THE SECRET LIFE OF AN ENFORCER COMMANDER
Chapter 3: Return To Duty
He lay with her for a couple of hours, then sighing T-Bone carefully slipped from the bed and gently covered her. He stared down at her for a few minutes. "Her face is my hated enemy, but her heart and mind is so far away from that persona that she is a completely different person. I'm not seeing her at her best of course and I don't know if it is pity I feel or the beginning of something else. Crud! What a mess I'm in. Well, leave it for now, I need to go see Dr. Genser. I just hope the doc can help Ulera get back to work before Steele wrecks complete havoc with the enforcers." Sighing again, he quietly gets dressed and leaves.
At the nurses station he asks for Dr. Genser. Nurse Menlo directs him to go to the second floor, room 205. T-Bone thanks her, a few minutes later he is entering the indicated room. The doctor's assistant greets him and asks that he wait a moment while she sees if the doctor is free. Minutes later, the doctor, herself comes out to see him and quickly ushers him into her office.
"Thank you for giving me your time, T-Bone" she said sitting down behind her desk.
"Sure thing doc. But what did you need to see me for?" T-Bone settled in a chair in front of her desk and cocked his head in puzzlement.
"You are in a unique position to observe Ulera in an intimate and personal way that no one else can. You are able to give me a more in-depth point of view of her feelings and behavior." She said earnestly.
"I'm not so sure if I'm that good a judge of how she's feeling doc" T-Bone squirmed uncomfortably.
"Oh, I think you know more than you realize. Relax T-Bone! I'll just ask you some questions and you answer to the best of your ability. Anything you say is strictly confidential and will be a great help towards her recovery." Dr. Genser assured him.
"Okay. I'll do my best. Anything to get that haunted look from her eyes and help her get back to the job she loves." T-Bone agreed.
For the next hour, T-Bone felt like he had had his brain picked clean. The doctor had asked dozens of questions on Ulera's body language, how she reacted to him, what she said and how he solved the problem of her fear of being touched by a male. Lastly, she asked how he, himself, felt about the situation he found himself in. This part was difficult to explain since it was tied to his real identity, so he was unable to clearly tell the doctor the underlying reason he had not liked the Chief Enforcer. But he was able to express his self doubts and new feelings for the real person known as Ulera.
"Thank you, T-Bone. You have been extremely helpful. Now I have a clearer idea of how best to treat Ulera. As for your feelings in this matter, I can only offer this advice. Go slow! Examine all your dealings with her from now on. Beware of becoming too emotionally involved until she is healed enough to know her own mind before pursuing anything more serious if that ends up being what happens between you. Your public personas, as perceived by the katizins of this city, will prevent you from showing any kind of attachment and that alone could put a strain on her recovery because of the need for secrecy. So, please for the sake of both of you, be careful! All right?" She cautioned.
"I understand doctor. I don't want to do anything that can make her situation worse. I'll try to keep too much of my emotions from getting involved, except what's needed to earn her trust. At this time it seems I will be the only male that will be able to get close to her to dump her energy when she needs to." T-Bone asserted.
"I'm afraid you may be right, T-Bone. At least, for the time being." Dr. Genser agreed. She again thanked him, gave him her contact numbers and finally released him. It was already late afternoon by the time he finally returned to their secret hangar. He quickly stripped his G-suit off and put on his coveralls. Returning to the garage, he found Jake just finishing the last vehicle.
"Sorry I was gone so long, buddy" Chance helped put away tools and close up the yard and garage.
"That's okay, Chance. How did it go?" Jake asked. Chance gave an abbreviated version of the day's events.
"The docs right, be careful of letting your compassion get you in too deep" Jake cautioned.
"Yeah, yeah! I know, Jake. Let's just drop it now, okay? I'm hungry! What's it going to be piazza or Chinese?" He moved towards the stairs to their living quarters.
"I don't know, how about we flip a coin" Jake laughed. Chance laughed too and pulled a coin from his pocket.
A month later...
The past month had been filled with tears, screams, violent bouts of anger, swings of depression and happiness, baring her soul until she felt raw, in short, pure hell. But now here she stood with her release papers and a stronger sense of self esteem. She still suffered nightmares but they were fewer and less intense. But most importantly, she was able to interact with males without flinching, cowering, or attacking partly thanks to the occasional visits and power dumping by a certain SWAT Kat. And, though her spirit had taken a beating, it had survived the fires and was stronger for it.
With a sigh of relief and pleasure, she stepped down the steps of the clinic and headed for the taxi waiting to take her home. She planned to clean her apartment, restock groceries, catch up her bookkeeping and generally get her life back to a semblance of normalcy. It was Friday and on Monday she would don her uniform and walk back into her office and wrest control back from that fool Steele. She knew she was in for long days undoing the mess he was sure to have made of her files and mission records.
The only dark side to her optimism was the fact that many of her enforcers, if not all of them by now, knew that she wasn't what she pretended to be. She'd discussed this with Dr. Genser on how she needed to approach this problem. Dr. Genser understood that full disclosure was not a safe nor politically wise option. She suggested that Ulera hold a special meeting with all her command officers and find out what the mood of her troops was before making any decisions on what action to take. She also suggested that the Commander include the Deputy Mayor since Ms Briggs was already aware of Feral's situation. Feral had to agree that Dr. Genser's advice was sound.
As soon as she had returned home, Feral called her faithful Sergeant and had him notify all division commanders of a meeting to be held in her conference room at 1000 hrs, Monday morning. The Sergeant snapped his acknowledgment and ended the call with a warm 'Glad you are well again and anxious to see you once more at work' with an embarrassed thank you from the Commander. Pleased, she quickly got busy setting her life back in order.
Monday morning, shift change, the Chief Enforcer of Megakat City strode through the main doors of Enforcer Headquarters. The constant buzz of the intake area ceased at the sight of her commanding form striding across the foyer for the elevators. She ignored the stunned looks of the enforcers and muttered oaths of the prisoners and was very glad the elevator arrived immediately whisking her up to her tower offices. Her secretary looked up with a surprised gasp and a belated greeting. Feral merely nodded and continued on into her inner sanctum, growling at the sight of the arrogant Lt Commander Steele with his boots on the desk looking through a file.
Steel looked up at the door's sudden opening. He squeaked a shocked 'Commander,' nearly falling backward as he jerked his boots off the desk and shot to his feet. "Sir...or ah...Mamm?" he stuttered uncertain what to call the Commander now.
"At ease, Steele, and it's still Sir. I have a meeting with all division commanders scheduled for 1000 this morning until then brief me on what has been going on since my absence" she ordered. Still shaken, Steele quickly filled the Commander in on the ongoing projects, missions, and current orders he had implemented.
Grunting in annoyance, she found too many of his orders were unnecessary or misleading busy work taking valuable time away from the real needs of the city. Sighing she immediately began detailing orders countermanding many of Steele's ill conceived plans. She dismissed him to begin implementing her orders and worked diligently until the meeting.
Her Sergeant knocked and poked his head in to tell her that everyone had arrived for the meeting. She acknowledged his warning and stopped him from leaving with a brief order. "Sergeant, a moment please." He came in the office and waited patiently for her to continue. "I would like you to attend this meeting as well. In the days to come, I may need to rely on you more than being just my assistant" she sighed uncomfortably. Though she could now stand for males to be near her, she was still a little uneasy in their presence. Her sergeant though, was someone she never felt nervous around and found that was still true. She knew that she was going to need a steadying presence near her when events became tense and she started to lose control. " We need to talk in depth after the meeting so that I can explain your additional duties and answer any other questions you may have. Alright?" she asked him quietly. "As you wish sir" he answered simply. Still a bit nervous, she nodded and led the way to the conference room.
As she stepped into the room, outwardly she displayed only a calm exterior inside her stomach had butterflies. Moving to the head of the table, she studied each face to gage their mood. Their expressions spanned the spectrum from curious, uncertain, blank, suspicious, calm, and disturbed. Their very presence made her want to run screaming from the room and she had to expend all her will power to stand firm and wrestle her fear to the ground and stamp on it. There were at least four other females in the room and that helped her a little.
"This meeting is to answer any questions you have about me, what the rumors are floating around and to give me your impressions of the lower ranks mood. First however, I will give you some background on who I really am and what brought me to Megakat City and the enforcers. Some of what I must say is extremely painful for me. I may become upset and have to pause and I may start to glow. Please do not be alarmed, stay seated, do not interrupt, and hold your questions till the end" she stated calmly, pleased her voice did not shake.
She took a deep breath and slowly let it out then began to speak. When she reached some of the more brutal parts (rapes, broken bones, beatings, deprivation), she was forced to stop and turn her back to them. She trembled and did some deep breathing exercises until she was calmer then turned back around and continued on. A half hour later she finished but was too tense to sit even though she was drained emotionally. The worst was yet to come. "Now I will answer your questions" she said carefully.
Many of the faces had varying degrees of horror, sorrow, pity and righteous anger, and a few showed a fear of me. After a moments silence and some clearing of throats, my senior officer finally asked a question.
"Commander, I'm sure all here agree that your earlier life was horrific and your understandable reaction and subsequent killing of your former tormenter was justified. My only concern now is how do we treat you? I mean to say, do we continue to behave towards you as before or will there be some need for change? After all, you are a very dangerous feline not counting that you are female" Colonel Stanlore queried cautiously.
"I understand your trepidation, Stanlore. My species can be extremely dangerous but, with the exception of my ex-mate, we are generally a peaceful race. Our energy is used for defense purposes only. However, I have never used my abilities in the 12 years I've lived in Megakat City. No matter how dangerous the situation I've never once used my abilities to defend myself." I stated firmly.
"Yes sir, we know. However, that was because you were hiding yourself. Now you don't have to. How will that change things between us and you?" Colonel Stanlore insisted.
"There's where you are wrong. It is not safe for my true identity to be known. I'm sure Ms Briggs will agree, that the katizens of this city would be shocked and fearful if they were aware of my true abilities. Although, you'd think they'd be hardly bothered considering all the strange things that happen around here. It may well be that they will accept me eventually, but I think that should be done gradually not dumped in their laps abruptly." I looked to Ms Briggs for collaboration.
"Commander Feral is correct. When her identity was revealed during the incident, I made sure that the public nor the media ever got wind of it. Her time in the treatment center was kept strictly hushed up and if I am not mistaken, you here have kept it within these walls as well?" Ms Briggs glanced around the table for confirmation.
"You are correct Ms Briggs. Until we knew more of what went on, all of us gave strict orders that what had been seen or heard would not be passed beyond these walls on pain of some dire consequences for the offender. So far that seems to have worked. We've not heard anything from outside about the incident and only speculation about the Commander's absence. Most troops seem to think that the SWAT Kats had injured her in some way and that's why she hadn't been seen. We thought it best to allow that little misinformation to circulate. Made it easier all around. Generally, the troops all think you were hospitalized and are now back. There is a general feeling of relief from all quarters that you are back in the saddle again" Colonel Bronsen reported.
"That is really good to know. I appreciate what you've done to keep this quiet. For all here, I will continue to present a male persona. Continue to treat me as you had before. The only difference is I require a male every two weeks to rid my body of excess energy. For the time being, the SWAT Kat known as T-Bone is willing to do this. We will be very discreet." I concluded. "Are there any more concerns?
"Yes, I have one sir!" came a query from one of my female colonels. "If your power is that strong, why couldn't you use it discreetly to help defend against those damn omegas? We might actually succeed in defeating them permanently at last" she urged.
"I agree with Colonel Faust, sir. Your energy might be able to prevent those creeps from trashing most of the city every time. We'd be happy to spin the true as it were whenever you use your abilities." Colonel Bronsen nodded.
Staring around the table, she saw general agreement on this plan of action. She was surprised and warmed by their ready acceptance of her and their willingness to have her as a secret weapon.
"I must admit to being surprised and pleased by your acceptance of me and I think your idea has great merit. I think, though, we should play that by ear and see how it goes before I take a definite active participation as a...uh...secret weapon. Are there anymore concerns?" I asked
"Should the troops be let in on this secret? After all, if you do end up using your powers, they will need to be part of your shield against outsiders knowing about you" Colonel Stanlore questioned.
"Well the public will eventually know. I don't think we can keep it secret for too long but I agree with you, perhaps it would be wise that the troops be informed as well as carefully instructed that this must be kept in house. However, the only thing they need to know is about my abilities but nothing about the incident, my species or my sex. You may tell them an accident gave me the ability to absorb energy. Do you agree?" I insisted.
Everyone thought about that for a few minutes and then all heads nodded. Ms Briggs agreed that this was the best decision that could be made under the circumstances. She demanded, however, that if there was an incident involving my powers, she was to be informed immediately. All were in agreement and, to my relief, that ended the meeting. The results were far better than I had dreamed they would be.
I returned to the my office with the Sergeant trailing behind me. He quietly closed the door and came to stand at ease in front of my desk. I studied him for a moment, gathering my thoughts.
"Sergeant, there is one thing I didn't tell everyone in there. Due to the trauma I suffered, I have difficulties being near males. The therapy I underwent has eased that condition but not eliminated it. Because I trusted you before the incident, I find I am able to tolerate your presence. This is very good for an important reason. There will be times when an incident will hit close to the traumas of my past. I may lose control. You'll know this because I'll begin to glow, my eyes return to their normal appearance and I will display my fangs and claws. Your job is to quietly and carefully get close to me and talk me down, give me something else to focus on. However, under no circumstances get any closer than an arms length and never touch me. If you aren't able to bring me under control then don't hesitate to summon T-Bone. He is the only male at this time who can physically touch and calm me.
"It will be my proud duty to aid you whenever you may need it, sir, have no fear" the Sergeant vowed sturdily. "I'm just glad you are sitting in that seat again, though I must admit this situation with a SWAT Kat could become very awkward" he worried.
"Yes, I am aware of that. It may become even more awkward if he and I should become more than casually involved. But we will deal with that when the time comes. No sense borrowing trouble, but I thank you for your concern. You are dismissed and thank you for your support!" I said warmly. He merely smiled, nodded, did a smart about turn and departed. Now I can finally return to my work with a calmer mind. The future looked brighter for the first time in my life.