Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 9

code is undermined; there comes a point at which the system breaks down, when insubordination becomes excusable, perhaps even necessary."
    ****
    Maybe Fairview and I should have realized, on the morning before the attack, what role Doyle was likely to play in our future. At the time, however, our minds were filled with seemingly higher matters.
    They say that this is the operating principle of the Fates (in whom Fairview and I have always firmly believed, despite the fact that such guiding forces are much out of fashion these days). The Fates blindfold men to keep them from seeing what is coming next, and then the Fates mislead men's thoughts into dwelling upon matters of lesser importance.
    I can hear your outcry, so I hasten to say that the matter of lesser importance which occupied my mind that afternoon was not the upcoming attack on Spy Hill. No, what clogged my thoughts that day was how to keep from strangling my commanding officer.
    We sat there, the four of us: three officers from the General's brigade, while the fourth officer, Tice, had been loaned to the General by the Commander-in-Chief. We were all sitting in the General's tent, drinking his wine and smoking the cigars he had offered us when we first arrived. Nobody could accuse the General of being less than gracious toward his officers – at least, not when we were exchanging civilian civilities.
    "Fort Frederick," he said that morning, pointing to a spot on the map. "That is our objective, gentlemen."
    The four of us leaned forward, as though we had not already known our objective when we boarded the army train at Balmer City that would carry us west. The map was evidently out of date; the tiny dot on the map that represented Fort Frederick had been relabeled "Compassion Life Prison" in a newer hand.
    Puffing at his pipe – he had declined the cigar – Tice said, "I can't imagine how the Seventh Landstead's army got itself penned into such a tight place."
    "They were trying to free the prisoners there," the General replied, stating the obvious.
    "But there aren't any prisoners at Fort Frederick," interjected Spearman, who, as head of the Allied Armies' Engineers, rarely spoke in these discussions, other than to ask technical questions.
    "Except ours," murmured Fairview, passing me a biscuit. I dunked the hard biscuit into my tea in order to soften it to the point where I wouldn't break a tooth while biting into it. Rations were short.
    "We know that now ," responded the General, beginning to show his well-known exasperation with subordinates. "But the Seventh Landstead received misleading reports. Fort Frederick was still a prison until a short time before the war began; there was every reason to believe that it still held thousands of prisoners."
    "In other words, the Seventh Landstead's army fell into the Mippites' trap," Tice interpreted. "Pass the biscuits, Rook – there's a good fellow."
    I did so, checking carefully afterwards to see whether my hand was still attached to its wrist. Tice always wore a scabbard at his belt that held his bayonet.
    Perhaps with his mind also dwelling on such matters, the General said sharply, "It is no longer the Seventh Landstead's army that is endangered, Tice. The danger lies to several thousand soldiers in the Allied Armies of the Dozen Landsteads. Our landsteads agreed to this wartime alliance because we could see that, if the Mippites succeed in destroying one landstead's army, all of us in the Dozen Landsteads are endangered."
    "Granted," said Tice briefly. "The Seventh Landstead was a dunce, so we're saving its army's skin, for the sake of the common good. And then?"
    "Then we go further west, to free the prisoners in western Mip." The General relaxed back in his field-chair, having made his point. "Meanwhile, the rest of the Allied Armies will attack eastern Mip and free the prisoners there." He pointed to a separate map showing the Mippite capital, where a dot was labelled "Mercy Life Prison." "The Seventh Landstead's objective was a good one, even if their army acted overly hastily."
    Fairview and I exchanged looks, wondering whether we had ever been so young and naive as our General. True, the Mippites had foully abused their convicts over the decades – including, in recent months, a Seventh Landsteader who died from a vicious beating at the hands of his guards.
    But given how little the individual landsteads cared about each other's welfare, would they have gathered together to wage war against