Three Weeks Later, First Day of Class. 09:45 Armstrong Building, Main Lecture Hall

Advanced Delegation Tactics was quite possibly the most boring and redundant class John had taken. It was all but impossible to pay attention to. John spent the lecture reading through the book. He resolved to write the three papers that were due later in the semester during the class.

Kristin noticed John’s discomfort and snickered at it. She would later agree with John’s opinion on the class. Though she would disagree that it had little to offer. While the material was extremely dry it provided the cadets an understanding of why work should be delegated and more importantly how.

She did note that John did most of these things already. They were generally as good or better than the book illustrated too. For her though the class was going to be an important class. John would just have to suffer through it.

“Homework assignments can be found in the Dropbox assigned to this class. The first one is due on Thursday,” their professor said, “With that, you are dismissed.”

John slowly bent over and rested his head on the terminal in front of him. Kristin rolled her eyes. Other cadets noticed his reaction.

“Problem Lief?” Richard asked.

“Most boring class ever.”

“Let me guess, you already did all of that?” Patrice asked dismissively.

“Mhmm,” John mumbled.

“Must be rough for you,” Patrice continued with his annoying tone.

“You have no idea,” John pushed himself off the desk and turned to face Patrice, “How was the inquest?”

“Meh. They asked me what I thought of your request, which was insane by the way,” Patrice shook his head, “But try as I might talk myself out of it if you were right and we could help then we ought to be there.”

“Seeking glory, eh?” John smirked.

“We share in it if your right, if not you get to explain to our liaisons why you pulled in extra ships to Jupiter.”

“Fair point.”

“Did anyone do any simulations if we were in destroyers?” Sophia asked.

John nodded, “It wouldn’t have been pretty. With three destroyers we’d have bought fifteen minutes and two would be destroyed. Four would stall them out until friendly reinforcements arrived, but we’d likely lose two. The only way not to lose a ship would be to have at least six destroyers.”

“We wouldn’t have been able to pull that off,” Kristin said quietly.

“I doubt you could have gotten four,” Richard said.

“Three was what Kevin and I figured was our most likely situation. Four would be the best case, though unlikely.”

“Good thing we were in corvettes,” Kristin said.

“Two of them are getting scrapped. Two of them were pubic hairs away from being blown up. We got supremely lucky, hopefully, next time we don’t need the luck to live through things,” John said.

Patrice leaned back in his chair and thought about that. Had that rail round struck their vessel at a different angle, it could have pierced the main power conduit or the core itself. In either case, the ship would have exploded, killing her occupants.

That didn’t just apply to Patrice’s vessel. John had counted no less than five rail rounds that were dangerously close to striking the Memphis. The cadets quieted down and contemplated their mortality and how close they were to losing it all.

19:00 Lounge

The group was quietly doing some homework. Well except for John, he was trying to find something interesting on TV that evening. Eventually, he settled on college intra-mural ultimate frisbee. John watched the athletes for a short while.

“I could do that better than they could,” John said quietly.

Kevin didn’t look up, “Of course, you could.”

The rest of the group chuckled a bit, but then refocused on the work at hand. John then began working on the idiotic, in his not-so-humble opinion, class. His goal was to be done with the class by the end of the week. Unfortunately, his attendance in that class was still required.

John was asked a few questions, which was something that was relatively new since his friends hadn’t used him as a walking encyclopedia. He gave them the answers to the ones he knew. Kevin thought he was being funny as hell when he asked about specific engineering questions.

This went on for about thirty minutes when John received a call, “John Lief, we don’t know one another. Are you in a room with no one else in it?”

John sighed loudly enough for his friends to take notice, “No and I’m not going to leave this room. But give me a moment.”

John reached into his backpack and pulled out a small case. He opened up the grey case and pulled out one of the earbuds stored within. As he powered it on, he clicked a couple of buttons on his tablet.

“Ok, it’s encrypted now. Who are you and what do you want?”

“Straight to the point. Excellent. My name is Lukas Schmidt, Vice-Director of Intelligence for the Alliance Military.”

“Uh-huh. I believe you,” John said dismissively.

“Fair reaction. In either case, my director has greenlit releasing this intel. You should have received it.”

John looked at noticed that he had received several files. He scrolled through them and opened one of them. A shrug came over him, John closed the file.

“Care to paraphrase or give me the cliff notes of all this.”

“We’re trying to avoid a war. We believe in blunt honesty and a willingness to hand over all those involved in the planning of the attack.”

“Understandable. Why me?”

“Because you appear to be the hero of the day. Your words may curry favor with the admiralty.”

“So, who do you want me to send this information to?”

“Your intelligence division for a start. Possibly your commandant at the academy. There will be a transport that will be waiting on our side of the border near the Free Trade Station.”

“Alright. Anything else you want to say?”

“While it didn’t look like it, the chain of command legitimately didn’t know about this. It was largely a civilian op with some malcontents in the military that got recruited. We do not want a war.”

Lukas ended the call. John shook his head and swore under his breath. He skimmed the documents that were sent. The tablet was dangling in his hands, John didn’t know whether or not this was some sort of false flag operation or not.

Despite his misgivings, John forwarded the information to his contact in Naval Intelligence. John would review the information because his obsessive-compulsive nature would compel him to do so, but others would need to make the decision on what to do with the intel.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“What was that about?” Kevin said without looking up from his book.

“Standard bullshit that I’m trying to stay out of.”

“Same shit, different day, eh?” Andern said, “Good fucking luck staying out of it.”

The group started to chuckle, but the laughter died off quickly. They had a hellish amount of homework that was required of them this semester. There was very little conversation until the curfew alarms alerted the cadets of what time it was.

“Holy fuck, it's 22:00 already?” Nathan said.

“This semester is going to suck balls,” Andern said, “No offense you two.”

“Agreed, and none taken,” Thomas said smirking.

23:30 Co-Ed Dorm

Alice went straight to bed when they got into the room. John got a quick good-night kiss on the cheek before she crawled into bed. She had been sound asleep for over an hour. John on the other hand was engrossed by reading these documents.

The Alliance’s assembly had well over two thousand elected to it, but only five hundred needed to be present to call it into order. That seemed like a criminally low number to kick things off to John. Irrespective of his feelings, the push for a war against the Confederacy had been growing in recent months with the civilian government.

This fringe group was far from a majority of voices, even with the minimum number of members present. But it was growing slowly as the weeks went on. The justification they had presented in oral arguments was laughable but were similar to the tried-and-true ones that governments on Earth had used in its ancient history.

“Mu Arae system, what the fuck do they want with that border system?” John asked quietly to himself.

On the other screen, John pulled up the system. One moon and roughly Earth-sized planet were comfortably habitable. One other moon and the world had atmospheres but were toxic to breathe. Both were included in a list to terraform in the future.

New Auckland was an Earth-like planet. She had a population of less than twenty million. The colony was fully self-sufficient and had an agrarian focus. That was despite the relative harshness of the climate. Dragonfruit and several local fruits were the main exports.

John pulled up a wide variety of statistics on the system. The asteroid belts were no better or worse than any other system. New Auckland was systemically targeting the asteroids that were rich in precious metals. Smart management of void mining had helped the colony pay off all of the loans associated with its creation. The three gas giants weren’t great sources of Helium-2 either.

And it wasn’t a tactically relevant system. It was a bit off the beaten path. Pirate attacks were rare to non-existent. Even they didn’t want to go, or couldn’t be bothered to go to, the ass end of the galaxy and start trouble there.

“What the hell do they want with that world? It can’t be for agriculture. There are six worlds that are better along the border. Two of which would be easier and faster to get to.”

Irritation with the seemingly irrational desire to acquire this system grew in John. He stood up and walked over to the kitchenette to fill his glass with water. He took a drink and then walked back to his chair and sat down.

“Think John, they are saying they want it for the agricultural industry set up there, but what else is there?”

John then pulled up a summary of what could be found in the asteroid belt. It was a standard asteroid belt. A whole lot of useless rock was present. Beyond that, it had a high amount of platinum group metals.

Then John reviewed ceramite’s chemical formula. John plugged in some figures and compared the ratios of this system and compared it to all others on record. It was in the top ten percent of all scanned worlds. And the only world reasonably close to the Alliance.

“Sneaky bastards. Seems like a pointless exercise though,” John said to himself.

The Alliance’s supply chain to get everything together for ceramite production was admittedly far more complicated. This one system could increase their efficiency ten-fold. But it’s just ceramite, trying to acquire the system just because of that seemed reckless. And it didn’t fully solve the supply chain issues, they would still need to mine the minerals there then ship them back to refineries in a more secure space.

John decided to forward his findings to his contact and then pulled up another report. This one had a detailed analysis of the surviving members of the conspiracy to start this war. He smiled when he saw some of the names and corporations on the list.

“Well then, treason may be in play now. That should speed up prosecution.”

Many of these people were related to, or had connections, to the thousands that were arrested earlier in the year for smuggling military equipment. Though where everything went and who actually has things hasn’t been fully determined. John decided to send this information to the prosecution and Naval Intelligence. If nothing else, they can use this as a cudgel to speed up plea bargains. Or put the death penalty back in play for those that were really involved in the conspiracy.

John decided that was enough for the night. He would take another look at things tomorrow. For now, he wanted to get some rest. Tomorrow would be every bit as busy as the previous day had been.

Saturday. 16:45 Cafeteria

The cadets had changed out of their dress uniforms and into something more. The Navy football team eked out a win over the University of Minnesota. The general mood, after just two games, was that they weren’t likely to make it to a bowl game.

“You know, I was really hoping that we’d be good this year,” Nathan said.

“We have two wins though,” Kristin said.

“Yeah, but we’re playing like crap. Once we get into the conference schedule…” Thomas let the sentence hang.

“If we finish the out of conference slate without a loss, we only need two wins against the dregs of the conference. I bet it’s doable. Beyond that though, I don’t see it,” John said.

“Well, we can hope and keep going to games. This is our last season,” Alice said smiling.

“Be nice if the damned food was ready,” Andern said sarcastically.

“Hey John, so what was up from earlier this week?” Brian asked.

“Fallout from the attack. Sent it on to intelligence. Honestly don’t want to deal with that bullshit anymore.”

Alice laughed, “Says the guy that stayed up late three nights this week researching it.”

John shrugged, “I had to read through everything.”

The group laughed. They kept chatting until dinner was served minutes later. It was chicken parmesan night. The girls looked unimpressed. While they were slowly getting ready to stand up and move to the line, the boys had already gotten up and jogged over to the line.

After the meal was done the cadets got up and headed to the lounge. Today was a homework-free day, to the great enjoyment of all. John got to the doors and pulled open the left door and locked it in place. Andern did the same to the right. As the others began piling in John’s tablet began ringing.

“John here.”

“We don’t know one another,” the voice said.

“Clearly. Dare I ask who you are?”

“I’m Agent Voss. I work for the Mercantilist Intelligence Bureau.”

“Wonderful. Another fucking spook. So, who did I piss off this time?” John said dismissively as he walked into the room.

“Look, my superiors are pissed that Norman went off the rails again.”

John laughed, “Kinda happens when I reject his advances and then frag one of his kids or test subjects.”

The room got quiet, and everyone turned their attention to John. Alice mouthed ‘who’s that?’ but John just shrugged. Andern threw his bag and pumped his fist as he dragged a bag that was dangling over the hole in. The others shook their head at him.

“Norman’s sent a couple of assassins your way. And he’s spending crazy dollars to get the girl woken up.”

John cocked his head a bit, “Interesting, I knew the backlash would be devastating but that she’s still comatose is interesting. I suppose I have to thank you for that morsel of data. And thank you for letting me know some assassins are out there for me.”

“You’re welcome, but I’m not done bearing bad news. We’re well aware of your heroics during the recent battle. We have it on good authority that a disgruntled, and now arrested, intelligence chief from the Alliance also sent a kill squad to you.”

“Cool. You know I think I’m going to ask to be normal for Christmas this year. Think that’ll happen?”

“I… Uhm… I don’t know how to respond,” Agent Voss was clearly confused, “Dr. Norman’s faction is fanatical to his cause. We can’t reign them in anymore.”

“Here’s a helpful hint. Reach out to Naval Intelligence and I’m sure, with your government's consent, we would be happy to come in and eliminate that asshole for you. I doubt we’d even send y’all a bill for the favor,” John smiled but paused, “Don’t quote me on that. That’s a decision way over my paygrade.”

“I’ll talk to my superiors about that. Keep your head on a swivel. I know the kill team we hired will be planetside in a matter of days.”

The call ended abruptly. John sighed deeply. Alice was about to ask him a question but John, rather rudely, held up a finger to shush her. That action would later come back to bite him in the ass. He scrolled through his contacts and called Director LeCroix, who answered the call very quickly.

“Director, thank you for taking my call. It’s been a while since we’ve chatted.”

“Yes, it has John, how can I help?”

John paused, “Well, supposedly there are two kill teams out for my head. One from the Alliance and another from the Mercantilist Union. Dr. Norman’s faction appears to be stirring up shit again.”

“We were aware of the Alliance team, but the hired team hasn’t left Alliance space. We don’t believe they are coming for you. I’ll order a counter-espionage team to be on the lookout.”

“Just sent you the recording. Agent Voss was the Mercantilist Intelligence Bureau was the dude that contacted me.”

Director LeCroix was about to say something but paused, “We’re aware of him. He received a demotion recently.”

“Likely because of the Manchester op. He probably bowed out before getting back to Norman, I doubt very much that asshole would’ve let him leave alive.”

“Good guess. We’ll be in touch.”

With that LeCroix ended the call abruptly. John looked very miffed at the end of the call. He turned to face his friends.

“A goodbye or something would’ve been nice.”

“Why the hell did you shush me? That was rude as hell you asshole,” Alice said frowning.

“What? I was on the phone. And all I want is to be fucking normal.”

Andern started to laugh, “You wouldn’t know normal if someone slapped your face with a salmon filet.”

“What?” John turned to Andern and wore a thoroughly confused look on his face.

“Dude, normal people don’t slap other people with salmon,” Nathan said equally confused.

“Yeah, you heard me.”

“No, see, it’s not normal to get slapped in the face by a salmon,” Andern said to the group.

“Agreed. You’re an idiot too by the way,” Thomas said shaking his head.