An Introspective Moment

[Viktor Tarasov]

Aboard the Alliance Assault Ship, Odessa, things were quiet.

The vessel was flying on course and on time, the major repairs were finished, and everything seemed to be completely fine and in order. For most of the crew, this was just the middle of a long, multi-day flight; it was a time of rest after a tough battle. But for a certain man, this was a time of great unease.

Viktor Tarasov had been up for twenty hours straight; a combination of the lack of a proper day/night cycle and a set is issues on the mind kept him from going to sleep. Instead the man was sitting at his personal desk, drinking alcohol. All the while, an upbeat song about love, adventure, and space played from his music player; it filled the room with an atmosphere similar to when the song was popular, fourteen years ago.

"It was a hell of time," Viktor muttered, breaking the spell that the nostalgic song had placed. He put down his drink and instead picked up a stack of documents from his desk. On top was an old graduation photo from the Military Air Academy at Odessa, which featured a young Tarasov, his graduating classmates, and a great number of flowers in memorial of those who could not make it to the ceremony.

He quickly moved this picture to the bottom of the stack, and looked at the document which was next in line. It was a casualty report from the recent battle at the Behemoth; on it, the name "GERBURT, ANTON" was boldly circled with red ink.

This wasn't news to Tarasov; he had heard about the death of his former commander almost immediately after the battle. But, no matter how many times he looked at this report, or many times he read and circled the name, or how many times he said it in is head, it just didn't feel real.

"Gerburt's dead. Dead. Dead dead. Like everyone else now," Viktor said aloud, to try to hammer the fact in.

As a career soldier, or even as someone who was there at the Battle of Odessa, Viktor was someone who has seen this kind of thing happen before; the death of someone he knew shouldn't have gotten under his skin, like this current one has. But there was just something about this one that was different.

Unlike any of the others in Viktor's life who have died, and especially those of which died for the sake of the Alliance, Commander Gerburt was a person who, in all honesty, Viktor has just hated for the longest time. To Viktor, Gerburt was an idiot, he was careless, he was crazy, he was incompetent...

And worst of all, he got other, better people killed because of it. Because of this, not only did Gerburt represent just about everything that was wrong with Alliance command, but he was beyond that.

Thoughts long shoved to the back of Tarasov's mind came bubbling back to the surface.

"If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have lost so many friends from the academy...

If it weren't for me, he would have let those pirates destroy everything back home...

If it weren't for him, that fight at Odessa wouldn't have been such a mess.

But still, did he deserve this?"

Even after the Commander's death, Viktor just couldn't forgive Gerburt. The fact that Gerburt sacrificed the lives of his crew as his last action didn't help. But the whole grudge just felt a little bit childish, at this point.

"Has it really been fourteen years since I decided that this guy was the scum of the Earth?" Viktor asked himself, as he looked at his graduation photo again and noted the difference between the younger and his current self. Looking at the details of his own appearance, and recalling the previously-quieted memories of a younger, angrier, more impulsive man, the differences between the young man that flew the G-Armor and the older man who's sitting in his own room in his own Assault Ship became quite apparent.

The doubt that had been clouding Tarasov's mind had cleared. "I'm not a kid anymore... I should own up to how I feel," he said with a sigh.

Viktor picked up his drink and held it in the air. "Gerburt, this is for you. You didn't deserve to go out like that. I know that you've done, at least, what you thought was best for us all. But that doesn't change that you've messed up. A lot of times. You're responsible for the deaths of quite a few people who really shouldn't have gone when they did. I don't think I can ever forgive you for that."

And with that said, Viktor quickly gulped down the rest of his drink. For now, at the very least, his mind was once again at peace.