With the battle won and the remaining Narsian troops on the run and being hunted by the main forces of the Kepler Army, the entire Stalwart Special Tactics Unit had the next few days off.
They still set a patrol around the warehouse and kept watch on the sensor feeds because nobody wants to lose friends to a desperate retaliation days before you go home, but for the entire first day, there was nothing to be seen.
They were getting constant updates, though. This continent had been well managed from the start, and the main enclaves of Narsian firepower had been taken down with relative ease, but on the other continents, the Fleet had resorted to more extreme measures. On two continents, they had employed Orbital strikes by the dozen to eliminate Narsian-controlled cities and then swept through with Mecha to eliminate the stragglers. The true horror came on the final continent, where Species-specific bioweapons were tested and destroyed the entire Narsian population in a matter of hours.
The test was viewed as a success, and the chemical would be added to the Kepler arsenal for the next time they saw the giants attack. Of course, nobody really knew where their homeworld was, or if they even still had one, but they had appeared in Kepler and the surrounding nations before, so the threat was still considered uncontained.
This was especially true after the second wave of arrivals. A second wave of Narisan attackers was a phenomenon that hadn’t been seen before. With a persistent lack of linguists due to the rarity of Narsian attacks in their territory, the Kepler Fleet was short on answers as to how and why it had happened to them..
With a stack of reports in her hands, Nico made her way over to where Max was sitting, double-checking the inventory reports while watching the sensor feeds. “Hey Major, the final set of mission reports is finished, as well as the planet-to-ship transfer requests.”
“You’re a lifesaver, Nico. I’m about done with my work here as well, you want to go relax?” Max asked.
“Sure. What did we usually do to relax?” Nico asked, clearly confused.
That brought Max’s brain to a standstill. What did they do to relax? All that they had ever done was to train, fight and train some more. Ever since they had met, there was always something that needed to be done and there was never actually time to relax.
Once they were back aboard the ship they were scheduled to begin a three-month leisure deployment. They would be taken to a safe planet’s Space Station, and the ship would remain there for three months while the Mecha, equipment, and the ship itself were in for a full refurbishment and overhaul.
Only after that would new orders for reinforcements be finalized. In short, they really didn’t have anything to do now that the reports were done.
“You know, I don’t know the answer to that. We never really took a break, did we? How is your adjustment to the new body coming along? We could lay on the roof and watch the artillery in the distance while your calibrations finish?” Max suggested.
Hearing the two of them contemplate what the word relaxation meant, Ari could only sigh. She looked up from her romance novel and put down the chocolate cookies that Alpha Squad had pilfered from one of the buildings they had passed by.
“You two are really hopeless you know that right? I’m even willing to wager that one of you two was thinking of a virtual reality combat simulator as a relaxing pastime.” The Captain joked, but both of the commanding officers looked a bit guilty.
“You were, weren’t you? Let me guess, a martial arts combat simulator so that you could train side by side?” Nico just shrugged, not denying it.
“We could move the setting to somewhere nice, like a waterfall in the tropics or something?” Nico suggested.
“That doesn’t sound bad. Set it on minimum difficulty, so we can talk while we train?” Max agreed, making Ari sigh in frustration.
“There’s a hotel nearby that hasn’t been completely destroyed. It’s in our zone, so there’s nobody there. Why don’t you two get a room, lay down, and watch a movie or something? Just take your mind off everything and actually relax.”
“Good idea. I have the perfect movie in mind.” Nico agreed, smoothly standing and reaching out a hand for Max.
Max had no idea what Nico had in mind for a movie, and he didn’t want to spoil the surprise by reading her mind, so he just followed along, calling out to Ari as they left.
“If anything happens, call for us. I’ll have my wrist device on, but set to urgent alerts only.”
The so-called hotel was actually a former truck stop that happened to have a motel for the raw materials transport drivers, and it was right next door to the warehouse that they were in. The convenience store had been mostly picked clean, but Max found a couple of bags of gummy snacks and some warm soda in the stock room after Nico broke the lock for him.
“Alright, we have the snacks, we have the couch, what do you have in mind for a movie?” Max asked curious as to what Nico’s taste in movies was like.
He had a sneaking suspicion that she preferred horror movies and action flicks, but for relaxation, he was pretty sure she wouldn’t pick either of them.
“Only one of the greatest classics of all time. Catgirl Rangers.” Nico joked. The series was a cult classic, a children’s cartoon series about feline mutated demihumans who looked after a forest. Having seen Nico’s memories before, he was one hundred percent sure that this was not on her list of favorite films.
Nico laughed at the dismayed look on Max’s face and carefully settled down on the couch, which was marked as safe for cyborgs by a faded sign on the hotel room wall.
“Fine, I picked The Slumdog Crew.” She finally gave in and held up a data storage chip for Max to insert into the holographic projector in the room.
It was a romantic comedy about a bunch of hapless but kind criminals from the downside of a mega city and how they accidentally ended up living a normal working-class life together. Now that’s what he needed, stupid mindless comedy.