log<<u:AMouve>>ENTRY|4
21XX.09.20 [1424] Designation: 61-409 Unit: JF-06 'Fritzy'
The grit gets everywhere.
They'd sent me out on patrol to sector 4.4.47𝛷 after the mission at Nerota. Colonel called it a "restful patrol". Islands, calm, thousands of miles away from the front. Warm sun, crashing waves, yellow-white sand.
I kept waiting to get the call back to the front; what had I done wrong to get sent out here? Why were they punishing me for a successful mission? Did they think I was a coward for not engaging Jackknife? Did the SCS logs say I hesitated before taking the shot in the courtyard?
I keep asking them what I did wrong, and their voices grow soft. "Just try and rest for a bit," they'll say over the radio, and its so patronizing my SCS ups my cortisol to keep me from vomiting.
Each day when I come back from pointlessly patrolling the world's most beautiful jail cell, I take my evening meal back to Fritzy and review the other CHVLR logs. The war's not going well. When they first rushed me through training, there were thirty of us. Now, we were down to eighteen. And the reports didn't say anything about new recruits coming.
It was the fifteenth day of patrol when I snapped. Fuck these mission parameters. If they're not going to respect me, respect Fritzy, and give us something to do, then I won't respect their OpSec. I parked Fritzy on an atoll, nine clicks from the resort-base, and popped shell.
Riding the ladder down to the beach, I felt my senses slowly wake up from the SCS synctrance, and I realized that nearly anyone else would weep to see the sight. The water was such a brilliant blue, azure, with waves that crested white with foam. Even through the pilot suit, I could feel the radiant heat the sand beneath me had drunk from the sun above. I reached down to run my fingers through it, and winced to see the grit stick to my suit.
I looked up, saw the blank blue of the sky. It's so strange, really, how a cloudless sky changes hues. A natural vignette, darkening at the horizon. A dome of near-monotone.
Something flashed briefly in the sky above. Then another three; near-white, but with twinges of orange and pink. Then, suddenly, a daytime star shone out. Bright, growing brighter, and moving.
I sat on the beach and watched it for a while, until the gnawing in my gut grew too wretched to bear. With a sigh, I climbed back to my feet and climbed back into Fritzy.
All units, return to base. Priority Zero. All units, return to base.
Well, fuck.
It wasn't until the next morning that we got official confirmation, but infosec was so light at the resort that I'd heard the news on commschat when taking Fritzy into dock.
The rebels had strapped a half-dozen thrusters onto the hull of the Drenthe-6 industrial orbital and run a four minute counter-burn. Timed just as Drenthe-6 was reaching it's perigee, the station's orbit was terminal. Best case scenario, we could keep her aloft for another ten days.
About 45 minutes after hearing the news shared officially, Fritzy and I got our marching orders. Drenthe-6 was projected to make landfall in the central Atlantic. Everything coastal would be obliterated by the coming waves.
Fritzy and I are being sent to Forward Operating Base Sirocco to oversee what evacuations could be managed.
There won't be a lot of rest time after this. All the best; I'm more comfortable in the cockpit now.
Lexi Mouve, signing off. [[admin_only:stk7_d6=4_di3diKcl7(n)cl6(n)||ftk7]]













