[HG-PBEM] Re: Not at the party...
- From: John Guilfoyle <john_guilfoyle@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: apaworks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 11:59:38 -0700 (PDT)
> [ Robb: Okay, John... thanks. For some reason I thought she had
> been in the war. Oh well... must be all that crack I do. :)
> Minor tweaks below. ]
[John: Correct me if I'm wrong Dennis, but the war was some 15-17
cycles ago, no? I bet Julie would have been a teenager. In any case,
her dad was with the Southern Republican Army during the war, and was
KIA. Julie joined the same SRA and served with them until recently,
when she was dishonorably discharged.]
> Tina nodded, solemnly.
>
> "There were rules that we followed," the GREL started to say.
> "Your father. GREL. We may have tried to kill each other... tried
> for the eradication of our foes, but there were still lines we
> would not cross, even if it meant fulfilling our objectives. There
> was a kind of trust between our forces. I do not romanticize it.
> We were trying to destroy every last trace of one another. We
> killed one another even when we were defenseless, asleep. We were
> not gallant adversaries, but I could count on men like your father,
> just as he could count on beings such as me."
>
> The GREL woman clicked her datapad off again, tossing it onto a
> nearby table, and returned her gaze to the Southern woman standing
> before her.
>
> "Here and now, those rules are gone. The Badlands are no place for
> battlefield honor," she continued to explain. "These children we
> are allied with do not understand. They accept it. They accept
> that dirty tricks are the law of action, but I cannot."
Juliette's back straightened slightly. "There is still honor," she
said firmly. "Even here."
Tina stopped. All Kassandra-class GREL were given training on human
> relations. They often served as "battlefield liaisons" between
> GREL and human soldiers, but none of her training prepared her to
> speak as she was doing now. Still, even with the difficulty of
> trying to describe her vague, foggy thoughts, she thought that
> maybe another soldier, even one who had not fought in the war
> against the GREL invaders, would understand what she was saying.
> "We should be adversaries, you and I," she continued. "I would
> trust you as my enemy, just as I trusted men like your father. I
> cannot trust the jackals the Colonel has pitted us against."
Juliette almost smiled at the notion of the two of them being
adversaries. It was true. In another time, they would have been
enemies -- mortal ones. They would have attacked one another on
sight.
Tina wanted to explain more, but she wasn't even sure she understood
> it, herself. She had been designed not to fear, to be able to
> simply act, pushing emotions aside, but she was troubled. The
> twins, with their pompous smiles and arrogant unknowingness, did
> something to her. She knew that. The fact that the doctors had
> cleared her didn't give her any comfort.
Lemanz could see the uncertainty in the GREL's eyes, and she
hesitated before speaking. Was Tina looking for comfort of some kind?
The dark-haired Republican didn't think she could offer any such
generosity. However, they were still both soldiers. Neither with a
cause, neither with a foe, but soldiers still.
"Know this, Tina. I will treat you fairly. Perhaps we should be
enemies, but it seems we're surrounded with enough of those as it is.
You will always know how you stand with me, and I suspect I will know
how I stand with you. There is still honor here, if we keep it. We
must not lose sight of that."
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