A Lonely Penance
Commonwealth POW Brig, Unknown Location near Detroit.
June 22nd 2075 AD
(Logan POV)
You walked in quietly and saw the Lieutenant looking at the wall, "So...heard the news?"
He was silent as you got a folding chair and sat down with your bible. "Not in a talking mood I see, well that's fine, I was going to be quiet for a while anyway."
The man was young, more than likely a recent officer that had been promoted or graduated, from the Dog Tags he couldn't be any older than Twenty-Seven,and that was the oldest estimate you could give in this day in age.
You opened to your favorite passage and nodded at it. "It's a good passage, honest and upfront about a lot of things."
The officer laughed. "You read Gods book but you only learn from one quote...idiotic and disgraceful."
"I would learn one of God's lessons fully and decisively with a clear mind and soul then to know a dozen lessons half heartedly, and that gives me some clarity, Who are you to claim to say the Lord would protect only you...if I recall that's pride." You said calmly speaking and not lifting your head from the bible.
The silence grew thick as you said your name. "Captain Logan Jackson Mercier...Commonwealth Military, Devil Brigade."
The man was silent for a moment. "And why would I tell you my name." He said as you looked disappointed at him.
"Because it's the polite christian thing to do, even if you are behind bars." You replied.
He looked disappointed for a moment. "Find...Mathew Shepard, Lieutenant of the Victorian Army, now go bother someone else."
You calmly pulled out a plastic bottle of beer and smiled. "See, share a drink with me. I insist."
You took a drink and handed through the small cell, and he took a drink and he gagged. "God...what shit is this?"
You grabbed it back and smiled. "Some assholes attempt at trying to bring back American Brew, he still needs work on the whole taste thing."
He laughed at that. "Shit tasting beer is something you Machine statests enjoy?"
"I've been trying to get them into wine making but climate is terrible and well we got into an argument about Pizza, and what should go with pizza, and what type of pizza was better with what toppings...it led to a brawl and I had to slip out a window." You said recalling the "Pizza debate" as it was called.
Matt gave a laugh. "Damn...Damn, your just people, horribly flawed and misguided ones but people."
"My guess is your family is a bit more liberal than most...considering everything?" You said.
"My Father, taught me to respect everyone as the bible commands, so yeah..never bought into the whole "Orcs are infirior" mindset I led a group of those fine men in battle and they were braver than most." Matt responded. "I saw the uniform, not the man wearing it...call me professional, but letting that nonsense get in the way of your leadership skills is not blindness it's just duty."
"Your not an Ideologe, and you made it to an officer's rank, you must have been a hell of a professional to not have your career cockblocked." You said noting the man's answer.
"Not from lack of trying...they tried really hard to make it hell for me, what about you? Where the hell did someone like you come from?" Matt said.
You closed your bible and smiled. "I just walked into Hellfire's camp with a truck of supplies after deserting the French Army in South America...A good way of that trek alone."
"Bullshit, you walked here?" Matt said.
"Well drove a Ford...but yeah its the same thing." You said as the man facepalmed.
"A Ford is not the same as walking...trust me...I should know." Matt sighed.
"Toche...so...A professional officer, you care about your duty so much...will your duty allow you to see the truth?" You started.
"And what truth would you have to say." Matthew said feeling curious.
"That your country is a puppet state of the Russians...and everything you know is a lie." You replied.
He was quiet.
You put it in a term he would understand. "To open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.'- Acts 26:18."
He was quiet again.
"You choose to believe the lies you've been taught or learn the truth about the world they have hidden from you. And maybe make your own damn choice for once." You said. "This is the first time you've ever been told the truth as it really is, isn't it?"
"But you've always known. Deep down in the pit of the soul,the part of you that is still American at heart. You know what the hell you were born in." You continued as he shook his head.
"I don't want to...leave the lie, it's so comforting." Matt said feeling small for the first time in years, despite that farmboy physique he had, the signs of early malnutrition damage, more than likely from the loss of resources from the boats early in the battle and what appeared to be old whip marks marred the mind of this man.
"When that's all you've lived off of, a comforting lie is better than the truth." You said.
You looked at him. "They beat you didn't they the CMC...they beat you for a reason."
"They told me it would strengthen my resolve." Matt said.
"No...they wanted you to stay afraid...because once someone sees a truth like that, it destroys the lie...say the truth in your own words." You said.
Matthew Shepard looked like a man who had been buried alive for days seeing the light for the first time...it both hurt and was strangled liberating at the same time.
"Victoria is a Russian client state, we were tricked into killing a nation and being a tool of someone else's conquest and we barely even knew it. We were alll fucking patsies to be used and discarded." He looked physically weak and disoriented as he whole MINDSET collapsed.
Surprisingly he remained standing after that internal revelation of the honest truth.
He wanted to scream at you, call you a liar. Yet he didn't.
He just looked...tired.
"You okay?" you asked as he sat in the makeshift cot.
"I just realized how much of a terrible person I am." He said. "My happy home life, My Conviction...EVEN MY FUCKING DUTY was built on a lie!! YOU TELL ME!!!"
You shrugged. "Your taking it better than the last three guys I talked to about this you tell me."
He then went onto his knees for a moment and banged the floor. "FUCK!! FUCK FUUUUUCK!!"
You could only watch the anguish leave the man through each strike of his fist on the floor.
He then lifted himself up and looked at the flag of his nation on his shoulder. "All my life...I've been fighting for a lie."
He tore the flag of his uniform and dropped it to the floor. "Liberation…I fight for my own beliefs, I abandon my nation-."
He stopped himself from finishing that though. "No...My nation lied and deceived me from my birth to this moment. My Nation abandoned me."
"My atonement for the lives I've destroyed, I must beg the lord for Forgiveness...but there is one thing I can do to ease my troubled concise." He said.
He took a deep drink of the brewed ale and gagged slightly. "I, Lieutenant Matthew Shepard, tender my resignation from the Victorian Army and desert my post as an officer...and claim the Government of Victoria illegitimate of its claims to the lands of the Former United States…" He started breathing heavily and started to sweat.
"And I will render the nation and its leaders and founders guilty of the charges of treason, consorting with Enemies of the People and abuses of Government and Military Power on the populations it was sworn to defend. I am a soldier of Victoria No more." He said to himself quietly and barely being able to hear.
"I am a soldier of Victoria no more." He said a bit more sure of himself as he replayed all the damned evidence of the Victorian Government's crimes he was apart of, heard of and witnessed.
"I AM A SOLDIER OF VICTORIA NO LONGER!!" He said through the sweat, propaganda filled education and lessons of human decency from the good book itself.
You smiled. "Good, Now we just have to make it official, and you can well, you won't be allowed to leave the cell, yet we will debrief you on the situation at large, and you will be a subordinate officer until you are retrained, requested and rearmed. And Pending an official hearing and Oath of Loyalty, you will be in logistics for at least half a year or longer. I know you want to rush in and prove yourself, but It ain't my call yet."
Matthew gave a salute. "I feel free, seeing the truth from a different lense it hurts…"
"Good things often do hurt..at ease and enjoy a drink." You said.
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Matthew Shepard
Age:27
ID:3456192048
Rank: Lieutenant (POW)
Request to recognize desertion from Victorian Military as defection to the Commonwealth Military.
Hearing Status: Pending.
Status: Moved to a POW Camp along with other supposed defectors.
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AN: Logan going all in with the MGS recruiting by actually getting POW's to defect and join our side.
One of these days I'm going to make a MGS PW stat sheet for them all for the Spec ops unit.
And also this is the quickest one to defect as he was a more independent minded officer.
Hey
@PoptartProdigy are a few of the Victorian's going to defect to us, because I like to belive a few of the soldiers are taking the effort to get them on side ASAP.
