Coming home
It was late, Ron knew, and he probably should go to bed. Yori had retired earlier, and now…. he looked up and sighed. It wasn't late, it was early, with the first tinges of the dawn touching the sky. He reached in and called on the power to keep himself up for the day. He'd sleep like the dead tonight, but that was the price you paid.
Stupid girl. No doubt she'd forget everything he told her. Maybe work it around to a story of how she stayed strong and pure to her cause.
"I should have killed her." Ron said to himself. Arrogant, full of themselves, willing to condemn half the world to starvation, wearing clothes that were worth more than some peoples entire life.
The spoiled children of wealth on one side and the hateful children of fanaticism on the other. For half…a tenth of what was spent fighting over the spoils he could make the world, well if not a paradise, better than it had ever been. No rationing required. No "robbing the Rich."
Just people developing the intelligence that seemed to always elude them and realize that yeah, what happened to your neighbor, even the one who dressed funny and talked funny and lived in a funny place where they didn't have good water in the end always came back to you.
It wouldn't have been a great loss. He'd killed before, ravening through the forest and jungle, blazing with the fire of the Sword, some of the children had even called him Michael, after the Archangel of Heaven. The ones who had grown fat on their misery hadn't had a chance to call him much of anything.
But he'd promised Yori, and in any case, in a year the dead warlords had been replaced by new warlords and everything was the same. Sometimes, he wondered what it would be like to break his promise, to kill and kill until the evil were gone.
And sometimes he feared the end to that would be him, alone, on an empty continent.
Sometimes he wondered if there was any hope to it.
Yori yawned and woke, walking into the office and seeing Ron sitting there, going through paperwork with the mechanical speed that let her know there was nothing important to it.
"You have subordinates for that."
"I know." Ron said, not stopping.
"And what have you learned?"
"One of my accountants made a .5 cent per gallon error on cheese sauce."
"Ah." Yori said. "And shall we go fire him today?" Ron frowned.
"No. I was thinking of-"
"Yes?"
"Never mind."
"Seeing Kim?"
"Not a good time right now. She's probably still tweaked."
"True…or are you trying to think of a plan to convince her that you are right."
"Um…"
"Ron." Yori sighed, "Remember our earlier conversation—don't treat Kim like some special ops problem you can plan around."
"I know." Ron said, "But…"
"Tonight, why don't you go talk to her. Don't try to convince her of anything." Yori said. "Ask her what she wants."
"I-" Ron paused, "I didn't do that, did I?"
"Not in a serious way, no."
"I think maybe I should…talk to her." Ron said, "Instead of over her." Yori clapped her hands.
"And to think Steve Barkin despaired of your learning potential, Stoppable-San!" She said, squealing with girlish glee.
"You know, I can tell when you are being sarcastic, Yori." Ron said.
"Good." Yori said, then becoming more serious. "I think you should talk to her, tonight."
"Oh? You know something?"
"A feeling." Yori said. "Nothing more."
Kim woke up, early as usual, and made herself breakfast, before heading out for the day. It was Friday, and she figured to walk around a bit. The weekend would be with her parents and brothers, and then, hopefully, she started work on Monday. Like she had done before, she took the bus—but also walked.
She wondered if all the people around her knew what is was like to walk, under the sun, as far as you could walk, with no locked doors or walls in your way. She avoided the mall—to be honest, she wasn't a teenager any more and the omnipresent eyes still bothered her. On the other hand, there was a small open air market and food court near the space center, and maybe she could visit dad while she was there. She'd have to call Rabbi Katz—she recalled the Space Center was close to a red zone, but her dad worked there so it shouldn't be a problem.
The food court served a variety of foods, none of them fast food—and none of them having any relationship to the cafeteria food she'd eaten in prison. Ten years worth of cafeteria food, even if it was better than mystery meat.
Kim decided to people watch. There were plenty of workers from the space center out today eating.
"Probably not dad". Kim said to herself. If dad was anything like he had been, he'd be forgetting to eat, wrapped up in his current project.
Mixed in with the workers were soldiers, more than Kim remembered, but then the scream of a jet called her eyes up to where an F35 was taking off. The space center didn't used to have military jets based at it either.
"Oh you've got to be kidding!" A voice said, bursting into laughter from the table over from her. Kim looked over to see a blonde in a Marine Corps officer uniform—Major it appeared, laughing with a man in some uniform she hadn't seen before. Strange, the woman looked.
Kim blinked, remembering a picture.
"Tara?" She asked. The woman looked up and blinked at her.
"Kim?" Tara said, in disbelief, and then, leaped up and somehow teleported over to her table. Kim leaped up as well and reached out, then paused, uncertain. Would Tara-
Suddenly she was pulled into a bear hug, and realized that Tara was a lot stronger than she had been in high school.
"I can't believe it's you!" Tara said. Then, without missing a beat. "I'm going to kill Ron for not letting me know."
"Maybe he did, love." Her companion said, "We weren't exactly available the last couple of weeks."
"Mm, yea, I'll only kill him a little, then."
"Tara…you're…" Kim blinked, and stupidly said the first thing that came out of her mouth. "A major." She paused, realized how that sounded, "I mean in Ron's picture of you, you were a captain," Tara sighed.
"I know." She paused, "Before we get to talking, I'll tell you a story."
"A story?"
"About a strange world, where you have someone who likes her job, who is happy at her job, who enjoys flying plains and laying the righteous smack down on those who threaten the US or our friends."
"Okay…"
"Now, in a normal world, people would say: She likes her job. She's good at her job. Let's leave her there. But not this world. No, in this world they say: Let's promote her so her ass gets soft from chair parade, take her plane away, and tell her she has to go to Fort Bragg to work with the Joint Service Panel on advanced counter terrorist intelligence operations." She sighed. "So, short form, they made me do it."
"I still like my plan." Her friend said, who loomed over them both.
"Stop it, that's seditious." Tara said. "Oh, Kim, this untutored lout is my boyfriend. Kim, Meet Captain James Taggert, Australian Special Air Service."
"Untutored? I'll have you know my family could read all the way back to when they left England." He paused, "Not well mind you, or they'd have noticed the no trespassing signs on the Lord's forest. But you're dodging the question."
"What plan?" Kim asked.
"His great plan is that If I work hard, I can become Commandant of the Corps, and then as big chief, bust myself back down to captain." She grinned, "I have to admit, if I could do it and keep his pay…" Tara's eyes twinkled, "But enough about me—what about you? I knew you were getting out pretty soon, but we got caught up, in well, it's not important."
Kim didn't need to read minds to realize in this case, "Not important" really meant "Can't talk about' and she didn't ask.
"I'm getting settled in."
"With Ron?"
"I…have an apartment." Kim said. Tara blinked and nodded.
"He tried to run you over, didn't he."
"He-how do you know?"
"Ronnie's gotten used to getting his own way." Tara paused, "Not really the place to talk about it in detail, but lets just say, anyone who can face down a two star, on his own turf, is someone who is quite capable of forgetting that he doesn't always get his own way." Kim looked at her, and the gold insignia again She hadn't had to worry about this since before she went to jail, but as a captain or Major Tara might be handling hundreds of men, and would be expected to know enough about them to make them effective. Not only that, but Kim could read the insignia on her chest. Silver star, Bronze Star with V for valor, and… she blinked, a Navy Cross? Tara tracked her gaze.
"Don't worry about this—we had to do a little tour with some civilian's and they wanted us gussied up."
"A Navy Cross?" Kim said, "How- I mean if." There was one award higher, and that was the Congressional Medal of Honor.
"Dog fight." Tara said, "China and the US got into a… well little disagreement, we were all flying around each other better than a hundred planes in the air, someone lit off a missile and the next thing I know we're in the biggest dogfight I've ever seen. My baby got pretty chewed up but I gave better than I got and pulled a pair of Chinese fighters off one of my wingmen, so they decided I deserved this."
"More than that," Taggert said, "Shot down three confirmed, with one probable—that gave her more kills than anyone since Iraq." Tara shrugged.
"They didn't have the best equipment, and they were way behind on their C3I—but good pilots. Like I said, they chewed baby up."
"I… What happened after that?" Kim asked fascinated. Nobody had told her about a war with China.
"Everyone gets together, and suddenly it becomes an "unfortunate misunderstanding." Tara said, "Borders are tight enough without adding a war to the mix. We pulled a carrier out of the Pacific, and China publicly said they have no intention of resolving the Taiwan issue with violence. Everybody goes back to square one and breathes easier."
"Wow." Kim said. "I…I'm sorry, it's just that I still think of Wannaweep and cheerleading when I think about all of us—not dogfights."
"you weren't the only one." Taggert said, "Tara here nearly ended her marine corps career early over the big green guy." Tara glared at him.
"I don't understand." Kim said.
"You really never get tired of that story." Tara said.
"Nor does anyone else." Taggert replied, "I consider it my patriotic duty to insure that it is never forgotten.'
"hmph."
"Gil?" Kim asked.
"Yeah, Gil." Tara said, and shot Taggert a look that boded ill.
Why-oh.Gil had started the chain of events that had put her in jail.
"It's okay." Kim said.
"Well… I joined the corps right after high school—didn't have good enough grades to get into a good school…and I've always wanted a challenge. So we're doing maneuvers in this forest—this deep, dark forest that looks just like Wannaweep."
"And?"
"And I'm sent down, in the dark, to the regimental CP—a mile away. It's simulated combat conditions, so no lights, and even if every sound does make me think Gill's sneaking up on me." Tara paused, "'I'm afraid of the scary boogie man', doesn't usually cut it with your DI."
Tara paused and blushed, "So I'm walking down and realize that even if I don't have any bullets for my M16, I do have a nice sharp bayonet, so I put it on the gun….half way down, I hear a sound and no that Gill made his appearance, I turn around and give an approved Scream and nearly eviscerate…" she sighed, "My DI. It was not a fun walk to the Regimental Commander."
"Did you get in trouble?" Kim asked.
"Do you know how many tiles there are in a latrine? I do. There are a lot." Tara laughed, ruefully, "On the other hand, when I finally saw my personel jacket, I found out that the DI had written 'demonstrates the type of aggression and initiative desired in a Marine' in it, so things didn't go too badly." She grinned, "So, are you here to see your dad?"
"Yeah. Are you going back there?"
"Yep, my free time is just about over, and so is his." She smiled, "I'll walk you o-is your mom there?" At that, Tara looked a little uncertain.
"No..why?"
"Mmm… last long conversation we had ended with me punching her in the solar plexus, slinging her over my back and tossing her into a plane like a sack of potatoes."
"Mom?" Kim asked.
"She never told you? I'll let her—I've told my one embaressing story for the day. It's her turn. Ready?"
"Um, I have to call my parole officer, just give me a minute." Kim called up Rabbi Katz and explained what was happening. He looked apologetic.
"Kimberly, I can't clear that area for you. It's a military installation now, and you're… I'm sorry. Maybe your father could come out?" Kim's face started to burn in embarrassment. Walking around, enjoying the sights, she had forgotten that there were still bars in her life. Invisible, but no less real. Suddenly Tara plucked the phone out of her hand.
"Let me handle this. Hi Rabbi."
"Hello, Tara." Rabbi Katz said.
"Try this on your computer." Tara had her own phone out, a considerably more advanced model then Kim's. "This is Major Tara King, USMC ID number 38473-11." The machine paused, and she held it up to her eye, letting a flicker of laser light go over her pupil, and the machine beeped approvingly. "Clear Kim Possible, for civilian access to the Middleton Space Center. My authority for Civilian Access, with escort." She paused, "You're not planning on stealing any state secrets are you?" Kim shook her head. Tara winked, and spoke to Katz again.
"How is it now, Rabbi?"
"It's clear, Major." Rabbi Katz said. "Um, you do realize that you'll have to log her into the space centers security network? It's an isolated system."
"Don't worry—I'll clear her going in and then her dad can check her out later."
"Very good."
"I'm sorry to be a problem." Kim said, feeling a bit out of her depth. Neither Katz nor Tara looked at all put out.
"It isn't any problem at all, Kimberly, it's just that I didn't have authority to clear you for a military secured zone."
"And if you don't remind these machines who is boss now and then, they get uppity." Tara said, happily. "Ready? Let's go see your dad."
TBC.