Duty, 6: Old Grievances
01 May 2022Meowers
Oh, hello. Everything's fine. Got myself punched in the face yesterday. So now my nose is stuffed with medical gel, and also I have that patch on the nose bridge. And I sound funny. What happened and why I didn't fight back? That's a story to tell.
Can't say the Thargoids were raging, but their activity was certainly more intense than a few weeks ago. And they were more organised, moving in larger groups instead of showing up here and there. It wasn't something unusual, Joseph said it happens from time to time, and AXDF wings were ordered to start their patrols with none less than eight ships in formation. Except my one. All four of our ships were under repair, they even recovered Christine's Chieftain, and we had nothing to do in particular.
Personally, I could be usually found in the repair section these days, helping AXDF tech crews with Marshmallow as I know the ship better than anyone else. Not that I didn't trust them... But I'll better spend my time with Marshmallow and help her to recover instead of pointless wandering around. However, I still have to show my face in one of the mess halls to eat something, and, well, during one of the lunch breaks that face couldn't remain intact.
There's a lot of information terminals in the common corridors of the Atlas and people can use them freely, and that day I saw a small group of pilots near one of them, seems like they were looking at wing rosters or patrol schedules or something like that. So, then I heard a surprised female voice, 'angry' and 'upset' kind of 'surprised'.
"Ina Muir?! I know that bitch, she's wanted dead!"
Ah, seems like my anti-corporate half-mercenary past found me even here. I went to talk and say that I paid off all the bounties personally, spending a crapload of money, but, yeah, no result. At least not a result that I was willing to achieve. She instantly turned away from the terminal to look at me, her eyes widened for a moment, as I was quite taller and, khm, bulkier, but nonetheless she punched me in the face. Oops. Not the worst punch in my life, but she was stronger than she looks, I flinched a bit and made a step back; I didn't want to wave my fists around, I wanted to know what's happening and why, and why I was called a bitch again for the second time.
An officer was walking by, and we were 'invited' for a talk after he saw that.
So. Melissa McGrath, a transport pilot in AXDF, joined shortly after, uh... Her husband died. In another meaningless nameless corporate war that started because of a classic human craving to have more. The company wanted more wealth, wage slaves and influence, and the other folks, apparently an independent faction, didn't want to give their stuff away so easily. She even told where and when it happened, it was in the He Pora system quite a long ago, she saw my name and my face in the wanted list shortly before he died. I was supporting the resistance forces, as I was doing those days, and he might've been one of them.
I thought it was a fight for a right cause. But then... You know. Seeing what people do after they gain more power or win a war disillusioned me. I lost faith in humanity. Got... Tired of it, extremely tired. Of the infightings, of endless hardships and deaths, of the injustice and greed that people will never get rid of. Certainly not in my lifetime. But there's nothing could be done with the past, and I know it the best. Learned it the hard way. Now, her loved one was dead, and... Uh. A probable murderer is sitting in the chair next to hers. Wearing the badges of the same squadron.
The officer knew what he was doing. He didn't try to make us befriend each other, or judge one of us or both, or speak out some pompous speeches, no. He told us about the responsibility that we should take into account each time we're doing something that can make an impact. Especially when pulling the trigger. Working for a corporation that can start an armed conflict and participating in that conflict could get her husband killed. And it happened eventually. Killing someone means bringing grief to their families, friends, relatives, and I'm dealing with the consequences now. But shooting at people who were marked as 'enemies' by the corporation meant bringing the same to their families, and I tried to stop it. We were on the opposing sides, but now we're on the same one. And this war we're waging here and now means more than any possible war between humans, it is not about becoming stronger and richer, it is about survival. The revenge for the millions of lives taken by the Thargoids who don't see the difference between combatants and civilians. And it is our responsibility now.
This was... Wise. Definitely. I'm not quite good at recognising expressions, but seems like Melissa... Can't say I was forgiven, but she didn't want to kill me here and now. Still, the officer made sure that we walked away in the opposite directions, hah.
That's why I got punched in the face. But the officer's words were stronger than that punch. When I returned to the repair hangar and... Oh. I had to come up with an explanation and couldn't find anything better than 'a chicken in my lunch fought back'. So, when I returned to the hangar, I sat on some metal box and started thinking about... well, everything. Again. Becoming a part of Anti-Xeno forces definitely made me re-evaluate every decision in my life. I was right when I thought that it might lead to becoming a new version of myself. Will it be better? I don't know.
As I think, humanity is too vast, diverse and numerous to define 'good' and 'bad' concretely, what could be good for one, will be bad for another. Be it a single person or a formation of any size. And avoiding being 'bad' by doing nothing at all might look as the only possible way. However, you have to interact with other people, you have to decide what you should do, you can't stay completely neutral, and even being 'good' for everyone may mean being 'bad' for other person that you don't even know. Or for yourself, which is more probable. Even staying neutral can have an impact.
But then, the Thargoids. Fighting them is not like fighting other people. There are no rules. No conventions. They see no difference, they take no prisoners, they aren't hostile only when you pose no interest for them. Be it a trinket in your cargo hold or the planet you live on, if they want it, they will attack. If you decide to do nothing at all, you will end up dead. And not only you, but also the people who can't fight. Civilians. Elderly people and children. And millions of careless idiots who prefer to fight each other. Many of them don't even know Thargoids really exist, they think it's a GalNet show. They may be greedy and stupid, but they don't deserve death for that, they deserve a chance to become less stupid. So, with the Thargoids... There's no other options except one.
Except killing them on sight.
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Melissa McGrath