Chương 5

The door slid shut behind me, and I was alone. My room was small but functional. It was similar to the dorm that I lived in for the past six years, except that I had my own room now. Unlike the rest of the Magna Protos University, the dorm didn't seem to have much in terms of character. The walls were bare gray composite, waiting for whatever personality I chose to give them. I left my bag by the door and dropped onto the desk chair.

There was a built-in terminal at the desk and with a couple taps, I quickly connected it to my ICI, choosing to display my workspace stuck to the wall, and pulled up a dense package of files marked with the Strategos Program seal. The first file was an orientation document titled "Welcome to Strategos: An Introduction to Command." I skimmed the opening paragraphs, which were mostly standard institutional boilerplate. Then, the tone shifted.

"You have been selected for the Strategos Program because you demonstrated exceptional aptitude in strategic reasoning, tactical adaptation, or decision-making under pressure. These are the foundational skills of command. Over the next four years, we will develop these skills.

"But skills alone do not make a commander. A commander must also possess something that cannot be taught: the willingness to bear the weight of lives on their conscience. Every order you give will be carried out by people who trust you. Some of those people will die because of your decisions. Some of those decisions will be intentional. This is the reality of the profession you have chosen.

"If this reality disturbs you, we encourage you to reconsider your participation in the program. There is no shame in stepping back now. There is only tragedy in stepping back later, when lives depend on your resolve." I knew those words instinctively. There were a lot of military maneuvers, like my sacrifice of the Command Unit in Dominion, where units were sent to their death for a greater purpose. Yet reading it stated so plainly was different. Decision's already made. No backing out now.

I took a deep breath and kept reading. The next section outlined the program's structure. The program followed the standard university structure with four years divided into eight semesters. The first year focused on the fundamentals; physical conditioning, tactical theory, and something called "command psychology". The first military case study attached, titled "The Siege of Verantis III", drew me in. Verantis III was a mining world that had been overrun by an Orc warband eighteen years ago.

The planetary defense force had been inadequate, and the civilian population was being systematically enslaved and slaughtered after being overrun. An Imperial relief force arrived six weeks after the initial invasion. The commander of that force was a woman named Colonel Seria Thane. The Empire at the time could not spare resources, so she had only been allocated three thousand soldiers to liberate a planet defended by roughly twelve thousand Orcs.

Standard doctrine called for a siege with the goal of starving the enemy out over the coming months. Thane rejected that approach. Instead, she identified the Orc command structure and planned a series of decapitation strikes. Her forces would hit hard and fast, killing enemy leaders before they could coordinate a response. It was risky. If the strikes failed, her smaller force would lose their most experienced assault teams.

The case study walked through her decision-making process in such granular detail that there was even an ICI brainwave analysis attached. It showed when she was stressed, calm, and so on. The intelligence assessments had said that the odds were against her. She chose to go through with her plan anyway. The study then went into detail on how Thane had deployed the assault teams. She had chosen low-altitude, high-velocity atmospheric insertions via drop-pods rather than any huge coordinated strike to one spot.

Some of the first teams were meant to be diversions with the killing blow coming in when the Orcs were distracted. In particular, she had placed two groups of men in the middle of the enemies to draw out the Orc Chief and then concentrated her forces on the enemy leader. The strikes succeeded. The Orc warband fragmented without central leadership, and Thane's forces mopped up the remnants over the following months. Verantis III was liberated with Imperial casualties of four hundred and twelve.

The case study ended with a note from the author:"Colonel Thane's tactical brilliance saved Verantis III and its population of millions. It also killed four hundred soldiers who might have lived if she'd chosen a more conservative approach. Both of these things are true. The burden of command is learning to live with both." I didn't notice the time passing as I read the case study. At some point, the lights in my room dimmed automatically. I brightened them again with a wave and kept reading.

The chronometer on my terminal read 0347 when I finally looked up from the holographic screen. My back ached from hunching over the desk for hours. I had been so absorbed in the material that I had forgotten everything except the endless stream of information flowing into my mind. I stretched, feeling my spine pop, and looked around my small room. My bag sat unpacked where I had dropped it. Somewhere in there was the carved wooden box my mother had given me along with my data-slate.

A data-slate with a certain person's contact info on it. Charlotte. I pulled my slate and looked at it. In all the hustle and bustle of the day, I hadn't even realized that this was the first time that I got the contact information for a girl. Now, it was all coming back to me. I turned it on and waited for a second for it to sync to my interface. Finally, simple text field with an empty chat log appeared in front of me. I stared at it for what felt like minutes. Social anxiety? Never heard of it.

Meet my new friend, Absolute Social Terror. First, I deliberated writing something casual like "Hey, couldn't sleep". But… I was pretty sure Grant would smack me over the head for even thinking of something like that as a decent opener. My second thought was to write something clever and make a joke about rematch times. That was also bad; even Finn would be ashamed of a text like that. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Finally, I decided to just say what I was thinking.

"Wish we had more time on the shuttle. I really enjoyed our game. Things have been… interesting since I got here." I sent it before I could second-guess myself. Ok. Time to anxiously refresh the log and hope she replies before I completely lose my mind. It wasn't weird, right? She specifically asked not to make it weird. Did I make it weird? Aaaa- The response came in under thirty seconds.

"Same. What happened?" popped up on my data-slate. I smiled in relief. Phew, crisis averted. Step 2. What was step 2? Never got that far. Orc tits.

"I'm currently reading up on something called the Strategos Program and it's pretty intense." Her reply came seconds later.

"The Thane case study?"

"You're in the Strategos Program as well?" I sat up straighter.

"Is that surprising?"

"A little. On the shuttle you mentioned Resonance Theory. I assumed that was your focus."

"Resonance Theory is my academic interest. Command is my obligation. The Strategos Program has a professor who studies it." A brief pause.

"Also, I wanted to see your reaction when you realized I wasn't just a pretty girl who happened to sit next to you. []~(￣▽￣)~"* I felt heat rise to my cheeks even though she couldn't see me.

"I never thought you were just anything."

"Smooth. Did that line work on the girls back home? ^^""I wouldn't know. I didn't have many lines back home."

"Now that I believe.; -)" That… Fair. I found myself grinning at the screen like an idiot. The banter came easier than I had expected, flowing naturally despite the late hour and the weight of what I had been reading.

"So we're both in the program," I evaded.

"Does that make us competitors or allies?"

"Why not both? The best rivalries are between people who actually like each other after all~""Who said I like you?"

"You messaged me at four in the morning after reading the Thane study. Either you like me or you have very strange coping mechanisms. (•̀ ω •́)y" She had a point.

"Touché." I admitted.

"The material is intense, are you ready for this year?" The response took longer this time.

"I have to be. My family has expectations." There it was. Was it an invitation to pry? Could be nothing. My traitorous brain provided. Blast it. I bit the bullet.

"What kind of expectations?"

"It's complicated." Another pause.

"Do you know much about my family?"

"Only what Vera told me. She's my mentor to the program," I wrote.

"She said that I should be careful."

"Careful?" I could almost hear her laugh.

"What exactly did she say?"

"Just that your family was very influential. I got the sense that just talking to you was some kind of political minefield."

"That's... not inaccurate. But it's not the whole picture either." Looks like I am going to be involved in noble shenanigans whether I want to or not. I sighed.

"What's the whole picture?" The pause stretched longer this time. Long enough that I started to wonder if I had pushed too far.

"We're close to the Imperial household. Very close." I processed that. Close to the Imperial household could mean many things. Independent advisors and courtiers were close. The major noble houses were also close.

"So you have even more pressure on you?"

"Yeah, I guess. My presence here sends a message that the families closest to the Emperor still believe in service, whether I want to or not."

"So you're proving something," I said.

"To the other noble families."

"Partly. And partly proving something to myself." Her tone softened.

"My family has chosen comfortable paths for generations. I wanted to know if I could handle something that wasn't safe."

"And can you?"

"Ask me again in four years." I could almost see her smile through the text.

"Assuming we both survive the program."

"Quite the optimistic outlook you got there."

"Realistic. Quite a few people have died in this program but, statistically, more have graduated." Isn't that reassuring. I leaned back in my chair. This conversation had veered far from anything I had expected. We had gone from flirting to discussing family obligations to contemplating our own potential deaths. To be honest, it was quite refreshing that Charlotte didn't shy away from the heavy topics.

"Can I ask you something personal?"

"You've been asking me personal things for the last twenty minutes. Why stop now?"

"Fair point." I hesitated, then typed it anyway.

"Why me? On the shuttle. You could have sat anywhere."

"Fishing for compliments? ^^""Genuinely curious." The response came faster this time.

"You looked… authentic. Most people on that shuttle were performing versions of themselves and trying to network. You were just staring out of the window."

"That's a generous interpretation of me being socially awkward."

"That's not true." A brief pause.

"Besides, you have nice eyes. That helped: P" I stared at the screen, momentarily at a loss for words.

"Now you're just trying to make me blush."

"Is it working?"

"... Maybe."

"Good. Consider it payback for beating me at Dominion. o(￣▽￣)ブ" I laughed, breaking the tension that had been building. Charlotte was something else entirely. She could slide between serious and playful with an ease I couldn't help but admire. I wouldn't mind seeing other ways she could sli- I once again threw my inner voice out the window.

"Speaking of which," I typed.

"I still owe you a rematch."

"And here I thought you'd forgotten: >""Not a chance. I want to see what you're like when you're not holding back."

"Who says I was holding back?"

"Your flanking maneuver," I wrote. Then added a bit more context.

"You let me spot it ten turns before you executed it. You wanted to see how I'd react."

"You noticed that?"

"I pay attention to things too."

"Apparently." I could feel her reassessing me through the text.

"Tomorrow night. After orientation. My room or yours?"

"Yours. I haven't unpacked yet," I wrote.

"That's either very dedicated or very lazy," Charlotte replied.

"Can't it be both?"

"I suppose it can." A pause from her end.

"I'll send you the location. North Tower, two floors above you."

"You know where my room is?"

"I know a lot of things, Jax Akana. That's what happens when you pay attention: 3""Should I be concerned about that?"

"Probably. But it's too late to back out now. You've already admitted I have nice eyes."

"Wait, you were the one who told me I have nice eyes…?" I protested.

"So you're saying I have ugly eyes? ~""I thought your eyes looked beautiful. I really like that shade of silver-gray, actually. It suits you quite well." I responded immediately.

"Good answer." I found myself smiling again. This conversation had gone on far longer than any late-night message exchange had a right to, and I still didn't want it to end.

"I should probably try to sleep," I typed reluctantly.

"Vera's going to kill me if I show up exhausted."

"She'll definitely yell. Whether she kills you depends on how you handle the yelling."

"Good to know."

"Goodnight, Jax. Try not to dream about the Thane study."

"Goodnight, Charlotte. Try not to scheme about flanking maneuvers."

"No promises: P" I smiled at the screen one last time before closing the interface and stared at the ceiling of my small room. Grant would have laughed at me for staying up all night reading military history instead of trying to make friends at a bar or finding a party somewhere. Finn would have approved of the research but questioned my investment in texting instead of sleeping. I missed them both. The ache was there, underneath everything else. Charlotte's observation came back to me.

How much of who we are is shaped by the people around us. Remove them, and you have to figure out who you are all over again. Maybe that's what this was. Finding out what shape I took when I wasn't filling the space between them. The Siege of Verantis III sat in my memory. Colonel Thane had saved a planet and carried four hundred ghosts for the rest of her life. Was that the shape I wanted? Commander of soldiers and bearer of casualties? I didn't know. And somehow, against all logic, that felt like progress.

The stars outside my window offered no answers. They just burned, cold and distant and eternal, while I waited for the morning.