"Bay doors locked and sealed. Pressurizing docking airlock," spoke the flight control associate attending his landing, "Looks like you won the bet, eh?"
As the shock of rapid re-pressurization rattled the bulky hull of his Barghest, Mick unbuckled his flight helmet, and hurled it over his shoulder to ricochet off the bulkhead, and tumble haphazardly around the cockpit, "Just get this slag heap onto the deck, Dick. I ain't in no damn mood."
"Stifle that prick, an' get us on the deck," he snarled at his RIO.
What the hell was I thinking? Me? What the hell was the skipper of the Killing Time thinking, engaging a Rheinland cruiser and battleship, along side the Navy? How do I rationalize this? Should have finished what the Rheinlander started with that damned AEGIS cruiser, after I terminated them. At least the LNS-Tampa got nailed. That's a good thing, isn't it? I hate the corporate government, the mercenary police, and the navy most of all, and yet.. Yet, I feel regret. I want to be done with this. I need an out.
Mick Ringo grabbed a hand hold above his bucket seat, and hauled himself up, "See to it we're refueled, repaired, and get on the comm to Buffalo. See to it we have a new Sammael flown in from the destroyer's stock in New York. When you're done, meet me in the lounge, and we'll settle our accounts."
As he cleared his seat, the Reaper's contracted RIO hauled himself from his own, and gave Mick a shove to halt him, "Hey, look, you prick. You ain' goin' nowhere 'till we-" Mick cut the man off, grabbing the man's wrist, twisting it as he snaked his arm up, splayed his fingers around the back of the man's head for a sure grip, and slammed his head against the radar console.
"Your contract is canceled," Mick stated flatly, thrusting a knee into the man's side as he released his wrist, drew his disruptor, and placed it to the copilot's temple, in one fluid movement.
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I'm getting sick of this. We're all a bunch of brain-blown cardamine addicts and alcoholics. What the hell am I doing here? There's a lot of fine talk amongst the rogues, but I can find no truth in any I've met thus far, other than greed. Are there any men of principle among our lot? Or are they all merely men of excuses? I'm sick, most of all, for all my questions. It's time to get out.
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Mick Ringo stopped a few meters from the door to the lounge, and put his back to the wall. He took the deep breath as he folded his arms across his chest, studying the huddled couples, and various other groups loitering outside, intoxicated on local and imported spirits, cardamine, and synth.
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Used to be, long before the Nomad war, we had a dream. Faded now, that dream is lost; forgotten. Abandoned. In favor of what? Empty fields, of plentiful golden grains of dementia and death, that we mistakenly call the golden dream. With the advent of the nomads, despite what we know now to be the merely temporary victory of the Order, and now the renewed state of war with Rheinland, the despair is almost tangible. The nomads remain, Rheinland invades, and where are we in this? Who's really behind it? Behind the Kusari war against Bretonia? This is insane, and I have to get out.
Mick drew forth a small, metal cartridge from his pocket, and inserted it into his prized, gold-trimmed inhaler, "What are we doing to ourselves? Who are the outcasts," he questioned himself in almost inaudible whisper, "and what's the purpose of this death we breathe?"
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Once again, oblivious to his own moral concerns, for either himself or his comrades, he strolled numb, almost blind, into the lounge, and situated himself at a far corner of the bar. He signaled the bartender for his customary whiskey neat, and surveyed the attendant refuse for his next-and likely last-night of warmth and solace.
Quote:"He who must expend his life to prolong life cannot enjoy it, and he who is still seeking for his life does not have it, and can as little enjoy it."
-Max Stirner
