"We didn't plan for this," Captain Korhonen is saying, for the third time this meeting. They're onboard the
Memory, the ECU cruiser and impromptu center for the invasion of Zeta. "Your men are dedicated, but they're just not..."
"
Not what?" Protector Chief Davids interrupts, as he is prone to doing. "
Not good enough?"
The Chief- a tall, fat man with a face always flushed- stares down the table. There are a dozen other men in here, all of them commanders of some protector troop or another. Except for Korhonen. Because somebody-
somebody- thought it would be a good idea to let the cruiser's captain in on their meetings. That somebody is getting a club to the gut, soon as Davids can find out who he is.
"It's not that," the Captain tries, but he's cut off again.
"
Well what is it then, Cap? Because I sure wish somebody would tell me! Every day since we've been here, we got some Oligarch or Savant or big-brained Captain tryin' to tell us we can't cut it, and I'm about sick of it. What is it, Captain? You wanna go down there and fight the toasters?" With some effort, he hoisted himself out of his steel chair and sent it skidding into the wall, half the other protectors standing up with him. "
Because I've got a club for you right here!"
Across the room, Korhonen's shoulders seem to arch up tensely, then let out slowly with a sigh. "If that's a threat, Chief-"
"
It is!"
"-then I'm afraid it's not working, because I have a pistol and you have a metal stick."
At that bold of a challenge, the room is momentarily filled with protector's shouts, gasps and laughter, and the Chief's eyes look like they're trying to bulge entirely out of his head, but Korhonen only- calmly- holds up a hand for silence. "The cold fact is, Chief, that your men aren't cut out for an invasion. They're... police," he nearly said
thugs, "who are intended for combat with civilian threats. And," seeing the Chief billowing up again, he hurries along, "and they're very, very good at it! We couldn't do without our protectors. But this war was not expected to be a long siege. We need help. The volunteers from the URC are more... trained. For this sort of thing."
The Chief has plopped back down into some else's chair while Korhonen is speaking, but the tension in his face remains. He feels like hitting something. He needs to hit something.
He hits the table.
"
It's not right," he growls, half to himself. "
You people, you eggheads in charge of everything 'round here, you made us this way. You pick us out just 'cause we're big and not smart, and you through us in rooms and show us bad things and make us hate everything. And now we're not good enough." His gaze shoots up to Korhonen.
Who looks away, feeling almost ashamed. The Captain is not on Oligarch, but his father was. He knows what the protectors go through- and he notices that suddenly, none of them seem very interested in making eye contact with anyone.
"Chief," one of them mutters, a thin man with sunk-in eyes, "how many people have come back from Zeta?"
The silence holds for a second.
"How many protectors have made it back, Chief?" Someone else echoes. And then another, and two more.
Davids looks away.
"The correct answer is," Korhonen says quietly, "none. No protector has returned alive from the surface of Zeta-5." And that settles around the room. "I recommend an immediate cessation of all protector activity within Zetan held territory." Realizing his audience might not be the kind to understand that language, he tags on: "I mean, I'm saying that we should stop sending any protectors to the surface."
A vote is held. With no Oligarch present, (Kayla being off-ship for negotiations) that's the default method. 9-to-4, it's decided.
"From this moment forward, until or unless decided by an Oligarch or by order of the Savant, or an authority selected thereby, there shall be no more protectors sent to Zeta-5." Korhonen smiles in a way that's meant to be reassuring. "It's for the better, I promise. Let the Undefeated and those crazy volunteers handle it. Us ECU boys can just bombard that rotten place from up here, right?"
Davids nods his massive head without looking up, half furious and half ashamed. It's right when the protectors are standing to leave that all their infopads beep and vibrate at once. "Captain and Chief," some fast reader says, squinting at his pad, "it says here... Yun is back. Protector Yun.
Alive."
~~~~~~~~
[Starring: Martina Ward and Jade]
One Week Earlier
"
Pound, pound, pound! That's how a bass line should go," asserts 'Kyle', who mimes playing it with his hands.
"No, no," corrects the woman calling herself 'Jade,' "it should go like
womp-womp-womp!" She also mimes playing a bass guitar, and does it just a little better.
"You're both wrong," slurs in a third, this one a little drunk, "the bass just needs to be like, uh... what's the word they used to use? Funny? Yeah! We just need a funny bass!"
This makes Jade roll her eyes. "Funky," she corrects him. "The word is funky!" She's always had a pet peeve about anyone breaking character in a culture party. If you can't remember the correct word, just don't say it! Oh, what is the ECU coming to?
"Uh, thanks," he says, drink sloshing around in an all-too-small shot glass. "So what's your name? Mine is Viktor."
"
Jade," she says, but with the same tone as if she were saying 'shut up.' Viktor is definitely not a 1960's British-American Rock Subculture style name. Did he forget to pick a new identity when he came in, too? That's one of the fundamental rules. Ugh.
She manages to slip away from Viktor and Kyle as a new debate about funny baselines begins, weaving her way through the thickening crowd of bushy hairstyles, vibrant tie-dyes and clashing outfits. There's a nasty rumor that Hollywoodites dress like clowns- they should have seen this.
The snack table is almost as colorful. Red jello, green jello, fruits suspended in jello, jello shots and carrots. Who brought carrots?
It was probably Viktor.
"Excuse me, Ma'am?" a voice interrupts her musings on the deficiencies of Viktor, "Do you have a moment to discuss something important?"
She turns to look, and her first thought is '
This one even forgot their costuming.' Her second thought is '
Oh no, it's one of them! And they forgot their costuming!'
Everyone in Neo London has heard of the new Mixtist missionaries. There's only a few of them, maybe two dozen at the most, but they're catching attention- massive, national attention that should be getting them beat into dust by protectors. Unfortunately, half of Neo London's protectors are busy getting slaughtered by Zetans at the moment, and that leaves these robe-wearing, pamphlet-carrying weirdos to roam the streets, trying to convert people to... to whatever it is they believe in. It's not even very clear.
"No, I don't," Jade answers, studiously diverting her gaze to the table. "I'm very busy with listening to this song." The singer on stage is a hologram, an older kind that always sounds a little distorted, but she isn't going to let a little thing like taste stand in the way of ignoring this woman.
"Ma'am," the missionary says with a soft voice of compassion, "that song is terrible."
Jade jerks her head back up in surprise, and then laughs. She didn't expect that.
"Okay, okay, maybe it is," she admits. The missionary is a tan-skinned, wild-haired woman, who does kind of make the robe work. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to stand here and listen to a bunch of- nonsense."
"No," the missionary answers. "You're just going to go and listen to a bunch of other nonsense, and eat nonsense food, and retire into a nonsense holo-suite that shows you pictures of Earth as it never was." She smiles. "This whole world is nonsensical, ma'am. Every bit, from top to bottom. But I think I have some nonsense here that will do you some good." She hold out a pamphlet, a weird thing in this day of infopads and holograms.
Jade doesn't take it. "No," she says. "I'm sorry."
"Alright." The missionary woman doesn't seem very upset at all. "Well then, will you at least say your real name? Not the fake one. We have to be real sometimes. I'm Martina."
The other one hesitates, and then answers: "Abadi." They part ways.
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