Aftermath

[John Randall 0]

AFTERMATH Randall-Granger Joint Log

 

John arrived at the safe house after an afternoon that had sort of gone by in a blur. It had been an eventful day, to say the least. He never thought in his wildest dreams that, when he went to the complex this morning, the day would end with a member of the group they had been sent here to stop dead. He had unwittingly come across the guy purely by accident, random chance, whatever you wanted to call it. ‘And let’s be honest,’ he thought to himself as he sat on the front porch of the safe house. ‘If you hadn’t had someone watching you, most likely you’d be dead, or at the least, suffered a stun blast.’

 

He was anticipating having to go through sort of a debriefing later this evening. He just didn’t know who would be performing it. He owed his life to the marines who had been watching over him, and he knew it. He was hoping it would be Marine Captain Cassidy Granger doing the debriefing, or whatever it turned out to be. He felt pretty comfortable around the Marines, but he had no doubt Granger would grill him pretty good on what had happened, and he was ready for it. He wasn’t going to apologize for what he had done; he had needed to get out of the building for a while, and what had transpired after that was just one of those things.

 

Granger appeared next to him on the porch about 6pm, bottle of beer in hand, looking like she’d been through the wringer already. It could be they’d finished up their incident debrief because she’d been locked in a room with the team and senior management for a few hours. She paused at the top step, gave a long sigh and took a swig of beer. Then she spoke to him without even looking in his direction.

 

“Got a minute, Lieutenant,” she said, obviously not a question. Then she took another swig.

 

“Sure.”

 

She stared across the bay a while before turning slowly and taking a seat beside him. “You ever heard the phrase going outside the wire, sir?” She still wasn’t looking at him.

 

Taking his silence as a negative, she continued, “Going outside the wire is a phrase that goes way back, hundreds of years. Before we had sensor nets and a defense grids for protection, we’d put up large rolls of razor wire around camps, posts, bases, and what have you. Now, in theory, inside the wire you’re protected. When you went ‘outside the wire’ you were literally outside the base and figuratively outside whatever protection the main base could give you. You were on your own.” She paused again, this time studying the beer bottle. “You were outside the wire today, sir,” she said with forced calm. “It could have just as easily be you in that body bag ship-side.”

 

All during the time she had been talking, John had instinctively not been looking at her. His earlier suspicion was correct; Granger was upset with him. And, probably, rightfully so. But, he was determined to make her understand why he had done what he had done.

 

“Captain,” he said, deliberately using her rank instead of her name so she would (hopefully) see he was serious as well. “I’m not going to apologize for anything I’ve done today,” he said calmly. “You’re upset with me, and you have a right to be so. But, I needed to get away from the building, yes, even the mission, for a little bit. I needed to clear my head. Communing with nature has always worked for me, until today.” He paused to take a sip of Pepsi-Cola he was drinking.

 

“I’ve had a fight with a Klingon, ma’am, and survived it. The information is available in my personal logs. That’s not to say I consider myself invincible or anything, but, after you’ve gone toe to toe with a Klingon, a human just isn’t that intimidating for you. Granted, he could have vaporized me today, but, to tell you the truth, I wasn’t a bit scared. Some might call that false bravado. Call it what you want. I don’t care.

 

“All I know is, I was just trying to clear my head, and this happened. It could have happened to any one of us. I won’t apologize for it, but, in deference to you and your comrades-in-arms, I promise not to do it again. I’m done talking.” With that, he took another sip of his drink, and waited for Granger’s response, still looking straight ahead.

 

Cass nodded, falling silent for a few minutes. “You know, sir,” she said finally, “we all need to get away once in a while. Only thing, as head of mission security I’m going to require you to inform someone of your intentions. You can go pretty much

wherever you’d like to on this entire planet if you let me know. I’ll inform Delta, Gunny will inform the rest, and we have one big hellofa ship in orbit that can place a grid around you anywhere, anytime. Thing is, we need to know.

 

“After action review is in ten,” she said with a tone of finality as she stood and tossed her bottle in the trash bin. “I thank you for your time, sir. See you there.”

 

John nodded. “Understood, Captain. Thank you for hearing me out, and thanks to you and your team for watching over me. See you in ten.” He watched Granger go into the safe house, and leaned back in his chair, letting out a big sigh. It had

gone about like he’d expected. But, if there was more to come, he was ready.

 

 

END LOG