The grand hall of late was a ruin. The laser shots and tactical bombs from both sides have achieved to tear up both the ceiling and the floor, which meant the venue could be more accurately described as the grander hall. What remained was a huge hole in which cables, seats, metal struts and chunks of concrete were entangled. In the middle of it, the ambassador stood, almighty as an antique statue, facing from a few feet away the last standing cyborg.

The latter had seen his mates cut in half just seconds before. He knew he was the very last representative of the fighting party sent to save whatever could have been saved of the human civilisation. He knew his fate would follow the one of his fallen comrades soon after this monster inflicts on him another humiliation or torture as he has proven capable of. He was not disappointed.

The ambassador's voice boomed: you know what happens next?

That sent chills in the spines of Robert and Richard, who were still alive somehow. Stunned but alive.

They had taken cover as much as they could and they had succeeded. They had lied down most of the time, sometimes rolling away from falling rumbles. They had naturally discovered that the junction of the floor and the walls was probably the space receiving the least of the flying hazards which have appeared as the latest fad. And during the battle, the floor of the hall they lied onto had transformed itself into a balcony overlooking the pit hosting the ambassador

They had been joined once on their balcony by a couple of cyborgs who had endeavoured a pincer movement around the robot only to find themselves in a clearly intended trap. They were caught off-balance by a bomb beneath the balcony. Their unexpected fall prevented them to fire, while the ambassador had ample time to adjust his fire. The only remnant of this doomed diversion was a V-blade which had landed a couple of meters away from Robert.

'I hate this guy. At least as much as I hate myself for loving it in the first place. Don't you?'

'Hush...or he will remember us.'

Richard paused and said 'I know what we should do,' while staring at the blade.

The ambassador shouted again: 'Do you know what happens to those who antagonize me?'

Robert muttered: 'Bad idea'.

Richard confirmed his resolution. 'I prefer to die at trying, rather than like this poor chap down below. We are really hopeless now.'

At that precise moment, the emergency loudspeakers from the entire Martian world decided to relay the message of the democratic Cerberus sent all the way up from the moon. A powerful synthetic voice spelled it confidently.

'People of Mars, this is the real Cerberus speaking. The entity which has reached your midst is not a representative of our thinking. It is a traitor to our cause to protect life. Indeed it has committed itself to the task of eradicating humans. In due time, we'll send a party to catch and judge it. In the meantime We urge you to gather all of your forces to stop it before it is too late.'

The message ended as abruptly as it had started. It had taken aback all of the forces present in the grand hall. A couple a second passed before anyone resumed to its previous activity, which in the case of the ambassador consisted in playing the role of the arch-villain.

'Sorry,' he addressed to the cyborg. 'I believe it is too late. Don't you think? Ah ah ah ah ah. Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah.'

The cyborg was not playing well his role of a terrified loser for the very good reason that he or she had no facial muscles to express his distress, but instead only displayed a naked brain in its fishbowl.

Having said that, the expression he might have shown, if he could, would not have been terror but surprise... Triggered by the sight in the background above the robot's shoulder of a man in the act of flying. With hindsight the normal guy looked extremely normal.

Richard saw the same move from the opposite angle and knew from the start that Robert was not flying but swinging Tarzan-style using a dangling electrical cable to reach and strike the ambassador with speed and efficiency. At least that was the general idea.

He had hoped his friend had a more detailed plan in mind when he saw him suddenly grabbing the orphan vibrating blade, coming closer to the edge and jumping in the void. His only reaction had been to stay thunderstruck, with a voiceless wide opened mouth.

Robert had closed his teeth nervously on the blade in order to free both his hands, while hoping he would really catch that cable that then seemed too far. But he did eventually and took the V-blade back in his right hand. Denied of a war cry, he nevertheless let a shout escaped when he realised that he could not control his spin around the rope axis. That meant he could indeed hit the ambassador but with his back, instead of with the V-blade.

The renegade was still happily celebrating with a fourth wave of 'Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha,' when its low-velocity sensors warned it of the incoming object. At the same time, its communication sub-system was still busy reading the personal message from the moon, which seemed to go on forever. The final threat in it detailed the procedure to split its electric cable in the length so as to make as thin as human hair. At the end of the message, he let his sensors grab his attention, gasped at his mistake of being overly confident and immediately turn around to face the real and concrete danger.

Robert was still shouting but he had managed to spin around himself. Without seeing, he just happened to complete his turn in time to hit the ambassador perfectly square in the middle of its torso. The V-blade, that is, went one inch deep inside the robot hull, while the rest of his body went to full stop and then rebounded off the metallic mass.

Somehow he was still holding the electrical cable with his left hand, probably because his muscles remembered that he had literally considered it as his lifeline in the past seconds. Despite the pain induced by broken nose and knee, he succeeded in assessing the situation. The robot was looking at him, surprised, and then it stared down at the blade protruding out of his chest.

Without thinking, Robert glanced as well at the vibrating blade and discovered a red button which he must have overlooked so far. He looked back at the ambassador's eyes, which clearly expressed it was rather angry. And then Robert finally got the flash: He should have pressed the button.

The robot hinted on a move, but Robert was faster to launch the vibrating mechanism. So, the V-blade did what it did best: piercing through reinforced material. The knife breached into the robot power cell and it suddenly went boom.

An electrical arc quickly formed around the robot and through Robert's body, as it connected the electrical charge of the battery to whatever electrical device was at the end of the cable. It burned both of them to death even before they realised.