Waves and Jamis booked it down the hill, and started making there way tword a nearby valley. “Lets go Marks. We should separate a bit from the demo bros, that way we aren't all easy targets.” We moved about thirty feet over on the pile, and the crawled up to the top.

“Looks like they haven't spotted us yet.” Marks commented as we slowly crawled down the debris pile.

“Not yet.” I confirmed, and pointed tword a small concrete wall sticking up out of the pile. “That looks like a good place to set up.”

“Shit!” Marks screamed as bullets began to whiz overhead. “They spotted us!” For being a nerd, I have to give credit to his strength. He grabbed me by the back of my vest and chucked me the last six or so feet to the wall. By now both T-1s had seen us and were slamming our position with a seemingly endless hail of bullets. Marks crouched quickly and dove tword the cover. His momentum seemed to stop as a bullet ripped into his shoulder. He cried out in pain as he fell flat on his stomach. Shit! Acting on impulse I reached out, grabbed his arm and heaved him the rest of the way into cover.

“You alright?” I yelled over the scream of gun fire.

He propped himself against the low wall and nodded. I took a little bit better of a look at him, and if I were him I would be in a world of pain. Blood flowed easily from his right shoulder, and he couldn't stop its flow with his hand. That wasn't the only bullet he had taken however. There were three circular rips in his shirt centered on his ribs. Thank god for Kevlar. If he hadn't of been wearing that vest he would be dead man. I gave him a concerned look, and he smiled at me then passed out. Better not die on me... Speaking of dead men, where the hell are you Charles?

As if answering my summons, a loud sound emanated from the top of the debris pile, followed by a streaking missile. One of the T-1's stopped unloading on our position and turned to face the oncoming missile. The missile struck at the place where the torso was mounted on to the tracks, and a fireball engulfed the machine. The second T-1 didn't seem to care about its brothers fate, and continued to unload on my position. I poked my head out when the smoke of the explosion cleared to see the fate of the T-1. The missile had eaten away all of the amour at the base of the torso, and more. A large chunk of the machine's guts had been reduced to molten slag. The damned thing was still operational however, and its guns spun up and began to belch bullets at Charles exposed position.

From my angle I couldn't see what happened to the demo brothers, all I knew is that the machine continued to fire on their position. Because of the pinning firepower of the T-1 targeting our position, I couldn't unload into the damaged machine without exposing myself. Time to test out the new toys. I grabbed up the modified M-16, and crouched just high enough over the barricade to fire at the undamaged T-1. The idea of willingly popping up into a hail of bullets is insane, but now was not the time for sanity. If the machines weren't destroyed quickly someone besides Marks was going to get badly injured. I waited a moment, and there was a brief pause in the bullets. The machine mush have been switching ammo bins or something. As I came up I held down the trigger, wanting to unload as fast as possible into the T-1. Before I realized it, the coughing click of an empty click sounded and I ducked back under cover. 1... The machines guns began to rev up again. 2... Countless more bullets rained on my position. 3.... Common! Common! 4... The amount of bullets this thing was unleashing was staggering. The hill side behind our cover had been flattened down just from sheer volume of slugs.

5! A rapid firecracker sound filled the air as the fifteen rounds of fives detonated. Two more large sounding explosions occurred and the bullets hammering our position stopped. I peaked over the rim of the wall, and saw that the T-1 had been demolished. The top section had been completely blown away, and the bottom wasn't much more than scrap metal. No way my rounds did that on their own. Then I spotted them. Waves and Jamis had entered through a valley not to far away from the destroyed T-1. They must have unloaded on it the same time I did. With one T-1 down this fight just got much easier.

I paused as I spotted movement on a debris hill in the distance. Moments latter, a rocked roared into the rear of the remaining T-1. As far as I knew Scott and Charles hadn't separated, so who then? Kyle? I didn't have time to ask any questions as the ridge above me exploded with bullet fire. Countless rounds rained in on the crippled T-1, and tore its remaining structure apart. Secondary explosions ripped through what little of it remained as the machines remaining ammo cooked off.

The area went silent and I breathed a sigh of relief. We had lived through another conflict with Skynet. We took the fight to it on our terms, and won! Marks was injured, yes, but he would survive to fight another day. “You alright Derek?” My radio chattered. “Hope my arrival was timely.”

“That you Kyle?” I asked the radio. “I'm fine but Marks has seen better days, he took a nasty one to the shoulder and a couple hits to his vest.”

“Bring him up.” Another voice cut in. “Mac will tack care of him.”

“OK Jaina, how are Scott and Charles?”

She hesitated a moment before responding. “Just bring Marks up. Waves, Jamis, and Kyle come over here as well.”

Strange. I put the thought aside and went over to the still unconscious Marks. His shirt had become soaked red around the shoulder, but the blood loss seemed to be slowing. I shook him slightly. “Hey wake up Marks. I don't want to have to carry your nerdy ass up the hill.”

“How many times have I told you not to call me that?” He groaned as he woke up. “Damn it, did I miss it?”

“Yeah, battles over. Those machines are nothing more than scrap metal now.”

“Damn it. Help me up will ya?” I crouched down and ducked under his one good arm, and supported him to a standing position. “Sorry to be a burden, damn it, I take one bullet and I pass out. I'm useless.”

“Shut up will ya?” I asked as we began to make our slow accent up the hill. “That stunt of your probably saved my life. Oh, and you took more than one bullet, you have got three others that impacted you vest. Stop moping and start moving faster.”

“Oh really?” He asked as he looked down at his torn and bloodied shirt. “Hmm, guess so. Pain from the shoulder hit hurt... hurts... badly enough that I don't and didn't feel them.” It took us a bit of time to make it to the top of the hill. Mac came up and took over for me when he saw us, and he wore a very grim expression.

The hill was strangely silent for some reason. You would expect after a victory over Skynet that people would be celebrating. No one spoke however. Jaina walked tword me then sat holding her knees on the debris. I walked up to her and knelt down next to here. He eyes were watering, and she was lightly sobbing. I bushed the hair away from her face, and she gave me a mourning look. What's wrong. I asked silently. She sniffled, and her eyes darted to the side, as if wanting to look behind herself he but she could bring herself to do it.

I stood, and walked quietly over to were most of the group had gathered silently. I edged my way into the small circle that they had formed and I was greeted with an evil sight. Maves and Scott knelt by the bloodied form of Charles. Maves pulled his hand away from Charles' neck, and shook his head. At first I didn't understand the significance of this gesture, as Scott exploded into tears. Then I refused it as it dawned on me. Maves closed Charles eyes and stepped away. No. He cant be. He just cant be! GOD DAMN IT NO!

Chapter 7 part 3

“This cant be happening.” Scott whispered. “You cant die. You cant leave me here! Wake up damn it! Common wake up. Please don't do this to me. I told him. I told him we should wait. Not to shoot when its shooting. Not to be a hero. Damn it! What did I do that got him...” In a flash of movement he spun, stood, and grabbed Maves. “There has to be some thing you can do! We can't just let him die! Do something!”

Maves couldn't bring himself to look into Scott's eyes. He looked to the side in a futile attempt to escape from Scott's rage. “There's nothing I can do.” He whispered regrettably. “He's dead.”

“No!” Scott screamed. He threw Maves to the ground and turned back to his dead brother. “Charles cant be dead. He just cant. Not possible. No. No, no, no! No damn it!”

A wave of grief and guilt swept over me. It was my idea to attack them, my fault. My fault he died. I should have waited. If I had waited... DAMN IT! Why do people I know have to die! First Wyatt, now Charles. Everyone dies because of mistakes and failures on my part. Damn it. Damn myself. Damn fate to hell. DAMN SKYNET! My thoughts were interrupted as a strong hand grasped my shoulder. I turned to see Waves standing mutely by me. He didn't say anything, just looked at the body of Charles, and kept a strong grip on my shoulder. The unspoken message was clear. I can't be everywhere at once, and even if I was there, there would have been nothing I could do.

Still regardless of how true that statement might be, I felt like shit. I broke away from Waves grip, and knelt down next to the body of Charles. Scott locked his watering eyes onto mine as I reached out. “Dont touch h...” He began to yell as my hand moved outward. He stopped however as I grabbed onto his shoulder.

His gave me a look of both hate, and sorrow. For what seemed the longest time nothing happened. “I'm sorry.” I managed to say finally. Those two words managed to shake what little constitution Scoot had left out of him.

He smiled weakly. “Not you fault.” He whispered. “Not your fault.” He stood and turned around. “Kyle, will you please go and get it from the back of the cache?” Kyle had only just arrived and begun to digest the death of Charles.

He nodded, turned and began to walk off. “Hold up, I'll go with you.” Maves volunteered. The left some of their gear behind, and descended into the destroyed city.

Scott moved and sat on a piece of concrete a short distance away from Charles. “He never did like the idea of wearing body amour.” He said with a weak laugh. “Always thought that he would blow himself up from a bad design before being shot. He never... he never worried about it. Always sure that he would be fine. Even when we were in the army together. We were part of a TDT in Iran, a tactical demolitions team. The officers yelled at him constantly for being stupid and not wearing protection. He would always laugh them off in private.”

“He was a nice guy too. Never made anyone angry, never got one anyones bad side. He never did anything bad, never did anything wrong. Thats what got us thrown out of the army in fact. One day we got a command from In-Ops to demolition a large civilian building that was supposedly acting as a headquarters for terrorist insurgents. We out right refused. The place was a apartment complex, and they wanted us to take it down while it was loaded with civilians. Charles out right refused to the officers and got thrown into the brig and I was assigned the task. I couldn't kill civilians, so they threw me in the brig as well.”

“That was you guys?” Mac asked from ever my shoulder. “We we're told that Spec-Ops went in to wipe out the place because several army soldiers mutinied against commanders. It was a blood bath, orders to kill on sight anyone they considered even a remote threat.”

“That was us.” Scott confirmed. “Our entire TD team refused to go through with it thanks to Charles. Their spin on it was that we were collaborating with the enemy. That we refused to destroy it because we knew that it was a hide out for insurgents. Hell they even tried to hang us for treason. We thought that we were saving civilian lives, but they just went in and butchered them without warning. Their claims to treason were far fetched, and dismissed in court. Our team got kicked out of service for refusing orders however.”

“I find it ironic that we got kicked out for trying to save lives, and those people who slaughtered the apartment complex didn't get touched. I find it more so that Skynet was created to defend us from foreign powers, and now it's slaughtering people... like my brother...” Scott broke into silence and didn't continue any further.

The silence held for a while as people remembered all those who they knew that died. This was the first death that had happened since the gang had first formed, and it struck hard on all of us. “He was a good man.” Jamis put forth, breaking the silent revelry. “In what little time there was that I knew him, he was a friend and brother to all of us. I'm going to miss him. Him and his stupid pranks.”

“Like that time he set of fire crackers at the entrance to home.” Waves continued. “We all rushed out with weapons loaded, thinking that a buzzard was knocking, to find you two sitting and laughing hysterically.”

Scott smiled, and laughed lightly. “He was always a bit stupid when it came to things like that. Could have gotten us killed so many times, that now that I think about it I don't know how we survived up to this point.”

“That's easy.” I said quickly. “Like Charles always said, 'Your to cute to die'.”

“Maybe. It's probably that and we were to thick sculled to ever realize the danger we were in.”

“I think I can speak for all of us.” A voice spoke from behind me. “When I say that we would have had you guys any other way.” I turned and saw Marks walking slowly up behind me. His shoulder was wrapped in bandages, and a large spot of red emanated from where he was shot.

“Shouldn't you be resting?” Waves asked concerned.

“Bug off.” He snapped back. “I'll be perfectly fine. No way am I resting a little bullet hole because one of my friends died.”

“Please.” Scott said concerned. “At least sit down. Don't make your injuries worse on my part, or Charles'. He would have wanted that.”

“Alright, alright.” Marks dropped himself to the ground. “I'm just saying that we would have wanted you two any other way. In all that has happened you provided relief to despair and worry. Nothing like a good joke to make someone smile again. Thats what I'm going to miss about him.”

Scott nodded, then looked to the side. “Ah here they come.” Kyle and Maves worked their way up the rest of the hill with a large jar. Kyle offered the jar to Scott silently. “Thank you Kyle. He wouldn't have wanted to go out any other way.”

He unscrewed the top the the jar and reached in to pull out a handful of lightish blue powder. “'Agree with me that we wont bury each other.' Charles told me.” Scott said as he began to sprinkle the pounder of Charles' still form. “'I don't want to be worm food, and neither do you. Lets go out in a blaze of glory.' Charles said. I agreed, so we made this powder.” He finished with the powder, brought out a match and lit it. “Stand back.” He took a step backwards and tossed the lit match onto his fallen brothers form.

A bright blue flame erupted from the fallen form. They almost instantly consumed the cloths and hair of Charles and began to work quickly on his form. Not now. Why did it have to happen now? Six months had passed and nothing major had happened. Then this. The flames charred Charles form, and Scott collapsed into sobbing again. The sight of his brother burning was simply too much for him. Damn it! The fuel fed flames leapt higher as they quickly consumed his body. I couldn't bring myself to watch anymore, but I couldn't bare to leave. He had died by my failure, and I would pay my respects. We were safe. Charles was safe. Why did I have to act so stupidly and bring about his death? What impulse drove me to attack without support? What am I, a monster or someone who's a fool? I thought of Wyatt, Mac, Charles, Waves, everyone that had one point depended on my skills and my luck. I quickly came to a realization that startled me. No matter where I am, no matter how skilled I become, I cant keep everyone safe. The best I can do is try, and pay respects when I fail them.

The substance made quick work of Charles' body, and soon only a wisp of smoke smoldered where his form once was. Silence enveloped the group as they prayed, or payed silent respects, to Charles. One by one the group departed. As they did they comforted Scott, either a word or some other token gesture. When the wind picked up and carried Charles' ashes away into the city only Scott, Kyle and I remained.