Their senses were razor keen. Travis had to rely on the infra-red sighting capability of his eyes.

Once Travis heard the scream of a large cat, a jaguar. For a second the whole patrol froze. He looked at Carlo, whose face was a mask of tension.

He smiled, Carlo smiled back. He waved Carlo on past, went back to talk to Stef who was standing frozen. Travis couldn't decide whether it was fear or anger. Some new Greens went berserk, a flaw that the bio-tech contractors hadn't yet identified the cause of.

For a brief moment it was unnaturally silent. Travis felt a crawling between his shoulder blades. He scanned the jungle, caught a faint hint of movement in a nearby tree. Reacting on instinct he shouted "get down" and flew himself flat.

Too late. The night was lit by the brief intense flash of automatic fire.

The muted staccato belching of an autosniper filled his ears. He cursed his luck. The humidity usually caused malfunctions in their sensitive robotics; the shadowy jungle usually interfered with the pattern recognition of their sighting programs. It was unfortunate that they had encountered a working one.

"Take it out," he ordered the Greens. He levelled his M-16 and sent a burst of fire to where he could perceive the heat signature of the killer robot. He missed it as it scuttled along the branches. A blaze of explosive bullets came flying back at him. One burst against the kevlar skin of his arm and sent his rifle flying. His arm shorted out, bionics malfunctioning temporarily.

Travis kept himself absolutely still. Most autosnipers tracked movement easily. If he didn't move it might not spot him. There was a brief lull.

He could feel sweat running down his back. He could feel a sickly feeling in the pit of his stomach. He could see the robot's turret head, swivelling towards him. He tensed himself to reach for his gun. The Greens opened fire.

The tree limb on which the sniper perched could not take the hail of rifle fire directed at it and collapsed under the robot's weight. Briefly Travis felt power come back into his damaged arm and he rolled over to where his rifle lay. There was an intense flash of light and the sound of an explosion. He bit back a scream.

Travis looked over at the smouldering remains of the robot. From the bushes Chad gave him a thumbs up sign.