Volume 2 - Chapter 106 - The Talk III
| "Old Man?" "Hmm?" "When you talk about your squad, you always get this… look. Like you ate something real good—like a double portion chicken paste. But then you also look kinda sad... Why?" "Hah… that obvious, is it? I guess it’s because they were my friends, Missy. All of 'em. And… most of 'em are gone now. That's the general gist of it. Good memories and grief tend to arrive in the same package. You'll understand it all someday." "That's the part I don't get. If having friends hurts that much later, why have them at all? Sounds like a damn bug to me, not a feature." "…A bug, she says. By the Void…" "I'm serious! I do fine on my own! I win on my own, I fix machines on my own, I got the top score at the arcade on my own—" "Aye, aye, on your own, I heard ya the first dozen times, damn… What happens on the day 'on your own' isn't enough though, hm? What then?" "Then I just train harder." "Missy." "What? It's worked so far!" "You're ten. 'So far' is not even remotely as strong of an argument as you think it is. … Look. Stop jumping around for a moment and sit down, would ya? Let me try this a different way." "Fiiine." "When my squad got chewed up on Derellin—you've heard that story, the crash, the long walk out, right?—do you know what got me through those six weeks? It wasn't my rifle, or my training. It sure as fuck wasn't the rations, ‘cause we ran clean out of those in week two." "… What was it, then?" "Berro's terrible singing. Lildy's even worse jokes. Marska reading her sister's messages out loud to us every night 'til we knew that woman's laundry schedule by heart… That's what it was. Six weeks of trekking through enemy territory, with no support and no salvation in sight, and every morning I got up because those idiots were getting up, and I'd be damned if I let 'em walk out of there without me." "But that's… I mean, that's just what morale is, right? The UHF has people for that. You told me! Like officers, the mind-doctors—" "Aye, they exist, and they do fine work. But hear me out here, Missy, because it's important: A psych-officer is issued to you like a helmet. A friend hands you theirs in a shootout. It is not even remotely the same thing, and no amount of training, credits or cleverness will ever make it the same thing." "… I—don’t get it. What's actually different there? You still have a helmet?" "…Hmm. Hahhh… you'd think an old man would have the words ready by now… Alright. Let’s try this: The mind-doctor listens primarily because it's their duty. And duty's a fine thing, I'd never knock it, of course. But a friend listens because it's you. Because you matter to them, specifically. Not Recruit Such-and-Such, serial number whatever on their clipboard, scheduled for that day. You. And there's a kind of weight a person can only set down in front of somebody who chose them like that. Everything else just… holds the weight in place for a while." [Brief silence.] "That sounds made up." "Everything’s made up, Missy. Doesn’t make it any less true." "… And you really think I'm gonna find people like that? Me?" "I don't think so, Missy. I know so. Some crew of poor unsuspecting souls out there is going to get all this—" "Hey!" "—and they're going to love you for it, the damned Emperor help them all. And when that day comes, I need you to do the one thing that won't come natural to you whatsoever. It’ll probably be harder than any drill I've ever put you through." [Audible swallow.] "Which is…?" "Let them help you. With the extremely heavy stuff, the kind where you'd rather chew glass than say out loud. That’s all. Let them help you, Missy. You will need it." "That's… ugh. Fine, I guess? I don’t really get it, though... Is—Is this a Rule?" [Brief silence once again.] "Aye... It’s a Rule, Missy—Golden Rule #6: When the load gets too heavy, you don't grit your teeth and try to power through—you hand a piece of it to your people, and you always carry theirs in turn." [Memory Excerpt: “Golden Rule #6: Friends,” James McKay, 935 PFC]
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