Log 05X-2

Log 05X-2

-Author: Rinas Rylos
-Rank: C.E.O.
-Corporation: Rinas' Raiders
-Date: 117.02.14

Y'know, I'd be lying if I said that there wasn't some serenity to the battlefield. Well, not at the start; I still remember my first few battles and the sheer, unabated chaos that come with them. Didn't help that it wasn't just -my- first battle, no, they decided to field multiple blueberries all at once. Not exactly sure how that seemed like a good investment, because I'll tell you right now that it wasn't. Guns firing wildly out into the air, people calling in vehicles they barely had any idea how to use, not to mention our utter lack of actual experience with the equipment. I mean, sure, it's easy to pull the pin on a grenade in VR, or inject myself with an adrenaline booster to keep my failing body up for a few more minutes, but out in the field? You're scrambling just to keep from dropping your weapon, nevermind following orders or god forbid actually shooting someone. It's all you can do to keep from blowing your own head off, especially as gunfire rages around you, along with gunships, tanks, grenades, etc.

 It really doesn't help when you die, since it takes a second for the implant to kick in, and now you're somewhere else and have to reorient yourself to where your allies and enemies are. Honestly, I'm not even sure when I stopped just cowering in a corner; I just remember it kinda...clicking? I guess? One moment I was huddled around my gun, trying not to just lose it and suddenly I quit cowering, took the safety off my auto rifle, and began to check my corners. Immediately got my head blown off by someone on my side, but that's one of the perks of being immortal. It doesn't stick.

But if I'm being honest, that's probably what did me in. Treating it all like clockwork, all mechanical, all routine and instinct doesn't make you a good soldier, and it definitely doesn't make you better off when you're not on the clock. I remember reading accounts from other mercs that just wished they could suck it up on the battlefield, but that's...it doesn't work that way. Either you take it as it comes, or it all comes back to wallop you once everything is over. The pain, the spite, the horror, bottling that shit up just makes it even worse when you do eventually deal with it-And you do, whether you want to or not, sooner or later. The fear is what you have to deal with above everything else, though. Fear makes you miss shots and fumble nanoboosters, makes you dive -at- a grenade instead of away from it because you're too panicked to leap the right way. When you're starting out, fear kills you so much quicker and faster than just about anything your enemy can do to you, and it isn't until you've got it under control that you can actually contribute to a conflict in any meaningful way. I guess it might be different when you're in an actual military, but the, uh, laid-back nature of our industry meant that things like,"orders," and,"a chain of command," were all but total bullshit. Not unless you joined a proper corp, or a legit squad, but...that wasn't really for me. Even back when I had been in a gang, I was such a shit that I'm surprised they didn't try and off my ass sooner. Nothing against cooperation, mind, I watched more than a few squads nearly win entire contracts on their (with some help from me, of course). But at the end of the day, we all went back to our respective apartments and slept in our beds, and I didn't really see camaraderie in faces that were my allies one second and people trying to plant a grenade on my ass the next.

Honestly, I could write until my fingers fell off about the sheer amount of shit happening in any given contract. There's just so much going on in a single battle that it's hard to peg down one specific thing, whether it's the feelings of the soldiers involved, or the logistics of their equipment, or the planning, the execution, the whole conflict at its entirety. And we do this dozens of times a day, shipped all across the stars, loaded down into pods and shot at planets like tiny death machines, which I guess isn't really too far from the truth. At the end of the day, though, we're still people. Just because I get another chance at life every time I die doesn't make getting stabbed any less painful, doesn't make it any less shitty when I miss a shot and an enemy sniper practically takes my fucking head off, it's just... Fuck it, I've made myself depressed. I'm gonna head to bed.