Cally's War

After they had gone, Stewart sat in the chair staring at the wall. On some level he knew he was probably in something close to shock.

Usually he had the vidscreen on, if only displaying a still holo. It was the first thing he slapped to life coming in the door.

Pattern broken by the interruption, he sat staring. The blank bareness of the walls, hardly improved by the gray rectangle of the dead screen, closed in on him like one of the cells over at the prison.

God, Cally, what a fucking mess! Okay, Tommy was a replacement troop, but dammit, he was one of us! Even if civilian control at the top of the chain of command was going all to hell by then, how could I — he — make himself a traitor? All right, so it was a hard call. Maybe he was even right. There sure as hell is no more effective civil control — human, anyway — of the military. I thought working within the system… even after it had gone to hell. But good God, we won the war and lost the peace, and there’s no bringing it back. Fuck. Maybe he’s right.

No! How the hell could he leave the Old Man thinking his daughter was dead? And his father? How the fuck could they? Cally couldn’t have done anything, she was just a kid then. Okay, so she had to go along. Fuck, she was just a kid. What the hell else could she do? But his own father. His own damn father!

And now I’m supposed to do it, too. Turn my coat, join up, don’t ask questions. Yeah, right.

But what the hell else could I do? All I know is the military — unless you count gang leading. Yeah, right. Not much call for either outside the control of the fucking Darhel Federation. It might as well be, anyway. Not like the other bunch looks much better.

How can I be a traitor? How could anyone leave the people who love them most thinking they’re just dead?

What a fucking mess! Cally, what the fuck am I gonna do?

The walls had no answer for him.