"I'm sorry, Colonel. It's beginning to look very real."
Dubcek's dark features bored in on him in the familiar expression—-down-thrust head and knitted brows, eyes looking up through them like a boxer's. It was a hard and intimidating face, though with a gleam of sharp and illusionless intelligence. Only Brunner seemed to suspect a deeper humanity beneath the facade, and he was far from certain.
"It is real, but not something to be feared. Real men will die this day, as all men must. It is the only way to stop them." At that moment the voice of the executive officer broke in on them.
10) B x N
"Colonel, enemy light cruiser 'red' engaging destroyer group B."
Dubcek nodded in acknowledgment. Brunner quickly adjusted and replaced his ear-piece, and the sounds of actual combat came to him for the first time. He heard: ships signaling one another, attacking, being attacked, some voices calm, others tense and on the verge of panic—-explosions and bursts of pain within bridge compartments, engineers crying damage reports, men dying and signals going blank. The older man heard them too, studied the projection without haste, made several marks on the glass. Again the voice of the exec:
"Destroyer group B has succumbed—-no surviving ships."
Brunner watched his commander's face, half expecting to see no change. But a change did come, if only for an instant: a cloud of pain and uncertainty flashed across it. The dark countenance grew darker still, and he muttered beneath his breath. "If he wants to trade, we'll trade."
P x B
"Advance robot battery 7," he said out loud. "Knock him out of the sky." The order was passed on, and several seconds later the blip that had been the enemy cruiser also vanished from the globe.