Disclaimer – Everything either does belongs to Joss or it should. I’m just borrowing his shiny ‘verse for a while.

The 21st Lancers belong to the British Army so I’m borrowing them too. I hope they don’t mind, I just think they’ve got by far the best unit badge in the world and their string of battle-honours from The Seven Years War in 1760 to the Gulf in 1991 shows they more than deserve their nickname as ‘The Death or Glory Boys’.

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Henderson Plains – New Yemen – 2508 AD

The area was well named. Shortly after splitting from the main column advancing towards the Capital City a lone Excalibur Hovertank of the 21st Lancers commanded by Lieutenant Steven Hicks passed over the last in a line of low hills and he found himself confronted with an enormous plain that stretched to the horizon.

Just visible was a small town by a river which scouts reported was being occupied by an Alliance Armoured Personnel Carrier and its complement of Infantry. All the civilians had long since fled the outlying communities for the Capital City so with minimal chance of ‘collateral’ casualties Hicks had been dispatched to knock out the enemy APC and deny use of the town to the enemy.

New Yemen was a thinly populated world that was loyal to the Alliance but poorly garrisoned. Supposedly it was well within ‘safe’ territory for the other side so Independence High Command had decided to drop the Lancers in to raise hell and attempt to make the Alliance strip the front lines to bolster defences well inside their own space.

‘We’re just coming into range Sir. Would you like me to open fire on the town?’

‘That’s a negative Gunner. We’ll get a bit closer first’ Hicks turned slightly to address his driver ‘get us another half a klick closer then stop’

‘Yessir’

The Hovertank flew on another couple of hundred yards then suddenly a huge explosion lifted the 35 tonne machine then bought it crashing to the ground.

‘What the hell was that?’ screamed the driver. Her console was lit up like a Christmas