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At first, Suletta walked without problems. She was limping slightly on her right leg, which had taken the brunt of most of the shrapnel when the navigation panel exploded. Fortunately, the fragments were red-hot when they had hit her, which had cauterized her wounds and prevented her from bleeding. However, she did not know the extent of the internal damage she had received.
Aerial, her faithful companion in a thousand battles, her sister, lay turned into little more than an unrecognizable pile of metal at the bottom of the valley. She didn't know how she had escaped from the cockpit.
However, she had no tears left to shed. Not after the shuttle in which Miorine was flying to assist her had been shot down early in the battle.
She had watched the fire engulf the fragile superstructure of the shuttle as it plummeted to the ground. While she had screamed madly at her screen, Miorine had remained composed. She had given her one last smile and said "Suletta, I lo...".
Seconds after the communication was cut off, the shuttle had exploded into a thousand pieces with Suletta's only reason to live.
She had screamed so loudly that she thought her lungs would burst. She had felt her soul shattering along with the shuttle and each fragment was stabbing into her heart with a pain that would never go away.
With nothing but pain coursing through her body and soul, Suletta had launched herself against the enemy Mobile Suits with the force of a raging hurricane. She had thrown strategy and caution to the wind. The Mercurian pilot had become one of the Erinyes, the Greek Furies, goddesses of vengeance. How many could she take with her? It didn't matter to her.
All that mattered was that Miorine was dead and they had to pay for it.
Suletta and Aerial cut through the enemy ranks, leaving a trail of charred and shredded Mobile Suits as the enemy pilots tried to stop their advance. One after another, alone or in pairs, the enemies fell like mown wheat under the merciless scythe. Enemy communications were filled with curses, calls for help and pleas from dying pilots as no one seemed to be able to stop the advance of a single Mobile Suit.
First they tried to stop them with artillery. When that failed, they turned to orbiting spacecraft. Combining fire from two cruisers with ground artillery and a platoon of Mobile Suits, they managed to catch Aerial in crossfire. For the second time in the same day, Suletta had to watch helplessly as a loved one died.
It was a miracle that Suletta was able to escape from the cockpit. She rolled down an embankment into a river. She plunged into the icy water and let the swift current carry her as far away as possible from the area where the fighting was taking place. Fortunately, her pilot suit insulated her for the most part from the water temperature.
She did not know how long she remained in the river. When she felt the water slowing down, she began to swim toward shore. Since then, she had walked until it had gotten dark. The wooded terrain where she had emerged from the river had become a field of scrub and dead grasses that stretched as far as the eye could see.
Her right leg was now hurting her more and more. The broken branch she had found and used as a makeshift crutch was of little help. Now Suletta had to drag her leg, turning every step into agony.
That pain was infinitely preferable to the pain in her soul.
For the first time in her life, Suletta could not run away and could not move forward. She dropped into the scrub.
"Miorine, Aerial, I'm sorry," Suletta said aloud with what strength she had left. "I have failed you. I swore that I would protect you, that I would stand by you, and I have failed you. Forgive me..."
She let out the tears she had been holding back for the last few hours. She turned around and looked up at the sky. It was a clear night and the stars were shining brightly. She could see Miorine's face reflected in them.
She felt her eyes close and the strength drain from her body. With a last effort, she remembered Miorine's face the day of their wedding, last year. She had never seen Miorine smile like that before. She was so happy. Both of them were.
"Miorine, my love, guide me to where you are..."
With that thought, Suletta embraced the eternal darkness.
---
Confusion.
Noise.
Voices.
Pain.
I need to sleep.
I am so tired.
Pain.
Mio-Mio?
Lights.
When she woke up, she didn't know where she was. Around her there were half a dozen people in white coats talking to a woman wearing a black uniform with two gold ribbons on her shoulders. Her white hair was tied back in a bun.
After an eternity, the people in coats left and the woman approached. She wore her left arm in a sling.
"Suletta..." she said. Her tired face could not hide the joy and relief she felt. "You've been in a coma for several days. The doctors say you may have memory lapses. Do you.... Do you recognize me?"
"Mio-Mio..." said Suletta without thinking. She started to cry and hugged her wife with all her strength. "Mio-Mio!!!"
Miorine embraced her wife with her good arm and rested her head on Suletta's chest.
"I thought you were dead!" said Suletta disconsolately. "I saw the shuttle explode and the world stopped making sense to me!"
"Petra saved me," Miorine said as she tenderly stroked her back. "As soon as the missile hit us, she grabbed me and we got into a lifepod. If it hadn't been for her, we would have both died. We were found by a patrol shortly after and driven to safety. That's when they told me you were shot down."
"I went mad and let myself be carried away by rage and pain. I didn't care about dying, I only thought about causing maximum damage, about making them pay for your death."
"You smashed their main line of defense. Chuchu says you blew up about fifteen Mobile Suits in your first charge. From there it's hard to distinguish which were your kills, but at least two squadrons surrendered believing they were being attacked by a far superior force."
"I killed her."
"What do you mean, Suletta?"
"Aerial. She's dead because of me. In my madness, I did not stop to think about the consequences for her. I killed my own sister."
"Chuchu and Felsi led their squads through the gap you opened and took up positions around Aerial so they couldn't take her over. Between the bewilderment in the enemy ranks and Chuchu and Felsi's vantage point, they had no trouble holding their ground until Nika's squad picked Aerial up."
Suletta looked at her with wide eyes.
"After a thorough analysis, Nika said that Aerial's damage, while extensive, had not affected her main AI computing unit. In other words, she was just sleeping while awaiting for spare parts. I've talked to her before I came here and she knows you were about to wake up. She feels very relieved and happy with the news."
Suletta held her hands to her face. Miorine let her wife cry as she stroked her hair gently.
"Seeing that you weren't in Aerial's cockpit, we started looking for you." Miorine shivered almost imperceptibly. "Your trail was lost in the river and we feared the worst, but we kept looking. A team found you on the brink of death. Your leg wounds became infected and you've spent 20 days in a coma. I thought... I thought I was going to lose you..."
Suletta took her by the hands and rested her forehead on hers.
"I'm here, Mio-Mio. I'm not going to leave you."
"I know."
They kissed as if it was their first time, with the fear of not knowing if they would kiss again and the happiness of sharing their feelings with the one they love. There would be time to think about the war. All that mattered now was that they were alive and loved each other.
On their wedding day, they had both sworn that they would survive the war. Today their determination to fulfill this oath was stronger than ever.