Summer challenge: Women of Summer: Sally, and prompt 282 independence
Title: Primere Non Nocere
Author: ingvild
Characters: Sally
Rating/Word Count: PG, 500 words
Summary: Sally leaves the Alliance behind.
A/N: I missed the Sally prompt during the summer challenge, but found that the fic I had planned rather fit with this prompt, with only some minor tweaking. So here it is. If it's bad manners to double tag the prompt, I'll remove one (I just didn't think to ask permission earlier, and I've got stuff to do and the time for the prompt is running out and...you get the point).
Sally has to wonder how she has managed to rise as high in the ranks as major, at times. She is altogether too conscientious for an Alliance officer.
Sally believes that their job is to protect people, not destroy them. As opinions go, this one is quite rare, both within the political and the military division of the Alliance. As the situation with the Colonies is slipping more and more away from their control, politicians and military leaders both start grumbling about needing to crush those uppity colonials under their heel once and for all.
Sally wonders how far the Colonies will go. Do they want their independence? That does not seem like a very prudent goal - the Colonies are hardly self-sufficient in terms of food supplies, and their existence out in space is a fragile one. Artillery batteries intended to shoot down stray meteors or asteroids to prevent a potentially fatal collision would not even present a credible threat if the Alliance chooses to pit their military weight against the fragile metal structures.
But as time passes, the question seems to become more and more irrelevant. The press is jumping over Vice Foreign Minister Darlian’s death, believing it to be the work of colonials - Sally remembers the young girl she met, and wonders how she is doing.
More than that, she wonders which part of the puzzle she is missing. The Gundams are colony-built, but they don’t seem to be representing anyone in particular. Darlian’s death does not fit into even their pattern. But when she voices her suspicions to her superiors, they tell her to let it lie, with the implication that too much independent thought is discouraged. Sally chooses to stay quiet, while silently fretting over everything. What is happening? What is she missing?
The missing piece, when it finally reveals itself, comes in the shape of OZ. The death of the Alliance pacifists at the hands of a Gundam pilot - the one she examined at the hospital - fits too well with OZ’s violent takeover of Alliance posts to be coincidental. Sally ignores her superior officers’ orders to stay and takes a shuttle with some soldiers she can trust, and leaves to get answers. She is too late to prevent a nuclear meltdown personally, but in time to beg another to act as her proxy.
She looks at the OZ soldiers trussed up on the floor with disgust. They, as much as everyone else she has had to deal with in her career, place ambition high above human lives. But Sally is different. No matter how inconvenient it may be for her, no matter how much it may shorten her life expectancy, she will bring violence only to those who deserve it, and protect those who do not.
Sally turns on her heel and stalks out. She still has contacts back home, and those contacts have been sending messages about something bad brewing up for some time now.
It is time to strike out on her own.
Author: ingvild
Characters: Sally
Rating/Word Count: PG, 500 words
Summary: Sally leaves the Alliance behind.
A/N: I missed the Sally prompt during the summer challenge, but found that the fic I had planned rather fit with this prompt, with only some minor tweaking. So here it is. If it's bad manners to double tag the prompt, I'll remove one (I just didn't think to ask permission earlier, and I've got stuff to do and the time for the prompt is running out and...you get the point).
Sally has to wonder how she has managed to rise as high in the ranks as major, at times. She is altogether too conscientious for an Alliance officer.
Sally believes that their job is to protect people, not destroy them. As opinions go, this one is quite rare, both within the political and the military division of the Alliance. As the situation with the Colonies is slipping more and more away from their control, politicians and military leaders both start grumbling about needing to crush those uppity colonials under their heel once and for all.
Sally wonders how far the Colonies will go. Do they want their independence? That does not seem like a very prudent goal - the Colonies are hardly self-sufficient in terms of food supplies, and their existence out in space is a fragile one. Artillery batteries intended to shoot down stray meteors or asteroids to prevent a potentially fatal collision would not even present a credible threat if the Alliance chooses to pit their military weight against the fragile metal structures.
But as time passes, the question seems to become more and more irrelevant. The press is jumping over Vice Foreign Minister Darlian’s death, believing it to be the work of colonials - Sally remembers the young girl she met, and wonders how she is doing.
More than that, she wonders which part of the puzzle she is missing. The Gundams are colony-built, but they don’t seem to be representing anyone in particular. Darlian’s death does not fit into even their pattern. But when she voices her suspicions to her superiors, they tell her to let it lie, with the implication that too much independent thought is discouraged. Sally chooses to stay quiet, while silently fretting over everything. What is happening? What is she missing?
The missing piece, when it finally reveals itself, comes in the shape of OZ. The death of the Alliance pacifists at the hands of a Gundam pilot - the one she examined at the hospital - fits too well with OZ’s violent takeover of Alliance posts to be coincidental. Sally ignores her superior officers’ orders to stay and takes a shuttle with some soldiers she can trust, and leaves to get answers. She is too late to prevent a nuclear meltdown personally, but in time to beg another to act as her proxy.
She looks at the OZ soldiers trussed up on the floor with disgust. They, as much as everyone else she has had to deal with in her career, place ambition high above human lives. But Sally is different. No matter how inconvenient it may be for her, no matter how much it may shorten her life expectancy, she will bring violence only to those who deserve it, and protect those who do not.
Sally turns on her heel and stalks out. She still has contacts back home, and those contacts have been sending messages about something bad brewing up for some time now.
It is time to strike out on her own.