Sunreach: Skyward Flight

It wasn’t enough to survive for survival’s sake. I wanted to live.

What did it change when any of us were gone? The DDF still churned out more cadets. If they ran out, they’d lower the age to take the pilot’s test and bring them in younger and younger. We’d keep sending groups on missions like this, never knowing if they’d come back, because our survival as a group mattered more than the individuals. I didn’t disagree with that; I saw the logic to it.
But I still wondered: if we didn’t matter as individuals, then what were we saving the group for?

I knew the reason for what we did—and I believed in it, much as I hated what it had done to us as a people. It seemed like that should make me feel better.