Chapter 4

It wouldn't be until some time later that Sabban would learn the greater results of his second sortie. As predicted the G-type Casnel, accompanied by the beetle-like experimental mech, successful returned to scare off the enemy, after unit 26's crippling blow - With the Heavy-Duty-Team not far behind them.

As for Shasha, her efforts had proven to be questionable, as although indeed her mech had managed to take the brunt of the attack - Protecting the Tradech from any further damage in the process - it would later come to light that a second hit would of been unlikely to actually sink the warship.

After some protesting, Sabban had convinced Kolme to risk the recovery of what was left of Shasha's Nemo and soon thereafter the three remaining units found themselves back on the Tradech's upper deck.

A fire crew and the illusive Dr.Hasain had been summoned to the scene but once the explosion hazards were sorted and what was left of the cockpit wrenched open - It became clear that particular effort had been wasted.

Sabban, who had dismounted his own machine to help with the recovery operation, severely burning his hands in his overt eagerness to open the hatch, and now standing on the melted metal frame leading into the Nemo - Looked in at what lay before him.

As Hasain exited the decrepit corpse of what had once been a Vijaik, he shacked his head slowly and offered a faint apology with a friendly pat on the back to Sabban, before leaving with the fire-fighting crew to tend to their next duties.

The damage had been fatal, Unit 26 had been rammed in the right side of the lower sternum, the cannon's impact alone had penetrated the first layers of ill-suited armour.

When it had fired it's powerful barrage not only had it cut the machine clean in two, it had also torn straight through to the far side of the machine, causing massive damage to the backpack and taking the right arm off in the process.

According to the firemen it was a small miracle the suit hadn't immediately blown up on impact. Furthermore it caused the entire cabin to be irradiated and much like her loyal mech Shasha's entire right arm and much of the right side of her chest and leg had been eviscerated, without leaving any traces of ever having existed - There very make-up having being superheated to nothing.

The blood loss following had been more than enough to kill off what little agonising life she had been clinging onto, as heard by Sabban over the comm link.

Now all that lay before him was barely even recognisable as human. The shear heat had immediately cauterised the severed limbs and equally coloured what remained of the woman a charcoaled black.

There was no indication left that what was now in-front of him had once had a full head of beautifully kempt blond-hair.

No sign left of those slightly angular cheekbones and those ever bright blue eyes.

His back leant against the still boiling (not that he cared much any longer) frame-way into the cockpit, Sabban stared blankly into the cabin at his former ally and team leader.

At a friend he had known since childhood, a friend he'd shared a childish rivalry with for years, till just minutes ago in fact.

'More then a friend, she's mo-... was more like a kind older sister to me...'

Sabban lamented internally.

Around him he was aware of a large amount of activity, hushed whispers of mechanics who took to returning the still partially functional unit 27 and unit 3 to the lower deck.

Rumours already beginning to circulate that the Nemo squadron had been all but wiped out.

Some younger voices peaked Sabban's shell shocked ears as-well;

"I can't believe Akok and that Varb guy got away again. Think the Egypt will keep following us forever Davrim?

I mean I thought when Miss.Emilia blew up it's bridge with her machine a while back that would be the end of it, but it just keeps on coming back!"

Bemoaned the voice of young teenage woman in a bright orange space-suit.

Walking alongside her stood a kid of similar height in a white and black suit, with standout messy blue hair - "Who knows Cal, not like they ever achieve anything. There just a nuisance if anything" - The young man said, lazily crossing his hands behind his head.

The duo walking off towards the hallways leading to the rest of the ship.

"...Heh... so they didn't even get the bastard who did this to you Shasha?..."

Sabban murmured quietly to himself as he watched the two younger 'ace pilots' wander away;

"A nuisance huh?...Doesn't killing off all of us count for anything...".

Sabban continued to stare blankly in at Shasha, another voice now joining him;

"Hey, look lad, I'm sorry if I came across as harsh in the past, just thought you should know I get how you feel, you aren't alone in this or whatever, ahem. Guess I'll be going then..."

The voice of Kolme Nilas said in an awkward tone of sincerity - Before pushing himself away and floating in the direction of one of the exiting hallways.

Sabban's eyes followed the shrewd man's progress before catching sight of Unit 3 passing - Being operated by some nameless engineer - Off in the general direction of the elevator.

For its part Nemo No.3 had a number of new scorch marks where enemy hits had marked it, along with a portion of its shield having been torn off, but all told it had clearly suffered the least injury during the battle.

Sabban turned his attention away from the mech and back to Shasha's corpse, her remaining hand lay limply on her lap, her face so harshly burnt from such close exposure to the energy weaponry, all of her hair had caught a-flame and been turned to ash, floating around in the lessened gravity.

Thoughts once more started to file into Sabban's shattered mind: 'It's only been a week.'

He cast his mind back what felt a lifetime, to just one week ago, to the day they'd been told about their new positions as active pilots aboard the Tradech, told to pack a single carry-on bag, the rest of their possessions would be delivered back home for them.

He remembered teasing Ennya about whether one bag would be enough for all his fictional stuffed animals, at which point Mili had chewed him out and made him apologies to Zori - Who had become genuinely upset trying to decide between which of her two actual stuffed animals to bring and thought that Sabban's comments had also been mocking her.

'Huh, in the end I agreed to let her put the second one in my bag, that big clownfish thing, I guess it's still in the barracks here somewhere...'

He remembered how Shasha had stood a little aways from that whole scene, cheeks red as she had tried to not show embarrassment.

Of course this had been a fruitless act considering they were all well aware that buried deep in the bottom of her rucksack was a small teddy bear, a gift from her sickly mother, that she always brought along no matter the location of any given training excursion.

'Tears huh?' He pondered to himself, dabbing away at his face with the singed sleeve of his space suit.

Now that he had started reminiscing the memories wouldn't stop:

The way they had all been so giddy leading up to the flight, unable to contain their excitement at going off to fight the good fight against the tyrannical TSU-s fleet.

Shasha had tried to play it cool, saying something about how it shouldn't be any surprise the academy's '3rd highest ever ranking cadet-core' would get picked for such an important job but behind the false aloofness - When she though no one was looking - He had caught her happily smiling to herself effeminately or contently staring out the small launch's windows.

Looking out at her first proper trip into space.

He had always found the way she concealed her softer side in favour of her 'young officer routine' to be one of her most endearing qualities.

'That whole trip on the shuttle must of looked pretty strange to an onlooker, mustn't it?'

He thought back to how they had all been confined to that small transport.

Zori had dedicated herself to reading every bit of information she could on both the 'V-MBT-Neo-M - NEMO' and the Tradech itself, that she could find.

Which in turn caused her to be completely entranced - So much so that when Ennya had tried his usual hopelessly-youthful attempts at flirting with her, she'd inadvertently ended up giving the poor boy the cold shoulder.

Of course everyone in their whole year, if not the entire training grounds had known of Ennya's crush on Zori, well except for Zori herself that is.

He had fallen for her on the first day when he'd impromptly joined their class along with the others in the newly organised 'fast track pilot scheme'

'Guess I'll never know if he would of built up the courage to ask her out now. Damn guy was just a child, his 18th isn't for another two months..'

Then there'd been Mili who had to everyone's surprise been leafing through the available 'Male-Sections' of the personnel forms for the warship.

When Sabban and Shasha had inquired to whether this was of a romantic pursuit, something which had seemed odd considering Mili's persuasion towards members of her own sex - The mountainous women had offered them a confused look before explaining she had simply been looking to see if any of the men on the Tradech migth pose a threat to her undefeated arm wrestling streak.

She eventually explained this completely straight faced, while flexing an arm demonstrably;

'That's right we decided Captain Legro was probably her greatest opponent didn't we?'

While he'd known Shasha since childhood and first met Zori and Mili (already joined at the hip) when they had transfer into his highschool back home, these last 18 months or even just the last 8 after Ennya had joined to complete their little group and the they'd been officially designated a training squad - Had no doubt the most fun of his whole life.

Sure they all knew why they were there, training to be the next generation of pilots for a war that had just started burgeoning forth between the rogue TSU force's Speical-Branch and the rapidly growing forces of the free peoples of space, IAFS - But back then that really didn't seem to matter all that much.

Naïve as they had all known it was, they'd felt like they had been learning to be heroes.

Of course they all had they're individual reasons for joining up, money, fame, family ties and so on but while bonding over the harsh punishments the drill instructors would dish out on a whim or laughing with one another in the mess hall after a particularly hard days practise - On the range in one of the battered old MBT-Mk1's that passed for the schools test units, with their once iconic bright red paint now faded and striped away - They had come to find a comradery, a fellowship none of them had even realised they were desiring in the first place.

It seemed so crass to comment on but in truth what better word was their for them than family?

They'd eaten 3 meals a day together, gone to class together, trained together, slept in the same dormitory and arrived aboard the Tradech together. 'Family.'

"I get how you feel."

Sabban rolled Kolme's passing remark around in his mind, turning his head to look towards the narrow corridor Kolme had headed off towards. The comparatively barely scratched Unit 3 flashed innocuously into his mind.

He abounded down from his perch on the wreckage of Unit 26, his hands still throbbing from the pain of the earlier burns, his head spinning from exhaustion and his distraught mental state.

He quickly lunged his way through the low gravity room into the same corridor as Kolme, whom he spotted at the bottom end hanging lazily just before a corner.

Calling out as he did, Sabban launched himself forward once more, tumbling into Kolme who had stopped to abide the call.

Hands outstretched Sabban grabbed the middle aged man by the scruff of his worn pilot-suit's collar, the momentum pushing them both into a wall to one side, Sabban raising one clenched fist into the air.

"What the hell you playin' at lad!"

Kolme exclaimed glaring down at his assailant.

"You're a damn coward Nilas, you knew what would happen from the moment we stepped onto this stupid ship, didn't you?!"

Sabban shouted into the man's aged face.

"And I tried to warn you lot didn't I-" Kolme tried to explain maintaining a begrudged tone of voice.

"You call that helping us? Was letting Zori go out there first meant to be helping? Or when you grabbed my machine instead of trying to go straight to help Ennya? Heck we could of at-least tried to assist Shasha for sun's sake!"

"Oh ya? Think it's all that simple do ya? I told you all to be careful, that Hogei girl and her tall friend just got unlucky to end up going against such superior mechs, the hell's that my fault? And what good would charging at that Ennya boy's exploding machin' of done hey?"

Kolme ruefully retorted.

"Your a damn coward Kolme Nilas, it's no wonder that white board was covered in names when we arrived, no mystery as to what happened to Nemo's 4 through 25 is it?

'Last Nemo Standing Nilas' eh?! How dare you tell me you get how this feels!"

Sabban stated coldly shoving Kolme further up against the wall and swinging his fist straight at the older man's face.

Kolme seemingly taking offense to the passing slight against previous comrades grabbed the oncoming fist head on, then suddenly lobbed himself forward, taking the opportunity to counter grab Sabban and ramming him into the wall opposite the one they had just been against with a heavy thud.

"Now you listen here ya damn kid! I understand you're hurting, I really do but taking it out on an old man like me ain't helping anybody ya hear?

You think it's just other Nemo pilots I've watched go out there and die? Well you're dead wrong, I've seen dozens of comrades go, crap I started out in a god damn antiquated MBT-mark two, me and my squad belonged to a warship called the 'Monte Blanc'.

Heard of it? No didn't think so, one of the first ships to join this God's forsaken conflict and yet when it got fucked, did anyone care?

For about 5 minutes maybe, since then I don't think I've heard a single person ever mention the hundreds of young men and women, just like you, who were her crew.

They were my friends, family even and they all died protecting this ship which couldn't even be arsed to hold a funeral for 'em after they sunk!"

"I've served as many missions for this damn ship as anyone and what thanks do I get?

A replacement Nemo after my old 'MBT' got too banged up to keep using. No promotion, no shiny mech, medal or special nickname.

For all intensive purposes I migth as well be invisible to them, look at us standing around here yelling at each other, if one of the ace pilots did that there'd be an instant crowd of onlookers trying to break up the fight but us?

No-One-Cares other than to have a quick look at the 'drama' of it all.

Nemos go out there and get destroyed in almost every single battle and ya know what?

Who cares!"

"Not the other pilots, not the bridge crew past the admin of ordering up a new lemon and corpse child to pilot it - And certainly not those damn Magi children.

I mean for God's sake, when the Methuss, a super new experim'tal weapon arrived here who did they assign it to?

Never mind me with a couple dozen successful combat missions logged, they didn't even offer it to one of the Heavy Duty team, no instead they put a damn untrained intelligence officer and that child Callin-girl with all of a few Nemo simulation runs, on it just because she might be a Magi!

The fact is kid they just don't care, whatever you're feeling right now? Well imagine that five times over and then some, then come back and tell me that I don't know how you feel.

I ain't a coward, I just refuse to get myself killed for a bunch of bastards like IAFS and I'm not enough of a scumbag for TSU-S to hire me!".

The barrage complete Kolme finally realised he was still gripping onto Sabban's uniform, who in turn had let go of his. He returned the favour, stepped back and watched as the boy now quiet - His rage seemingly deflated and subsided - Floated almost limply away from where he had been held.

Kolme turned away and tutted;

"I've already applied for a transfer to the Fluchtig, I gave Commander.Novel a trip on my old Vijaik right through the middle of an active battlefield on the moon once, so maybe he remembers me. I 'an hope so at-least. You should think of doing the same if you want to last out this blasted war."

He paced a few more feet down the corridor before, without bothering to turn back around, giving one final comment, his voice now completely back to it's normal blasé;

"I really am sorry kid, believe it or don't, that's on you but for what it's worth I hope you can stick around a little longer. I've no wish to see you go the way of your friends".

****

Sabban floated around the empty corridor, a lone mechanic walking past, sparing Sabban a brief glance before noticing the pilots emblem and deciding it best to keep on walking without a word.

Suddenly snapping Sabban out his trance came the vessel's intercom and the familiar voice of Captain Legro;

"To all crewmembers, it is with a heavy heart that I inform you that after today's battle against the Egypt, which regrettable managed to evade our attempts to disable it once more - We lost some valuable members of our staff.

These include the pilots of Nemos 26 through 29 aswell as two engineers who were unlucky enough to be present in the area of the Tradech that was damaged by the enemy" - Legro stated in his ever-solemn tone of voice.

"...the hell's he mean, I'm not dead and can't he even read out their names? What about Mili, doesn't she deserve to even be remembered as 'Nemo No.30'..."

Sabban spoke quietly aiming his words in the general direction of the nearest ceiling speaker, which continued to spout it's ineffectual-electrified words;

"It is with great honour that we should all join together to remember these brave fallen souls, all of whom were some of the best mechanics and pilots in the galaxy, a group of cunning warriors and if I say so myself, good friends." - Hearing these final vapid, hollow words expunged with little in the way of sincerity in the man's voice - Sabban collapsed helplessly to his knees, tears floating silently and mockingly around him.