Chapter Text
Colonel Powell can’t seem to get the face of the little girl they bombed out of her mind. She’s waking up in cold sweats. She’s having nightmares and she knows she has to talk to her superior officer about all of this. She gets into her car in the middle of the night, in the pouring rain, and drives to the general’s house. She’s surprised when she arrives at his house, at four in the morning, that there’s lights on. She sits in her car in the driveway. She can’t quite bring herself to go in. This is an important conversation to have, but she’s not sure that the general is having the same issues or the same feelings. Eventually she slides out of the car and walks slowly to the front door.
“I wondered if you were ever going to come in Colonel.” General Benson opens the front door before she knocks.
“I’m glad I’m not the only one who isn’t sleeping. I can’t get that last mission out of my mind. That little girl is stuck in my mind. I even called Kenya and checked on her. She didn’t make it and it’s my fault. I gave the order for those bombs to be dropped and I killed an innocent little girl. Have you been thinking about what we did?”
“I can’t stop thinking about it. I haven’t been so affected by one decision since I proposed to my wife. After we ran that op I had my granddaughter’s birthday party and it was horrible. All I could see was that little girl in Kenya. My beautiful little girl climbed onto my lap and hugged me around the neck and I never wanted to let her go. I haven’t been so affected be a moment, in the military, since I was on the battlefield.” Benson sighs and sips the liquid in the glass he’s holding. “Can I get you a drink?”
“Yes please. I thought I would be okay making that decision until I went home and thought about it. It was our pilot’s first bombing and the young woman who was moving the drone: it was her first day on the job. I feel terrible. I was quite glad that I didn’t have a family to go home to. Simon keeps asking me if I’m okay when I wake up abruptly in a cold sweat. He’s concerned about me and he doesn’t know what’s wrong. I’m having terrible nightmares and I’m not sleeping, but clearly neither are you.”
“Why do you think I’m not sleeping?”
“You’re awake and drinking at 4 in the morning. You’re not sleeping.” Colonel Powell says firmly before she sips her drink.
“Well, what time were you up? You have to drive all the way out here and arrive at four in the morning. You must have been up at minimum an hour ago. I know you speed, but it’s still a long way.”
“I don’t sleep more than an hour at a time now. Once I’m awake at about three in the morning I just stay up. Tonight I decided I couldn’t keep it to myself anymore. I left Simon a note to let him know where I was going.”
General Benson slumps into a chair by the fire and Colonel Powell sits across from the general. “What have you told Simon?”
“I haven’t told Simon anything. I can’t tell him anything. Everything we do is top secret. He knows something is wrong through. He hasn’t questioned me on it yet, but he will. I keep waking him up in the night. Neither of us can go on this way. We’re both exhausted.”
“I can recommend someone for you to talk to if you want or you can continue to talk to me if you promise to keep talking to me. Don’t hold it all in. It won’t help anyone.”
“I don’t even know if I can put things into words. I have never felt so guilty for doing my job before.”
“What are you going to do?” General Benson asks setting his empty glass down.
“I might retire. I just haven’t brought that option up to Simon yet. I don’t want to get his hopes up. He wants me to retire and he has for a while. I’m just not certain yet.
“I’ve been considering retirement too. My wife is pressing me to go and I can’t handle the politics anymore. Angela Northman is going to be the death of this kind of warfare. She’s determined to end our program. Maybe it’s time for both of us to go before we become relics.”
“I will not let Angela Northman destroy the program we’ve built even if we’re not there to work on the program. There are too many people who rely on that program for their careers. It’s not a good enough reason to take that away from good people. Angela Northman can’t suddenly get all moral because she suddenly knows how war is waged. Politicians have not place in the theatre of war.”
“She wasn’t the main problem. We could have had that bomb away long before that little girl was in the area, but no one would take the responsibility and make the call. We need better protocols. That was ridiculous in that meeting. We all looked like fools. I hate being used as a pawn in a political game. What are they playing at? It’s not as if there’s an election coming up they need to worry about. The men in that room were all ready to authorize dropping that bomb until Angela spoke up. She wasn’t even okay with this when the little girl wasn’t in the danger zone. The moment she was in the picture I knew the operation was doomed. She’s the type of person who doesn’t believe in the military at all. In particular she hates me. We got off on the wrong foot. There’s no respect for the uniform.” General Benson pours himself another drink.
“You sound disillusioned. Maybe it is time for us to retire. I can’t do this anymore. The politicians are driving me crazy. I can’t do my job this way. Being questioned on every move I make or want to make is unacceptable. This task force can’t continue on if the politicians are going to be so involved in every decision.”
“You’re right. The task force won’t survive this. It can’t possibly survive. The politicians will pull all the funding. It will die a slow death in the appendices of history.”
“Will we be charged with anything, do you think? I’m sure Angela Northman would very much like to see all of us in prison.”
“I’m sure she would, but I don’t think any of us will face any charges. It’s next to impossible to prove culpability and no Queen’s Council will risk their reputations trying to prosecute that case. We’re safe, but I don’t think either of us should press our luck.”
“Retirement sounds like the right path for both of us,” Powell says, swirling the amber liquid in her glass. The firelight catches the crystal, sending fractured patterns across her lap. “I just wonder what we’ll do with ourselves after.”
Benson leans forward, elbows on his knees. “My wife has a list of home improvement projects that would take me through the next decade. And you? Simon must have plans for you both.”
Powell smiles faintly. “He talks about traveling. Places without war zones.” She takes a long sip, feeling the whiskey burn pleasantly down her throat. “I’m not sure I’ll know how to be a civilian again.”
The grandfather clock in the hallway chimes five times, each note hanging in the air between them. Outside, the rain has softened to a gentle patter against the windows. “I don’t know either,” Benson admits, staring into the fire. “Forty years in uniform. Hard to imagine mornings without it.”
Powell nods, feeling the weight of her own service pressing down on her shoulders. Twenty-two years. More than half her life. The thought of waking up without purpose makes her chest tight.
“We could write our memoirs,” she jokes, but it falls flat in the quiet room.
Benson doesn’t laugh. “God help us if we did. Can you imagine the headlines?” He swirls his drink. “No, I think I’ll take up fishing. Something mindless.”
The rain picks up again, drumming against the windows. Powell thinks about Simon, probably awake by now, finding her note. She should call him, but she’s not ready to leave this moment of understanding.
“I keep wondering if there was something we could have done differently,” she says. “If we’d been faster, or if I’d—”
“There’s no point,” Benson interrupts. “Every mission has a cost. We just have to accept that and move on.”
Powell stares at the fire, watching the flames dance and consume the logs. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? I can’t accept it this time.”
Benson sighs, running a hand through his thinning hair. “Maybe that’s why we need to leave. When you stop being able to make the hard decisions...”
“That’s not what I meant.” Powell sets her glass down on the side table with a decisive click. “I meant I can’t accept that we didn’t do everything possible to minimize collateral damage. We waited too long because of political interference.”
“The system failed us,” Benson agrees. “But that doesn’t change what happened.”
The rain outside intensifies, lashing against the windows. Powell thinks about the young drone operator, probably having nightmares of her own. The young pilot who’d dropped his first real bombs. Powell can still hear his voice over the comms, the slight tremor when he confirmed the target. She wonders if he was sleeping at all.
“We should check on them,” she says suddenly. “The pilot and the drone operator. They’re both young—this is going to affect their careers.”
Benson nods slowly. “I’ve already spoken with the pilot’s CO. They’re getting him counseling. The drone operator—Flight Lieutenant Whitfield—she’s been reassigned to training duties for now.”
Powell feels a flash of guilt. She should have thought of them sooner. “I’ll reach out to Whitfield tomorrow.”
The fire crackles, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney. Powell’s phone buzzes in her pocket—Simon, no doubt. She ignores it.
“What about the family?” She asks. “The girl’s family. Is there any protocol for—”
“Nothing official,” Benson says. “We’ve made the usual compensation offer through diplomatic channels.”
“Compensation,” Powell repeats, the word sitting bitter on her tongue. “Money for a child’s life. That’s what we’ve reduced it to.”
Benson shifts in his chair, the leather creaking beneath him. “It’s the only currency the system understands. You know that.”
She does know. That is the worst part—understanding the mechanisms of absolution the military offered, the neat transactions that supposedly balanced moral ledgers. A sum of money transfers to an account somewhere, a family forever altered receiving a number that could never quantify their loss.
Her phone buzzes again, more insistent this time. Powell pulls it from her pocket, squinting at Simon’s name on the screen. Three missed calls now, and a text message: “Where are you? Please call me.”
“I should go,” she says, though her body remains rooted to the chair. “Simon’s worried.”
Benson nods. “Take care of yourself, Colonel. And think about what we discussed. Retirement isn’t failure—it’s survival.”
Powell rises from the chair, her legs stiff from sitting too long. “I’ll think about it,” she says, though the decision already feels inevitable. She sets her empty glass on the side table and moves toward the door.
Benson follows, his shadow stretching long across the hardwood floor. “Drive carefully. The roads will be slick.”
The rain has softened to a drizzle, silver threads catching in the porch light. Powell pulls her jacket tighter around herself as she steps outside. The air smells of wet earth and distant smoke.
Her phone buzzes again as she settled into the driver’s seat. This time she answers.
“Where are you?” Simon’s voice is tight with worry.
“Coming home,” she says, turning the key in the ignition. “I needed to talk to someone.”
“At four in the morning? You couldn’t have called?”
Powell backs out of the driveway, watching Benson’s silhouette in the doorway. The rain has picked up again, streaking across her windshield as she pulls onto the main road. “I needed to speak with someone who understands,” she says, adjusting the phone against her ear. “Someone who was there.”
The silence on the other end stretches for several seconds. Powell knows that silence—Simon’s way of processing, of choosing his words carefully.
“You could have woken me,” he finally says, his voice softer now. “I want to understand too.”
She swallows hard, her throat tight. “I know. I just... I needed to speak with someone who made the same decision I did.”
“And did it help?” Simon asks.
The road stretches before her, slick and dark. Powell grips the steering wheel tighter. “I don’t know yet. Maybe.”
“I’m making tea,” Simon says.