There was a full minute of silence in the compartment before Toni spoke.
“You are a critical part of taking that ship out but that doesn’t mean you have to be on the boarding party. I could be wrong but I think Major Reagan and Major Reynolds know that too.”
“Thank you for the tea Toni,” Julie said as she abruptly stood up to leave.
Her emotions had never been in such turmoil. Her anger had immediately overcome her tears and she hurriedly left the cabin. All she could think about was verifying that no one was going to take away her right to board that ship.
She found Iron Jaw in one of the planning offices and it was all she could do not to scream when he told her that wasn’t part of the plan.
Chapter 37
Major Mathew Reagan, US Army
Julie wasn’t happy about not being on the boarding party.
Not happy at all.
As a matter of fact she hadn’t spoken to me for three days now. She’d somehow gotten this idea in her head that she wasn’t fighting back unless she was actually pulling a trigger. I was worried about her because I knew it was a dangerous state of mind to be in.
I’d seen it before in troops that had incurred unacceptably high losses in their units. A form of survivor’s guilt combined with the need for vengeance.
Talking to others that have experienced the same thing is the best therapy so you hope that with time they’ll snap out of it on their own. I wasn’t completely surprised then when Julie showed up at my cabin door one evening.
I invited her in and walked her into my living area. She was very quiet and subdued and sat at the far end of the large couch. Wanting to give her space I sat at the other end and politely waited until she was ready to speak.
Eventually she turned to face me; leaving one foot on the floor and half crossing her other leg to sit sideways with her arm on the back of the couch.
“I need to know how you do it,” she said with misty eyes.
“Do what, Julie?”
“How can you just keep on going like nothing has happened?” she said with a touch of anger. “They just murdered us and… there was nothing we could do.”
How could I respond to that? I thought to myself. My soldiers had all gone through years of extensive training in their respective services and countries in no small part to teach them how to handle these types of emotions. Julie had none of that.
I was very aware that the next thing I said could be critically important for her. My words could steer her towards emotional comfort and acceptance or to a hard cold place in her heart that could change her forever.
I was also very aware that how she thought of me could lie in the balance.
My chest suddenly tightened and I couldn’t swallow… I wasn’t having a heart attack; I just was finally and fully realizing how deeply and totally I cared for this woman. It was her moment of need and maybe her vulnerability was triggering it but she literally took my breath away.
What the hell was I going to do?
She was still looking at me with red eyes; waiting for an answer. I wanted nothing more than to solve her problems and comfort and protect her but I had no idea how to do it.
I’d been on the battlefield and I’d faced the enemy. I’d literally stared death in the face and still did what I had to do but now I found myself frozen with indecision. I said… nothing.
She eventually dropped her gaze and started talking. Slowly at first, she dispassionately recounted the attack on Stiger in detail. Her voice caught as she described the death of Tunica, the Stigerian native she had befriended; otherwise her words were bland and without emotion. I couldn’t help but feel my heart speed up as she described Mark dragging her to the ground and protecting her with his body and then his heroics in fighting back at the assassin.
“When it was over we went back to the lobby of that first building – the one the Coridian enclave is in. They started carrying in the bodies from our team. At first they brought in a couple, then a few more; the dead just kept coming and they laid them all out along the wall and…
“Luz, Bob, Dr. Knapp… they’re all gone forever.
“The next thing I knew – it was all such a blur – we were racing out of town on those hover cars. Then Major Reynolds told us to hide in the trees. Someone had given me a knife along the way and all I could think about was using it on the Noridians. I’ve never hated anything or anyone so much as I did right then.”
Her voice started catching again when she talked about watching the Noridian ship approach their tree-line.
She looked up at me as she said, “I was ready to kill. I didn’t care if I lived or died I just wanted to fight back.
“And then when the hatch opened and you walked out of the ship…”
She was in tears now and I instinctively moved towards her. The next thing I knew she was in my arms sobbing uncontrollably.
I held her tightly for quite some time until she quieted. Her arms and head felt heavy on my shoulder and I realized she was exhausted. I adjusted our positions until I was lying on the couch with her spooned in front of me.
We lay quiet for a long time and I thought she might be asleep when she quietly asked, “Does it ever get to you?”
I combed her long straight hair back from her face with my free hand and said, “Of course.”
After a moment I continued, “I just try to stay focused on the mission, on my responsibilities. But at the end of the day I know it’s going to hit me. When you’re in command you can’t let anyone else see it so you lie in your bunk at night and let it wash through you. You accept the pain and the guilt and then you move past it. It’s especially hard if the decisions you’ve made have caused people to die – even if they were the right decisions the feelings are still overwhelming but you have to let it go. You never forget, but you move on. You honor the past by facing the future.”
Neither of us said anything for a long time. Finally, she squeezed my arm and whispered a weary, “Thank you.”
I finally fell asleep hoping with all my heart that she’d be ok.
ΔΔΔ
Strangely enough I awoke the next morning feeling well rested. It had been a chaste evening but for me it had been a more intimate experience than any I could remember.
Without having time to think any of it through I heard something behind me at the same moment I smelled eggs and bacon. I sat up quickly and watched Julie finish setting out the food on my dining table.
She smiled somewhat sheepishly and said, “I’ve got to stop making a habit of falling asleep in your cabin.”
Even with morning hair and wrinkled clothes she was still beautiful.
I moved over to the table and we both sat down.
“I want to apologize,” she began. “I was feeling overwhelmed and I didn’t know where to turn; I didn’t mean to burden you with my troubles.”
“It wasn’t a burden,” I responded. “And you’re welcome to sleep over anytime,” I said lightly.
She smiled and we ate breakfast in relative silence.
“Do you feel better?” I finally asked.
After a thoughtful pause she said, “You know, I really do. I think I just needed someone that would listen. I think I just needed to feel really… safe.”
“I’m always here Julie,” I said.
“I know,” she softly replied.
Just then my door buzzed and I looked up to see Iron Jaw standing outside.
“Come in Mike,” I said.
The door opened and he walked into the cabin and over to the dining table.
“Good morning Major, Dr. Schein,” he said without missing a beat.
“Good morning Major Reynolds. Would you like some eggs?” Julie asked.
“No; I’ve already eaten, but thank you.”
“Well then,” Julie said. “Unless I can get you gentlemen anything else I think I’ll return to my cabin.”
We both remained standing until she’d left. After a moment Mike started talkin
g about a new twist he wanted to incorporate into the training routines.
I jumped into the conversation, grateful for the distraction. If he would’ve asked me what was going on I wouldn’t have known how to answer.
ΔΔΔ
The trip home was a long one but it went quickly because of the heavy training schedule. For the few civilians that had not been assigned to combat training I had tasked them with continuing their interviews and studies of Coridian technology and culture.
I insisted that we all come together once a week and share what we’d learned with everyone else. It was a way of preserving new insights into the Coridian world as well as giving the civilian combatants a chance to talk about what they were getting ready to do. It may sound cold but the more a person can talk about doing outrageous things in a normal setting the less abhorrent those things become. Militaries (and terrorists) around the world have used this desensitizing technique for as long as anyone can remember.
I didn’t take pride in doing this; I just knew it was necessary.
As a psychologist of course Julie new exactly what I was doing.
Curiously she didn’t question the ethics of it; she did however ask how I felt about manipulating people’s emotions like that.
I explained a leadership philosophy to her that had been drilled into me for years; and that I firmly believed in.
“Julie, my military training has included the study of leadership. I don’t claim to be an expert on the subject but I have tried to learn from some very smart people. For example, let me ask you this: What would you say the definition of ‘leadership’ is?”
One of the things I liked about Julie is that she was always up for an intellectual challenge. After thinking for a moment she responded, “Being in a position where other people have to do what you tell them.”
“Ok,” I replied. “That’s one type of leadership; it’s called Authoritarian or Rank-Based Leadership and the military and Corporate America are definitely based on it but there’s another type that’s more powerful...
“It’s called Influential Leadership.”
“This type of leadership is used by those that build churches or lead volunteer organizations or lead movements. There is no boss with rank or authority; people follow because they choose to. The definition of leadership that I believe in most is simply the word ‘influence’ – and if you accept that then I have another question for you…”
She nodded for me to continue.
“I first heard a brilliant man named John Maxwell ask this question; What is the difference between leadership and manipulation?”
Julie started to respond but then paused in thought. I thought it was a great question and I remember the impact it had held on me the first time I’d heard it.
She finally answered, “One is good and one is bad.”
“Agreed,” I said. “Here is how I would say it though… There is no physical difference in leadership and manipulation – they are both exercising influence. The only difference is intent.
“For example; if I’m trying to influence someone to do something that benefits both of us and maybe others we call it leadership. If I’m trying to influence someone to do something that benefits only myself we call it manipulation.
“What we have to do to that Noridian ship and the people on her benefits all of Earth. I don’t like it and I don’t like having to teach and lead others in how to do it but I have no qualms of conscious. It has to be done.”
In retrospect, I think this conversation helped settle Julie’s mind as much as anything else we did. Maybe it helped her separate vengeance from the justified use of force. At any rate, the more I got to know her the more complicated of a person I realized she was – but it was a good thing. She was complicated because she had depth; she had depth because she cared about people and was more concerned with actually benefitting them than just making a good show.
We had a lot of similar conversations on that journey, many of them public and some of them private. Most of the conversations were punctuated with laughter – put a bunch of people in a stressful situation together and comic-relief becomes mandatory - but some of the conversations were sober. Whereas every woman I’d ever dated or flirted with required that we play the game and keep the conversations on silly or frivolous topics I found that Julie and I could easily talk about the important things in life. There weren’t any more sleepovers but I couldn’t help feel that we’d built a bond.
ΔΔΔ
“Just because I won’t use a gun doesn’t mean I’m out of the fight,” Dr. Decker insisted.
He had approached me at the beginning of that incredibly busy last week before we reached Earth orbit. He was the only civilian that had flat refused to take part in the boarding raid of the Noridian ship and at first I thought he was just trying to assuage his somewhat arrogant ego by once again reminding me of how important he was, but it sounded like he had something else on his mind.
“I need to know,” he continued. “Is it true that the government might try to hide the Noridian treachery from the public?”
“It’s a possibility,” I replied. “We have no way of knowing what, if anything, Earth’s leaders have decided at this point. Jaki, Dr. Helmer, and Colonel Memphis have been back on Earth for several months now and there’s no telling how persuasive they might be. It’s all guesswork until we actually arrive and can assess the situation.”
“So what if,” Dr. Decker continued. “We take out their ship and the powers that be had already made the decision to go with the Noridians? They’d probably lock all of us up so fast that no one would even know we’d returned.”
“That’s certainly a chance we take… Look, I’ve thought a lot about this too. If what you’re suggesting happens then there’s not a damn thing I can do. I’ll take out the Noridian ship before anyone has a chance to tell me otherwise but if I’m ordered to stand down and shut up afterwards that’s what I have to do.”
“Exactly, but that’s not what I’d have to do.”
I stopped what I was doing and locked gazes with him.
“Everyone on our planet has a right to know the real score,” he said. “Maybe you have to follow orders but I don’t. A number of my colleagues and I have decided to download a video diary onto the planetary net immediately upon our return – that way the truth gets out no matter what happens to us.”
“You could start a worldwide panic,” I said.
“Or, we could save the Earth,” he said.
“Why are you telling me this?” I wanted to know.
He actually looked a little startled when he said, “Because we want your permission!”
After a pause I said carefully, “I can’t give you permission to do any such thing… but, if it were to happen without me knowing about it I would hope it would be coordinated through Dr. Schein so it doesn’t give our game away too soon.”
We continued holding each other’s gaze as he slowly started to smile.
“I can promise you if we would have had your permission we would have certainly done that but since we won’t be doing anything…” he said while still smiling.
ΔΔΔ
There she is. Home. The most beautiful sight in the galaxy is a little blue ball with touches of brown and cottony white. The night side sparkles like the finest diamond and the dayside is bluer than Lapis.
Growing from just a spec, we’d all been mesmerized watching Earth emerge on the view screens. Within hours we would be in orbit and the history of Homo sapien sapiens would be changed forever.
This was becoming real for everyone; what we were getting ready to do and the terribly high stakes of potential failure were sinking in. All of our military personnel had gone into combat with rookies at some point in their careers so we knew that look; we also knew what we needed to do.
You could hear Captains Hiromi and Kamiko as well as Iron Jaw quietly talking with different members of the boarding party. Checking equipment here, giving encouragement
there. Getting an occasional laugh and giving the frequent advice to ‘trust your training.’
Even though I was mentally preparing and putting my own game-face on I couldn’t help feel a little surge of emotion as I suddenly realized how proud I was of my people. The professional soldiers I’d selected for my team, both living and dead, really were the cream of the crop. Finding a like-minded Iron Jaw Reynolds on the Earth Team almost felt preordained – for a man like that to decide to follow my lead was an honor. The civilians were certainly smart but they were also gritty and tough in their own way. And then there was Julie…
Here Comes Earth: Emergence Page 31