Prologue #2
Turning, I follow the road up into the mountain roads.
Jeff didn’t get to live out his next purpose.
Since I needed the time to lose all remnants of Mika, I dove into work and my therapy, anything to stay busy.
It wasn’t long before I felt whole with my new leg and foot, I shrugged off ‘disabled man’ and spent a year playing the nursemaid.
Proving I could do what Mika described as the nursemaid life she walked away from, I put everything I had in me to make life better for Jeff.
I didn’t expect he’d be so bad off, but the cancer ran through him like lightning.
For a while there, he was my purpose, then making it good for him was all that mattered.
It was a tough year but I wouldn’t change a thing looking at it now.
I needed to be worth something and he needed the help.
It worked. I smile slowing to a roll then head back to the Flight Guard Club.
Jeff became my purpose and was the reason it didn’t take so long to feel comfortable with no shin and foot.
He was fighting for his life when I was released from the hospital.
There is no way in hell I’d disrespect his fight by whining about my little battle scars.
Jeff was my teacher and test. Everything he was up for is what we did, it wasn’t always easy or convenient.
I made it happen and he was happy. I was happy in a bittersweet way but he taught me so much.
We spent time we’d never have made important doing what was important in the moments we had.
He set me up for the job with Badass. Hand out, protocols with reasons to them and Brothers who have my back. Jeff knew I’d need this and here I am.
Badass Officers deserve their positions and now I know how they get them. I’m going to like whatever they decide for me knowing it will be orders I won’t spend a lifetime trying to forget.
Virginia said the giant is crazy, smart and funny.
They call him POT of the west. I never called the generals crazy or POT but I’m still relatively young.
Everyone I’ve met is a little crazy and they gave up running drugs years ago according to the Bible.
My new purpose feels good even if I don’t know what it is.
I need to call Mario. Badass crazy is rubbing off.
He’s going to throw, ‘everyone gets to live their dream’, at me.
He’ll be right and here feels like the place that will happen.
I’m ready to believe in my old mantra again, I spout it enough to the vets at our group, I think smiling.
§*§*§
Bravo Rising
Sophie Michadeau
Lifting my ass off the seat, I brace for the jump by bending my knees a tad and centering my body and mind over the bike.
This kid is going to kill me with jumps like this.
I made it through nine years working my way up from CANSOFCOM to CSOR and finally to my dream job at CJIRU, aka a ‘Silent Professional.’ That job should have killed me, but this one is more fun.
If I’m going, it’s with a better reason and Brothers I can count on.
The JTF2 trained us for everything, they started with the long ass acronyms.
The first jump Asa speeds us through is an easy one over a log on the path. I smile and plop my ass back on the seat. CANSOFCOM, Canadian Special Operations Forces Command plays in my head sounding monotone to me.
Looking over at Asa, now that we’re rolling down an incline, I see crazy little Ford brothers at the bottom jumping a huge hill. God help us. I move on to CSOR, Canadian Special Operations Regiment, this one has a little sassy pitch to it. I was sassy then, so it fits.
Swerving quickly to the right, I miss a huge rock that would have thrown me over the bars.
Stella is right, Asa is a nut. Getting my bearings, I look ahead and smile.
I've got one more little tricky blip, the series of quick turns and mid-level jumps before that damn kamikaze ending. I am hoping isn’t as hard or lethal as I’ve named it.
The Acronyms seem easier so I go back to my jobs.
CJIRU reverence is what I feel saying this one, even if I’m the only one to hear it.
It’s a job I was in awe of as soon as I heard of it.
I worked off a plan that merged what JTF2 trained me for then I went looking for more.
If I was coming back from the war that isn’t called a war, it wasn’t gonna be in a box.
Moving to my sassy first promotion, I used the brash and bold to get real life advice from other nations top Operators.
I met someone from almost every NATO country out there but only three took my request for the training I’d need to survive whatever the hell we were fighting for seriously.
A Delta Operator who runs a Security firm called Adroit here in the US, a British SAS Operator who is still in and a SEAL wrote a plan of action and real-life obstacles I’d have to face head on in the manuals they handed to me.
The Badass SEAL was the one that had more than the others in technical matters.
I relied on that one for the jobs where my Command Control was American, which was most of them and it served me well.
Higher ups in the Canadian Joint Incident Response Unit were surprised I had made it, then asked for my manual with all the notes. I didn’t hand it over but did make them the merged version I used without my sassy, and sometimes, bitchy comments, pointing out their hoser-like procedures.
Men can be morons with the performative humanity expectations.
Being a woman who reached the Elite Force should indicate that I can do the job.
It doesn’t have to be the way you do and I don’t need training wheels to make it over the finish line.
I’m also not gonna do more than bump fists for anyone else making it.
Men who make it don’t get cartwheels from me for making the same job I did, so I’m always wary of why that causes some of them to meltdown. I avoid those men.
Whoa, I slow seeing Asa almost wipe out, then realize he’s posturing for the next jump and follow his lead. My knee is almost touching the ground when I make the hard turn, then speed up just like he did.
I finish my job experience, an adult lifetime of acronyms until now. Badass has been a world of everything I hoped the acronyms would be. Equality in Canada is better than out of the wire but my last CbrN support decided that we belonged together, as in together - together.
The anger that brings up fuels my lift and land out of the crazy fast low lying turns we just managed.
I smile thinking of the end game ahead. I dropped the hoser with a degree in nuclear whatever and refused to sign for the next jobs with him.
My report had me back at a real base training until my time was up.
“Wait, tire hit air you bring bike up high, hold tight.” Asa surprises me.
The voice focuses me. “Roger.”
He slides to the right and I lean to make it to the left. Together we punch it at the beginning of the ramp. The bikes rise, I brace, making sure my legs are holding tight to the frame and pull as my tire hits air.
“Yeah, Boss Sophie!” His little giggle has me chuckling.
We set down easier than I expected. I shake my head. That was a run and a half but it feels like the buildup didn’t pan out. I left my dream job on a sour note and ended up here at Badass. I’d think the jump… Seeing three feet in front of him, my breath stalls in my throat.
“Up!” Asa goes over a ledge.
“Asa… Jolly Robins!” I breathe, then yell, jumping right over him. “You’re a damn nut! I’m telling Stella she’s right.”
He giggles as he puts his foot down. The screen goes off and he’s still giggling. I don’t ask how he did it, it was done so it works. I’ll ask a trainer so I can use it with my team.
My foot goes down and I click the strap to get the helmet off before looking toward him in the next lane. “That was crazy. I was just thinking it felt too easy but you made it explosive. This is the test you’re going with for Prospects?” They’re going to pass out.
“Enforcer, Protector. You pass,” he says waving his hand as if it was my question.
I smile huge. “I passed in Phoenix, Brother.”
His eye roll with the fire colored mohawk looks cute. “You Lead to Alpha-Bit Officer Protector team.”
I breathe deep with the smile still in place. “Thank you.” I made it in record time. Ranger and Freedom said I would but damn. “Do I have to go to the suit training Club?”
He squints his eyes at me. “Anton say you pass at Delta. You have suit?” His little fists curl and I’m glad I’m not Anton.
“I do. I trained with him and Remo but he didn’t say I passed.”
He relaxes his hands as he nods. “Pres Kristos say you ride and shoot and pass track. I make this to all Protector Lead final test. Anton do Flight Guard to you.
They’re so good at training. “Aris said I’d get recognized at the Teach Club.”
His hand waves that away. “He wrong. You Protector Officer same to Boss Tats, Boss Ginny. You Lead to Officer Protector Team or High Officer, VIP visit team.”
Okay. “I’m your Lead?”
“Yeah. Pres Kristos explain, we go back to Honor tomorrow to four-hour shift, then Alpha meet.” He’s got this all figured out.
“I start as your Lead tomorrow?”
He shakes his mohawked fire-colored head at me. “You Lead Protector start you pass at Phoenix. Here you test to all Officer Lead. You pass. Pres Kristos, VP Teller give BSC Protector Officer cut. No nomad. You BSC Protector Officer.”
Okaaaay, that sounds all kinds of acronym-y.
I’m a Protector Officer for the BSC which is Badass Security Council, Lead for Alpha-Bits, High Officers and/or VIP visitors.
Asa looks frustrated or maybe that’s annoyed, so I don’t ask him to explain what rank I am, or what Officer means when I don’t have a rank.
I’ll ask Tats, Mag or Pepsi if I see them at the pool later.