Posts: 8,897
Threads: 747
Joined: Aug 2008
Staff roles: Moderator
"And afraid you should be," retorted Doc with a couple of nods. "You should be very afraid!"
He stood up and with a couple of steps, was standing by her feet. "Anyone who tells you that they are not afraid are liars. Fear is what will keep you alive because it is what keeps you alert, your head on a swivel in a crowded room or one eye on your scanner when flying."
He then stepped forward and pulled aside the sheet that covered her healing body. The cuts, the bruising and stitchings. He nodded a bit as he looked directly into her face and spoke softly but directly, "If you were not afraid before, this is why you should be and if you were, you will be more so now." He then covered her back up, "And there is not a damned thing wrong with it."
He returned to sitting beside her but was still direct. "Every time I get in the cockpit of my freighter, I am scared, especially when I fly through Corsair territory or space of the Outcasts. People who I was friends with yesterday may not like me today with so many coming and going. Whenever I send a medical crew to a Freeport, whenever I send a Med Force cruiser on a mission in hostile territory." He thinks for a second before continuing, "Freeport One and Freeport Eleven come to mind. Hell, I just ordered a cruiser to Freeport Five in the Omega 41 system which is heavily radiated and getting worse by the day......."
He took a breath and collected himself, "Fact is, no decision I make is done without fear and no one in Med Force Enterprises is forced into going somewhere they do not want to go." He shook his head a little and spoke softly yet directly, "For the one thing that John Holliday fears more than anything is going up to a family and telling them that a loved one has died in the service of Med Force Enterprises."
His eyes welled up at the thought. "I have had to do that hundreds of times already and it gets harder each time."
He then added a touch of quiet rage to it but was calm as could be when he did it. "And to add humiliation to it all, those Bretonian families that I had to tell families of a death to are now occupying the very planet with the colony they once negotiated with us Zoners in good faith." He sat back, quietly but visibly angry and NOT at her.
"So you said that you are afraid." His nods were small but there, "that is probably the best thing you have ever done for yourself."
He then picked up her file and started going through it while he let those words process.
