Dreadnought Logbook Entry Draft

You know those UES Commandos? The guys in the orange armor with the dumb bubble-shaped atmo helmet, the guys they seem to be able to duplicate by the dozens to muscle up their ships?  Yeah, you'd think with how many of those guys are out there that they'd be considered ''replaceable.'' Not quite. They're recyclable.

Pretty often one of those guys ends up wounded on a mission, maybe loses some limbs, minor organ failure like the lungs or the heart. Just so long as the brain's still intact. They get put on ice and shipped back to HQ. They get delivered in body bags and everyone assumes they get a soldier's burial. Nice, clean, respectful ending for their service.

Except, that's not how it goes. Company can't let all those years of training go to waste so easily. Once they're away from the prying eyes of the public and the Company's more loose-lipped low-level staff? The Medical team gets to work prepping the poor sod to get Entombed. Whatever's left of them gets closed up in a strongbox with tubes going to all their vitals. Air, blood circulation, disposal of waste products - when any of those are even left. The electrodes interfacing with the brain get hooked up to the Boot Camp. With the ''volunteer'' all plugged in, they run an AR training program to get them accustomed to the Dreadnought suit. They learn to use its capabilities, weaponry, run it through the drills. And they feel every step jostling their remains in the strongbox. Every bullet dinging off the armor sends a flood of pain signals back to the brain. Every crunch of a skull underfoot is like nails in their eardrums. That's when they start flooding you with the stims. 

And then, for just a moment, you don't feel like half a man floating in a metal casket. You feel like a god. A destroyer. Anything living or moving in front of you is a crunchy leaf to step on, or a loose bottle to shoot off the fence. 

Just for a moment, though. That's the trick. Too heavy on the stims and even the Company wouldn't be able to recover their... assets again. So they gotta ration it on you. All that power and euphoria fades away, and suddenly your wounds ache more. You remember the state that you're in. How much, or how little of the ''real'' you is left. How your own eyes haven't seen the sun in 29 years, 3 months, 15 days...

3 hours, 28 minutes, and 41 seconds.

Please, let this be my last mission.