From cannon fodder to sweeping across thousands of stars.

Chapter 292 This is not my war

"The second team engaged the enemy during CSP. One of the divisions was seriously injured. Please request an emergency landing!"

"Confirm permission! Team 1, please land via landing deck ! Welcome back"

The flight deck controller's voice was still so sweet, and Lieutenant Larry could even recognize her accent from the imperial capital of Saint-Saunière.

Normally, he might have joked with the female controller to relieve his tension.

But now, the Royal Navy lieutenant was not in the mood at all.

Lieutenant Larry and his mother ship, the "Swiper" reconnaissance ship, had now opened the outer armor plate at the entrance to the No. 1 landing deck and lit up the orange guidance light.

This landing channel, located on the top deck of the rear section of the ship, can lead directly to the ship's internal warehouse and is the best choice in the event of an emergency landing.

The invisible guidance beam activated the Priest's automatic landing system, and Lieutenant Larry also adjusted the on-board control system from 'cruise mode' to 'landing mode'.

Although the aircraft will then perform landing operations in a fully automatic manner, Lieutenant Larry, who is carrying a seriously injured person behind him, no longer has the patience to wait for the aircraft to land on its own.

He constantly manually corrected the body's posture and moved towards the position of the tractor arm at a faster speed.

"ROLLING000"

"YAWING000"

"PITCHING000"

On the all-circle display, the numbers used to quantify the body's current posture quickly returned to zero, and the docking indicator light also jumped from yellow to green.

When the 'cross' on the side of the display screen, used to assist docking, completely hit the target, Lieutenant Larry gently tapped the accelerator and let the body actively 'bump' into it.

"Click!"

The sound of the metal collision as the traction robotic arm grabbed the HCP's external interface was transmitted along the body of the machine to Lieutenant Larry's ears.

After a slight sway, the entire body of the aircraft was dragged towards the location of the Gnaku by the towing mechanical arm, and Venus 3, which was hooked up by the carbon fiber cable, was also dragged into the ship.

Having received notification from the control center that the second team was making an emergency landing, the preparation team on duty at Gnakuri was already ready to receive it.

Before the traction robotic arm had completely stopped, they gathered around with various tools and pipelines of different colors and thicknesses.

But the first thing that came into contact with the machine body was a burst of white gas ejected from the front ends of several auxiliary robotic arms.

"The cooling operation speeds up!"

In the Gnaku communication channel, the leader of the preparation team was yelling at others to speed up their work.

HCPs returning to the ship often have their surface armor heat up due to combat or high-speed cruising, and the temperature does not drop as fast as ordinary people imagine in space, especially for HCPs that are not equipped with large heat sinks.

Therefore, the cooling operation after recycling the airframe is also a very important part of the airframe maintenance work.

At this moment, the white gas that is constantly sprayed on the surface of the priest can quickly reduce the surface temperature of the HCP and prevent personnel and equipment from being scalded.

At this time, the two machines that were continuing the cooling operation had been dragged deeper by the robotic arms inside the Gnaku, and a huge speed reduction net was pulled up where they had just been.

The Venus 2 piloted by Lieutenant Lieutenant Jeff did not wait for the towing robotic arm to return, but floated in directly behind Lieutenant Larry and the others.

Because the flight deck controller just told him that the reconnaissance ship was about to make an emergency maneuver, and asked him to quickly return to the ship first.

Although he is a rookie pilot, he is called a 'rookie' mainly because of his lack of combat experience.

In fact, when Second Lieutenant Jeff graduated from the HCP driving course, the school gave him an A+ grade.

So even though he was missing his legs and a large number of attitude control nozzles, he still drove the 'half' Priest into the Gnaku and crashed into the deceleration net.

After confirming that all his team members had completed the recovery, Lieutenant Larry returned his attention to his cockpit.

When the number symbolizing the surface temperature of the aircraft on the cockpit instrument turned green, Lieutenant Larry immediately opened the cockpit door.

The pressurized air inside quickly leaked out with a popping sound, and the surrounding world immediately became quiet.

During take-off and landing operations, the Gnakuli was evacuated and some inert gas was injected.

He kicked hard on the cockpit door, and his whole body floated towards the No. 3 unit like a swimming fish.

Several maintenance personnel were surrounding Bob's cockpit, racking their brains to open the cockpit door through the external emergency switch.

But it was obvious that the fighting nail damaged the opening mechanism when it penetrated the cockpit, so although the hatch indicator light kept turning green, the hatch never opened.

Lieutenant Larry did not have access to the communication channel of the maintenance team at this time, so he could only pull one of the maintenance personnel over and put the helmet on his helmet.

"We don't have time to wait, just force the door open!"

"We tried, Lieutenant! The prefabricated blasting cord inside seems to have failed!"

The maintenance crew also looked distressed. For many of them, this was actually the first time they saw an HCP being punched through the cockpit in Gnakuli.

"Force it to open with external force! I don't care what method you use, I can't even care if the airframe is scrapped. Rescue the people first!" Lieutenant Larry looked at the oil and oil that were constantly floating out of the big hole in the cockpit. A mixture of other liquids, said with a ferocious expression.

Soon, the maintenance team arrived with an engineering power armor and began to forcibly destroy the cockpit door.

After some fiddling with jacks, robotic arms, and cutting guns, the entire hatch was completely removed.

The medical team that was already on standby quickly surrounded him and carefully pulled Lieutenant Bob out of the cockpit.

At this time, Jeff also floated to Lieutenant Larry's side. Both of them stared nervously at the medical staff in front of them, hoping to hear good news from them.

But unfortunately, a member of the medical team looked back at them after a moment and shook his head.

"No"

Lieutenant Larry looked at the scene in disbelief. It was not until members of the medical team put Bob's body into a body bag that he realized that the middle-aged pilot in his team was really dead.

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant." The leader of the medical team floated in front of Larry and held his shoulders.

"Although the fighting spikes avoided Lieutenant Bob, they still caused irreversible damage to him, especially internal bleeding caused by multiple fractures.
Although this fact is cruel, Lieutenant Bob actually left when you just landed on the ship. "
-
Other pilots of the 809th Squadron also rushed to Gnaku after learning the news of the pilot's death.

The squadron leader took Larry and Jeff to the wall walk commonly known as the 'cat walk' on the Gnaku bulkhead, and comforted them with other teammates. No one expected that the casualties would come so quickly.

At the same time, everyone in Gnaku only felt the ship's body shake, and then the entire reconnaissance ship turned on the light control inside the ship.

It is obvious that the reconnaissance team where the Speeder is located has begun emergency maneuvers, which shows that there is a federal fleet in the final warning circle.

Moreover, the scale of the attack was beyond what their three reconnaissance ships could handle.

"Hey, Larry! I know you're sad." The squadron leader stood beside Larry and leaned against the bulkhead and said:
"Everyone in the team is sad, but this is war, casualties are inevitable and we have no time to mourn the dead."

"I know, sir. I just think it all happened so suddenly."

Lieutenant Larry sighed. Of course he knew that dying on the battlefield was one of the fates of a soldier.

"Seize the time to rest and adjust your mentality. We may not have time to rest next time."

"Yes, sir."

Lieutenant Larry saluted his squadron leader, and then left Gnaku along the wall walk.

After entering the locker room and taking a quick shower, Larry was just about to change into clean clothes and return to his team's pilot cabin to rest when he heard the voices of other team members coming from the locker room.

"I never expected that the first person to be killed would be this coward."

"Yes. But for a coward like him, it should be an honor to die on the battlefield, right?"

"This guy made those 'anti-war' remarks before. I don't know why he wasn't hanged."

"It seems that his ancestors were great nobles, and he had close relations with several current nobles. Someone took action to save his life."

"Well, he's lucky. He can return home as a martyr and maybe even get a medal."

The voices of discussion gradually faded away, and the pilots, who had put on the inner lining of their driving suits, left the dressing room and went to the pilot attack area to stand by.

Lieutenant Larry walked out of his compartment. He almost rushed out to refute these comrades.

He wanted to tell them that Bob was not the coward in their hands but a truly good pilot.

But he didn't do it until the end.

Maybe it's because of the rumors that have been circulating within the team for a long time?

Lieutenant Larry couldn't help but remember that many people had said things about Bob before, but Bob never refuted or argued with them in the face of these rumors, and just accepted them calmly.

And usually when the three people in the second team are alone or on missions, this middle-aged crane tail pilot does often say things that should not be seen in the army.

For example, this war is a game played by the big shots. They soldiers are like fools. They feel very glorious when they die on the battlefield as the pawns of these big shots. '

What else? If the Prince Regent and Her Royal Highness the Princess were not so troubled, this war should not have happened at all. '

Every time Bob said these words, Lieutenant Larry would refute him righteously. Sometimes he even wanted to send this guy to the military police.

But until today, after this middle-aged man died in this star field far away from the country, Lieutenant Larry couldn't help but ask himself, why did they come here?
Lieutenant Larry, whose mind was in a mess, returned to the rest cabin of their second team. Lieutenant Jeff was still undergoing examination at the medical office and had not returned. He was now the only one in this small cabin.

While passing Bob's sleeping bag, Lieutenant Larry accidentally saw an old notepad floating inside.

Perhaps because Bob was planning to come back and write something after the CSP mission was over, the notepad was not closed, but just floating near the opening inside the sleeping bag.

At this moment, it was as if someone had turned over the notepad. The latest page appeared in front of Lieutenant Larry's eyes as the notepad fluttered. On it was a sentence written in a scrawled handwriting:

"This is not my war"

(End of this chapter)