Good Morning...2043?!

Chapter 16 - Damage Control [EDITED]

General Trish POV 

I watched as the chopper flew into view, before slowly descending. The door slid open, and I watched as the occupants exited one by one. I couldn't help but feel a bit of relief as the human jumped down, completely unscathed. Though his troubled expression piqued my curiosity. "Welcome back soldiers! I see you have brought our friend back. Without any trouble I presume?" The human hesitated for a moment, seemingly contemplating his response. "No, none." I nodded my head in approval. "The rest of you are dismissed. Jonathan, see me in my office please." He nodded and proceeded towards the hall. Watching him disappear around the corner, I turned to Ash, who I could tell had a few 'choice words' regarding the human. 

"Yes Ash?" I asked impatiently, her constant complaints about the human had been getting on my nerves recently. "Sir with all due respect, I really don't think we should just trust this human without extensive knowledge of his origins!" I sighed and rubbed my maw. "Ash, if we want him to open up, then we need to build trust, prove to him that the moment we get all usefulness and cooperation from him that we won't just kill him, or worse!" She sighed, she seemed to be coming to terms with the fact that the human was here to stay, not that she liked it. "I just really don't trust humans since...them." I could tell where this was coming from.

"Ash, we hunted down the rest of the men from that disgusting militia. There's no doubt that they won't happen again. He has proven that he respects us and has even gone as far as to rescue and help other members of the team in battle. If he wanted to do any of those thing, I'm positive he would've done it long before this point." She sighed and looked to the floor. "I know sir, I'm sorry. It's just-" She sighed and sat down on a crate. "Whenever I look at Jonathan, or any human holding a gun. It takes me back to...those days." I patted her on the back as she let out a shaky breath. 

About four years ago, Ash had been on a routine recon mission when they had been ambushed. Her and another soldier were taken prisoner for a total of two months, and in that time, those human rebels had broken her physically and mentally. Starved, beaten, tortured, raped, she'd spent nearly in mental rehabilitation, and then four more months in therapy. Her friend wasn't as lucky. Her leg had been infected for nearly the entire ordeal and ended up getting an amputation along with an abortion. The trauma was too much for the other soldier, who ended up in the mental ward, only lasting a week before committing suicide. 

I shuddered, remembering the leading days after the capture of the group. They expressed no remorse and laughed in questioning. The only one who wasn't executed was a young boy, A child soldier, who had been the one who'd contacted our forces via radio. He had been on base for only a week before stealing a humvee, a SCAR-H, and few magazines. The humvee was discovered a month later, out of gas and hidden in a ditch underneath some hastily placed brush. The rifle was later discovered, along with the body of the boy, not even thirty feet from the humvee. There was a single bullet lodged in his head, a single shell casing on the ground, and a single round missing from the magazine. "Thanks sir, I guess I've been holding all this anger towards humans just because of a bad experience I've had with one small group of humans." I nodded and stood up. "Well, I have to go now. Take this time to regroup with your team. Dismissed." I left Ash in the hangar and proceeded towards my office. 'Hopefully the human finds it easy to forgive her...'

-Time Skip-

 Jonathan POV

I had been sitting in the armchair for nearly ten minutes, I started to wonder if the General had maybe forgotten that he'd sent me here when he finally walked through the door. "General Trish." I greeted him, and he simply nodded in response. "I want to know everything." He raised his eyebrows, a bit of confusion on his muzzle. "Your people attacked innocents; Civilians, first responders, in general, non-combatants. But they also saved them. I want answers, now." He nodded and sat down at his desk. "In our government, we have a separate division for keeping the peace behind the front lines. The Fur Intelligence Agency, or FIA for short. What we didn't know was that they'd been plotting against us for the longest time. They've been torturing and killing human POWs whom we thought were being properly taken care of. We thought we had lots more human refugees in our care-"