It was interesting that Luna proposed to go, yet also somewhat weird. And apart from that, I was also incredibly concerned about her. I’m definitely not the one to say that I’ve got my entire psyche in order, but I was trained for the chaos and mess of war, Luna was not. So the last thing I really wanted to do was send her on board an enemy ship to go hunt for some kind of technology none of us knew what it looked like. But then again, Luna is an incredibly smart woman, that’s obvious, so she would be a big help to send her along with Grayson.

I sighed yet again while I was thinking everything over.

“Worried about the XO?” Gunny asked. Gunny had stayed behind with me to lay the final accents to our plan.

“Is it that obvious?” I asked back.

“Yes, and it’s completely understandable.” Gunny replied. “I’m worried about her, too. I heard from the others what happened with Sparks…”

“Yeah, that’s weighing heavily on her…”

“Mhmm.” Gunny nodded. “And how are you doing?”

“At the moment, I’m fine. It’s going to suck balls afterwards, but now we need to concentrate to get rid of the immediate problem.”

Gunny nodded and pointed at the infirmary on the map. “So, we are going here first?”

“Yes. Doctor Winter has managed to secure a lot of crew members there. For the moment, they are safe. Ellie said that the enemy has been working to find a way in but that they won’t find a way in any time soon.”

“And we are going there because we need the medical supplies?”

“Yep, and the extra manpower definitely wouldn’t hurt.” I then walked up to the map as well, pointing at the second armory near the hangar. “After we’ve cleared the infirmary and got our people armed, we can make our way down here and pincer the enemy that’s been engaged with the people from the hangar bay. That’ll be our best bet to capture one of those asshats.”

“And what about the bridge?” Gunny pointed at another concentration of enemy soldiers.

“The enemy will never break through there. That entire hallway was designed as a kill zone for a reason. So we will go there last. It's not like we need to move the ship at this very instant.”

“Alright, that sounds pretty straight-forward to me.” Gunny said, and walked back a bit from the map so he could see it all. “I don’t see how we can lose, really.”

“I don’t think so either, the priority now is to keep casualties to a minimum.” I nodded. “So don’t get yourself shot, alright?”

“I won’t promise a thing.” He smirked. “But the same goes for you, Commander.” He patted me on the waist where I’d been grazed before.”

“Luna wouldn’t forgive me if I did.”

“She’d probably find a way to resurrect you just so she could punch you in the face.”

“That’s… quite likely, yeah. And I’d probably deserve that as well.” I then grabbed my weapon and tucked my helmet under my arm. I still needed to say goodbye to Luna before we commenced the next part of the operation. As we were practically using the armory as a temporary HQ for now, I’d let Luna stay here since it was the safest place to be.

She knew that I had to lead this mission in person but that didn’t make the goodbye any less painful.

“Lauren… please… please try to stay as safe as possible, okay?” She was clearly glancing down at my waist.

“I’ll keep her as safe as I can, XO.” Gunny had come along as well to give both me and Luna some morale support.

“Thanks, Gunny.” Luna smiled up at him but she wasn’t terribly convinced.

“I can see you are doubting me, Lieutenant-Commander, now I’m going to try even harder. I really don’t like it when people think I can’t do something.” He posed in his exoskeleton as if he was getting ready to deadlift some extremely heavy weight. Gunny succeeded in his plan as Luna started to laugh a little. “Now, see, that’s the confidence in me that I like.”

“You stay safe as well, okay?” Luna saluted him with a smile.

“I will.” He saluted back with a smile as well. He then walked off to join the other marines outside of the armory.

“See you later, Luna.” I tossed my helmet around in my hands because I didn’t really know how to end the conversation.

Luna stopped that by taking a hold of one of my arms before going in for a hug. It was a pretty awkward hug with all the armor, but a hug nonetheless.

“I meant it, okay? Stay safe… Otherwise, I might come and finish the job myself.”

“Duly noted.” I hugged her back.

“Awh, how cute.” Grayson interrupted, he must’ve only just recently walked into this area of the room.

“Grayson, I swear to the Goddess I’ll let you be the vanguard if we invade that ship…”

Grayson very wisely decided to shut up and walk away as Luna and I stayed like that for just a little bit longer.

Having said our short goodbye’s and having gathered up a large part of the marines, we started to head off in the direction of the infirmary. In contrast to earlier today, we didn’t try to avoid any contact, we even sought them out. The objective was to clear the ship after all, and any of those enemies that didn’t manage to get back aboard that ship was one enemy less we’d have to face if we were to go and take a look on board of their ship ourselves.

With the amount of marines we had and the restocked weaponry, it really wasn’t a big issue to do this with minimal risks. Especially since Ellie could tell us when and where the enemy could be with great precision.

We encountered an increased concentration of enemy soldiers when we approached the infirmary. But nothing really noteworthy. During this entire part of the operation, I didn’t even have to fire my rifle once. Part of the reason for that was that Gunny was actively keeping me at the back of our formation. Even the other marines were pushing me back.

I understood why they did it, and I vehemently agreed, but it did make me feel pretty useless. At least I could still command the troops so there’s that.

Having set up a secure zone around the infirmary, I contacted Dr. Winter.

“Eva, you can disengage the blast doors now. We’ve secured the area.”

The thick steel frames slid from in front of the doors not that long after. After which Eva herself opened the door. She looked stressed the fuck out, but not physically any worse for wear.

“Are you all okay?” She asked the group of marines that were around me.

“We’ve got no injuries, doc.” One of the marines said proudly and with a big smile.

“Good to hear.” Eva smiled and then looked at Gunny and myself. “What about you two?”

“Fine and dandy.” I took off my helmet. “How are you people doing here? Ellie told us you’ve got forty people inside.”

“It was getting a bit hot but we didn't have any major injuries either so that helped.”

“I fear that we might have to change that soon, though. We’ve got some people in the armory who will need to get some medical treatment soon. The route between the armory and the infirmary has been cleared now so we can start sending them over.”

“Alright, we will prep as many beds as possible.” Doctor Winter looked tired but confident in her abilities.

I then walked past her into the infirmary itself. Most of the people here were non-combat personnel but there were still ten more combat eager Marines in there we could use. After a small pep talk I sent those marines back with a couple of our armed marines so they could get armed as well. As for the non-combat personnel, I sent them along too so they could help transport the wounded back here.

The rest of us stayed behind to help the doc and her assistants prepare to receive the most grievously wounded.

When Eva and I were preparing one of the trauma beds, she whispered. “How’s Luna getting through all this?”

“She saw Sparks’ last moments… it’s not going to be easy on her.”

“Mhmm.” Eva nodded. “Just when everything appeared to be coming together, this happens...”

“Yeah… I know… But I won’t let this break me again. Luna was there for me, and now I will be there for her.”

“Don’t forget there’s Gunny, myself and Yuki as well who you can rely on, okay? Don’t believe yourself to be completely over it. Because that just doesn’t happen.”

“Thanks for the support, Eva.” Because it didn’t seem appropriate at this time, I decided to not tell her what Luna and I had been up to the last couple of days. I was under the impression that somewhere she already knew anyway.