---
-I-
---
"BOOM!"
A massive explosion tore through the skies, its loud boom sounding off for miles around. From the cockpit of a Green Earth fighter plane, the pilot could easily tell his squad's mission had been a success. It was simple to realize, seeing as how the Blue Moon bomber that had been flying peacefully, almost dumbfly along in the wide open blue only a minute earlier had horrifically been blown to pieces by a well-aimed missile from one of the five green jets cruising the air.
"That's some good shooting, Gordon. Looks like our mission's done with."
In one of the Green Earth jets, Glenn Gordon was still recovering from the excellent rush of giving the Blue Moon air brigade a very big kick in the pants. It had only taken one missile to demolish the bomber, and they had been fighting the enemy plane for only a little less than a full minute. His position must have been a big help towards remaneuvering the Blue Moon bastard's course straight for the ground in a firey ball of flame, or maybe the bomber was just really old and needed one more mission 'til it hit the retirement field. Too bad if it were the latter.
"That took less time then I thought it would, sir."
"Well, let's head back to base before unexpected company decides to drop in. Blue Moon probably recieved a distress signal from that big old fireball down over yonder before it bit the dust. Or should I say, hit the dust!"
There was always the danger in enemy Fighters being with bombers, accompanying them on their merry little destructive ways. Glenn never liked running into escorts, and, truth be told, he didn't like being one himself. Unfortunately, he already had his next mission lined out in his head. He hadn't recieved an escort mission for quite a while, and it was about due time the higher ups gave him one, along with a few words of wisdom he didn't want from the old retired air people. "Them escort missions are some tough beans to boil," they'd tell him, "you gotta protect them bombers with your own durn life, son, or the mission's sent straight to the boiler room. You wanna go to the boiler room, son?"
He hated escort missions. In fact, so did all the other active pilots who were currently stationed at the Clinton airbase in the northern Green Earth region.
By now, the green Fighters were in a V formation calmly, the flight leader leading the pack. It was the 56th squadron's usual flying routine. They were headed south back to the airbase.
There was no more resistance from the enemy on their way back to the base, save for a few anti-air machines whose controllers must have been drunk at their posts, they were such bad shots. The five planes each landed on the Clinton base's runway one by one until they all were safely on the ground and stopped, each of the jets wondering when it was going to get to show its muscle against the Blue Moon forces again.
As Glenn was struggling to get out of the cockpit of his own Fighter, a Green Earth infantryman who was stationed at the base came jogging up by the aircraft. He panted wheasily, quite out of breath from the quick run over to Glenn and his plane, and attempted to get his words out without fudging them up by gasping for his breath.
"Excuse me (wheeeeze) Lieutenant Gordon, but (gasp) Captain Shamrock wishes (wheeze) to--" The soldier's words were interrupted when he began coughing and hacking noisily, and then started gasping for breath. He grabbed at an inhaler and put it up to his mouth. Seconds later, he lowered the inhaler, free from his asthma attack. Glenn stood there all the while with the most impatient look he could muster onto his face.
"Captain Shamrock is calling you to his office, Lieutenant."
"Thank you, soldier." Glenn quickly saluted the young, air-deprived man as he began walking away with his pilot helmet in his hands. He didn't want to see Clay Shamrock in his flying suit with his short brown hair going every which way it could. He'd change into his casual uniform first.
Only fifteen minutes later, Glenn was walking through the halls of the air base's small office area, heading directly for the glass door with the name of his commander on it: "Capt. Clay William Shamrock".
Clay Shamrock was a rather difficult man to please. When Glenn had first entered the Green Earth air force, Shamrock had taken it upon himself to entrust the poor boy with the oldest model of the Green Earth Fighter available. He then had ordered him to escort a bombing raid over one of Blue Moon's most well known military bases. The bomber had been taken out by anti-air before the pilot had even begun calculating when he was to drop the deadly cargo the doomed thing was carrying, and Glenn was having trouble fighting barely three Blue Moon battle copters with the tub of beet juice he was flying himself. He had fully expected the plane to stop in mid-air as if it were a helicopter, sputter for a second or two, and drop to the dirt like a sack of bricks. He couldn't even remember how he had come back from the mission alive, but Shamrock was mighty displeased with him about the failed mission when he finally came back. He had fully shown it, too.
Glenn nervously knocked on the door. Shamrock looked up from whatever he was doodling at on his desk and, seeing the pilot through the glass, waved for Gordon to step into the room. Glenn carefully shuffled into the office whether he wanted to or not, and took off his officer's cap for a show of respect towards the higher-ranking man before him.
Strangely enough, Shamrock gave him a very encouraging smile, one worthy of appearing on one of those inane Health magazines Glenn had often seen on the shelves of the market in the town near Clinton.
"Lieutenant, so here you are." Glenn smiled back rather unwillingly and nodded some before he stepped closer to the horribly messy desk of his commander's. Shamrock would end up getting right to the point before the Fighter pilot could even utter a single word. "That was some flying you did up there a little while ago, Gordon. I heard how you were doing from Roger Winters during your flight back to base."
Roger Winters was the leader of Glenn's flight, and the son of General John Winters, the chief of command at the 56th Squadron Clinton base. He was a good man to fly with and he was a good man who could get your flaming tail out of trouble quickly. However, if he could, Glenn would choose John Winters' daughter rather than his son as a flight partner anyday for obvious reasons.
"Just trying to get the high score, sir." Shamrock apparently must not have played video games because he obviously didn't understand what Gordon had meant due to the look on his face.
"Right, sure. Well, just for doing a good job..."
Here we go, Glenn thought.
"...I'm going to give you..."
A special mission.
"...a special mission."
Glenn smiled uneasily and shifted from one foot to another while he kept a wary eye on Shamrock. He knew what was about to come. "What might that mission be, sir?"
He knew darned well what it was and both of them knew it, most likely. "Your mission is..."
Please not an escort mission, please not an escort mission, please not an escort mission, please not an escort mission, please not an escort mission.
"...an escort mission."
Something inside Glenn Gordon fell about fifty thousand feet into a small glass of instant sorrow.
"Sir, with all due respect, I would like to request a different mission type."
Shamrock eyed Glenn, a few unknown, probably random thoughts running through his head. Could Gordon be blamed? It seemed as if everyone hated escort missions nowadays, as if they felt being someone's babysitter would give their "rough tough fighter pilot" image a bad look. In reality, escort missions were a load of stress. You had to be close to whatever you were accompanying at all times, you could hardly take your eyes off it. It reminded Glenn of those no-win situations from flight school. It seemed all of the no-win situations in the flight simulator were during escort missions. Maybe that was why everyone hated it, because of that flight sim and all the bad memories of dozens upon dozens of enemy Fighters swarming you and the one other plane you were flying with, the plane you were supposed to be at least mildly protecting.
"Denied."
That was probably what he should have expected. There was no way around it now, so he decided he might as well give it a shot. There wasn't a whole lot of use in putting it off. Glenn found putting off missions he didn't want very comparable to going to the dentist. It's something that's most likely going to seem like Hell in its full rage when you're actually there and doing it, but afterwards, you don't think too much of it. That is, until the next appointment is scheduled.
"Here are your orders, Gordon." Shamrock handed him a sheet of paper detailing the layout of the bombing raid and each member of the raid's tactical objective. His was to guard the two bombers who were hopefully going to destroy the Blue Moon base, and his was the same as a few other pilots who were to escort the bombers. They probably felt the same way he did now, too.
"Yes, sir." Glenn solemnly slid his officer's cap back onto his head and saluted Shamrock In response, he recieved a sleazy salute himself and was motioned for the door as if Shamrock were his governor, telling him when to leave and when not to leave. Glenn quickly made his escape before the Captain could force another order up his nose.
"Hey, pilgrim, get a mosquitoe biting from Cap'n Shamrock?"
One of Glenn's more favored flying partners, Dario Yossarian, had been standing by the door boredly, listening in on the muffled conversation behind the glass. He was another good pilot, one Glenn Gordon could often rely on, but he was also a very good prankster, and proud of it. Glenn basically found him to be a witch's mixture of two of the Orange Star Commanding Officers, Andy and Max, as they were called.
"I really don't feel like talking about that, Dario."
"I can dig it." Yossarian also happened to have a trashbag of bad sayings such as the one he had just blurted out.
Glenn Gordon was well-known and liked for having the keen abilty to know how to have a good time, but he never went to the extremes that Yossarian often went to. A good long while before then at a formal party the allied COs were conducting, a bit before the war, Dario had made quite an impression on another one of the Orange Star Commanding Officers, Nell. Quite an impression, in fact, such a good one that the rather attractive young lady had grabbed a glass of punch and forced it right down Yossarian's uniform shirt, and seeing as how he had come in with Dario, Glenn got kicked right out with him too.
"Did you get signed up for tomorrow's bombing raid?"
"No, and thank you Lord, I say. I wouldn't want to be stuck up there over that bleedin' ant hill with those anti-air bumblers shooting them spitballs up at my plane."
Yossarian hadn't been signed up for the mission. That was a surprise, Glenn and Dario were almost always paired up on escort missions. But then again, Dario had gone on and decided to accept an escort mission that someone who was supposed to do had almost commited an ancient form of killing themselves over. "Maybe I'll get promoted," Dario had spouted.
"Well, Gordo, I've got the day off and I have been bored as a bicycle here waiting for you 'n' Fencer 'n' Krazy Kel or someone to finish your flights, let's go to into town and get plastered or somethin'."
"Ten-HUT!" Someone in the halls who had spotted a newcomer coming in had called out the command that got quite alot of attention.
Suddenly, everyone who was walking along beside Glenn and Dario in the halls stood fully upright, put their feet together, and put their hands to their sides as they looked straight ahead at nothing in particular. It wasn't strange to Glenn and Dario because they happened to be doing the same. If they weren't doing what everyone else was suddenly doing, whoever had walked in would probably feel quite dissapointed in their disrespectfulness.
A gray-haired man in a flying uniform walked down the halls, and eventually past the two Fighter pilots who were still by Captain Shamrock's glass door.
When the man took a corner that went towards the General's office, everyone in the hall began going about their business again. Dario folded his arms with a smile.
"Didn't know Eagle was gonna be here."
"Well, he pops in sometimes unexpectedly, you have to be ready. He probably just wants to discuss strategy with the General."
"Yeah. Although it's unexpected like you said, it's always nice to see him."
Glenn was personally glad he was in the air force and not the navy. If he were in the latter, he had an unwavering feeling that the person who "popped in" every once in a while at the ports would not be a man he looked forward to seeing, unlike Eagle. He could still remember formally meeting the commander of the Green Earth sea forces once at the same casual party Dario had put the moves on Nell on. "Arrr, ye hawk-eyed buzzards bein' behaved for me favorite landlubber Eagle? Ye winds blowin' north fer ye these seastormin' days of belligerence?" The rest of Drake's sentences had been impossible for the average man to sort out and understand completely. Glenn had given up halfway through.
"Well... Let's just forget going into town, Dario. I think I'm just gonna hang out in the barracks and get out a book, I guess." This immediately caused Dario to scrunch up his face in doubt and give Glenn the silliest look ever.
"A book? Why would you want to read a book? We got television, boy, television! You can't get something like that action scene in 'The Watrix' out of a million-page, dusty, old, chunka disintegratin' paper scrap like a book."
"Dario Yossarian, you need to look at your words a little closer." Glenn got tired of Dario's uncensored mouth sometimes, and this time was no exception. "I'm going back to the barracks." Before Yossarian could give him some more useless nonsense, Glenn stepped past his friend and down the halls.
Dario gave his friend a stubborn look. "Yeah well, I can name a few programs on TV that you can't get from books," he said to himself with a wretched grin. "Most of the time, anyway."
It was later in the evening, about eight, when the barracks were pretty much full of everyone in the 56th squadron. Glenn was lying on his bed, still scanning the pages of a random novel that Henry, the base librarian, had recommended to him. Dario was right about one thing. Sometimes, television was alot more interesting than books. This particular paperheap that he had rented was probably the most dull thing he had ever decided to lay his eyes on.
Right about then, Captain Shamrock stepped into the barracks. "Listen up, people." Only a few of the military men lying on their bunks actually took the time to lazily move their eyesight towards the officer. "Some of you probably saw Eagle here earlier. Well, he and the General had recieved a message from Blue Moon that said commanding officer Olaf was going to call this base personally tonight. Eagle and Olaf just now finished conversing with each other via telephone. Santa-man apparently got word of the loss of one of his bombers over south Blue Moon territory, and questioned us and our integrity to the 56th about it himself since we're the closest base to the border."
Now, more than a couple of folks in the barracks were listening, including Glenn. "He's obviously made a major note to keep this airbase on his hitlist. Don't sleep too soundly, boys." Captain Shamrock turned on his heel and stepped out the barracks' door, an unhappy look on his face.
Since Eagle had realized that Orange Star and the real Andy were not behind the well-placed attacks on both Yellow Comet and Green Earth, he had decided to go after Olaf and the mysterious CO of a country Glenn did not know of. However, this particular base and along with a few more, were ordered to, instead of going into combat against Orange Star forces, battle against Blue Moon forces. Glenn would personally treat every enemy the same, whether they weren't really supposed to be his enemy or not.
Glenn Gordon wondered to himself when the war would end. He had more than thirty missions to his name now, and almost no botched missions to account for. Unfortunately, as long as a war was still going on, he would have to fight in it whether he wanted to or not.
He sighed as his head hit the pillow on his bunk, and he continued to wonder until he eventually drifted off to sleep for the night.
-I-
---
"BOOM!"
A massive explosion tore through the skies, its loud boom sounding off for miles around. From the cockpit of a Green Earth fighter plane, the pilot could easily tell his squad's mission had been a success. It was simple to realize, seeing as how the Blue Moon bomber that had been flying peacefully, almost dumbfly along in the wide open blue only a minute earlier had horrifically been blown to pieces by a well-aimed missile from one of the five green jets cruising the air.
"That's some good shooting, Gordon. Looks like our mission's done with."
In one of the Green Earth jets, Glenn Gordon was still recovering from the excellent rush of giving the Blue Moon air brigade a very big kick in the pants. It had only taken one missile to demolish the bomber, and they had been fighting the enemy plane for only a little less than a full minute. His position must have been a big help towards remaneuvering the Blue Moon bastard's course straight for the ground in a firey ball of flame, or maybe the bomber was just really old and needed one more mission 'til it hit the retirement field. Too bad if it were the latter.
"That took less time then I thought it would, sir."
"Well, let's head back to base before unexpected company decides to drop in. Blue Moon probably recieved a distress signal from that big old fireball down over yonder before it bit the dust. Or should I say, hit the dust!"
There was always the danger in enemy Fighters being with bombers, accompanying them on their merry little destructive ways. Glenn never liked running into escorts, and, truth be told, he didn't like being one himself. Unfortunately, he already had his next mission lined out in his head. He hadn't recieved an escort mission for quite a while, and it was about due time the higher ups gave him one, along with a few words of wisdom he didn't want from the old retired air people. "Them escort missions are some tough beans to boil," they'd tell him, "you gotta protect them bombers with your own durn life, son, or the mission's sent straight to the boiler room. You wanna go to the boiler room, son?"
He hated escort missions. In fact, so did all the other active pilots who were currently stationed at the Clinton airbase in the northern Green Earth region.
By now, the green Fighters were in a V formation calmly, the flight leader leading the pack. It was the 56th squadron's usual flying routine. They were headed south back to the airbase.
There was no more resistance from the enemy on their way back to the base, save for a few anti-air machines whose controllers must have been drunk at their posts, they were such bad shots. The five planes each landed on the Clinton base's runway one by one until they all were safely on the ground and stopped, each of the jets wondering when it was going to get to show its muscle against the Blue Moon forces again.
As Glenn was struggling to get out of the cockpit of his own Fighter, a Green Earth infantryman who was stationed at the base came jogging up by the aircraft. He panted wheasily, quite out of breath from the quick run over to Glenn and his plane, and attempted to get his words out without fudging them up by gasping for his breath.
"Excuse me (wheeeeze) Lieutenant Gordon, but (gasp) Captain Shamrock wishes (wheeze) to--" The soldier's words were interrupted when he began coughing and hacking noisily, and then started gasping for breath. He grabbed at an inhaler and put it up to his mouth. Seconds later, he lowered the inhaler, free from his asthma attack. Glenn stood there all the while with the most impatient look he could muster onto his face.
"Captain Shamrock is calling you to his office, Lieutenant."
"Thank you, soldier." Glenn quickly saluted the young, air-deprived man as he began walking away with his pilot helmet in his hands. He didn't want to see Clay Shamrock in his flying suit with his short brown hair going every which way it could. He'd change into his casual uniform first.
Only fifteen minutes later, Glenn was walking through the halls of the air base's small office area, heading directly for the glass door with the name of his commander on it: "Capt. Clay William Shamrock".
Clay Shamrock was a rather difficult man to please. When Glenn had first entered the Green Earth air force, Shamrock had taken it upon himself to entrust the poor boy with the oldest model of the Green Earth Fighter available. He then had ordered him to escort a bombing raid over one of Blue Moon's most well known military bases. The bomber had been taken out by anti-air before the pilot had even begun calculating when he was to drop the deadly cargo the doomed thing was carrying, and Glenn was having trouble fighting barely three Blue Moon battle copters with the tub of beet juice he was flying himself. He had fully expected the plane to stop in mid-air as if it were a helicopter, sputter for a second or two, and drop to the dirt like a sack of bricks. He couldn't even remember how he had come back from the mission alive, but Shamrock was mighty displeased with him about the failed mission when he finally came back. He had fully shown it, too.
Glenn nervously knocked on the door. Shamrock looked up from whatever he was doodling at on his desk and, seeing the pilot through the glass, waved for Gordon to step into the room. Glenn carefully shuffled into the office whether he wanted to or not, and took off his officer's cap for a show of respect towards the higher-ranking man before him.
Strangely enough, Shamrock gave him a very encouraging smile, one worthy of appearing on one of those inane Health magazines Glenn had often seen on the shelves of the market in the town near Clinton.
"Lieutenant, so here you are." Glenn smiled back rather unwillingly and nodded some before he stepped closer to the horribly messy desk of his commander's. Shamrock would end up getting right to the point before the Fighter pilot could even utter a single word. "That was some flying you did up there a little while ago, Gordon. I heard how you were doing from Roger Winters during your flight back to base."
Roger Winters was the leader of Glenn's flight, and the son of General John Winters, the chief of command at the 56th Squadron Clinton base. He was a good man to fly with and he was a good man who could get your flaming tail out of trouble quickly. However, if he could, Glenn would choose John Winters' daughter rather than his son as a flight partner anyday for obvious reasons.
"Just trying to get the high score, sir." Shamrock apparently must not have played video games because he obviously didn't understand what Gordon had meant due to the look on his face.
"Right, sure. Well, just for doing a good job..."
Here we go, Glenn thought.
"...I'm going to give you..."
A special mission.
"...a special mission."
Glenn smiled uneasily and shifted from one foot to another while he kept a wary eye on Shamrock. He knew what was about to come. "What might that mission be, sir?"
He knew darned well what it was and both of them knew it, most likely. "Your mission is..."
Please not an escort mission, please not an escort mission, please not an escort mission, please not an escort mission, please not an escort mission.
"...an escort mission."
Something inside Glenn Gordon fell about fifty thousand feet into a small glass of instant sorrow.
"Sir, with all due respect, I would like to request a different mission type."
Shamrock eyed Glenn, a few unknown, probably random thoughts running through his head. Could Gordon be blamed? It seemed as if everyone hated escort missions nowadays, as if they felt being someone's babysitter would give their "rough tough fighter pilot" image a bad look. In reality, escort missions were a load of stress. You had to be close to whatever you were accompanying at all times, you could hardly take your eyes off it. It reminded Glenn of those no-win situations from flight school. It seemed all of the no-win situations in the flight simulator were during escort missions. Maybe that was why everyone hated it, because of that flight sim and all the bad memories of dozens upon dozens of enemy Fighters swarming you and the one other plane you were flying with, the plane you were supposed to be at least mildly protecting.
"Denied."
That was probably what he should have expected. There was no way around it now, so he decided he might as well give it a shot. There wasn't a whole lot of use in putting it off. Glenn found putting off missions he didn't want very comparable to going to the dentist. It's something that's most likely going to seem like Hell in its full rage when you're actually there and doing it, but afterwards, you don't think too much of it. That is, until the next appointment is scheduled.
"Here are your orders, Gordon." Shamrock handed him a sheet of paper detailing the layout of the bombing raid and each member of the raid's tactical objective. His was to guard the two bombers who were hopefully going to destroy the Blue Moon base, and his was the same as a few other pilots who were to escort the bombers. They probably felt the same way he did now, too.
"Yes, sir." Glenn solemnly slid his officer's cap back onto his head and saluted Shamrock In response, he recieved a sleazy salute himself and was motioned for the door as if Shamrock were his governor, telling him when to leave and when not to leave. Glenn quickly made his escape before the Captain could force another order up his nose.
"Hey, pilgrim, get a mosquitoe biting from Cap'n Shamrock?"
One of Glenn's more favored flying partners, Dario Yossarian, had been standing by the door boredly, listening in on the muffled conversation behind the glass. He was another good pilot, one Glenn Gordon could often rely on, but he was also a very good prankster, and proud of it. Glenn basically found him to be a witch's mixture of two of the Orange Star Commanding Officers, Andy and Max, as they were called.
"I really don't feel like talking about that, Dario."
"I can dig it." Yossarian also happened to have a trashbag of bad sayings such as the one he had just blurted out.
Glenn Gordon was well-known and liked for having the keen abilty to know how to have a good time, but he never went to the extremes that Yossarian often went to. A good long while before then at a formal party the allied COs were conducting, a bit before the war, Dario had made quite an impression on another one of the Orange Star Commanding Officers, Nell. Quite an impression, in fact, such a good one that the rather attractive young lady had grabbed a glass of punch and forced it right down Yossarian's uniform shirt, and seeing as how he had come in with Dario, Glenn got kicked right out with him too.
"Did you get signed up for tomorrow's bombing raid?"
"No, and thank you Lord, I say. I wouldn't want to be stuck up there over that bleedin' ant hill with those anti-air bumblers shooting them spitballs up at my plane."
Yossarian hadn't been signed up for the mission. That was a surprise, Glenn and Dario were almost always paired up on escort missions. But then again, Dario had gone on and decided to accept an escort mission that someone who was supposed to do had almost commited an ancient form of killing themselves over. "Maybe I'll get promoted," Dario had spouted.
"Well, Gordo, I've got the day off and I have been bored as a bicycle here waiting for you 'n' Fencer 'n' Krazy Kel or someone to finish your flights, let's go to into town and get plastered or somethin'."
"Ten-HUT!" Someone in the halls who had spotted a newcomer coming in had called out the command that got quite alot of attention.
Suddenly, everyone who was walking along beside Glenn and Dario in the halls stood fully upright, put their feet together, and put their hands to their sides as they looked straight ahead at nothing in particular. It wasn't strange to Glenn and Dario because they happened to be doing the same. If they weren't doing what everyone else was suddenly doing, whoever had walked in would probably feel quite dissapointed in their disrespectfulness.
A gray-haired man in a flying uniform walked down the halls, and eventually past the two Fighter pilots who were still by Captain Shamrock's glass door.
When the man took a corner that went towards the General's office, everyone in the hall began going about their business again. Dario folded his arms with a smile.
"Didn't know Eagle was gonna be here."
"Well, he pops in sometimes unexpectedly, you have to be ready. He probably just wants to discuss strategy with the General."
"Yeah. Although it's unexpected like you said, it's always nice to see him."
Glenn was personally glad he was in the air force and not the navy. If he were in the latter, he had an unwavering feeling that the person who "popped in" every once in a while at the ports would not be a man he looked forward to seeing, unlike Eagle. He could still remember formally meeting the commander of the Green Earth sea forces once at the same casual party Dario had put the moves on Nell on. "Arrr, ye hawk-eyed buzzards bein' behaved for me favorite landlubber Eagle? Ye winds blowin' north fer ye these seastormin' days of belligerence?" The rest of Drake's sentences had been impossible for the average man to sort out and understand completely. Glenn had given up halfway through.
"Well... Let's just forget going into town, Dario. I think I'm just gonna hang out in the barracks and get out a book, I guess." This immediately caused Dario to scrunch up his face in doubt and give Glenn the silliest look ever.
"A book? Why would you want to read a book? We got television, boy, television! You can't get something like that action scene in 'The Watrix' out of a million-page, dusty, old, chunka disintegratin' paper scrap like a book."
"Dario Yossarian, you need to look at your words a little closer." Glenn got tired of Dario's uncensored mouth sometimes, and this time was no exception. "I'm going back to the barracks." Before Yossarian could give him some more useless nonsense, Glenn stepped past his friend and down the halls.
Dario gave his friend a stubborn look. "Yeah well, I can name a few programs on TV that you can't get from books," he said to himself with a wretched grin. "Most of the time, anyway."
It was later in the evening, about eight, when the barracks were pretty much full of everyone in the 56th squadron. Glenn was lying on his bed, still scanning the pages of a random novel that Henry, the base librarian, had recommended to him. Dario was right about one thing. Sometimes, television was alot more interesting than books. This particular paperheap that he had rented was probably the most dull thing he had ever decided to lay his eyes on.
Right about then, Captain Shamrock stepped into the barracks. "Listen up, people." Only a few of the military men lying on their bunks actually took the time to lazily move their eyesight towards the officer. "Some of you probably saw Eagle here earlier. Well, he and the General had recieved a message from Blue Moon that said commanding officer Olaf was going to call this base personally tonight. Eagle and Olaf just now finished conversing with each other via telephone. Santa-man apparently got word of the loss of one of his bombers over south Blue Moon territory, and questioned us and our integrity to the 56th about it himself since we're the closest base to the border."
Now, more than a couple of folks in the barracks were listening, including Glenn. "He's obviously made a major note to keep this airbase on his hitlist. Don't sleep too soundly, boys." Captain Shamrock turned on his heel and stepped out the barracks' door, an unhappy look on his face.
Since Eagle had realized that Orange Star and the real Andy were not behind the well-placed attacks on both Yellow Comet and Green Earth, he had decided to go after Olaf and the mysterious CO of a country Glenn did not know of. However, this particular base and along with a few more, were ordered to, instead of going into combat against Orange Star forces, battle against Blue Moon forces. Glenn would personally treat every enemy the same, whether they weren't really supposed to be his enemy or not.
Glenn Gordon wondered to himself when the war would end. He had more than thirty missions to his name now, and almost no botched missions to account for. Unfortunately, as long as a war was still going on, he would have to fight in it whether he wanted to or not.
He sighed as his head hit the pillow on his bunk, and he continued to wonder until he eventually drifted off to sleep for the night.