LESSONS OF WAR
By
Alex Queirolo
Timeline: Years after
Author's E-Mail: CUVH94A@prodigy.com
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
And consequently, a mandatory warning. Some of you are gonna hate this. This is a future timeline peace that deals with a different road than the Boy Who Would Be Terrina King. It's much darker I think but it does offer hope. It's 14 years in the future, told in the first person by Uly.
LESSONS OF WAR
By Alex QueiroloThe war is finally over. Thank God. It lasted for twelve years in all. The casualties have been truely astonishing on both sides. We never meant for this to happen but it did. Yesterday, at a small, simple cabin on the North shore of the Upper Morgan River, we signed a peace treaty in which the Council unconditionally surrendered. It was a peaceful meeting. While there was undoubtedly tension in the room, we took the first step yesterday. Admiral Jameson Hope and I were able to shake hands but I think what touched me the most was when the nineteen year old soldier extended his hand to me and said, "Thank you, Ulysses Adair. I didn't want to die."
No one wanted to die but die they did. We reached New Pacifica almost eighteen months after we had arrived on G-889 and for the next five months, we struggled like mad to prepare the beautiful waterfront paradise for the other Syndrome kids. I, for one, knew that the Terrians would help the other kids like they had me. Well, the ship landed and immediately, there was tension. See, we had all gotten used to each other and our own ways of doing things. We had all gotten comfortable with each other. I, for one, had gotten used to Doctor Heller as my personal physician. The others had also. No one jumped for joy when Dr.Vasquez came and declared that he would take it from there. If my memory serves me correctly, Alonzo and Vasquez got into a major fistfight. See, Alonzo was always like that. He'd protect Julia to the very end. If anyone ever said anything bad about her and God forbid they hurt her, they would have to deal with him. He'd protect her, whether she liked it or not.
Well, Vasquez tried to make Julia his intern again but my mother simply wouldn't have it. See, mom and Julia had gotten real close and all. When Julia had gotten pregnant during our thirteenth month, it had been mom who had helped her out. When tragedy struch and Julia miscarried three months later, it was my mom and 'Lonz who helped her through it, not to mention, kept her alive. She, Bess and Yale saved Julia's life. Should seen Alonzo and John Danziger pacing outside the tent. Danziger was trying to calm Alonzo but he wouldn't listen. When he finally went in, she said to him, 'I'm sorry, 'Lonzo, the baby..." but he wouldn't hear of it. He only craed that she was alive.
Anyway, my mom told Vasquez that Julia was to be my personal physician and that was that. Still, you could feel the tension. We all manged though. In the summer of the first year at New Pacifica, the Council arrived.
There was no talk of peace. Diplomacy was a non-issue. We had, already, according to Reilly,destroyed that possibility. They attacked our peaceful home. In the first wave, thirty-three men, women and children died, including Dr.Vasquez. He and Julia were working in the hospital when the first wave hit and he was struck by flying debris. According to Julia, he went blind instantly. She struggled feverishly to save his life but to no avail. He died from blood loss. There was no time to mourn the dead and perhaps that was the worst thing of all. We were thrown into the fiery hell of war, I, only eleven years old.
My mother tried to protect us kids at first but when our troops, the Planetary Alliance Force, Unit A was defeated, the time of childish innocence ended. I had to grow up, be a man. My days of playfulness and water fights were over; Danziger showed me how to fire a rifle. My mom couldn't do that. See, mom still had this wonderful image of her curlyhaired little boy running towards her after he had been healed. It was a good image. It was too difficult for my mom to let go of it so Danziger helped her out as he always had.
The first time I killed someone nearly killed me. I was fifteen years old. We were fighting over New Pacifica. The PAF or the Resistance as the Council called us, simply couldn't afford to lose New Pacifica. It was our HQ and it was our hospital and deep down inside, it still believed that in it, lay our only chance for survival and peace. Julia was the Chief Surgeon there, somedays dealing with forty cases. She was a great doctor.
Anyways, it was my first real battle. For four years, I'd lurked in the shadows helping out, armed and ready to fight and deaming, as only a little boy could, of the glory of war. When Walman's force was defeated at Outer New Pacifica, a red alert went up and I got my chance. There were two missions, one, to protect New Pacifica and two, to free our POW's. I had a personal stake in this; Walman was one of the POW's.
My unit got into the enemy camp at eight minutes after two in the morning and for the next hour, all I heard was gunfire. I couldn't help but wonder, what right do we have? We've taken a beautiful place and we've turned it into a bloody war-zone. The only justification was that the Terrians approved it. We were fighting for them. And we were fighting for us. I looked to my left and this one guy named Tommy was lying bleeding on the ground. He was one of us so I went to him even though he was screaming for me to stay away. As I bent down to help him, he yelled, "Behind you, Adair!" I turned and for the longest moment of my life, I stared at this soldier, a boy, no older than I, and he stared at me. I could smell the fear passing between us; neither of us wanted to die. We fired simotaineously. It turned out that my nerves and my aim were better than his. His bullet grazed my arm. Mine killed him. I spent two weeks in the hospital at New Pacifica, unable to forget that boy without a name's face. If only I could have known his name. That wouldn't have made it any easier but at least I could have known who to mourn for.
That was my first lesson of war. There are no heroes in war. Simply young and old people who believe they are doing something for an honorable reason. All through human history, people have fought bloody wars for a cause but in the end, it all comes down to death. I still defend the war. I'm not so blinded by the pain that I can't see that there was no other way. Both sides had to lose something. The day that boy died, ultimately in my arms as my comrade looked on, was the day I truely began to understand the war. That was also the day that I began to mourn all loss of life, on their side and ours.
We freed Walman that night but the damage had been done. He was a strong man but when a power-hungry Council General named Scott McNeil tortured Walman, he also destroyed him. Walman never spilled his guts to McNeil or anyone for that matter. As a matter of fact, Walman didn't speak for almost three years. He continued fighting the war but he was a broken man. I don't know that he regained himself until the end. In the seventh year of the war, Alonzo and three other pilots' crashed about fifteen miles from New Pacifica where Walman and I were stationed. Alonzo was the only one to survive. He had suffered various injuries but the worst of all was that he had been knocked unconsious and therfore left vuneravle.
Walman and I were in one of the ditches when we saw three Council soldiers approaching Alonzo, loading their rifles. Walman turned to me and he stunned me by speaking. He said, "They're gonna kill him, Uly, I can't let them do that." I swallowed hard. It was a suicide mission and we both knew it and si I volunteered to help. A good man should not die alone. He turned to me and held my shoulder and said, "I wouldn't know what to tell Julia if I let 'Lonz die. I couldn't tell your mother." Before I could speak, Walman leaped from the ditch and ran towards the pilot, his rifle blazing. He felled the three soldiers and began to drag Alonzo to safety, using his own body as a shield. As I pulled Alonzo into the ditch, Walman was hit five times. He fell backwards into my arms and said, "I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry I'm a coward but I can't go on." Then he died. It neraly broke my heart. We buried him at New Pacifica. I think my mother cried and I saw Julia holding Alonzo because he was shaking so badly. He was the first of the original Eden crew to die.
Hope that the war would soon end came in the eighth year when reps from both sides met to discuss peace at the Biodome where we'd spent our first Winter. It was a horrible diaster. A third group had sprung up, one violently opposed to both sides. Rebels, terrorists. A small, but ruthless gang of mercenaries. They bombed the Biodome, killing thirty people. Both sides blamed ecah other and the war was only intensified. Each side figured they had reasonable grounds to blame the other. They wondered why none of the big-name diplomats such as my mother, Morgan Martin and I were not present. They accused us of knowing. We accused them of the same, wondering why Reilly nad Asmiral Hope had not been in attendance. The existance of the Third Party Rebellion remained unknown for almost two years while they kept the anger and the hatred between the two forces burning hot.
Morgan Martin tried to end the war and lost his life for it. When I was a child, I'd always wondered what motivated the man. When I got older, I realized that it was the same thing that motivated us all, fear. In the Fall of year nine, Martin came upon a wounded Council soldier and he took an enormous step towards inner peace. He dropped his rifle and said, "I'm not a fighter, I'm a politician. If I can't cause peace with my words, then I will with my hands but not with my gun." He got down on his hands and knees and he saved the soldiers' life. Late the next day, while Martin was sleeping, the soldiers' comrade arrived, expecting the other to be dead. He was stunned to find Martin. The boy Morgan had helped tried to save Morgan's life but the soldier killed Morgan while he slept. The boy carried Morgan's body home and then he joined our Medical Core so that he didn't have to kill anymore.
Bess dealt with her husbands' death admirably as she always had. She took up his work, striving hard for peace, always believing that that was what the Council wanted also.
One of the worst losses for me came later that same year. John danziger, who had become almost my father, and Yale went North to rally the troops. They were ambushed by the Third Party Rebellion. Both lay in critical condition for almost a week. Julia told us that Yale was almost braindead and getting worse by the moment. Both of Danziger's lungs were badly injured; it was only a matter of time, without a translant, before he would die. Before Yale totally blanked out, he ordered Julia to give Danziger his still working lungs. She did and John recovered. He was as touched by Yale's sacrifice as Alonzo had been by Walman's. My mother broke down in Danziger's arms and had to be sedated.
I took command of the troops in the frozen Winter of the tenth year, the year we discovered the Third Party Rebellion. For awhile, again there was hope of peace as both forces joined together to defeat the TPR. But it wasn't to happen. The war waged on, more people died.
In the eleventh year, something truely wonderful happened that gave all of us a lot of hope. Julia, who had just turned thirty-five, became pregnant. That Winter, she gave birth to the first child since the war had begun. She named him Matthew. I honestly don't know why there were no other births during that eleven year stretch or perhaps there were and I just didn't know but whatever teh case, Matthew Solace gave us a new reason for peace and it made our tired soldiers realize that it was time to end the war. Too many children had already lost their childhoods, Mattie would not.
Under the leadership of Alonzo, Danziger and Baines, the Planetary Alliance Force took seven strategic Council posts. In all, only eight men died.
My mother, my wife (I had married True during the tenth year), Bess and I met with Admiral Jameson Hope. He wanted peace also. He was tired of fighting a war that no one understood. His youngest had died in the war. He didn't want to lose his other son.
Two weeks ago, he ordered a cease-fire. Our troops came into took the Outpost. The war was almost over. All that remained was the treaty.
Yesterday afternoon, we signed the treaty and for the first time in twelve years, I could walk outside without hearing guns blaze or screams pierce the air. It was agreed that it was time to give back to the planet. We had destroyed too much. One Alliance and all begen to work on repairing the damage.
Now that the war has finally ended, I can't help but look back with regret. In history books, there will always be talk of great heroes who defended their home bravely. The books will speak of villains who made the heroes lose their innocence. I say now that there are now heroes or villains in war, only men, women and children who are all victims. We all fight for something. That's part of the human nature. Those I was against were my enemies and yet after I killed that boy, I never killed again.
G-889 is a second chance for humanity. That's one of the greatest things about humans, the ability to leran, I mean. To make right what we have done wrong. Redemption is not a given, it is an earned thing. We as a people, have earned this right, and through this wonderful planet, we have been given our Redemption. We had to relearn our lesson on war and hate, I don't think we'll have to learn it again. I spoke to the Terrians during the war and once they asked me if they should help. I would not let them. They do not fight each other because they have learned. I have to believe that we have also.
"Ulysses." I turn. It's True, my wife and my dearest companion when I was a young, innocent child.
"Yes?" I respond. I take her in my arms and I remember Alonzo and Julia and Bess and Morgan during that first year. So full of life and so passionate. Emotion begins to choke me.
"My father and your mother are here, Uly. They have something to tell you."
"You know what it is?" I ask. "Is everything okay? What's happened?" "Yes, I know and everything is alright. Come along." We walk downstairs and they're standing there, grinning up at us. "Mom, John." I say as I hug my mother.
She says, "Uly, John and I are getting married. I'd like you to give me away." I'm not suprised. If any good did come out of the war, it was the realization that of how much we need each other nad for some, how much we love each other.
Sometimes bad things happen for a reason. While we'd prefer them not to happen at all, I think they're necessary because they help us grow. I think if bad things didn't happen then we'd begin to take all the good thing for granted and we wouldn't learn to appreciate just what we have and why we need to preserve it. We wouldn't realize just how important life really is. You gotta live each moment to the fullest. My mother and John are both getting on in age. They'll do it together from now on. For years, they danced around their feelings for each other but a blind man could see that their constant fights were only well-masked displays of passion and affection. They realized how to love be loved before it was too late.
I think if the war taught us all that much, then it was not for nothing because then it taught us the greatest lesson of all. You never realize how important life and love is until it's late. If we as a people have learned how to hold on to what we have, how to hold on tooth and nail, then I gotta believe we'll make it. Because then the greatest second chance of all will have been one, the ability to live and let live, to love and let love. I can't think of anything more powerful. Like I said, if we've learned this much, then I gotta belive we'll make it, as a people, as a species and perhaps, unired as one.
END
-Alex
Begin: 4-28
12:01-12:35,8:35
End: 4-28
10:05
This text file was ran through PERL script made by Andy. Original text file is available in Andy's Earth 2 Fan Fiction Archive.