The base was on high alert as General Logan Howlett entered the control room fresh from dinner. He had been beeped only fifteen minutes ago from his date with his ex-wife Mariko. Following behind him was a Nubian beauty with white hair and blue eyes. Her name is Ororo Monroe, and presently she is the leader of XS-1 a team of elite soldiers that guard against alien and mutant threats. She too was at the restaurant with her father Charles and fiancé Forge Wildfire.
“What do we have Thomas?” Logan gruffly asks taking a position to the Sergeant’s left looking out to the gate from the control room.
“We received a message from XS-4, they are under attack and have taken losses. They are penned about 100 yards from the gate,” replies the sergeant.
“Didn’t Doug, Jean and Remy go with them today?” Lt. Col. Monroe asks.
“Ready XS-7 and 5. I’ll meet them in the gate room.” General Logan answers as he turns to leave heading toward the armory.
“Sir where are you going?” Ororo asks as she matches his stride.
“What does it look like Colonel Monroe I’m going to play catch with the kids down the block.”
“Then I’m going with you.” Ororo protested. “You might need a resourceful catcher.” Logan continued to the armory never looking at her.
“The hell you are Monroe. You have a dinner you need to be at so I suggest you get out of here and back to your father.” Gen. Logan responded as he entered the elevator, “That’s an order Monroe.” The elevator door closes as a hurt Ororo Monroe simply looks at the disappearing General.
Three minutes later, the gate room door opens as General Howlett walks through in full battle rattle. “Let’s move ladies we don’t have all day. Major Grimm I want guns o’ blaz’n is that understood!”
“Yes SIR!” answers the battle hardened Major Ben Grimm.
The nine other soldiers dressed in armor and gear follows the General’s lead, as he is the first to enter the gate. The General always made it a point, when he lead XS-1 before he was promoted to lead by example and always was the first through the gate and the last to leave. Many respected that attitude; few could live up to his reputation as that type of commander. He never asked anyone to do something he was not prepared to do first. It was one of the many things that Lieutenant Colonel Ororo Monroe loved about the man who disappeared through the gate.
“Be careful.” Monroe whispers under her breath.
The restaurant is quiet with its family atmosphere; conversations are heard in low tones.
“I hear you like to invent Forge?” Charles asks, “What is it that you work on?”
“Mostly weapon systems for the government.” Forge replies testing the water, and feeling blown off by the woman he loves. “’Roro said that you were a general in the Army before you left.”
“I was.” Charles replies, examining the younger man.
“What is it like?”
“What is what like?” Charles places his elbows on the table and leans in slightly.
“You know. Other places.” Forge was watching what he was saying in case of people over hearing the conversation.
“Amazing. Never could of imagined it.” Charles answers slightly amused. “So Forge do you really love my daughter?”
“Yes I do.”
“Can you make her happy?”
“I don’t know. I’d like to try.”
“Really how?”
“Maybe after were married we could move back to DC. That way she can go back to the Pentagon.”
“Do you think she’d want that?”
“She and I had a conversation the other day and she said that she was getting tired of the way her career was.”
“You took it that she wanted to transfer away from her present place then.”
“Yes.”
“Inter…”Charles’ phone vibrates. ”..esting.”
Charles opens the phone as he pulls it from his inner pocket. “Hello?”
“I understand sweetheart.” Charles answers after a moment. “I’ll tell him. Yes. I’ll be there afterwards. Goodbye.”
After Charles closes the cell phone that Ororo gave to him just incase of emergencies while he was on planet side he looks over to Forge.
“Let me guess something came up.” Forge says as his eyes tell Charles of his disappointment.
“Sorry.” Charles replies as he gets up from the table, his grin becoming apparent as he leaves.
Charles enters the control room of the XSC hearing the familiar noise of the alarms as the gate activated.
“Medical team to the gate room. Fatalities and injured reported.” The Sgt’s voice rang over the loud speakers.
“Ororo what’s happened?” Charles asks with a perplexed look on his face.
“The Kree attacked one of our teams on PX3-5489 where we had found ruins.”
Ororo replies. “We’ve taken losses, its still unclear who yet.”
“Where’s Logan?”
“He went with the back-up squads to get XS-4 out.”
“Oh no.” Charles replies as he sees his daughter’s face as she had said those words. He then looks to the gate as people come running through it. One of the last running through is Remy Lebeau with his P90 firing back through the gate. Then the gate closes as the injured and dieing are brought to the med lab, among them is General Logan Howlett on a stretcher.
Ororo had turned at his words to witness the entire scene, everything was moving in slow motion for her at that moment. As she saw Logan, her heart sank and a feeling as though someone had punched her in the stomach emerged.
“Logan?”
In front of the gate stood a pulpit, on the right hand side of room a coffin with a closed casket; an American flag draped over it, the blue field placed on the upper left facing the crowd. Flowers decorating the room, chairs placed at the ramp of the gate’s base in seven rows with twelve seats in each. All the seats were full, a detachment of seven Marines stood on the far left of the room behind the gate. The right hand side, on the ramp stood a row of people, one of them was Charles, another Rogue looking somber with her gold tattoo upon her brow, Remington Lebeau next to her, Major Ben Grimm after him, Dr. Douglas Ramsey after him. Ororo stood at the pulpit, her eyes showed how tearful they had been, but she showed her unemotional shroud as always.
“We are here today to pay tribute to a hero.” She looks over to the casket.
“Each of us can say many good things as we all have stories of our encounters.”
Ororo’s mind cascades back to earlier that morning as she gives this eulogy of a fallen loved one.
“Forge I think…” Ororo almost fumbles, “I am sure..” She finds her resolve as she stands in front of him with her dress uniform on, her hair of winter white held in a bun. “that though I do care for you deeply, more than I can say, I can’t marry you.”
She remembers the look on Forge’s face as she said those words. He was hurt, his heart breaking.
“Why?” He asks, his voice slightly cracking as he speaks.
“I can’t give you my entire heart, ever.” She tries to reign in her emotions as she holds back the tears. She feels as if she is about to explode with tears and a torrent of sadness, not for what she is saying but for what it is doing to a good man. “That part of my heart is was for another.”
After a moment, Forge leaves the bench where the two had just spoken.
“We all loved our fallen hero. Our world will be a lonelier place now.” After the eulogy, Lt. Col. Ororo Monroe walks down the ramp, past the seated personal, to the casket as she runs her hand over it with an affection she rarely showed but always possessed. Afterwards she left the room, walking toward the elevator.
Ororo enters the infirmary walking over to the drawn curtain and opens it. She sits down next to a man named Logan Howlett, the general, the hero, the object of her love. She places her hand on top of his as he looks at her.
“How did it go?” Logan asks, a breathing tube strapped around his nose.
“Jean would have liked it.” Ororo answers as she squeezes his hand.
“I’m sure she would have.” Logan says, “I’m sorry ‘Ro. I know she was your best friend.”
“When will you be released Logan?” Ororo asks, noticing him using his nickname for her instead of her last name as he does at work. She though always called him Sir, until now.
“In a few weeks.” Logan noticed it.
“Good, then maybe I can go fishing with you at your cabin.”
“I’d like that, but wouldn’t….”
“He and I are no longer seeing each other Logan.”
The end…….
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