Liberty Navy Helmet Footage - Declassified Commander Patrick Edmund
First Officer - C5 Bison LNS-Valkyrie
Planet Leeds - August, 826AS
Chut-chut-chut-chut-chut-chut-chut.
The floor shook as our turrets exploded to life. I ran as fast as I could up the ramp and through the rows of wounded soldiers in the cargo bay. The Bison had already reached Mach 2 when I finally reached my seat and locked my harness in place. All around us, fighters and bombers swarmed the sky, each ship streaming either bright white or bright blue fire from their guns.
"Command, Valkyrie is ascending. Four hundred and thirty-three packages," I called over comms, still catching my breath.
"EVASIVE!" the helmsman yelled out a split second before the ship-wide missile alarm went off.
INCOMING MISSILE.
PING. PING. PING.
My heart rate must have been over two hundred at this point. My suit was screaming in my ear about unsafe vitals. I did my best to tune—
BOOM
An explosion rocked the ship. We lost propulsion and were suddenly thrown into free fall, and every screen and light on the bridge died simultaneously.
"Fu—"
BOOM
Another explosion ripped the floor from underneath me. Supersonic wind tore through the hole and past my suit, making moisture condense inside my helmet.
7,200m
I watched my suit altimeter. The number was plummeting.
I was pinned against the seat as the Bison spun out of control.
6,800m
Something had landed hits on us. A single hit had been enough to destroy our shields and power core, and another had torn through our armoured hull, taking the lower bow section completely off.
6,300m
The lower half of my Captain was still strapped into his chair. The rest of him had painted the wall behind us.
4,800m
But none of that mattered now. It had all gone, my vision fading away as G-force began taking me.
3,900m
I thought about my wife and daughter.
3,100m
I saw sky, then sand, then sky, then sand.
Then nothing.
...camera rebooting
no signal
...camera rebooting
no signal
...camera rebooting
...
...
Zap!
Every muscle in my body went hard as steel.
Zap!
My ears popped as my blood pressure returned and my lungs did their best to suck up a large amount of the smoke. Fire licked at my boots. I hit the harness release and fell from the seat, landing on my side and sending most of the smoke back out of my lungs. I wanted to curl up into a ball and wait for everything to go back to normal.
I opened my eyes and everything came back. Sight, smell, taste, hearing. Memory. My body tried rejecting the smoke and inhaling it at the same time. Every cough made my head throb and sprayed blood on the inside of my broken visor.
I had to get out.
I saw light shining through the smoke ahead and tried kicking at the window. Instead of glass, my boot found only air. The momentum of the kick sent me straight through the hole and onto the sand outside. I rolled onto my stomach and pushed myself up with trembling, bloodied arms, and realised the horrifying truth.
We had crashed into one of Leeds' refugee camps. A long trail of debris stretched out behind the ship, and dust and smoke hung in the air. Fresh dead bodies lay everywhere. Civilians. The people I was meant to protect. Some of them had been torn in half. By my ship.
The pressure in my head was excruciating. The blood pumping through my ears sounded as if I were under a waterfall. But I could hear something else over it.
I strained, trying hard to focus on the sound. It sounded like… someone screaming?
The waterfall of noise faded as I realised what it was. Someone, nearby, was alive and crying for help.
I stumbled to my feet, trying to locate the source. My leg felt like it was being sawn off from the inside by its own bone with every step. I half-limped, half-dragged it behind me as I moved toward the sound.
A torn-off section of my ship's armour had crushed a sheet-metal shack. Even through the dust and smoke, I could clearly make out the man lying on his back underneath it. The lower half of his body and one of his arms were completely crushed by the debris. But by some miracle, he was alive and conscious.
His cries stopped when he saw me, and he began weakly throwing stones and sand at me with his free hand.
"Fuck you! Fuck you!" he yelled, his voice shrill and cracking.
I bit down hard as I placed my weight on both legs and wrapped my bloodied hands around the thick piece of armour. I pushed harder than I had ever pushed before. The jagged metal cut into my exposed skin, and the bone in my leg protested against the weight. I roared as I pushed, begging the debris to lift. My head throbbed.
A sonic boom rang out overhead, briefly enveloping me and the trapped man in a cloud of sand. I watched in despair as a Taureau frigate descended directly over the crash site.
A squad of Gallic Royal Navy soldiers had boots on the ground before the frigate even touched sand. I turned my back on them and grabbed the last piece of my ship that I would probably ever touch, and watched as laser pointers danced around on its surface.
So be it. I told myself I'd be dying honourably.
I pushed.
My ankle was now completely broken off, bent at a ninety-degree angle, but I barely felt it at this point. All I could feel was the sharp metal cutting my hands, and the throbbing in my head.
I heard one of the Gallic soldiers speak behind me. They rushed towards me.
I thought they were saving their ammo, and half expected to feel a bayonet in my back at any moment.
But it never came.
I heard all of them crashing into the piece of debris and felt their bodies shoulder to shoulder with mine.
"Trois... Deux... Un!" one of them shouted, and all of them roared in unison.
The armour plate lifted, and I heard the injured man's screams move from underneath me to somewhere behind me. We dropped the heavy metal and just stood, breathing. I watched two Gallic medics attend to the broken Bretonian man and saw another of the soldiers—a boy, couldn't have been older than sixteen, was staring at me. His eyes were wide and unblinking, rapidly scanning my face. He looked terrified.
The throbbing in my head began darkening my vision with each beat of my heart. I tried to lift my hands to my face, but they couldn’t reach.
I felt my legs buckle underneath me. Time seemed to slow and lock me in free fall.
I thought about my daughter again. She would have turned ten in September. We missed her so much.
