GDI Platoon Commander: A "GDI Edition" side-quest (non-canon)

Raw Plan/Resolution:

Your machinegun chatters, the ammo indicator turning from green to yellow to indicate fifty percent ammo usage. Maybe you make contact with one of the militants down the tunnel, maybe you don't - it's impossible to tell with all the smoke, explosions and steam hissing out of burst pipes.

"Marauder, Raider, disengage. Back to the ops center." you order, sending another string of bullets down the tunnel as your squad members stomp back.

"Go." your Marauder transmits a few seconds later - this means that it's your turn to run backwards - they've got you covered. Your trust is justified - another couple of rockets fly past you and detonate further along in the tunnel, and then you see the door to the Ops Center's access tunnels.

"I'll hold down the fort here." the Marauder transmits. "I'm the least beat up."

You consider it for just a second, but he's right. Technically, the raider should take point, but if you take point, you can have a little more time to fool around with the missile launch controls. Assuming they haven't been re-secured, either physically or remotely. So you start stomping up the ramp, listening to the sounds of laser discharges and another rocket going off.

"Come here, you little... " the Marauder transmits. The suit shows a little green, rather than white, but nothing serious. He's probably ok. You focus on the sound of your own breath as you make your way up the ramp, the raider a little bit behind you. The firefight was a much-needed break from the non-stop sprint down the tunnel, but now your lungs start feeling like they're on fire again as you reach the missile control room. Every screen displays that stupid red scorpion-tail icon, and fiddling around with the controls either doesn't do anything or asks for access credentials. You won't be launching any missiles from here any time soon.

"Power Plant disabled." Victor calls out over comms. "We're going outside."

"Understood. Same here." you respond. The sound of rifle fire and lasers from below continues - the Marauder has fallen behind a little, but appears to have disengaged. You slink up against the cargo door, let out a breath, then step out, your LMG levered out.

"Shit, flame tank!" the Trooper calls out. You hop down from the rail and look toward his position - yep, a flame tank bearing down on him as he levels the railgun toward it. You scowl, then do the only thing you can do - open fire. Sparks fly as your bullets impact the fairly large target, then the rapidly-expanding blue aftershocks of a railgun slug trace towards it. Just as you think the trooper is about to get fried, the flamethrower malfunctions instead, spurting out the liquid but no flame. Sucks to shoot blanks, you think to yourself with a smirk as the tank rapidly speeds away, dribbling highly flammable glowing green liquid out of a puncture in its fuel tank.

"Out, now!" you call out. "While the power is off."

You watch your sensors - there's the raider coming out behind you... and Victor coming out of the power plant, piggy-back passenger and all. Jogging around out here is not an option, so you motion to your raider squadmate. "Let's go pick them up." Your plan is simple - grab one, the raider grabs the other, then you fire up your jump jets and get the hell out of here.

The two of you sprint toward the power plant, grateful for the Nod base's structures looking darkened or blinking and fuzzing, especially the laser fences. Except, suddenly, they're not. "Take cover!" you scream as the power comes back on and the Obelisk begins buzzing menacingly. You slam yourself against the power plant, just out of line of sight, breathing heavily.

The trooper taps you on the shoulder. "I'll distract it. Go."

You clench your teeth. You don't want it to happen this way. But you don't have time to argue who's going to live and who's going to get fried by a giant red laser beam. So you nod and move over to Victor, pointing to the Raider and then the kid. Victor looks up in the direction of the Obelisk, then nods as you lower your LMG, securing it against your side.

Carrying a passenger in zone armor isn't the most convenient - they can't catch a piggy back ride because they'll get fried by the jump jets. So your only option is to grab him with both arms, bending your knees to give yourself just that little extra boost when you light up your jump jets. You nod to the trooper, who nods back, then takes exactly one second (probably to breathe in and out) before stepping out and firing the railgun.

Your suit presses against your back as your jump jets activate, propelling you in an arc in the air. You hear the activation sequence and discharge of the Obelisk, cringing and half expecting to get fried. Or the Raider and the kid to get fried. But, it's the Trooper's status indicator that flashes and goes red. Somehow, he survived. And then you're clear of the laser fence, giving the jump jets one more little burst to soften the landing.

"Ow." Victor comments.

"Bitch later, move now." you reply, watching your raider land, precious cargo in hand. The kid almost immediately runs to Victor, looking a little green. He'll get used to it, you think with a smirk.

As you sprint towards your transports, you take a second to look back - you can see laser flashes and explosions going off inside the base perimeter.

"Infantry coming out of the power plant, watch out!"

"Got him! Now let's jump."

"Shit, I'm hit, suit malfunction. Jump jets out, actuators out."

"Don't worry, pal, we got you."

To your relief, the Marauder and Raider sail over the laser fence, carrying a fairly limp Trooper suit with them. You let out a breath. Somehow, you accomplished what you came here to do and didn't get any of your volunteers killed. Not for lack of trying, you reflect.

---

You jog as fast as Victor can go towards the Carryall (having left the Ox behind). You and the Marauder keep watch while the Trooper is dragged on board, then the two of you back up the ramp, you pressing the by now familiar ramp close button. Victor is already in the cockpit, spinning up the turbines and taking off. Laurent is strapped in, while the Raiders extract the Trooper from his disabled suit. One of the Raiders gives you a thumbs up.

It'll be a good few minutes before you get to where you left the Ox, so you make your way up to the cockpit, sitting down in the co-pilots chair, clicking your helmet open with some relief. The smell of charred armor, burnt gunpowder and Kane knows what else fills your nostrils as the seal opens with a hiss. Your left shoulder stings when you move your arm - probably from one of the times you got zapped with a laser, must have gotten burnt. Your adrenaline is wearing off, and you're dog tired. You briefly contemplate shooting up with combat stimulants - you don't want to be tired. You look over at Victor, who stares forward from the cockpit, occasionally glancing over at the RADAR display. His expression is hard to read - sad? Melancholy?

"That was one hell of a firefight." you say, running a hand through your sweat-soaked hair. "I can't believe nobody died." you pause. "Well, on our side, anyway." you add with a smirk.

"Indeed." Victor replies, his expression unchanging.

"What will you do now?" you ask after a few minutes of awkward silence. Well, at least you think it's awkward. You probably could have asked any one of a thousand different questions, though, but too late now.

Victor sighs. "I don't know. I no longer have a home. I suppose I could try to integrate myself into the machine bureaucracy that is the Global Defence Initiative." he shakes his head, chuckling bitterly. "But what would I do? My skill set is... somewhat limited, at least in the civilian arena. And I have my doubts that your military would take me on, even if I was interested in killing my former comrades." he adds. "Not to mention that I don't think the machine would trust me. And... " he looks to the back of the cockpit, down the ladder and likely toward the transport pod.

Your eyes unfocus as you try to think of an answer. "Once my term of enlistment is up, I don't know what I'm going to do, either. I suppose I could re-enlist, or go back to university... " you pause. "... no idea what I'd study."

You look out at the orange tinted clouds racing by just a few meters above the carryall. "Uh, are we about to fly through an ion storm?" you ask.

Victor shakes his head. "No." he points to the compass. "See - it's not spinning around."

You turn a little bit red, embarrassed that you'd forgotten such a simple piece of trivia. "Right. Or I could try to get a job with the skills I have, but what exactly could I do? Prune genetically engineered chimeric plants at the local vertical hydroponics facility?"

Victor smirks a little. "That's oddly specific."

You shrug. "It's the first thing that came to my mind."

Really, though, it's other things that occupy your mind, a million and one questions zipping around in your gray matter, too fast for you to articulate. Are your superior officers going to tear you a new one for taking a zone armor squad off-mission and abandoning your command? Is InOps going to lock Victor up in an interrogation cell for the rest of his life while tossing his son into a "general care facility"? Assuming he gets out, where's he going to go and what's he going to do for a living? And given the nature of your current assignment, how are you going to ever get a chance to see him more than for a week or two every few months? Do you even want to? You don't hate kids or anything, but what if his son doesn't like you, or you don't like him? What if you do decide to settle down at some point? You have no idea how to be a step-mom, and you're not even sure you want to. What if you wanted kids of your own and he didn't want any more? What about the other way around? And aren't you jumping the gun a little here?

---

You wake up when the Carryall jolts - it's a smooth landing, but still a little jarring, despite all the suspension systems. Your neck is stiff, your head having rolled off the headrest at some point and instead resting against one of your armored shoulders at an awkward angle.

"We're here." Victor states, pointing out the front viewport - the Ox where you left it, in some long-forgotten bomb crater (or aircraft crash site followed by ammo detonation, you're not really sure which), surrounded by crumbled rocks and short, dried-up scrub plants that can barely be considered alive.

You nod and get up, somewhat slowly and painfully, your head throbbing, your shoulder stinging and your neck twinging every time you move it the wrong way. You climb gingerly down the ladder to the transport compartment, where your volunteer ad-hoc zone armor squad sits, the trooper having been extracted from the inoperative suit. One of the raiders sits next to Laurent, showing him the grenade launcher.

"... so this thing can actually fire any type of GDI-standard grenade, but we prefer to use the sonic ones out in Tiberium fields." he explains. "You never know when you're going to run into an L-Tib deposit or some of the blue stuff, and explosive ordnance tends to cause chain reactions, so... " he looks up, seeing you climb down.

"Thanks, guys." you begin, choking up almost immediately. You want to express how grateful you are to them for volunteering for what could easily have turned into a suicide mission, for what was basically a personal errand with little to no military value. You have to pause for a few seconds, trying in vain to wipe your eyes with an armored hand. Gotta take this thing off at some point, you remind yourself. "I uh... couldn't have done this by myself... " you try to begin again.

"Any time, Captain." the sergeant interrupts, his Marauder armor nearly immaculate, except for a little ding on the torso. You nod. "All right, squad. Pack it up and back into the Ox. We're going home."

You hear a thump behind you as Victor dismounts from the ladder, ruffling Laurent's hair as he walks by. The two of you walk to the exit ramp. As you approach the bottom, something feels off - Victor is no longer walking behind you.

"You're going to follow us back to base, right?" you ask, somewhat apprehensive.

He shakes his head, slowly. "I don't know, Violet. What do you think awaits me there? Day after day of interrogation? Forced separation?" he motions with his head back toward his son, still sitting near the front of the transport compartment. "Execution?" he asks. "Your people probably consider me a war criminal, like the rest of my people. And I no longer have very much use as a human intelligence asset."

That train of thought occurred to you as well (and then went off the rails, as you recall). You don't have a good answer for him. Maybe if InOps gets what they want and decides he won't be a threat living in a blue zone. Maybe if you butt heads with a faceless, unfeeling, monolithic bureaucracy. Maybe if a thousand other things go right, then he'll be ok.

"Perhaps it will be better for us... " he once again motions with his head to the front of the Carryall, "... to make a go of it in neutral territory. The middle eastern regions are effectively independent of the Brotherhood now, and I'm sure they won't turn their nose up at my services. And there are always the Forgotten." he pauses. "I've always admired their ability to survive the adversity that is life in the yellow zones."

Your left eye twitches, your jaw clenching and your lip curling up. You note your heart beating rapidly as your hands suddenly become clammy.

[] "Bullshit. You're coming with me. I've sacrificed too much to just let you go."
[] "Hmph. I know a tribe or two that owe me a favor. Maybe we could go together."
[] "Fine. Go."

AN:

Once upon a time, not that long ago (although it feels like a lifetime since then), you had a similar conversation with a different person. That time, you simply huffed and walked away. Sure, it hurt, but you wanted to preserve your dignity, and were kind of insulted to boot. Since then, you haven't bothered to stick to one partner for very long. For better or worse, they just didn't provoke the same depth of feeling that you've got here. You briefly consider and discard the idea of going off to live with the Forgotten or in "neutral" Brotherhood territory. Neutral or not, the jackasses still worship Tiberium.

"Bullshit. You're coming with me. I've sacrificed too much to just let you go."

His eyes narrow. "Are you going to make me?"

You smirk, patting the weapon strapped to your back. "I might. I might not be able to reach up to your chin without getting on my tip toes and stretching my arms out, but I do have powered armor and a fire support weapon."

He raises an eyebrow, his hand going to his sidearm.

You sigh. "Look, I know you think the Initiative is some kind of dystopian hell. And maybe it is, between the constant surveillance, the green crystal eating the planet, eating food out of numbered packets and always having to have a gas mask handy, even in a blue zone. But there are a lot of former Brotherhood people living there, even running for political office. We have medical care, a decent education system... hell, my dad has a dog." you pause, stepping back towards him and looking towards the front of the Carryall. "What kind of education is he going to get out there with the Forgotten or the neutral Brotherhood? You think they're going to teach him math or history or literature?"

Victor scoffs. "Whose history and literature?"

You shrug and give a crooked grin. "You'll be around to correct the inconsistencies." you say, getting on your armored tip-toes (goddammit!) and kissing him on the cheek. "And hopefully, I will, too."

He sighs, his eyes closing for a second. "I hope you're right, Violet. We better get going before any pursuit forces catch up."

You nod. The flight back to the nearest airbase is silent. Victor and his son are whisked away by an InOps security detail the second they walk off the back ramp of the carryall. Perhaps foolishly, you blow Victor a kiss as he's respectfully, but firmly, directed into the back of a black-painted APC. He flashes you a grin, and then the rear hatch closes, leaving you by yourself. Just you, your far too many thoughts, and your responsibility to figure out where all the troops under your command have scattered to.

---

OSRCT Training Grounds
San Diego, BZ-11
October 25, 2060

It takes you almost a week to organize the return of what's left of your zone armor company to their training base - that second drop into the Brotherhood base was... well, it wasn't a total disaster, but it was pretty awful. Not everybody made it back. Your executive officer was on top of things and managed to clear everything that was left of your base out within forty eight hours. By the time the Brotherhood came back, there was nothing left for them to finish. You shake the man's hand before heading into your CO's office. "See me the second you arrive," was the terse message.

"Why don't you walk me through your thought process, Captain." Colonel Pierson tells you, staring out of the window as you stand at attention. The bastard "forgot" to tell you "at ease".

"Upon initial mission failure, I felt it was worth the risk of a single zone armor squad to secure the cooperation of the ... " you pause, considering your next words carefully, "... aligned Brotherhood asset. Sir."

The Colonel stares at you. "You already had him in your reach. Twice."

You breathe in and out. "Research has demonstrated that cooperative prisoners and willing defectors provide more reliable information than ones who are coerced. Sir."

Pierson frowns. "So now you're an interrogation expert?"

You shake your head, a picture of Leila Amir forming in your head. "No sir. I just listened to one."

He sighs. "Look, Captain, this didn't go great. You lost multiple vehicles and infantry squads, and your orbital strike company is now at quarter strength, which will take who the hell knows how long to replenish. Instead of an entire Nod region going neutral, all you have to show for that is some dead rear-line Nod infantry, a few damaged and blown-up vehicles and buildings, and a mid-ranking officer of questionable value."

You open your mouth to begin protesting, but are interrupted.

"Don't worry, Captain, you're not being brought up on charges or anything. It seems that you have friends in the intelligence community, so any meaningful disciplinary action related to this incident has been... " he smirks, "... strongly recommended against by my superior officers." he pauses, his eyes drilling a hole through you. "I put a lot of effort into this, scraping together the best candidates from the various service branches, and, frankly, I'm disappointed that you would throw their lives away so lightly for so little. Zone troopers don't exactly sprout from Tiberium fields."

You draw in a sharp breath, your upper lip twitching a little. It wasn't lightly. You still have nightmares about listening to the comms traffic, while you were stuck in that stupid command post. But you get the feeling that this isn't a back-and-forth kind of conversation.

"Get back to work, Captain. Continue running what's left of your people through drop and deployment training. But understand that you're not going to be driving a combat deployment again in this unit. I don't want compromised individuals leading my people out in the field. Dismissed."

"Yes sir." you reply, doing your best to keep your voice level and turning around as snappily as you can muster.

---

D: How'd your first drop go?
V: Could have been better.
D: Tell me about it. First time I dropped, my pod canopy wouldn't even open. Luckily a cyborg opened it for me
V: You're shitting me.
D: Well, he didn't open it, he shot the canopy off. I did the rest
V: Yeah, well. I flatlined my career.
D: Kane's right nut, it can't have been that bad
V: Well, I did get a bunch of people killed. Like, a lot of people. And failed the mission too.
D: [sad_murray_ears_down.cif]
D: I'm sure you tried your best, V. You're not the kind to screw around. Sometimes things just don't work out
V: Sometimes. Hey, how come you never put periods at the end of the last sentence when texting?
D: Lazy
V: But you use the right punctuation everywhere else.
D: It's the principle of the thing
V: What was I like when I was five?
D: You don't remember?
V: Humor me.
D: Annoying. Adorable. Too clever for your own good. Obsessed with Tibby the Tib. What, thinking about having kids? They have to get to five first, you know. Pro tip, don't stand in front when changing diapers, that's a hot zone
V: Kane's left nut, don't tell mom about this conversation. She'll be completely insufferable.
D: Don't worry, V, your secret's safe with me.
Mg: And me!
V: Goddammit, you two.

---

Late November, 2060

You sit on a rock at the edge of the cliffs overlooking Yucca Point, having given your "company" (more like one and a half platoons currently) the weekend off - after four simulated and one actual training drop over the course of a week, you feel they deserve a break. Your deployment times and drop scatter are steadily decreasing; you also take the opportunity to re-organize your squads into less uniform groupings. Instead of four troopers, four raiders and four marauders, you experiment with mixing the three types of zone armor and throwing in captain suits to boot. It works almost as well in simulated combat as it did during the one real deployment. The last training drop, you even remember to brace yourself before the final landing burn.

Keeping everyone, including yourself, training at the maximum legally allowed rate has allowed you to not spend any time thinking about your apparently flatlined career, or about Victor. "Hope they're not searching your cavities too hard." you mutter to yourself as you look out to the horizon, the ocean waves crashing against the rocks at the bottom of the cliffs.

A scoff right behind you causes you to start, although you manage to restrain yourself from jumping forward and taking cover behind the rock you're sitting on - just as well, throwing yourself off the cliff wasn't on your agenda today. Probably.

"Leila." you say, turning around a little bit to confirm your suspicions. Most other people would announce their arrival in your personal space from a little further away (a simple "Hey, Violet" would do), or, even better, send you a text message beforehand. Anyone else would be risking getting a comparatively small, but powerful (you're pretty proud of your well-toned biceps, triceps and forearms) fist to the face or a foot to the gonads, but you consider Leila a friend. And also she could probably kick your ass up and down in a fight. You know her, though, and getting her to change her habits is probably not within your power. Still, it never hurts to follow your standard comedy routine. "Couldn't you just text me or something?"

"No, Violet." she says with a slight grin, plopping herself down next to you. "Nice view. See any Tiberium dongs out there?"

You shake your head, smirking despite how lame the joke has gotten by this point. "No. You?"

She chuckles. "No. How have you been?"

You shrug, rubbing your left shoulder. At least that particular laser burn didn't scar. "Could be better. But you know that."

Leila shrugs, putting a hand on your right shoulder. "Probably. But I'm following social convention."

You look at her. "So how's the interrogation marathon coming along?"

Leila rolls her eyes. "Oh, we've been done with that for a while." she smiles, an expression you find oddly disturbing. "Squeezed every bit of data out of that Carryall, got your boyfriend's entire life story, again, plus updates, and then some. He brought a lot of data storage devices. Some of them didn't even have automated network intrusion routines. We're still decrypting most of them."

You frown. "He's not my..."

"Whatever you say." Leila interrupts with a smirk. "Look, he made a deal. A place to live for himself and the kid in a blue zone, in exchange for all the info he could provide. There's a... " she pauses. "... lengthy decontamination and vetting period."

You raise an eyebrow. "Decontamination?"

Leila nods. "Right. A lot of these guys have time-delayed or remote-activated biotech in them that turns them into living gas or virus bombs. Poor bastards don't even know it most of the time. I know he's not from the east European yellow zone, but that doesn't mean the tech hasn't proliferated. And don't even get me started on those knockoff shredder drones."

"Kane's left nut." you mouth, having read enough news about the constant terror attacks originating from there.

Leila smirks. "You said it. We might be a creepy global surveillance state, but we just de-humanize people and treat them as cells in a multi-dimensional data matrix. Half the time, we don't even care about individuals, just the aggregate data. But at least we don't inject people with biotech that makes them explode in a cloud of shit."

You look out to the sea again, taking a sip from your water bottle to cleanse that appetizing image from your mind. "Do you think we'll make it?" you ask. "Humanity. In general."

Leila sighs, drawing one of her knees up and putting her arms around it. "I don't know. And even if I did..."

You nod. "Classified. Right. I just want to know if there's any point to any of this." you pause. "Somehow, we're kicking the Brotherhood's ass up and down. I can see it on a map, although Kane knows I haven't seen that much of it personally. But I was reading an article about red zones and underground L-Tib deposits..."

"Exciting stuff, right?" Leila asks, elbowing you in the shoulder, smirking. The smirk seems hollow though - there's something in her eyes that you haven't seen before.

You chuckle politely. "I couldn't understand half of it. Maybe I'll try to run it through the EVA at the base, see if she's got anything to say."

Leila nods. "There's not much time left in the world. Don't spend it all being miserable or having regrets. Do what makes you happy, enjoy it while you can. Just my personal opinion," she adds. "I might be able to put my finger on the scale when Victor's quarantine time is up." she looks at you. "Regarding where he gets placed."

You raise an eyebrow. "Like you put it on the scale when picking who got assigned to that YZ-13 drop? Was that whole thing your ..."

She shrugs. "Not all of it. I just set the ball rolling." she taps you on the shoulder. "Light touch."

You chuckle. "I wish you'd used a heavier touch on that one. I really screwed it up."

Leila shakes her head, looking out at the sea. "You did as well as you could. I should have been there myself, but I'm only one person and can only be in one place at a time."

"Regrets, Leila?" you ask with a smirk.

She shakes her head, smiling. "No." she shrugs. "Well, maybe a little."

The two of you look out to the horizon. You wonder if you'll ever be able to swim in that ocean.

---

March, 2061

You spend the next several months constantly running your people through drops, slotting new people in as they arrive to bring them up to speed. Deployment times, scatter and other metrics gradually drop (rise?) towards 1st Regiment's levels, to the point where you start thinking about declaring your company combat-ready. Despite your CO's assurance to the contrary, you twitch every time you get called into his office - is he going to tell you to deploy somewhere? Tell you you're being transferred to blue zone commie block security? Initiate dishonorable discharge proceedings?

Then, just like that, the war is over. With the threat of Brotherhood nuclear retaliation, GDI ceases all offensive operations as the politicians declare victory, give triumphant speeches and throw parties in orbit with "mission accomplished" banners hanging off the ceiling. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood throws every sick and infirm refugee at the GDI, probably to lighten their own support burden. But straining the Initiative's support systems is probably a bonus, you consider. Joke's on them, though, a good chunk of those refugees can be rehabilitated and become productive members of society.

As for you, you're now just a surplus item in the army's inventory. Orbital Strike teams perform the occasional drop to relieve pressure by Brotherhood raiders here and there (in the words of a wise man, you're just as dead if you buy the farm in an "incident" or a "police action" as if you buy it during a declared war), but, true to your CO's word, you don't see a single combat drop. Thus, with your term of enlistment nearing its end, you give some serious thought to not re-enlisting. Or at least requesting a transfer to another unit. The nightmares and flashbacks never really go away, and half the time you can't sleep. The only thing that keeps it at bay and lets you sleep is working and training yourself to exhaustion, strenuous hikes, throwing yourself into the local football league and the occasional hookup (with mixed satisfaction). Thankfully, you manage to avoid trying to sneak combat stims - although you're sorely tempted.

You attend Lena and Guy's wedding, managing to scrape together a few days' leave. Like the Spartans of old, your duties in peace time are a lot more rigorous - during active combat operations, you would regularly get two, three weeks' leave every three months. In peacetime, you get the bare legal minimum. The two of them look radiantly happy, and you burst into tears during the ceremony. Out of happiness or something else or both, you're not really sure. It's embarrassing as all hell, but you're not the only one - Roux sits next to you trying unsuccessfully to avoid wiping her nose on her sleeve. "We're all class," you comment, causing the two of you to burst out laughing. At least you manage to avoid hooking up with any creepy harvestor operators. Or mildly and infuriatingly disinterested Orca pilots. It's a golden opportunity to bang one of the groomsmen, though. The one who's not married, you hope. Nobody bursts into the room swinging a purse at you, so probably not. It's a quickie, you have to fly back across the Atlantic Ocean the next day. "Look, a girl's got needs." you tell Roux, who chuckles in sympathetic understanding.

Eventually, Leila informs you that Victor (and his son) will be getting released within the next few months. You head back out to Yucca Point again one weekend, crunching down on a fungus bar with sauce #82 as you sit on your favorite rock. You spend some time reflecting on what you've accomplished, the people you've met and worked with. The people you've gotten injured or killed. The places you've been to. Africa. Russia. Europe. America, both coasts (you still prefer east). North-east Asia. You hope you've made a positive difference overall. You had to have.

You don't know what you want to do after your term of enlistment is over. Whether you want to re-enlist or enter a different career field. If the latter, you don't know what. You don't know where you want to live, other than you have absolutely zero desire to live up in space. You don't know if you'll ever be able to fully control what you're pretty sure is some form and degree of post-traumatic stress disorder. Your thoughts turn to Victor, about whom you have confused but intense feelings. You don't know if any potential relationship with him will pan out. Or if he'll even want one. You don't know if you'll get along with his son. You don't know if you will want any kids of your own. Or will be any good as a parent, even. Or if he'll want any more kids. Hell, you don't even know if the planet will turn into a giant liquid Tiberium bomb and explode before you find out the answer to any of those questions. Or immediately after, rendering the whole thing moot.

You take another bite of your fungus bar, smiling as the contents of the flavor packet hit your taste buds, then look up, watching the shimmering light trail projected by the sun setting over the sea. In the end, you're ok with not knowing.

AN: