April 14, SY 2149
It took months for the snow to clear, and it turned out that Captain Miorine didn't actually know when the reinforcements were coming. LFRITH waited the weeks until the Eve of the Holy Birth, and reinforcements did not come. They even tried their best to make the so-called landing strips attached to their base usable by clearing the snow by hand — which was a fun endeavor, and didn't take that long once all members of the squadron pitched in — but it made them all sore in ways that they weren't sure was even possible. Their bodies were far more used to the pressures put on them by their Juggernauts, than they were the stress that they put their bodies through by shoveling a few thousand feet worth of snow.
But now spring was setting in, most of the snow had melted, and that meant that the Legion were attempting to attack more and more than they did in the winter — when the skies were darker with snow-storms.
They had lost Bravo-Four — whose personal name was "Huntress" — when she had been caught out in the open and she had gotten caught out of cover by a lucky artillery shot. Although to the Witch — she wasn't sure if it was really a "lucky" shot, or one that was calculated. The Legion were getting smarter with every corpse they retrieved, with every brain captured from a human cadaver, and that meant that the battles that the Eighty-Six fought, the already dangerous ones — were getting all the more dangerous.
Guel had almost put a dent in the armor of his Juggernaut when they had made it back to base that day. He'd torn skin on his knuckles from having punched the armor. The Witch didn't blame him for his anger, but knew that his anger was misplaced. That it shouldn't be directed at himself — but at the Legion. For they were the ones who had taken the young girl's life, not Guel's combat prowess or orders as a Platoon Leader.
The Witch was sorry that she couldn't do more for him, to help quell his anger in any manner. The only way that he could quell it himself, was to go back to the observation post that she had found him in, plenty of other times, the place that he went when he needed to cool off, and do exactly that. So she let him. She made sure that he left with supplies, with water. And imagined that if she didn't hear from him for a couple days, that it wouldn't be the end of the world, that it was just what he needed to sort himself out.
"Miss Witch?" Captain Rembran asked in the afternoon in one of the days after they had lost Huntress.
"Yes, Captain?" The Witch responded, as she tended to one of the chores around the base — which was taking care of the plants that the younger members had cultivated. It was a group effort, and chores were traded off on a daily basis, and The Witch wasn't excluded from chore duty.
"I have news, regarding those reinforcements that never came."
"Oh?"
"Supposedly, they should be arriving today, before sundown, via airplane. They'll be arriving from the Northern Theater, and there will be three new Processors for LFRITH and their Juggernauts."
"Do you happen to know their personal names?" The Witch asked.
"I don't yet, I only heard this through the grapevine, rather than being told it's explicitly happening. I imagine that they'll only inform me of the change to the roster once it's actually been done." Miorine explained, "Either way, I have no way of confirming this, so I plan on resonating later today just to make sure that they actually show up as they're supposed to."
"Understood, Captain, I'll make sure I'm awake long enough for you to have someone to resonate with." The Witch smiles as she takes the leaves of one of the plants between her fingers, feeling the strength of the naturally woven fibers between her fingers as she spoke.
"In that case, I'll let you move on with your day, Miss Witch. Is it warm there too, today?" Miorine asked.
"Yeah, it is. Warm enough to roll my sleeves up for the first time in months."
"That's good! Enjoy the weather." Miorine responds, and it sounds like she's smiling, and at least somewhat feels that way across the resonance.
"You too, Captain."
"Thank you!"
The resonance connection drops, and The Witch stands up, stretching as she does. One might expect silence after a communication method like the resonance is cut — but the natural world is anything but quiet in the moments between the sensory resonance dropping away, and when the Witch crouches back down next to the potted plants. Her world is abuzz with motion, with excitement. The rest of the girls in the Squadron had just come back from the nearby river that ran through the city's ruins, having washed the secondary uniforms of everyone — and were now enjoying the sunlight in the form of an early picnic. The guys were off still doing their chores, and those who had already finished, were playing about in the courtyard of the barracks building, and for a moment, it feels almost like they're all on some kind of field trip from some distant school, rather than exiles from their homeland.
She stands up again, and one of the girls in the picnic waves at The Witch, beckoning her over. She waves them down, and the group of girls that the one who beckoned her all somewhat groan in exasperation. That was something that The Witch never really understood — the urge that the girls had to try and have her be 'one of them'.
She was their combat commander, and if the trends of her previous squadrons held true — The Witch would be the last one to survive the squadron, leaving her all alone, and surrounded by corpses once again. This was the way that she had lived for so long, the way that things would always be. That she was doomed to be the last one to survive, and then forced to keep marching onwards. So in that respect, she would always be different from them, never quite fit in, even if she wanted to — and she knew this. Knew it well.
She had tried, once, to fit in with the other girls her age in her first Squadron. They had invited her in to the group, on circumstance of her being a girl alone, and that they all needed to band together in their own way. But she had found that it was hard to keep her spirits high when she would get close with someone, only for them to die within a matter of weeks or even days of her getting close to them. Before long, she was the last of the girls in her Squadron. Then a month after that — she was the sole survivor of it. This had been the case in the handful of other squadrons that she had been in in the time since then.
So she wouldn't join the other girls, despite them all being around the same age as her, with much the same goals as her, and the same circumstance as her. Because it would hurt too much to lose them. And she didn't.
She finished tending to the plants, and then it was that she noticed the girls in their picnic pointing at something in the sky above the base and chattering among themselves about it. She followed where they were pointing up into the sky, when she caught sight of a glimmer in that spring sky. She knew immediately what it was, even from a distance — it was the transport plane that was bringing the new Processors. There was no chance, based on the direction it was coming from, due west, that it was the Legion — the Eintagsfliege didn't shimmer in the same way this glint in the sky did.
Immediately did she reach her hand up to her right ear, and flick on the Para-RAID, instantaneously connecting her to all the members of the Squadron. "Heads up ladies and gents, we've got White Pigs on the horizon. They're bringing supplies and allegedly some new blood. So please get yourselves ready for a new set of pictures to be taken for the record."
There were groans, of course. No one wanted to go through the hassle of getting their picture taken again. But everyone gathered, whether in the middle of chores or not, and watched as the glinting bird grew closer, until it eventually banked around to set itself up to land. As it grew closer, the buzzing of the turboprops of the plane grew louder and louder, building up until it reached its apex, right as the plane landed.
It taxied a ways away from the congregation of the Squadron, and eventually turned back around to them, following the seemingly erratic paved paths around this base, until stopping just in front of the hangars of the base. Presumably for ease of unloading the Juggernauts and supplies into them. It was then that the buzzing of the plane died away as the engines were brought to a standstill by friction, and then did the cargo-ramp of the plane open, first revealing the barrels of the Juggernauts inside pointed towards the sky, then the blue-and-white uniformed officers, and camouflaged enlisted soldiers holding rifles. They made no attempts to clear the area, but made due notice of the Eighty-Six congregated near the entrance to the Barracks.
One of the officers, an older Alba man, approached the Eighty-Six, seemingly looking down at them through his spectacles. "Which one of you is 'The Witch'?"
The Witch raised her hand, despite being near the front of the group, as if protecting the rest of the Squadron from this man.
"Good. I need you to sign your Internment Number, and Personal Name."
She stepped forward, and accepted the offered clipboard, doing her best to remember her Internment Number, before writing as plain as possible, her Personal Name. It was in the moments as she did so, that she noticed what it was that she was signing — it was the official requisition and transfer form bringing the new members of LFRITH and their Juggernauts into the fold. For all the faults of the San Magnolian military — it still was a human-run operation, and had humans requiring paperwork for it to work. In that respect, by the fact that she was asked to sign a piece of paper acknowledging the new squad-mates, did acknowledge her humanity, whether or not the Alba realized it.
The man snatched back the clipboard as soon as she had finished signing it, before huffing back towards the plane, making a hand motion to the enlisted soldiers around the cargo ramp. A couple walked away from the main group of soldiers, and walked back up the ramp, and then re-emerged a moment later, this time flanking three people that no one in LFRITH recognized. There was a Jade boy, who looked at first glance like he might be the senior of those new Processors. There was a Sapphira girl, who looked shy and reserved, yet haggard, despite the fact that if she was being reassigned, it meant that she had survived the war until this point. If the Witch were to guess, was probably in her second year. And finally, there was a Rubela girl, who sneered at the soldiers as she passed them, despite the fact that the men had rifles, and there were even men right behind her, practically forcing her forward at gunpoint.
Those men didn't pass the rest of the group of soldiers, instead shoving each one of the new Processors forward, who each stumbled a little ways, before regaining their composure, and continuing their walk towards the rest of LFRITH.
They all wear plain t-shirts, and combat fatigue pants — all of the belongings that they had been permitted to bring with them from the squadron or squadrons they had come from.
LFRITH, as if guided by some hive mind, gathered around the three newcomers as they closed the distance to them. Each one trying to be the first to introduce themselves and welcome the newcomers to the squadron. The Rubela girl seemed uninterested with the introductions, and gave as little as she could, before demanding of them one simple thing — "Where's the Witch?"
The Squadron went quiet, even the two other Processors who had arrived with her shut up at her simple demand.
The Witch was near the back of the group, and excused her way between the members of her Squadron, until she was in the center of them. And stood as tall as she could, despite the feelings of worry that were building in the back of her mind at such an introduction.
The Witch lifted her hand between herself and the Rubela girl. "I'm she. Who are you?"
There was a silence, as the girl sized up the Witch, before bursting out laughing and rapidly closing the distance for a one-sided embrace that the Witch didn't reciprocate. She continued to laugh all the while, and there were uneasy looks passed between the members of LFRITH. Did the Witch know this girl? It was odd that she might, but it wasn't unheard of for former squad-mates to find each other again in the shuffling that happened between squadrons.
But the Witch didn't know this girl, she had never seen her before, had never heard her voice before. How could this girl act so familiar around her?
"Ahaha!" The girl laughed, before squeezing the Witch, and then stepping away. "I wondered if I'd ever get to meet you, and now here you are! The fabled Witch of the Eastern Front!"
"Y-you know of me?" The Witch stammered, unsure of who this girl is.
"Of course! Just about anyone in the Eighty-Sixth Sector knows of two people — One; the Reaper. And two; the Witch. Imagine that! Two legends among the Eighty-Six, both in the same front! What the hell are the odds?" She still has a laugh, and speaks in such a carefree way, throwing her hands into the air in expression, and she grins all the while she talks. "It's a miracle they didn't put your ass in SPEARHEAD after he took his posse out into Legion territory, frankly."
The murmurs among the Squadron die off at the new girl's utterance. It didn't feel all that long ago that LFRITH had met SPEARHEAD, had met the Reaper. And now this girl showed up and was telling them that they had gone into Legion territory? It wasn't like those present were unused to death, or the idea of death of comrades. But SPEARHEAD were supposedly the best of the best that the Eighty-Six had. For them to have just gone into Legion-controlled territory meant one thing.
"The Special Reconnaissance Mission." The Witch said, knowing exactly what it was that the new girl was talking about.
"Yeah, and even their doll-loving princess got demoted and moved to a different Squadron. BRÍSINGAMEN." The girl grinned as she spoke.
"H-how do you know all this?" The Witch asked.
"Its surprising what you overhear on a couple-hour-long plane ride."
"I see…" The Witch sighs. If she was right, it meant that SPEARHEAD was as good as dead. There was no support to be had in Legion territory. No supplies. Whatever they left with was what they had. "How long ago did they—"
"Dunno. I imagine it was a while ago, because they didn't talk about this being a recent thing at all."
"I… See… That's not good to hear..." The Witch looked down at the ground, a wellspring of sorrow in her heart at the notion of SPEARHEAD having been dismantled in such a way.
"Well, Witch, now that we got all the juicy gossip out of the way, what was it that you were trying to ask me?"
The Witch looked up in surprise at the question, somewhat shocked that the girl even knew that the Witch wanted to ask her something.
"Oh, I just… Wanted to know your real name and Personal Name."
"Pfft. If you wanted to know that you should've just said so." The girl grins even deeper, coming as somewhat of a surprise that her grin hadn't left her face at all yet. "I'm Sophie Pulone. Personal Name: Ür. DAWN Squadron."
"And you two?" The Witch turns to the other two new arrivals.
"I'm Noah Regula. My Personal Name is 'Monarch'. From DEADNEST Squadron" The Jade boy responded. "I'm a long-range specialist."
"Pleasure to meet you, Noah." The Witch acknowledged him, before having turned her attention to the Sapphira girl. "And you?"
"I-I'm Eden Brizé… M-my personal name is 'Mizu'. I'm from HAVEN Squadron." She answered.
"Pleasure to meet you too, Eden." The Witch says, before looking around at all those in LFRITH. "I think you'll all fit in well here… So please, if you have any questions or concerns, please let me know."
Sophie grinned at this, while Eden and Noah simply nod their heads.
"But for now, we've got to get our pictures taken for the official record. If we do that, the White Pigs will leave us alone and we can all get better introduced." There were nods in response to this. "Alright, so let's get lined up and hurry up and wait, shall we?" There were laughs in response to this, and the group started to disperse, in the direction where that older Republic officer was setting up his camera to take pictures of all the Processors with their internment numbers.
It wasn't a quiet procession, a rather lively one if anything. All abuzz with the excitement of the newcomers to the Squadron. Something like this was strange to have happen, to have newcomers without members of the squadron being taken away, but it didn't mean that it wasn't welcome either.
If anything, these three newcomers seemed to revitalize LFRITH in their own way, and make them forget, for a time, the sorrow of the loss of their three comrades.
June 18, SY 2149
"Talk to me, Aerial, what do you see?" Captain Rembran asked.
The Witch gritted her teeth for a moment, trying to formulate the words that would best describe the scene that she was currently seeing.
"We've got a flock of Dinosauria currently stationed in the ruins at point two-oh-two, seven-three-two. I don't know how better to explain the volume of units that we're seeing right now." The Witch responded, there were murmurs from the rest of the Squadron over the Resonance. All present were disturbed by what they were seeing. Over a dozen Dinosauria, all standing in a circle, their barrels level with the ground, surrounding something or other that no one could make out from the mass of legs and chassis between them and the thing the Dinosauria were protecting.
"You can't make out what they're protecting, correct?"
"Monarch, sitrep." The Witch ordered.
"No joy, ma'am. I can't see anything from this elevation either. Whatever it is has got to be small enough, yet important enough that we've got fourteen Dinosauria protecting it." Monarch responded, having been assigned by the E-Platoon's leader to do reconnaissance from a higher elevation. His was one of a few Juggernauts specially equipped with a longer barrel and stronger optics, for long-range engagements.
"What would you like us to do, Handler One? Engage? We can do our best to lure out and break their line, but it's going to be a hell of a fight, and they might call in reinforcements…"
"I just got to the Command Room — there are no Eintagsfliege?" The Captain asked.
"Negative. These guys are just stood out in the open." Darilbalde responded this time. The Witch could not only hear, but sense his frustration seeping across the resonance. In an open fight, they were no match for Dinosauria. The Juggernaut's 57mm smooth-bore gun wouldn't be able to pierce the heavy armor of the Dinosauria, whilst the 155mm mounted turret could quite easily pierce and over-penetrate the armor of the Juggernauts, not to mention its secondary 75mm coaxial cannon, or its two 12.7mm heavy machine-guns.
Needless to say, in a straight up fight with this Legion force, it would be next to impossible for LFRITH to make it out with no casualties.
There was silence on the resonance, as their Handler did her best to figure out what to do in this situation.
"Handler One?" The Witch asked.
"G-give me a minute." The Captain said, before the resonance dropped.
"Alright, everyone, hunker down, keep an eye peeled for any Amaise, if we get spotted, we're practically fubar." The Witch ordered, adjusting how her Juggernaut was situated, before pulling the condition lever from a combat-ready power-state, to a low-cruise state. The Witch watched the glinting form of the Dinosauria as displayed by her Juggernaut's optics, watching for any sign of movement, of possible reaction to the Squadron being discovered. But they didn't move. They simply stood still against the blue sky, and waited. For what? The Witch didn't have a clue.
It was several minutes before the Captain resonated again. "I'm sorry, what's the situation?"
"Still nothing, no movement, no signs of them being aware we're here, and no other patrols that we've encountered." The Witch explained.
"Good." Captain Rembran said. "I'm going to direct fire-support to—"
"Hold that thought." Monarch interjects. "I've got movement, three-hundred meters to the east-north-east, about three blocks away from the Dinosauria, its a patrol of Amaise."
"Is that our target?" Someone asks.
"Who knows, if they spot us, they'll probably call the Dinosauria for help."
"Still no Eintagsfliege." Someone else points out.
"Then this is some kind of ambush?" Darilbalde asks.
"Or bait." The Witch says. "Say count, Monarch."
"I've got at least two-dozen. Too many to take out all at once from here." He responded.
"Everyone move up to full-output. Prepare to engage that Amaise patrol." The Witch ordered.
"W-wait a second, Aerial. We still don't know what the Dinosauria are going to do—" Captain Rembran objects.
"The Amaise are still headed towards the Base, and there's no one there to protect the Mechanics or our supplies. If we lose them, we're basically screwed no matter what." The Witch rebuts her statement. "Better to fight and hopefully avoid an encounter with all those Dinosauria, than let them overrun our base."
The Captain is silent at this. An acknowledgment that if the Dinosauria haven't moved yet, it's unlikely that they still will.
"D- and E-Platoons, get set up for sniping positions, get ready to take down as many of the Amaise as possible. The rest of you get situated along the road they're progressing down, we'll try and mop up the stragglers." The Witch ordered. "Monarch, keep an eye out for those Dinosauria, the second they move I want you to tell me."
"Aye, ma'am."
The Squadron moved quickly to their designated positions. Their Juggernauts moving in the mid-June air through the ruins of this city, and into cover to prepare for a fight.
"Sniper Team, ready?" The Witch asked.
"Ready." The D-Platoon leader responded.
"Ready." The E-Platoon leader responded.
"Fire."
Instantly, the 57mm cannons of the two platoons erupted in a volley of shells, that rapidly dispatched the first wave of Amaise, well before those Amaise ever got within sensor range of the Juggernauts. But, before the shells had even hit their targets, one of the Dinosauria, made a move. It was a simple move — just an adjustment of the leg and a slight turn of the turret to face the direction that the Juggernauts were. It was something that was nearly imperceptible to someone with sharp eyes, like Monarch.
"Shit!" He cried, not even sure that what he saw was correct, if it was just a trick of the heat that poured off of his Juggernaut's barrel. But his three years on the battlefield gave him something like a warrior's reflexes, so that when he saw the movement, he instantly jerked his controls to dodge away from where the barrel was pointing.
This reaction was the one thing that saved his life.
The Dinosauria's 155mm turret erupted a single depleted uranium round; crossing the hundreds of meters between the Dinosauria and where Monarch had been standing in a mere instant.
However, the E-Platoon member to his immediate right, wasn't so lucky, and didn't see the Dinosauria's reaction. The 155mm diameter depleted uranium shell instantly pierced through the armor of the E-3's Juggernaut, and ignited the ammunition rack and power-packs of the Juggernaut. Causing it to burst in a primary eruption of reds and oranges, with the secondary ammo of the 12.7mm heavy machine guns' ammunition cooking off almost immediately afterwards — sending shrapnel flying in every direction around the ruined husk of the Juggernaut. The Processor inside died instantly from the impact of the sabot into the chassis, and his body was incinerated in the moment after, when the ammo-racks exploded. He barely had time to even be cognizant of his own death before it happened.
In the moment that followed the death of E-3 — a second-year processor who had earned the Personal Name of "Silent Bear" — all the sniper Juggernauts scattered in unison, dodging every which way to scatter away from the position that they had been in when Silent Bear had been killed.
There was no need for the Witch to order them to scatter, to try and make it to safety. Her and Guel's platoons, alongside the C-platoon, were already hidden beneath the rooftop level, so there was no way for them to uniquely be targeted without the Dinosauria leveling the entire city to try and find them.
That didn't stop another 155mm sabot from passing through a building, and decimating A-3's Juggernaut in a single shot. A-3 was one of the first Processors who had made it down beneath the rooftops, and now she was one of the first among them to be killed by the Dinosauria.
"What the hell?!" Guel shouted, as he dodged away from the husk of A-3's Juggernaut.
"LFRITH, fall back! You can't engage the Dinosauria at this range!" The Captain cried over the resonance. "Retreat along heading two-seven-zero!"
"We've been had! LFRITH get the hell out of here!" The Witch ordered as another sabot shell flashed through a building next to her, annihilating someone in Guel's platoon. She clicked her tongue in annoyance as she watched their Para-RAID go dead in the corner of her vision.
The Juggernauts scrambled away, their legs pounding against the ground as they broke out in a full sprint across rooftops and between buildings as they traced a track the way that their Handler had ordered them to. The Dinosauria still fired at them, the rounds becoming less and less accurate the further away the Processors got away from them.
That didn't stop the sabots from finding their mark, destroying another member of Guel's platoon, and then Mizu's Juggernaut was taken out near the front of the group by an arching shot that had landed perfectly on its mark, destroying her Juggernaut. As the Witch raced by, she wasn't sure if she saw through the corner of her eye, the corpse of Mizu — the corpse of Eden Brizé, or a mannequin in a sprawled out building. But there was no time to stop and check if what she saw was true or not.
It was a dead sprint back to base. It wasn't like the Legion didn't know where their base was, it wouldn't be hard to determine it based on the direction that they had run from, or the plenty of other times that LFRITH had engaged the Legion in the city that was directly adjacent to their base. It wouldn't be hard at all to determine all of that simply using some logic or even used just basic reconnaissance to figure that much out at least.
The Witch was the last to make it back to base — assuring that there was no one left behind for any reason at all.
But she did leave people behind, she had left Mizu, Silent Bear, A-3, B-4, and B-5 behind.
Mizu.
Silent Bear.
Taurus.
Crafter.
Jackknife.
All five had been left behind, their corpses either decimated by the shells used to kill them, or their remains to be recovered by the Legion themselves. Something that, for the Eighty-Six, was a fate worse than death itself — to be repurposed by the Legion, to fight against their comrades even in death.
The Processors of LFRITH looked like they had just run a marathon when the Witch dismounted Aerial. Many were sprawled out against the ground, panting as if they had truly ran the distance that their Juggernauts had covered — others simply sat in their cockpits, heads hung in defeat.
"What the hell was that?!" Screamed Norea as she approached The Witch.
The Witch didn't have an answer for her, feeling just as defeated as her Squadron looked to be. In a single mission, they had lost more units than they had since the squadron's founding. They had lost more comrades to the Legion — who were doing something that no one could quite figure out.
"I—" The Captain spoke over the resonance. "I'll get you more reinforcements… I'll do what I—"
There was a slam from deeper within the hangar.
"Shut up! Just… Shut up!" Guel spoke through grit teeth. His anger bubbling over through the resonance, so that all who were still connected to the call with their Handler heard and felt what he felt in this moment of arrogance from the Handler. "Are you seriously so naïve that you think that those reinforcements will come?"
"Wh—"
"This is a stepping stone for the Hangman's Gallows, Captain." The Witch spoke, as calmly as she could, despite the sense of despair that was welling up in her chest at the notion.
"What do you mean, Aerial?" There was a profound dread that came across the resonance as the Captain spoke her question.
The Witch walked into the Hangar, where Guel's Juggernaut was, surrounded by his squad-mate's Juggernauts — with the exception of two of them. Crafter and Jackknife had been left behind. He was still sitting in his Juggernaut, his seat harness still on, and leaning against the frame of the cockpit, his head propped up by his fist.
"That this whole damn thing? The Eighty-Sixth sector? Is nothing but a goddamned eradication plan." Guel said, more calmly this time. The Witch stepped closer to his Juggernaut, and as she did, got a better look at the rest of him, his left hand was resting in his lap, blood trickling from a cut on his hand. He had opened up his fist slamming it against the hull of his Juggernaut. "Have you ever heard of a single goddamned one of us making it back to the Republic as a full-fledged citizen? A single person who's fighting out here making it back to the life that was taken from them?"
There was silence in response.
"Captain… Have you heard of the Special Reconnaissance Mission… ?" The Witch asked as the silence continued, and she walked away from Guel's Juggernaut, to the ever-present first-aid-kit that was on the wall.
"N-no, I haven't…"
"It's what happens when Processors outlive their usefulness to the Republic. When we just won't die out here, despite being put through the grinder, through the worst battles that the Republic can send us on — it's the last resort for getting rid of us."
"What do you mean…?"
"That not a single person in this Squadron is going to survive our tenure here in the Eighty-Sixth sector. We'll either die out here, or be transferred to the one place that the Recon Mission occurs — The First Ward, First Defensive Squadron: SPEARHEAD." The Witch explained.
There was a laugh on the Para-RAID. "The Processors who make it past their first year are already the few of the few… And those of us who make it to the first few wards — where the worst of the fighting is? We're freakin' legends." Sophie added on.
"LFRITH? SPEARHEAD? It's just where us Processors with exceptional combat capabilities, or the ones who are just too old to be in other squadrons where we might decrease the casualty rate — where we go when its our turn to be exterminated." Guel explained.
"And you knew…?"
"You know about what happened to SPEARHEAD? The ones that we met last year, and their Handler?"
"…The Major got demoted…"
"That's because it sounds like she helped the Eighty-Six using the howitzers that are in the minefields at the back of the Wards. She gave support where none should've been given. And helped those few Processors of SPEARHEAD survive another day — when they should've been wiped out." The Witch answered. "It's not like anyone who ever gets sent on that Recon Mission ever comes back. It's not like any of us ever are expected to come back. Sending us on more hair-brained missions? Patrols in more chaotic, unpredictable areas? Putting us up against Legion compositions that don't make sense? Hell, even putting us against the Legion at all, and not letting us retrieve the corpses of our comrades? It's all part of a plan to get rid of us, Captain."
"I don't understand! Why do all of this when the Legion will just shut down in a year anyways?!"
Sophie laughed again. "Fifty-thousand hours of CPU time — assuming all goes well, the Legion should practically stop existing in about a year, huh?" She leans against Ûr. "But the Legion are designed to be autonomous — completely hands-off control… What happens when the Legion realizes that they have a time-limit on their core-structure? Wouldn't they try and find a way to replace it?"
"Wh-what are you saying…"
"That the reason why the Legion are getting stronger? The reason why they're acting stranger? Is because they're taking human brains."
Guel tapped the side of his head for emphasis. "Every comrade of ours whose core brain survives undamaged, and is taken in by the Legion, is turned into one of them."
"H-how long have you known?!"
"Since we met the Reaper last year." The Witch answered plainly, despite the panic in the Captain's voice. "It sounds insane, but he can hear the voices of the dead who are assimilated into the Legion. And when we resonated with him, we could hear them too."
"T-this is real?!"
"Yes, Captain. It's real." Sophie said.
"The Republic? You're going to lose this war. It doesn't matter if the Eighty-Six fight or not." Guel said, finally undoing his harness as he stood up from his Juggernaut, and looking at the space where his two comrades should be, but aren't, as the Witch begins to treat his wound on his hand. "It's just a matter of when you run out of Eighty-Six to send to their deaths."
"…Then why fight?!" The Captain blurts out. "Why not just let us lose this war quicker?!"
"Because then who would we be as Eighty-Six, Captain? Those who faced their death on their own terms? Or those who let our deaths come on someone else's?" Sophie responded.
"We don't fight because we're forced to, we fight because we've chosen to… We could just simply sit back and let the Legion march over us and stomp out the Republic — and that might be the easier, more poetic option. But that's just letting the Republic let us die…" The Witch spoke. "It's better for us to fight daily, because we've chosen to. Because it means living despite the death that was already chosen for us… Every person here knows that we're going to die because of the Legion. Every Eighty-Six in this squadron knows that their death will come. For some of us, it'll come quick. For others it will be at our comrades' hands, so as to not become one of the Legion ourselves. For the rest? It's the reason we carry sidearms in our Juggernauts."
There's silence, yet sorrow coming from the resonance. When The Witch looks up from treating Guel's wound, most of the other Processors are gone, with the exception of Sophie and Noah. She assumes that the rest have shut off their Para-RAIDs, not wanting to hear any more of the groveling of their Handler. The Witch wasn't sure she blamed them.
They had started the day with twenty-five, and now were down to twenty.
"I'm sorry we didn't tell you sooner." The Witch says after a minute or two passes, and the Mechanics filter into the Hangar to start work on repairing the Juggernauts.
"N-no… It's not that." The Captain finally says. "I just thought that all this time—"
"That there was a chance, right?"
"…That there was a chance..." The Captain affirms.
"I'm sorry that I have to be the one to tell you that there isn't a single person out here that you can save." Guel says, standing up from his Juggernaut, and flexing his hand around its bandage — wincing as he does.
"But-"
"Captain, that's enough. There's nothing you can do for us." The Witch says, returning the first aid kit to its place on the wall. The others watch her as she does, her head hung low. "Maybe in a different life you would've been able to do something for us, maybe stop this whole thing from ever happening. But we don't live in that life. The last thing I want to see, is you destroy yourself trying to do the impossible."
July 3, SY 2149
In the month that followed. Miorine bore witness to the death of twelve of the twenty processors who survived LFRITH. Eight survivors. And it was like The Witch, Darilbalde, Monarch and Ür had said that day: no reinforcements ever came for them. That was part of the reason why they had lost so many processors in just a month, where in the months before they had only lost a few.
Aerial, Darilbalde, Monarch, Ür, Tomcat, Fallen Crow, Iris, and Dante were all who remained.
Miorine resonated with them almost nightly, keeping tabs on them, and doing her best to reassure them that she was trying more than what was strictly necessary for her position, to try and get them reinforcements. Anything to try and help them survive that much longer. But before long, she did it because it had become routine. It had become part of what she did every night.
"How has LFRITH been treating you, Miorine?" Lena asked as the two sit in a small meeting room in the Military HQ — not that far away from the Command and Control Rooms that line one of the interior hallways of the palace-turned-headquarters.
Miorine snapped back to reality at this, her mind having been distracted with thoughts about LFRITH and trying to help them get the reinforcements that still hadn't come, despite her repeated efforts in the two months since she had last heard anything about them.
"They've been—" Miorine sighed, trying to compose her thoughts. "It's been good, they're a strong squadron, they work well together. They don't generally need my help, but when they do rely on me, it's for things only I can do, not because they feel bad for me or anything like that." Miorine recognizes that this isn't a question that is asked during these mentorship meetings. It's a question that Lena's asking out of curiosity and interest, not so much because she has to. "But it's still… Strained. I don't think they see me as an equal at all, at least not in my conversations with Aerial, their combat commander."
Lena puts on a small smile; "I don't think any Eighty-Six will ever see you or I as an equal, only a tool to be used to try and fight that much longer."
"How has your transfer to BRÍSINGAMEN been?" Miorine asked, having realized that the conversation has moved away from the normal mentorship style meeting, and into something more informal. "I figure it's not the same as having an ace squadron like SPEARHEAD…"
"They're still some of the best fighters that I've ever commanded." Lena points out, "It's not all bad, in that respect."
"I still can't believe they actually demoted you… It's not like anyone was using those howitzers."
Lena shrugged as she put on a small smile. "I broke the rules, it's as simple as that."
"Still a stupid rule."
"That's true, nothing will change that, at least." Lena's smile drops. "But that's not what I wanted to meet with you about."
Miorine sits up ever so slightly more in her chair, straightening her back. "What did you want to…?"
"Have you heard about the 'Black Sheep'?"
Miorine shudders involuntarily at the mention of them — it hadn't been barely a month since LFRITH had told her about the true nature of the war that they were fighting, since they had told her that the Legion weren't going to shut down in a year, and that, arguably even worse, that not a single Processor in the Squadron was going to survive the Eighty-Sixth sector, had made every day barely worth fighting to Miorine. But she did anyways, because if she didn't, there was absolutely no chance at all that she could save a single Eighty-Six from their fate, even if the best that she could do was prolong the inevitable.
"I-I have."
Lena nods solemnly at this, a recognition of the burden that the two of them carry in the face of the Legion. "Then there's something else I've got to tell you, Miorine."
Lena sighed, and looked down at the tablet in front of her, before sliding it across the table to Miorine, who picks it up, and swipes away the idle display that is projected on its screen. "W-What is this?"
"Something that I'm afraid might break you as a Handler… But I need to know if it will." Miorine looks up from the table, at Lena, who has a grave look on her face. "The Legion are planning the largest-scale offensive we've seen in the War yet… And there's no way of telling when it'll come, but with what I can glean from the other theaters of war, and those Handlers who are willing to talk to me — and it's confirmed my worst suspicions."
Miorine finished reading the draft report on the tablet, before looking back up at Lena again. "The Legion aren't even committing a quarter of their forces to combat us? Where are the rest going…?"
"That's the question, isn't it? The simple answer is that there must be other nations out there, still resisting the Legion, and that they are going to be under the same pressure that we are."
"So our best bet—"
"Is to prepare the Processors under our command, and as many sympathetic military members, for when that day inevitably comes." Lena affirmed.
Miorine slouches in her seat for a moment, staring, dumbfounded, at the table in front of her.
"I know this a lot, Miorine, but there's nothing else that we can do. If we don't prepare for what's coming — we stand no chance to try and survive it." Lena says, her voice quieter, more comforting than it is confident. "…Without SPEARHEAD… Without Captain Nouz—" Lena starts, "No, without Undertaker, there's no way for us to know exactly when it's coming. So it's on us to be as prepared as possible."
"H-how many others know?"
"Myself, Technical Lieutenant Penrose, a handful of non-Handler officers in various branches, and then a handful more Handlers who have been sympathetic towards the Colorata since they joined the military." Lena explained. "In total, if we count you, ten squadrons of Processors who can be committed to defense in three of the four theaters, a dozen officers in various rank and position, and then ten Handlers... But that's not nearly going to be enough, so Lieutenant Penrose and I are working on a fall-back plan."
"I'll do it. You can count on me for whatever you need, Lena."
Lena, for the first time in the time since this conversation started, smiles. "Good, I had hoped so, but I wanted to make sure of such... In the meanwhile, in that draft report, is what I need you to do… And for now, don't tell anyone else about this. The last thing we need is one of us getting some form of punishment or removed from our post because we mouthed off to the wrong person."
Miorine nods. "Can I tell LFRITH, at least?"
"You can… They're the second-most valuable unit in the Eastern theater, behind the new units of SPEARHEAD. So their immediate cooperation will be beyond helpful... I've heard that you've only got eight units though."
Miorine looks up from the tablet. "If there's an eight processors who can do this, it'll be the ones who've survived this long anyways."
Lena smiles again; "Good, I'll be counting on them."
The two leave the meeting room, felling all the more affirmed and confident about what's to come. That even if the worst comes to pass against the Republic in the face of this Large-Scale Offensive — that there's a chance that through cooperation, that they'll be able to pull through what's to come.