QM 53 - "If we only defend, we lose the war."
53 - "A good fort needs a gap. The enemy must be lured in. So we can attack them. If we only defend, we lose the war." - 'Seven Samurai'
Can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.
No pain, no gain.
You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life.
Back on Earth, I carried the rank of Commander with IASA, but unlike a lot of the astronaut corps, I never served in the military. I wasn't a soldier or even a pilot, really. I was a scientist. I am a scientist still, at least I hope I am. With everything that I've seen and done, I wouldn't be surprised if old Saint Peter needs to move me over a couple of columns in his ledger just to keep my qualifications straight.
I've seen war. Worse yet, I've fought wars. And worst of all, I have made war on others, and I am here to tell you that it is the unvarnished, unpolished and unbearable truth that war means casualties, and always will.
I tried to help them. My God did I try to do everything a man could possibly do to help them. They were... they were nurses. Non-combatant women and their children, and all that was standing between them and the bloodthirstiest bunch since the gang who sacked Rome for laughs were a couple of Peacekeepers. And right after we got there, that went down to exactly one Peacekeeper.
One Peacekeeper. The cook.
What would you have done in my boots, huh? A dozen damn Florence Nightingales, all of them huddling in some old abandoned monastery, waiting for hell and death and the worst things you can imagine to rain down on them from outside. Kids. Frell me, there were kids there. What would you have done?
This, of course, is the part of the John Crichton Show where there's a light at the end of the tunnel. We get a hold of not just a hostage, but the head honcho of the Horde, the general running the whole show, and he actually turns out to be a decent guy. He doesn't want his men to slaughter these people, he just wants water, but as long as there are soldiers in the camp, they can't just walk in peacefully and fill their canteens.
So there's me, with Patton, and I get the idea that if he can go back and tell his boys that me and mine are on our way out, then we can all be on our merries and nobody's got to die.
This is the part of the John Crichton Show where the light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be the headlights on a Peterbilt hauling cinderblocks and lead at 80 miles an hour. Florence Nightingale decides to turn in to Sarah Connor and offs our one chance at walking out of this thing instead of being carried out.
What did that leave us with? One cook, two pulse pistols, a big sword courtesy of D'Argo, and one very angry Horde making like that semi, barreling right at us. Oh, and Aeryn insisting that this snot-nosed kid, this Sub-Officer Dacon, this cook, is somehow going to die heroically and save our asses. Well, he did die. She was right about that.
The Horde still came. I'd tried and tried to preserve the timelines-- I've read Ellison and Heinlein and I've got every one of Marty McFly's lines memorized, so I know the drill-- and did what I could to keep people alive that were supposed to live. Didn't work. I couldn't do it. None of my frelling ideas worked. There was nothing to do but try to keep them from dying the old fashioned way. I pulled out Wynona and me and Aeryn tried to pretend like we were a whole damn army.
It worked. The Horde retreated.
For a while.
Then when they came back, they came back pissed off. When they couldn't find the people with the pulse weapons, they killed them all anyway. Florence Nightingale died screaming my name for help because even though I'd saved her and her daughter's lives for a little while, all I ended up really doing was killing them. And I couldn't even do it quick and easy for them.
Yeah, the timeline was intact, if you're wondering. Like Harvey said, things happened close enough to the original that everything else slid into place.
War. Sacrifices.
Yeah, all the clichés are true.
Damn it.
(741)
Can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.
No pain, no gain.
You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life.
Back on Earth, I carried the rank of Commander with IASA, but unlike a lot of the astronaut corps, I never served in the military. I wasn't a soldier or even a pilot, really. I was a scientist. I am a scientist still, at least I hope I am. With everything that I've seen and done, I wouldn't be surprised if old Saint Peter needs to move me over a couple of columns in his ledger just to keep my qualifications straight.
I've seen war. Worse yet, I've fought wars. And worst of all, I have made war on others, and I am here to tell you that it is the unvarnished, unpolished and unbearable truth that war means casualties, and always will.
I tried to help them. My God did I try to do everything a man could possibly do to help them. They were... they were nurses. Non-combatant women and their children, and all that was standing between them and the bloodthirstiest bunch since the gang who sacked Rome for laughs were a couple of Peacekeepers. And right after we got there, that went down to exactly one Peacekeeper.
One Peacekeeper. The cook.
What would you have done in my boots, huh? A dozen damn Florence Nightingales, all of them huddling in some old abandoned monastery, waiting for hell and death and the worst things you can imagine to rain down on them from outside. Kids. Frell me, there were kids there. What would you have done?
This, of course, is the part of the John Crichton Show where there's a light at the end of the tunnel. We get a hold of not just a hostage, but the head honcho of the Horde, the general running the whole show, and he actually turns out to be a decent guy. He doesn't want his men to slaughter these people, he just wants water, but as long as there are soldiers in the camp, they can't just walk in peacefully and fill their canteens.
So there's me, with Patton, and I get the idea that if he can go back and tell his boys that me and mine are on our way out, then we can all be on our merries and nobody's got to die.
This is the part of the John Crichton Show where the light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be the headlights on a Peterbilt hauling cinderblocks and lead at 80 miles an hour. Florence Nightingale decides to turn in to Sarah Connor and offs our one chance at walking out of this thing instead of being carried out.
What did that leave us with? One cook, two pulse pistols, a big sword courtesy of D'Argo, and one very angry Horde making like that semi, barreling right at us. Oh, and Aeryn insisting that this snot-nosed kid, this Sub-Officer Dacon, this cook, is somehow going to die heroically and save our asses. Well, he did die. She was right about that.
The Horde still came. I'd tried and tried to preserve the timelines-- I've read Ellison and Heinlein and I've got every one of Marty McFly's lines memorized, so I know the drill-- and did what I could to keep people alive that were supposed to live. Didn't work. I couldn't do it. None of my frelling ideas worked. There was nothing to do but try to keep them from dying the old fashioned way. I pulled out Wynona and me and Aeryn tried to pretend like we were a whole damn army.
It worked. The Horde retreated.
For a while.
Then when they came back, they came back pissed off. When they couldn't find the people with the pulse weapons, they killed them all anyway. Florence Nightingale died screaming my name for help because even though I'd saved her and her daughter's lives for a little while, all I ended up really doing was killing them. And I couldn't even do it quick and easy for them.
Yeah, the timeline was intact, if you're wondering. Like Harvey said, things happened close enough to the original that everything else slid into place.
War. Sacrifices.
Yeah, all the clichés are true.
Damn it.
(741)