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“Welcome back, Jack.” A woman in a well-ironed business suit said. Her voice was very self-assured and her posture said ‘Don’t fuck with me.’ “Jack is your preferred name now, isn’t it?.”
I nodded the affirmative, wanting to stave off the sound of my effeminate voice as long as possible. I had not spoken a word today. I simply gave friendly smiles to those i passed by and when i was asked what floor i was headed to i used my fingers to indicate that the fourth floor was my destination.
“Well, Jack, i knew you would be back. I know that you know just as well as i that this task force is critical to our nation. We humans must protect ourselves from those demonic creatures.”
I sadly had to use my voice to respond, “Of course, Director.” I tried to ignore the high pitch, but it was useless.
She nodded. “As you know, the Civil Protection Task Force is tasked with protecting New Earth. However, when you were just a citizen, the Civil Control Task Force had to keep you from knowing the scary details.”
“Have there been more attacks, Director?”
“There have indeed, Jack. The Elves have joined the others. They all want us off of ‘their’ planet. But Treshfrast is big enough for all of us. I wish they saw that. Jack, i want to reason with them, but to do so we have to defeat them. That’s the only way they will call off the attack.” She seemed earnest and rather distraught.
“I know that the senseless bloodshed must be hard for you, Director.”
“Why is it that you think that is?”
I knew i had fucked up, but i followed through with my fuck up. You can’t say that i back down. “Well, you’re a girl.”
She clicked her tongue at me. “I am a grown woman. I do not like pointless death because those are all living beings. I may want them to stop what they are doing. I may loathe them. But they are still souls out there created by the Gods. Go to the conference room, Susan. Sorry, i mean Jack.”
I really could not tell if anger caused her tongue to slip or if she willingly referred to me as my birth name. I thought about it as i walked to the conference room. I had never spoken to the director about the concept of transgender people, so i couldn’t tell if she was being malicious.
I pushed through the metal double doors to the conference room. There were people sitting around an egg shaped tale. In the room were many familiar faces of the corporals and sergeants. I never expected to see these people again. People i was no longer sure if they survived.
The director took her place at the narrow end of the table. She shifted quickly through papers on her desk, seemingly looking for information that i would have expected her to already know.
“As you all know, we have been under attack for almost a year, beginning about a month after arriving here on Treshfrast. Those of you who are returning to us after leaving from
us due to necessity for family, or mental health, do not know about the more recent attacks. These attacks certainly did not get close enough to our homelands to alert the public. If they had, you would have known. However, the fleets grew close enough to be a very pressing issue. We fought back against the troops and they have receded for now. The most troubling thing about these attacks is that the Elves have joined in.”
There were murmurs of displeasure and fear at this news. I heard one of the other sergeants begin to pray.
“My fear with this, and i’m sure many of you have this fear as well, is that the Elves are magick users. I am sure you have heard about their communications with plantlife and their ability to create things from these plants. I do not know the extent of this magick, we know even less about the Elves than we do the Fae. As we have seen, the Fae can use a near-solid form of magick to physically attack us, and to interact with objects.
“Because of this, we must strike hard and fast. We must train new recruits as quickly as possible and ship out. We need to pacify the Fae. They started the movement against us, and defeating them should cause the attacks to stop.”
The door to the conference room swung open and i saw a ghost.