Deja Kaiju
Posted on Mon Apr 28th, 2025 @ 7:58pm by Lieutenant Gunnar Arnason
2,238 words; about a 11 minute read
Mission:
Terrorpin
Location: Hospital
Gunnar paused to take drink and looked at his plate, surprised to find only half a sandwich left. Having apparently all but inhaled the first half, he sat back, resolving to at least taste the rest of it. It probably wasn't anywhere near what he'd originally ordered at the Silver Tongue, but after a protein bar for lunch six ...seven?... hours ago, anything tasted good. And he had to admit, it did feel good to be off his feet. Leeza had been right to tell him to take a break while he could.
He'd always been one to step up when there was need - grow up near enough to active volcanoes and you learned an attitude of responding when help was needed - but he used to be better about taking breaks when the situation afforded it. Or at least less reflexively stubborn about taking direction to do so. but as he watched the news feed of the creature's position, he couldn't help thinking of the last time he'd been sidelined, watching others deal with a kaiju...
------ a few years ago, SB Aeon, Second Chances Restaurant ----
It was mid-afternoon when he wandered in, so the place was quiet. There was a screen showing the news, the sound muted, but the images showed Deorna's main city being torn asunder by what looked like a cross between Godzilla and a giant Sindareen. Everyone he knew was either on the rescue mission or covering for the now understaffed hospital. ...Everyone but him. He wasn't cleared for duty, and today's meeting with a last minute substitute counselor was not encouraging in terms of seeing that changed any time soon.
The bartender was looking at the screen, shaking her head - John and Jenn probably were assigned to the mission to help handle that chaos. She sighed to herself as she turned to see Arnason walk in looking like he needed someone to talk to as much as she did. "Nurse Arnason! What can I do for you?"
"Hello. Jess, right?" he replied as he took a seat at the bar. "A drink would be good right now."
"Yes. And," she gestured to the bar behind her, "What can I get you? Or are you feeling like the T'Ango Special?"
"No, I think I could use something stronger than warm milk," he chuckled, scanning the shelf behind the bar. "Akvavit, please."
Jess grinned as she poured the drink and slid it in front of him. "I figured that... but, I still thought I'd ask. So, what's a guy like you doing in a joint like this in the middle of the day?"
He shrugged. "Nowhere else to be. Nearly everyone I know is there." He nodded toward news feed from Deorna. "And I'm here with nothing to do but try to convince an overworked and unprepared counselor that I should be back on duty."
"Yeah..." Jess looked at the news feed again. "There's nothing wrong with nothing to do. In fact, before we came out here, that's exactly what Jenn and I were doing. To be honest and as much as I missed being a bartender... I miss those days. And you should enjoy the break... because if that," she nodded at the screen, "escalates, you'll be back on duty before you know it."
"I don't want it to escalate." His eyes returned to the news feed - T'Ango was probably somewhere in that. Divash would be there to patch her up, but he still hated that there was nothing he could do. "But I'd welcome getting called back to duty. In some ways the worst part of being a prisoner was that I felt useless." He sighed. "But I'm going to be stuck with it for awhile yet. I had my first mandatory counseling session today and it was ...not productive."
"Yeah, me neither on escalation... I think Jenn got herself involve somehow. Not that I really worry about her being able to handle herself physically... it's the mental part that I worry about. And believe me... mandatory counseling sessions didn't work for her either." She frowned setting the thought aside. "So what's wrong with your shrink?"
"The one I was supposed see is great, but she and half the counselors are on the evac mission. Which is where they're needed. However, instead of rescheduling people, the counseling office just dumped patients on anyone left behind. And mixed up patients and files in the process." He took a swig of his drink. "Apparently the person my counselor thought she was seeing has a bit of a holosuite addiction and an ...interesting... fantasy life. It took ten minutes to convince her I was reporting to counseling because I actually had been held prisoner by the GRM." He rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I didn't come for counseling-via-bartender. I thought Jenn was retired?"
"Fair enough. But you know that if you ever want to seek counseling FOR your counseling sessions, there'll always be a seat for you," she said with a smile, but seeing the way Arnason was looking at her, she sighed. From what Renee had told her he was as perceptive as she was. "Yes, Jenn is retired... It's kind of a long story. Well... not really. She and John Wallace go back a long time. He needed help. She can never say no to a friend that needs help... and I have no idea where they are or what they're doing."
He nodded. "You're worried about her no matter how capable you know her to be. I feel the same way about Divash, and T'Ango." He considered a moment. "And even providing they come back with no physical damage, we're both worried about whatever they'll wrestle with after being in the midst that." He nodded toward the scenes of panic and destruction on the nearby screen.
Jess poured herself a shot and downed it. "You should be a bartender..."
Just then Renee entered and gasped, her intention to join friends suddenly derailed by the monitor showing the monster blasting a torrent of fire from its mouth!
Jess stared at the footage. "It's a freaking dragon."
The association brought an image to Gunnar's mind - Sigurdr slaying Fáfnir, who had been turned into a dragon by a cursed ring... He unconsciously muttered a half-remembered verse.
Renee's brows lifted. "What?"
"Sorry. Part of the Völsunga saga," he explained. "Something I once had to memorize in school... A hero slays a dragon but doesn't heed its dying words and pays a price for it..."
"I doubt that thing has the ability to speak," Jess remarked. She hoped not; killing something sentient, even, maybe especially, a sentient monster would be hard on Jenn. "Someone would try to reason with it if it did, right?"
"Maybe..." It struck Renee that power of speech or no, Ash would see this as a 'just find a way to kill it' situation. And for once, everyone else would probably agree with her. "With something like this...so many lives in danger...ending the threat has to be the priority."
"It's only vocalization hasn't translated through the UT, so it probably isn't sentient." Gunnar studied the footage, a note of sympathy in his voice - his father was a vet; he knew how even friendly tame animals could behave when hurt and frightened. "It's acting like an animal lashing out in fear or pain..."
"Are you seriously thinking that someone ought to try to ...soothe it? See if it's hurt and treat it?" Renee shook her head, albeit with a slight smile - empathy for a fire-breathing monster; no wonder he could be so nice to someone with her history. "You have a good heart, Gunnar, and for all I know you may be right, but I don't see how anyone could get close enough to even try."
Jess sighed. "The more I think about it... the more I feel slightly sympathetic about that thing... Maybe someone just needs to go give it a hug or something..."
"I hope they like their hugs extra crispy, because that's pretty much how that'll end up," Renee remarked.
"Ha! Come on, don't you feel a LITTLE sympathy for it?" Jess countered. "It had no choice how or why it was created."
"Sympathy might be too strong of a word. But I suppose there's a fine between sympathy and prudence. I mean..." she looked at Jess, "I've worried that Ash has a bit of that monster inside... I think there's always a choice... it may take a few tries sometimes to find the right one... but everyone makes a choice."
"If they are capable of making one, or of making a rational one. If this creature is an animal, then it isn't making a choice, it's just responding out of pain, fear, panic... In fact, a lot of humans don't make conscious choices under those circumstances." Gunnar paused, thinking of Sekler, and looked aside. "...and some who do are still so driven by pain that every choice is colored by that. They can't see that they're not choosing the right one."
Jess looked at him, there were times when that might have been true of Jenn and probably could be said for Ash, but she sensed he was thinking of someone else. "It doesn't sound like you're talking about the creature."
"No. One of my captors ...although I suppose it could describe a good number of them..." He shook his head - it wasn't something he wanted to talk about yet. "In any case, this creature doesn't seem to be operating on any plan, even for vengeance. Even if it has some level of sentience, it may have been driven mad by whatever was done to it to make it what it is."
Jess tipped her head. "Not guilty by reason of insanity?"
"Maybe... though I don't see how anyone is going to get it to talk to a counselor." He considered the image of the towering kaiju on the screen. "With enough drugs, it might be possible to sedate it...but getting the dosage right..." he frowned; he'd learned how to estimate that sort of thing once, since dropping a bolting horse with a stun rifle was likely to result in broken leg. But for something that size... "Trying to use enough to effect it could easily turn into an overdose."
"If there's no obvious way to cure it... that might be the most merciful thing," Renee suggested gently, watching the images of it rampaging through the city, shrieking wildly as it destroyed everything in its path. "Surely you aren't wishing you were there to try to save it?"
"It's a living thing," he stated simply. "I'm loathe to kill an animal just because it's in pain. But if there's no way to cure it..." he looked back at the destruction playing out on the screen, "...especially given the loss of life it's causing..." He gave a resigned sigh. "It might have to be put down. I just wish I could do more than just sit here."
"You really wish you were there?" Renee gestured toward the fires and explosions rocking Deorna.
"Yes." He watched as the kaiju flattened a building. "...Well, preferably not in that exact spot, but even if I couldn't help the kaiju, the ships are going to be swamped with injured evacuees. I know there are plenty of good people there to handle it, but they may need medics for search and rescue on the ground too..."
"And you'd volunteer for that?" Her brows rose. "I think your friends are probably glad you're on medical leave."
"I've gone with S&R teams before. Not with rampaging monsters, but I'd rather it was me than them." He stared disconsolately at the chaos playing out on the news, frowned. "And that I could do more than just watch... "
Jess put a hand on his shoulder. "I understand. You're worried. I am too." She cast an apologetic look toward Renee. "I'm beginning to think that ...thing.... might be why Wallace needed Jenn."
"To try to kill that thing...?" The other woman suppressed a shudder. "....for all I know, that's the special assignment Samuel had for Ash..."
"...or what T'Ango's unit was called away to handle..." Gunnar downed the rest of his drink. It didn't help. "I don't even want to think what sort of condition T'Ango might come back in ...and I won't be cleared to do anything..."
----------Present------------------
The memory was interrupted by a chirp form his comm. He tapped it. "Arnason here."
=/\= "We have evac orders. Precautionary, for now, so I'm hoping to avoid a panic, but I'm afraid your break is over." =/\=
"Acknowledged," he responded, rising, sandwich remnant still in hand, as he mentally ran through protocols and options to limit the inevitable panic once the evac became general knowledge. "Atala will be the evac site for critical. Track the ORs - as soon as surgery completes in each, have them beam surgical team and patient directly to the ship, along with any patients remaining in the Red group and next ups in Yellow. Direct anyone mobile and stable who doesn't have family still in treatment to our transporter to be beamed to the evac site. Tell them... there's a field hospital there now and we're making room for potential incoming. Hopefully that will keep things orderly..."
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