The claxon sirens jarred them awake from Hibernetic state, “orbit achieved, orbit deteriorating, sky jumpers on deck.”

Bobby, dressed like an Air Force General, was raising him from his Hibernetic harness. Drexler, an expereinces Space marine was already on his feet, and, naked, raisin the others, one at a time, standing them up, pointing to their gear racks—yes, he recalled, ‘Jim Browne and Joe Greene were really pissed about being issued grass skirts, rhino hide shields and Zulu spears! Never, mind, they were in a stupor now. The men went about gearing up robotically, their. Over each one of their period costumes, the men were fitted with a flight helmet with oxygen tank and a thrust pack, a disposable jump pack that stabilized free fall and landed a man on his feet. He had worked with one of these for a space marine promotion with Drexler that aired as a public service announcement in their last final cube game.

‘How much of this was pre-arranged, I wonder?’

Within 15 minutes, they were all suited, jump-packed and ready to dive. The surface of the earth was racing closer, their model in a controlled fall. At 5,000 feet they would jump in a stick. They would then un hitch, team-up, and each team retrieve their pallet of MRE’s.

He was soon hurrying his team along to their hatch. He would be last to go, as Drexler did the same with his team. Bobby, would be alst to jump—being The captain and all.

The region of North America they were falling over was New Mexico. He only knew because it played clearly across his flight helmet screen. ‘It is beautiful,’ he thought. ‘Finally, after forty years, I return to the planet of my birth!’

I barked at 5,000 feet, Bronson go, clear. Brenner go, clear. Heston go, clear. Saxon, go, clear. Walker go, clear. Glass, GO!” and he crashed out, fell like a stone, stabilized, slowed, and made a steady fall. Below him, at first upracing and distant, the slower and closer, came int view mesas, canyons, box canyons and they were vectoring in, according the fall-point bobby had programmed, to the top of a rocky wall, as if a city were made of wold stones, then abandoned, until the only thing left were these cyclopean walls. The walls raced up, his team descending in an east west lie beneath him, him at the far west.

“Woah, Bobby,” he snarled, tight footfall!” as he noticed that thewere all landing as a stick to the east of Drex and his stick, who were dropping out in a line following the canyon wall contour, dropping them just behind the main wall of boulder, on the high north side, rather than on the cliff side to the south. The eastern and western most footfall flares smoked up, then the lines of dot like humans emerged, with, Drex and Sean alnding almost in sync, ten paces from each other.

“Whoorah!” barked Drex, makinh a fist, as the men all dropped pack.

“Footfall Pyreon,” answered Sean, as per instructions, although he had rather said Earth.

“No!” he shouted as Drex, looking over his head shouted, ‘Walker, dive east!”

Then, as Sean heard the snapping and crunching of bones behind his turned head to his left, he saw joe Greene get smashed by a bail of MREs. That bail burst and pitched down into a mine shaft Joe had barely landed to the north of, the entire thing scudding down, tarp and all. Joe was super dead, had not felt a thing he’d bet.

Behind him he turned to see that Clint walker had likewise been perfectly smashed, both legs and the spine snapped, the MRE bundle bursting—no, tearing open, as the wrap, which should have served as a crew tent half, has already been torn… or cut. MREs flew fr an acre. Half of them up onto boulders. Over into the canyon, or scattered around to the north.

The men were shedding jet packs and crash helmets ASAP. Bobby landed behind him, as unconcerned as only a cyborg could be. Browne, Drexler and Bradshaw were looking over Joe Greene, who had burst in various places.

Sean and his team were doing the same as bobby looked soullessly on. Bronson did not help. Rather he approached the cyborg, “Bobby?”

The cyborg looked at him, “Captain Bobby Meek, Sir,” to you, private Bronson.

Bronson snarled, “Your bucket of bolts—this is quite a coincidence, out two strongest men, squashed exactly the same on footfall? And you, piloting the freight that squashed them?”

Bobby shed his helmet and crash pack, looked at Bronson, and then nodded to some tings that were flying about, not quite bird, not quite machine, and noted, “The APM drones are programmed to attack congregations of more than ten humans. The said plight of private’s Walker and Greene, has saved us from an attack.”

Bronson flipped up the flap on his U.S. Cavalry holster and palmed the butt of his Colt 0.45, “Is that so, Captain Crane Claw.” [1]

“That is so, Private. As you were. I will seek parlay with the APM drones.”

Bobby then sprang, 25 feet high, 15 feet south, to the top of the boulder Sean’s team had landed before. He called, in a mechanical code, to the four bird like drones zipping about overhead.

I should have shot him in the head—Bronson was thinking of it. But could we, even all of us, survive a fight against Bobby?

“Burial, Sarge?”

“Yes,” answered Drex, “side-by-side will save tie on egress, stage the landing packs and helmets for head stones.

“I’ll be,” mentioned Bronson… “You might,” answered Brenner, as the bird drones began screeching and diving. Two bsuied bobby’s hands, fluttering about as he tried to fend them off, as and other latched onto his back and used its beak like tweezers to remove his power plant nodes. Bobby’s body lurched to the side, his legs still holding him up, his mechanical arms under the air force uniform slack like cables after a storm. His human face, however, looked down at Sean, “Glass, retrieve my power pack. Shoot these APMs down—they are malefunctioning. They have turned cannibal!”

As if all possessed, of the same late-dawning, righteous instinct, they did nothing. Sean looked into those eyes, which knew better than to look elsewhere, as Greene, Drex and Bronson were considering shooting him in the head.

Bobby plead with sean, even shed a large, very calculated tier, that might have been an ounce in volume, “Dear Sean, Charles Khurch, your godly Pastor, he would show mercy, Christian mercy.”

Sean did not blink and said, “Bronson, conserve ammo.”

Drexler ordered, “Men see to our casualties-a decent grave—prop whatever is left of the rear-echelon, Air Force prick on top.”

“Amen,” said James Caan, “can’t even trust machines these days.’

Sean thought to himself, chiding himself that rather than thought a prayer should be made of it, but numb according to the recent events:

“Do not let the sun set on your anger; do not give the devil a chance.”

-Paul, Ephesians 4:27

Notes

-1. Crane claw was the nick name the cube players had given bobby after they felt the strength of his mechanical hands when breaking up clinches.