NARRATOR: Mall-One, Sol System...
GEN. TAGON: Okay, story time. I'll try to make this quick.
KATHRYN: I'm not in a hurry, General.
GEN. TAGON: This isn't about you.
SFX: mouthzip
GEN. TAGON: Okay, then.
GEN. TAGON: We were having a family party, and Kaff brought a girl.
She was a cute kid. Smart, too. I can see what the boy saw in her.
Ironic, I guess. Nobody saw what was actually in her.
We never did figure out if she was complicit in the plot, whether she was a knight, or just somebody else's pawn.
KATHRYN: What plot?
GEN. TAGON: You haven't figured it out? You already know that my family died just before the Terraforming War began, girl.
KATHRYN: Oh, no...
GEN. TAGON: More accurately, they died in the opening salvo of the war, in the first strike that took out key political, industrial, and military figures.
It was a hell of a strike, too. Ninety-five percent successful.
KATHRYN: And you lived.
GEN. TAGON: I got promoted from colonel to general overnight. It made my career.
GEN. TAGON: Which is good, I guess, because my career was the only thing I had left.