Beginning Part-16

Savaged, mutilated corpses lay everywhere. Men and women scrambled and fought among the piled bodies. A constant rain of steel and lethal light churned the earth into a sloppy mess of guts and blood and bones. Here at the far western edge of the camp, near its outer most perimeters, the carnage had been unbelievable. Slain troops lay in rows behind the defenses, still slumped in their ranks and arrayed in death as they had been arrayed in life. Nothing seemed
Intact or whole. Everything, the buildings, the machines, the dead troops, were riddled with large and small holes, some of them yet smoking from impact.
Their destination lay some thousand yards across an abandoned and shattered flight pad.
It was an empty munitions bunker that was selected for its isolation and size, which was unfortunate, because it was intended to supply the forward defenses and, therefore, was positioned only meters from the outer wire. The drones had undoubtedly been warehoused there to minimize collateral damage should the machines go buggy again, but it meant they would be absolutely alone out there while they worked. They would be the first to go, should the enemy mount the counterattack that the corporal was expecting at any minute.
Revitz gritted his teeth and puckered his sphincter tightly, and tried to keep up with Wethers. The corporal was amazingly agile and quick, as he dodged into, out of, and around the countless craters that pocked the entire post.
At one point, Brash struggled to ascend a particularly deep crater, when he slipped in something wet. Using his hands to steady himself, the lieutenant was disgusted to feel something warm and soft squish between his fingers. Glancing down, he was horrified to recognize the freshly slaughtered remains of a human being. He was kneeling in a swath of curled, gray intestines.
He immediately vomited, adding his horror to the greater horror of the battlefield. A beam arched overhead, lighting his heaving form with a sickening, strobe-light flicker. Wethers appeared at the rim of the crater, and his eyes searched frantically for the lieutenant. Finding him shuddering atop the corpse, the corporal’s scared face soured, and “Damn! I was hoping you had caught one!”
Not Hardly! Keep going!”