Shortcut Communications Ch. II

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They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin, (1706-1790)

Now frontiers drift like desert sands
While nations wash their bloodied hands
Of loyalty, of history, in shades of gray

I woke to the sounds of drums
The music played, the morning sun streamed in
I turned and I looked at you
And all but the bitter residue slipped away
A Great Day For Freedom, Pink Floyd

When did it stop being my war, and become theirs? I'm forced to find my own definitions for the things I do, and the reasons I do them. My actions, and the results, have precluded me from the teachings and ways I have followed, and I'm lost now. But I'm not lost, really. Because I'm finding my own path. Cutting through the miasma that is this human life.

I shook my head, and I'm sure it looked like I was either mad, or plagued with gnats...but really, what could the opinions of such a low tier in the race that is humankind matter to me? I felt a less than kind smile cross my face, and I could also almost feel them shrinking back, away from me in that little bus depot. They were supposed to mean something to me...that's what had been told to me after all—that I was fighting not only for Nataku, but for them as well, because that's what she'd been doing.

I couldn't find her justice, though.

Her justice made it so that I was fighting for her, and for them...and I didn't want to fight for them, because that gave me responsibilities I did not want. But it was their war, not mine. I must fight for them, just as I was fighting for her. And to fight for them, I needed to go beyond her logic, and her justice.

I was being forced to rely on my own justifications, because hers...hers, and what mine used to be, were no longer enough in this war. But this relying on my own, was going even beyond finding my own, it was making me see the validity in others' choices in justice. Others, who were not as I was in my fighting, or in my choice to fight. As a futile practice, it no longer holds sway, but...fighting is what will bring this world to justice, so it is something I must do, to show myself that I do still have a sense of it.

But that was fallacious thinking as well. It was not just I that was fighting, there were others, fighting for the same cause that I was, but with different methods, and different reasons. Different people, different ways of thinking... Why did they fight? What was their sense of justice that led them to fight?

No, that wasn't the question. I knew why they were fighting—they believed in it. Just as I did, if only for different reasons. So that was a question I already knew the answer to.

Would it be an examination in human nature, then? A search for, not why they were fighting, but for why they fought at all. My choice had been to not fight, until I was given an incentive for doing so. And then, I did, because someone showed me that fighting could be something worthwhile. Still, though, that essence had to be already within me if I were going to choose to fight at all. There had to be some part of me, somewhere in my "self", even unbeknownst to me, that justified fighting. So if that were the case, my own beliefs, that I had relied upon, were no longer true, which led me back to the original point—my war, the one I'd been fighting before, wrapped up in the bindings of my duty to Meilan, or theirs, to fight for a cause, and it was theirs, not my own, that I was now fighting.

The bus I was waiting for was called so I boarded, and chose a seat that would show me the countryside as I passed through it. That was calming; it reminded me of Nataku, to see the green, and the colors of the flowers.

I'd remembered, sitting there in that depot, why I was avoiding places of any human habitation. They were so full of things that reminded me of the ultimate purpose of this war, and for the most part of it, how that purpose had not been mine. I still couldn't really see that true purpose, because those people couldn't. Here, on Earth, just as on the colonies, they might truly believe that they wanted their freedom, their rights controlled by them, rather than a military power, but now, they didn't even speak up at all about it. They let it stew, and felt that just resisting in the quiet of their own minds was enough. The feeling alone, I suppose, is the thought that let them choose that course of action.

I couldn't do that. Something about it wasn't right, and the idea never had been, it'd just been the application of the fight for the feeling of true freedom that had held me before.

It would be something in their own minds though, that would make me fundamentally different than they were. Something about the way I thought, and made decisions, was different than those that, although they were unhappy in their own minds with the establishment, did nothing about it, not even vocalizing it. And if this were to be the criteria of that difference, that meant that my allies, the other pilots, who were also people who, for some reason, fought, would have that same difference in them.

Because they were fighting, as I was. These people around me truly were as sheep and cattle. Not quite, perhaps, because I'm sure that, at some point, the majority of them have disagreed with some aspect of the established governments that surrounded them, but many of them talked, and did not a single thing to actually acquire that which they said they sought, and many more than that said nothing at all, choosing to live in a land of silence on the things that were, or should have been, so very important to them.

So how could I find my sense of justice from them? They were weak, and had no direction. The ones that had direction, chose to utilize that sense of it in an entirely different manner than I did. But we, being who we chose to be, were different, if only because of that inherent choice, in the far, deep recesses of our minds, to do something about the situation. No matter our different perspectives and driving forces.

It was something to think about. And, maybe, even something to ask about, to see if they could shed light on something that might end up as a primary part of our lives, and the way we lead them, in the future, should we decide to outlive this war.

Did I really want to look at the answers they had? There they were, right in front of my face, but was I ready to read them? I didn't know. Was what they came up with going to help me come to some decision in my own dilemma? Perhaps. And I think that it was that word, that "perhaps"...perhaps they could understand it, could understand it because they were unlike all the weak people I'd come across in that bus depot, and so many other places across this Earth, and the colonies. But these four other pilots, and the few people who could fight us, they were not as weak. Five of us, and we had no "reason" to fight. We had no charismatic leader, or dictator. No incentive to be on this giant suicide mission than whatever reasons we, personally had. So the reason that we fought, therefore, must be something in our own heads, and not something given to us from an outside influence.

Heero gave me the same look I always got from him, quiet, intense. He stared at the screen, and gave me a short answer, just as I was expecting from him, though why I was expecting that, despite the fact that he'd given an in-depth answer to Quatre, I'm not sure, but that's all I was expecting. That was the way we communicated, just as it was his way to do so differently with the other pilots.

"I fight because it's what I understand, and what I was trained to do."

But that could have so many other connotations. Was he giving me the room to interpret it? Allowing me to draw my own conclusions? Was he assuming that I knew him well enough to come to the "right" conclusion? This brought up a subject I'd been avoiding since Quatre had sent his last question. Did I know any of them, and if I didn't, did I have any right to second guess any of them, or even judge them?

Human nature, though...we judge everything, so there was no excuse for not, at the very least, coming to a definitive point on these issues, using what he'd given me, and, because it required me to pick it apart to understand it, my own interpretation of what he'd said. I had asked a question to find out their opinions, therefore, I must honor that, and decide what those opinions really mean, to me, or even, to them.

To understand something such as war, and fighting...what did that make Heero? A man with no past, or future, because he lived only for the fight? No, I can't see the past not being a part of him, he would have no strengths, and that is something he has. Perhaps it is then, that fighting is all he's ever seen as having any worth, for him. Is it as much of a wall, both a strength and a weakness, as that which I grew up with, surrounded by? Because, now, I can begin to recognize that some of the things I believed as a child couldn't hold true to the world I live in. If he were still embracing this wall, what would it take to break it? Because, as his companion, though I may not truly wish his company, or anyone else's...I have begun to see that such walls grow into great weaknesses. Doing what you are trained to do, I can understand. Living only in the present...perhaps I could not, because, then, I was very much interested in living in the past, though the times were always going forward, and I, perforce, must go too.

Did this train of thought mean that I actually was seeing them as being a necessary part of this fight? Judging them as being a force I must fight with, and not against. It was true, my goals were aligned with theirs, but I knew that they wouldn't always be, because they fought for different reasons than I. The common thread wasn't, therefore, what we fought for, but why we did, as I'd been thinking before. Something acknowledged not just by myself.

One answer.

I could identify with Heero. I could not with Trowa. He was full of none of the passion that I displayed, or Duo, or Quatre. He simply melted through one day, and the next, and the next. He was focused, too, on the present, and what part he played in it. This was what I had seen, so far. All that I had seen. That rationalization, though...it wasn't all appropriate, was it? Because...his answer to Quatre's question. That had been something for the future, not the present.

What was this trepidation I felt, opening this link?

"I have nothing to lose by fighting. Many of the people who hesitate don't do it for themselves." Steady, green eyes that peered through the light brownish hair. Calm, devoid features, that wanted to refuse such things as settling on the mind.

Well deserved hesitancy, apparently, because this seemed to be nothing more than a quiet, harsh scolding, filled with a lack of emotion, but not a lack of force, or backing. I deserved it, I saw.

Two answers.

Yet one more warm-up sequence in Nataku. It was a leisurely one, though, not the mad dash that it could sometimes be, so it was slow to the point of being nearly lazy. I reveled in the fact that I could afford that laziness, that one, small indication that all was well, or, as much as it could be. The thought of laziness made me think of Duo, though by now I knew, he wasn't, anymore than I was, because I took twenty seconds to boot Nataku up, instead of eleven point four. He couldn't be, because he was just as much a pilot as I was. He'd had more training than all but Heero, even. But he had that air to him that made him seem "lazy", or some definition thereof. One more mask, an untruth. Was that why he was ever so adamant about "telling no lies"? I wouldn't be surprised.

It seemed my thoughts of him brought with them a physical reality, because it was his drop that appeared on the screens after the mobile suit was warmed up.

Going against my sense of dignity, I must admit that I wasn't really looking forward to opening his message, more so even than Trowa's. He saw things in an entirely different light than I did, and he made fun of most of it. His lack of reverence made me wary, both of him, and his actions. He was unpredictable, more so even than the other pilots, because he chose to do things according to some system of right and wrong that only he listened to, or even knew. He'd told us, at some point early in our acquaintance, that he didn't take orders. He followed them. "When and if he felt like it" was to be unspoken, but understood by all of us.

Before his file loaded, I pulled up his face in my mind, and concentrated on it, willing it to move, to show me again what he was like. With surprise, I noted that it wasn't his smiling face that formed vaguely behind my eyelids, but the serious, determined soldier who came closer to being in focus. I can say that the surprise lasted only a moment before I came to an understanding with the determined eyes of the Duo I contemplated. Perhaps...perhaps, in some deep, dark part of my mind, it was time to lay to rest the insistence that this, an obvious rebuttal to my, admittedly, stubborn beliefs, was wrong, and weak. Because, the more I concentrated on the idea of Duo, the more I came up with the part of him that he outrageously called the God the Death, and not the part of him that laughingly joked about it.

I let the image go as the beep of Nataku heralded his face once more. And I was right. It was not his laughing face that appeared, but the grim, dark look I was associating with him.

"You know, I think Freud would be upset if we started assuming the guise of psychiatrists, 'cause that's what you're asking us to do." His eyes were worried. What was he afraid of in me? His shoulders heaved in a sigh. "I only know that this is what I should be doing. I have nothing else to live for, but this one purpose." Now a cynical smile. "No more. No more of this...this sheer madness that has enveloped this sphere of human wasteland."

He leaned back in his seat, arms crossed over his chest, the white of his cuffed sleeves giving off the greenish yellow glow of the lights they reflected.

"What more do you want me to say? That I fight so others don't have to? Yeah, that is a part of it, but saying just that would be a lie of omission. I fight for revenge? Some ball of burning rage, buried deep in my psyche, that's just begging to be let out? True, but still a lie."

His head tilted to the side, regarding the screen. "So, what's behind door number three? You tell me, 'cause I don't think this is an answer you're gonna find anywhere else. Because you're the one obsessed with this one, my man. I don't need to know why I fight, rather than sitting back," here, he leaned further back in his command chair, and stretched his arms over his head, "and enjoying a sideline view. I just will."

He'd dropped his arms back across his chest, and, again, regarded the screen, this time through slit eyes. "That's the best I can do for you." He flashed a grin, and the dropping of his hand onto the control chair's arm precipitated the connections' cut.

Three...but what to do with this?

"It's what's most logical, for me." A frown. "I have resources that others don't, and skills, abilities, talents...it just makes sense, for me to do it." Pause, maybe thirty seconds, then a shrug. "Right now, it's all that I could see myself doing, in reality. I mean, yes, I could have tried to go by my father's credo, but really...this is what I could see. This is all I could agree with." Eyes that I'd never seen truly troubled before looked at the screen. "I had to face my lack of faith a long time ago, my friend. I can't say that I believe in a greater good, or even that humanity has a greater good. All I can do is hope, that when this war is over, no matter what side wins, that I will have been honorable in it, and that the people I have tried to free understand that whatever comes next is not really up to us, but to them, because we are not the people we are fighting for."

All accounted for.

I needed to reboot my systems. They were running too slow, and I was getting annoyed with them. Unfortunately, I was in an unsecured location, and could not, therefore, completely shut them down. I had the nasty feeling that it was going to result in a power failure during a battle, when I'm face to face with my enemy. But until I reached a point where it's safe to shut them down, my systems would just have to suffer through it with me. There were always risks involved, and out of all of us...I was beginning to think that I was the one most likely to take the more clear cut risks for personal reasons, instead of the weight of the reward over the risk.

Not something that I felt the others would appreciate, but something that made sense to me, and was therefore something I would continue to do, because that was the path I chose, and, as Quatre said, the only thing I could see myself doing. So I suppose, that, yes, they did answer my question for me, even though I had to reason through it on my own, in all reality.

The reason that we all fought, and didn't stand aside, was because it was the only thing that made any sort of sense. No, it wasn't a scientific answer—but I think that here, anyway, it was okay, because in this war, we were having to learn more and more to depend on our instincts, rather than what we'd been taught, or learned before we stepped into this vast arena where it was literally us, separately, but also as a group, against everyone else.