Not though the soldier knew, someone had blundered. Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die. Into the valley of Death.

Alfred Tennyson, Charge of the Light Brigade

Faceless

Mechon don't have faces.

They have something you might call eyes. They certainly have a means of visually identifying us. But no. They are faceless. Figuratively, and literally.

It makes it easy to kill them. Or at least as easy as it is to kill machines that are nearly impervious to conventional weapons. Machines that want to wipe us out, and are quite capable of it as well. Motivation is not what we lack. Firepower is.

Sword Valley is a charnel house. Bodies are everywhere. Fires rage across the battlefield, projectiles weave their tapestry of despair, and screams are heard all around, in chorus of death everlasting. The order was given to pull back to Colony 6. Maybe. Command and control have broken down. Sanity broke down much sooner. Mechon projectiles work differently from ours – kill one man, and he is dead. Wound a man, and you disable three more. Cold hard calculus. All we can do is to try and kill many of these reapers as we can. No Mechon would help another. Logic does not demand it. Nor are their numbers prohibitive enough to necessitate it.

I keep moving. By the numbers, as some say.

I see a Mechon before me, barely active. It's trying to get up, like a crippled dog, trying to return to its master. And like any son of a bastard, I give it a kick, so it can see me. So I can try and see it as well. See if there's something, anything, resembling humanity in there. Something to tell me "why." Something to let me know why I'm about to die in this Bionis-forsaken valley.

It tells me nothing. It's faceless. All it does is try to get up, snapping its claws at me. Surely it knows it's about to die. Surely it understands that it can't do anything. Surely…surely…

I spit at it. And then I begin firing. As I mentioned, the Mechon are nearly impervious to conventional weapons. But emptying a rifle's clip into a damaged Mechon, point-blank range…not even it can withstand that.

So it dies. The glow in its ocular units leaves this world, and goes dark. Like the night sky, but without any stars. Beautiful. So beautiful that my body's on auto-pilot as I continue to pull the trigger. I've got more clips. I might have a few minutes more of life before the main wave of Mechon reaches us. If I make it back to Colony 6, those few minutes could extend to hours.

"Oi!"

I spin around, finger still on the trigger. Still pulling it. I feel like a Mechon. Told to fight, kill, and die. Feel like I'm on auto-pilot, that something is controlling my actions. Something that is not of my own mind.

"Didn't you hear? We're pulling back!"

I lower the rifle. Another grunt. In the gloom, I can't even make out his face. Just the helmet, and rough outline of the armour we all wear.

He's faceless.

"Didn't you hear me? I said we're-"

Those are the last words that come out of his mouth. Such is the price of a Mechon explosive round hitting his side.

I curse, and run over. His lower body is in one area of the battlefield, his upper another. It is to the latter I run. He moans something.

"Hang on," I say. "It's…it's alright…it's alright…"

The Mechon don't agree. Nor does anyone else.

He murmurs again. The armour has melted, fusing with his skin. He's dead, and his body knows it. All that's left is his mind. Still lingering, unable to comprehend what's happened to the vehicle it pilots.

"What's your name?" I whisper.

He doesn't answer. He's dead. Slowly, silently, even among the symphony of screams and sirens, I remove his helmet. And retch.

There's no face. There's nothing left. It's all been burnt away by the fire. I don't know who he is. I never will. He…he is faceless.

I don't hear the Mechon coming up behind me. I barely feel anything when one of their number impales me. I say nothing as my body is thrown to the ground, meeting the faceless gaze of my enemy. Meeting my own reflection.

We are Homs. We are dying. We are doomed.

And sent here to die…we are faceless as well.