《Life of Leadership》 Heavy is the Head Katherine was tired. She had been making too many decisions for too many people for too long. She was done, finally, and ready to rest. But first she had to deal with idiots. "No, Lieutenant, I cannot ''just shove some extra people'' into an advanced life-support containing ship" sighed Catherine, exasperated. "Then you suggest sending 13 children on their own! That''s a death sentence Doctor Halsey, and you know it!" The beet red officer responded, on the verge of screaming. "Are you suggesting that you understand the science of that ship better than I do, Lieutenant?" Catherine replied with a raised eyebrow. That quickly took the sails out of the soldier''s sails. He knew, along with all of his 25 soldiers, that there was one person in this room who understood even the slightest bit about that ship, and it wasn''t him. "The ship contains everything that they will need to survive, along with a digital instructor to teach them to do anything the ship may not provide" Katherine said, slipping into lecture mode. "All of which''s besides the point, as you and..." she paused, calculating "11 other soldiers, will be going with them, just on another ship, which you seem to have conveniently forgotten" "Is the second ship smaller? Why not 12?" The lieutenant questioned, confused. "It has one less bunk, which has been replaced with a weapons storage unit" She informed him. "Now are we done here, Lieutenant, you have some soldiers to pick out" she said, not envying his position. The man thought for a minute. He hadn''t told his men yet, who would and wouldn''t be going, but they all had pretty good guesses. The team would need the two wilderness specialists; they would definitely take the quartermaster, who was a genius when it came to handling supplies. The private would be coming, and few people begrudged that, as his child would be one of the 13. The rest, however, were up in the air. "All right men! We''ve been through a lot, and I hate to break up the unit, but recant all go" He told them, in his best commanding officer voice. "Ramirez, Smith, Jones, Paquel, Wong, Gordon, Bringam, Wheeler, Pavlinski, Yang, and Hassler! You''re all with me. The rest of you need to keep the doctor alive long enough to get us where we need to go" There was a tense moment as the soldiers sorted themselves out, with the 11 going wondering if any of the 14 being abandoned would turn violent.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. It happened quickly. Ramiro Vasquez didn''t expect to be on the ship, he was an average soldier in every way. He knew, logically, that he was lucky to even be alive right now. But he couldn''t, no, he wouldn''t accept this. Someone of lower rank was going to survive, just because he had a kid?!? Newsflash! Almost everyone in this room had children. They were celebrating Serch''s return from maternity leave the night all this shit went down! He, in that instant so small even a mayfly would be surprised by its length, emitted a strangled cry and drew his sidearm. It was instant chaos, with every soldier near him instantly following suit. Except they were aiming at him! He sounded psychotic "No, no, no, no, no!" He screeched. "You don''t get to live while we die, just because everybody thinks your kid is fiucking special! Lieutenant Dan tried calming him down, and would regret that decision for the rest of his life. "Vasquez, you don''t want to do that, don''t end it like this. Nothing''s going to change if you sacrifice your humanity just to end him. It won''t get you passage on that ship" he pleaded with Ramiro. Ramiro looked him in the eyes, and the Lieutenanteutenant could see that his eyes had glassed over, like he was already dead. "I got news for you cap''in" he said, using an old nickname of the Lieutenant "humanity is already dead" and fired his weapon straight into the skull of a soldier who just wanted to take care of his kid. He did not survive to see the other man''s body drop, the Lieutenant had drawn and fired that quickly. There was nothing else to say, and the soldiers finished getting into the second ship, stepping over the two bodies when necessary.
Katherine was thinking, as she worked at the ground controls of the two ships. She thought about what it was to be a soldier. She knew it invaded every part of one''s life. As she thought about it, she realized what would happen if the only survivors of Earth were soldiers and children. The soldiers would raise the children the only way they knew how, to be soldiers of a sort. Truthfully, it would probably be the right decision. The fauna on this new planet were downright terrifying. There would be a need for soldiers. But it still scared her. Humanity would be a group of soldiers and child soldiers, fighting for survival and nothing else. The worst part was that she knew the potential of those kids, and except for two of them, who she thought would make excellent soldiers, they weren''t made for it. It would crush their spirits one by one. So she made a decision. She altered the course of the second ship. It would be a shame to lose the weapons on board, but the kids were smart, and the small fabricator on their ship, capable. At least that''s how she justified it to herself, as she plotted a course from Earth to somewhere inside the sun''s gravity. She felt surprisingly little turmoil at this decision. On the outside she looked like she was just getting the last things they needed for the launches ready. "Ready? She asked the Lieutenant and the kids" "Ready" was the resolute reply from 14 voices. Katherine pressed the button that launched the ships, officially sending 13 kids to a new world. And 12 adults to their firery deaths
Katherine felt relief for the first time in exactly 1 year, 1 month, and 13 days. She knew something must be wrong with her, to feel so little after sentencing people who had done nothing wrong to their deaths, but she couldn''t bring herself to feel remorseful. She went and laid down, and fell asleep to the sounds of gunshots, men screaming, and one explosion. She would never wake again. Who run the world? January Jay wasn''t a great person. He knew that. Not for lack of trying, but where most people had somewhat some emotional stability, he was a tornado. Kinda like his mother, really. That didn''t mean Jay didn''t do good things. He was of the opinion that people often confused the two. That was why he had used his connection to his mom make sure he woke up a few days before everyone else. He wanted to study each and every one of the other people on his ship before they had a chance to wake up. After all, he had to make sure this bunch survived a hostile planet.
Jay was actually pleasantly surprised by the contents of the ship. The UNEEC had chosen well. They probably would function better with the rest of the people UNEEC had attempted to send, but Jay now knew they were the only survivors. He tried not to think about that, or his mother''s interesting decision, his classic response to problems. Anyways, on to this rag-tag bunch. He knew he''d have to channel Adam and Emily in the right direction. They were clearly social manipulators, and both were rather adept at it. Debatably better than him, but he was definitely less obvious. Emily worried him more, Adam''s was an altruistic behavior, done for the greater good. Emily was less....nice, about how she did things. He wasn''t particularly worried about either. He wasn''t sure if his friendship with Adam clouded his judgment or not, but he felt it was a fair assessment. Hector worried him the most if he was being honest. Those who completely shut themselves off from social contact were the most difficult to manipulate with that contact. Usually. They were more vulnerable to certain kinds of manipulation, which Jay was currently unwilling to use. He knew others wouldn''t be so adverse, and decided then to try and protect Hector.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. He could find nothing unique about Clarissa. Nothing. It was actually rather amazing. She was of above average intelligence, but that was average amongst the 12 of them. Her file was about as useless to Jay as it could get. He knew he''d have difficulties initially with her, but she was still less worrying than Hector. He could already tell Mark and Mary were going to be a couple. Uck. That was irksome. Couples too often went to that pack mentality people irritatingly slipped into sometimes. He''d have to get a hold on each one before they got together. Mark would spend his time looking up, and Mary trying to take care of everybody else. That was fine by him, that was easy to connect to in the right ways. D.J. was going to try and compete with him, Adam, and Emily for leadership. He was going to lose, and Jay didn''t think he''d make as good a leader as Adam, but the option was there. Jay spent a second being jealous of D.J.''s height before shaking himself out of it and moving on to the next file. James and Stacy would both irritate him, for separate reasons. It was clear to him that James would be constantly attempting to smash any of the six girls, and that would alienate him. Except they couldn''t afford that. So he''d have to stop James from being James or keep him from being tossed out. He didn''t really want to expend the effort to do either of those things, but he''d have to. Stacy, on the other hand, was one of those endlessly cheery people, who believed that good would always triumph and mind over matter and all that nice shit. Uck. He''d have to keep her from getting herself killed. 1/12 your population dying was bad for morale. Shaienne would probably spend the vast majority of her time with Hector or animals, which made connecting to her easy, he''d done it before with similar not-introverts-but-definitely-prefer-animals-to-people type people. He''d probably just find a cute but safe local animal and give it to her to take care of. Amora brought up bad memories, ones he''d become an expert at avoiding. He looked at her appreciatively and then down unappreciatively. But he pushed forward. Then he saw a way in. Pyromaniac? He could work with that. Destruction was kinda his thing. He decided on the order that he''d wake people up before they got too close to the planet. Then the unexpected happened - because of course it did.
You have gained the class: Soul Connector!
Chaos The rule of the Stormlords may be the most turbulent time in the history of the Aterium. Rule is probably an exaggeration, as it seems to this day that there was no reason or logic to their rampages. There''s a problem with this historical interpretation though. Those who reach the level of power as each individual Stormlord did rarely do so without a purpose. Excluding the King of the Courts, obviously. It''s also rare for them to act without some purpose, and the Stormlords were many things, but the King of the Courts was one of the few enemies they had as a collective, it wouldn''t make sense for them to copy his rotating carnival of nonsensical action. This view also fails to acknowledge the strange disappearance of the strange storms that had been devastating the planet for its entire recorded history, and their even stranger reappearance in the demenses of each Stormlord. -Demetryus, widely acknowledged as the foremost expert on the Age of Storms.
"Alice, scan for any brain abnormalities please" I called outIf you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Looking at the screens readout, my brain was normal. Well, normal for me. Well, that means it''s real. Or at least not worth acknowledging it as a hallucination. Those really aren''t fun, but the computer can detect those. I''m going to keep ignoring the obnoxious pop-up in front of my face. I have important things to do. It seemes as if we are approaching the planet, and each of my companions is going to be waking up soon. At least, that was the plan, until I realized how difficult it is to ignore something literally in front of your face.
Begin Tutorial? Warning: This will take at least five minutes.
So how do I do this? Oh. That''s how. Thought. Creates some interesting questions about how it connects. And the other, more expected questions, but they could wait.
You have been defaultly selected for a mage-warrior path. Path options generally reflect personal views, but if you wish to change paths, the options are listed below.
Mage. Warrior. Chronoic Mage. Psychotic Researcher. Psychotic Barbarian. Emotional Seer. Ruler of Psychosis.