Collins woke up a few hours later with a pounding headache and to several system status updates for his mecha. He wasn't sure what happened after he went down, but comms were dead and there was no movement outside his cockpit. It seems the Dominion forces left him there to die or assumed he was already dead. Checking his body for injuries and finding none, he breathed a sigh of relief. He had gained 2 levels according to his system from all the fighting, but he filed that away as a secondary concern for for now.
Collins unhooked himself from his seat and opened the cockpit door. The door opened with a hiss as it unpressurized and Collins was greeted by the same rain that had plagued the Imperial army for weeks now.
Slowly climbing down from the mechas side to stand in the mud, Collins looked at his mecha with a sigh. It was missing an arm from a cannon blast, but it was also completely beat to hell. Missing several armor pieces and taking some serious damage, he was surprised the mecha systems were even still operational. He was amazed he was still breathing. He looked around for survivors, but of course there was no movement. He was standing in a graveyard full of dismembered bodies, blood and mecha parts.
The spartan class mecha where in pieces everywhere and he could only assume that his pilots were somewhere buried under all crumpled and twisted metal. Collins said a few quick words for his lost brothers and sisters and continued to look around and figure out how he was going to get back in action.
Collins looked back at his mecha to survey the damage. The first step was getting it back on its feet. Collins hopped in the cockpit and got in his seat and strapped in. Using the other arm, he was able to prop himself up and finally get his legs underneath him and stand up. He quickly walked over to the trees and brush and crouched down, doing the best he could to keep his mecha concealed.
The left arm of the mecha had been sheered off, but fortunately, everything on the mecha was designed to be modular and it appeared that the cannon blast hadn't damaged the actual coupling that detaches the arm. There was still a nub there, so after giving the command for the coupler at the base of the shoulder to disengage, the small nub fell to the ground with a thud.
Quickly looking around the battlefield he spotted a few mecha that were missing quite a few things but that still had a left arm. He walked over and manually deactivated the left arm coupler and grabbed the now free left arm and held it up to his empty socket. Activating his left side coupler, his mecha integrated the new arm, making him battle ready once again.
He picked up two swords and hung them on both legs, and then looked around to see if he could pilfer anything else. That's when he spotted the enemy mecha he had beat in the fight earlier. Looking at the shoulder mounted cannons, it had made Collins wonder if he could integrate them on his own mecha. The spartans were designed for this very thing. You never knew what was going to happen in the battlefield or when you were going to have to improvise and steal parts to fix your own mecha.
He approached the mecha and carefully observed the mounting points of the canons to see if they were similar to the spartan. They weren't of course, but he thought that he may be able to adapt them. Slicing the mounts on the mecha and freeing the cannons with their power couplers still intact, he held them up to get a closer look. There was no way he could mount this as a shoulder weapon, but maybe he could do something better.
Removing his shield, he held the cannon up to his left arm and engaged the mag locks holding the cannon mounting points against the arm. He heard the metallic thud and confirmed the cannon was secure. How secure was the real question, but he planned on welding it on before moving out to make it a permanent fixture. Before he did that though, he would have to cut the barrel and marry the power coupling to the spartan somehow. He grabbed a sword with his right arm and flipped it on. The swords had an energy edge making them able to cut through almost anything. He put the oversized cannon barrel against the ground and then sliced it in half with his sword.
"Now I've got a weapon capable of blowing through anything that gets close enough. Good for packs of infantry too" thought Collins, admiring his work, "I've just got to get it to work."
Collins hopped out of the mecha with his welder and started welding the cannon on to the arm. Once he was finished he spliced the power coupler into the power relay port on the arm and then did a diagnostic to see if he could even get it to work. He was in luck as the Spartan recognized it as a weapon.
With his work complete and a huge makeshift cannon attached to his arm, he tried radioing command but got nothing back. Trying a few different frequencies, he got the same static and finally realized he was cut off from everyone. Nothing worked except his short range scanners, and those were even questionable after the amount or damage the mecha had received. He took one last look at the mass grave of his soldiers and vowed to them that he would avenge their deaths and give them a proper burial when he was done.
"You all fought valiantly and I'll always talk of you as heroes of the Empire. Until we meet again" said Collins with a salute before he trudged away towards the city.