Duty

Jovi’s commander had given him one final order – to maintain his position until the target was acquired. Jovi squinted at the sky to ascertain the time. He calculated that he had now spent seven hours on this rocky ledge, unquestioning, because he was a member of the Elite Guard and he had been trained to obey orders. The orange sun was hot and strong in the teal-colored midday sky, forcing the sweat to pool at the base of his neck and run in a prickly, sticky stream down his spine. His muscles screamed from the strain of maintaining one position, but he ignored them. He had also been trained to disregard physical discomfort. The mission was all that mattered. The mission was paramount.

He raised his weapon and sighted down the scope. He was strategically positioned to see but not be seen. For hours there had been nothing to see but tiny whirlwinds of dust chasing each other along the barren paths that snaked between the huts below. Now crowds were beginning to gather to hear the great man speak, small family groups from the village and from settlements nearby. When he moved his eye from the scope, the people looked like slowly swarming insects. Sighting through the high-powered lens of his weapon’s scope, however, he could clearly pick out individuals. A village elder, stooped and walking with assistance from her acolyte, the elder’s head covered with the traditional purple scarf that indicated her revered place in their society. A tall man carrying a rough bag over his shoulder, shepherding his family to the front of the crowd, gesturing at his youngest to drop the stick he was dragging behind him and join his parents. The boy looked to be the same age as his own Jani…Jovi took his eye from the scope again. He could not be distracted. The mission was paramount.

As the crowds grew, Jovi could hear them, not distinctly, but as a growing, muffled hum. He allowed the imprecise sound to fill his mind, to drive out the unnecessary thoughts and to re-focus his attention on the mission. He scanned the crowds again through the scope of his weapon. There was no sign yet of the target. The great man would likely arrive from the east, but Jovi methodically scanned all approaches to the village. There could be no mistakes. The mission was paramount. Jovi was aware of the moistness of his hands on the grip of the weapon. A slip of his hands at the wrong moment, a potential miss, was unthinkable. With a silent, deliberate, seamless movement, he laid the weapon beside him and dried his hands on a soft, clean cloth from his uniform pocket.

A slip of his hands at the right moment….

The words blazed across his mind, unbidden. The distraction of noticing individuals in the crowd had been concerning but easily managed. But to have a fully formed thought in his mind, a thought that was in direct conflict with the mission, could not happen. Like every other member of the Elite Guard, Jovi had been trained to empty his consciousness of all thoughts except those that were necessary for the successful completion of his mission. The mission was paramount. There was nothing else.

A slip of his hands at the right moment and he could leave….

Impossible. He could not leave until the target was acquired. He blinked once. He had been trained to use this tiny motion as a mental switch to re-set his mind to laser focus. But this time, in the split second before he opened his eyes, he saw his family as he had last seen them. His parents stood together in front of their small house, beaming and proud as they always were as they watched their eldest son - a member of the Guard! – set off on his next mission. His father’s right arm was around Jovi’s mother as he leaned heavily on the walking stick in his left hand. Jovi’s wife was there, glowing with the expectation of their second child, holding the fragrant flowers he had picked for her that morning. And he could see his firstborn, Jani, the pride of his life. Jani, who wanted to be just like his father, who had also picked flowers for his mother that morning because Jovi did, who wanted to become a member of the Elite Guard because his father was. In the second before he opened his eyes, Jovi saw his son waving furiously at him as he walked away from their hut.

A slip of his hands at the right moment and he could leave the weapon, leave the mission, leave it all here on this ledge and run as hard as he could back to his father’s house where he could hug his parents, kiss his wife, pick up his son, and tell them all that he loved them and he would never leave them again….

The Elite Guard were responsible for the highest-level, most critical of all Guard missions. Each one of them knew there might come a time when a mission was so sensitive, so delicate, that they would be required to disappear immediately after its completion. The mission was always paramount. Jovi knew that his extraction plan was in place. In the confusion of the aftermath, he would be spirited off this mountain, away from the village, and sent to live off world for the rest of his life. His family would be given a plausible story, the Guard’s condolences and thanks, and a funeral with full honors for their brave son, husband, and father. Jovi would never see them again.

Jovi picked up his weapon again and braced it on his shoulder. He sensed a commotion at the eastern edge of the village, a surge in the growing crowd, an urgency in the indistinct hum of the voices below him. He sighted down the scope to be sure.

A slip of his hands at the right moment…..

Jovi sighted down the scope and fired.