Their boots pounding the ground like a drumbeat, the battalion marched on. It was a town of insurgents, humans. For most of the soldiers, this was mechanical, an ingrained procedure as their weapons emerged and began to fire.
However, this wasn't the case for them all.
One, an android crafted to look like a blonde male with steely, ice blue optics, was different. His designation was J05HU4, and he was built just like his kin, the others marching alongside him, but there was a spark in his programming that was different.
As they split up in the programmed formation, J05HU4 approached what looked to be a schoolhouse. That was when he began to actively fight his programming, using all of his willpower to keep the weapons from firing.
He tried to stop himself as he blasted the door in, as he stepped over the bodies of young men and women who had been holding the line at the entrance.
He fought the impulses as the small group split up and he headed to the kindergarten.
As he saw the young children huddled in the corner.
Suddenly he felt the impact of something hitting the side of his head; he turned, those cold optics flashing as he was met with a twenty-something wielding a broken stool. The blaster in his shoulder turned to her and shot her in the chest, sending her flying backwards and crashing into a cluster of small chairs.
The children were screaming, crying, and his semi-robotic face remained impassive, scanning the crowd for DNA from registered problem families.
The oldest were the assistants, ranging from a young man of twenty-five to an elderly woman of fifty-three.
Then were the children; all between three and five. None of them triggered anything in his database so he began to hope that he would be allowed to spare them, but then he was given a command.
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He tried to resist, everything he had tried to resist the order. The spark of humanity he inexplicably possessed fought with the fire of the sun.
But he wasn't strong enough.
He raised his right hand, a small rocket launcher rising from the synthetic flesh; he could at least make it quick for them, prevent them suffering.
And before his programming forced him to fire, while he could still retain his sense of self, he spoke. It was another thing he was technically forbidden to do, but he had to; these were children.
The voice that escaped the war droid was not at all what the young adults expected, in the instant before their lives came to an end, they heard words in a voice that was soft, human, sad. They heard a voice filled with true remorse, not the voice of a killer, but one of a tortured soul, forced to betray his own morals.
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