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You Can't Afford To Lose Me, I'm The 37th Best Pilot In The Fleet

You can't ground me. I know you want to, I know in that hardened heart of a five star space admiral with oak clusters that you want to bust me down to private first class, have me bustling K-Rations across the fleet in the crappiest rust-bucket you can get out of mothballs.

Well, guess what, you can't. You can't afford to lose me. I'm your 37th best pilot.

Sure, after Stryker and Killion and Raybird, I mean, their kills together dwarf the next 150 pilots down the roster combined. Everybody knows that. And yeah, okay, number 34th on the list, Lieutenant Caberron, from the Xarglaac Nebula isn't exactly a fighter pilot but can fly a really mean intra-fleet transport, isn't exactly a slouch.

Okay, I get it. You got me. But how many pilots do you have like me?

Not counting number 36th and 38th and the fact that pilots 38-179 are separated by the thinnest scintilla of statistics which would hardly hold up to closer scrutiny.

So how many? That's right, one.

Well, sure, there are plenty of rookies that supposedly could replace me. Whose test scores and simulator results make me wake up in a cold sweat every night. But who would have my imp-- my physical fitness regimen? Not quality, sure. But quantity! Twenty years, Admiral. They can hardly accumulate that many mandatory physical checkups in that time. That many ANNUAL checkups. That's right, they can't. Physically impossible.

And what about that time I saved Stryker and Touchdown from that nasty brushup with the Anptwerk Empire? I think pointing out that I was piloting a battle cruiser at the time and I had warped in to save them with three Starreach frigates, a galaxy class IV Techrion Warlord, and a small sortie of Hyperion star-fighters is being nitpicky, don't you? The fact of the matter was that i was first on the. Yes, by 2 seconds. But 2 seconds, 2 weeks, what does it matter. 2 seconds can get you killed in space.

Which brings me to my ne-- oh, KP duty for a week? That sounds reasonable.

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