Alone In The Silence

tanding there, alone, listening, the distant sounds of battle, a drum roll of thunder, creeping ever closer. A solitary figure, gripping the firing levers of the laser cannon, the last vestige of defence between the peaceful city and the encroaching death.

Wishing he could brush away the sweat trickling between his shoulder blades beneath his power armour, he squints through the targetting scope, now and then pin-pointing an ant like vehicle, scuttling across his vision, too fast to track, the big guns' frictionless pivot hopelessly hampered by the flesh and blood operator, too distant to identify.

The twilight gloom created by nuclear pollution occasionally lit by blood red bursts as another machinery of destruction is split a twain by the earth shattering power being thrown back and forth, a quick death, seemingly a silent death to the far distant watcher. The hours drag slowly by, the relief column still hasn't arrived, were they ever coming? Were they gone forever? So many young lives senselessly taken for so little, the prize, a few klicks of tortured, barren, atomic wasteland.

The noise rolls closer, insignia on the great battle machines becoming distinguishable, friend from foe, rushing toward him at high speed. He swings the cannon, pinpointing an enemy machine, a bolt of light splashes against the machine as it draws to an abrupt halt, its carbon armour decaying under the onslaught.

Battle suddenly rages all round him, blasts of heat washing across him as the destruction continues. A confusion of steel and carbon, looming all round, turrets swivelling and cannon firing. He fires again and again, trying to halt the flow of the enemy. But, alas, all in vain as a single bolt of green fire rushes forwards and smashes his face plate, letting the deadly air flow over and through his frail body, a slow agonising death.

Slumped there, all alone, the distant sound of battle dwindling as death and destruction roar towards the city. Battle continuing unheeding of another life extinguished, all for so little.