Forty Years of This [Monster Hunter World]

Chapter 42

 "██████? Can I call you that?" The Commander took a seat next to the dejected Analytics Director. The stress was wrecking everyone in Astera, and even though they'd managed to get a functional supply line, the Research Master had chosen to remain at the crash site. The Analytics Director was taking it particularly poorly.

"Of course, Commander. I suppose you are here to talk to me about my replacement. I have some recommendations if you would like them." His voice wavered, and he stared blankly ahead of him. There was something about him that reminded the Commander of the Quartermaster, but he couldn't place what.

"No, I'm not. I don't have anyone who could replace you, nor do I want to." He dropped a hand on the man's shoulder. "You weren't responsible for this. Not on your own."

"I am responsible for the first event in the chain that led to this. I am responsible."

"Horse shit." The Commander glared at the man and gripped his shoulder tighter. "Don't you dare undermine my authority with such claims. Three fleet commanders, two airship engineers, and our head engineer all agreed that the ship was ready for the flight. The Research Master chose the route the airship took, and whether or not she intended to cross over the raths' territory, no one could have expected it to go so poorly. Look at me, man."

The Analytics Director didn't want to face the Commander. He didn't want to turn and see the man's steely gaze set upon him. He didn't want to see that determined fury. He wanted to curl up and hide away, to undo his mistake, but he couldn't. When the Commander shook his shoulder a second time, he turned towards him.

"That's a good man." There were few people who were immune to the Commander's confident grin, and even the Analytics Director, so deeply entrenched in his grief and guilt, found himself smiling back. "You feel guilty, and I understand that more than anyone else here. The only way I know how to work through that is to get back to work, so I want you to redouble your efforts in the supply line and find the four most self sufficient hunters to station at the Research Base to keep it supplied with the resources surrounding it. Understood?"

"Yessir."

"Good." The Commander stood. "Then find the Quartermaster in the warehouse, and see what he has planned already."

The Commander felt like he aged immensely in the years that followed, but with the incredible stress came immense joy, as two years after his grandson had been born, his daughter had a daughter of her own. For awhile, when the boy and his sister were still small, the Commander could rough house with them. He could show them how to hold a stick like they might a sword, and while his granddaughter eventually grew bored of it and began to follow in her more bookish father's footsteps, the Commander's grandson grew more eager with every passing year.

The boy hung on his grandfather's stories. He listened with awe sitting on the Commander's knee as the man recounted the perilous journey to Astera, how he met his grandpops, and how he thought they wouldn't make it to shore. He told him about the first time he flew on a wingdrake and smacked right into a tree and about his final encounter with the anjanarth that ruined his knee and stopped his hunts forever. The last one was always a cautionary tale. He told it with a grim voice and a fearful heart so that his grandson would never treat the hunt as flippantly as he had. This only put a serious expression on the boy's face, and deep in his heart he vowed he would learn from his grandfather's errors.

When his third grandchild was born, the Commander's daughter quietly decided she would return to the old world. Her kids were two years apart each, and when her eldest was five, she began to suggest the idea of leaving to her fathers. The Commander was fifty. He never imagined he'd have three grandbabies much less three grandkids at his young age. The years flew by, but he could feel the longing to return home in his daughter and son-in-law. His parents had never gotten to see their grandchildren, and the Commander couldn't hold them there forever. He couldn't hold them there at all.

On the thirtieth anniversary of the Commission's first landing, the first green sails of the Fourth Fleet were spotted on the horizon. The little boy, his first grandson, clung to the Commander's side while holding out the spy glass. His dark brown hair was getting a little out of hand, and he looked a little like a wild child, but he was learning to stand like his grandfather and emulated him every chance he had that was less exciting than an entirely new fleet arriving on the horizon. His little sister stood next to their mother while their father held his baby brother's hand.

The Commander snorted when he saw a familiar figure in the distance, a tiny shadow, latch on to a wingdrake. He knew immediately what it meant, and he couldn't help but shake his head and laugh. His grandson, confused and amazed, looked up at him with wide eyes.

"Grandpa-- Commander! Is that--"

"It can't be anyone else, kiddo." He ruffled his grandson's hair.

"Oh gods..." The Quartermaster, who had been hanging back with their daughter, grumbled. "The Admiral's back."

People scrambled out of the way to give the Admiral space to land, but the Commander and his grandson held their ground. The Admiral roared upon landing, threw open his arms, and immediately reached for the Commander, scooping him up in a massive hug and spinning the man around.

"Good gods man!" He finally dropped the Commander on the ground. "Every time I come back, there's more of you! Who is this?" He turned his eyes to the boy next to them. "Is this little ████?" He squatted down to be on the kid's level, and the boy took to him immediately.

"Yessir!" The kid stood straight as a rod with his hands behind his back mimicking a commissioner at attention. Or at least what he thought was attention. He'd never actually seen it.

"And is that more of your brood?" The Admiral pointed towards the Commander's family. "Did you find these too? Or are they homegrown?"

The Commander cuffed the Admiral's ear. "Welcome back you oaf. Now brief me on what the Fourth's commander is like."

"Commander? The Fourth doesn't have a commander. I'm in charge of this lot until they get here, then they're your problem. You wanted people to fill in the gaps, but you didn't ask for a replacement."

There was a moment where the Commander parsed what the Admiral said and then a very quiet, " shit. "