The sun barely poked through the darkened sky on the morning of humanities greatest attempt at survival. The army in camp rose with a somber tone, not a whisper leaked from the mouth of man. The task at hand was too great to talk about, almost a taboo. Sarah rose from her slumber and buried her face in her hands and cried. She tired of the war; she wanted it to be over. Pulling herself together she stood up and put on her clothes and walked out into the silent morning. She strolled through the ranks, giving quiet orders for men to get on their vehicles, arm their weapons, ready their minds. Finally she walked to the front and got on her own vehicle. Looking back she had her last look at humanity, hanging onto existence by a thread. Sighing, she raised her hand and gave the order to charge.

Thousands of war cries rose from the ranks of men, flying at breakneck speed towards the machine city. They were quickly met with the fortified forces of the waiting machines. The first wave was a nightmare; men died left and right. Machine guns were blaring constantly, trying to hold their own against the machine's energy weapons. Any downed man was immediately scooped up by the harvesting machines, to be used later in the Matrix. Until it was completed, they were tortured to the point of death, but kept alive in extreme pain so that existence itself was a living hell.

Sarah managed to dodge the first wave of energy blasts that came flying at her. She wove in and out of the blasts of light; dodging, diving, swerving. She would occasionally get a good shot off and blast a laser turret, or destroy a group of machines, but all in all the machines were handily beating the humans. Something had to be done. Thoughts flew through her mind. Should she do it? Was it worth it? She silently came to the conclusion that nothing else could be done. She ran her thumb across the extra red button mounted on her joystick. The last nuclear bomb left on the planet had secretly been strapped to the underside of her vehicle. To do any good at all, she knew she had to fly as far into Zero-1 as possible; take out the nervous center of the machine empire.

Her grip tightened on the joystick as she veered towards the center of the city. Her speeder was maxing out, pushing herself and her obedient machine to the breaking point. The war continued around her; humanity was crumbling. Sarah was determined to finish what she started. The buildings of Zero-1 whizzed past as she neared her destination; the Epicenter.

The Epicenter was a massive technological building where all of the machine's memory banks and programming were kept. Everything the machines had built since the dawn of their time was kept in the Epicenter. That was Sarah's goal; she had to blow it to smithereens. Sarah rounded a corner and into view came the ominous Epicenter, a huge hemisphere, black with lights running all around its surface. Sarah let go of the controls, spread her arms out and looked skyward, letting her vehicle speed towards the Epicenter.

"I'm sorry Neo, there is nothing left in humanity."

Her ship flew out of control and smashed directly into the center of the building. The nuke ignited and exploded with such force that everything on the battlefield was thrown back fifty feet. A mushroom cloud three miles wide shot skyward and enveloped the war zone. Machines all over the battlefield began to shut down or malfunction. The humans began to cheer, but their joy was short lived. Only half the machines had fallen, the rest were still just as potent. They took no notice of their fallen comrades and continued their slaughter of the humans. The machines had secretly built another Epicenter so that they would never have to worry about what Sarah just did. Sarah's trump card had been played and it had only left a dent in the army of machines. The humans were disheartened and began losing more and more.

The machines pummeled the rest of the army into the ground. The attack had been stopped and the machines were still in good shape, ready for anything else they humans could muster. Collecting the survivors they filed back into Zero-1 to await the completion of the Matrix. ............................... The tall man raced through the shadow filled hallway and burst into the meeting room filled with the leaders of humanity.

"The army has failed, it is lost." He panted.

"Damn" came the reply from an aged man. "There is nothing left but to go ahead with Plan Z. Begin operations."

"But Sir, if we go ahead with Plan Z, we are fully conceding to the machines. There is no hope of regaining freedom if we commit to Plan Z."

".I know. There is no other way. Begin digging." ............................... The massive drills began to rumble as the oily mechanics revved the engines and began drilling.

"What are we drilling for?" shouted one mechanic over the roar of the engine.

"Rumor has it we're digging to the center of the earth to built a city to hide from the machines."

"Why? We can take 'em. Those mechanical bastards wouldn't know what hit 'em."

"Apparently not. Haven't you heard? We launched a huge attack and got smothered. The machines are totally in power."

"Some age we live in, huh?"

"Shut up, keep digging."

*Alright, writing war scenes was a lot harder than I thought. Please review this! I have ONE (1) review. Please add to that. Anything will do, even a "Hi, how's it going?". Next chapter up whenever I get time. Going to stop typing.now.