T'Nalia
(Training)
T'Nalia sat in the subway waiting for the train, eating a piece of candy, and looking at a small computer screen with several other people impatiently waiting. She had the kind of sky colored eyes that sparkled off the low-level lights, and sapphire colored skin with dimples. She had a sweet, but rugged face. She wasn't noticeably beautiful from the first glance, but she quickly grew on most people. Her clan forbade makeup, but she wore it anyway, because she worked part-time at the local university as a professor. It was midday, and the days were long and cold to her. The average outside temperature was nearly one hundred and twenty degrees, and most people considered that a little cool. Her ponytail crawled past her lower back, and her clothes covered her body completely. Many of the Doraxian women dressed provocative, but not the noble clan, not T'Nalia. Reserved, nothing but her neck and ankles could be seen by anybody, and her clothes didn't show off her figure, and she liked it like that. It was the way all the respectable women of her clan dressed. She grew up in Glassco City, a city north of the equator, and loved to study science. She received her doctorate in physics a year earlier, and spent the entire day trying to find work with no luck. The few classes that she taught at the university hardly paid the bills, and twice the Lantern Corp sent back her application—not enough heart.
The trains moved through the underground tunnels a hair past six hundred miles per hour. With the sound proof windows and walls, it made the ride pleasantly quiet. She continued to navigate through the touch screen computer when a message popped up.
"Meet me later?"
"It's over, T'Dank." She told him several times that she didn't want anything to do with him, but he wouldn't listen. For many years, he mentored her through her higher-level courses when he slipped his blue hands between her legs during a study session. He had promised her that she'd be the next in line for Doraxia's replacement GL. The last GL of her planet was disgraced when he hijacked a freighter.
Many of the Green Lanterns were corrupt on some level, even after they put in more regulations than ever, but T'Nalia believed she could handle the responsibilities. The two bars of gold that the Lantern Corp paid to a reserve Lantern was more than enough to pay her bills, even in the wealthy city of Glassco. Even so, it wasn't about the money. It wasn't about the prestige that came with the uniform; it was about making wrongs right, and bringing light to darkness.
It was a strange time for her when he placed his hands between her legs because she hadn't ever been touched there by anyone, but it struck her curiosity, nonetheless. She had heard other ladies in the dorm discussing sex, and she wanted it, even though premarital sex was forbidden in her clan. So, when he touched her between the legs, she didn't resist; and even though she wanted it, she didn't fully participate the first time. After he left her room, all she could think about was the sex and how it felt. It pained her because she couldn't focus on anything else, including her critical tests. He made repeated trips to her dorm room, and she became comfortable slipping into his apartment unannounced, but he always came with the promise of the power ring. Why did she think she was the only one he made promises to? She asked herself that question time after time. She caught him with another student, a younger student, and then she realized she wasn't special. No matter. The fire she had in her heart for him died as soon as she saw them hunched over the bed like wild animals. She was young, childlike. He had never grunted or pulled her hair the way he did with that girl. She was the kind of girl who wore short skirts, and begged for the attention of men. Her name was Ula or something like that, and she wasn't close to earning her "T."
A rumble-the train veered off the track-caused everybody to scream, and T'Nalia stuck her head between her legs, and braced for the crash. Her computer hit the floor, hard, and broke into little pieces. She helped several people out of the burning wreck, even with the smell of fuel coming out the back of the train. The smell of smoke-a fire in the middle of the compartment-startled her, especially when she saw a little boy trapped in the back. Several of the men screamed for her to leave him, but she couldn't. She wouldn't. She had done so many things wrong in her life, but she couldn't live with letting a little boy die, ever. The strength of her heart was unmatched. The fire popped loudly, and the heat beat against her face. The sound of the people screaming in the background only intensified her stress, but she kept moving forward. The little boy passed out on the floor, and conked his head. When she reached for him, she couldn't quite grab his collar, and she heard something explode on the outside of the train. Her heart sank. She doubted her ability to save him. One more reach, one more pull, and then she caught the tip of his shirt, pulled, and he was firmly in her grasp.
When she ran out the train with the little tot, she hit the ground as soon as the train exploded. A metal door flew over her head, crashed into a field, and something, the size of a mountain, moved in the background. The soot blocked her vision, so she had to squint, but she knew that she had seen something. She ran to a tree, and sat the boy on the ground. The other people from the train were nowhere around her, and she heard a loud roar, a kind of scream like a wild animal. Looking past the tree, she saw some kind of creature that stood nearly fifty feet tall with horns. Did she hit her head too hard? Was she dreaming? She had so many questions that she didn't know the answers to, but she had never seen a creature like the one that stood in front of her. Her heart raced. She picked the boy off the ground, and ran in the opposite direction. She knew Glassco City was only sixty miles away, and that she needed to do everything in her power to notify the authorities.
Her computer burned with the train, and she felt helpless, but it didn't stop her from running. She had no problem with running. A loud thump-the monster stomped the ground-caused her to drop the kid. She nearly fell on top of him, but she picked him back up, and hid on the other side of a small hill. When she looked down at the ground, she saw an older man's body. His head was completely missing. The blood was like thick, red glue, and it covered everything. She slowly backed up, and took off running with the kid as fast as she could.
She ran to an old, abandoned factory where several other people from the train had sought for refuge from the creature. Grabbing a steel pipe from a heap of metal, she climbed to the top of the factory, and tried to watch for the creature. The moans grew like wildfire, and the people became more frightened, but she kept her mind on her next move. Dust covered everything. It seemed hopeless as she heard the creature stomp the ground. In the corner of the room, an old fuel generated lamp set, and it had at least a half tank of fuel in it. She shook the can repeatedly to listen to the contents, and she had an idea. What seemed like minutes probably was only a few seconds, when the creature made its way to the factory. The liquid contents of the lamp fit nicely inside of a little tin can, and she lit it on fire; it was a little fire in the middle of the floor, and she did her best to heat the end of the steel pipe. She twirled it in the flame, and watched the end glow. It was red hot, and ready to be used as a weapon. The end of it glowed a bright red, and she liked what she saw. Opening the window, she watched closely for the creature to pass. When he looked the other way, the little boy awoke, and started screaming loudly. He had his hands on his forehead, and he belched out the loudest cry that she had ever heard come from a kid. The monster ran over to the window, looked inside, and then T'Nalia slammed the hot pipe through one of the creature's eyes as hard as she could. It sank deep into the left eye, and the monster screamed so loudly that her ears began to bleed. The force of the monster's roar nearly knocked her to the ground, and she grabbed her ears to try to muffle the sound. The thing fell forward against the factory with its face stuck in the window. She grabbed the steel pipe out of its left eye, and then slammed it clumsily into the right one. It slid to the ground with its body laid out, and died. She fell to the floor of the factory in pain as the blood oozed out of her ears. She looked at the blood as it pooled on the floor, but couldn't hear anything. Struggling, she tried to make it to her feet, but she couldn't. Exhausted, she fell face first onto the ground.
She awoke to a quiet room with white walls, a breathing machine, and several other devices that monitored her vital signs. The light from the twin suns peeked through the windows, and she loved the warmth. Worried, she felt her face, head, and then ears, and felt the plastic tubes protruding out the side of her head. T'Dank walked into the room, and kissed on her the forehead.
"Welcome back," he said.
"Huh?" She was confused for a moment.
"You've been in a coma for two weeks."
"Two weeks? What happened?" She asked.
"A lot. You're a national hero," he replied. He walked over to her bed, placed his hand on her cheek, and she moved it quickly. It angered her for a moment because he didn't have the right to touch her in that manner. When a Doraxian touched the cheek of another, it meant they loved that person in a sexual way. She knew he knew the difference, and it angered her. It was an insult.
"Don't. We're not..."
"Didn't mean anything by it," he said. "Just wanted to tell you that the Guardians sent you this." He opened a green box with a Lantern's ring inside of it. When he opened the box, the ring flew to her, landed on her right middle finger, and she smiled.
"They chose me? This is unbelievable," she said.
"You have a week to get ready," he said, "They want you on Oa as soon as possible."
When she stood up in her hospital bed to admire the ring, a young woman walked through the door, grabbed T'Dank's left hand, and kissed him. It was Ula. Her low cut dressed, and gaudy makeup made her look like a prostitute, and T'Nalia winced with anger.
"You have no shame," T'Nalia screamed. She pointed her ring hand to the couple, and said, "Get out!"
T'Nalia's ship landed on Oa, one of the biggest planets in the universe. The city of Maltus was a crowed place, a place with over one hundred million souls, with laws and customs like no other she had ever seen, and building after building set on top of each other. She didn't know what to expect with her new ring; it didn't come with a manual, but she vowed in her heart that she'd do better than the last Doraxian. The city was lit up like daylight, even though it was a little past dark. She wore a thick insulated brown robe over her uniform, because she didn't like how she looked in her suit, and the planet was cold. It wasn't that she looked frumpy or anything like that, but she felt the skimpy uniform revealed too much. It wasn't that the lantern uniform was tight, but it showed too many curves for her taste. She had her hair braided in a long ponytail with a silver clip on the end. The cool air brushed past her head, but with the power of the ring, it didn't bother her too much. The temperature was somewhere around seventy-five degrees, like a freezer to her.
She stood in front of the Emerald Palace, the building that held the Guardians, but wasn't allowed inside until she completed Lantern Basic Training. Two tall and beastly looking lanterns stood guard in front of the palace, with snouts for noses and piggy ears. It wasn't her first brush with alien species, but they were a spectacle, a side show attraction, and scary looking. The more she stared, the faster her heart beat. It was all new and exciting—and a little frightening. A young Lantern softly said, "Clear a path." It was a simple order, and the two behemoths snapped to the side, and a small, somewhat boyish faced lantern walked out of the palace. Immediately, she noticed his race was very similar to hers, with the features of a Doraxian male. She found a likeness in him, a similarity that she understood.
"Lantern, I'm Kai-Ro," he said. "Walk with me?"
"I'm T'Nalia." She felt a little overwhelmed, especially since he looked so young. He was no more than nineteen, at least that was what she thought, and he didn't have an ounce of fat on his body. He almost didn't seem real.
"I know," he said. " Your training will last thirteen weeks. It'll be hard. It'll be intense."
"I've waited for this my entire life."
He looked at her with a grimace. "Life expectancy of a Lantern is four years. You won't retire."
Hundreds of transport ships dropped off lantern candidates, all day and all night long. The sky had so many vessels flying through the air that it seemed unreal. Her home planet had tons of ships constantly flying through the air, but nothing like Oa. It was overcrowded, and everywhere had tons of people trying to make a dollar. The first thing she noticed was a group of women who looked like they were from a planet called Jayd located in Sector One Twelve. Every bar along the strip near the Emerald Palace had sleazy, half dressed ladies who solicited sex with all that walked by. Jayd's economy collapsed under the weight of its own greed, and the people took to the stars.
She stayed at a little motel next to the Emerald Palace with some of the strangest people in the universe. According to Kai-Ro, approximately three million active lanterns existed with ten million in reserves in the universe at one time. Some of the more hostile sectors had more than thirty Lanterns. They worked like a police force with a crime lab, detectives, and everything a major police department needed. A new lantern meant somewhere there was a dead lantern, and the ring found the next person with the will to handle the duties. One hundred thousand active lanterns lived on Oa, and stood as the protectors of the giant lantern battery that the Guardians kept underneath the Emerald Palace. At anyone time, nearly a million reserved Lanterns lived on Oa, and continued training until the Corp called them to active duty. Another forty thousand lanterns worked for the shipping industry; they insured that goods, and services arrived safely to their locations. It was these heroes that received the most casualties daily. Every major shipment of precious metals had several bandits who would try to hijack them, and they used powerful, yellow charged rays that cut through a lantern's defenses. Only an elite few had rings impervious to the color yellow.
"Get some rest, T'Nalia," Kai-Ro said. He walked with his hands behind his back. Every step was with silence and grace—and even with God like qualities. A Chiseled face, wired frame, thick eyebrows—all made him look like a hard man, the kind of man who didn't take any slack from anybody. "It'll be a long day tomorrow."
"Yes, sir."
Maltus was training central, the gateway for all new trainees, and Kai-Ro flew her and two thousand newbies to the fringes of the city to a quaint little compound with all the amenities: Obstacle course, lake, fake buildings, robots, and everything needed to simulate a major battle. Thousands of young, artless soldiers practiced controlling the powers of their rings with more advanced trainers screaming at them to do better. She stood with a bunch of new recruits on the end of the row, and Kai-Ro gave orders. He never raised his voice. It was almost like he was some sort of monk or religious person with the spirit of the wisest person in the universe guiding all his actions.
The majority of recruits thought once they had the ring, they were automatically in the Corp, but Kai-Ro made sure to dispel that myth immediately. Every ring did a fantastic job when finding the most suitable person for the position; however, when real-world factors were tested, the ring failed more often than not. Therefore, the Guardians set up the Lantern Basic Training in order to make sure they had a quality soldier for the job.
Kai-Ro had an extra ordinary ability outside his power ring: it was the power to defuse a situation with the sound of his voice. "Fighting stance." He screamed. After he walked behind the line of recruits, he pointed to a pole about half a block away, and said, "Fire a wave-blade at the pole. I'll demonstrate." With his legs spread shoulder length apart, he flung a green wave shaped like blade at the pole, and the rod absorbed the energy. "The rods are to ensure you don't kill somebody with your blast of energy. It absorbs the lantern's light."
One harsh truth about the Lantern Corp: only the strong have longevity. The rest didn't make it pass four years on average. T'Nalia stood in her fighting stance, swung her right hand to form a wave, and it barely made it to the poles. She flung two weaker streams of energy at the poles, and then Kai-Lo asked, "Did you clear your mind?"
She knew exactly why she couldn't concentrate on her duties: it was the pain of seeing the image of T'Dank kissing Ula. It played in her mind repeatedly, and she felt a little frustrated that all the other recruits had the wave-blade technique down to a science. After her mind cleared, she flung another stream of energy at the poles, and it was strong. Kai-Lo smiled.
It was early, but she didn't have a grasp of the time, and Kai-Lo rounded up his recruits to go to breakfast. The dining facilities were located to the south with thousands of recruits walking into their assigned building. They were pretty big buildings with flat roofs, and she could smell the food cooking. She didn't realize how hungry she was, but she didn't know what to expect. It appeared that thirty chow halls were located in the training area, and T'Naila ate at number seventeen. Some of the groups ate at other facilities, and the sign on the outside of the building had the races of people that could eat at her building. Humans, Doraxians, and all humanoid creatures-all ate at the same facilities. Some of the other facilities housed souls that ate things that would make humanoid creatures sick, or even kill them. The exposure to so many different races throughout the galaxy amazed her, but she quickly realized all cultures had their own standards of morality.
She reached for the last butter roll, and a Thracian pushed her to the side, and grabbed it for himself. "You gotta move fast, Missy!" He was a hairy creature, a creature that looked almost like a wild animal, and covered with the smell of old, mildewed rags. She couldn't help but wonder if their differences had more to do with culture, or was he just a rude, inconsiderate creature. It wasn't that she needed the roll, but she wanted it, and it was the last one in the basket.
"That's not my name. It's T'Nalia," she snapped. "You're rude."
"Hey, where I come from you kill what stands in your way."
"Is that a threat?" She asked.
"Maybe it is."
When he pulled at her robe, the one she wore over her uniform, she struck the Thracian in the chest, and he slid across the floor. Without any hesitation, she hopped on top of the lantern, struck him repeatedly, and then Kai-Lo grabbed her with a huge, green hand. "It's time for you two to take a break."
For a split second, she wanted to kill the creature over a little piece of bread, and then she laughed. It amazed her how she had forgotten, for a small second, where she grew up. Her emotions, for reasons she didn't understand, had gotten the best of her, and she stood in the hallway outside the dinning facility trying to control her breathing. It didn't take her long before she felt a little down, a little sick about her actions. She threw the first punch, and that was wrong. She felt her stomach growl, and knew it was going to be a long morning, a morning without any food.
When the Thracian walked out of the chow hall, he looked over at T'Nalia, adjusted his chin, and said, "You gotta a mean punch." He handed her the butter-roll in a plastic bag.
"What's this?" She asked.
"You gotta eat something," he said, "No hard feelings."
She quickly ate the piece of bread. "I didn't catch your name?"
"Dix," he said, "Dix Linx." Kai-Lo walked over to the two lanterns. He said, "The ring heightens your emotions, but you have to keep control."
"Yes, sir," she replied.
"No more fighting. I have a lot to teach, but you have to keep an opened mind."
They trained for hours when Kai-Lo received some bad news through his ear piece, and then addressed the class. "We lost two-thousand seven hundred and sixty-two family members today. Let's have two minutes of silence." It sent shock waves through her soul, because she originally thought the number was high, but it was a low number compared to the previous day's total of ten thousand. Nearly ten million creatures possessed power rings, but only three million were on active duty who received full monetary allotment for services. The lanterns in reserve status were paid half the pay of a regular member, and most of the new recruits went into the reserves for the first two years of their career. The replacement lanterns, the ones freshly out of school, spent the majority of their time on Oa learning as much about the Corp as possible. Sometimes they went on small missions, but nothing too dangerous.
It didn't take long for the new recruits to filter into Oa, the replacements. T'Nalia didn't realize the dangers with the power ring, but the Corp had enemies, not all known, throughout the universe. When a ring bearer died, it found another host, a new companion. It seemed the ring was the most important figure in the relationship, because when a lantern died, he died alone, especially on the battlefield.
The apartment building near the Emerald Towers, the one where T'Nalia's class slept, was pretty much full of recruits, and the majority of green soldiers stayed in the buildings behind hers. Over one hundred thousand untrained lanterns were in the area, and that number was low. At any given time, nearly one hundred and fifty thousand new recruits ended up in training because of the high death toll among its members.
As soon as the sun went down over the city, the prostitutes took to the streets without any threat from the lanterns on patrol, and it seemed crazy to her. The girls looked used and abused, and some of them looked scarred for life. She noticed a few of the patrolmen touch some of the women on the butts, and it disturbed her. Two lanterns from her squad, O'Brien and Dix, ran over to one of the seedy bars, and then O'Brien stumbled out with a girl. There wasn't anything beautiful about her either, not that she was jealous, just concerned for a fellow classmate. He appeared to be a little tipsy, and she found that to be strange. The girl whom he was with looked down at his ring, and attempted to remove it from his fingers, when T'Nalia hit her with a powerful ray. The girl jumped to her feet, and was covered in a yellow uniform.
"Sinestro Corp," T'Nalia screamed. She didn't know if she had the abilities to take on the girl, but she was going to try. The girl tried to grab her with a huge, yellow fist, and a green shield blocked her. It was Kai-Lo. The girl flew through the air, and off Oa in an instant.
O'Brien hailed from Graxos IV, but he was half human. He had bright orange skin with thick, dark eyebrows, and he slurred some of his words. He approximately weighed about one hundred and thirty pounds, but she wasn't sure. He looked scrawny, but he had a lot of willpower, at least most of the time.
For the first time, she heard Kai-Lo raised his voice as he berated the young lantern for letting his guard down. He told him how enemies came in all flavors, and the lost of one ring could be a detriment to the corp. Maybe he listened. Maybe he just wanted to sleep off the drugs, but she knew he wouldn't make it through the training. He showed signs of failure: not listening, whining, and chasing prostitutes.
It was hell-week, a week that usually weeded out the weak soldiers, even if the ring said otherwise. The low crawling through the mud with real laser fire only inches above a lantern's head caused many of them to crack over the years. They crawled under a tight, muddy barbed-wire trench for nearly two miles under live fire, and the wire had an electrical charge. The laser burns that bounced off the hills smelled like smoldering ash, and it drove her insane. She felt the electric charge of the lasers as they passed by her head. The screaming, the loud breathing, the crying-all made her wonder if she was going to make it. O'Brien continued to stop in front of her, and she kept pushing him forward. She wasn't going to stop, and she wasn't going to let him stop. T'Nalia worried about her damaged ears, but knew she had to perform admirably, or go home a disgrace. The cannon fire sounded like thunder, and the explosions startled her every time. Some of the men and women screamed as they tried their best to crawl through the mud. The water contained an assortment of parasitic creatures that caused several of the men to freeze in place.
"O'Brien, what's wrong with you?" T'Nalia asked.
"Leeches. I hate Leeches." He stuck his orange hand in the air, and a leech wrapped itself around his index finger. "Get it off?"
"Keep moving," she snapped. "Get your damn hand down." She grabbed the small animal off his right hand, and he continued with the low crawl.
Dix Linx was behind her, and said, "should have let him give up. He'll never make it in a serious battle."
"He's just green," she said. "Young! Thought he was your friend?"
"I said that as his friend."
It took over half a day for them to complete the course, and T'Nalia was in the first batch of soldiers who made it through the entire day of the obstacle course. Dix Linx laid flat on the ground with water and sweat falling off his forehead. He smelled like he had been drinking all night. Sweat dripped off her forehead too, but she stood against an old tree watching the other trainees react to the explosions. Several of the other students gave up midstream, and they were aboard a transport ship to their home worlds before she had completed the mission. There rings were already floating through space to find other soldiers with enough courage and heart to fill the position. O'Brien sat near an old tree throwing up all over the ground, but he seemed okay.
She looked back at the other soldiers as they slowly made their way across the muddy trench, and they looked like ants swimming in a bowl of thick, creamy soup. Every so often, she'd see another hand go into the air, and then that soldier would disappear like magic. In an instance, he'd be on his way home with no memory of ever being on Oa. The ring chose them. The brutal training weeded out the weak ones, the ones without a heart, and then the power ring found somebody else.
All the training and the rigid diet and the stress caused her to lose a lot of weight, weight that she didn't know she had to lose. Regardless, her lantern uniform clung to her tiny frame, and the size of her waistline didn't matter. Every inch of her lean body looked chiseled in the mirror. She flexed her biceps, and then laughed at how ripped she looked. It was week eight, and half the class had fallen out of the training session. When first light came, all the lanterns in her class were in the middle of the field exercising, and then they went on long runs. Kai-Lo stressed both, mental and physical strength, and every day was a new task, a better way to test a soldier's willpower. O'Brien never kept up with the pack, and Kai-Lo wouldn't let him give up regardless of his whining. It was the drugs that slowed him down. It was the prostitutes that kept him up all night. It was the fact that the ring made a mistake. He wanted every lantern to understand one simple thing: the ring doesn't carry the soldier. The soldier carries the ring. If the soldier had a mental breakdown or a physical breakdown, the ring could overpower the soldier, and wreak havoc, even destroy an entire world.
Kai-Lo called it lane training, but the majority of the recruits called it suicide training, and that it was. A line of eight soldiers stood down range about five hundred meters apart, and waited for the row of tanks to fire two hundred caliber rounds at them. All they had to do was capture the round, create a force field around it, and let it explode. Failure to do this job wasn't an automatic boot from the Corp, but it meant going back to the beginning of Lantern Training with another group of soldiers. T'Nalia stood in a good position, and the tank fired one, large caliber round at her, and she caught it with two gigantic green fist that emanated from her ring. She engulfed the explosive in a bubble; and when it exploded, none of the pieces hit the ground. O'Brien tried to do the same thing when it was his turn, but the round slipped through the big green hands, and Kai-Lo had to intervene with his own bubble. The ordinance exploded, and O'Brien took off his ring, handed it to Kai-Lo.
"All you needed was a little heart," Kai-Lo said. He had a look of pity on his face, a scowl.
"The ring got it wrong. I'm not lantern material. Never have been. Never will be." He seemed so assured, and smug.
"So it is," he said. With a wave of his hand, O'Brien was gone.
It was a crazy moment, the kind of situation that made T'Nalia uneasy about the Corp. She knew O'Brien wasn't lantern material, even when he used his willpower to make it through the trenches; even so, his dismissal shocked her and everybody in her class. With only a few days left, she couldn't wait to return to her home world, and she knew that she wouldn't miss Oa at all. Some things bothered her about the Lantern Corp; or at the very least, the whoring bothered her. What was she thinking? It wasn't her place to pass her idea of morality on to her classmates, and she did everything in her power not to do that.
She didn't get to sleep much the night before graduation because some of her classmates chose to party all night. Her Dress Greens were in the closet, and they looked sharp. It didn't take her long to put them on, and she loved the way the trench coat fit over her clothes. The dress shoes had a high-gloss finish on them, and she could see her reflection in the toes.
When she arrived at the stadium, she realized when Kai-Lo said a lot would be graduating that he actually meant over twelve thousand lanterns. In her entire life, she never realized so many boys in green could be in the same place at the same time. A large woman, a woman approximately seven-foot tall stood at the podium, and it was Lianna, an ancient one. She spoke of peace and justice and kindness-and even forgiveness unless a lantern came across a member of the Sinestro Corp, and then the only good force was deadly force. She continued to speak until a raucous in the rear of the stadium, and Kai-Lo approached the podium.
"What's the meaning of this, Kai-Lo?"
"Earth. It's under attack," he said, "All active-duty personnel follow me."