“I’m going to approve the first half, take down Alpha first, then pull back for the night.”

  He opened his mouth to argue, but she held up a hand.

  She explained, “You don’t plan out a whole war campaign and run. You plan battles, then take stock and adjust. What if Charlie hits us hard while you’re still playing with Alpha? There’re a lot of things in play, I like your plan but for right now take Alpha, grab the flag, and then come back. You need to come back with the flag anyway to fully take them out of play, or the survivors will harry your force from behind, unless you take out all five leaders, which is doubtful.

  “The scouts are Lawrence’s as well, we’re going to need them, until the moment comes, if the moment comes, that I okay the blitz.”

  Zane nodded dismissively, “Of course. I can see you’re right,” his tone not quite sarcastic, but leaving no doubt in her mind he was dismissing her caution as stupid.

  She just stared coldly. She’d been smiling a lot more lately, even laughing freely a whole lot, but until recently she hadn’t had much at all to smile about. It wasn’t hard to dredge up her thousand-yard stare.

  Zane frowned, “Yes, maam.”

  “Better, you’d think I just punished you, instead of giving you what you wanted and planned for. I’ll remind you that this isn’t just a game of capture the flag for kids, how we comport ourselves during this exercise will also be judged, do not forget to address me as you would a superior officer again,” she shook her head and looked at Daniel, “While he’s doing that, what will you be doing, Daniel?”

  Daniel said, “Mountain climbing, maam. With seven of us we might just take down Charlie before Zane takes down Alpha. Charlie is dug in well, much better than Alpha, but none of them are posted by the shack or watching the mountain it’s only fifty feet away from.”

  “So you rappel down, kill my counterpart, and grab the flag. Then what?”

  He said, “One team will go down, while the other five of us cover them. They sneak out in our direction around the mountain, we’ll snipe the defenses in that corner from behind at five hundred feet, and they’ll slip right out. Those two will run for our camp, and the five of us will work our way back on the mountain and come down on our side.”

  She nodded, “Give it a shot. If the two inserted are taken down just take cover and dig in. Five snipers on the mountain would come in handy later, if I approve Zane’s blitz.”

  Daniel said, “Understood, maam. We’ll hold position if they don’t get the flag out. We’ll grab enough supplies for a night on the mountain.”

  She added, “If you do spot the other five in the open, take them down.”

  Stacy interjected, “Maam, we have dropships, I’ve been monitoring Lawrence’s data net.”

  She brought it up, and sure enough there were four drop shuttles headed straight for the center of her valley.

  Zane tilted his head, “Perhaps third years for a surprise party?”

  “I’m not that lucky, Zane,” she called Julie, “Julie, what’s going on?”

  Julie said, “The Harbingers launched a suicidal attack on the space station with three q-ships, and four drop ships just went down.”

  “Yes, they’re arriving at my site now. Why?”

  Julie replied, “It’s tying up the fleet, or we could lose the space station or risk them bombarding the planet. They also have ships in the graveyard around the inner planet.”

  “So they’re sacrificing three q-ships and four platoons to grab decommissioned Union warships for those crews they broke out.”

  Julie hesitated, then said, “That seems likely, and we can’t stop them.”

  No, not without the fleet sacrificing a city or two, and the military space station. Or without her sacrificing her whole graduating class. That’s why those drop ships were there, to tie her down so she couldn’t jump over to the graveyard.

  “Send the marines, as many as can come.”

  Julie said, “Already on the way, what do you plan to do?”

  “Turtle up, failing that whatever is necessary.”

  Julie sighed, “Understood, good luck, Ashley.”

  Zane was looking at her in confusion, which was valid since he’d only heard one half of the conversation.

  She opened general comms, “Attention all cadets, this is commander Bravo. We have Harbingers coming in, a whole company of them. Alpha and Charlie, if you’re moving in, stop. To our scouts, stay where you are. The rest of us are going to turtle up. I want everyone to shield at level ten, now, the Harbingers will likely have mage rifles that top out at power level eight bullets. I want teams of six, one of you dome shield, the other five will fire back. This is not a drill, spell up and shoot to kill. The defenses we have will stop light, but it won’t even slow those bullets down.

  “Once they’re close enough, I’ll share their shield levels, fire two above that to take them down hard. We won’t have to hold out long, the Marines are on the way. Do it, now.”

  She started to cast her spells, detect and gauge magic, power level ten shield, levitation, and telekinesis.

  Zane frowned, “If this is real then you aren’t in command here.”

  “I see, so you’d suggest an assault team to take on a company of fully mature mages with mage sniper rifles and god knows what kind of support from the shuttle? They could have heavy ordinance, and all we have is our magic and uselessly locked down mage pistols. Our best chance is to defend until help gets here. We are year one cadets, and you will not try to spend the lives of your people recklessly, or I will end you. Break up your platoon into four groups and protect them, we stand together.”

  Zane snorted, “You’re a coward.”

  “And you’re an idiot,” Daniel interjected, “What other cadet do you know that can call a spook lieutenant and demand a sitrep of orbit. You’re an idiot, because I’m the son of the most powerful councilor on the council, and I’d follow her anywhere. And if that’s not enough, she knows something you don’t, and so do I. She’s trying to keep your sorry ass alive without compromising top secret information you don’t even know exists, much less what it is. You’re also a reckless idiot, we’re first years and not even half trained, our only offense is crippled and slow because we haven’t mastered even the simplest attack spells, and you want to go on the offensive?

  “That’s not cowardice, that’s leveraging your strengths and compensating for weaknesses while waiting for support. If you try to take command and leave with your company, I will end your career. Is that clear enough for you, jackass?”

  Frank sent in the clear, “Maam, I’d suggest we follow your plan, but put two people on dome duty. We’ll stack them, when the outer one goes down that person will have the time to recast it, while the inner dome holds. Once the outer dome is back up, the inner dome person will drop their damaged one and recast it.”

  Stacy nodded vehemently.

  “Excellent addition to the plan, Frank. Everyone, do that.”

  She went outside at that point, ignoring the shellshocked look on Zane, who’d just had his ass chewed three different ways, on serious points that he’d missed in his eagerness to take command and go out on a heroic ambush. That he really should’ve picked up on.

  He wasn’t really wrong, but she’d been put in command, and quibbling about who was in charge while four drop ships came in and disgorged a company of fighters, was just plain stupid. Frank had handled it correctly, he got his way and his say, without acting like a jackass or demanding she give over control.

  Which was really weird, because last time she’d thought Frank was the incurable jerk, and Zane the reasonable one. Maybe Frank’s mistakes had truly made him grow, and wasn’t that why they were there to begin with, to grow into officers of the mage fleet service? In the field to learn from their mistakes?

  She’d have turtled up anyway, defensively was how she’d won her last encounter against a superior force. But really, the true reason was if the crap really hit the fan, and people started dying, she could shield everyone in camp. But only if they were in camp, if they were all over the wilderness they’d be on their own.

  But only if she had to.

  The three of them joined the three six-man teams already started. They weren’t going to stand as a squad of three, so it made more sense to have three of seven since they were short those three.

  Ella and Brent were the dome shield casters, which left her with four others including Jace.

  She felt them come into range.

  “Shield level eight, so hit them with ten if you get a shot. They are here to kill us, for a distraction. To retard our fleet’s ability to respond to another threat. They are terrorists and pirates, who sold their souls for hate and misplaced vengeance long ago. Do not hesitate to kill, you will find very few enemies in this career that deserve such a fate more than the harbingers do. The marines will be here soon to support us, but let’s give them nothing to do but clean up.”

  Another voice came on the line, “This is Alpha, you didn’t really think we’d let you disinvite us to the party, did you? Nice speech though, Bravo. I’m feeling very motivated right now. We’re dropping from the sky, so don’t shoot us, hurrah!”

  She looked up in shock, as another company landed in sixes, and more dome shields went up scattered around the camp in an irregular half circle facing the direction the dropships went down. That changed the numbers considerably, even with a third of their number on pure defense, their offensive numbers alone were now a full company and a third. They had to have taken off almost immediately to have gotten there so quickly.

  “Welcome to the party, but we all know you just came to take a peek at our awesome defenses, for the after-party party.”

  Everyone laughed at that, which was good to see. Humor was a great deflector of fear, then the enemy started to open fire and from pretty far away, almost five hundred feet. She hoped the leader of Charlie wouldn’t feel the need to do something stupid too, but she feared they already were. It was naïve of her to think they’d take her advice, she knew she wouldn’t have.

  She wasn’t afraid for herself, not really, but she did start to worry she might be too dangerous to be around. First year cadets shouldn’t have to face this much danger, and there was no question in her mind that they were there for her. To keep her on the ground against the need of her power to keep her class year safe. These terrorist freaks were suicide attackers, they knew they were dead already, for the cause and so their leaders could snag a new fleet even better than the last one. Old by Union standards, but an overhaul and a few weapon systems could fix most of them.

  The problem was that was far enough to want to zoom in, one and two thirds again the length of a football field, through forest. It was difficult to pick them out, and the bright sever spells although wicked fast, weren’t bullet fast, and at five hundred feet it gave them time to take cover.

  The dome shield idea was working though, the enemy company was taking one down about every ten seconds, and since it took only three seconds to cast the replacement they were more than good. At least, until one of their officers figured out that they needed to concentrate their fire more.

  A few people including herself were having better luck with blunt force spells, since they were much harder to see especially under the tree canopy and out of direct sunlight. But even those were dodged more than half the time.

  “Sergeant Hill, please be listening. I need my mage pistols, now, maam. They’re sniping and our spells are too slow, we need bullets to take these jerks out.”

  Oh crap. Her mind froze as she felt Charlie sweeping in from the right flank, at least they were at shield power level ten, and they were probably staying off the radio in case the enemy was listening. Charlie was going to hit their flank, which would probably draw all their fire. Dome shields wouldn’t really work in a highly wooded area. It would hurt the trees, but not knock them down, so the spell would unravel as it couldn’t form.

  Her choices were to out herself, or to trust in the people around her and order a charge as soon as Charlie started to engage. Honestly, if she didn’t have power, she’d definitely order a charge under those conditions, to close to better spell range and use trees for cover.

  They’d win, probably large, but they’d also lose at least a platoon’s worth out of the twelve. Were twelve or so lives worth her secret, the government’s secret? Probably, if the worst happened, but she couldn’t do it.

  She was about to flatten them all, and probably a square mile of forest, with a gravity wave, when the message came through on her implant. She so owed Hall a beer.

  “Weapons free!”

  She pulled her weapon and zoomed it. It took three or four hits to take down their shields and end them, and they outnumbered them in weapons fire and the enemy didn’t have dome shields. Just trees. Almost a whole platoon of them went down in the first ten seconds, before they all took better cover.

  Which is when Charlie opened fire, from the flank. When being shot from two angles, there was no hiding behind a tree. The enemy dodged that fire, to be in their line of site again, and they opened fire. The Harbingers broke and ran at that point, for the drop ships, or at least in that direction.

  Hall said over the line, “Do not pursue, cadets. That is a direct order. The marines will be at their shuttles before they are. You did a fine job, but leave the mop up to us.”

  She asked, “Is the mission still on, sergeant?”

  Hall made a scoffing sound, “Of course it is, cadet. Did you want a shower, a nice cold beer, and a massage maybe?”

  She laughed, “No sergeant.”

  Hall said, “Good, now get back in your corners, the mission will recommence when your weapons are locked down, which will happen after the mop-up operation of the party crashers.”

  Alpha said mock threateningly, “See you real soon, Foster.”

  She just snorted, as they all flew off. Relieved, she’d come so close to outing herself.

  “Maintain spells until the area is verified clear, everyone. Thanks, Charlie, don’t think we didn’t notice your sneaky weapons fire. Without you, the best we could’ve done was keep them pinned down.”

  Charlie replied, “Wouldn’t have missed it.”

  She switched back to her Bravo channel, which was secured, before she forgot.

  “Everyone that spoke in the open, make sure you’re back on Bravo channel. Good job, everyone.”

  She headed back into the shack, and Zane was right behind her.

  “What’s up? The plan is still a go, just as soon as we have the all-clear and the pistols are locked down.”

  Zane said, “Right before Hall unlocked our weapons, I saw you wrestling with something. It was all over your face, pained indecision. Then your face settled into an eerie calm, with a confidence that didn’t seem called for, right before our weapons were unlocked. When that happened, you looked relieved, as if you’d just stepped back from a cliff.”

  “Was there a question in there, Zane?”

  Zane narrowed his eyes, “No, maam. Just… making observations, you already told me classified information is involved, so I get the idea whatever wound you up is what you can’t share.”

  She snorted, “And you’re here to let me know how clever you are to notice all that? If you know that, then what’s the point? Have you considered all the people that are going to review this? Was that a subtle threat? We’re out here to learn from our mistakes, Frank has clearly learned from his. He’s impressed me today, I’d fight by his side any day, but you’re even more arrogant than last time, after walking away with the win last midterm. Check yourself, Zane, your writing checks with lives that you don’t want cashed. Treat this as real. What I know, is top secret, and none of your business besides.”

  Zane turned and walked toward the door.

  “Oh, one more thing, Zane. What the hell were you doing looking at me, when terrorists were firing live rounds at our people? Tring to figure me out, over watching over the lives of the people in your command? To what, threaten me?

  She shook her head in disgust, “I think if I was the reviewer, you’d never command again. You’re not just reckless in simulation, but with real lives on the line. You know last time was luck, don’t you? Not at all a testament to your military brilliance? Brave yes, you are that, but if our base had been attacked, instead of both groups going to the third, we’d have lost. That didn’t happen, so it doesn’t matter, but it could’ve. I’m not trying to be mean, but open your eyes, Zane, because one day you’re going to get a lot of people killed if you don’t. Yes, that’s the job, but we never sell our lives cheaply. Dismissed.”

  Zane snorted, “I wasn’t endangering my people, it takes three seconds to cast a spell, giving me plenty of downtime during recast to glance over.”

  “And if during that casual glance, the idiotic commander on the other side had finally ordered them to concentrate fire? That’s what I was worrying about, all the people under my command that were trusting me to keep them alive, because if they’d concentrated on a third of the domes they’d have broken through. It’s why I pleaded with Hall to unlock our weapons, because that kind of stupidity in the field has a short shelf life.

  “The truth is Daniel read you the riot act when you called me a coward, and it scared you, now you’re determined to do… I don’t know what, but I do know it isn’t anything good. I’m still trying to help you become a good officer, is that your plan for me, Zane? Your smug mildly threatening words and focus on me at a very inappropriate time in actual battle, suggests that you see me as a greater enemy to you than terrorists. So, now that’s on the record too, that you care more about your career than the lives of your comrades, and you’re willing to destroy another cadet for no other reason than following procedures and chain of command didn’t let you get your way.

  “Unless, was it out of concern for your commander’s safety? You just might want to leave, and run your mission, before you decide to continue this conversation with more snark and make yourself appear even worse.”

  Zane stormed out of the shack, and she took a deep breath. Then she saved off the last ten minutes and sent it off to Julie. Zane wanted leverage on her, and he was obviously going after a government secret protected by the secrecy act to do it. That’s the only reason she was giving Julie a head’s up on the problem. All the other glaring issues weren’t Julie’s problem, or inside the scope of intelligence to handle.