Station Surface
Star Army fire teams were trained to be some of the most brutal killers in the Kikyo Sector. They were direct, surgical, and efficient. Junko's act had been commendable. Alongside her sergeant Tsuguka's support and Pan-hei's precursor missile attack, the course of battle had made Saiga-chusa confident the threat would be eliminated forthwith.
Precision was exactly what a SOFT team specialized in, and a precise resolution to the current situation seemed to be unfolding without incident or delay—no doubt as a result of the team's three months of training. And even though Junko had been absent for most of that training, her experiences elsewhere had given her whatever practice she needed to perform her duties in an exemplary way. As Saiga watched her savage close-combat attack on the hostile machine on his AIES sensors, he felt pride in her bravery and confidence in her skill. Even his counterparts at Star Army Command, where Star Army Special Operations was based, would have been impressed by the initiative
SOFT 408 had shown in its first contact with an enemy.
That's why Saiga cringed in his armor as they were ordered to pull back so the Gartagen mech could slam its rudimentary barrage of missiles into an enemy that Pan-hei, Toyoe-heisho, and Hasegawa-hei had likely already felled. A
Heirophant factually had less powerful armaments
and defensive capabilities than any of their
Mindy 4s, so Natsumi's order was lost upon him. The mech was proving to be
far more trouble than it was worth. Indeed, they wouldn't even have been confined in the
Raccoon-class shuttle had it not been for the need to transport their allied tag-along in some way.
Saiga lay against the station's hull beside the shuttle and the airlock it would soon depart, itching to countermand the team's retreat, but held his tongue. He'd learned—having served as an infantry commander since YE 31—that
this shit was what got Neko killed. But even so, he respected the chain of command above all else.
At least they were Neko with ST backups, willing to die for the Empire without question or hesitation.