Antelope sat in his dorm on Mother Base, absentmindedly turning over his pilot's wings, running through what had happened in Afghanistan over and over again in his head as the lights buzzed over his head and the quiet hum of machinery elsewhere on the platform. He had barely been able to sleep, and all of his thoughts came back to that phrase of what if? What if he had not been in such a tight orbit? Perhaps the bullet would have just hit the helicopter and caused no harm. But then the Boss might have died, or he would have been shot instead. But no matter what, it was an even chance that that bullet would have hit him or Eagle, and he just so happened to be in the right place at the right time that it missed him completely, maybe only by an inch or two, though he wasn't sure.

That didn't help him feel any better though. Eagle was still in critical condition, and the doctors were still working on him nearly ten hours after they had gotten him into medical. Whether he'd survive at all was up for debate, and a wound like that to the head? Antelope wasn't sure if he'd even be able to lead a normal life unassisted. He took pride in his track record of missions. Never had lost a fellow pilot or gunner tech to enemy fire during his Fireforce sorties or even while he was flying against the MPLA. And yet here he was, on his very first mission with Diamond Dogs, having been forced to turn tail and run from a fight because the pilot-in-command had been nailed with a round.

Worse yet, it wasn't as if he could go out on the town with 3 Commando like he would after a brutal tour in the Bush to escape for a few hours. The only people he had now were his fellow Diamond Dogs, but he wasn't sure how they'd react to him. Besides that, he had a few pieces of his former life, and he could pretend for a few brief wonderful moments that Rhodesia still existed.

He looked up from his wings towards his nightstand. There sat a framed photo of a group of men in flightsuits in front of a Hawker Hunter. He had had the photo on him when he had been…hired, and seemingly someone had been kind enough to place it in a decent frame. Below each of the pilots were signatures, and at the top, 'NO.1 SQUADRON, OP GATLING'. And on the right, third from the edge of the gaggle of pilots, with one hand holding his flying helmet, and the other on the edge of the wing, there he was with a big smile across his face. It couldn't have been taken more than fifteen minutes after landing from the raid. His parachute and survival gear were still on, and his short hair still showed visible signs of having been under a helmet for a prolonged period.

A smile like that he had in the photo spread across his face as he remembered that day. All of them had been bristling with confidence as they came back from bombing Zambia and felt invincible. If someone wouldn't have, the were probably too aware of their own mortality to be a pilot in the first place. A bomb run into another country and getting away with it without a single finger raised by the other country's air force? Maybe Eagle had been right, and Rhodesian pilots like Antelope were just that good. But again, the guilt washed over him. If he was that good, maybe he'd have realized the danger that was facing them in Afghanistan and adjusted accordingly.

He tried to push the feelings out of his head. No matter what, he couldn't change the course of bullets or what enemy gunners aimed for, and all it'd do was psyche him out. Luck or no, it had happened, and he had to be ready to perform. Dwelling on the what ifs wouldn't fix anything. He stood up again, and placed the Gatling photo back in its original place.

Looking up at himself in the mirror, Antelope realized a substantial amount of stubble had begun to grow on his face. The old WO would have made him wish he had never grown a single patch of facial hair if he had shown up to morning roll call in such a state back when he was a dog in ground school. He sighed. It all came back to Rhodesia. Even if it wasn't coming back, the green and white still flew in his mind.

Is this what Dad thought constantly about Ukraine? he mulled over mentally as he grabbed a can of shaving cream. His father's reminiscences about that far away land as a child had never made sense to him, not until now. As he began to shave, he realized he was doing the same thing his dad did. Sometimes as a child, he'd catch him looking longingly at the photo that always sat on the mantle of their home in Bulawayo.

He never knew exactly what his dad was wearing in the photo, but whenever company was over, they'd hide it away. It was a standard 1940s black and white portrait, with him in a uniform that looked a lot like what the Germans wore in Kelly's Heroes, but with a dark collar, and instead of the columnlike insignia, on one part of the collar was no insignia, and on the other a lion rampant. Whenever he asked, he'd simply get the response "I fought for Ukraine.", usually followed by an order to never tell anyone at school about the photo.

As he shaved, the door to his dorm opened, seemingly on its own. As he whirled around, reaching for his pistol, he quickly realized there was no one there as it closed. He sighed, looking back at himself in the mirror, cursing silently as a spot of red appeared on his chin. Finishing shaving, he took his towel, dabbing off the blood, replacing it with some ointment. Placing everything back in the vanity, he turned around and scanned the room. Looking at his bed, he saw the mattress was sagging at one specific spot.

"You're not fooling anyone. Easy to spot this close."

Out of thin air materialized the scantily-clad sniper. Antelope's lip curled in an involuntary look of disgust at the former Cipher agent, something Quiet seemed unbothered by. "What do you want?"

She said nothing, simply looking back at him. "For the love of God, drop the act." he snorted contemptuously. "I know us Rhodesian pilots didn't like it when women talked too much, but not talking at all is just going too far." he continued jokingly, it evidently falling flat by the unamused expression on her face.

She gestured with her hands in a writing motion.

"Pen and pad?"

She nodded.

"Fine." he said, pulling a pen out of his sleeve pockets and a pad usually reserved for operational notes out of one of his flightsuit's breastpockets, handing them over to her as she began writing.

She handed the pad back to him. Her writing wasn't half-bad. Certainly better than his chicken scratchings. You're not the usual pilot who flew, who are you?

"Me? Guess I'm the new…Pequod, is it? That is, if Eagle ends up going to Tsanga Tsanga."

She cocked an eyebrow.

"Right…Valhalla?"

She nodded in understanding, and gestured at the note again.

"Don't know how it's your business, but it can't hurt. Winged Antelope, formerly known as Flight Lieutenant Christopher Gerry, Rhodesian Air Force." he said, the latter part of his sentence laced with pride. He handed the pad back to her, and she began writing again.

Rhodesia?

"Yes, the green and white? Unilateral independence, now that shithole known as Zimbabwe because of yo-because of Cipher."

Her eyes became downcast for a moment.

I know.

"How, hm? Do you actually have a pang of regret for what the people you worked for did in Rhodesia?" he spat back. He wasn't sure how old she was, but she was certainly old enough to remember the country.

Yes.

"Were you there?"

Yes.

"With who?"

Quiet's mind began to race. It was obvious the Rhodesian pilot was studying her, and not the same kind of studying that most of the guards did when they first saw her.

I was born in Rhodesia.

"Really? What city?"

Bulawayo.

Her heart beat quicker as she grew increasingly nervous, silently thanking the parasites for the fact she could no longer sweat. She had faced her past with Big Boss and come to see him as a comrade and a friend, and had decided now was the time to confront her past in the southern African country.

And she was regretting it. She had hoped the pilot might be more mellow and less threatening than the former special operations troops that had been brought into Diamond Dogs, but that was not shaping up to be the case. He had seemed almost afraid of her, and not necessarily willing to cause trouble with her, even less so when he was seemingly spending all his energy on mourning the loss of a comrade. But now, face to face, if anything, he seemed angrier than the others.

"Ain't that some shit. That's where I was from. What secondary school did you go to?"

We moved to America when I was young.

"Did you ever return?"

She stared down at the pad, unsure of what to write. She thought of what she had done and seen in the last year of the war in Rhodesia, the killings, the torture of kidnapped Rhodesian officers and men by the guerrillas under the guidance of Cipher, everything. It all came back to her, and even though she had no use for her stomach anymore, she felt sick.

I fought there.

Antelope's mind began to race. Was Cipher actually on the side of Rhodesia? A white woman working side-by-side with ZANLA? They'd have publicized the devil out of it as a sign that the 'racist regime of Rhodesia' as they called it did not have support from either race. "What years?"

1979 to 1980.

He took a deep breath. The final two years of the war that seemingly had defined the rest of his life. "I don't even know why you're talking to me about this. I was Air Force on the frontlines. If anything, you were Rhodesia Regiment alongside the rest of the women who were in the Army, no shared experiences. You don't seem too bent out of shape about what was lost in Rhodesia, and it's not like we can reminisce about our younger days in Bulawayo.

A prolonged silence ensued, the only noise that of the climate control and the pen tapping against the pad.

I want to atone for my sins.

"What is this, confession? Go to the chaplain for that, I don't regret anything I did, and if you fought the terrs, you shouldn't either."

No. For what I did.

"Quit dancing around the issue. What did you do?"

She had dug herself into this hole, now she had no choice. Lying about her service or coming clean, either option was no good.

I was with…them. I did whatever Cipher told me.

"Who's them? The guerrillas?"

Quiet nodded, her eyes downcast.

Antelope was unable to speak. He ran his hand through his hair, and he began taking deeper and deeper breaths. He leaned back against the wall and let out a scream as he began to cry, unsure himself if it was of sadness or of rage.

"You…you and Cipher…you're the reason I'm here today…reason only memories are what I have now…I can never go home." he choked out between sobs.

He put his hand by his side, resting on his Hi-Power, another piece of his past. And then she was gone, leaving him again alone in his dorm room.