Entry 2

I can't begin to number the more useful ways I could be spending my time. If I'm forced to write reports at least they could be briefings and debriefings, something somewhat pertinent to my station as Commander in this army. The thing I hate more than being off the battlefield is being out of the operation altogether. When I sit here on this computer, I have to talk about myself and about my feelings. Who gives a fuck?!

If that's how it's gotta be, than lets do this.

I had the best sex I've had in at least six months last night. Her name was Cassidy and she's the daughter of a superior officer. Her father has no idea she likes girls. Somehow, I get the feeling it will get back around to him now. Anyway, I pulled her out of a social event I had to attend with my father. She thought we were going out for a smoke, but she got a lot more than that. We snuck back into the hotel the gathering was at and broke into an empty room. I worked her for better than an hour, then I left.

Oh, I should say how it made me feel. It made me feel good, you know, alive. Sex and fighting are about the only things that do that for me any more. I used to try and reign in some of the urges. I used to box. Boxing just doesn't do it for me. It's too constrained, too many rules, it's not even about fighting. It's like playing chess with a punching bag shaped like a human being. I quit more because the other women couldn't keep up with me and the men wouldn't fight me. I retired the league women's champion in military school. I guess that's the one bonus to getting pulled out of public school, they don't have boxing leagues there.

Entry 1

My psychiatrist has recommended that I keep a journal. My father wants it somewhere he can access it, so here it is. This is the journal of Altsoba Shepherd.

Entry 1
I've been told that I have anger issues. The psychiatrist said so on my visit this morning, but it's not the first time that I've heard it. In military school I broke a lot of noses and put a lot of lesser cadets in the hospital. Some times I got in trouble. Some times I was applauded. I'm not sure that I preferred one over the other. Military school ought to work the same way the military does. If you're strong and smart, you survive to fight on. Teaching cadets any less than that is doing them and the soldiers they fight beside a disservice. I know that better than anyone, I am a child of war.

My parents were immigrants in the early days of the camps. We had to fight just to stay alive. Those experiences are the basis for everything I have become from there one out. I am the one who survived. I am always the one who survives. For it to happen this many times is not luck. I am talented at survival. I have little patience for those who believe they are owed something from the world. I believe I am owed nothing and have received just that.

Am I angry? Why wouldn't I be? Anger, suspicion, strength-- these are the reasons I'm still alive.