Learning to Dance

woman left on the team, and she was the one letting the
grimy truth of war get the best of her, when she was asleep,
defenceless, powerless to stop the raging images through
her mind. She could face them awake. She was still here,
wasn’t she?
Sometimes their missions were successful. Sometimes
they managed to destroy an important outpost, a stash of
weaponry, a whole league of robots. But there were always
more. More outposts, more weapons, more robots. And the
G.L.E.E. was growing weaker and weaker.
They persisted, not just because of their orders but
because they had to in order to survive, moving their
makeshift base every few days, sending out spies and
praying to a dead God that they’d return, blowing up
everything robotic they could find. Searching for some ace
in the hole, some way to end the ceaseless robot reign,
some chance at saving the human race.
It wasn’t a question of hope. The Rangers had long ago
given up on that. It was only Up’s cold determination that
was holding them together now.
Because Up – Up had changed. Taz saw now the soldier
she had only caught glimpses of before, when he’d rescued
her from her quinceañera, when they’d met their enemies
in combat. She saw now the man who had piloted the Eagle
back to Earth on sheer willpower, who made alien children
draw back in fear even as they cheered his name. The man
who had destroyed a Bird of Prey with his bare hands. The
man who intimidated even his own Rangers. The man they
whispered slept on a bed of fire...
Gone was the Up she knew, the Up who let his guard
down and laughed, the Up who liked to listen to her read
and had learned to dance with her and whose favourite
movie was The Karate Kid. In his place was Up the
commander, Up the soldier, Up the solid wall of stony