The grand monument was engraved with name after name, and it was adorned with fresh flowers.
The majority of the fallen had been cremated on the spot or their bodies left on Batak Planet.
Only a very small number of remains were brought back, so a mass burial had been adopted.
Spade led the way with three deep bows, followed by a succession of officers doing the same, as the sound of soft weeping could be heard at the scene.
The Batak Planet operation, although seemingly going smoothly, actually suffered considerable battle losses. Of the one hundred and twenty thousand troops from three Legions that participated in the battle, less than eighty thousand returned; the casualties nearly halved the force.
It must be understood that the troops sent down were the elite of the elite, so the death of each was an immense loss.
Just then, a noisy argument erupted outside the mausoleum.
