OK, GrandPaw
Alchibah A+3
Andrew Stuart
I finally came back into the real world with one knee on the ground and icicles hanging off my chin. Par for the damn course, I stood slowly and stared around. Two years I had worked myself and almost everyone around me to near exhaustion to try and prevent this.
I had worked to win a War with one fast knockout punch, and fate had thrown me Aliens no one could have predicted. If Earth had not faded like a piker. Hell, if they had just had the guts to purge their data bases; these fracking Aliens would not be here. No way though, not while slime like Redmond cared about their Power and personal comfort more than anything else.
Damn this is just not worth it. Then a voice flared in my head, “ Andrew William Waker Stuart. I have gone to War beside you, and I love you more than life itself. I have borne you two children that I thought could never be. Do not tell me for one second that you would consider allowing those gifts from the Gods to live as Slaves!”
I knew where Mariana was so that was memory and was stunned when another voice slammed into my head, “I’m expendable. You guys are the warriors. Let me see what they want. I’ve got guns. If they snuff me, you all haven’t exposed yourselves and you can still show-and-tell.”
I sank to my knees, I had not asked for this. How much could the Universe ask of one Man. “Boy I know you can shoot, can you make the Shot?” I looked up and in front of me was GrandPaw. “Can you make the Shot when Fire and Flames rage around you; when Lives you love are on the the line? Are you a poser or are are you a Damn Warrior or maybe just another wannabe?” I also heard in my mind the answer to GrandPaw that Day when I was only eight years old. “Grampa, they get me or mine when I am dead!”
“So stand up Boy, make em face a Celt!”
I stood and wiped the snow and mud off of my knees and headed for the Communications Control Center.
Up on the ridge to Ft. Stuart Hanna Parker had stopped and was staring down upon the town. “What drives that man?”
Jules Parker smiled, “Some will tell you hate, but they are wrong. Love and Duty are the whips that drive him.”
Hanna turned, “I thought you did not understand Him?”
“Never said that love, said I could not follow Him. He needs a special kind and we ain’t it. Let’s go, people need to feel like they have a chance!”