To Be Free
TAILS (sum of 20 points)
T-3 A-6 I-2 L-4 S-5
Gestalt (Considered) : Mediocre

Technical (Correctness) : 3
before the scavenges dragged <<< typo: scavengers
Our directive, build the biggest <<< replace comma with colon?
just fight, forever" I look <<< missing period
stand up straight, and look <<< unnecessary comma
the fighting, the only thing <<< comma-splice; replace with semicolon, dash, or full stop
robots noticed, their <<< past/present tense disagreement : noticed -> notice
several sentence fragments, some forgivable (To get away from the chaos and destruction.), others less so (The war no one knows who started.)

Abstract (Clarity) : 6
A robot drone 'soldier' develops a consciousness—or at least a war-weariness—and quits. Wanting in follow-through and substance, but is easily accessible.

Impact (Consequence) : 2
The choice made abruptly. Imagery hollow and simplistic, hinting as the horror of the battles more than placing the reader there. One must wonder why this choice wasn't made sooner, or why this moment holds the precipice.

Language (Congruence) : 4
Diction and structure is consistently bland-to-gritty and weak in imagery and sophistication of phrasing or thought. Narration and 'internal monologue' are perfectly interchangeable, raising questions of necessity for quotation marks. No techniques are used to hammer a mechanical or regimental tone.

Structure (Composition) : 5
Setting, history, reflection, choice. Sound progression, if brutal[ly short]. Lacking in fallout from choice ("what's next?"), but is beyond scope of the work.

Unfortunately, this story stops right when it gets interesting. I mean, this scene, in and of itself, is fine, but as a standalone, it kinda falls flat. You'd probably be better served by starting in the aftermath of the bot's desertion, and save something like this for a longer story.

Also, to be blunt, this story is almost all tell. Literally, given most of the information comes from the mouth (speaker?) of the protagonist. Honestly, expanding out closer to the 750 word limit (or further) would give you a lot more room to provide ideas organically (lel) and improve the story dramatically.

This story is really... straightforwards? Like, this robot is telling us exactly what he's done and exactly what he feels. This sort of thing can be useful for summary, fitting a lot of 'stuff' into a smaller amount of words, but it's not so good at adding depth to what's happening. It reads as very simplistic, and even though I know what's going on, I have a hard time caring much about it.

This is the sort of long-winded catharsis that would need an entire novel's worth of character development in order for the reader to have an empathetic understanding of what is going on. This story attempts to do this in the form of exceedingly dense and intrusive expository monologue and leaves the reader with no emotional connection to the protagonist as a result, which is essentially for any story dealing with a crisis of identity. This much a story trying to do far too much with far too little words.

The quotes in this story add a bizarre quality to this scene. I mean, am I to assume that the protagonist is just announcing his thoughts and feelings, along with his intentions to desert openly to world in the middle of war-zone? The protagonist openly going on a diatribe is perhaps the worst way to deliver this sort of emotion convincingly.

Rating: Misaimed.

Others have mentioned the overly expository dialogue. I agree with them. It does hurt my emotional investment here. It's also a bit cheesy, I think. Passages like [Over and over we do battle] sound less like a robot and more like an orator.

I was also going to mention how the long and almost poetic dialogue feels out of place given it's told by a soldier and it's told during an ongoing battle. It's a robot, though, so I guess it's understandable, given that they might not feel fear like we do. It does feel odd, regardless.

One thing I'd like to point out is that the dialogue might work better as internal narration. If this story was told through first person perspective, his lines which are dialogue now would feel more natural as narration. Again, it still feels odd given the battle going on, but again, it's a robot so it might get a pass.