... your discretion ..._

Some cautious pen pusher behind a desk, he thought chaotically. Somebody
for whom miles had lent safety and detachment.

_His_ discretion ...

It was his responsibility.

* * * * *

Commander Davis was at his elbow. "The _Josef_'s starting to list,
Captain."

"I can see that!" he half snarled.

He wouldn't feel pity if the _Josef_ went down, he thought fiercely. It
would be good riddance, one less carrier that they would have to worry
about at some future date.

If there was some future date, a nagging thought intruded.

He throttled it. The _Josef_ stood for everything that he despised, a
way of life that had made a mockery of everything he had been taught to
believe in. The menace that had eaten at the world's vitals like a
cancer, the menace whose existence had been enough to drive some men to
hysteria and others to the brink of suicide. His own wife ...

Now a ship from Outside was attacking that power and what emotions
should he feel? Elation? Well, why not? What other emotions should he
feel? Certainly not sadness, not regret, not pity.

The _Josef_ would be sunk and maybe the aliens would be tempted to do
more than just attack the _Josef_; they might attack the entire Combine
as well. And if the Combine was beat, did it matter who did it?

Except, the thought crept back, there was no reason for him to believe
that the aliens would differentiate between the _Josef_ and the _Oahu_,
between the Combine and the United States.

"The planes!" McCandless said, incredulous. "Look at the planes!"

The Captain glanced down at the screen again. An orangish glow was
suffusing the alien ship. A jet slipped in for a rocket shot. The glow
pulsed, expanded, touched the jet, and the plane vanished into a rain of
wreckage that sped towards the ocean below.

"God!" Davis breathed. "Did you see that?"

The Captain only half heard him. So they were aliens. What did that
mean? Beings of different background, different beliefs, different
physical structure? He had been one of the first into Berlin after the
massacre was over and the Combine had laid the blame on their Berlin
Commandant, though it was painfully obvious that he had only followed
out instructions. And the shambles he had seen there couldn't have been
done by human beings. Four thousand soldiers and close to a hundred
thousand civilians killed. Would you call the people who had been
responsible fo