Chapter 23

"We don't need to like each other, we just need to work together."

-Afanasijovych

Afanasijovych sighed as he put his stuff in the locker. He had just been on a long training exercise and was ready to take a shower and go to sleep.

He sighed as he saw his Russian counterparts enter the place. This was not something he was looking forward to, especially after the incident a few weeks ago where he and a few of his fellow Ukrainians had gotten into a physical altercation with them.

The leader of the Russians in this group looked to be a war criminal and had a sketchy background to put it nicely. Enough evidence has not been found to consider him one but he wasn't sure why there wouldn't be war crimes from a person like him.

Neither paid any attention to either, as there was a tense truce that had been in place since the altercation several weeks ago. Neither was ready to have to do anything with the other outside the bare necessities that their job demanded of them. The tension between the two kept them away from one another as neither wanted to be in another fight.

However, after they were done putting away their gear for the night both were called to Colonel Petrova's office. Both were wondering what they had done because neither of them had any idea why they would be called in.

"Good evening, gentlemen," Petrova said expressionlessly. "You both performed well today and I'll be sending you to be the first of the force to participate in extreme survival training." She then explained that they'd be dropped on some distant planet with a barely breathable atmosphere and few resources, and were supposed to survive for 24 hours.

"You'll depart tomorrow so get some rest. You are both dismissed."

Hans soon walked into the room and as he had often done before sat on her desk.

"So you think that they will kill each other?" He asked.

"Either they will or they will be able to respect one another." She said, "I can't have two people serving side by side that hate each other. I don't need them to like each other or even really be friends but I need them to be able to at least respect each other and not create undue tension."

"I can't think of a better way," Hans said. "They're acting like children over there with their little rivalry."

"Remember how you used to not like me?" He said. "It's the same thing, just more intense."

"Nationalism is one hell of a drug," Petrova muttered and sighed.

"The Ukrainian has a point though," Hans said. "I don't think that he has a great past."

"I agree," Petrova said. "But considering what he was confronted with extremism made sense. Hell, what do you think hundreds of years of oppression lead to? And we can't be choosy right now. We do have a war to win after all.

"That's why I support your decision, Victoria," Hans replied.

"You know it's probably unrealistic, but what do you think about what's going to happen after the war is done?" She asked. "I mean if we win. If Earth is going to become a galactic power then it must be united in action. We cannot have a multitude of nations doing whatever they want, at least when it comes to important matters. There's a reason that the rest of the worlds in the galaxy don't have nation-states populating their planets, they'd get in the way of more important matters.

"What if the people don't want to be unified?"

"Then they must be convinced otherwise, or at least accept it," Petrova said. "After I saw what happened to my country, nationalism like that can not be allowed to run amok."

"We're a long way from Coruscant," Hana replied. "I hope that we can get to that point where we make those decisions about Earth and still be alive."

Petrova looked at him in understanding and squeezed his hand.

"I hope we can too."

Anonajitch looked around at the barren wasteland that he was currently inhabiting. He would be here for almost a full day, stuck with one of the people who he most disliked. Sergi Konesenko, who had been the one who had started the fight back a few weeks ago. There had been a growing tension before that had erupted, and looking at it from a longer-term view it was inevitable that something was to happen between them.

This barren rock supposedly had no name and had a barely breathable atmosphere. He would have paid handsomely for even a basic set of life support equipment in this environment.

Under other circumstances, he would be a lot willing to work with whoever he was dropped with but now? Konesenko was one person who he had most disliked. It would take quite a lot to get the two to work with each other.

But if anything would get the two to work together, being stranded here was one of them.

"We have to go south." Was the only thing he said, referring back to the conditions of the training exercise. The atmosphere would be denser there, to the point they could maybe even start a fire. Konesenko nodded, and the two got up and trekked south.

Neither said a word as they continued south. Talking would just be another way to waste energy that could be used to get them somewhere.

They tolerated each other cause they had no other choice.

It had been reasonable to assume that they had been paired with one another for a reason; the fact was that they needed to learn how to work with each other more effectively.

They didn't need to like each other, they might still hate each other. But it was clear what Petrova had been doing, and that they needed to work together.

After an hour, they reached the rough area where they would be picked up. They had about four hours left, and each of them would be waiting for the pickup awake as they needed to be alert for any potential issue.

And while they hadn't killed each other yet, both were thinking to themselves that the other one would try to do that to them. There was still a lack of trust, and in each other's opinion for a good reason.

"You know, neither of us like the other," Afanasijovych said. "But we need to work together for the success of the mission. Let's just do our jobs and not cause a fuss about things that don't matter in our line of work."

There was a nod from Kolenencko. An agreement has been reached.

"We don't need to like each other, we just need to work together." He said.

In a few hours, a gunship came to pick them up. They had managed to successfully take the two soldiers back to the Earth and soon they returned to their duties as normal. An unwritten agreement had been forged between them in silence, one that didn't require them to be part to like each other but one that would ensure that they stay professional during their duties and avoid interacting with one another when off duty.

They still may hate each other but now they didn't wish that one another would be dead. Because in the grand scheme of things, their disagreements were petty on the level of the galaxy. In peacetime, they would likely be able to have this level of disagreement but under the current circumstances, their disagreement could not interfere with their duties. This wasn't directly bound by regulation but by their sense of duty and honor.

Across both Earth, the territory that they liberated, and the front lines similar situations happened with increasing frequency. Men and women who had once hated each other understood that they needed each other in order to survive. The empire didn't care what country you had come from, their blasters didn't discriminate. In this fire of war, Russian and Ukrainian, Chinese and Taiwanese, Israeli and Palestinian, and every other nationality found that they needed each other in order to survive and win. They didn't need to like each other, but eventually they did start to. Fighting next to someone will do that to them, and as time went on their differences started to matter less. They were all in this conflict together, and it would be up to all of their actions if Earth was to win.

If working together would give them a chance for victory, then they would take it.