Return of the Bastet

[ophidian]

Rand Seith listened to what the man was saying with a rather still look. Not giving out any hints of anger or sympathy. He was a wall.

When John Mathews finised his speach, Rand cleared his throat, even enjoyed a few seconds of sipping from a glass of water before speaking.

He looked Mathews in the eye and started talking;

- "My dear Commander Mathews. You claim actions heroic enough to save the galaxy. How brave, how nice. You claim that Aki Kimura did this for saving us all and we would prevent her from doing it if she tried to tell us. Nice." Rand had a hint of irony in his voice now.

- "Why would you think that you and your "admiral" would be the only people to understand this Mr. Mathews? What would make you think that you are capable of doing this and the whole rest of the fleet is incapable? Even if it is outrageous, it would be understandable to see that Kimura going off, stealing a ship and her crew as well as her duties, AFTER she tried to prove something and everyone was blinded to it. And, of course, it would be rather solid to see that what she did foresee to happen.

Your story, Mr.Mathews, doesn't fit to anything at all. All you say may be true and I believe that most of it to be precisely true. However, this doesn't give you the right of what you did. To prove the gravity, you cannot throw people off from roofs. You drop an apple to the ground. What, stupidly enough, your commanding officer and you did was childish to say the least. There will be no understanding here of the honor about what you did, nor grandeur talks about you. No, Mr. Mathews. While you were wandering around doing deeds of heroism, you were ruining certain diplomatic aspects, and to hell with the diplomacy, you were ruining half of what our spies managed to do and gather information about the Wilde and their operations. Bravado. I truly appreciate how well you ruined certain things and spoiling the greater cause. Because of your insensible acts, we had the Freeport almost downed. Minor being hit constantly and 74 being under threat."

Rand didn't even raise his voice once, he was as if this father, telling his son why he was being bashed.

- "You don't awake the snake, if you don't have the stick to hold it Mr. Mathews. Your commander and you precisely did this, causing lives to perish, resources to thin and Order to weaken. Bravado."

This time, Rand slowly clapped his hands. He was not angry, he was sad to see that the action of one raging Admiral caused too many problems. He had a whole bunch of problems to solve and what Aki did, even though she had some points, was a narrow range of vision at best, causing more harm than she thought. And sadly, the crew were so focused on it, they didn't realize the effect of impact.

Before Rand stopped talking, he looked back to Mathews, and then to all officers filling the room.

- "Every action, has a consequence. And every consequence as a price tag coming along. If you can predict the tag 20% of times you pick a path, you are a great leader then. Don't ever fall into the trap of thinking you are seldomly doing the right thing. Right and wrong, are only points of views with their own backyard to fill."

Rand leaned back to his seat, continuing the joy of his water.

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