Here Comes Earth: Emergence (36 page)

“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.

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 talking 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.