Farces

[Wilder]

Farces
A short story of the Zoner Defense Fleet and it's resurrection

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The aging man sighed looking through the various screens on his desk. He rubbed his eyes followed by running his hand through his long greying hair before collapsing backwards into his chair.

"What a shit show." he mumbled to no one in particular. "The amount of maintenance that this Zane didn't do on some of these ships is staggering. He didn't bother documenting any changes, or annotating any places the ships went on patrols...nothing. I'm still not able to find half of the fleet inventory."

He checked his messages and saw that none had come in. He'd sent a message to Zane's known second in command, Kasumi Ito, but hadn't heard back in days. Intelligence he'd obtained placed her still out in Omicron Delta where her and Zane had gone after the collapse of the initial ZDF. It wasn't surprising, considering the lack of inventory, paperwork, and general upkeep that a fledgling faction or group required. He sighed again pinching the bridge of his nose before standing up and exiting his office.

The sun was just starting to come up over the horizon on Planet Eris in the distance and the people onboard Shasta were just waking up for their morning rituals.

"Did you stay up all night again, Commander Wilder?" a small voice said. A young girl of around 14 said as she approached with her family.

"Only a little bit. How are you doing this morning Sarah?" he said smiling and dropping to one knee.

He conversed briefly with the girl and her family before they departed. He smiled remembering his youth aboard the various Freeports with his parents. They were both gone now, passed in their sleep thank the goddess. They'd lived on Gran Canaria during the occupation along with Elias. He'd fought the Bretonians during that bloody time and fought their "annexation", which was just another word for conquering. He could still smell the burning buildings and see the charred and dead remains of entire families murdered by their savagery.

His hands began to shake again. He looked down at them briefly before closing his eyes and taking deep breaths in and out. The Doctor's he'd spoken to told him that he suffered from something called PTSD. Post Traumatic Stress or something like that. At first he'd hand waived them away, but when the panic attacks kept coming and he found it difficult to function in daily life, he'd listened more intently to their words. He had been in therapy for months now but was making little progress with his current therapist and had debated on reaching out to Med Force Enterprises to see if they had any better therapists on their staff.

Before long, his panic attack subsided and he continued the route to his rack. He'd been working overtime trying to bring back the Zoner Defense Fleet back up to a half-operational status. Presently, he had no one but himself on the force which he hoped would change before long. He knew that Zoners wanted to defend their interests, he just hoped that they would start joining soon. Baffin had been left undefended since TAZ had disbanded years ago...though he heard rumors of them making a comeback. Time would have to tell. Then there was the other issue he was having.

Kasumi Ito. Zane McAllister's #2 in Delta. He'd reached out to her via normal communications but was met with a "connection refused" error. He guessed that she'd disconnected her long range communications system after Zane's (or Zylar's, that fact still confused him) disappearance. No doubt she'd gone to ground after that strange situation and wasn't accepting any long distance communications. He needed her help to figure out what the hell Zane was doing with the ZDF. Her illuminating alot of his decisions would help him nail down what next steps he would need to take far more easily than fumbling around in the dark.

"Well, you asked for this responsibility, old man." he said opening the door to his rack. "No one to blame here but yourself."

He entered his rack onboard Shasta. It was small, quaint, and very spartan. He'd never had any uses for luxury or anything fancy. A bed, table, restroom, and maybe a small kitchen was all he ever needed in life. He never married either, so he never had a woman's touch in his living quarters...not that he'd let that happen anyway.

He did his normal ritual before bed. He flossed his teeth, brushed, took a quick shower and laid down for bed. He set his alarm to go off in three hours to ensure he was back up to continue his work.

"No rest for the weary." he said turning off the light closed his eyes. Within a few moments, his communicator buzzed and he opened his eyes. Without looking at the screen, he answered.

"I just got to sleep. This better be important."

"You're the one that called me. I'm just returning a call. This is Kasumi Ito. Who are you and what do you want?"