[X] Substantial ISIS forces escaped to fight another day.
[X] The Russian forces got something they wanted anyway.
@Tayta Malikai I just realised something: Clarke is playing the role of the asshole pushy love interest common in shoujo manga. It's just that it feels jarring to us because the genders are reversed.
I suppose she'll have to kabe-don Ricky Eagle Buster Johnson III at some point then
Substantial ISIS forces escaped to fight another day.
The Russian forces got something they wanted anyway.
----------
You're swimming at the bottom of the ocean.
The sun can't reach you down here. This is a cold and dark place, but your pilot suit warms you and lights your surroundings.
Down here, you can go anywhere you want. Your suit doesn't constrain you in the same way it does when you're in the cockpit. All you have to do is pick a direction and swim straight.
But there's nowhere to go, so you stay here.
You're not alone down here.
There's a turtle paddling along in the water just ahead of you. You like turtles. Turtles are nice and friendly creatures.
There's an orca prowling in the darkness beyond. You like orcas too. Orcas are majestic and aesthetic creatures.
The orca is about to eat the turtle.
You don't want that to happen. You should stop it.
Why aren't you stopping it?
How could you? You don't have any weapons. The orca is far larger and more powerful than you could ever be down here. And besides, orcas are predators. Turtles are prey. Predators eat prey. That's just how things are.
There's nothing you or anyone else can do to stop it.
And so you watch, passively, silently, as the orca pounces on the turtle and devours it.
The orca looks you in the eye, and then swims away, leaving you all alone in the dark again.
Just the way you've always been.
----------
Unlike all the movies where this sort of thing happens, you don't violently jerk awake, gasping and covered in sweat. You just find yourself blinking at the ceiling, inhabiting that irritating half-state where you're too tired to bother moving, but not tired enough to lose consciousness.
After tossing and turning for another half an hour or so, you sigh and admit defeat. It's obvious that you're not going to get your mandated eight hours of rest like this. You're just going to have to fight the climactic final battle against Islamic State without sleep.
You might as well drag yourself out of bed and spend the extra hours doing something that'll marginally improve your chances of survival.
But first, coffee.
----------
Despite remaining entirely within the secure area of H-3 Air Base's barracks complex, the short journey from your room to the mess hall is fraught with peril. For one thing, there's no telling when some upstart band of militants might decide to let off steam by lobbing a few rockets at your base. The betting pool remains split on whether ISIS or Iran is responsible; you personally don't find gambling very fun (and it's definitely not because you always lose!), but if you had to guess, it's probably the former. If it was Iran, you'd think they could build some better rockets.
The other perennial danger to your continued well-being is, of course, Antonia Clarke. You never actually see her, but in your mind you just know she's lurking somewhere in these winding hallways
The other perennial danger to your continued well-being is, of course, Antonia Clarke. You never actually see her, but that only ensures your mind is consumed with thoughts of her stalking you along these winding hallways. At any moment she's going to pop up behind a corner or out from a doorway, and then– and then what? You don't know, but you can guess, and that's what's so terrifying.
It's therefore a great relief when you arrive at the mess hall unmolested, and you don't mean that in a figurative sense.
While there's some truth to the saying that the Air Force never sleeps, it's rather empty at this time of night. Nonetheless, as you're filling up a cup with the other kind of black gold, the kind that fuels engineers rather than engines, you're recognized by the person who's doing the same thing next to you.
It's been a while since you last spoke to them.
----------
[] Lieutenant Colonel Maria Marquez, mecha group commander.
[] Staff Sergeant Miles Perrier, chief mecha engineer.
The other perennial danger to your continued well-being is, of course, Antonia Clarke. You never actually see her, but in your mind you just know she's lurking somewhere in these winding hallways
The other perennial danger to your continued well-being is, of course, Antonia Clarke. You never actually see her, but that only ensures your mind is consumed with thoughts of her stalking you along these winding hallways.
This quest in 1 sentence:
"In this episode of Top Gear, Hammond is stuck doing 140 hours of PMCS on his mecha, Clarkson causes a CIVCAS and May is sexually harassed by his co-pilot who throws screws at him."
Dang, if only you'd waited a month longer you could've had a 2 year necro.
Ahh, those were good times we had before, weren't they? This quest didn't end up running that long (nor was it ever meant to, rofl), but it seems to have left its own mark nonetheless. I certainly did enjoy the insanity in the moment, and it seems others did too, which is really all a writer can ask for.
I've frequently been torn on the question of whether this quest has become less or more relevant as the result of events that've occurred in the intervening time. I missed the chance to finish it before Trump lost his election, and the atmosphere of that time fades more with every year that passes. Then again, did anything fundamentally change, as a certain other US Presidential candidate promised they wouldn't?
Sadly, I probably won't get around to finishing it anytime soon. Half my time is taken up by office work, and the other half by game dev and modding, which doesn't leave a lot left over for long-form quest writing. To be honest, I kind of lost my enthusiasm for long-form writing in general, as the original motivation for it (writing stuff I wanted to read) weakened in the last few years, and it felt like it took a lot out of me mentally for not a whole lot of enjoyment. It may even be that I never get back to it at all, which is something I would've never admitted to a year ago. I guess some things do change.
Still, I'm glad for the content I did write, and the time that we had together. Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll continue to follow me wherever my endeavours take me.
RIP the adventures of Ricky Eagle Buster Johnson III as he tried not to shame his forefathers... Ricky Eagle Buster Johnson II and Ricky Eagle Buster Johnson I.
