Super Citizen

Civilian

The night before final cadet training, and I could feel the butterflies in my stomach. I was nervous. It was a new feeling all together really. Through out training I hadn't felt this on edge. However, after talking with a few others going to the training grounds tomorrow, it really started to sink in. And it didn't help that I was still reeling from the conversation with my mother at dinner this evening.

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"I won't support this! I can't! You are willing to throw your life away? And for what? Some kind of recognition from your dead father?! Amara, you are so young, and smart. Why not come and work with me in the civilian sector, it's not that bad. It's good work, safe work."

My mother, Marie Chase, was a high-ranking civilian in the human development and studies sector for super earth and the ministry. However, I always wondered if that was just a cover as the rumors that came out about that work was more horror sci-fi then helping the world. 

She had been trying since primary to talk me into taking more civilian courses, that way she could keep an eye on me I think. However, I always saw the divers in there suits walking around the housing centers, and I just knew it was my destiny to become one. It was also what my father and brother had done, and while yes I believed my father would be proud it wasn't him I was doing this for. It was me, my dreams and aspirations. 

"Where was this talk when Sean joined?"

"Sean is different!"

"It's only different cause he's your son and not your daughter..." A silence fell over the two of us for a moment as my mother let out an angry sigh. Clasping her hands together, she tried to gather some composure. We had barely seen much of each other between me training and her working. This was maybe one of the first time in months we had sat down to eat. However I found myself picking at what passed as a roast with veggies on my plate. Nothing was real anymore, in this world everything was made or created. Synthetic, AI, cloning, you name it and there was some department working with it or for it. 

"I don't want to lose my whole family to this damn, donkey show of a war." Her words were dripped in anger as tears forced themselves slowly down the sides of her cheeks. I knew she had never truly believed in this on going war. I mean war's were fought and won, not decades long ventures like this. 

How ever the automatons had only seemed to grow stronger since our first encounter with them. They had started sending more and more transmissions. All decoded from the Ministery as hostile and becoming more advanced in there armo and manufacturing.

 Meanwhile, the bugs, or as we called them Terminids, had become an over populated mess of evolved monsters slowly creeping from planet to planet and breeding at a rate that could soon reach our doors. 

"I didn't even get to burry your father. All they gave me was a worn cape. And I worry everyday, that this is it, this is the day they bring another home for my son."

I tried hard to be disconnected from the emotions of it all.  It wasn't cadet behavior to have emotions. Something they drilled into you hard on day one.

 However, I remember the day they came to our house. The soldiers in there shining white gold armor and perfectly pressed capes. Not once did they take off those ridicules helmets as they handed my fathers cadet cape to my mother. Saying that it's all they could give us for closer. I was mad back then, and I remember taking it out on everyone and thing in my path. It's another reason I joined up. I wanted answer and control back. 

The only words they spoke were "He served Super Earth with honor, valor and true democratic justice against the threats of our world." I was about 13 back then.