One Day In The Park
A few blocks from S.P.D. headquarters is a small park, an oasis of green in the middle of Newtech City. I come here to remind myself of what I'm fighting for, of what I've sworn to protect.
Here, I can see people of every species co-existing peacefully. Two joggers pass by my bench, one human and one from Triforia. A bit further away, I see three children playing in a sandbox; one is an alien with green scales, another a human girl with curly pig-tails. The last one is a little boy, who seems familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on why.
It's been nine years since I first came to earth, and so much has changed. Entire ranger teams have come and gone, each followed by a new team of young, idealistic cadets. The only constant seems to be Kat Manx, who is now one of my oldest friends. It's easy to fall into a routine of planning, organizing, fighting and then all three again. Newtech City is always moving, always changing. There's always some new threat on the horizon, some battle to win.
Sometimes, I have to remind myself that it won't be like this forever. I don't know how much time we have left, but I intend to make the most of it.
I look back at the sandbox. One of the children has wandered off to the nearby swing-set, leaving the others behind. As I watch, the little girl playfully throws a handful of sand and the boy scatters it away, with a sweeping blue shield. And now, of course, I know why he looks so familiar. I've seen many strange and unusual things, but humans with super-powers are few and far between.
A tall, slim woman comes to sit beside me, and for a while we sit in silence, watching these children, the future of earth, playing together - and among them, a little boy with a very special gift.
She has long brown hair, with streaks of gray. I had never noticed the gray before – either it really has been that long, or the last few years have been harder on her than I realized. I'm not one to complain, though – we're all a little older, a little harder. I can see it when I look in the mirror, and in her eyes.
"Commander." She says, placing her hands in her lap. She covers the left with the right, every movement carefully planned and calculated.
I nod in acknowledgement. "Sarah..."
"You have no right to call me that, Commander."
"I apologize, Mrs. Tate."
As I watch, Sky does it again. He creates those shields with such ease – it comes naturally to him, so much so that he doesn't notice it as anything extraordinary. He has his father's eyes and his smile.
"Not a day goes by when he doesn't ask about his father. He misses him," she tells me.
There are a thousand things I could say. I could say that her husband, Sky's father, died fighting for an important cause, a cause he believed in. I could say that he died in the line of duty, following my orders. I could tell her that all of us, every single one, have lost someone important. That excuse sounds hollow, even to my ears. I look back at Sky, and briefly wonder if he would understand.
Of course he wouldn't. He's six and a half years old.
I settle for the easy route, and change the topic. "How have you been, Mrs. Tate?"
She shrugs. "Life moves on. I have to accept it, and I have."
Trust is a strange and fragile thing, hard to earn, and even harder to regain once broken. In our experimentation with the morphing grid, we developed a powerful weapon – and in the process lost some of our greatest scientists. Of them all, Sarah stayed the closest, but not out of choice. Her husband was a ranger and, using the technology she helped develop, fought to defend the Earth. Sky's birth and the discovery of his powers were a turning point, and after that, she wanted nothing to do with Space Patrol Delta. "Sky's abilities – they're a gift, you know."
"It's a curse. Do you think I want to be reminded, every day, of what happened? And Sky – he knows he's different. He has questions... what am I supposed to tell him?"
"The truth?" I suggest. She shakes her head.
"My husband respected you, admired you. But you're not infallible, Commander."
I sit up straighter. "No, I'm not. But everything I've done, I've done because I felt it was necessary, to preserve to well-being of the Earth. Something's coming, Mrs. Tate, and we have to be ready. It's my job to make sure we are."
"No matter how much it costs, or who it hurts?"
I nod. "No matter how much it costs." For some reason, a vivid image of Isinia flashes before my eyes.
"I'm not one of your cadets, Commander. I'm a mother, and what's most important for me is doing what's best for my son. I've spoken to some of the others already – the Carsons will stay on Earth, I think, but the Landors will leave to the colonies."
I sit in silence for a while, before asking the question which weighs most heavily on my mind. "Why are you doing this?"
"Why? Because you are just like all the others. You look at that little boy there and you see a tool, a weapon you can mould and shape." Sometimes, in moments like these, I wonder how well you can ever know a person. A few years ago, I would never have thought that Sarah would confront me, stand up to me when no one else would. I try to meet her eye, but her gaze never strays from Sky.
"Do you know what I think, Commander? You want our children nearby, not out of any interest in their happiness or well-being, but so that you can control them and their powers."
She expects me to argue with her, to disagree. I do neither. No matter how long or troubled my relationship with Sarah Tate is, I won't lie to her. After everything she's done, after everything she's been through, she deserves better.
She studies me for a while, before getting to her feet.
"You took my husband from me, Cruger. I'm not going to let you take my son." She inclines her head. "Goodbye, Commander." The words have a terrible finality, and I wonder if I'll see her or Sky ever again.
"Goodbye, Mrs. Tate."
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