Evening was just beginning when CommandoBob stepped out onto the roof of The Great Library. For some time now it had been his habit to spend the evenings and part of the night on the highest portion of The Great Library Complex, which towered over the city of Sugar Mountain. The Great Library was built into the side of Sugar Mountain, a fact that he knew quite well. Some parts even went all the way through Sugar Mountain and opened up to the grasslands near the coast, but these were small and well hidden. Right now, as he walked to his little, private spot on the rooftop where he kept his tables and chairs, he noticed the quiet of the city. When he had first arrived it had taken damage from the war, but ever since it had slowly shrunk in size and each night seemed quieter than the last.
As he completed his last steps across the concrete to his terraced retreat on the rooftop he saw that the door was open. Strange. Nothing of any real value was inside, no gold or gems, and the furniture had seen better days. Not too worried, he stepped inside and saw that whoever had broken the padlock was still inside and resting in one of the easy chairs.
'Can I help you?'
The person in the chair arose. He was clad in a dull, dark green outfit, with short, sturdy boots.
'If you are CommandoBob, why, yes you can.'
'CommandoBob? Isn't he a FreeZer? I thought he was dead.'
'Oh, no, he is very much alive, aren't you?'
'But I'm...'
'Clark Kent, yes I know. Hector Archimedes told me all about you.'
'He did?'
'Sure he did, how else would I know where to find you?'
CommandoBob shut his open mouth and then frowned knowingly. '
Touche.'
'And he told me about your pay arrangments. And the private study areas that you rented out to the students here, down in the lower levels.'
'He told you about that?'
'Well, his son let it slip one day. He's a student here, by the way. Hector liked the idea but as Great Librarian he could not implement such a plan. So he did nothing, while you helped him by removing, ah, study distractions, away from the studious.
'And then recently he approached me about his suspicions of you and Peter. And now we are here.
'Allow me to introduce myself. I am PrinceMyshkin, Commander of GONG Forces.'
'Prince MaShooSkin?'
The other laughed slightly. 'No, not even close. Prince will do just fine.'
'Then call me CB. Now, one of the first things I do is fix some coffee when I get here. It's decaf, but it's warm and it does get chilly here. Want some?'
Prince nodded slowly. 'Yes, I think I will have a cup or two.'
'I've got some homemade pizza. It won't take long to cook. Hungry?'
'Now you're talking. Yes!'
The next few minutes were spent making small talk while the pizza baked and the coffee brewed. CB told of how the room had been built, which was mostly with college labor and a great sense of humor. 'I really didn't think they would do all of this, but they just loved the idea of a janitor having his own place on the roof. And building it in secrecy and getting it wired for electricity without other libary people knowing anything about it.'
The pizza was soon done and gone.
And the conversation turned serious again.
'Now why is the Commander of GONG here? Don't you have more important things to do? Shouldn't you be getting ready for the next attack?'
'Even I get a night off once in a while. Anyway, all the orders are already given.'
'So again I ask, why are you here?'
'Because I'm afraid. Afraid I missed something that might have made a difference in how this war turned out. Afraid that troops have been sacrificed for nothing. Afraid, afraid that I've failed my people. I've done my best but it hasn't been enough.'
Silence.
CommandoBob took a deep breath and spoke slowly and softly.
'I think you have confused a lack of success with failure.'
PrinceMyshkin looked at him in puzzlement, as if he had heard something wrong.
'Think of it like this. You get a disease that can kill you, like a cancer. What do you do? Roll over and die or fight it? You fight it. You go to the doctors and find out what they have to say. You do all the treatments, you take all the medicine. You get real weak; you lose weight; your hair falls out, but you fight it. You don't give up. Maybe it goes away and maybe it doesn't. Maybe it even kills you. So? Losing your life to cancer doesn't make you a loser; it only makes you dead. You become a loser in how you react to the danger, not in the final outcome.'
Prince's eyes twinkled.
'So are you saying that FREE is a cancer?'
'Well, no,' was the reply, 'but then, I'm biased. I can see how you may think that, and I'm sure others will too. But I don't think so.
'But to get back to your real question. Let's look at what happened.'
Getting up, the man from FREE walked over to a bookcase and pulled out a thick book. He brought it back to the table and cleared out a place for it and then opened it up and began to flip pages.
'Look here,' he said. 'This is what we knew of GONG just before the war started. While Kuningas was on vacation, I spent some spare gold to investigate a few cities. And the only way we could do that we because of the embassy you established way back when. And I'm sure that you used your embassy to investigate our cities, which is fine. That is what embassies are for; controlled spying.
'This was all we knew of GONG. We knew that The Great Meleet' and here he paused while both of them gave the traditional Meleet praise offering (Both hand were placed in front of their shoulders, facing outward and open; as both right hands made a clockwise circle they said 'Wax on'; they completed the ritual by moving their left hands in a counter-clockwise circle and saying 'Wax off'.), 'had made the shape and features of our land the same as yours, but we did not know where your cities were located, much less their names or size. This was all we knew.'
'And this was a far as we got with our inital invasion. Which was a lot farther than I expected.'
Here he had two pages joined together to form one big picture.
'But that didn't last long. Once you got done you had recaptured almost everything.
'We were left with some small towns on the coast. I was in Graceland while all this happened. I must say that the inital FREE incursion was shocking, but then I was also shocked by how much you were able to recover.
'But that recovery cost you a lot of units. As best I can tell, about 30 obsolete Warrior Divisions and 20 modern Infantry Divisions were lost in the initial attack and counter-attack. FREE lost over 20 Tank Divisions, but you got lucky and captured 6 Divsions of FREE artillery.'
'Plus, we still had 6 coastal cities. We managed to recapture Palace of the Brine.
'But you still had the captured artillery. And you used them to weaken units so they could be killed. And you did well. All the cities that FREE had originally captured were now out of FREE's control. Some had been destroyed by FREE, others vanished when they were liberated. But FREE still had the small city of Whiskeytown on the north east coast.
'However, things weren't all that rosy. The war settled into attrition, but GONG appeared to be on the losing side.
'And even though some of your cities were gone, the strong culture of GONG dominated the land, hampering FREE and limiting the teal forces to picking off isolated units not in cities.
'Up to this point things were grim for you. FREE was slowly wearing you down, but the captured artillery was hurting FREE, too, in addition to the bomber and your own artillery. Your greater culture allowed you to keep the FREE forces mostly bottled up on the beaches and denied the open ground to FREE. Hard call to make, but it was effective.
'But now FREE managed something deadly.
'They build a city near the ruins of Yellow Brick Road and they now controled the Oil of GONG. That had to hurt.'
'And recently, I've observed with my telescope many cities to the north and north east shining light blue lights into the sky. Whatever FREE has done, they did it quickly. As far as I can tell, this is the last city.'
The Commander of all of GONG had sat quietly throughout this lecture. His face was now drawn and pained, but he managed a slight smile.
'No, earlier today we liberated Graceland. So there are now two cities left.'
'Two.'
'Yes, two. Strong in culture but weak in military force.'
'True, very true.'
Silence and a sense of sadness filled the air.
'Sir,' asked CommanBob, 'what are you going to do?'
'What would do if this cancer were attacking your body, CommandoBob? What advice would you want to hear?'
'If the cancer were Green instead of Teal, I would have fought it off like you did. I don't know if I could have done as well as you did, but I would have fought as hard as I could and with everything I had. As long as I had hope I would keep fighting, and maybe even after hope was gone, just out of stubborness.' He paused. 'You had to take desperate chances at times. Some paid off, some didn't. Every decision was critical and could spell disaster if it was wrong.'
He looked him in the eyes.
'But now, now things have changed. I don't see any hope. I see only annihilation. I'm sorry, sir, but I think it is over. Two cities aren't enough. Further conflict will just waste lives for no reason.'
The other man stared back.
'My own people have told me the same thing. Two cities are not enough. But we shall not surrender; least of all surrender to FREE. By now, your partner, uh, Peter Parker as I recall, has been escorted to the city named Teal Landing. I saw him earlier today. He is fine.'
He stood up and went and opened the door and waved his arm. Out of the nighttime shadows two large men entered into the room. They were dressed like the Prince.
'This is Vinnie and this is Mack. Vinnie, Mack, in a few mintues we shall leave this room. When we do, take CommandoBob out of the city. Stay with him and keep him safe until you get to Teal Landing. Do I make myself clear?'
'Completely clear, sir!' they both replied.
'Thank you, now wait outside.'
The Prince closed the door behind them and turned back to CB. He grabbed him by the arm and walked him away from the door to the far corner of the room, where he released his hold. He spoke quietly and earnestly.
'I can't tell you or them what I plan to do, but The Great Library will never be part of FREE. I cannot allow that; my people will not allow that. But once that is done, all resistance will stop. On that you have my word. I won't waste my men in a foolish last stand, but we cannot finish this just yet.
'Vinnie and Mack are part of an elite force and are highly trained in some very specialized areas. They have served as part of my bodyguard for many years. They will protect you. Once that task is done, I expect you to look after them. They won't mistreat you and I don't expect you to mistreat them either.
'And one last thing. My wife and family was in Abbey Road, which is now part of FREE. I haven't heard from them and I am worried about their safety. Take care of them, please, until, until I can make other arrangements.'
'If I can find them, I will. And for a season, at least, they shall be guests in my home. So shall Vinne and Mack.
'Good enough?'
'Good enough.'
'Peace between us?'
'You and I? Yes. Our respective nations? No, not yet; maybe never.'
And then they turned, shook hands and slowly walked out through the door and into the night.