Sarah Gordons: A Blond Doll

THE ARENA, NX-GEN TRAINING FACILITY,

NEST, UNITED STATES, EARTH.

 Sarah Gordons steadied the AK-47 as she aimed at her target. Steady. Aim. Shoot. Those were the words her father, Captain Michael, used when he was teaching her how to shoot a gun. Though only seven, her father wanted to teach her how to survive in case he wouldn't be around. Little did he know, how soon it would be.

Sarah had never known a mother's love after her mother died in an auto crash, when she was just approaching her second birthday. Her father tried to fill that vacuum with his own love as long as his military career could allow, but it wasn't enough.

She was taken in by her aunt, Clementina, a Catholic nun living in California. There were regular visits by her father, accompanied with expensive gifts and flowers. He would apologize for the short visits and promise to make amends, but they were still forthcoming.

 When she turned five, the invaders came and Aunt Clementina died in an explosion when she and other nuns were praying in the cathedral. She was able to escape the blazing inferno and was rescued by the firefighting department.

Reunited with her father, they joined the soldiers and families fleeing San Francisco in drives, to the military base that would later be called the Nest. Secretly, with little guilt or remorse for the death of Aunt Clementina, she was happy that the TakeOver happened, since the turn of events brought her together with her father. Though he was away most afternoons at meetings, making plans, addressing soldiers or building the settlement, it didn't matter to her. The same way it didn't matter if they celebrated Christmas in their cramped living room with a false tree and a painted wooden star, yearly. The same way it didn't matter if she only had pasta on her birthday because her father couldn't bake or find the recipe items within the settlement. The dolls, flowers, pretty dresses and candy were no longer available as everyone's primary aim was completing the Nest's tall walls. Besides, she didn't care for dolls or fancy dresses anymore. She only cared for the days when her father would toss her up in the air and catch her as gravity propelled her downwards, the wind billowing in her hair and hissing in her ears. She would giggle when he tickled her with his hands, or teased her with his jokes while he prepared breakfast or dinner. To her, they were safe. With the rapidly growing walls around the Nest and her strong able father, she was safe. How wrong she was.

 Five years after the dreams of the Nest began, the settlement was attacked. The Crugi used their aircraft to destroy the Nest's defenses while the Myrix troopers lay siege to the gates. The Nest was on the verge of defeat when help arrived in the form of the heavy tank division. The Myrixs were defeated and their battle turrets were used to destroy the Crugi battleships.

Sadly, Michael Gordons died in the onslaught, shot in the neck by a pulser. Sarah couldn't forget the strange look on his dead face. It was almost as if he was afraid and she doubted if he was the one who laid there, because her father was one who wasn't scared of anything.

 With his last breaths, he had made his friend swear to protect and raise his daughter as he would his. That's how ten year old Sarah found herself living with the Dawsons. They were kind to her, Captain Thomas being gentle, tolerant and overtly too fatherly, while Mrs. Dawson showered her with the love her mother wasn't able to give. Benjamin, well, Ben was just himself - quiet, shy, always apologetic and meek. They were age mates, Benjamin being a few months older but a stranger at first sight would think Sarah was the elder. She was the one who brought out the courage in him and also inspired him to do more. It was no hidden fact amongst the Dawsons that Benjamin adored her, but in the past few months, that adoration had somehow evolved into affection. Either spurred by teenage hormones or by genuine feelings, Sarah would have none of it, considering them as wanton feelings unnecessary when the fate of humanity and the planet was being endangered.

She had once broken a boy's nose for attempting to kiss her on a recent Valentine's day. It might have been a chaste kiss, owing the nature of the boy, but she didn't care. Neither did she apologize to the boy when his parents complained to her guardians. She had expected the Dawsons to reprimand or scold her but it never happened. They never did anything to slight or annoy her, and were always considerate about her feelings. She was treated as an integral part of the family and had a say in all the family issues.

 Sarah had been homeschooled by her father during their brief stint together in the Nest, but when she joined the Dawsons, they made sure she attended the elementary school that had been built within the Nest. At first, it had been difficult since she had never attended school or sat in a classroom. Growing up with Aunt Clementina, she was given lessons on history, Latin and music only. Her father had taken her on other basic subjects especially maths, though there was slow progress due to his frequent absence.

The Dawsons encouraged her; Mrs. Dawson volunteered to guide her with extra lessons till she found her feet in the stormy waters of education, Mr. Dawson provided her with necessary materials and books to aid in the process, and Benjamin even helped with most assignments and test problems. Thanks to their support, she proceeded from middle school, the junior high and high school without any mishaps.

 Despite this, she didn't have the zeal to study as she was passionate about the human struggle and the war with the Occupation. She got curious about melee weapons and firearms, vital information regarding the Crugi, their weapons and machines. In her spare time, while her peers were gossiping, giggling and glossing, about parties, fashion and boys, she trained alone in the Dawsons' basement gym or improved her use of weapons under the tutelage of Sargent Lincoln, a friend of her father's.

 When the Nest began the NX-GEN policy of requesting for male teenaged volunteers to be trained in the fight against the Occupation, she had been furious that girls were not listed in the policy. When she finally came of age, at sixteen, she volunteered and after several weeks of being withheld and her application deliberated, she was accepted and became the first girl enlisted under the policy. While she had no regrets about her actions, she realized that Benjamin seemed to be ridiculed and abused because of it, as his friends called him a sissy and coward. This motivated him to volunteer for the policy, against his mother's wish and for a while, mother and son drifted apart. Feeling guilty, she buried herself in the policy and its activities, wishing to be away from the conflict. 

 At first, she was discriminated against by the settlers and male conscripts. They resolved that she wouldn't last three months of training, but she shut her critics with her exceptional performance. The highlight of it all was when she foiled the plans of a Crugi spy who infiltrated the camp under the guise of being a fleeing refugee. She bested the six- foot-eight alien in hand-to-hand combat and stopped him from detonating explosive devices he had planted in strategic buildings of the settlement. Afterwards, she dragged the unconscious Crugi by the ankles to the Nest's governing council. She was publicly rewarded before the settlement and all the taunts and jests stopped. Parents began sending their girls to the NX-GEN policy and over six hundred girls were enlisted with more on the way. She was now a heroine and a figure many girls looked up to. She knew her father would be proud if he was still alive. 

She always imagines he is standing on the settlement's dais, every morning, wearing his favorite green Hawaiian shirt and smiling at her. He would then whisper "My blond doll" and vanish like a wisp of smoke, unseen by others.