"I love the air up here~"Leading a small group up a mountainside, Dax walked at brisk pace in shorts and a t s.h.i.+rt without any life support as he enjoyed the fresh air like an old fat taking a mild hike.
"Indeed master, it"s so clean!"
With Rei following right behind, cheerful like a child she skipped around happily, still in minimal clothing of course.
"Ha.. Ah ha.. Dying ha ha.. Help."
Dragging herself behind them was Terra, in full arctic gear with fur coat and all, her face was starting to turn blue from the extremely cold weather and lack of oxygen, and it looked like she was starting to suffer from alt.i.tude sickness as she took short and brief breaths in the thin air.
"Come on stop being so serious Terra, a little alt.i.tude sickness has never killed anyone~"
["I feel like that"s not the case trough!?"]
Intervening in the conversation as she kept Terra from falling over, Alice in her Rex heavy frame type exoskeleton that was packed like a mule with equipment, Alice was screaming out through its speakers.
"Alice Terra is fine, look at how energetic she is~"
"Ah.. f.u.c.k… Ha… You.. Ha.. Ah… And.. Me too… Ha Ha.."
"See? If she can still insult me she"s fine~"
["No seriously her face is turning blue!"]
"That just means she"s not deserving of marster"s teaching!"
"Ah.. Ha ha. I.. Hate… Ha.. Both. Of. You.. Ha.. f.u.c.k.. Me.."
"Just be grateful for master wanting to teach you after that constant barrage of complaining."
"ha… ha ah… Feeling… Faint… Help.. Please…"
"Okay then, 10 minute break, use that time to replenish your blood oxygen levels, and no wasting it on insulting me, I"m leaving you behind if you pa.s.s out because of that again."
"Is that kind of training really necessary?"
"The real question is why are you even here?"
"Wha!- How rude is that!? If not for my there would be no alliance between our nations!"
"Then I would have found another ally, and would be currently waging war against the Kingdom to seize what was rightfully my property before it blew up and killed all of you?"
"Ghe!-"
"Please be kind to the princess Dax, she"s here for your sake.."
Followed by Dax"s group was the royal knights Marcus and Marie, followed by the current crown princess Teresa Vi Gruffydd XI, looking like a middle schooler on a skiing trip.
"This is not some fun field trip to the angel sanctuary you know? I"m under some sort of accusation so there"s a good chance they"ll kill me, and all those that follow me."
"That"s why I"m here! The Kingdom is home to the oldest and most devoted followers of the angels, being the heir to that nation I ought to have a little bit of saying in your matter!~"
Puffing her chest(?) with pride from her seating fastened to Marie"s back, Dax started to see her as a toddler instead of a middle schooler.
"Sure… When it all goes wrong I can at least try to blame it all on you."
"Wha!-"
"Getting heated up is a sigh of defeat in an argument~"
"Muu.."
"Well then, the break is over! Let"s go!~"
Pus.h.i.+ng ahead as he grabbed his rifle off Alice"s exoskeleton, Dax silently signaled that they were being watched, promoting Terra to keep on her breather equipment as she also grabbed a rifle.
"Ha.. Ha.. Ha.. Keep up Marie."
"S-sure."
Noticing what was going on, Marie slightly failed to keep her cool, making Marcus facepalm. After hearing the pre decided codeword Marie that was carrying the clueless princess moved to the center of the formation.
It had been 7 days since the angels descend on the capital city of Kingsted. The second after it left Dax had called for a gag order to be put into effect, until Dax could prove his innocence, and even knew what he stood accused of doing, the public shouldn"t know about it. Lucky a free and privately owned press was still decades from forming, like the idea of freedom of speech and personal rights so the event was spun as "the angels where getting inpeciant and so decided to invite Dax once more to the sanctuary, this time in person". The crown princess quickly took control of that situation and helped to spin it properly to the public, in return she demanded to be taken along for the "trip" and Dax found it hard to dismiss her outright.
(TREAT DISENGAGING.)
(Good.. There"s a lot of monsters around here huh.. Move all Vultures back on standby and make the Spectors close that hole on the west flank.)
(DIRECTIVES CONFIRMED.)
Breathing a deep sigh, Dax put down his rifle and continued walking along in a relaxed fas.h.i.+on as he lead the group further up the desolate mountain.
Protecting the crown princess was a true nightmare, especially since she insisted on a small protective detail, apparently she saw the "trip" as a chance to get away from her royal education, and therefore somehow convinced her father that the trip must be made incognito, only increasing Dax"s mounting headache. His first instinct was to use the recovered CAS-7, but the two week time frame made that idea problematic. After stopping the craft from overheating it had spend about 2 weeks in emergency operation slowly cooling down, and when the s.h.i.+p"s AI had finally come back online it had flooded Dax with warnings and damage reports. The repairs would take at least a month, and the damage was significant enough that Dax decided to retrofit the craft into a CAS-A7 "stinger", a single pilot variant boosting more solid armaments and a more advanced remote guidance feature. With flying as an option abandoned Dax settled on a ground route, and quickly formulated 3 layer defencive formation. The most outer layer of the formation is a grid of guardian Specter stealth communication and surveillance drones that scan and flag treats as the main formation advances. The second layer from the outside is a detachment that consisted of backup Spector UAVs, and 12 Guardian MK:IX Vulture"s that eliminate treats spotted by the Spectors with precision coilgun fire. If that layer fails the final layer remains, a detachment of 64 REX-Delta model 165-A25S Reaper combat drones split into 2 "man" cells spread out in a spearhead formation that could react and eliminate targets that slip inside the formation unnoticed, or deal with monsters that have too tough skin for the Vulture units light coilgun.
With that formation Dax had managed to give the crown princess a true "expedition" trip, plowing straight through monster zones and dense forest, heading directly for the mountain range the angles called home.
Making good progress, Dax decided to slow down slightly as they hit the mountains for some "light" training of Terra, the most extreme form of alt.i.tude training one could ever imagine. Terra was denied access to breathing equipment and made to do her normal training schedule, in addition to the marching they already did, and whenever she was close to pa.s.sing out from acute mountain sickness, or the oxygen levels in her brain fell to dangerous levels, she was fed prue O2 at sea level pressure until oxygen levels recovered, and then the cyle restarted. Under normal circ.u.mstances even with her iron will Terra would have died after a few days, even with Dax taking his utmost care to keep Terra"s vitals under control, but Terra had long since stopped being human. After a few months of spartan like training under Dax"s direct supervision she had gotten into peak physical performance, and with the help of Galactic Empire "enhancements" her body had strengthened beyond its limits.
"What"s 54 plus 25?"
"Ha.. Ha.. Aha... 78?"
"Its 79, run 500 meters ahead and give me 50 pushups."
"Ah.. Ha ha.. Ha, u-understood."
Watching Terra run ahead, even the battle hardened and battle crazed Marie showed a bitter face.
"Is that kind of treatment really necessary?"
"Of course not."
"Then why go to such extremes?"
"Because she wants unparalleled strength, so I"ve decided to train her as if she was a combined ops...o...b..tal drop troop recruit."
"A what?"
"Combined ops...o...b..tal drop troopers, or more simply called "h.e.l.lwalkers", basically the most elite force in the Galactic Empire, a force that I personally lead before stranding on this planet."
"And how is this kind of torture going to help that?"
"Marie that"s over the line!"
"It"s fine Teresa. h.e.l.lwalkers fight in s.p.a.ce, now that might not mean a lot to you so I"ll make it simple. In s.p.a.ce there"s no air, no sound and temperature fluctuates between metal boiling and the cold absolute zero. Life in s.p.a.ce is impossible, survival is only possible with fragile machines and then you try to fight a war? Weakness and/or mistakes, like being not able to calculate simple calculus to make a course correction is the difference between life and death, not for just you, but countless others. Being an elite fighter specialized to fight in such environment means being able to withstand truly extreme conditions, like training at high alt.i.tude. But I"m keeping it under control, if she truly wants to stop I"ll stop training her, if you don"t believe me ask Terra herself."
Seeing the conversation to be over, Dax left Marie behind and as she pa.s.sed Terra doing pushups on the coa.r.s.e rock ground she stopped.
"Are you okay?"
"Ha Ha.. 29…. 30.. Aha ha. Y-yeah.. Go ahead, I"ll be right behind.. Ha.. Arg, 31."
"Sure… Just don"t over do it."
---
"This f.u.c.king wasteland seems to stretch on forever.."
By her own calculations she had walked about 200 kilometers due south over the last week, and she still had not seen anything other than snow.
"I"m not gonna die in this f.u.c.king snow."
Motivating herself Lux grasped her rifle with evermore strength as she kept on her steady march. Over the last few days it had been snowing less than when she first exited the sphere, but it still constantly fell as if slowly trying to smother her.
"I"m not gonna. die. IN. THIS! f.u.c.kING SNOW!"
Even her voice seemed to be absorbed by the surrounding snow, prompting Lux to scream ever louder to force her to maintain her motivation as the sun was slowly rising.
"I"m a orbital marine! I"m not going to f.u.c.king die here on this pathetic, low grav, backwater, quaint looking planet!"
Shouting into the air after a few minutes of silence Lux started to feel faint, she had been walking for over a week now, only stopping a single time for a few hours to sleep and eat the last of her dwindling provisions. She knew what was happening to her of course, training on how to handle starvation and malnutrition was standart, and even if she didn"t want to admit it she knew she had only a few days left until she was too weak to move, and would properly shoot herself, but some sort of power was looking out for her.
"Is that… A town? Or some sort of settlement perhaps?"
About a kilometer away was some sort of small settlement, with some 10ish shed sized wooden structures loosely grouped together. Realizing the settlement was about the only chance she had of survival Lux did what every marine would do in that situation, and hid herself in the snow, poking out her camouflaged rifle through a small hole to observe the settlement. About half an hour into the short arctic day a small figure emerged from one of the wooden structures, densely packed in fur coating.
"A current inhabitant.. Habitation means there"s access to shelter, freshwater, and food.. I"ll wait for an hour after sunset, just before moonrise."