Neighbors

by Brian Whiting

  happened to them.” Mason rubbed the back of his neck.

  “We don’t have a treaty with Peru, I don’t think we can interfere with-

  out their consent.” Cindy stared confidently into the tiny camera installed

  on her chair.

  “So we can let people die because we are afraid of border marks on a

  map, or we can go save some lives for the betterment of humanity? Brandy,

  take the Destiny and zap them from the air. As soon as you complete the job, come back home.”

  Brandy’s vid feed went black and the screen adjusted to display the

  three remaining Captains.

  “Alex, you can’t just walk onto someone else’s territory and discharge

  73

  weapons. Some people might call that an act of war,” Jerome said as diplo-matically as he could. “In the navy, we would rather the ship go down with

  all hands lost than to be responsible for the next world war.”

  “I love your perspective, Jerome. However, the people dying right now

  never made that choice. They are innocent and oblivious to what’s about

  to happen to them. If I can save an innocent life now, I’ll face the conse-

  quences on the world stage later.”

  * * *

  Brandy turned to her XO, another recent addition to the UEF. Jiya Pomish

  was recently a wing commander in the Indian military, before being

  poached to join UEF’s elite piloting program.

  “We cannot follow that order!” Jiya stood confidently in front of Brandy.

  “You bet your ass we can!” Brandy looked at Stacy, who was in the pilot

  seat. “Plot a course and make it happen.”

  “They will shoot us out of the sky!”

  “I don’t know, I think Alex wanted this ship to do the job because it’s

  recognizable. I bet we won’t receive that kind of resistance.”

  Jiya returned to her command chair and typed out her disagreement

  with the order in the ship’s log. Brandy knew exactly what she was doing

  and rolled her eyes, returning to her own command chair. It wasn’t the first

  time her XO wrote such logs. She fell into the habit of doing so when their

  first disagreement occurred. Brandy made an off the cuff remark that if she

  wasn’t happy about it, she should write a report. Since then, she’d been

  writing reports almost daily.

  Looking at her communications officer, Brandy continued, “Try to

  reach someone from their government, let them know why we’re coming.”

  The Destiny was already descending into the atmosphere. Brandy

  looked over at Jiya, who was still typing, despite the turbulence. It didn’t

  take long before Stacy had the ship in Peru’s airspace.

  “Take us to the location of the Zorn attack.”

  The Destiny descended a little more, from forty thousand feet to about five hundred feet above the earth. Looking down at the country made

  Brandy feel almost giddy. Peru was covered by dense jungle, with the occa-

  sional clearing for a city, industrial facility or military base.

  74

  “I’ve got two—no, make that four inbound fighters.”

  Display screen three zoomed in, displaying four SU-25’s gaining alti-

  tude from a nearby airfield. Brandy barely glanced at them, scanning the

  ground and trees for signs of the drones.

  “I’ve got someone on the radio. They say that we are violating their air-

  space and to leave immediately.” Jiya looked at Brandy with such a smirk,

  she wanted to slap it off her face.

  “How far are we from the Zorn attack location?”

  “We are right above it, ma’am.”

  Brandy looked at the screen. Display two actively searched for Zorn

  drone sightings as one of her other officers manipulated a camera. She

  couldn’t see any sign of the drones.

  “You cannot be considering to ignore them.” Jiya’s eyes were wide, her

  arms outstretched towards the fighters on the screen.

  “Send a response that on behalf of the UEF. We wish to stop the death

  of Peruvian citizens by killing the Zorn drones attacking their cities.”

  The camera spotted a small scattering of people running in one direc-

  tion. The camera shifted behind them, searching out the cause of the peo-

  ples’ alarm.

  “Response received. Final warning, leave our airspace or be destroyed.”

  The communication officer turned to face Brandy. She and Jiya were fixated

  on each other, like some kind of staring contest.

  “Fine. Take us out of their airspace!”

  Stacy wasted no time maneuvering the ship west, out of their airspace,

  while the communication officer indicated compliance to the incom-

  ing pilots.

  “There they are!”

  Brandy and Jiya both looked at screen two. Two Zorn drones scur-

  ried nearly side by side as they ran forward, impaling any person unlucky

  enough to be within striking range. The bridge crew watched as a family of

  three broke cover from behind a car and tried to outrun the drones.

  The humans could not outrun them. A little girl no older than eight

  ran the slowest, so the father picked her up in his arms. None of them were

  going to make it.

  “Fire! ” Brandy shouted.

  75

  Her tactical officer already had sights on the Zorn and fired a one-second beam at the creature, killing it instantly while causing minimal damage

  to the roadway underneath the creature.

  The second creature darted off in another direction, but it didn’t stop

  the tactical officer from trying to get a quick beat on it.

  “Missile launch!” come from the sensor operator. “Two miles imminent.”

  Stacy didn’t need to be told twice. She pivoted the discs and increased

  power. The missiles missed the ship by a few yards.

  “Missile launch!” the call came again.

  Stacy leveled the disks and applied a little too much power as the ship

  bounded vertically. Everyone on the bridge was pulled to the floor, the

  g-forces smacking limbs hard against the floor or pulling people down with

  a horrible crunch. Cries of pain and alarm rattled across the bridge as the

  pressure finally relented, and people were able to assess their injuries.

  “Fighters are following, missile still inbound!” the sensor operator said,

  nursing her right wrist.

  The missile wasn’t much faster than the Destiny, but it didn’t need to be. When the fighters launched the missile, they were within gun range.

  Now the missile was less than a quarter-mile away and closing fast.

  Without considering if it was a good idea, the tactical officer rotated

  the turret around and zoomed all the way out. It was easy to find the mis-

  sile thanks to the contrail streaking across the sky. With a two-second shot

  with the laser, the missile exploded in the sky, a few hundred yards from

  the Destiny.

  “Missile launch, times four.”

  “Get us out of here!” Brandy snapped, nursing a broken finger.

  “Increasing speed!”

  The ship shuddered at their alarming speed. Increasing it made Brandy

  fear they might break the ship apart as they outran the missiles. Within a

  few moments, they were well above the altitude envelope for both the fight-

  ers and their missiles.

  When the shuddering stopped, Brandy knew they were far in the upper

&n
bsp; atmosphere, where turbulence and gravity had less effect on the crew.

  Despite the high altitude, the tactical officer turned back to locate the Zorn 76

  drone again, zooming in to get a clear image. In a few moments, the image blurred and faded white as a large patch of clouds got in the way.

  “Your blinded devotion nearly got us killed! We could have been

  killed!” Jiya yelled at Brandy.

  “I’ll sleep well tonight knowing that we saved that family from certain

  death!” Brandy responded calmly. Getting tired of the overzealous XO.

  Jiya screamed between her clenched teeth, then yelled, “Permission to

  leave the bridge.”

  “Please do.” Brandy smiled coldly, as did the tactical officer. It didn’t

  faze her that other officers might look down on them over their exchange.

  “Send a message to Alex. Eliminated one drone before we were fired upon

  by the Peruvian government.”

  The communication officer nodded and type out a message.

  77

  Chapter 7

  It’s Always About Perception

  “I’VE RECEIVED TWO emails in the last two hours from the Destiny’ s

  XO.” Alex looked at Mason and Cindy as they sat together on a couch in

  his office while he found his own comfortable chair.

  “Jackie’s prepping a video to be released to the website. I am not sure

  you’re gonna like it.” Mason glanced at Cindy.

  “What do you mean?” Alex replied as he pulled out his data pad to

  review the emails.

  Mason adjusted his shirt. “They decided to do a special over the

  incident.”

  “Well, good, I don’t mind saving lives and looking good while doing it!”

  Mason pressed his lips together tightly and dropped his head slightly.

  “What?” Alex looked at him with growing concern.

  “They are going to headline the special ‘Rogue Captain’.”

  Alex looked up from his pad. Mason could see his mind turn. Alex

  picked up his cell phone to call Renee.

  “Hello, Alex,” Renee said in a patronizing tone.

  “What’s this I’m hearing about rogue captains? You think that we have

  rogue captains flying ships?”

  “No, I do not.”

  Laura opened the door to Alex’s office and walked over to him. “Renee is here to see you. Can I let her in?”

  “Get in here!” Alex shouted, not wanting to bother with the phone

  any longer.

  Laura and Renee smirked as they passed each other. Renee sat in the

  other single chair left available around the glass coffee table.

  “If you don’t think we have rogue captains, why are you calling it that?”

  “I am not calling it that!”

  “When you title the article ‘Rogue Captain’, you’re suggesting there are

  rogue captains. I can’t believe I have to explain this to you!” Alex’s expres-

  sion was a mix of confusion and outrage.

  Renee took a deep sigh. “No, Alex, when I title the report ‘Rogue

  Captain’, it’s the title of a report. Nowhere in the report do I suggest that

  anyone is actually going rogue.”

  Alex looked at Cindy and Mason for support, but they were silent on

  the matter. “Why are you misleading the readers?”

  “I am not! I can title the report whatever I want. I am not defaming or

  suggesting anything of the sort.”

  “Then why label it that?” Alex’s voice began to rise with exasperation.

  “In the media world, it’s called a ‘hook’.”

  “We have hundreds of millions of visitors to our site daily. You think

  you need to find a hook to get more readers?”

  “When this special airs, it will break one billion views, thanks in part

  to the hook.”

  “So, you’re willing to distort people’s perceptions to make a bit

  of history?”

  “If the viewers’ opinions are swayed by the headline and they don’t

  care enough to read the material, then their opinion doesn’t mean much to

  me anyway.”

  “This is the kind of crap that gives media a sour reputation. You’re mis-

  leading people! Someone out there who doesn’t have the time to watch the

  bloody thing is going to make a snap opinion based solely on the headline.”

  “And their opinion matters to you?”

  “Those opinions generate real consequences. What the hell? You

  get enough people to believe a false view, it becomes a reality to them.

  79

  Then you’ve got protests, demonstrations, legislation, all because of a misconception.”

  “I think you’re overreacting.”

  Alex was flabbergasted that Renee could be so short-sighted. His mind

  stumbled over itself as he reset his perception of Renee. The question of if

  he made a good choice to place her as the UEF media liaison rose to mind.

  “Surely you can see Alex’s point of view, right?” Mason said, looking

  at Renee.

  “Of course, but again, I am putting all the information out there. If

  they want to develop a religion over the article, that’s their choice.” Renee

  stood up and walked out of the room.

  “Renee,” Alex said.

  She stopped and slowly turned around to look Alex in the eye. “Don’t

  you dare say anything you’ll regret later. Up to this point, you’ve always

  been completely transparent. That transparency has gifted you with mil-

  lions, if not billions, of devoted supporters. You start restricting or editing your looking glass now, and it will be the start of the downfall.”

  Mason stood up. Cindy reached out and barely touched his leg with

  hers. It was enough to stop him from going further. Alex leaned back in his

  seat as Renee left the room. The artery in Alex’s neck pulsed, in contradic-

  tion to his apparent ease.

  “Transparency is a double edge sword,” Mason said calmly.

  Alex glared at him for a split second. “What do you mean?”

  “She’s right. You’ve always been transparent. Don’t step off that path

  now. Let her twist the words, if that’s what she’s doing. It will come back to bite her later if she does.”

  Alex closed his eyes and counted back from five, with deep breaths

  between each number. “I cannot stand it when people lie to further

  their agenda.”

  * * *

  After discussing Jiya’s emails at length with the other UEF Captains, Alex

  called Brandy and Jiya into his office. They sat down together on the oppo-

  site side of the large conference table , and he looked at the clock; the spe-

  cial one-hour program would be uploaded any minute.

  80

  “I’ve read both of your reports, so I’ll save you from having to speak of the events again. I am more interested in why you two don’t get along.”

  “Sir, if I may?” Jiya nodded at Alex’s waved hand. “My captain does

  not respect procedure, international laws, or even common sense. I will be

  writing an official request for a change of assignment.”

  Alex looked at Brandy, who slightly shrugged her shoulders and tilted

  her head while raising an eyebrow. Then returned his gaze to Jiya.

  “I am right here, you know, you can ask me directly, right? Where do

  you think those change of assignment reports go to?”

  “That’s not the proper way.”

  “I think I see the problem.” Alex leaned ba
ck in his chair. “Jiya… I

  imagine the Indian government had very strict protocols and expectations

  to become a pilot in their military.”

  She nodded abruptly.

  “Well, I appreciate that level of commitment. I am sure it was one of

  the things that popped out during your hiring process. In this organization,

  there is a bit of leeway in following protocol when lives hang in the balance.

  It’s also about practicality.”

  Even as he said it, he could think of many situations where following

  protocol is exactly what is necessary and felt a bit deflated that he wasn’t

  getting his own point across. He stood up and turned around to face out

  the large window.

  “Sometimes as a leader, you need to think outside the box. Have you

  heard this expression?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Then you know there are times you need to go beyond the rules to

  fulfill a greater need, or to accomplish something the writers of those pro-

  cedures could not foresee. Let’s take the recent situation, for example. Had

  you not killed that drone, there would be more dead people.”

  “Yet you do not know the consequences of her decision, and that is

  my point. Once the sum is tallied, then we will know if she made the right

  decision to break the law.”

  Alex considered her words, perhaps longer then her should have.

  “One day you’re going to make an excellent Captain… I’ve decided to

  accept your transfer request. You will become Cindy’s new XO, but there

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  she will become your mentor. You will learn her way of doing things and understand why she makes the decisions she does. If she breaks with the

  rule of law, you will see it as a learning opportunity, and not something that needs to be documented. Is this acceptable to you?”

  “Of course!” Jiya said with wide, eager eyes. Alex assumed she would be

  pleased to work with Cindy.

  Brandy’s face became hard. “Jiya, please pack your belongings from the

  Destiny and report to Cindy.” Brandy waited for the woman to leave the room before rounding on Alex. “Permission to speak?”

  “No,” Alex said sarcastically, hiding a smirk. A display screen in the

  office turned on, as Laura set it up to play as soon as the video was uploaded.

  “We are going to watch this video first, then we’ll talk.”