As the last remnants of LOGIS broke through the foliage to scrutinize the source of the cheerful voice, it quickly became clear to Toni how lucky they had been.

Interspaced five meters from one another, the combat drones rested in semi-prepared positions along a front that stretched out beyond sight. Humanoid in general appearance, especially the light-weight ones armed with modified Lacraus, they nevertheless lay unnaturally still in their incomplete foxholes. Further back he could spy the heavier firepower, an anti-armor team to his left and a less deftly concealed machinegun position above and to his right, all manned by heavy combat drones. The heavy bots were of more robust constitution, although their greater carrying strength was counterbalanced by slightly reduced autonomy. Toni had read the right magazines to know that much about the killing components of the Robotic Warfare Corps, but the SIC's formal training regimen hadn't yet progressed to the point of discussing the finer points of their sister military unit.

It was also clear that the line was positioned in a zigzag pattern along the terrain, their group having crossed the frontline at the nook where a zig began to zag.

"If you close your mouths and advance twenty paces, I'd really appreciate it, guys," the cheerful voice piped. Toni peered up into the trees, aware that the low static sound emanating from the bots nearby had intensified the moment the voice had spoken.

The group set off again and ascended the rise from where the voice had come from, coming upon a local droid commander surrounded by its protective detail. It turned its inhuman oculars towards them and spoke.

"Greetings, pilgrims. You're still a good distance from where I am so, if you turn left and scoot south-west about fifty meters, you'll come upon another section leader and his command section. Good luck," the bot spoke cheerily as the surrounding bots hissed aloud.

It then returned its attention to the lines as if the ghost possessing it had suddenly abandoned its frame.

"Thank you ..." Toni declared uncertainly, unnerved by the fact that the bots had also hissed at his words, as if outraged that he would dare say such a thing.

Fifty paces ahead they came upon another section commander which, at their arrival, turned towards them and cheerily pointed them once more to the north-west. The group thanked the bot and trundled wearily onwards for another two hundred meters, before arriving at a small depression guarded by more heavy bots armed with light machineguns and antitank weapons. In the depression's center, the only human members of the robotic infantry company sat. Heavily camouflaged and armed with an assortment of portable electronic equipment, two men about ten years their senior peered away from their instruments and towards the newcomers.

"You lot look like you've been through hell," the more heavy-set of the two remarked cheerfully as he approached and shook their hands, waving off their salutes as unnecessary.

"Good day ..." said the younger of them, a reed-thin lieutenant with a grim face who raised his hand up at them before returning to his duties.

Once the cadets had introduced themselves and presented their credentials, the captain turned towards the only one among them whose hands were bound.

"Is this your prisoner?" Captain Venter asked, taking Ian carefully by the arm for a closer look.

"Sir, I have been wrongfully arrested. My junior has a beef with –"

"Shut it, Ian," Toni interrupted. "Sergeant-cadet Templeton may be the most senior of our platoon, but that still doesn't give him the right to aid in the escape of an enemy prisoner. That prisoner then slit another cadet's throat before setting fire –"

"That cadet executed a prisoner-of-war in cold blood! And you shot me after letting a prisoner under your direct responsibility escape, Ray's death is on your h–"

"Shut your mouth, prisoner Templeton!" the Captain interrupted. He was no longer cheerful; a broad frown had spread across his wide face. He turned to Toni and gave him a hard look.

"I won't interfere in this matter. You gave the order of arrest, and so it's you who'll have to back that decision up with evidence. I have a bigger fish to fry, and it is pesently on its way here."

"A big fish ... It wouldn't happen to walk on two legs, would it?" Hannah asked.

The captain flashed her with a wicked grin and remarked with his faux-American accent, "You hit that nail right on the head! We expect to have enemy contact within the next two to four hours. Single walker, its heading is suspiciously similar to yours, so I expect you lot were being followed."

"Or maybe it's just following the same thing we were," Toni suggested, "the trail left by MEWAC on its way south-east."

Toni's remark brought a slow smile back onto the captain's face.

"Well, if that's the case, then I'd expect it to contact that line right where you did, right? Arright Lieutie, get ready to redeploy our line! I want the left flank to fall back until it's staggered, and call Murata to our left and tell him to do the same with his right flank. We're gonna funnel this walker in –"

"Won't work ..." his lieutenant interrupted tiredly. "The Unmil will be tipped off when it passes through the trenches our bots have already dug."

"– I want our right flank to advance until it is staggered, call Murata to do the same with his left. We're gonna funnel this walker in –" the captain corrected confidently.

"If you wanna call Murata, you can do it yourself. And you can call HQ to get authorization while you're at it," the lieutenant interrupted again before calmly holding a corded telephone out to his commander.

Venter sniffed at the snub but didn't seem too upset. He approached his lieutenant, snatched the phone from his outstretched hand, squatted on the dirt and began to speak into it.

From the telephone receiver a black wire stretched, snaking its way into what appeared to be a compact switching station. From that station many more wires snaked, two of them extending in opposite directions parallel to the front lines while more stretched out rearwards into the forest.

The captain spoke cheerfully into the receiver as the cadets sat on the hard ground, nursing their foot-blisters. The conversation continued for a while, the speakers on the other side apparently reluctant to authorize what was sounded like a risky plan. Before long, however, it became clear from the lieutenant's exasperated expression that the captain was going to get his way. The captain finally handed the phone back to his subordinate with smug satisfaction.

"As I was saying, Leslie, you are to stagger our right flank forward so as to make the right side of a funnel, while Murata does the same with his left, and then we will move our praetorians to plug up that funnel's base. It will be caught like a rat in a trap –"

"Sir ..." Toni spoke out, "I'm not sure that's going to work."

The captain peered towards the cadet, momentarily peeved.

"Say your piece," he finally said.

"I confronted one of those Suits directly, sir. It took direct hits from twenty-five mil, thirty mil, four SABERO rockets and the hammerheads' Bloodhound II's. Nothing stopped it. The Unmil killed a member of my section, took out my Suit, and killed a large number of Hammerheads without a sweat, and the only thing that stopped it was a nuke detonated by its own forces –"

"Sergeant-cadet Miura, do you think that I'm stupid?" the captain asked.

"N-no, sir."

"We have already been briefed regarding the enemy Suits' capabilities. Several days ago, in fact. We are here for one reason and one reason only. That lone Suit is advancing straight towards Lograin Air Base, and that's just where everyone happens to be boxed in. As you boys were advancing to the south-east, ROWAC and the light infantry battalions were touching down in Lograin along with enough unattached heavy armor to found a new corps. By the time we all got there, most of you MEWAC boys were already beating a hasty retreat back to base. It is now overpopulated and understaffed, and then they tell us it's time to retreat so we can reorganize our forces, get our factories up to full gear and come up with a winning plan. Only there aren't nearly enough aircraft for the tonnage that we need to shift.

"ROWAC's presence here has only one objective, and that is to delay the Suit's advance until the base has been evacuated. And we're doing that because we are supremely aware of its capabilities. If we were to give it less than our very best, it would simply swat us aside and keep on advancing, and Lograin just can't afford that, can it?"

"No sir. I just –"

"I've organized an evacuation for you but it's going to take a while. The rovers have been tasked with actions other than evac, and so I expect they'll only be free to get you out once they've fulfilled their other obligations. In the meantime you stick with us, understood?"

"Yes sir," they all replied quietly.

Before long, the group was once more on the move, although the journey proved to be a short one. The command section, their compliment of praetorians and the ragged cadets moved eastwards for half a kilometer, where they reformed at the base of 3rd company's left flank. There was hardly any need to dig in, their new position being located precisely where Toni and his crew had come upon the frontline less than an hour before. As the captain personally marked where he expected the praetorians to establish their positions, Toni cautiously approached the lieutenant.

"Sir. May I ask why you're so worried about this? Is it really such a bad plan?"

The lieutenant sighed in annoyance. He gave Toni a measuring look, and then he shrugged and answered his question.

"No. The plan isn't bad. Except for the fact that the captain always insists on being where the action is. And that means being where his praetorian guards are. He intends to try and funnel an enemy Suit right against our company's most heavily armed and armored elements. The problem is that, if it works, that means he'll be directing the enemy onto his own position! And if the praetorians don't stop the Suit, chances are good we'll be fried once it punches through the line."

"We can fight, sir."

The lieutenant sighed once more.

"Fighting's for bots, cadet. I'm not so sure mankind has any place left on a battlefield. I'm more certain now after what happened to your outfit."

"Sir, the enemy's got men driving their Suits. I know that for a fact –"

"You don't have their Suits! You don't even have your own Suits! All you've got is that rifle and a few grenades. So what's going to happen is –"

"Leslie, where the fuck is Murata?"

The lieutenant sighed yet again and turned his attention to the captain.

"Sir, my name is Lieutenant Stevenson. And Captain Murata isn't going to be with his praetorians. His bots are already emplaced where you wanted them, but the captain's going to find a safer spot for his command and equipment."

"Pussy ..." the captain remarked with a twisted smile.

Toni couldn't help but smile at the captain.

"The captain's wasted in ROWAC. He should have been light infantry," he remarked in an undertone.

"He was a footman before he went to Officers' School," the lieutenant replied, as if agreeing that all footmen were insane.

The praetorians began to hiss again. When Toni remarked about it, the lieutenant explained.

"It may sound like a hiss to your ears but that's actually one of the ways the bots communicate. They're equipped to communicate by long-wave radio, short-wave radio, luminous signals, hand codes and audio comms. Since we didn't want any comms intercepted or jammed, and since the bots were mostly out of each others' sight due to terrain, the only remaining solution was audio comms. They were even communicating when you boys were closing in on them. You heard them as birds chirping, but there was a cipher hidden in the sound. The Suit probably won't know we're out there until the festivities begin. The way the captain's organized things, the better part of two companies will have an opportunity to engage the Unmil in the first moments of battle. And it won't be able to block the comms like it did with your drivers."

"Sorry, sir, but I don't think that will be enough."

"Seventeen anti-armor teams per company. Two companies. Four RPGs per two-bot team. That's a hundred and thirty-six RPGs, each with an explosive warhead weighing over twelve kilo-mass. Such an assault could take out most of the ASC under ideal conditions. Either way you boys shouldn't be here by then. Just keep to our rear, jump on the rovers once they get here and don't look back."

The lieutenant returned to his duties, leaving Toni to ponder on the matter. They're going to die in that foxhole, the stranger declared nonchalantly, you've got your own battle ahead of you, and you have precious few weapons with which to fight it.

Toni knew what he was talking about. The captain's words had finally begun to sink in regarding the need to defend his order of arrest, and he realized that all he had at the moment was his word against Ian's. The thought of what he was going to have to deal with in the future made him want to jump into the trenches to fight alongside the bots. They at least weren't prone to bush-whacking or betrayal. A sudden hissing along the line, however, made him wonder about that.

"Unknown contact audible in the forest," Lieutenant Stevenson whispered as they huddled around the equipment. "Heading is what we expected, it's following the MEWAC trail."

"Is it in the funnel yet?" the captain asked. He was staring thoughtfully towards the south-east.

"It's in, but just barely," the lieutenant answered.

"We wait ..." the captain decided.

A full minute passed before the captain asked again. His lieutenant answered softly.

"It's in but not yet midway. The Unmil is either being careful, or it suspects something."

"Tell Murata to begin to carefully close the end of his side of the funnel. Do the same with ours."

Thirty seconds later the lieutenant began to tense up.

"Sir, the Unmil has halted. I'm stopping my bots."

Another minute passed and only the hissing could be heard. It seemed so loud to Toni's ears that he wondered if it was the noise that was giving them away.

"Unmil is on the move again. Moving slowly. Heading straight towards us. Sir, it's half a click away and closing. Do we assault now?"

"Are you mad?" the captain retorted irritably. "We want her to come here, where we've concentrated our RPGs. Let her come. Keep closing the other end of the funnel. Box her in."

Another minute passed by and the lieutenant gestured silently to the cadets to get ready to move at any moment. Turning to his captain, the lieutenant whispered.

"You're going to get what you want. The Unmil is less than two hundred meters away and closing. The funnel is closed and the contact is boxed in. There are confirmed visuals by emplaced anti-armor teams. Now, sir?"

After a moment's pause the captain looked rearwards. There was no longer a smile on his face, only that broad frown. Tensely he gave the signal for the cadets to retreat before returning his gaze to the south-east.

"Engage the fucker," he ordered.

The cadets did not retreat but watched silently instead, spellbound by the tension of the moment. A silent order passed from the lieutenant to his bots in a hissing wave, and then the forest suddenly became alive with screeching missiles.

Deafening concussions rocked the woods, waking it violently from its slumber as belching fumes began to ascend the sky. The detonations were immediately followed by the roar of machineguns, increasing in number and intensity until all Toni could hear was a screaming, popping static. The static began to be punctuated by ever more frequent detonations as the sounds of battle began to reach their peak.

"What exactly are we still doing here?" Hannah shouted into his ears.

He thought about that for a moment, and it became clear to him that they urgently needed to be someplace else. There was no need to reply. Hannah grabbed Ian and Toni grabbed Sueli, and the remnants of LOGIS set of at a run to their north-east, again following what remained of MEWAC's signs of passage. Toni risked a glance behind and saw the vegetation before Venter's position being struck by a laser pulse, its defenders hastily exiting their foxhole as smoke and fire nearly overwhelmed them.

More concussions rocked the forest, their shock-waves knocking flat anything not attached to the ground, and Toni suddenly found himself lying there, the deafening static sound of gunfire still screaming into his ears. The enemy Suit came within sight, and it sauntered over the forest floor with kneepads well-bent and frame in reduced silhouette, its armor sparking and glinting as myriad small-caliber projectiles struck their target.

The Suit's oculars laser glimmered, its beam cutting up the landscape like a luminous scalpel. Its helm turned towards him and that laser flashed once more, the ground shooting up dirt wherever the beam touched, bark and limb and tree bursting into flames and subsiding to the earth. The kicked-up dust enshrouded him, cloaking his surroundings from the titan's killing sight, and the screaming static in his ears was overruled by a keening, screeching sound that tore into his heart.

Twisting around where he lay, his eyes fell upon Sueli, who rolled over the ground hugging what appeared to be a child by its leg. Clumsily he stood and approached and tried to pry the child from her arms before she could smother it, his mind at odds with what he was seeing, wondering how a civilian could have found its way into the midst of a battlefield. Sueli held on desperately, as if it was her own offspring she held, and once he had managed to pull one of her arms away, he realized how wrongly he had judged what he was seeing.

It was not a child. It was her own leg she was holding, the member's boot having somehow been lost, her petite foot jutting out from her embracing arms for the world to see. He stared in horror at the vision, and then his eyes searched downwards until they found the cleanly cauterized stump well above her right knee. Looking behind, he found the sounds of battle receding as bots coursed the terrain in pursuit of their prey, oblivious to the fact that they would also soon be in pieces.

Toni scooped her up, caring not in the least for his injured right arm, and stifled his emotions as he set eyes upon her face. Her face was perfect except for the horror that was stamped there. She cried and shrieked, and there was something animal about the way she blinked at her surroundings. He ran as he held her firmly, coming upon Hannah further down the trail where she had been wrestling with Ian on the ground.

He said nothing to her or to Ian, the weeping soldier in his arms putting an end to the fight more effectively than any word could have.

They stared at Sueli as she embraced her leg. Blinking back tears, Hannah took out a hypodermic painkiller and injected the drug into her comrade, and the group then set off at a jog down the trail, where the revving of engines had became audible.