Morning light filtered through the Singapore facility's medical wing as Rama stood at Maria Santos's bedside, watching her breathe steadily despite the injuries she'd taken defending the northeastern perimeter three days earlier. Santos, graduated 2023, Lv167, a defensive specialist, had thrown herself in front of an energy discharge aimed at the civilian evacuation corridor, saving what could have been hundreds of lives. It had fractured her spine in three places, ruptured organs, and burned forty percent of her body.
Medical had stabilized her. Recovery would take at least six months. Whether she'd ever fight at full capability again was still an open question.
She was one of 487 Champions injured defending cooperation during the entity civil war. One face in a cost the Coalition had paid to keep this paradigm alive against an assault that had nearly ended everything.
