***
+ BEGIN TIMELINE DROP.
NOTE: This is an unusual Drop. Roll insisted that I include this information in the Journal. It’s hard in so many ways. Even finding the best timeline location was difficult. This spot seems best. Here, we are close to the Nemesis 12 timeline. Here, we are about to have a discussion of how we tend to blame ourselves even when it’s not our fault. The blame game itself can be a complicated topic. Maybe there can be shades of blame.
The awful news came soon after our team intervention with Roll. There is a section about that intervention further along in the Journal. Roll wasn’t doing well. He was melting down and it was getting worse. Something had to be done. A confrontation was necessary. We trudged through it. Not long after, Roll had to face a terrible consequence of his actions. Then came the guilt, shame, and remorse.
You remember Kowalski, the only Nemesis 12 crew member that survived the bold EDF attack against the bug blockade. Well, we thought he survived. He almost did. Roll was a hero for even attempting to save Kowalski. Straight-up, he was. But it’s complicated.
Kowalski was beat up badly from the explosion that sent him careening through space. He didn’t seem to be too badly hurt when Roll found him. Roll did, eventually, take Kowalski to Madigan Hospital. After Nemesis, the Shockwave team was immersed in one operation after another. No one from the team checked in on Kowalski. No one from Madigan contacted anyone from the team. But, eventually, we found out. Much later, we found out. Kowalski died. Aneurysm.
If Roll had taken Kowalski to the hospital sooner, he would have lived. Roll was drinking that day. Even while on duty, he was liquored up. In fact, instead of taking Kowalski straight to the hospital, he stopped off at Shockwave HQ “to patch Kowalski up a bit.” Yeah, Roll was really looking to patch himself up a bit, in the form of a good stiff drink from the stash in his office. His carry flask had run dry.
Roll also confessed that he stumbled around twice as long as he should have, out there looking for Kowalski. He was finding it difficult to focus. His teleportation tracking was impaired.
The intervention of the team helped to open Roll’s eyes to his problem. Learning of Kowalski shook him to his core. It was the sort of thing that will either break him completely or push him to get the help he needs.
Like I said, the whole thing is complicated. And it’s not. No normal person would have gone into that killing field of debris to save someone they didn’t even know. Roll did. As messed up as he was, Roll did. But the chains finally dragged him down. A terrible consequence of his behavior caught up to him. Almost everyone is a hero, in some way, to someone. The darkness hates heroes. I think Roll will find his way out of the trap. I suppose it won’t be easy. It makes a person think. There are so many traps out there, so many different kinds of bait. To break free, you need to be a hero. If you’re struggling inside a trap, remember, someone in your life needs a hero. Seek to be set free.
END TIMELINE DROP. +
***
September 19th. Two days in a row with the general. We may have to get him his own seat at the table. He did have a plan for the bug blockade ships guarding the Moon. He joined us again for a short discussion. There are nine enemy ships left. The general has requisitioned 9 Goldilocks bombs.
They are light enough for Rock and Roll to port without a combined lift. The twins will play leapfrog with the 9 bombs. They’ll line the bombs up at our desert staging site. Then port the bombs to the bug ship decks, in a coordinated effort. Rock and Roll. Rock and Roll. Hindsight can be so painful. Had this strategy been developed earlier, Nemesis 12 could have been spared.
We had become procedure locked, thinking only of bomb placement inside the ships. Port onto a bug ship, handle any threats, place a bomb inside the ship, port to safety. It would not have been safe to port into the ships when they were fully loaded, with bugs crawling around everywhere. Porting bombs to the hull of an enemy ship never came up in our discussions. Now it seemed so obvious. The twins can port through a bug nest ship energy shield. That assessment had already been completed with numerous shield settings.
Of course, there was still the problem of the bugs scanning the sudden appearance of Rock and Roll and the bombs. The outside placement solution might be successful with two, or even four ships. But the rest will probably run. That problem would need a resolution. Who knows what sort of bombs might be available to the bugs? They all needed to be destroyed to avoid any sort of retaliation.
I can see it in Grandad’s eyes. This should have been considered prior to committing the Nemesis 12 group. Hindsight is 20/20. I don’t think that’s a platitude in this case. There was hardly any time to think it through and give input before the military put Nemesis 12 on the line.
Porting is such a new military option. How much sleep were you getting at the time, Grandad? Maybe 2-hours a night? None of us thought of it. The general knew of porting by then, right? He didn’t think of it either, not at the time. Yeah, I can see it in Grandad’s eyes. But, it’s not your fault, go easy on yourself.
***
*COMMUNAL: Says the pot calling the kettle black.
You trying to say something Communal? I blame myself for things out of my control?
*COMMUNAL: Just saying.
You can be so
