Olaf Brunner experienced more physical, emotional, and spiritual torment in those thirty-six hours than he would have thought possible for any man to bear, let alone himself, and in his weakened state. The physical anguish came from sickness and fatigue, and from the intolerable heat upon the wounded bridge, the emotional, from the loss of ships and lives that had been given him to protect, and the spiritual, from the Godless red carnage that lashed back and forth like a writhing, bloodied serpent: the death and mutilation he saw with his eyes and heard through the earpiece. And from the Goddamnable and agonizing question of whether or not they could still break through.
The dual colonies having no substantial defense shields or stations (those of the Dutch had been destroyed in conquest, and not sufficiently rebuilt), the Bel-Swiss had chosen to counter-attack, and to make their stand in the open Space around them. Meanwhile the Soviets, epitomizing their policy of conditional help, held their own forces back, lending only long-distance firepower in times of greatest need.
After the first twenty-four hours, Brunner had realized grimly that his poor physical health and personal trauma were no longer a deterrent—-that many men with strength and good fortune he did not possess, would have faded and given up long before. And he knew also, for all his introspection, that he BELONGED on that bridge, in that fight. HE WAS NOT A QUITTER OR A LOSER! Like a savage wolf defending its fallen mate he remained there, as rationality slipped farther and farther from sight, till in the end he truly was a wolf, as the hyenas around him lunged ravening about the helpless form of his wife, which he alone defended.
And this feeling of desperate and unyielding righteousness communicated itself not to him alone, or to the men who served under him. In those late hours all the Coalition felt it, and the more unattainable victory seemed, the more bitterly they steeled themselves to attain it. The Belgians and Swiss began to waver, and at last the Soviet battleships moved in.
The question had finally been answered. The field of battle and the
Islands beyond, belonged to those who had wanted them more desperately.
*
When the matter was clearly in hand, and those Alliance vessels which could not flee had surrendered, Captain Brunner turned the helm back over to his subordinates, placed his destroyer group (what remained of it) under the command of Col. Liebenstein, and retired to his quarters. Taking a sleeping lozenge he collapsed onto the bed, where his limbs trembled slightly and his eyes moved feebly in their sockets, until it began to take effect. Then at last his eyelids closed, and he knew nothing more for three hours.
He was jolted back to life by a young officer tugging urgently at his arm. "Commander Brunner. Commander."
He rose suddenly and, between the still pronounced effect of the drug and the liquid-shock state of his nerves, felt certain that something terrible had happened.
"What? What is it?" The victory of so few hours before seemed not at all a sure memory. "Have the bastards broken through?"