Facet of War 2

Facet of War (Chapter 2)

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Commissioned by Shaderic

Wordcount: 2500

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Of all the utterly terrible things that can happen to someone, getting help when you haven’t asked for it ranks in the top ten. I’m sure some disagree. Those who do are kind people who don’t know when they’re being taken advantage of.

Everyone acts in their self-interest.

Those who are kind and cheerful want to have circles of friends to sate their desire for companionship. Charity workers go out of their way to help the poor and disenfranchised to further their social standing amongst their peers or quell their own insecurities. Families take care of one another, as long as they do not hate one another, because without validation they’ll be ostracized by the blood-linked community they’ve enjoyed since their birth.

Finally, helpful individuals want something, especially when they insist.

That something could be the appreciation of the one they’re helping, the finishing of a task that they’ll be also be accredited for, or just stroking their own ego.

There’s no care for another person involved, only themselves.

What matters is that the job done.

Other people will see them as a good person. 

And, all of that will be hidden behind a smile.

At least, if someone tells you to go fuck yourself, you know that they’re telling what they really feel. Society looks down upon the truth, they label individuals who say such things as freaks and outcasts, therefore there’s no mask of superficial kindness to hide any agendas. Rejecting other people, choosing to be selfish, and making it clear that you’re only working for your own benefit, thus telling the complete and honest truth, only hurts the individual.

Assholes are assholes, because they’re assholes.

Nice people are nice for reasons they’ll never admit.

…

Being the centerpiece of a massive weapon system has its perks, but those perks come with downsides. All the nice food, lodgings, and care put into you is for the sake of ensuring that a piece of a warmachine is operating in tip-top condition. Having extended amounts of downtime, outside of physical maintenance and missions, is simply a matter of course. If one of the infantry officers mess up, a platoon of drones is fucked, but that’s not much of a big deal.

If I fuck up, a strategic weapon designed to stop defensive lines from collapsing is suddenly no longer available or doesn’t complete its objective. 

The top brass would always give me less than I need.

No amount of currency is wasted.

All I’m given is the minimum required for me to be in my optimal state for the next time I have to plug a massive hole in the defensive line and risk my life.

I’m not going to lie.

I like that I’m a high-maintenance piece of shit.

I have my own room, with a private bathroom, which are cleaned by others. All my laundry and toiletries are handled. Entertainment is spoken for as long as it can be streamed into a screen. Food is whatever I want that can be delivered. While others my age were working, or maybe pursuing another degree or two, I was spending most of my time on downtime, because all the medical evaluators who looked at me top-to-bottom agreed with my earlier statement.

I am a medically-certified high-maintenance piece of shit.

Ergo, the moment I make little, tiny joke about offing myself to pass the time, I get strapped to a chair to get medically evaluated. It was very nice, high-quality chair made with real leather and padded with cotton. The restraints were also high quality and also made with real leather and padded with real cotton. Actually, the whole room was a pretty nice soft shade of blue, had motivational posters on the walls, and there was nothing threatening in the room at all.

Now, if only my shrink wasn’t a bitch, I’d actually be down for exploring my feelings and questioning why I would joke about suicide the moment I’m in danger.

“Sir, allow me help you. Please, speak.” She was one of the typical professional psychologists. Nice, helpful, and utterly vapid.  I’d gone through a dozen of them over the last three years. It didn’t matter how they looked, what their gender was, or what my issue was. If I spoke, I already knew what they were going to spew out. Regurgitated lines about staying strong for all of humanity, never giving up in the face of adversity, and offers of antidepressants which I definitely won’t get hooked onto and will never be able to afford if I quit the military. They were all nameless flunkies that I could just ignore without hesitation. “I’m worried about your mental health, sir. Please, talk to me so that I can help you.”

I took a deep breath, raised her hopes, and then said… nothing.

It would be cathartic to tell her to fuck off, but these people knew how people worked. While I disliked them with a passion, and would recommend they go traipse through a minefield, they were skilled and capable at their job. If I gave them an opponent, they’ll pry me open, force me to yell and scream at them, and then write down that I “vented” my “concerns” upon them, so they could get a nice, hefty bonus before exchanging their jobs for one less “hazardous.”

Bitch, I’ve spent years shuffling to one hazardous area to the next. Grow a pair. Granted, I happen to have a giant mechanized suit that can survive reentry and has more firepower than a division of mechanized infantry, but you should really try to be just a little braver. Seriously, I’ve seen the bonuses for psychiatrists willing to stay more than a half a year, it’s ludicrous.

Anyway, if you’re a money grubbing leech, you should at least have the ambition to risk your life for money.  At least, that’ll get my respect and attention, even if I won’t talk to you and reject the entirety of your existence. Have some class, risk your life for sweet, sweet cash, and we can both ineffectually communicate with one another forever like the retards we both are.

If you’re not willing to do at least that, then silence is all you’re going to get.

…

Another day, another battlefield.

Thought that would imply that I fought every day, that’s factually untrue. Given how my Facet is customized from the ground up, more a specially-crafted race car of yore than a mechanized, armored vehicle, it was logistically impossible for me to get sortied out, unless the powers-that-be wanted to double-up on the facilities, supply lines, and orders for everything needed for such a custom Facet to be maintained and outfitted for combat.

Then, of course, there’s the high-maintenance piece of shit to consider: me.

Me pulling double-duty was a good way to waste an incredible amount of money and funds, especially with all the propaganda and good press they decided to cash in on for public support and recruitment.

Perhaps, if humanity wasn’t fighting against invaders from beyond the stars who we were barely keeping up with in terms of technological advancement, I’d be sitting comfy and never sent out to ever fight. However, that wasn’t the case. The resources on me couldn’t be wasted, even if common sense dictated that I should be a shiny, gleaming turd polished to a shine that all can appreciate, so I had to fight and win in battles that required my skills and the resources that were invested in me.

Ergo, I didn’t fight much, but every fight was pretty much going to be high-stakes, all-or-nothing affairs with no exception.

My issue was, apparently, my last therapist was smarter than I thought.

I stared at transfer orders to a less important theatre, whilst my luggage was being packed, and my current Facet was being scrapped to create a next generation one that I would pilot in more terrible, terrifying battles upon my return.

So, I was going to a lesser front, fighting regular battles with my “peers,” as a regular pilot to “rest.”

Translation: I was being shipped off to a base with a spare, backwater Facet, while my weapons were upgraded for even MORE suicidal missions, as I fought for dear life in a theatre that saw more combat in a month than I did in year.

Whilst all my regular privileges were suspended, of course, since I didn’t need to be at peak performance.

So, this is how I die.

Hoisted by my own petard.

I have to admit, after all the shit I’ve gotten myself into, I should’ve never thought that doing so would ever be a good idea again.

Yet, here I am, fucking myself in my ass again.

Dammit, me, why can’t you not be a fuckup!?

…

It was probably a bad sign that my first day in my new workplace that the transport was being filled up with countermeasures and chaff, despite being a stealth aircraft that was “going to get me safely and quietly to my period of rest and recuperation.”

I was heading off to a warzone in-atmosphere, instead of being launched into low-orbit and coming down screaming from the heavens. Not only that, but I wasn’t going to be in a death machine that could massacre Genger by the bushel. I was in normal uniform for a pilot being transferred like cargo, fatigues, dress uniform over my shoulder, and everything I owned in a little luggage bin. None of which would help me survive if the plane crashed, so all I could hope for was that the crash killed me… or the hit on the aircraft rendered me dead.

That would be far more pleasant than being on foot against the basic, three-meter tall spiked boulders with hypersonic munitions that the Gegner flooded battlefields with.

At least I wasn’t going alone.

“So, what do you think our chances are of getting there alive, huh?” To casual onlookers, it may seem as though I’m abusing my privilege of being a superlative pilot with no equal. However, the truth was humbler. While I am, indeed, a hotshot on the field, even if I’m screaming to myself and worrying about coming out alive no matter the fight, I wasn’t breaking communications lockdown to chat with a friend. Being a loser, I had no friends or a girlfriend, and my co-pilot was a robot. It was momentarily in my phone, before its module would be plugged into the shitty Facet I was going to get assigned to in my new base. “What sort of deathtrap is Forward Operating Base 51? Are we going to die before we get there or after?”

“Forward Operating Base 51 is staffed by an elite Wing of Facet pilots. It is the location of the most highly-decorated combat, is a location where new technologies are tested on the field, and is geared for rapid response against enemy breakthroughs.”

Blah, blah, blah. Every Facet Wing is elite and highly-decorated. There’s no chance of any of being not. We either are or we die. That’s that. And, of course, I’d be sent to a rapid-response division. I’d been doing that job for years and the powers-that-be would never let me lose my edge during vacation. I was only interested in the prototype technologies portion of the situation.

Did that mean I’d be getting my Facet flown in after a few weeks? Was I wrong about society? Is there truly a chance for me to have the equivalent of a “fuck you I win” on the battlefields that I was going to traverse for the next several months?

I do enough caring for other people by fighting Genger.

I need to care for number 1.

Me.

And, number 1 wants his giant, fucking death robot!

“The facility is currently receiving the current mass-production model’s latest grouping. Command hopes that you will be pleased with the unit’s specifications.” My handy-dandy pocket-assistant gave onto me the specifications of the newest model of Facet available to the regular pilots. It was absolute horsehit. Where was the ablative armor modules? The disengagement charges? The extra fuel modules that could be shed to increase speed? Fuck, where were all the thrusters that kept me in one piece by letting me dodge and have a semblance of speed as a several-thousand-ton warmachine!? “It is wholly incomparable to the Facet unit you are used to, but it is a derivative and with the same controls, with mass-production modules of your equipment available.’

“It’s two times heavier than what I have, but with a fifth of the shit! What the heck!?” It was ugly piece of shit that was playing at being what I thought was a Facet. Granted, I was used to a top-of-the-line custom warmachine, while I was looking at something that could be mass-produced for a tenth of the cost. I suppose material considerations had to be made but… there was actual steel in some parts of the machine. Steel. Not even titanium alloy or ceramics. Even if it had a carbon-nanotube lattice on it, why not just strap some lead-lined depleted uranium on the thing and turn into a walkin bunker with a fuckoff gun!? At the very least, before particle weapons get turned on me and turn me to slag, I’d get to play with big, fuckoff gun! “Who the heck signed off on this!? Why is it armored? Goddammit, this thing’ll get me killed before I get myself killed!”

“Introduction of this Facet has increased survival rates amongst Facet pilots by 50%. It has increased the number of Facets available for deployment across the entirety of the world, granting time for humanity to close the technology gap. Also, a reminder: Genger concentrations in other regions are lesser and less combat-capable.”

“Those are good points, but I don’t care about how other people like their death robot. Get a message in to have as many thrusters put on that thing and all the armor stripped. Speed and shot, that’s what I want.” I’m alive now because I make sure to never be where the Genger think I’m going to be. Even if they weren’t as deadly as the ones I faced, the ones I were going to face were still Genger, and every invasion force they send is as deadly as the last. Critical masses of Genger are what I’m used to, what Facet Pilots are meant to face, and I was not going to be facing off against those because someone made a walking tank. Tanks belong in support divisions, piloted by automated drones, and acting as ablative. Not me. “Tell whoever says no to let me be an idiot and let me die, especially if they think they’re saving my life by not doing what I ask, because they’re fucking wrong!”

“Affirmative. Message sent to FOB 51’s Base Commander.”

Eh.

“Uh, why the fuck did you send my request to the Base Commander?”

“Your presence in the base is secret, therefore only the Base Commander knows your true identity. You are a new pilot to the eyes of others and the base systems; thus, your request will ordinarily be dismissed without consideration. Thus, I have forwarded it to your superior officer.”

Huh, so I just mouthed off to my commanding officer before I even arrived.

Nice.