War For The World

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The threat of enemy soldiers hadn't crossed his mind until just then. Luckily, they were preoccupied and Michaels seized the opportunity to duck behind a close by crate of ammunition. Peeking above it.

The soldiers had their guns on them. This meant any chance of overpowering them was well and truly out the window.

Instead he chose to watch, for they were doing something that truly perplexed the sergeant.

Faced with the sound of death the soldiers were instead standing their ground. Michaels could count two Martian death machines now striding across the landscape of the town, expelling heat beams from their chassis at enormous speed and erupting buildings and people alike.

In spite of all this, the German soldiers left by Braltr to defend the town stood huddled behind their large machine they had been testing earlier.

It was maddening. As if the tripods weren't even there. The men worked away and fiddled with the device, calibrating its settings and getting it prepared. The soldiers stood guarding them. This went on for a while, until finally it seemed they were ready.

Miraculously the Martians hadn't noticed their commotion. The culprit for this Michaels realised, was that of a lone German soldier currently rearing the corner and now running back towards the town hall.

He was screaming something in German, panting and weaving with clothes that suggested he'd most definitely fared the worst out of his comrades so far.

The tripods were following his movement. It was as if they were interested, intrigued at the lone man. Or more specifically as Michaels came to realise, the small glowing piece of technology in the soldier's hand.

As a beam of red began to glow on the tips of the closest tripod the running soldier screamed one last final breath of German before throwing the glowing green tech as far forwards as he could.

It was this action that finally got the scientists and soldiers moving. They ran and screamed, the soldiers raising their weapons to meet the man. He continued to run however, and as the weapons lit up and the tripods continued their reign of terror over the town of Yöpil, the man fell to the pavement.

Michaels could see from where he was hiding the item that had caused such a ruckus. It had landed mere inches from where he was stationed.

Twisting himself around he leaned outwards, gripping the piece of metal and pulling it closer to inspect.

It was cylindrical in design. A large bulb lay atop with large wires jutting out from down below.

It seemed to act as some sort of beacon for the Martians. They had followed its movements intensely and the high-pitched ringing it was giving off coupled with the recognisable green glow on top seemed to suggest it had some connection to the Martian pods. Gripping the cylinder between his two legs he used his one good hand to fiddle around with the buttons, until finally he found one that seemed to put a stop to both the luminescent green glow and the ringing.

The tripods seemed to react to the shutdown of the device instantly. It was as if they'd both suddenly lost their focus, scanning the vicinity for the beam. Michaels concluded it must've been some sort of tractor beam for the Martians, it must have been the reason they were able to bring them here so much quicker than his own group had anticipated.

With their target now offline, the Martian death machines set their sights on the group of soldiers and scientists. They were panicking now. Shouts and screams from the group rang out as Michaels watched them make their last-minute calibrations before stepping back from the machine.

For a moment it looked like nothing would happen. The group of Germans left stranded in the ruins of Yöpil seemed more pitiful and more out of place than they'd ever been before, waiting expectantly on some large machine that seemed to be nothing more than an oversized paperweight.