Michael stood at the podium and looked across the sea of faces. They were expecting another heartfelt eulogy he supposed. Too bad that wasn't what he had in mind.
"My cousin was not a loving man," he said clearly. "He was gentle, and caring, I believe, because he respected those around him. He believed that this world is all that there is, and thus that he had no right to do undue harm to the only lives those around him would have."
He wasn't bothering with his notes at all, simply speaking what came into his mind as he thought. Some of these words were familiar. "Some might say that to him he was not an Admiral or a commander, but a friend or a father figure. But he was a complex man and by seeing only one part of him they see less than the whole. I can only tell you of one side, because to me he was a distant figure. But when I was younger he watched over me one night, when my parents were absent, and taught me of the Code that our ancestor, Jorge, wrote before he died."
"That was the Code my cousin, Xi vonBraun, lived and died by. Because in his heart I don't think he ever really believed in anything else at all. Not love or hate, this world or the next one. Just a Code of Iron and the will to try to live up to it:"
"Be as beneficent as the sun or the sea, but if your rights as a rational being are stepped on, die on the first inch of your territory. If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is NO CHANCE of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. Therefore, never back away from an enemy. Either fight or surrender."
"To see the right and not to do it is cowardice. Never give in - never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. It is not enough to say I will not be evil, it must be fought wherever it is found. Never violate a woman or harm a child. Do not lie cheat or steal. These things are for lesser men. Protect the weak against the evil strong. And never allow thoughts of gain lead you into the pursuit of evil.
"Above all else remember this: evil lies in treating others as things and in the blind belief that you are right. Therefore, always forgive your enemies, since if nothing else it will annoy the hell out of them, and remember that of all the strange 'crimes' that human beings have legislated out of nothing, 'blasphemy' is the most foolish - with 'obscenity' and 'indecent exposure' fighting it out for second and third place. Only the soul matters in the end."
drakensis
"I believe that forgiving the enemy is God's function. Ours is simply to arrange the meeting." - General H Norman Schwarzkopf
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