Posing as members of the ground crew, they implanted small aluminum tubes, canisters, on the landing gear of three fighters. On the synthetic caps which bound them were written these words, superimposed over an imprint of the Presidential Seal:
"You are hereby authorized by the President of the United Commonwealth to view these contents in private, and to act upon them as you see fit." If these proved ineffective, the two planned to involved themselves more directly when the Third Fleet came in for fuel and supplies.
Word was also sent in all directions that Hayes was in the vicinity, and that the Soviets were not far behind.
III
Captain Olaf Brunner, newly promoted, was scarcely recognizable as the same human being who had once been so unsure of his military role, and stood in trepidation at the approach of the Alliance Fleet.
He had not relinquished command of the Czech destroyer upon coming to again in its infirmary. Rather, against doctor's orders he had remained there for one day only, then thrown himself into his duties with such vehemence that all in the ship became afraid of him, and some wondered if the blow to his humanity had not been fatal.
Realizing this, realizing also that the people around him were not to blame if his life was ended, he became less harsh in his attitude towards them, and turned the full weight of his broken malice instead toward repairing the ship, notifying next of kin, and getting them all back safely into Coalition space, where he intended to request (demand) a German command of his own. Though his health had not improved, and though the medicines he once shunned were now habitual, this no longer seemed an important point. His new-found callousness lent itself even to physical insensitivity.
In the rare moments he allowed himself to meditate, he thought almost exclusively of Dubcek and the tortured old man. How well he now understood them both: Dubcek, upon the death of his wife, throwing himself into his military career, trying to scrape some pitiful meaning from the ruins of an empty life. And the librarian, clinging desperately to one last purpose, one last reason to live.
Wasn't he doing the same? Only the thought, cruel as it was, that somehow Ara still lived and still needed him, kept him from ending his own life. Or maybe he was just a coward….. And one other impulse drove him, foreign as it might have seemed to his nature not so very long before. He wanted to kill as many of the enemy as possible—-just KILL them. The soul was dead inside him.
The Belgian and Swiss forces, true cowards, made no further appearance at Dracus.