Beginning Part-21

Here, Revitz realized, was an army that any power-crazed despot should crave. And here, in the midst of so much carnage and waste of human life, when a crushing wave of enemy infantry was dashing across the valley to swarm and overwhelm their positions, he was sent to deactivate them. He was charged with pulling the lion’s tooth and talon.
At last breathing easier after the long rush, well aware of the increasing fury of small arms fire outside the bunker walls, the lieutenant coughed and offered, “They sent me to shut the little bastards down, can you believe that?”
“Hell, yes, I can, sir. They scare liquid shit out of me.”
Despite the conditions, Brash smiled, “Yeah. Me, too. But I was thinking...”
“Yes, sir?”
“I was thinking what would happen if...” But he wouldn’t finish. Instead, he rifled his gear for his original orders. Among the papers, he found an interesting bit of data.
“Get to an interface console, corporal, and call the drone command routine.”
Wethers very quickly accommodated him. Revitz provided him with a code from the colonel’s express, written orders.
“What sort of programming access does that UID afford us?”
The corporal queried a report, and stated, “We are administrators of the system. We can do anything we want.”
Revitz scratched the whiskers of his chin. “I was told to delete their action parameters, especially the ‘extermination’ directive. But I think we shall not do this.”
“No, sir?”
“No, corporal. By my estimates, this first wave of your ably predicted assault
Outnumbers the current defense of this outpost by three to one. And other waves will soon follow.”