As far as Cloudbase’s personnel were concerned, whoever had convinced the Colonel that the base restaurant was a good idea should have been nominated for a knighthood. While the commissary food was good, sometimes you just needed something nicer and it wasn’t like you could just get a pass to go off base for the evening. While tables at the restaurant itself had to be booked in advance (to prevent food wastage), the bar was open to all comers.
It was late in the evening when Magenta parked himself at the bar and ordered a (non-alcoholic) beer. While he missed the pleasant buzz of the alcohol, the psychological aspect of being able to sit at a bar at the end of the day and unwind with a good drink in hand went a long, long way.
Today had been a very hard day at the ‘office’.
A Mysteron threat had been aimed at the Japanese royal family and it had very nearly worked – a clever word play misdirecting them to the Grand Shrine of Ise and its shrine to Amaterasu, the sun goddess. If Harmony and Melody hadn’t deciphered the real target, if Ochre hadn’t convinced the bodyguards, if an unarmed Scarlet hadn’t thrown himself between the attacker and the newly pregnant princess… Magenta nodded his thanks to the bartender as she placed the beer in front of him and moved away to tend to her other customers. Entertaining all the ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’ wasn’t worth it, he concluded as he sipped his drink and shoved the dark thoughts out of his mind. Despite it all they’d saved the day yet again. Up yours, Mysterons.
He’d gotten about halfway through his beer and was contemplating if he wanted another one when he sensed movement and Doctor Fawn appeared to lean against the bar not too far from him. Magenta watched from the corner of his eye as the doctor ordered a beer as well, knocking back about half of it in one go.
“You okay over there, Doc?” Magenta half turned to ask the question. “You look like you could do with an actual drink.” The doctor looked exhausted as far as he was concerned.
“Thanks for asking, Magenta, but I’m okay,” Fawn reassured him. “It’s just been a long day in surgery today.”
“Gotcha.” Magenta nodded and sipped his beer. “Is Grey going to be okay?” Grey had been an early casualty of the mission, an arrow taking him in the thigh. It had missed the vital parts, but it’d meant a med-evac for the captain.
“He’ll be fine, wasn’t the easiest to get out, but it was a clean through and through,” Fawn told him, then took a smaller gulp of his drink.
They remained in semi-companionable silence for a time, nursing their respective drinks, then Fawn blew out a long sigh, leaning heavily on the bar. “You know what really annoys me about this whole Mysterons debacle?” he declared as he idly swirled the dregs of his beer. “It was all so bloody avoidable.”
“What, you mean Black and the two World Space Patrol guys not panicking?” Pat asked curiously, head tilted to one side.
“No, no, not that.” Fawn waved a hand. “What the Mysterons were doing, sending the signals, calling us in to visit, all that.” He went on to clarify. “Pretty much all native life we’ve met on Mars is hostile, like the rock snakes, right?
“Right.” Patrick nodded, wondering where the CMO was going with this.
“So it’s logical to assume that they’d have to have some sorta perimeter defence to keep away the local wildlife,” Fawn continued, reaching out to put his now empty glass where the bartender could easily collect it.
“Listen to you, using military language like that,” Magenta teased, hoping to lighten the mood, and finished his drink. “We’ll have you in on the briefings in no time.”
“It's you captains rubbing off on me,” Fawn groused as he poured himself a drink of water from a carafe left out for people to serve themselves from. “Anyway, when they pointed that thing at the MEV, how were the crew supposed to know it wasn’t the Mysterons’ new ‘Rock Snake Blaster 3000’ or something like that? And you know what really tops it all off? Why didn’t they just call up on the MEV radio and say ‘Hi’? They obviously have the capability to, so why didn’t they? They say they’ve been watching us and listening to us – what’s the first thing us humans say to each other when we meet? ‘Hi’. Instead they play that little game, sending signals to lure us over to their neck of the woods.”
“You’re almost making it sound like they set a trap for us.” Patrick’s tone was light, but his eyes were serious as he put down his glass to give the doctor his full attention.
“You know, I’m really starting to think that they did,” Fawn mused, turning to lean his back against the bar, arms crossed over his chest. He stared off into nothing for a long few minutes as he mulled over thoughts that were slowly crystallising into something approaching clarity. “What are your observations about Mysteron behaviour, Magenta? Their psychology and what not,” he eventually asked, looking over at Magenta.
“Well… they’re ruthless.” Patrick reclaimed
his empty glass so he could have something to fidget with, running his thumb
over the etched Spectrum roundel in the middle as he mused out loud. “They’re
cunning, calculated and deceptive. They hold a grudge, they’re inflexible and
they refuse to consider other opinions or points of view, they don’t think
anything of killing a person, and they’ve got rules that they follow – we don’t
understand them, but they do.” He snorted softly. “That has to be about the only
thing we can count on from them – that they follow their rules and heaven help
anyone who doesn’t.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’ve been thinking too. Us first landing on Mars was the
trigger for it.” Fawn took a moment to take a breath and gather his thoughts.
“I think that’s when they decided we’re a threat. I mean, look at our history –
it’s littered with examples of what happens when a group of humans lands in
someone else’s backyard, and they’ve been watching us, they know what we can be
like. I refuse to believe that with all their observations of humanity, they
couldn’t foresee what would happen if they pointed a gun-like thing at the crew
of the MEV.
“What I think is they’d already decided to destroy us – if pointing the thing at us was a test or a way to convince anyone who was wavering, that’s neither here nor there – they want us gone – but they couldn’t make the first strike,” he went on. “If they preemptively attack us, who knows what we’d do? Humans are creative, tenacious and survivors, they don’t want to give us a reason to forget our differences and band together against a common threat.” Fawn pulled a wry face. “Look at the stories we tell in books and movies about what happens when an alien threatens humanity – pretty much every single time we band together and find a way to defeat it."
“So they made us be the bad guys?” Patrick
frowned in thought, starting to pick up on the doctor’s line of reasoning. “They
lure us in, create a situation, provoke us into firing the first shot. It only
helps them that we like to play the blame game so it keeps us divided and
blaming each other for this war instead of uniting against them.”
“Exactly.” Fawn nodded, looking grim. “So now it’s not their fault that the
violent, aggressive humans attacked the innocent, peace-loving Mysterons. And
because we started it, from their perspective we deserve what they do to us in
return. It’s not their fault, we forced them to punish us. They’re only hurting
us because of our actions, we’re making them do this.” He took a sip of water
and made his conclusion. “They get to eliminate the threat to their civilization
and as far as they’re concerned, their conscience is clean.”
“That sounds a lot like gaslighting, Doc,” was Patrick’s quiet, careful observation. He could almost swear the temperature had dropped a few degrees with the way he had chills running down his spine. The way the doctor had strung his observations together and drawn his conclusions…it was ringing frighteningly true as far as he was concerned.
“It is gaslighting,” was Edward’s equally quiet agreement. “Very, very few people actually see themselves as the bad guy of the story, they want to be the hero, and I’d say the Mysterons are just the same. As far as they’re concerned their cause is just and their goal is noble.”
“So if that’s the case, if we’re being
forced into this by the Mysterons, if they’re going to twist everything to
justify what they’re doing to us, why try to fight it?” Patrick asked, genuinely
curious, but also carefully making mental notes for an email to send to Doctor
Orchid as soon as this was over – he was getting worried about where Fawn’s
thoughts seemed to be taking him. “From what you’re saying it’s like the
Mysterons want monsters to fight and they’re doing their best to make us into
them – and with their powers and what they can do, their best is terrifying.”
“Because humanity has a lot of good in it that’s worth fighting for,” Edward
replied firmly. “For every genuine monster out there, there’s a thousand good
people running schools, rehab units, food banks, shelters, orphanages, charities
and what not, people who are unseen, unheard and unspoken of, who are busy
making the world a better place. If the Mysterons can be made to see that, to
see the individuals in the crowd, how we strive to change and how many people
want to and aim to do good, maybe we’ll have a chance to change their minds.
There’s other options too,” he pointed out. “We might be able to find something
to make the Mysterons sit down at the negotiating table and deal with us
honestly. And yes, they’re powerful and mysterious, but they’re not infallible,
omniscient or omnipotent. We’ve got that idiot,” the word was said fondly,
“cluttering up my Sickbay as not-yet-living-but-soon-will-be proof of that. We
still have a fighting chance.”
“I think you’re right, Doc.” Magenta half smiled to hide his relief. He was still going to send the note to Orchid, but it wouldn’t be quite as dire as he feared it would be.
“About which part?” Fawn grinned back. “The idiot, the good in people, other options or something else?”
“I’ll let you decide.” Magenta chuckled, turned back to the bartender and signalled her for another two drinks. When they arrived, he handed one to Fawn. “A toast,” he proposed. “To humans being stubborn bastards who never know when to quit.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Fawn nodded with a smile and offered his glass to clink against Magenta’s. “Cheers.”