Chapter Text
He can’t sleep. He’s exhausted from days of nearly non-stop high intensity flying, but he can’t get himself to properly sleep. He manages maybe ten minutes here, twenty minutes there, ut it’s barely enough to even consider it a nap, let alone actual restful sleep.
He wonders if that’s why the Captain, a veteran and certified Ace in his own right, was so haggard looking day in and day out. It wasn’t because he was constantly passed up for promotion or shuffled to a backwater air base training nuggets, but because the paradoxical mix that is combat aviation left him perpetually exhausted yet exhilarated.
He wonders if the Captain had to fly three sorties back to back like they just had, back in the Belkan War. He’d done his history homework on the OADF’s involvement back then, and their sortie count was extremely high, almost on par with those of the Belkans in the first half of the war. Nonstop multi-sorties for the same crews with barely any time to rest or recover.
It’s probably why the OADF and the ODF at large are so watchful about the use of stimulants outside of coffee by serving personnel. No doubt that many a fighter pilot, infantryman, tanker, or whatever were borderline high out of their minds on all kinds of artificial “uppers”.
What’s not helping him is the ambient noise coming from the base. Despite the late… or early hour now, seeing the time indicated on his digital clock by his bedside showing a bright red 0300, there were still damage control and engineering crew cleaning up the mess and wreckage from that night’s air raid. With Sand Island both proverbially and literally the tip of the spear in this war, it was imperative that any negative effects to their combat effectiveness were dealt with quickly.
Even if it meant driving trucks and bulldozers outside of the aircrew sleeping quarters.
Grimacing as another truck rumbled past, he rolls onto his chest and buries his head under his pillow. Maybe, just maybe he could lightly suffocate himself to sleep, just enough to pass out and attempt to get some kind of rest.
Hopefully the Captain is found soon, so he can step back from the lead. He didn’t ask for it, but he also doesn’t begrudge Kei or Alvin for not wanting the top job either. Still, with Bartlett MIA and Ford KIA, and only a skeleton crew of pilots remaining, he was the only one who could really take on the top job as flight lead.
He doesn’t blame Nagase for not wanting to lead, not after losing the Captain. Even if he doesn’t think that glueing herself to his five o’clock as a sort of self-punishment will do any good for her in the long run, he has to respect her decision.
And Davenport? Well… Chopper gets enough flak from the bosses for his attitude as it is… less time spent thinking about him as a flight lead the better. Though with Grimm in the slot as number four and making Chopper the element lead might straighten him out a bit more. That’s certainly what Captain Bartlett was experimenting with on that flight to get that spy plane…
If anything, Grimm might be able to learn a thing or two from him.
He hopes that Bartlett is okay. Given the circumstances, it’s likely that the control ship they’d left alone plucked him out of the water and took him as a prisoner.
That ship made a great target, and honestly he wonders who had the wise idea to leave it alone. Would’ve been a faster mission, as without a control ship those planes would’ve gone down themselves. That and any intelligence they gathered would’ve gone down with the ship.
Then again, they weren’t exactly at war at that moment in time. Had to justify firing on a ship like that outside of wartime…