The Commander
Lt. Rod Baltomar of the New UN Spacy stood before his
commanding officer, Ushio Todo. They were in the Commander’s office, a Spartan
space furnished with very little. Most NUNS higher officers had offices replete
with mementos, either of a military or a personal nature or both. But Todo just
kept a few Zentradi artifacts and his desk with a holo-computer. Currently the
Commander sat with his elbows resting on the desk, fingers interlaced, staring
down Rod with his one visible eye. NUNS regulations were specific on the
officer dress code but Todo somehow maintained a number of linear tattoos on
his face. The artificial eye wasn’t the result of standard modification that
many of the uncultured Zentradi received but was the result of a battle he’d
been in while young.
“The YF-25 wasn’t destroyed,” he began, “Rather, our
intelligence indicates it went down in the Julia Islands. Why didn’t you
destroy it as you were ordered?”
“With respect sir, I thought I had. I was not expecting the
pilot to survive.”
Todo knowingly grinned at Rod, causing him to shift ever so
slightly in his at-attention position.
“Don’t try to fool me Rod. I know you’re fighting style; you
are ruthless and efficient and if you had truly meant to kill that pilot, you
would have made sure of it. Why did you let him go?”
Rod hesitated; should he tell his commander why he had shown
mercy to the SMS fighter? No, better to tell some truth but not all.
“I am ashamed to say that I was… amusing myself sir. I
deliberately damaged the craft just enough that it would crash to the planet,
unless the pilot happened to be skilled enough to survive, which apparently he
was.”
“Only somewhat skilled. His survival is largely due to the
SMS frigate Gefion being nearby and
rescuing him from the water. I have no doubt that they will be suspicious as to
why we attacked their fighter.”
“Forgive me sir, I failed you,” said Rod, bowing his head
low.
“I can understand your want of a challenge Rod. The bandits
and bounty hunters that crawl across this planet are hardly worth dealing with.
But remember why we came to this planet, the promise we have worked so hard
for. We can’t afford to have the SMS sticking their noses where they don’t
belong.”
“But sir, the local SMS branch only have a few operational
fighters. They couldn’t hope to pose a threat to us.”
“And yet that pilot was able to take out three Ghost drones.
Aisha Blanchette, their leader, is rumored to be building some new weapon for
SMS and they do have a strong relationship with the Hunter Guild. They could
cause trouble enough. And now we have wild Zentradi appearing. Rod, I need to
know, if we are forced to take steps, will you be able to do what needs to be
done?”
Rod remembered a burning military base and a young woman
dying in his arms. His eyes narrowed and he snapped his arm up in a rigid
salute to his commander.
“Sir! Yes sir!”
“Excellent. Now, I believe we have some very interesting new
recruits that I would like you to meet. If we can spin them a good enough tale,
they would make great allies. You are dismissed Lieutenant.”
Rod snapped his hand back to his side and executed a perfect
about face and left the office. Todo reclined ever so slightly in his chair and
went back to studying the report on his holo-screen. It was a report dated from
the Protodeviln War back in 2045 on the Protoculture’s EVIL-series bio-weapons…
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