hitting their targets with deadly accuracy.
The robots were permanently shut down before they hit the ground.
Around him everyone stopped firing and waited. Nothing moved. The silence was eerie. Everyone had been expecting a fight.
The lieutenant barked a curt order and the team charged, guns to the shoulder, aiming eyes flush with the stocks and viewing through the gunsights.
The robots were dead. The two rockets had blown two gaping holes through the chests of the two flanking robots. The tungsten-tipped bullets that the team fired at the middle two robots had penetrated their head casings and deformed inside their heads, tearing through the processor boxes and blowing out the back of their head casings.
There wasn't much left of the heads.
But the torsos, containing the valuable VIA NanoBooks, these were still wonderfully, magnificently intact.
Sarge was a meter behind Charlie and started to say something that was definitely going to be funny. Charlie had just turned to face him with a big grin on his face, when a strange thud-thud-thud-thud emanated from Sarge's body, his chest exploded into four red volcanoes, the volcanoes spat blood particles over Charlie's face and uniform.
Charlie saw Sarge drop to his knees and knew that he was dead. Around him he could hear thud-thud-thuds as other team members were being torn apart. He stared down at Sarge's body and could feel himself going into shock.
Then something strange happened ...

(Click 'Comments' below to read the full episode) … 

 
Time stopped.
Charlie lost all feeling and realized that he was staring straight past the place where Sarge was standing before he was killed.
He was staring at the instruments of Sarge’s death.
Twelve attack robots were standing like statues in the short grass – shells that had been ejected from their AK-47 forearms hung in the air, frozen in time, reflecting the rich light of the late afternoon.
He could not move his head and simply stared at the moment – the twelve camouflaged statues, the open field behind them, the crisp blue of the August sky, the intense green of the forest trees that framed everything.
In that moment, faced with his imminent death, Charlie could feel a strange and insane calm settle upon him. It was a strangely murderous type of calm, when anger and hate was so overwhelming that there was no more room in the body for fear, despair, or the usual steps of an organism that accepts its inevitable termination at the hands of a firing squad.
Time started speeding up. To his right Charlie could see Buthelezi staring dazedly at the blue sky, his FN battle rifle dangling vacantly from his chest strap. The Zulu warrior’s face was covered with Sarge’s blood. He was obviously in shock.
Charlie could sense the chaos around him as his surviving team members started running for the tree line, 50m away.  
Time was quickly speeding back to normal. From the corner of his eye he sensed movement. The robots were charging.
The robots were running ...
A spark of hope started to flicker deep in his subconscious mind. He turned to Buthelezi and shouted: “Buthu!”
The Zulu’s eyes moved to recognize Charlie’s presence for the first time. “Buthu!” he shouted again while pointing to the robots. “They are running.” Buthelezi’s eyes started to focus. “They cannot fire accurately when they run …”

Visitor

Thursday, 16 August 2007

Ouch! 8)

Visitor

Thursday, 16 August 2007

Heavy stuff!

But a good read. ;)

Erwos

Thursday, 16 August 2007

Why is "sarge" always the first one to die?

Visitor

Friday, 17 August 2007

Because John Doe had the day off! :p

Visitor

Monday, 20 August 2007

Maybe Sarge was wearing the ORANGE Star Trek uniform that day which we all know is the kiss of death on any mission of importance. ;)

Visitor

Monday, 20 August 2007

: :eek This really is becoming interesting