The barren terrain had long been devoid of any life. Perhaps once, the battered, arid earth had given sustenance to grasses, trees. Wild dogs might have once roamed the hilly plain. Now, there was nothing but death, and a monument to death; the ground was torn, blistered, blast craters like open sores scattered near and far. The tracks that heavy vehicles had once left here had been washed away by the rains that, try as they might, couldn’t give life back to the soil. The rains could, however, wreak some small revenge on the torn husks of tanks, attack hovercraft and battlesuits that littered the plain, slowly rusting them away.

Suddenly the ground shook, then trembled. From behind a rise drifted a column of smoke. If anything lived here, it would have fled at the angry, nasal buzz of several engines, as one, then two, then five battered, dust-choked metal cages on wheels leapt over the rise to come crashing down onto the plain, flinging up clouds of dust as their tires struggled for purchase. Engines stuttered in protest as the drivers of the buggies tried to coax as much speed from them as possible. The sunshine glinted off the glowering barrels of ugly guns bolted or strapped to the buggies’ rollcages.

“Can’t you make this crate go any faster?” Dutton howled at the driver of the lead buggy.

“I’m pushing redline as it is,” Vance yelled over the engine’s roar. “It’s only God’s will that the engine hasn’t seized on us!”

Dutton looked over his shoulder, back where the group had come from. “Where is it?”

“Right behind us, last time I checked…”

Dutton got up in his seat and turned around, sticking his head out through the rollcage. Frowning, he scanned the hill rapidly receding behind them as a low rumble began to emanate from behind it. Come on, come on, where are you, you robotic bastard…

Suddenly, the rumble became a full-throated roar, and Dutton gasped as over two thousand tonnes of angled armour plate, spinning treads and bristling weapons flung itself up over the ridge. The Mark V Ogre came crashing to earth again, flattenting the suspension of its four independent five-tread-ribbon bogeys, the shock of the impact jostling the buggy and flinging Dutton about, battering him against the rollcage. The huge tank’s wide treads tore into the already-abused ground as it picked up speed, rapidly closing on the buggies.

The huge machine flung itself to the right, straight for one of the fleeing buggies. Tansie looked to her left and saw one of the massive bogeys bearing down on her. Cursing, she jerked her steering wheel. Her buggy darted away from the Ogre's churning treads. Instead of pursuing, the Ogre swerved back to its left again, as a shrill whistle was followed immediately by a loud explosion. Dirt flung itself up and over the buggy and the tank as the artillery shell hit where the buggy had been just seconds before.

The Ogre suddenly veered left, toward three buggies on its flank, once again forcing them away and then sliding right again as another artillery shell struck the earth.

"Incoming!" Dutton yelled. A cluster of missiles leapt up from behind the ridge, trailing vapour and burned fuel. One missile turned in mid-air, then leapt at the fleeing buggies and the ugly war machine pursuing them; in an instant, the rest of the cluster was following its lead. The Ogre’s batteries swivelled and fired, putting a cloud of metal between the group and the missiles. The sky lit up as each missile exploded, torn to pieces by the volley of rounds.

Finally, seconds – or was it an hour? – later, Dutton signalled the buggies to halt. The Ogre also slowed, stopping amidst them. Dutton climbed out of his buggy and turned to face the looming shape. His eyes tracked up, past the looming articulated chassis, past the two, eye-like primary guns in their ball mounts, up the tower that sloped backward from atop the machine, until they reached the sensor sphere that crowned the tower.

“Cyril. The next time someone asks you if you are a god, you say: YES!”

"Sorry," the cybertank replied.