The pilot threw away his cigarette and dropped out of the door to the cargo hold when Luke came limping into view.
"My God, man! What happened?"
"I ... made a mistake." He let himself be helped into the copter and took the mike, reporting the disaster on the beach to the Commandant back at Base. Then he let the pilot bandage his wounds.
"Eleven men dead," he said bitterly.
"Don't take it so hard, Luke," said Andy Singer. The team Commanders were back in the debriefing room again. All had commiserated with Luke on the tragedy; none had been able to convince him that it had not been his fault.
"Eleven men dead," he repeated, no matter what they said.
The commandant came in and they rose. "At ease, gentlemen," he said, as he mounted the platform. He stared at them for a thirty-second eternity.
"Ours is not an easy task." His words broke the tension; all sighed.
"There has been a tragic accident, gentlemen. Good men have died. Men just as good have died on a thousand planets in a thousand different ways. Sometimes they died because of an error; sometimes the death was unavoidable. But for whatever reason, they did not die in vain!