her commander via the built-in comms suite, which she noticed seemed more difficult, as if atmospheric or other interference existed that had not before. Then a medic treated her burns, which turned out to be worse than initially expected and took months to properly heal. Then she turned off the view- er, took several long breaths, her body trembling uncontrollably, and tried to calm down. Using the machine was not something to do lightly, but it ac - cessed a part of her memory she would otherwise leave dormant, forgotten. MERLION-6 After a long interval involving some victory stew, she returned to the recov - ered files, seeing that only one remained. She noticed something different as she listened, something about an ensign and how he had stranded an out - post far forward after a sudden retreat. When she heard the name her blood ran cold…it sent alarms through her brain. A tired female voice narrated…
[Audio File-05] Logistician 2d Grade R. Smit, acting team leader…Ensign Brandt (aka MERLION-6) showed up one day, nervous and fidgety, told us to hold Outpost 4. We heard he’d been captured briefly and that made him so nervous. They called him “Gutso” because he was a clum- sy oaf, terribly flatulent and lacked any combat sense. Hoki, Ral, Tamo and I crawled across the mud to the same place we had abandoned three days before or was it four? I will never forget the “J” scar on Gutso’s cheek, bright red like he just healed but he was no warrior, just a scared tot. When we got there, we found a rotting wood- en chest of food tubes that had not been there when we left just days ago. Odd. We were hungry and ate all we could. The tubes were marked for aircrew or mid-Tier and higher but we didn’t care. I never heard of or tasted such rich food – it was incredible. So hungry and all I ate too much, we all did. I woke up balled up, my guts knot- ted up. Didn’t move all night, I awoke alone. Everybody else was gone, like they meant to leave me or somebody came for them whisper quiet and dragged them off. Then I saw this tube-like object hovering about 20 meters high,
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