Chapter 292 This Is Not My War

"The second team encountered the enemy during the CSP process, and a pilot was seriously injured. Request for emergency landing!"

"Confirmed permission! Second team, please land through landing deck No. 1! Welcome back"

The voice of the flight deck controller is still so sweet, Lieutenant Larry can even hear her accent from the imperial capital of Saint-Saunière.

If it were any other time, he would probably have a few jokes with the female controller to ease his tension.

But now, this Royal Navy lieutenant is in no mood at all.

Lieutenant Larry's mother ship, the "Sprinter" reconnaissance ship, has opened the external armor plate at the entrance of landing deck No. 1 and lit up the orange-yellow guidance light.

This landing channel located on the top deck of the rear section of the ship can directly lead to the ship's internal hangar, which is the best choice in case of emergency landing.

The invisible guidance beam activated the priest's automatic landing system, and Lieutenant Larry also adjusted the follow-up control system from "cruise mode" to "landing mode".

Although the aircraft will land in a fully automatic manner, Lieutenant Larry, who is carrying a seriously injured soldier behind him, has no patience to wait for the aircraft to land by itself.

He kept manually correcting the aircraft's attitude and moved closer to the position of the traction arm at a faster speed.

"ROLLING000"

"YAWING000"

"PITCHING000"

On the full-circle display, the number used to quantify the current attitude of the aircraft quickly returned to zero, and the docking indicator light also changed from yellow to green.

When the "cross" on the side of the display used to assist docking completely hit the target, Lieutenant Larry gently pressed the throttle and let the aircraft actively "crash" into it.

"Click!"

The metal collision sound of the traction arm grabbing the external interface of the HCP was transmitted to Lieutenant Larry's ears along the aircraft.

After a slight shake, the entire aircraft was dragged towards the hangar by the traction arm, and the Morning Star 3 hooked by the carbon fiber rope was also dragged into the ship.

After receiving the notification from the control center and learning that the second team was making an emergency landing, the maintenance team on duty in the hangar was ready to receive it.

Before the traction robot arm completely stopped, they came around with various tools and dragged pipelines of different colors and thicknesses.

However, the first thing that came into contact with the body was a burst of white gas sprayed from the front ends of several auxiliary robot arms.

"Speed ​​up the cooling operation!"

In the hangar communication channel, the maintenance team leader was yelling and urging others to speed up the operation.

The returning HCP often causes the surface armor to heat up due to combat or high-speed cruising, and the temperature reduction in space is not as fast as ordinary people imagine, especially for HCPs that are not equipped with large heat sinks.

Therefore, the cooling operation after the recovery of the body is also a very important part of the body preparation work.

At this moment, these white gases that are constantly sprayed on the surface of the priest can quickly reduce the surface temperature of the HCP to prevent burns to personnel and equipment.

At this time, the two bodies that were continuing to cool down were dragged deeper by the mechanical arm inside the hangar, and a huge deceleration net was pulled up where they had just been.

The Morning Star 2 driven by Lieutenant Jeff did not wait for the towing mechanical arm to return, but floated in directly behind Lieutenant Larry and his men.

Because the flight deck controller just told him that the reconnaissance ship was about to make an emergency maneuver, so he hurried back to the ship.

Although he was a rookie pilot, the main reason he was called a ‘rookie’ was because of his lack of combat experience.

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

So even with the loss of both feet and a large number of attitude control nozzles, he still drove the remaining ‘half’ of the priest into the hangar and crashed into the deceleration net.

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

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

The pressurized air inside quickly leaked out with a "puff puff" sound, and the world around immediately became quiet.

During takeoff and landing operations, the grenade was evacuated and injected with some inert gas.

He pushed hard on the cockpit door, and the whole person floated towards the position of the No. 3 machine 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 combat spike destroyed the opening mechanism when it pierced the cockpit, so although the hatch indicator light kept turning green, the hatch door was not opened.

Lieutenant Larry did not access the maintenance team's communication channel at this time, so he could only pull a maintenance personnel over and stick his helmet on his helmet.

"No time to waste, just force the door open!"

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

The maintenance personnel also looked extremely anxious. For many people, it was actually the first time they saw an HCP with a cockpit pierced in the hangar.

"Use external force to force it open! I don't care what method you use, I can't care if the machine is scrapped, just rescue the people first!"

Lieutenant Larry looked at the mixture of engine oil and other liquids that continued to float out of the big hole in the cockpit, and 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 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 next to Larry, leaning 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 aristocrats and had close relations with several current aristocrats. 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 had 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 for 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 is there? '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, what on earth are they here for?

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 flipped the notebook, and the latest page appeared in front of Lieutenant Larry as the notebook fluttered. On it was written a sentence in a sloppy handwriting:

"This is not my war"