Operation Rock of Ages: Triumphant Illumination

ORA: TI Chapter 27

Chapter 27

"Tell me what it's like to fly," Sasha said. Greg and Sasha had been told by Jayson and Mariam to get out of the house for a bit, go take a walk. The kids were all down for a nap and everything was quiet. Greg had begun working several jobs around the facility trying to find where he fit in. The one he knew the best, security, was exactly where he didn't want to be, so he was trying several different jobs and was still not happy.

"Tell me what it's like to dive into someone's mind and fix things for people." Greg returned. "I don't mean it as a question but a statement. You do it as naturally as breathing. It's who you are. Fly is like that for me. Up there, flying with nothing but sky around me, I feel complete...at home. Also, I feel like I matter up there. I have a skill that not many people have. There is also a sense of importance, I guess. What decisions I make up there matters and can mean the difference between life and death," Greg was getting frustrated trying to put his feelings into words.

"I get it. How long have you been flying?"

"I was a grunt just starting out. One of my C.O.s saw my interest and let me go up with an experienced flyer. He liked hedging his bets and getting backup flyers on missions whenever possible. That man was a genius strategist because he liked plan for every possible action. Not only the actions of the enemy but also the actions of his people were always in his head. So, anyway, he noticed my interest, put me on a chopper with a pilot a couple of times and then he tested me. The weirdest guy, too, by the way. He had the pilot fake a heart attack and had me land under pressure. The pilot was ready to take over the whole time, so he thought. What really happened is the guy really did have a heart attack. Scary situation for the both of us. I landed, none to gracefully, but I landed. I yelled once I hit dirt that the pilot was having a heart attack and the C.O. laughed at me. The pilot yelled a blue streak and passed out. I grabbed him and hauled him to sickbay myself with the C.O. running behind me. I can laugh about it now, but then I nearly peed my pants I was so scared and shaky."

"Seriously? I can't picture you scared. You seem so put together all the time."

"I get scared a lot. I just control it. I never told you the story of the guy who fell on the grenade to save us?"

"Yeah, I remember that. What's that got to do with being scared?" Sasha asked.

"Everything, sort of, do you remember what I decided that day? To never live in fear? I truly believe in that. I can feel it, but I don't have to live there. I don't have to run from it. I feel it, acknowledge that I feel it, and I don't let it crowd out my training, judgement, and ability to think." Sasha nodded.

"So you acknowledge the fear but you don't let it change you, that's extremely hard to do," Sasha said.

"Hard, but not impossible. It takes a lot of time to develop but after a while it becomes second nature. So what about you? Why psychology?"

"Well, you can't laugh." Sasha said. Greg crossed his heart with a finger. "I am nosy." Greg made a coughing, choking noise, but Sasha had to give him credit, he didn't laugh. "So, I took a psy class in high school as a pre-req for an early college start. I ate it up. I started watching people more and tried to get in their heads. I liked knowing what made people tick. I also liked helping them. It seems that I was a natural. I had a freaky teacher that kept calling me an empath. It wasn't until I knew more that I realized the teacher didn't mean the science fiction version of an empath, like I could read minds, but more like empathy. I could empathize with people."

"You are rather good at that. Why do you feel the need to choose a marriage of convenience rather than a marriage of love, which you deserve?" Greg asked curiously.