Deleted Scene…Maybe?

Happy Friday, everyone!

While perusing the deleted scene section of my Scrivener document, I came across the following. It was highlighted which either means I hoped to work it back in during rewrites or that I’d ear marked it to share with all of you.

Either way, I’ve decided it makes a good Friday snippet. Also, this was only lightly edited. I’m sure their are typos galore, but I don’t care. Enjoy!

Deleted (Maybe) Scene

Jin moved up beside her. “Isn’t there something you can do about this?”

“Like what? Order them to listen—or else? You know that won’t work.”

They’d been in situations like this before. With people who thought they were God’s gift to the space force and who assumed Kira’s apparent youth meant she was wet behind the ears without the experience or intelligence to support the stripes on her chest.

Trust was a component of leadership that most people overlooked. Using your position and authority to issue orders that no one agreed with was bound to backfire eventually. In the short term, your soldiers might reluctantly obey—or they might not.

Either way, it was a risk. Once your authority was compromised, it was triply as difficult to regain.

Kira had seen more than one unit self destruct because of incompetent leadership. Either the one in charge got their subordinates killed or their subordinates’ malicious compliance with orders led to a failure in the chain of command and a breakdown of troop morale.

For now, she preferred to slow play things. Get the lay of the land before trying to enforce her will on REDACTED’s people.

Jin’s silence was grudging as he conceded her point.

“I miss the old days,” Raider grumbled, looking after the oshota. “The Curs never would have second guessed you like that.”

Sometimes Kira did too.

“That wasn’t always the case though, was it?” Jin said, his eyes on Kira’s. “I remember Kira having to knock you around a few times before you got with the program.”

Raider bristled, acting like a cat whose fur had been rubbed the wrong way.

“You too,” Jin told Finn. “You weren’t happy with a lot of Kira’s decisions in the beginning. You assumed she’d get herself killed.”

“Nothing I’ve seen since has changed my mind about that,” Finn drawled.