The Rain: The End by Marietta Standlee (good summer reads TXT) 📕

Chapter 7

The next few days are not easy for anybody, especially me. Stupid Frank did not clean my wound properly, and it got infected. What was supposed to be a day, two tops of rest, turned into a week. If I see the man, I'll kill him. Single handedly. Slowly. I vow.

Colin's injury heals just fine; Frank probably practiced enough on me to get his treatment right, or his body is stronger at fighting off infections, who knows. All I know is that I'm more or less confined to my room going on a week now. At least the antibiotics kicked in yesterday, the first day for me without a fever.

So today, at least, I was able to leave our room and train some of our soldiers, which proves to be an awesome outlet for pent-up anger, frustration, and boredom. I get to yell and scream at the men and women climbing artificial fences and crawling through artificial trenches. I get to criticize people's hand to hand combat, and even though I can't participate, this is a whole new ballgame of fun for me.

I'm also getting to know more of our troops, which makes me also feel better. I hated it when we led soldiers into battle, and I didn't even know who they were.

All in all, we lost twenty-four men and women from our ranks. Which is an acceptable loss for the kind of fighting we faced. We not only managed to steal forty-seven spaceships, helped thousands of Phinaruhs to escape (they were taken back to their people by some of Parm's men), but we also killed and helped kill about four thousand Gorongiaths.

I only knew one of the dead and only by name, but now I know all their names and faces, and I'm not sure I'll never forget them.

Twenty-four. An acceptable loss. When thinking about billions of people killed? Yeah, probably. When thinking about the kind of battle we fought? Yeah, true. When thinking about how many soldiers fought and survived? Not bad.

But when I study each individual face and name, no, it's not acceptable at all. It hurts. But that is something I need to learn to deal with too. This will not be our last battle, and the soldiers lost will not be our last ones either, unfortunately. This fight will go on and on and on. Probably for generations to come. I need to accept that and learn to live with the acceptable losses.

High Commander Quill grilled Colin, me and our main Commanders separately after our return, demanding to know what happened. That was actually the most fun I had in a long time.

"What the hell happened on Oaron?" He demanded.

I sat across from him, my crutches leaned against the chair, my injured leg elevated on another. Quill's eyes were filled with anger and hate; he slammed both hands in front of me on his desk, shaking everything on it.

In a corner stood our alien liaison, Commander Phuron, agitated as well, eyes trained on me. All of us had prepared for our interviews, sure the aliens would demand an explanation for so many of their people's deaths.

I shrugged my shoulders. "It was a trap. There were hardly any civilians on that planet. Those that were there were trained fighters and ships. A lot of them."

"We lost thousands of our soldiers, hundreds of ships. And you lost what, fifty ships and twenty soldiers?" His eyes narrowed at me accusingly.

"I'm not sure what you are insinuating here, Commander," I said with steel in my voice, which would have warned off everybody who knows me.

"I'm insinuating nothing. I'm accusing. Your men and women ran cowardly while my soldiers died. You got shot in the leg? My men died!"

I leaned back in my chair, crossed my arms over my chest, remembering Colin's warning to keep my cool. And I started to sense some power in staying cool and collected while your opponent is fuming mad.

"My people died too. And this neither was nor is our war." I looked him straight in the eyes, never blinking, never faltering.

He was the first to turn his gaze away, a sneer formed around the corners of his mouth. "I saw how your people fight; it's an embarrassment to the word army."

"With all due respect, Sir, I must repeat myself, this is not our war. You wanted us there to observe the slaughter of innocent civilians. You wanted us to witness your powerful army and be cowed. You wanted to send a message for us to take home to our people, to tell our President what would happen if we dared to fight against you." I took a deep breath and rose in my chair. "But your plan backfired. The Phinaruhs were more cunning than you. They lured you into a trap and killed your men. The Phinaruhs did, not us."

"Because you ran," Phuron spoke up for the first time.

I tilted my head at him, "We were outnumbered; this was not our fight, not even our planet. There was no reason for my soldiers to die a senseless death."

"If you would have fought, we could have won." Quill spat.

"If you would have sent capable scouts in the first place, this wouldn't have happened. You were lured into a trap because you are greedy and lazy; you didn't do your homework. And I'll be damned if I lead my soldiers to their deaths because of your incompetence." I shot back.

I could almost see the rage building inside the high commander, could sense I had pushed him as far as I dared. I felt that at that moment, there was nothing he desired more than to kill me. I wanted him to try to touch me. My whole body was coiled for a fight. Ever since killing Gorongiaths on Oaron, my thirst for their blood had increased a hundred-fold. My hate for their species was and is at an all-time high.

"Out." Quill managed between brown, clenched