Murder Drones : Born From Ashes REDUX

The Bad, The Undead, and The Vampire

Lynn Casey gazed through his KILLCHROME thermal goggles, his claw like hands are filled with fittings to act as adapters for cylindrical objects he could hold onto. His body ran on the groans of the undead and a proprietary power supply that his doctor couldn't identify. If the entities were still standing, he would be the property of a company that was annihilated soon after the media ban. He is 2nd generation, originally taking a liking to cartography and trade, the Marines soon found use for people just like him. His compatriots look up to him, the only drone offspring that had a billion terabytes in memory and 100 Gigs of RAM, all running on an economic 1 cup of oil per 24 hours. Of course, he couldn't do anything other than that. Like the rest of his family, he could barely walk, and his hands were designed to only use a pencil.

He spotted the two drones running soon after their van exploded. It was a 50 meter suicide run across the field, ULU troops were situated in trenches and mountains, the troopers inside the trench would be able to pick them off in a few seconds.

He got permission from his captain to begin suppressive fire into the trench, and they got the two strangers behind their lines quickly.

"Keep watch on her, ok?" Lynn told the marine. The drone nodded and kept his rifle safety off.

Her attempt to sit up was met with a splitting stiffness in her spine, terror set in realizing she couldn't move.

"The more you move the more it will hurt." The marine said.

"Who...? What...?"

"We're from the Marine corp. We're holding this point from the enemy. Until reinforcements arrive. About a few hours from now

The drone's M249 sprayed into the charging crowd, each drop of the body brought more grief and confusion. He lifted his finger from the trigger for only a second and a bullet slammed right into his head. His squad mate yanked him down from the trench and took over.

"We're getting in trouble down here! There's more troops!" he barked into his secondary channel.

"Copy that. Explosives are authorized." Lynn responded emotionlessly. He spun around and yelled at the private waiting for his turn behind the 2nd class to get the LAW launchers from the box.

"Trench foot." Stacy replied weakly, "Could you stick my boots on? It's really cold."

The skeletal frame quivered from the cold draft. Each toe was crafted into fine steel segments.

"You're from Zinc12?" The marine asked, "Zinc12's soil became notoriously corrosive near the end of the war on Prisoners, right?"

"It didn't help that we didn't have boots either."

The Marine finished tying the laces and sat back up. Suddenly he stood erect, a small speaker icon on the lower left of his visor indicated he had switched audio channels. His lips moved indistinctly. Then he switches back. He gives one look at her.

"I need to go up there. I'm going to leave you here, you seem like a good person so don't break my trust." He holstered his strange black rifle and charged out into the tunnels. Stacy waited for a moment before she began contorting her left wrist. She kept pushing until her butterfly knife came out.

The USC9 marines were dressed in full white striped camo, a jacket and a pair of pants. They were tucked into boots woven in polyester fibers and carcinogens, polyester to block most liquids and carcinogens to make a distinct smell to alert the wearer they were stepping into acid. They wore black helmets with ballistic face shields, those who kept theirs on were living proof of its performance.

"Reload!" screamed a drone, the drone behind him grabbed the m60 and fed a belt of bullets into the gun, the caliber she didn't recognize. To her left another drone was speaking into an audio channel, the numbers on her visor read coordinates. Mortar strikes.

"You ok, kid?" The marine asked, patting his hand on N's shoulder. N spat his blood into the snow and gave him a thumbs up.

"Good, stay with me, we're going to get you some help after this."
"I'm fine..." He squeaked. Part of the boy's mind was racing as to why these men were acting so kind to him. He was worried that they would execute them the moment they realized he was one of the bad guys. For now, he kept shooting. If he was going to do what he did best he wanted to make sure they remembered he helped.

"THE SAPPER IS PINNED DOWN!" Screamed a marine who was cackling, "Stupid bitch couldn't handle a round!"
"Got it, Jane, set the next mortar strike where the sapper is! Baxter! Keep watch on that trench! I just pinged it! Kill any bastard that walks anywhere near it!"

N zoomed his vision towards the Sapper's location, basing it off the subtle movements of Baxter's eyes.

A loud clap came from behind Stacy. She thought maybe whoever they were fighting had artillery and she took cover. Then she heard the chugging of a motor engine, the clicking of metal treads. A loud clap boomed once more! Then the gunfire from their side grew louder! Their attackers didn't retreat, and the symphony of explosions would make sure they would never get a second chance.

The snow mobiles with mortar canons retrofitted on their top arrived. More marines spilled out from their doors.

Silence.

"This is command speaking. Move up."

--

The marines walked through the fields, rifles at the ready. Stacy felt better and decided it would be best if she slipped out while they were cleaning up their battle. The would-be piles of corpses were instead pieces of metal and wire, bits of gore, and mostly smoldering ash in puddles of slush. Steam rose from pools of water which were filled with corpses. One of them moved and a marine on her left aimed his black rifle and fired, a merciful kill.

The marines finally reached the other side of the battlefield, N looked down at the fresh bodies that had wasted away from starvation, their uniforms still on their frail forms. Their uniforms. Were ULU