Oberheim (Voices) Part 20

"I found myself alone, in the military, with no real skill other than being a soldier, a good officer. My father had been a working man.....

So I put all my energies into advancing my career, trying to fill the emptiness. Telling myself." He gave a short, disagreeable laugh.

"Telling myself that if I could only rise high enough through the ranks, that I could SAVE lives. I was going to make certain the old war-mongers who ran the armies of the world did not subject innocent people to the kind of loss I'd known. I was going to see to it that no task force was ever advanced needlessly, no ship ever mindlessly sacrificed to gain a tactical advantage." He stopped, as some other emotion rose up in him.

"You say you hated me when you learned I had sacrificed a thousand men and women. What would you feel if we had lost, and left the colonies unprotected?" He rose in a rage, as Brunner stood and backed away.

"How would you judge me while some Belgian officer was raping your pretty little wife?"

Brunner's eyes flashed murder at him, but he said nothing.

"Yes. And how would you have liked me when the political executions and imprisonments began? Forget your romantic notions! When it comes to occupying armies, there are no morals left to judge." He steadied himself, took a breath.

"Behind us lie the three planets of our people, our home. One hundred million inhabitants. Nothing else stands between them and us. And maybe our enemies don't even want them. Perhaps they would be just as happy to destroy the entire system, or even use radiation bombs: empty the inhabited planets of life without destroying the cities, the beautiful landscape. Do you think this is a f.u.c.king game?"

"You misunderstand. I am not judging you."

"And you misunderstand," said Dubcek bluntly. "Why do you think I take an interest in you? Why do you think you are here?"

"I don't KNOW!"

Dubcek waited. "Shall I tell you?"

Brunner turned his head painfully, faced the older man.

"You are here because this battle will not end the war. This war will not be the last our people know. Because if someone has to command and send young people into battle, I want it to be someone who still has some feeling left.... Because I respect you..... I have no son."

Brunner squeezed his temples with his hands, unable to stop the tears.

"But I CAN'T."

"You can, and you must..... I am not releasing you." Dubcek stalked out of the room.

The young lieutenant did not return to his post for several hours. The battle went on without him.

16) P-KR4 P-KR4

17) P x P N x P

18) KN-K2 R-R4

19) QR-N1 B-K3

20) P-R3 P-Q4

Brunner reentered the battle room with his head down, walking stiffly to the place where a subordinate stood manning his station. The man looked up, handed him the lightboard---showing how they had arrived at the present disposition---and with a quick bow started to leave.

"Wait," said Brunner quietly. The man turned. After an awkward silence. "How are we doing?" The man looked at him with mild curiosity.

"As you see."

"That's not what I mean." Their eyes met. "Have we truly engaged the enemy only when necessary."

"Yes, Lieutenant. But he does have a battle to fight. If I may say it, the old man has done very well. But here." He pointed again.

"We'll know soon enough." Brunner turned his gaze back to the globe, and the man was gone.

Lieutenant Olaf Brunner would remember the rest of the battle as bits and pieces of a vague, impossible dream. Unable to bring himself to look out the portal at his fighting comrades, he watched the moving shapes as if entranced, as they swam amid the invisible sea of the globe. Masaryk's voice.

"Enemy first destroyer group to corridor two, column six."

Dubcek. "Engage."

21) N-N3 N x N

"Battle cruiser coming forward to intercept."

"Robot battery 5, attack enemy battery opposite."

22) R x N P x P

"He took the bait. Second destroyer group moving forward."

"Mongoose forward to column two. Starboard guns to standby alert."

23) N x P K-N2

"Still coming right at us, corridor one."

"Let him come. Light cruiser, heading C-four."

24) P-R5 B-B4

An unfamiliar voice. "Colonel. My instruments show a strange energy field materializing before the enemy battle station, bearing 00 to 04, F-six. Apparently a highly charged, extremely dense ma.s.s of negative ions."

Hearing this, Brunner's senses came suddenly, vividly to life. Some half remembered, theoretical princ.i.p.al of matter..... As the fear materialized in thought, he was filled with a dread such as he had seldom experienced.

Looking up, he saw that Dubcek too was unnerved. He turned toward the speaker as calmly as he could and said, "Link up with the main ship's computer. Keep me posted."

25) P-R6(ch)

Masaryk. "Robot battery still coming forward, moving into range."

"What?" replied Dubcek absently.

"The enemy battery, moving into range and preparing to fire. We've got to move back."

"Yes. Of course. Mongoose to corridor one, column one."

K-R1