The Fifth Sortie [Action/Voice]

[yellowthirteen]

[The winter's finally coming to a close and the weather's finally growing fairer.  This draws the reclusive Yellow 13 out into the village.  Winter was never his favorite season.  The cold weather caused icing problems on many aircraft and snow frequently grounded his squadron's flights back in Erusea.   Spring's coming was a wonderful thing. 

Bored with mostly just reading fiction and studying the few aeronautics textbooks he managed to borrow from the library, Thirteen sought something different.   Here he began browsing the shelves in the history section, where a couple of books caught his eye:  Mobius: How a Single Fighter Plane Turned the Tide of the Usean Continental War  and Operation Katina: Erusea's Last Stand. 

He quickly picked up and checked out these books, and has since moved outside.   He's heading for Good Spirits, where he plans on reading for awhile.  Feel free to run into him on the way or bother him while he's there.  After awhile, though, he'll pick up his journal and speak into it.

His voice carries with it a certain melancholy and fatigue, however.]

Has anyone arrived here... and learned the future of their world?  Beyond the scope of what they could know?  And has that... been a blessing or a curse?

Comments

[voice]

[martelandmany.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry. It's not yet happened to me--I suppose that's a bit of a long story in itself, though--but... You're not alone, I know this much.

[voice]

[yellowthirteen.livejournal.com]

...Thank you, Martel.

...I knew Erusea lost the war. But I really had hoped they would just surrender with dignity rather than drag out such a hopeless conflict.

[voice]

[martelandmany.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry. [She knows she already said this, but... it's difficult not to, at this point.] This isn't the way you should've discovered such things.

[voice]

[yellowthirteen.livejournal.com]

It's okay. I... I couldn't discover it any other way, considering my fate was sealed before I came here.

I'm just... disappointed in my country. To want to unleash the Megalith on the ISAF? Unthinkable, even if they were the enemy. And then the Federal Erusian Air Force High Command and Federal Erusian Navy rebelled against the armistice?

It was a lost cause. Farbanti and our nation had fallen. All it did was cost more lives... mostly Erusian.

[voice]

[martelandmany.livejournal.com]

I'll admit, I'm not well-versed in militant tactics, but... I've come to understand that those in power only rarely wield it as anyone but they themselves see fit. The rest of the world could disagree, but so long as the power or authority is their own, their decision is unshakable.

[voice]

[nightsofrain.livejournal.com]

N-no, I've never found out about that... [Although she is very curious to learn what has become of her world and the people back home since her arrival here...]

[voice]

[yellowthirteen.livejournal.com]

[Kyrie. Last thing she needed was to hear sad news.]

...Sometimes it's for the best. It's better to live to see it happen for yourself.

[voice]

[nightsofrain.livejournal.com]

O-oh...I see... [Or at least she thinks she gets what you mean by that, anyway.]

[voice]

[yellowthirteen.livejournal.com]

Though it may remove uncertainty, knowing the future isn't... always worth it. The journey is always the adventure, not the destination.

Getting there is how you learn and how you grow.

[...His journey had ended in his homeworld, but it lived on here. Even if he could know his future here now, he would refuse it.]

[voice]

[markofthebrave]

[Katara's stuck at home again, and living life through the journals. So she responds to the stranger's entry.]

I did. And it was a good thing. I'd probably be driving myself crazy to get back otherwise. Or, well, more crazy. Why do you ask?

[Voice]

[yellowthirteen.livejournal.com]

[This being some time after his talk with Martel, Thirteen's collected himself a little better.]

...Because I recently learned about what happened to mine. Just was wondering if anyone else had.

I don't believe I've heard your voice before. I'm...

[He hesitates for a moment. Does he even feel like stating his rank and affiliation, given what he had just learned? ...Even if Erusea had gone down the wrong path and he was disappointed in a lot of the leadership, he decided he was still proud of his service to the people in his country.]

Major David Jordan, of the Federal Erusian Air Force. Most people call me Yellow 13.

[Voice]

[markofthebrave]

[...and yet there's still something about the tone in his voice that says it was something bad. Because when she had learned that they had won the war? Nothing, not even being in this place, had been able to touch her relief and enthusiasm. And he's here and nothing he can do can change it anyway. Wow. This place just finds new ways to get worse every day.]

I'm Katara. I've only been here about a month now.

...why do they call you after a color? [Is it his hair?]

[Voice]

[yellowthirteen.livejournal.com]

[...The question brings a smile to his face.]

I'm the flight leader of Erusea's 156th Tactical Fighter Wing. Officially, we're known as Aquila Squadron, but everyone, friend and enemy, knows us better as Yellow Squadron. We get the name from the yellow stripe on our aircraft's wings and tail.

I fly the number thirteen plane, so my callsign to my allies became "Yellow 13."

Voice

[invisible-inuki.livejournal.com]

Yes...I have. And...in my case I think it was a curse and a blessing at the same time.

I found out something happened that I really hoped wouldn't and when I think about that it kind of gets me down, but at the same time it's keep me from worrying about what's going to happen in the future.

[Voice]

[yellowthirteen.livejournal.com]

...Taking the uncertainty out of a situation can help. Hopefully whatever happened is something that can be fixed when you return.

[Voice]

[invisible-inuki.livejournal.com]

It's not actually...I know that for sure. It was the loss of a few people close to me.

[Voice]

[yellowthirteen.livejournal.com]

...I'm very sorry. I didn't intend to dredge up something like that.

[superdropout.livejournal.com]

Sounds like something you'd almost rather not know?

[yellowthirteen.livejournal.com]

...Being willfully ignorant of it would be irresponsible, however.

[...He's had mixed feelings about reading what he has. But even if he'll never live to see it, he still felt responsible to know what his actions may have brought about.]

[superdropout.livejournal.com]

Yeah. You can't ignore stuff like that... if it happened, it happened, right?

[This young soldier surely doesn't have his doubts about things that happened! Oh noooo, no, no, nooooo.]

[yellowthirteen.livejournal.com]

Yes. You can only take responsibility for what happened and accept it. If it's a regret you have, all you can do is work to make things right.

What had happened was out of my hands. But it is still regrettable. If I had been there maybe I could've done something. Stopped some fraction of it from happening.

[god-is-a-dude.livejournal.com]

Given the number of close alternates here, how the hell could you?

[yellowthirteen.livejournal.com]

Learn what happened? ...For me, I found two books written from my world from after the time I arrived here. Their factual information from before the time I left is accurate.

...But "close alternates?" Are you referring to the different worlds from which we all come from?

[god-is-a-dude.livejournal.com]

How the hell do you know that's "your" world? That could have been another world with the same past but it happened to have that future whereas your own might not.

[yellowthirteen.livejournal.com]

[He pauses to think this over. Sounds like something out of a movie or a novel. ...But then again, this whole place did too. Thirteen will chuckle out a laugh of amusement.]

That's a possibility I hadn't thought of at all. Saying that it's... a different reality with very similar circumstances...

Hm. Interesting.