>>96315569
Paraguay again.

It was too damnably hot here. Everything was sticky with moisture, and not a single surface was free of insect life. The men around him were in a stupor, they had all misjudged the morphine dosage again, or maybe they just wanted to die softly. They lay against the gun, or in the ground. Some were face down in the mud. The sky was dark and grey, and in the ceaseless purple flashing of the clouds he could see everything. There! A Sioux warband in the sky. And there! Mexicans at Veracruz! And Confederates at The Crater! Frenchmen at Amatlán! Every foe in his career stared down at him from the sky, illuminated purple and glowing! Across the muddy clearing of the jungle he saw the too-tall thing stagger out from the trees.

“UUUUUUUUUUULLAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!”

It was stumbling, but not damaged. It looked, no, it felt hungry. Not just hungry, but weak and starving. Three legs as tall as churches, and a tin-can head with gargantuan viewports for eyes. The General stood transfixed, but his body left his mind and made slowly for the cannon. It was so beautiful, standing with the purple sky behind it. He marvelled at the seamless construction, the fluid movements even in emaciation, and the almost gentle deadliness it exuded.

“UUUUUUUUUULLLLLLAAAAA-”

He watched in awe as every colour of the rainbow splattered out from the tripod’s head when it detonated. He hadn’t even aimed, at least not consciously. There was a sadness to this, to destroy something so beautiful. But there was a purity in the action too. The General fell to his knees, weeping and laughing as the tripod shuttered sideways and slumped into the canopy.