Faceless

Military science fiction has been a favorite of mine for as long as I can remember. Anyone who knows me knows how I feel about Starship Troopers and the abomination that was created and called a movie version. Be that as it may, I have always found myself wanting to craft a meaningful mil sci-fi story. I am not sure I could do Hammer's Slammers or Weber / White novels in the Starfire Universe. At least I do not think I could do them very well. Not yet.

Faceless is an idea I had about a year ago.. maybe more (a certain special someone might remember me telling her about it, but I am not sure). Names have changed since then but they could change again. It deals with humans fighting the mysterious aliens and faceless nature of soldiers on both sides. Lt. Lomas Nixon lost his mother and sister to the mysterious Chyande who seem to leave wounded males but immolate any female they capture or incapacitate. Lomas has had an uncertain journey through childhood and to the point where he commands a AMRAV (Armored Mobile Reconnaissance Artillery Vehicle) in the Centrist Army. Humanity is divided up into three great alliances who have put aside their differences to defend against the Chyande (pronounced ki-yandy). No communications have been possible, even through math and science, because the Chyande seem intent on not providing any evidence to their Human enemies. The war has gone on for thirty solar years. Lomas is in command of Bravo-22 Buffalo: B platoon, Bravo Company, 22nd Armored Recon battalion. He commands a platoon of six AMRAVs, each with a crew of six. This is information that would be presented earlier in the story but is presented to you here.

So here is Facless Chapter Four: Hill 29.

Lomas sits patiently in his command chair and slowly rubs his hands together in the pattern that his mother used to make when she was nervous. He can clearly see her in his minds eye rubbing her hands in this fashion as she waited for news from his father about the Chyande landing. She was nervous then, they all were but every single previous time she had used the technique it had calmed her down. In those hours before the Chyande had burned her alive nothing seemed to be able to calm her down. It had made him feel so scared then.

He is equally scared now. The fear though is different. Back then he was afraid of the unknown and the arrival of boogeymen who seemed so distant; nothing more than faces on a video screen. The reality had been quite different. Now, however he is afraid of failure. Revenge that has been twelve years in the making is finally at hand and his fear of not being to successfully avenge his mother and sister and every woman burned to a crisp by the remorseless enemy. He is hoping that the smell won't linger in his nostrils anymore. A putrid burning flesh smell that cannot be described, only experienced. If he does not get rid of the smell here, on Hill 29, Lomas is afraid it will never go away.

"Bravo Twenty-Two Buffalo, this is Bravo Foxtrot, what is your status?" Lomas exhales and slides his jaw to the left, triggering his mike.

"Bravo Foxtrot, we are six kilometers east of Hill 29. Our pattern is November-Sierra one hundred. Over." To non-soldiers the jargon is so much nonsense. To the trained ear however, Lomas has just informed his commander that his platoon is arranged in a north to south pattern with one hundred meters between each vehicle. Active defenses demanded at least fifty meters although it was not uncommon for AMRAVs to fight side-by-side when needed. It is one reason Lomas joined Recon Artillery in the first place: they moved fast, fought close up, and could deliver a hell of a lot of devastation. Devastation that Lomas intended to deliver to the Chyande.

"Roger that Buffalo. Be advised enemy spotted three kilometers due east of you. Make it a beat up Cohort, mostly Quads." Lomas inhales slightly. A beat up Cohort is still likely a potent force; the Chyande did not let attrition affect their mission status. Quads were the single-seat armored walkers that Chyande used for assault troops and within two-thousand meters were deadly even to his heavily armored vehicles.

"Roger that. Any friendlies in the area?" Lomas began feeding firing information into his computer. The sensors on his AMRAV were picking up faint machinery noises and ground vibration but the dense underbrush prevented them from any visual sightings. Which does not concern Lomas. The AMRAV is an indirect-fire vehicle with its main weapon and visual sighting or no, could deliver a nasty area attack.

"No friendlies. You have a Tank platoon on its way but they are fifteen minutes out."

Lomas snickered. One way or the other this fight would be over in fifteen minutes.

"Roger. Buffalo out." The platoon has been given orders to drive the enemy away from Hill 29 with their heavy guns and this is the mission they had trained for. Each vehicle commander loaded plasma rounds for their first two shots, to cause a lot of heat for the Quads and burn away some of the brush for micro-missile fire. It would also mess up Chyande thermal sensors.

Rubbing his hands together one last time, Lomas hit the platoon channel on is communicator and twitches his jaw. "Set your range to two-five-zero-zero. Alpha salvo in three... two... one... salvo!" His vehicle lurched as the powerful 155mm gun spat out the powerful projectile. Unlike the old days, there is no spent shell so the loader feeds another round of plasma shot into the gun immediately and closes the breach tight.

Lomas watches wordlessly for the few seconds it took the shells to reach their target. His sensors best guess have placed the enemy in or around a steep ravine that they would have to cross to get to his position. It is possible to traverse but difficult even for the nimble Quads. The six shells land in among them as they are trying to cross and the shock wave reaches back as far as his position. Gleefully, his fear of failure forgotten, Lomas plunges himself and his platoon into his mad voyage of revenge.

"Rapid fire, five shells then get back to the alternate position!"