Free Siege of Terra (The Mavrik Woods Series, Book 1) by Robin MacMillan Page A

several minutes, I’ve been here for ten minutes just staring at the wall in front of me.
    The door whirs open. T-Rave strides in, obviously not concerned or aware that he’s late. It doesn’t matter though, the silence that had perceived between me and the General is broken now that we could get on with the debriefing.
    “Sorry Sir got held up,” he says, taking a seat opposite me.
    “Don’t let it happen again.”
    “Yes Sir, it won’t happen again.”
    “Alright Colonel, take ‘er away.”
    “Thank you Sir,” I say, walking up to the front of the desk, making it easier for people to see me -even though it is just the three of us.
    “Alright, we started the mission as usual. Right at the start though it went downhill fast. We rappelled off the Dropship, after only seconds though one of those scout ships took it out. Major Lorid took a beating when it exploded; shrapnel in the leg, broken ribs. I knew he was gone the second I took off his helmet. He knew it as well. He told us to leave him behind to complete the mission; it must have been only a minute after we left when an explosion shook the building around us. I’m assuming that he took out several hostiles in the process.”
    “You left a man behind?” The General interjects.
    “We had no choice; he wanted us to leave him behind. Major Lorid wouldn’t have lived another five minutes, and if we tried to take him along we wouldn’t have made it out alive.”
    “Don’t bother defending yourself son, you made the right choice, we needed that Intel.”
    I look at him for a second; I’m stunned that the General preferred Intel over a man’s life. It’s that he didn’t care at all that really bugged me.
    “Right, moving on. We went through the rest of the building, encountering little resistance as we did so. We got to the security room and one of Hakorians jumped us, kinda. Sargent Terein took him out before he could flinch. We found out that the Hakorians were in the Power Room. So we went to try and take’em out. We then discovered that there were civilians, we calculated the odds of how many we could save.”
    “You were ordered to get the Intel and get out Colonel,” he gives me a smoldering look, “why did you disobey that order?” The General asks.
    “I went into the building hoping to come out with as many people as possible, if I obeyed your orders we would have lost all the civilians.”
    “You lost half of them.”
    “I tried. I did everything in my power to save as many people as possible, and yes, we lost two good men in the process but they knew what they were signing up for.”
    “Don’t you ever disobey my orders again Colonel, understand?”
    “If it’s a judgment call and there are civilian lives at stake I will always try and rescue them. Unless I know for a fact that it would be impossible then I won’t.” I stare the General down. I usually never acted like this to superiors. But this man is completely out of line. It’s like he didn’t even care about casualties. Every military General had to care about civilian lives to some degree, this man though just ignored it completely. You could bend orders on rare occasions, being in the field was a lot different than making decisions far in advance. It was a split second reaction. If you didn’t react in a moment’s notice it could cost you and others their lives.
    “Continue,” he says. He obviously doesn’t like me, the way he looks and speaks to me says it all.
    “We listened for hard Intel on their plans, and eventually we found out that they have mining operations going on around the planet. They want the Thopium that is within our soil, that’s why they are here. Now, I’m not exactly sure what they want Thopium for, but they said it would help them reintegrate themselves into proper society.”
    “You mean there are more out there?” The General asks. A shocked look rising on his face.
    “With all due respect Sir, did you think they were the only race of