Chương 10

"The Siege of Verantis III," Reyes announced.

"Three thousand Imperial soldiers against twelve thousand Orcs. At first, the odds looked completely impossible since the Orcs already dug in their heels deep into the planet. However, despite this, Colonel Thane managed to plan and execute a series of brilliant decapitation strikes that ultimately helped her and her small army win the war." She waved her hand, and a tactical map materialized.

It showed the surface of Verantis III, with markers denoting Orc encampments and how the hostile territory stretched over basically the whole planet.

"In this class, we're going to work methodically through the whole campaign. For today's material, we will be studying Drop Zone Theta." The map zoomed in onto two landing points deep within enemy lines.

"Before we discuss strategy, you need to understand what Commander Thane was working with." Reyes gestured, and unit designations appeared beside the drop zones.

"Drop Zone Theta had just two assault pods with sixty soldiers each. Let's break down the unit composition." The display shifted to show detailed unit cards.

"The first Pod had forty line infantry with standard Imperial IAS-2437 rifles, another ten heavy weapons specialists, and ten combat engineers with demolition charges."

"Engineers?" someone asked from the front row.

"For a diversionary action?"

"Good question. We'll come back to it in a bit." Reyes highlighted the second pod.

"Meanwhile, this one had a similar composition, but with one key difference. Fifteen of the forty line infantry were replaced with close-quarters specialists. Shotguns and breach shields. Why?" Lysara's hand went up.

"Orcs favor melee combat. The close-quarters specialists would be more effective at holding chokepoints when the enemy closed distance."

"Correct. Commander Thane knew the Orcs would eventually reach her soldiers. She planned for that eventuality." Reyes let the display hover.

"Now. These one hundred and twenty soldiers were deployed directly into the heart of the Orc formation. Their mission was to draw attention and survive long enough to pull the War Chief out of his command bunker." Everyone in the classroom knew what happened next.

"They succeeded. Eighty-nine of them died in the process. The last thirty-one survivors had held out for six hours before extraction became possible." Reyes walked among us.

"The soldiers in those pods knew what they were. Human bait, deployed to trigger a predictable enemy response. Commander Thane personally selected each and every one of them. She told them exactly what she was asking and why. They all accepted, as proper soldiers of the Empire should, and they will be remembered for that bravery and choice for time eternal." She stopped at the front of the room.

"Now let's discuss. First question: Why this unit composition? Why not send all heavy weapons? All close-quarters specialists? Cadet..." She pointed at a student three rows ahead of me.

"Sorren. Explain Commander Thane's logic." Cadet Sorren was tall and dark-haired as she stood gracefully to answer the question.

"Heavy weapons create the impression of a serious threat, but they're slow to reposition and vulnerable when overrun. Line infantry provides flexibility and volume of fire. The mix ensures the unit can adapt as the engagement evolves."

"Adequate. Commander Thane was planning to lose slowly. That's why she chose this composition. Anyone else?" I found myself raising my hand before I'd consciously decided to.

"Cadet Jax."

"The engineers," I said.

"Someone asked about them earlier. Their demolition charges were for creating obstacles and forcing the enemy to bunch up at predictable points." I paused, working through the logic.

"Commander Thane wasn't sending them to just survive. She was trying to control how the Orcs approached. Make them commit more forces to break through, which means more forces pulled away from the command bunker, which means a bigger window for the actual strike team." Reyes's cybernetic eye flickered.

"Continue."

"So the unit composition isn't optimized for combat effectiveness. She added the engineers in the first drop but close-quarter specialists in the second drop to plan for all eventualities, including one where one of the drops was sent off course."

"Better." Reyes almost smiled.

"Commander Thane understood that her soldiers weren't going to win through firepower. The Orcs had to believe this was a real assault, which meant having a consistent unit composition. People think of them as mindless brutes but they have strategists just as intelligent as ours. If we had thrown them an evenly distributed unit composition, they would have realized that it was a diversion. Only by looking like we had a plan did they believe that too." She waved at the display, and a timeline appeared.

Hour markers stretched across the screen, with casualty figures and tactical notes at each interval.

"Six hours. That's how long the engagement lasted. Let's walk through it." The next thirty minutes were a detailed autopsy of controlled slaughter. Reyes showed us how Commander Thane's soldiers had used the terrain and how they had fallen back through prepared positions. The casualty curve was brutal but consistent, roughly fifteen deaths per hour, with spikes during major Orc pushes.

"Hour three," Reyes announced, highlighting a section of the timeline.

"The Warchief emerges from his bunker to personally lead the assault. This is the moment Commander Thane was waiting for. Her actual strike team begins their approach." The map showed a second force moving through the chaos, using the distraction exactly as intended.

"Hour four. The strike team confirms the kill. The Warchief is dead." Reyes paused.

"And here's where it gets interesting. Look at the casualty figures." I looked. Hour three had sixty-two dead. Hour four with seventy-one dead. Hour five had eighty-one dead. Hour six ended with eighty-nine dead.

"Extraction became theoretically possible at hour four," Reyes continued.

"Imperial air support had achieved local superiority with the Warchief dead. Commander Thane could have pulled her soldiers out."

"But she didn't," someone said.

"No. She waited two more hours. Eighteen more soldiers died." Reyes let that number hang in the air.

"Question for the class: Was she right to wait?" Hands went up around the room. Reyes pointed at a student in the front row. The only other male student besides me and the heavyset student, Belcher, if I remembered right.

"Cadet Philip."

"She was right," the student said firmly.

"Extraction at hour four would have been premature. The Warchief was confirmed dead, but the Orc command structure might have had secondary leaders who could reorganize. By holding position for two more hours, Commander Thane ensured the enemy remained committed to the diversionary force, giving the main Imperial assault time to exploit the chaos." Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Several students nodded in agreement.

"Anyone disagree?" I looked at the timeline again. Something about the numbers bothered me. The casualty rate had actually decreased after hour four. Fifteen deaths in the first hour, then thirteen, then twelve, then eleven, then ten, then eight. The soldiers were getting better at surviving as time went on or the Orc pressure was decreasing.

"Cadet Jax. You're staring at that display like it owes you money. What do you see?" I stood slowly.

"The casualty rate drops after hour four."

"Does that matter?"

"Before hour four, we're losing roughly thirteen soldiers per hour. After hour four, it drops to nine per hour average. That's a thirty percent reduction." I pointed at the tactical overlay.

"Look at the Orc movement patterns. After the Warchief died, their assault became disorganized. They were still attacking, but without central coordination. The pressure decreased."

"And your point?"

"My point is that the eighteen soldiers who died in hours five and six weren't buying time for the main assault. The main assault was already succeeding. They were dying because extraction was risky, and Commander Thane chose certainty over speed."

"That's a harsh assessment," Reyes said.

"It's what the numbers show," I said. I was becoming more confident as I confirmed my thoughts with the data.

"At hour four, Commander Thane had confirmation of the kill and decreasing enemy pressure. She could have called for extraction and accepted some losses during the pullout. Instead, she waited for a 'clean' extraction window that took two more hours to materialize." I took a breath.

"Eighteen soldiers died so she could extract the survivors without additional risk." Philip turned in his seat to look at me.

"You're second-guessing a commander who won one of the most celebrated victories of the Verantis campaign."

"I'm reading the data she left behind." I met his eyes.

"The numbers don't lie."

"Numbers without context lie all the time." Philip stood as well, and I realized he was taller than I had thought.

"You're assuming extraction at hour four was actually viable. The report says theoretically possible. That's not the same as practically achievable."

"The air superiority data shows that it was under our control."

"It only shows local superiority." Philip's voice was calm as he disagreed with me.

"I don't disagree with your assessment that it was possible. However, the airspace above these two pods was still hot. The Orcs could have shot down any extraction craft, and that would have been unnecessary losses. Commander Thane waited because she understood that a rushed extraction could have unintended consequences."

"Or she waited because she'd already written those soldiers off and didn't want to risk additional assets on people she considered acceptable losses." The room went very quiet.

"That's a serious accusation," Philip said.

"It's a serious assumption." I didn't look away.

"She made a command decision. Commander Thane had options at hour four that she didn't take. I want to understand why." Reyes had been watching our exchange with the expression of someone enjoying a show.

"Interesting. We have a genuine disagreement. Cadet Philip, you believe Commander Thane's delay was tactically justified. Cadet Jax, you believe she prioritized certainty over soldier lives. Let's see, anyone else?" More hands went up. Over the next ten minutes, the class split roughly seventy-thirty in Philip's favor. The majority argument was consistent: Colonel Thane was the commander on the ground with limited information, and the outcome validated her decisions.

The minority argument was simpler: the data suggested lives could have been saved, and we shouldn't assume commanders are always right just because they won.

"Cadet Lysara," Reyes said, pointing at Lysara.

"You've been suspiciously quiet. House Thorne is known for strategic analysis. What's your assessment?"

"Cadet Jax's analysis is methodologically sound. The casualty rate decrease after hour four does suggest reduced enemy pressure, which would support earlier extraction being viable." She paused.

"However, Philip is correct that 'theoretically possible' extraction and 'advisable' extraction are different calculations. The question isn't whether Commander Thane could have extracted earlier. It's whether the risk-adjusted expected casualties of early extraction exceeded the expected casualties of waiting."

"And your conclusion?"

"The data provided is insufficient to determine that with certainty." Lysara glanced at me.

"But Cadet Jax is asking the right question. Too many analyses of historical battles assume the winning commander made optimal choices. That's survivorship bias. Commander Thane won, so we assume she was right but winning doesn't mean every individual decision was correct. It means the aggregate outcome was favorable." Reyes nodded slowly.

"Cadet Charlotte?" Charlotte stood beside me.

"I think they're both partially right, but they're arguing past each other." She looked at Philip, then at me.

"Cadet Philip is defending Commander Thane's judgment. Cadet Jax is questioning her priorities. Those aren't the same thing."

"Elaborate."

"A commander can make a tactically sound decision that's still ethically questionable. Commander Thane might have been correct that waiting was safer for the extraction operation. That doesn't mean she was right to value operational safety over the lives of soldiers who had already accomplished their mission." Charlotte's voice was steady.

"The eighteen who died in hours five and six had already done what they were sent to do. They had drawn out the Warchief. And then they died waiting for a pickup that could have come sooner if Commander Thane had been willing to accept more risk."

"So you side with Cadet Jax?"

"I side with what the situation needed. If the margin for victory were smaller, then I believe Cadet Philip was correct, given that every piece of manpower would have been necessary. If there was a morale issue among the ranks and more operations were needed, then Cadet Jax would have been correct to prioritize the extraction." Charlotte sat down.

"But I also recognize that commanders have to make exactly those calculations with limited data. That's why this is worth discussing." Reyes let the silence stretch for a long moment.

"This," she said finally, "is what tactical theory is actually about. Not memorizing what commanders did, but understanding why they did it and whether they should have done something else. Commander Thane's decision at hour four is genuinely ambiguous. The data supports multiple interpretations." She looked at me, then at Philip.

"The fact that two cadets can look at the same information and reach opposite conclusions doesn't mean one of you is stupid, or wrong. Far from it. It means command decisions are rarely clear-cut, and reasonable people can disagree about optimal courses of action." Her cybernetic eye glowed slightly brighter.

"That's why we train you to argue and defend your positions so that you understand the logic behind views you don't share. Because one day you'll have to make these decisions yourselves, and you won't have the luxury of hindsight." The class ended fifteen minutes later. Reyes assigned reading on extraction protocols and dismissed us with a reminder that tomorrow was a rest day. There would be no formal classes, though the training facilities would remain open.

I was packing up my data-slate when a shadow fell across my desk. Philip stood there. Up close, I could see the silver phoenix over crossed swords crest on his sleeve. He was evidently from an old military family, probably with ancestors who'd actually known commanders like Thane.

"Jax."

"Philip."

"That was a good argument," he said without apparent irony.

"Wrong, but good."

"Funny. I was thinking the same about yours." He almost smiled.

"You play Dominion?" The question caught me off guard.

"Yes. Why?"

"Because I want to see how you think when you're not just reading numbers on a screen." Philip leaned against the desk beside mine.

"Tomorrow's a rest day. There's a Dominion setup in the recreation commons. Are you interested?"

"In proving you wrong twice?" Now he did smile.

"In seeing if your tactical instincts match your analytical skills. Anyone can critique a battle after it's over. I want to see if you can make decisions in real time." Charlotte had appeared at my shoulder, Lysara just behind her.

"What are the stakes?" I asked.

"Stakes?" Philip raised an eyebrow.

"I was thinking pride and intellectual satisfaction. Unless you need something more tangible."

"Pride works." I stood, meeting his eyes.

"Tomorrow. Recreation commons. Name the time."

"Past noon. Fourteen-hundred? That gives us both the morning to prepare." Philip extended his hand.

"Looking forward to it, Jax." I nodded and shook his hand.

"Sure, that time works for me. See you then." His grip was firm but not aggressive. He walked away, joining a group of students near the door who'd been watching our exchange with obvious interest.

"Well," Lysara said as the classroom emptied around us.

"You've made yourself interesting on the second day. That's either very good or very bad for your long-term survival."

"He seems reasonable enough."

"Philip Aldric is the third son of House Aldric," Charlotte said quietly.

"His grandfather commanded the Imperial Seventh Fleet. His father sits on the Admiralty Board. And his older brother is currently serving as executive officer on the Imperator's Wrath."

"So he has something to prove too."

"Everyone in this program has something to prove." Charlotte's hand brushed against mine as we walked toward the exit.

"The question is whether you're competing with each other or sharpening each other."

"Can't it be both?"

"It can." She smiled slightly.

"Just make sure you know which one you'll be doing before you sit down at that table tomorrow."