Day of The Dead

The hull of our steel tomb trembled to the beat of the engines as we flew toward our final resting place.  The others sat quiet, recalling their last memories of tranquility and peace before they enter the unforgiving bowls of war.  Our armor covered our bodies, and what was not was protected by a layer of the micro-fiber suit.  My rifle sat between my legs, yet to be charged and ready and ready for firing.  

Being you are human, I must explain myself I assume.  My people have advanced to plasma grade weaponry.  The plasma shots, look like glowing bullets almost, and act the same way, but are much more sophisticated than just projectiles hitting targets.  First, the casing around the plasma is fired and electromagnetically charged by the firing system that continues down the barrel.  Once ejected, the round is live.  When the round is life, the charged casing is "gel-like", hard enough to retain its shape with the plasma inside, yet soft enough to break on impact.  When the projectile hits its target, it hits with enough force to cause some penetration, and even if it does not, the plasma will melt away enough tissue to cause serious damage.  When it does penetrate, it is an instant kill if it is upper mass.  Once the plasma enters inside, it'll cook your ogans into a soup.

Our armor consists of nano-computer fibers that respond to vibrations, pressure, and shock.  They are nearly impenitrable to standard projectiles.  They are also fire, electric, and water repellent, making them diverse and effective.  However, we still resort to primative techniques involving blades and tactics that resemble those of your kind.

Soon, my antennae twitched as a conversation erupts between others in the rear of the vehicle.  The roar of the engines muffled the voices, and I could only make out little of what was being discussed.  The clicks and hisses that I could understand were enough... death was riding on their backs, and pushing on their shoulders, instilling unimaginable fear.  Whether they knew or not, death had an equal grasp on all of us in the ship.  The cold steel seats that we were strapped into amplify the chill that runs down our spines as we slowly lose our sanity to fear alone.

Soon, the yellow light near the side hatch flashed, signalling our soon departure.  Charging my rifle, I gripped my helmet with both hands, and fastened it over my skull.  The screen in front of my eyes flashed on, and soon I had an array of tools at my disposal on my display.

As we grew closer, the sounds of war echoed throughout the hull, and exploding mortars could be heard.  They grew louder and more numerous until my helmet's display flashed the signal of our departure from our confines, and the side hatch slid open.  In an instant, the full awe of war had overwhelmed us.  An acre wide passage between sets of skyscrapers lay ahead, made of dirt, rubble, and debris.  Smoke and dust filled the passage as mortars continued to fall while we exited.  Storming out, I find myself in the center of a charge, surrounded by hundreds of fellow warriors exiting similar ships from which I departed myself.  I watched as a mortar obliterates two to my left instantly, while the others behind them return fire with their rifles.  Instinctively, I lifted mine, and fired as well, into the dust cloud without knowing if they had found any targets.

We continued to charge forward, nearly full sprint, while firing aimlessly through the thick smoke as mortars continued to rain down on us.  As we gained ground, they just seemed to hit more and more, faster and faster, until it seemed the entire ground ahead was breaking apart into grains of sand.  Finally after surviving the onslaught of artillery, the dust cloud became more translucent, and I found myself running into the enemy's own charge.  Soon, our forces collided in a hail storm of red plasma and thrusting blades as the two the opposing waves halted by each others opposing force.  I clashed with one of their warriors, who are much bigger than us Drones being they are Workers, and was flung to my back.

My head lashed back and slammed the earth, rattling my senses, but I could make out the warrior raising his rifle.  Soon, I found multiple rounds colliding with my chest, and then one final shot shatters my left eye's visor.  Luckily, it was not direct, and had only enough energy to only break the visor without hitting my eye.  I lie their, playing dead and praying for the warrior to leave.  The shots to the chest burned as the plasma melted through the armor and suit, now onto my exposed exoskeleton.  Luckily, it dispersed to the point where it could not burn through any further, but it had done its damage, and I was now in pain.

The pain thwarted my attempts to decieve the warrior, and he removed his knife from its holster on his thigh.  Kneeling on one knee, he thrusted the blade in the air, ready to force it through my body, and let's it fall toward me with all his weight behind it.  As it draws near, however, his helmet erupts as a shot barrels through it, penetrating his skull, but his dead weight is enough to drive it through my exoskeleton.  There he lies on me with his knife in my chest, my legs shaking and twitching, and my lungs gasping for air.  His blade had punctured a lung, and now is filling with blood.  The knife must be removed for the pressure to be relieved, and the fluid drained, or I'd drown in my own blood.  But my arms would not move.  They remained sprawled on the ground I lay on, and every attempt I make to lift them go unrewarded.  The most profound effect from my efforts is a few centimeters off the ground, but nothing more.

I lie on the ground bleeding, drowning, and dying, unaware of my surroundings.  During my state of shock, I was able to comprehend the drop in activity.  I could not see any fellow Drones, nor did I hear any local gunshots.  Soon, I understood that the battle had been lost, and I could see the sea of enemy troops passing by as I still lay on the ground half-dead, but still alive.  Every breath was a gasp for air, and soon I found another enemy warrior standing over me.  He kicked his commrad's body off of mine, and watched as I struggled with each breath.  Slowly pulling out his sidearm, he charges it, and readies it to be fired.  Lifting it, I now stare down the barrel the weapon, and I take in the last precious seconds of my life.

As he begins to pull the trigger, he stops as a roar or scream echoes throughout the passage.  Looking up, he scans the area, and begins to fire, but whatever he is shooting at stands out of sight behind me.  Soon, however, I his panic was justified by the sight I am about to witness.  The body of one of my commrads begins to move.  Slowly, his arms bend, and raise his torso out of the mud.  He pulls his head out of the soil, which was previously driven into the ground after being trampled on.  Mud drips from his degraded armor, as he slowly rises to his feet.  As he does, the knife in his grip glistens between the flakes of dirt the cover it.  Creeping behind the shooting warrior, he swings his arm over the warrior's shoulder, and thrusts the blade back towards himself so it enters the warrior's throat.  He lets the warrior collapse to the ground with the knife still lodged in him, and he then walks toward me.

Crouching down, he feels the knifewound on my chest, and then moves his hand toward my neck, feeling for my heartrate.  His hand is somewhat comforting, and I begin to relax a bit more.  He bent toward me and began to speak, and his clicks and hisses are translated to, "I must remove the blade.  It will hurt."  This was news I wished I never recieved, for the agony was unbarable as it is.  How could I endure yet even more pain?

Without warning, my question was about to be answered as he immediately pulled at the dagger.  I gasped and choked on blood as it slowly retreated from its fleshy domain.  With one last effort, the blade jumps out, covered in blood, and I release a horrifying groan, which was an attempted scream that was altered by my drowning in my own blood.  I began to cry in pain, and his comforting hand returned to my chest.  With his other hand, he applied pressure to the wound, while another commrad approached him.  The other removed bandages from a pouch on his armor, and once the first warrior was finished, he wrapped the wound in bandages.

The first warrior lifted me by the shoulders while the other carried my legs, and the two lugged me to a ship hovering nearby.  They lay me on the floor of the hull with my head resting in the arms of the warrior who saved me, and I began to drift away as sedatives given to me kicked in.  Before I lost consciousness, I was able to glance at the writing depicting their company's name.  It was scratched in on the shoulders of the warriors, and read, "The Living Dead," in my people's language.  As soon as I finished reading the etched marks, the ship lifted off, and I soon fell asleep in the arms of my savior.