Whether A Li wanted to admit it or accept it or not, the fact remained that their resistance base on the abandoned FC-N-01 deck had been wiped out after a squad of elite Marauders, led by Drael of Abaddon's First Company, had teleported in under orders and launched a surprise attack.
And they had been wiped out completely. Not a single one had escaped!
So, aside from some women, children, and young people among the resistance whom A Li had evacuated a few days before the attack, all her elite subordinates and leaders had died. That included Uncle Huang and the others of her generation, as well as more than 1,300 resistance commanders and staff officers, including Liya, Kaspar, and Luna. Not one of them had survived.
In any case!
When A Li had hurried back in despair, the only things that had met her terrified, wide-open eyes were blood covering the floor, mangled corpses, and the bodies of her resistance comrades, their eyes still open in death. She truly hadn't found a single living creature.
Yes, all her subordinates, all the core members of the resistance, were dead.
Just like the first, ill-fated uprising decades ago, this time Abaddon's First Company Marauders had used the brutal facts and their overwhelming strength to prove to her that the resistance's so-called great cause was nothing more than a laughable bubble, ready to burst at the slightest touch.
So!
For the next few days, A Li was so devastated that she had no idea how she got through them.
She had simply wandered dazedly around the base, surrounded by the corpses of her comrades and subordinates, staring blankly, laughing foolishly, wailing hysterically, and letting everything out like a madwoman.
Later, Loken dispatched a secret squad to investigate the lowest decks. When they