by Daniel Gibbs
“We’ll make up some ground in the outlying and more conservative planets,” Spencer said with a grin. “But not enough to win. I’d rather speak now than stay up until two AM on false hope.”
“Of course, señor. I respect your decision.”
“Allow me to congratulate you on your victory, Eduardo. Well met, and I wish you all success as the next president of the Terran Coalition.”
“Thank you, Mr. President. I thank you for the good wishes, and also allow me to congratulate you on a hard-fought campaign. Even though you weren’t on the ballot, I know you were fighting as hard as possible to ensure Vice President Muraro’s success.”
Ylenia Muraro’s pinky finger would’ve made a better president than you will. “Is there anything I can do for you to make the transition easier?” Spencer asked, forcing himself to keep up the mask of civility and command he was projecting.
“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to cease military activity along the border and pull back our forces?”
“No,” Spencer said flatly, and his smile disappeared mid-word. “There’s only one president at a time. I will notify you of major military operations, but until the inauguration, I will continue to press the war.”
“It may surprise you to know I’m glad for your position.”
Spencer couldn’t help but notice MacIntosh and Dunleavy staring at the device in shock. Okay, that’s a curveball. “Color me quite surprised.”
“I’m not a fool. The League is an evil that required our dedication to defeating it. If you keep up the pressure for the next few months, all the better position for me to get them into a peace treaty we can live with.”
“I’d take this opportunity to remind you millions of soldiers have paid the ultimate price to get the League to where it’s at now, on the brink of defeat. Pressing on and liberating Earth remains the best way to ensure we’ll never have to deal with them again.”
“We… disagree, Mr. President. Respectfully.”
Spencer held up a hand. “I will always state my opinion to you directly.”
“Of course.”
“May I suggest you take some time to try and heal our wounds? This campaign has been brutal. Unlike any I’ve seen in the last twenty years. Those on your side and my side of the aisle have been brutal. We need to show unity.”
“I’ll take that sentiment under advisement,” Fuentes replied, his tone neutral at best.
“Anything else?”
Fuentes shook his head. “My transition team will reach out tomorrow. I wish you goodnight and Godspeed, Justin.”
“Godspeed to you too, Eduardo.”
The screen blinked off, leaving the three of them alone once more.
“What a load of bullcrap,” MacIntosh barked, his face red. “He wants us to keep up the pressure, that little weasel piece of—”
“Language, General!” Spencer said. “This is the people’s house. Treat it with the respect it deserves.”
MacIntosh looked away. “I apologize, sir. My emotions are running a bit high.”
“As are mine.”
“This could end up being positive,” Dunleavy stated. All eyes turned to him before he continued. “The League might not expect us to pour it on. Perhaps Fuentes can get a better deal if we set him up for success. Give him easily defendable supply lines, reinforce Freedom station, above all, get the new ship classes on their shakedown cruises. We must do everything possible to give him a winning hand.”
Spencer nodded. “That’s the spirit.” It’ll kill me inside to cooperate with that man after what he’s said about the Coalition Defense Force the last year during the campaign. He reflected on it for a moment. I suppose it was more what his running mate had to say, rather than him. But still, calling everyone who wears the uniform a baby killer and a thug is disgusting.
MacIntosh stood abruptly and balled his fists. “I am angry. I want to put my fist through something.” His face was blood red, and veins were showing.
“Andrew, calm down,” Spencer said, his tone soft. “It’s the will of the people. You’ve been a soldier for a long time. The office has a way to make you grow into it. I’m certain our new president will be a good one.”
“Sir, I’ve known you too long to believe you’d buy that line of bullcrap from anyone, including yourself.”
Spencer shrugged. “Fake it until you believe it. Because it’ll be up to both of you to make this man see sense and not throw our gains away.”
“Yes, sir,” MacIntosh ground out before turning away to stare out of a window.
I know how he feels. “At the end of the day, all we can do is our best and hope it was enough. I have no regrets. We did all we could, I know that within my heart. Now let’s try to put this out of our minds, because tomorrow is another day.”
“Andrew and I had better be going, sir. So you can get some sleep,” Dunleavy announced, standing as well.
“Thank you, gentlemen.”
As the goodbyes were said and the men left, Spencer was left alone, both physically and in his soul. Staring out into the night sky, he pondered. God… did I do something wrong? Did I let vanity and fame get into my head and corrupt the work? Are you punishing us? He prayed until the wee hours of the morning before finally lying down to sleep.
Pausing for a moment to take his tallit gadol, or prayer shawl, out of its simple embroidered cloth bag, David closed his eyes. He stood outside of the hatch to the synagogue onboard the Lion of Judah and felt a pang in his heart, and he pressed it open to enter. Why is it becoming harder and harder for me to worship as I know I should? Walking into the small space, he made his way to a pew and sat down. The late hour guaranteed few others were present.
He placed his right hand over his eyes. “Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Ehad.” Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. As he opened his eyes, he realized Rabbi Kravitz had appeared and was standing next to him.
“Yes, He is, Colonel. Late night?”
David nodded and stretched his neck. “Very late, Rabbi. How are you?”
“I’m well,” the older man said and sat down next to him. “I must express concern at your lack of attendance to shul lately.”
“I was just thinking about that myself.”
“And?”
Closing his eyes yet again, David felt overwhelmed and uncomfortable. “This constant war, Rabbi. I hate it. It seems as if it’ll never end. I killed dozens of men a few days ago, some of them as I recited a psalm in my mind as I shot them.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought I was going to die, and…” His voice trailed off before he turned and focused on Kravitz. “I wanted a connection with God before I did.”
Kravitz put his hand on David’s shoulder. “We should all try to have a connection with HaShem, my son.”
“I don’t understand why He allows this to continue. The suffering, the killing… as bad as the League is, the man we stopped—Feldt—he makes most Leaguers look decent.”
“We must trust there is a plan, David.”
“Without any insight into what it is? How does that make logical sense?”
Kravitz was silent for a moment. “I see your faith is troubled.”
“Greatly, Rabbi. I don’t focus on it. Instead, I keep forcing myself forward. One step at a time, one battle at a time, one mission at a time. Whenever I stop to think about any of it, I’m faced with an overwhelming sense of dread and depression.”
“And Angie, what does she think about your condition?”
David turned and stared at him. “She doesn’t know.”
“You’re in a relationship, are you not?”
“I can’t tell her any of this, Rabbi.”
“Why not?”
He bit down on his lower lip as thoughts of indecision flooded his brain. Because she’d leave me if she had any idea how messed up inside I am.
“No one is perfect, David. It’s an impossible standard you set for yourself. God doesn’t e
xpect it of you, and the people in your life most certainly don’t.”
“You’ve read the law, right?” David replied, a faint smile coming over his face. “Why is it there, if God doesn’t expect us to be perfect?”
“It’s an ideal to aspire to.”
“Yeah, I leave a lot to be desired in my practice as a Jew.”
“I understand more than most how the person in charge must be resolute, focused, committed, and above all, show they’ve got it together.”
David sighed and let his head drop. “I don’t feel like I have it together, Rabbi. I’m one crisis away from imploding.”
Kravitz harrumphed. “Unlikely. You’ve underestimated yourself from the moment we met. What are the core values of the Coalition Defense Force?”
“Honor, Duty, Courage, Commitment… Faith.”
“I’ve never met a soldier who exemplifies them as well as you.”
David glanced up and made eye contact with the rabbi. “Thank you.”
“You could try letting others in, like your Angie. I’d wager if you told her how you felt, she’d be there for you.”
“I’ve tried letting people in before, Rabbi. I’m not good at it. I go through phases where I do, and then I don’t. You know, I’m great at fighting battles and running a warship. Interpersonal relationships, I suck at.”
“Ah, at least you recognize the problem. There’s hope for you yet,” Kravitz said as he added his rich laughter to the end of the sentence.
“What, you’re a counselor now too?”
“Rabbi, counselor, damage control officer, a sympathetic ear, and an expert on Judaism.”
David allowed himself to snicker. Talking to the old rabbi did help, if only for a few hours. “Thanks.”
“Go talk to your girlfriend. The Torah says God sends us out two by two. It’s not right for a man to be alone.”
“I don’t want to burden her.”
“Just try it.”
What’s the worst that could happen? If he’s wrong, I’d know quickly. Angie isn’t one to sugarcoat her feelings on anything. “Okay,” David finally said, giving in.
“Good. Now, I expect you to come to shul this Saturday, if we’re not off fighting something somewhere else. You need to cleanse your soul, David. It’s essential for us Jews.”
He busted out in a grin in return. “What about the gentiles?”
Kravitz laughed. “They need even more cleansing than we do!”
David slapped the older man on the back and stood up. “Thanks, Rabbi.”
“Anytime.”
“I’ll see you on Saturday.” With a final nod, David made his way out of the synagogue and, as he did, took his prayer shawl off, returning it to the bag his mother had given him for it. Slowly walking through the passageways of the Lion, he struggled to make sense of the conflicting mass of feelings and emotions within him. Arriving back at his quarters, deep in the “officers’ country” area of the ship, he stripped off the navy-blue sweater he wore over his khaki uniform and changed into a pair of athletic shorts.
His tablet device sat on the desk in his quarters, along with a picture of him and Angie in a rotating electronic frame. He picked the tablet up and checked the time back on Canaan—1830 hours. Early enough for her to still be up and not engrossed in dinner yet, hopefully. After checking his communication credit status and making a purchase in fleetlink to top it off, he generated a vidlink call.
It took a few minutes for her smiling face to appear, by which time he’d migrated into bed. “Hey, stranger.”
“Straw, not hay,” David replied with a grin.
“It wasn’t funny the first time, dear.”
He laughed. “I keep hoping you’ll think it’s amusing, at some point.”
“Kind of like the joke about there being a Cohen with two N’s, who isn’t as dashing as you?”
“Yup.”
Angie rolled her eyes, the movement translating across the vidlink and thousands of light-years nearly instantaneously. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine… why do you ask?”
“Because you never call me during the week. Never enough comms credits, remember?”
David bit down on his lip, and his face morphed into a frown. “I was talking to Rabbi Kravitz.”
“He’s not telling you we shouldn’t be together because of our lack of a shared religion, is he?”
“No, he’d never say anything like that to me.”
“I worry about it.”
“We were talking about God’s plan and some problems I’ve been having.”
“I know.”
David’s eyebrows shot up. “You know what?”
“That you're having a rough time lately. You might not realize it, but there are little cues you give off when you're troubled. I’m good at spotting them now.”
Allowing his jaw to drop open, he was speechless. I’ve tried to protect her all this time, but it appears I failed. “I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Bother me? David, we’re in this together. I’m here for you, just like you’re here for me. I get it, you’re the big, tough soldier that fears nothing and no one. You can still open up, you know?”
He reached out and touched his hand to the screen, longing for the feeling of her fingers on his. “I wish we could be together right now.” It’s at times like these I miss her so much.
“Don’t you have months of leave?”
“I do,” he said, his tone sheepish.
“Let’s do something together, then.”
“Like what?”
“A week to recharge, shut out the universe, and just be together?”
David closed his eyes, dreamily thinking about how nice it would be to not fight for a while. To not see another human being die in front of him. How can I ask her to cope with my problems?
“Hey, you there?”
Jolted out of his thoughts, he focused his eyes on her face. “Yeah… sorry. Mind’s all over the place.”
“Let’s take some time for us. Is that so selfish?”
“No,” David replied as his lips formed a smile. “I just… well. It all catches up.”
“I want to be there for you. Please, David, let me in.”
“I don’t want you to see me as weak.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m supposed to be the protector, the soldier. I fear nothing.”
Angie’s face clouded over, and through the grainy image, a frown appeared. “What are you afraid of?”
“What I’m becoming, what I’ve become,” David replied, choking back tears. “Dear, I kill so many people… I have to. It’s war. I don’t have a choice, but I can’t set it aside. I’ve tried to get help, I try to talk about it, but the nightmares never stop, and when I close my eyes, all I see are the faces of those who I’ve killed or that I failed to save. It eats at me every day. Awful things happened over the last few months that I can’t talk about because they’re so highly classified, but it’s shaken me to my core.” Tears freely rolled down both cheeks.
“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry,” Angie said as she too began to cry.
“It’s not your fault.”
“No, but I wish I could be there for you.”
“You are,” he said quietly. “Some days, it’s all I have.”
“Why don’t you take some time off? Maybe a few months?”
David glanced up and made eye contact with her. “I can’t. I’ve got a duty to the Terran Coalition. A week I can manage during a layover, more than that, no.”
“There’s tens of millions of soldiers fighting the war, David.”
“Duty, courage, honor, commitment, faith.”
Angie frowned and held her hands together. “I’ve seen the recruiting posters.”
“Those words mean something to me, hon. They drive my life. It’s all I know, and what I must do. I never expected to be a career soldier, much less an officer or in command of this incredible ship. But I am.” Even as he spoke the words, Davi
d’s mind rebelled against him. Anyone could do the job. You’re nothing special. Your vanity and pride get those around you killed. He shoved the thoughts as far down into his soul as he could.
“Then don’t lose yourself in them, okay? Promise me… one week.”
“I promise.”
The beep-beep-beep of his device indicated his communication credits had run out.
“I know that sound. Time to go?” Angie said, her voice filled with sadness.
“Unfortunately, yes. I should be heading back to Canaan in the next few days. I’ll let you know as soon we break orbit.”
“I love you, David.”
“I love you too.”
Angie kissed her fingers and pressed them against the lens of the camera on the other end as the screen went dark. He sat the table down on his nightstand and stared up at the overhead of his cabin. God, please let this end. Somehow, I don’t know how much more I can give. Eventually, he fell asleep, and unlike the last few weeks, he dreamed about walking on a beach with Angie and a small group of children… their children.
33
League Navy Headquarters
Switzerland, Earth
November 8th, 2462
“I grow tired of the Lion of Judah interfering with the best-laid plans,” Dmitry Borisov, the Director of the League’s External Security Service, stated. A large bear of a man, he had apparent Slavic features and a Russian tinge to his accent.
“And now you know how I feel, Director,” Admiral Pierre Seville replied as he sat down in one of the ornate antique chairs positioned in front of Borisov’s desk. The office smelled of old books and was decorated with antiques from throughout Earth’s history. Some man of the people he is. “Then again, I was never sold on using a drug dealer and common criminal as an agent of the League.”
Borisov broke into a nasty grin, the kind that would send shivers of terror down lesser men. “He was not an agent as you put it, Admiral. He was a useful idiot. A man willing to sell out his own people to make a profit. Ah, the decadence of capitalism. We’re lucky they’re not all united by ideology, like us.”
You still don’t get it, after all these years. The Terrans ARE united, by their superstitions. Seville let the remark pass. “What of your other efforts?”