.jpg "Image") The sound of the FN going off was like a thunderclap. It created a shockwave that felt to Charlie that it must have been powerful enough to break twigs as it thundered through the trees on both sides of the clearing. The weapon kicked viciously into his shoulder and pushed the large, tungsten-tipped bullet forward at great velocity, creating a recoil thrust that pushed the front of the gun up violently. The bullet penetrated the steel casing near the target robot’s right shoulder, deformed as it tore apart the top right servo motor and tore a fist-sized hole out of the back of the killing machine.
The robot was flung sideways and its right arm fell limply to its side, but it regained its balance and kept on coming.
Charlie’s heart fell. They didn't have a chance. There were too many robots and too little time before they were overrun and cut apart by multiple AK47s fired at close range.
Through the ringing of his ears he could vaguely hear Buthelezi’s gun going off.
Then the unexpected happened.
In the periphery of his vision he could see something strange happen to the robot that Buthelezi was firing at. The bullet caught the machine in its center of gravity and seemed to lift it into the air. A moment later its torso’s steel plating burst open violently as hundreds of fiery little comets erupted from its smoldering chest, leaving smoking contrails as they pirouetted through the sky ...
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The robot took two more steps before plowing head first into the ground.
Charlie looked over at Buthelezi as the Zulu turned to look at him. Buthelezi lifted his left fist and tapped his chest twice. Charlie nodded.
The bullet had caught the robot in the chest area and penetrated into the bullet silo, smashing apart and detonating some of the tightly packed bullets in the confined space. The resulting explosion exerted massive pressure on the remaining bullets and caused them to detonate instantly, tearing the robot’s chest apart and severing the link between its processor stem and the CPU box in its head.
They had a chance.
Charlie lined up his gun’s sights and aimed at the chest of the robot that he had just hit. “Steady now,” he thought to himself, “control breathing … squeeze.” The gun thundered again as it spat out another projectile. The bullet reached the robot as it came down at the end of a stride. In stead of hitting it in the chest, the bullet hit it just under the neck area, punching a hole through the processor stem and lifting the machine off its feet. The robot came down heavily on its back and lay where it fell.
Two down, ten to go.
Charlie was trying to count his rounds. He had fired three when the ambush was sprung, another two just now. The FN held 20 rounds in its magazine. He had 15 rounds left before he had to change. Changing would take too much time.
He swung the gun around and lined up the next robot, aiming lower this time. “Steady, breathe calmly, squeeze.”
Again the gun thundered. This time the bullet hit the robot square in the chest, detonating the armory and blowing the robot’s chest apart. Charlie winced as one of the red hot lead projectiles cart-wheeled a few centimeters past his head.
“Die m@th&#%@ck&r!” was all he could think.
To his right another robot ploughed into the ground after taking three hits from Buthelezi.
Charlie swung the gun again and lined up. The gun spat and punched a tunnel through the robot’s lower chassis. He fired again immediately. The second bullet caught it in the chest and again the explosion blew it apart. “Die m@th&#%@ck&r, die!” This time he was shouting it out loud.
Twelve bullets left. There were three robots left on his side. They were closing fast now. He thumbed the fire selector to burst mode, lined up the fourth robot and squeezed the trigger.
He had aimed low. The big gun processed three bullets on automatic before stopping to await further finger instructions. The burst made the gun recoil violently. The first bullet hit the robot in the abdomen, the second hit it in the chest and the third grazed the robot’s skull plating. The bullet in the chest ignited the armory and the robot blew up. One of the ignited bullets hit Charlie in the left arm. The impact and heat hurt like hell, but Charlie was too deep into killing mode to care. “Die m@th&#%@ck&r, die!”
Nine bullets left, two to go. He lined up the fifth robot, but strangely the robot started to swerve sideways. Then Charlie saw why. Multiple bullets were hitting it from the side and tearing its insides apart. The next moment the robot’s head was flung sideways as a bullet punched a tunnel right through it. The robot collapsed into a heap of tortured metal. The sixth robot was dead as well, brought down by accurate firing from the tree line. To his right the eleventh robot ploughed into the ground, but one robot remained in tact and started to decelerate, aiming straight at Buthelezi, who was desperately trying to clip in a fresh magazine.
Charlie lifted his gun and fired. The burst caught the machine left of center and spun it around. The next moment the robot was severely ventilated as the regrouped team members opened fire from the tree lines on both sides of the clearing. The robot’s armory exploded and tore it apart.
This time Charlie dived, but two of the flailing bullets still managed to hit him in his side.
Lying face down on the ground, Charlie was overwhelmed by the deathly quiet that followed the detonation. Then he started to make out moans of pain coming from where Buthelezi was lying, and the sharp orders as the remaining team members charged toward the robot corpses, followed by sporadic shots as they put bullets through the processor boxes of all the robots, just to be sure.
After that everything was a blur. He was rolled over on his back as one of the team members started to clean the bleeding welts where the bullets had made shallow gashes and cracked one rib. Buthelezi had been hit in the face, chest and arms, but he would be okay, because the cart-wheeling bullets did not penetrate deeply.
Three helicopters came down fast out of the dusky sky and he, Buthelezi and the dead bodies of four of his friends were lifted inside one, while the other two were filled with as many robot parts as possible.
They managed to retrieve seven working VIA NanoBooks out of the broken shells of the 16 dead robots. These computers yielded valuable information on The Hegemony’s troop movements, robot tactics, GPS positioning, passwords and code languages. But much more importantly than that: After years of survival in the radiation-free backwaters of the nuclear-scorched planet, The Free Sector now had seven NanoBooks of its own. These wi-fi capable computers used so little power that they could be recharged with portable, fold-up solar panels, giving the Free Sector’s insertion teams the computing power that they so desperately needed – as well as the ability to hack into The Hegemony’s satellite network from their positions behind enemy lines.
Charlie would be back, and this time his team would know where to strike.
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Visitor
Friday, 07 September 2007
Heh-heh! Back to the future ... with a big old FN FAL! 8)
Visitor
Friday, 07 September 2007
Is this the end? *sob* :grin
Visitor
Saturday, 08 March 2008
Hi grandad I love you
Visitor
Saturday, 08 March 2008
Hi grandad I love you love from charlie :grin