Chapter 118: The Horrors of War

"Those are Mecha, and they're in no big hurry. Keep searching for survivors and maybe we can give them a bit of good news when they get back. The better the mood they're in, the more likely they are to not leave us stranded on a rock in the middle of a swamp." The Lieutenant barked at his troops, bringing about a round of laughter.

He had a point though, they had a medical team with them that could work wonders if they did find any survivors, so the best thing they could do was to keep searching.

At first, it seemed hopeless, but then they found not one but two pilots at the same time who were still clinging to the edge of life inside their cockpits. One was in a Crusader Class Mecha with the entire top shell that forms the most formidable armor of the Redemption Pattern machine dented and cracked in. It was missing a leg, and the power plant was crushed, but the pilot was still alive inside, having been forgotten by the Narsians in the heat of battle and unable to free himself due to the weight of another mecha leaning against his escape hatch and the damage to his top hatch.

The second was a Line Mecha pilot with incredible luck. When his mecha was destroyed, the force of the blow entirely crushed the bottom of his cockpit, squeezing his legs and preventing the mangled wreck of his body from bleeding out. He would be a noncombat asset after this unless the upper brass saw potential in him and got him a regrowth treatment to replace his limbs or a very good pair of prosthetics.

The Kepler Empire's technology could easily create both full and partial conversion cyborgs from even the most mangled of bodies, as long as the brain was still intact and alive, but due to cost constraints, not many enlisted men got that opportunity. For them, it was basic prosthetics. The pilot would likely walk just fine, but the prosthetics couldn't keep up with the System enhanced reflexes and impacts involved in Mecha Piloting the way the much more advanced Cyborg conversions could.

Better to walk with a prosthetic limp than to rot to death in the swamp though, and the doctors got to work sealing the arteries and finishing the amputation needed to free the pilot from the wreckage of his Mecha.

Strangely, they didn't see many infantry corpses here. The Lieutenant at first thought that none had been sent to this point, but as he looked, he could see bunkers all around the rubble. Did the Mecha order them to retreat? That's unusual for a Kepler Commander.

"Lieutenant, you need to see this." The same call again, from the same scout, but this time he is standing on top of the pile of Narsian bodies looking down at whatever is on the camo netting.

He seemed to be unwilling to approach whatever was there, so the officer assumed that what he saw was going to be hard on the stomach. With that in mind, the young man slowly climbed the mountain of bodies, stopping just before the top when a blade whistled past his face.

"What the feth? Is one of them still alive?" He yelled at his scout, who only stared with an open mouth and pointed at the top of the pile.

The Lieutenant circled around to where the scout was standing, seemingly safe on the other side of the pile. What he saw was enough that he simply fainted on the spot and fell to the bottom of the mound of corpses.

At just that moment, the Stalwart Special Tactics Unit entered the battlefield at the mine.

"Find out who those soldiers are and search for survivors. Gather all the corpses you find and we will give them a proper burial before we go." Max ordered, heading into the southern area of the battlefield to see if the more intact-looking Landers still had any sort of functionality. A few gravestones and more boats would be a good start.

"Major Max, we have found the Tarith's Rage. It has lost both upper limbs, but it looks like someone started to repair it, as the power has come back on." Ari reported.

"And Major Nico?" Max asked grimly.

"No sign Sir. The top hatch is swung open and there are Narsian bodies stuck in the razor wire, I suspect that she exited her Mecha when it was overrun to fight on her own."

No way would she have gone down easily. "Keep Searching. As a Command Officer, it would damage the unit's pride to leave her here."

"Commander, I have contact with the soldiers. They are from a mismatch of units that were mostly destroyed. They have no surviving comms equipment, so they just kept moving until they found this point. They have doctors and are working Triage on the two survivors they found before we arrived." Paul confirmed.

That was excellent news. Not one, but two more survivors from their unit.

Looking North into the camp, Max noticed that six of their Comor Pattern Corvettes were lashed to stakes behind a pile of Narsian bodies, that had a Kepler scout standing near the top.

"Paul, go see what that scout knows. Narsians don't usually build shrines like this out of their own men. We might have taken out a top commander of their force without knowing it." Max sent the command and Paul gave one more longing look to his fallen Crusader before going to fulfill the order.

While he made his way through the battle, Max struck gold. One of the Repair bays was still functional and stocked. The roof of the Lander had collapsed in front of it, and the Narsian forces had ignored its survival.

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"Get some Corvettes over here. We have a surviving repair bay and materials. We can get some of the fallen Mecha back up and running, we will just have to double time it to make our destination on time afterward."

Since they had lost far more Crusaders than Pilots, that was great news to the unit. It would let them bring their combat strength back up a little before their next mission. Every mecha they brought back from the dead was a victory against the Narsians, their own personal vow of endurance against all odds.

[Commander. I have found Nico, or what remains of her.] Paul informed Max quietly over the secure Command Channel.

Max left the Lander nearly at a run, slowing only enough that he didn't step on anyone as he made his way to the pile of corpses where Paul stood next to the Kepler scout.

It was indeed Nico. Her Mobile Suit was shattered and peeled off her body, laid out around her like a wreath. Her uniform was shredded and every inch of her skin was covered in scabbed wounds. Both legs had been brutally amputated, as well as one arm.

The wounds were ragged, indicating that they were torn free and not cut, and both her eyes were missing, the vacant holes staring at the sky.

In the one remaining limb, she held her Mobile Suit's sword, still firmly grasped in the remains of the gauntlet.

Seeing that, Max looked at the pile of bodies and saw that they all died to blades, every Narsian in this pile died to Nico in close combat and they had built a Hero's Pire to honor her combat prowess.

The destroyed Comor Pattern Crusaders behind her tied to stakes were their version of a headstone, letting anyone who came by know who the Pyre was for by the unit markings on the Mecha.

Max's altered mind was moving faster than ever, bouncing between proud and devastated, when he saw the sword twitch as Paul approached.

"Paul, Stand Back. I think the body is trapped." Max called, turning on all his sensors to see what the Narsians might have left behind for them.

As Paul retreated, Max advanced, searching the pyre for anything at all, when his thermal sensors detected something very odd. There was still a heat signature coming from Nico.

[Holy crap, she is alive. She shouldn't be, but she is.] Max muttered to himself, not realizing that he still had the Command Channel open.

"Bring the doctors asap. We have a critical survivor." Paul called when he heard Max whisper over the radio.

Four men in tattered white coats ran to the pyre, while Paul moved to restrain Nico's one remaining arm until he could relieve her of her sword.

Max moved Stalwart as close as he could, trying to establish a mental link with Nico, but there was nothing there. There was a mind, but all he could sense was rage and an instinct to survive.

Probing deeper, he found her more recent memories, after twelve hours of unsuccessful torture, they had moved her body from a hard place to a soft place and given her back her sword, after which she was soaked in warm blood and then her conscious thought faded.

Max looked over the pile and saw where the last blood came from, a Narsian officer lay on the side of the pile with his guts split open and the pistol that ended his life still in his hand. The Narsians must have ordered him executed for incompetence, or something similarly embarrassing.

Without the threat of the sword, the doctors quickly got to work, but the grim look on their faces wasn't giving Max much hope for the future. It had been days, and her limbs had been forcibly torn off.

Max knew Nico had a healing-related System Function, but could a human really survive that?

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