A Plan of Action
A continuation from "The Light"
The object, which vaguely resembled a huge starship traveled upwards for about a minute, at a very slow rate, and came to a stop about 200 feet off of the ground. The effervescence was no longer nearly as intense, but the ship still radiated some light . "Right, well, you're in charge now, Epsilon" said Beta 492, "what do we do, sir?" "Uhh.." I paused to think. I wanted to see if the shaft, and, therefore most likely the ship, was controlled by the Confederates, but I didn't want to put anyone in danger due to my own curiosity. Other commanders made decisions like this all of the time. They put lives at stake because they needed to. Because the Republic needed them to. We were used to taking those kinds of suicidal orders, we knew we would die with honor, we would die to save the Republic. But I am just another trooper. How do I tell my comrades that they need to sacrifice themselves for our cause? How would I ever be able to live with myself knowing that I had sent my friends to their deaths while I stayed safe? "Sir, what is our plan of action?" Beta inquired again. "Split into two groups. Beta, Tau and I are going into the shaft, everyone else, move to offensive positions around the shaft, and be prepared to provide cover fire."
My plan seemed like a pretty good one, at least at the moment. What I had forgotten was that Tau was our best sniper, and a fairly poor infantryman. The three of us in the small "strike team" crept over to a small staircase which spiraled downwards around the circumference of the perpetually deep shaft. We started to creep down the stairs, and we approached a small control console. "What in the hell is this?" asked Beta. "Wait... I've seen one of these before, it's..." Tau muttered. Beta reached forward to touch it. "No, don't!" yelled Tau, just as Beta's finger connected with the holographic panel.
The object, which vaguely resembled a huge starship traveled upwards for about a minute, at a very slow rate, and came to a stop about 200 feet off of the ground. The effervescence was no longer nearly as intense, but the ship still radiated some light . "Right, well, you're in charge now, Epsilon" said Beta 492, "what do we do, sir?" "Uhh.." I paused to think. I wanted to see if the shaft, and, therefore most likely the ship, was controlled by the Confederates, but I didn't want to put anyone in danger due to my own curiosity. Other commanders made decisions like this all of the time. They put lives at stake because they needed to. Because the Republic needed them to. We were used to taking those kinds of suicidal orders, we knew we would die with honor, we would die to save the Republic. But I am just another trooper. How do I tell my comrades that they need to sacrifice themselves for our cause? How would I ever be able to live with myself knowing that I had sent my friends to their deaths while I stayed safe? "Sir, what is our plan of action?" Beta inquired again. "Split into two groups. Beta, Tau and I are going into the shaft, everyone else, move to offensive positions around the shaft, and be prepared to provide cover fire."
My plan seemed like a pretty good one, at least at the moment. What I had forgotten was that Tau was our best sniper, and a fairly poor infantryman. The three of us in the small "strike team" crept over to a small staircase which spiraled downwards around the circumference of the perpetually deep shaft. We started to creep down the stairs, and we approached a small control console. "What in the hell is this?" asked Beta. "Wait... I've seen one of these before, it's..." Tau muttered. Beta reached forward to touch it. "No, don't!" yelled Tau, just as Beta's finger connected with the holographic panel.
posted by Epsilon 775 at 11:44 AM
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