Discharge Notice

[t0l]

The door to Iejima's Stationmaster's office opened with a loud hiss, a certain Mister Ravis stepping out soon after. He looked worse for wear, at least, worse than usual; prior to him being plucked from the squadron ready room, he'd been finishing up yet another uneventful 24-hour rotation. His flight helmet, covered all-around in all sorts of crude slogans and markings, was cradled under his right arm, while he held a neatly folded-up piece of paper in the other hand. Sighing, he stood still in front of the office for a brief moment to wipe the exhaustion out of his eyes, starting off down the corridor as the door hissed shut behind him.

He trudged on, all types of executives and other, more important people hurrying past him as he divided his attention between walking in a reasonably straight line and reading whatever his letter was. Taking care not to accidentally cut himself, he flicked the letter open with one sweep of his fingers, holding it out and squinting at it as he waltzed along. The 12-point black font was easy to read in his current half-awake state, and he was grateful that the stationmaster had the common courtesy to make this letter just slightly legible.

Once he reached the end of the letter's main body, he blinked twice, coming to a dead halt in the middle of the hallway. A rather large man proceeded to roughly bump past his shoulder, giving him an angry look as he passed by. Judging by his tone of voice, what he barked at Tal in Japanese likely wasn't very pleasant, although this was currently the least of the pilot's worries. The majority of the letter had been an explanation of the appointment of new Guild leadership and their plans for a Guild-wide draw-down, effective immediately. Listed in the disestablished squadrons, of course, was his own, the 2nd Interceptor Division. He was to turn in his equipment and ship as soon as his rotation ended, and what remaining pay he had on the line would be added to his Neural Net account following his departure from the station.

He returned the man's angry cursing with a blank stare, and slowly turned back around to look at the Stationmaster's office, looking back down briefly to reconfirm that the letter said what he thought it said. Frustrated, he dropped the letter to his side, sighing before turning to head back to the ready room for the last time.

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