On June 15th, 1994, just north of Londrina, the army was attacked again, this time by more than the little probing force that the IBIS walkers had dealt with before. This was a bit more of a sizable force of Imps and Demons, with no Greater Demons spotted among them. It was one that could also easily be taken out with the combined force of IBIS walkers, but army planners decided to track them with the walkers, and instead use the attack as a live-fire test of the effectiveness of the new infantry weapons.

It was about 10:00 AM local time, and Chuck and his platoon were on a small hill northwest of Londrina. For a live-fire exercise, the weather couldn't have been better. It was sunny with unlimited visibility, with almost no wind, and there was clear line of sight to the approaching demons.

Sergeant Nathan Der Wales gathered the squad up to talk to them before the engagement. He had a small manual in his hand, and his cloth facemask was on but it was designed to not interfere with breathing and speaking. Once everyone was gathered, he spoke.

"Alright, listen up. The top brass could easily have those demons in the distance taken out with the IBIS walkers. But it will do no good to test our small arms effectiveness when there's actually danger of being overrun. So, the name of the game is experimentation. We want to see a few things today. First, how far is too far for your guns. The manual says they are effective at 600 meters for point targets and 800 meters for massed firing. Second, we want to see how much stopping power the new rounds have. Manual says the bullets have a muzzle velocity of 760 meters per second, and if you put enough wind resistance on any bullet, over time it'll slow down to the point it won't penetrate anything. Our guns and bullets have already been tested on demon corpses in labs, but this will be the first time they have been tested on living, breathing demons. So, find a position where you can give your guns three points of contact, set your sights to 16X zoom if you have an M27 standard or SAW, 40x if you have an M27 DMR, and wait for orders to fire. Set your weapons to semi-automatic if they have the option."

Chuck found a good rock to prop his gun on, and Jonathan found a rock near him as well. A short distance away, a few other soldiers were setting up a minigun. He checked his rangefinder, and far in the distance, on another hill, were tiny specs in the distance. He peered at them through the scope and just barely made out their features. The range finder showed that they were currently just under four kilometers away, and at this range they were looked like specs of pepper unaided, and like tiny ants in the scope.

"Snipers, open fire," said Sergeant Der Wales. A pattering of semi-automatic fire began as the larger guns began firing, joined by the fire of other squads. Chuck watched closely at the approaching mass. At this distance, the bullets were all missing. But as the demons approached, Chuck finally started to see a few get winged by bullets, and then finally, a few slowed by injury, and finally, a spattering fell to the ground dead.

The demons were at 2 kilometers away, and now about the size of potato bugs in the scope, when Sergeant Der Wales ordered everyone begin firing. Chuck set his sights to match the distance and elevation change, did his best to keep the gun steady (though every little movement made the gun sway and jerk noticeably at 16x zoom), aimed at a Demon, and fired. The bullet obviously missed, but he wasn't sure exactly where it missed. Little puffs of dirt were being kicked up all around the approaching demons, but Chuck couldn't tell which puff was his, and wasn't sure where exactly to correct the sight. Plus, he thought to himself, the slightest irregularity in his bullet or barrel would be magnified greatly at that distance. He pulled his trigger 10 more times, and though he saw a demon or two hit, he couldn't even guess where his bullets were going at this distance.

Chuck felt a tap on his right shoulder, and looked at Jonathan. Jonathan brought his head close to Chuck's so he could be heard over the din of gunfire and the relatively slight muffling of the full cloth facemask.

"Check out the tree, 1260 meters away, about 30 meters to the left of that one Imp that is running faster than the other Imps and outpacing them."

Chuck saw the tree Jonathan was talking about and looked at it through the scope. It was getting peppered with bullet.

"What the hell?" he asked.

"Snipers and soldiers are using it to calibrate their shots," said Jonathan. "Pick a section of the tree, and see if you can consistently hit it. Once you can consistently hit it, try the same for demons."

Jonathan resumed firing, and Chuck set his sights on the tree in question, and found a spot that hadn't been shot in a while. He fired three shots at it, and one hit. He adjusted his sight just a tick to the left, and tried another three, two of which hit. It was still difficult at this range to hit anything, but with another three shots he had a good handle on where his bullets were going at least. And of course the demons were getting closer, and in time they would be easy pickings. They were about the size of cockroaches in his scope now, and he aimed at a Demon first, and fired two shots at it. One hit, then another. The Demon kept coming, and he fired five more times, missing twice. The Demon was now just less than 1000 meters from him, and one more hit and it began to slow as it bled out. He selected an Imp, now at this range having at least some definition in his scope, and fired at it four times, missing once, but putting three good shots into its chest, and it went down.

"They're crossing 800 meters to us," said Sergeant Der Wales. "Switch to three round burst."

Chuck did so, and got used to having ten bursts per magazine until he had to reload.

"Cease fire," said Sergeant Der Wales, and Chuck stopped, confused. There were still plenty of demons coming their way. He could only imagine what the demons were thinking to be toyed with like this.

Sergeant Der Wales was quiet a moment, and Chuck noticed that the demons were crossing to 500 meters. At this range, through his scope they looked like the size of army men.

"Full auto," said Sergeant Der Wales, and then a moment later, "Open fire."

Chuck aimed as best he could at the demons approaching, and the din of fire from a moment ago became a roar, punctuated unevenly by sniper fire and brief pauses as people unloaded. To Chuck's left, Kade, who had been firing at the distant demons with short bursts of his belt-fed automatic M27, began firing in long spurts, hosing the approaching demons down with bullets. The minigun was also fully set up and working, and put out a volume of fire far in excess of any other small arm. At 400 meters, there were no demons left approaching, and only a few moving on the ground.

"Cease fire," said Sergeant Der Wales.

The soldiers stood and marched down to the demons to see firsthand how effective their small arms were against them. At 400 meters from the firing position, the land was sprayed with bullets and covered in dead demons. There were about 100 meters of nothing but trampled grass, and then bullet holes in the ground and a spattering of dead demons. Chuck was looking at a demon with five bullet holes in the chest but none in the face when he heard Sergeant Nathan Der Wales nearby talking to First Lieutenant Yafe O. Zimmerman talking and eavesdropped on their conversation. Yafe was a good deal taller than Nathan, and Chuck guessed he was 1.7 meters tall. He couldn't tell anything about his hair, which was completely covered by his helmet, but he had brown eyes, a few dark spots on his slightly tanned skin, and with his cloth facemask off now that the skirmish was over, he could tell Yafe had a small white goatee and moustache. They had a scribe nearby taking notes, and were looking at the same demon he was.

"In one end and out the other," said Sergeant Der Wales. He rolled the large Demon over a little with his foot, and lifted its shoulder up with the muzzle of his gun to see the exit wounds.

"I'm glad to see it," said Lieutenant Zimmerman. "The bullets before had very poor penetration at this range."

"It's a little too small and clean for an exit wound," said Sergeant Der Wales, and Lieutenant Zimmerman nodded.

"It can't be helped," said Lieutenant Zimmerman. "It's true, the 5.56 rounds before tended to tumble and break up a bit inside people, giving them more stopping power. But they also had the aggravating tendency of just harmlessly bouncing off the thick skin of Demons and Imps if they hit them too far away. So, it is better to have some penetration, even clean penetration, then to hit the demons with a bullet that just bounces off harmlessly.

"Isn't there some way to revise the bullets to do that?" said Sergeant Der Wales. "Perhaps they could be made to penetrate a little, and explode. Or, deliver poison or thermite into the demons, so that they only need to be shot once to die, not half a dozen times."

"It might be possible," said Lieutenant Zimmerman. "But that would have the same trouble as, for example, equipping soldiers with smart bullets, like there is some talk of doing. Sure, it might be possible to make a $100 bullet with a tiny computer in it that corrects itself in flight like the rounds of the new IBIS walkers can, or perhaps just put a charge and a timer into the bullets so it breaks apart right before it hits the target, shredding it like a shotgun with the range of a rifle. But don't forget that the reason using a machine gun is practical in the first place is because bullets are cheap. If you start adding all sorts of fancy features to the bullet itself, it no longer becomes practical to hose down an area with rounds."

"You remind me a little of Abraham Lincoln," said Sergeant Der Wales.

"Oh, why's that?" said Lieutenant Zimmerman, smiling.

"I don't remember the specifics," said Sergeant Der Wales. "But I remember hearing a story about Abraham Lincoln at a weapons test near the start of the First American Civil War. People were showing off new repeating rifles, which could be loaded as fast as a lever was pulled. At the time, he thought that if such a thing were to come into mass use, the simple cost of ammunition for an army would become prohibitively expensive. But, when the repeating rifles began to show their use, he later decided to go ahead and have a few thousand ordered, because expense or not, there was a huge battlefield advantage to not having to wait 30 seconds between shots."

Lieutenant Zimmerman nodded. "Better weapons in general often trump concerns about money and short-term practicality. But you'll also remember that industrialization made the cartridge practical. If people had to make each cartridge individually, machine guns would never be practical. Just the same, I think someday soon the price of fancier bullets will come down to the point that they're practical for troops. At the very least, I can imagine our snipers getting smart bullets first, since they don't go through bullets like candy."

Sergeant Der Wales nodded. "Agreed. But for the time being, I'm glad to see that the bullets we have are quite effective, and perhaps more importantly, more important than the poor guys at Aracatuba had."

Lieutenant Zimmerman nodded. "I'll agree with that as well. Perhaps this time history won't repeat itself."

The two officers then walked off to check other bodies, and Chuck was left with something else to think about. He continued on, and spent the nights of the next week reading a bit more from Deicide.