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When the general authorized the captain to
pull the news vans out of the field, he couldn t
help but smile. Like almost everyone else who
served under her, he knew she hated the media. He
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didn t know how valid it was, but the rumors that
had filtered down over the past two decades were so
well known that they might as well be fact. He had
already witnessed her evade the media like the
plague on a few occasions and he had rarely been
under her direct command.
With the captain s broad smile, the General
had difficulty controlling her own gloating
feelings and she eventually cracked a big smile
herself. She was bending over backwards to help
the slimy media weasels and whether this particular
bunch of vermin knew it or not, they didn t deserve
her assistance and they never would. If she ever
got absolute confirmation of her beliefs, the media
would be keeping their distance from her and then
only if she even allowed them to exist.
Still smiling, the General took the driver s
seat of the Jaagé she had arrived in with captain
Atwell. It took a little while for the soldiers
who couldn t fit in the other Jaagés her teams were
taking to get up enough nerve to reluctantly climb
in with her, but she did eventually get two takers.
By shying away from her, they made things worse
when they both took seats in the back. Her smile
not fading even then, she made a huge shrug that
the captain had to see and cranked the Jaagés
engine. He continued to smile as she pulled away
through the muddy field and looked back at him in
her rear view mirror. He was a good officer and
she was going to make sure he was promoted after
all they had been through. He had gone above and
beyond her expectations of him and that wasn t
exactly an easy thing to do. Soldiers had been
promoted for a hell of a lot less and she would
push the system until it did what was appropriate.
In reality, there would be no resistance. The
General was well known to avoid the political
aspects of requesting promotions and this hadn t
changed when she joined the Intertribal Council.
Her request would be honored immediately and with
great fanfare. In spite of her own feelings for
the media, the Apache Nation viewed them as a tool
that was used and abused as they saw fit. The
Nation s relationship with the media had always
been like that, and it was part of the reason she
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despised the media as much as she did.
When the General pulled out of the field and
onto the poorly kept Shawnee Nation road, her
thoughts about the media faded like the winding
road behind her. As much of a pessimist as she
was, dwelling on the contingent that had nearly
destroyed her life wouldn t get her anywhere. With
a number of corrupt outside factors involved, she
would never have the proof she needed. As powerful
as the Apache Nation and the Intertribal Council
were, there were still sinister powers working
against them that were equally powerful. Their
power wasn t subject to public scrutiny however, so
they wielded it viciously, and in the darker
corners of the world, working against them was as
good as a death sentence. Not bound by law or even
honor, they were capable of anything, and the
Nations recent history was full of the evidence of
their workings. The media made sure of it,
thriving on the chaos and perpetuating it like only
they were capable of doing. It was a symbiotic
relationship between two parasites, a relationship
the General would love to take down. She tolerated
the discomfort of being on the Council for that
reason and for that reason only. Eventually it
would pay off for her, and she was waiting for that
day.
The captain watched as the General ripped
through the muddy field in her Jaagé following the
other three Jaagés that had already moved out. He
then looked over at the half-dozen news vans still
stuck in the mud and chuckled a little to himself.
There was only one forensic crew that hadn t broken
down their site and he would have to give them the
O.K. to stop digging. He imagined the tree roots
were a nightmare and the team could be stuck there
for days if he pushed them to keep searching. They
had already found a set of bone chips at the
beginning of their dig, but he had encouraged them
to go wider just in case. Of course they had only
gone on to find frustration, but they had gone on
with the work as he had requested.
Turning away from the stuck vehicles, he
walked around the command center and went directly
to the only remaining tent. As he pulled back the
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flap, he saw that the crew was still meticulously
clearing and cleaning the root system. They still
hadn t found anything since the initial set of bone
squares.
Let s close up shop. He said as they turned
to see who had come in.
It would be a little while before they had
everything packed away, but he had a few other
things to tend to. The command center needed to be
made road ready and then there was the news people
to deal with. In all likelihood, a Jaagé could
pull them out and he wouldn t have to wait until
the command center was in position with its winch.
When he returned to the command center, he
ordered another forensic team to assist in the
breakdown of the last tent. He then ordered two
other teams to work on digging the media wagons out
of the field. The soldiers stared at him for a
second and he knew what they were thinking.
It s a specific request from the General. He
said in an explanation he didn t really have to
give.
His statement only prolonged the stare for a
few seconds and then the soldiers were out the
door. He could hear them chattering before the
door closed. The rumors about the General were
universally known and generally easily understood
by the soldiers in the Apache Nation.
What he and most other people had heard was
that the media was in some way responsible for the
death of the General s husband back in the Middle
East War. Like they were frequently allowed to do
back then from what he understood, the NNS had
embedded a reporter in her husband s unit. It was
extremely common and the General herself probably
had one in her own unit at the time. The Apache
Nation had once encouraged it basically as
publicity to promote the Nation s military
effectiveness and therefore gain more contracts for
their services. In essence, it was business and
business can be as ruthless as war. This was
particularly true in the Apache Nation s case when
it came to their military. As the sole financial
foundation of the Nation, serious self-promotion
had once been seen as a necessity. It still had
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its benefits and the Nation continued to have
extensive interactions with the media. The
relationship was no longer as reckless as it had
been though and the soldiers all knew this had only
come about after the Nation lost the General s
husband and his unit in the war. There had never
been absolute proof, or at least none that the
Nation allowed to exist after the fact, but the
almost universal belief was that the imbedded NNS
reporter had somehow leaked the unit s position and
compromised their mission. The true cause may have
been plausibly deniable, but the end result sure as
hell wasn t. Her husband s unit had been ambushed
and wiped out so quickly that they probably never
knew what hit them. The journalist hadn t been
with them on the mission for some reason that was
difficult for him to explain away afterwards, but
the media monsters protected him like he was a hero
who had miraculously survived his unit s
destruction. He had survived all right, but it was
far from a miracle. The initial investigation had
hinted at the true cause, but had abruptly been
shut down. By the time anyone was able to
investigate why it had been terminated; any
evidence that would have led to the cause was
reportedly not to be found. The captain had only
been a kid at the time, but he remembered it like
every other Apache who had been alive during the
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