“When embarking on a new operation it is important to properly brief your staff on the matter at hand. Do not leave out important details that may compromise the mission later on. Assess your plans and present it to them, for they may be able to provide input and know of anything they need to give sooner rather than later.”

-Officer’s handbook of the INF

“Congratulations on your promotion mate! We all need to go out for drinks now and use that new pay check of yours!”

Edward sighed, “And congratulations on both of yours...”

In front of him was David “Blackthorn” Andrews, his 2IC, and his communications officer, Alex Alonzo. David was still beaming from his little comment, his dark eyes lighting up in self-satisfaction on his pale face.

“And that’s a no on the drinks, its one round each as usual.” Edward continued,

“Aww come on, you have the money now!”

“And so do you, we’ve all been promoted.”

David sighed, eyes dimming under his cap. He was taller than Edward with short dark brown hair and was the only person he knew that actually gave himself an edgy nickname, and then made it stick. Mainly through his dark humour, eagerness in battle and his utterly merciless attitude to anyone disobeying orders.

While, right next to him Alex was sighing, their bright green eyes shining through their square glasses despite their utter despair at David’s usual rambunctiousness. Their skin was a lot darker than the other twos’ but was still an unhealthy hue from the lack of time in the actual sun.

“Can we get on with what we’re here for rather than berating Edward over drinks again?”

David sighed, “Canadians, such killjoys” playing up his southwestern British accent as he rolled his eyes, all in his usual exaggeration.

“Lieutenant Commander David, I think I agree with lieutenant Alex and we should stop wasting official time, we’re going to be off duty in a few hours anyway.” Edward said, his weary eyes locked onto David.

He sighed once again, moving to one of the chairs “Fine mate, go on, what did you want to tell us then- Whats that?” his eyes flashing to his medal box.

Edward’s hand snatched it off the table and stuffed it into a draw, “We’re not getting off topic again.”

“Fine, fine!”

Alex’s eyebrows raised, their eyes studying Edward’s face, “Well then, are we being sent off anywhere?”

“Unfortunately, yes, reading the first page of this should give you an idea.”

He placed a stack of stapled papers on the table, shifting straight across as the other twos’ eyes raced across the page, Alex’s eyes widening as they swallowed hard, meanwhile-

“By jingo! To war!” David yelled, his face turning into a massive grin as he practically jumped from his seat.

Alex whipped their head around, mouth agape “Wha- Is this really your first reaction!?”

“Of course, it is! You know me!”

“Yea- Well- Just why!? This is the revelation of a generation here and something that could shock the world! And you want to start laying on the orbital bombardments!?”

“Yeah,” David responded in a tone that suggested it to be completely self-evident. “I’m sure the railgun on the Comet could lay waste to a castle easily! We'd be in their capital a few hours after landing!”

“That,” Edward interrupted, “Is the other thing. I’m in charge of this op, and we’re all being transferred to a new fleet where you will a part of the admiral’s staff, my staff.”

“HOLY SHIT, BASED!?” David practically screamed, before coughing and settling down, “Well they could have sent a much better commander for that than you and uh- Do we have a battleship by any chance?”

Edward only sighed, of course his friend decided to put that in. “Well we have a Battle Carrier that is being built for the fleet, but won’t arrive until after the operation is expected to be finished. So all we will have are four destroyers of our Tribal class and a a few axillary ships."

“Is that it!?”

“Oh no, we have two light cruisers, and the first, only finished one the INCS Sheffield, is going to be our flagship.”

“You’re so smug about that aren’t you.”

Edward couldn’t hide his smile right now as he could only laugh in agreement, “And its commissioning soon and we’ll be taking it on a spin to our marshalling point.”

Alex however was still concerned and a little shaken from David’s outbursts, “B-but, where are the troops, we can’t take a planet with nobody on it, can we?”

Edward pointed back to the document, “We have some, but its bellow 10,000 troops in total and I fear that isn’t enough to take on a kingdom, especially with how little intelligence we have as of now.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“So we’re taking it by force!?”

“Not if my little gambit works.”

Alex’s eyes lit up again, “Your gambit?”

He scratched his freshly clean-shaven chin, “Well its more like just using the diplomats we have been given by telling them to do their thing. Just asking the kingdom to capitulate and subjugate themselves peacefully.”

David scoffed, “Well that’s a shit plan ain’t it? “hey, we just wanna take over you, could you just sign this piece of paper that says you hand over your land to us,” Its not exactly going to work is it? The king isn’t going to want it, and especially not the nobility!”

Edward’s eyes tried to look anywhere but at David as he coughed, “Well it’s a little more complicated than that and we will be offering them more than a back rub in return.”

“I’ll still be betting against it once I find someone to place a bet with...”

“Its still better than a war,” Alex said with a smile, “Isn’t it David?”

“Shut up. I want to shoot some knights with a MG42.”

“You are just a parody of a man, aren’t you?”

“Its not my problem if other people have a problem with me.”

Alex could only sigh once again, in what was still proving to be the most common response to David outside of a combat situation. David still proving to be the most reliable source of exasperation for them all.

“Though you mentioned a lack of intelligence,” David mumbled, a thought coming to the front of his mind, “That isn’t like command…”

“It’s because of hyperspace,” Edward answered, “the communications network in it hasn’t been setup yet and its proving difficult, so the only way to send messages are to have a ship or a messenger probe go there, upload the data and jump back. So command has decided we should pickup the data from the satellites they have posted there for ourselves.”

“Will we have any intelligence people onboard?”

“Errr… It seems not but the analysis should already be done by the infiltration agents who have been posted about the planet.”

“Woo! CIA sleeper agents.”

“Daivd, they’re not CIA.”

“Don’t ruin it.”

“Why do you always act like a child.”

“We’re all 25 here, we’re not exactly mature. Also,” David snapped his fingers, “I guess you’re the youngest Admiral yet in the service I think!”

Edward’s gut sank again as he filled that burden in another file in his head. Just great...

“I’m 24…” Alex mumbled,

“Nobody asked you,” David snapped back.

“Do you think that’s witty?”

“Its all fair between mates and by the way, yes, I do think I’m witty.”

They both looked at him for a moment.

“Well,” Edward muttered, “Sometime he-“

“Don’t fuel his ego more. Shush.”

----------------------------------------

Edward sipped a mouthful of hot tea from his flask while studying a document on his phone as he and David walked along the corridor. Their boots clanking on the floor.

“Now David, why are you bringing me to the shuttle bays? I hate surprises.”

David giggled, “Well I was looking through some ship manifests with my new security clearance,”

“And?”

“And I found there were some tanks being kept in the storage bay, in the central section of the station next to the shuttle bay.”

“Well, it’s a good job the cap on this is well sealed then…” he grunted, putting his phone away as they got onto the lift down to the central section, down through one of the struts on the large rotating habitation section they were in now. The lift descending down and down as the “gravity” felt weaker and weaker until they exited out of the lift. They barely felt anything as they exited out and into a tube in the central spine of the station.

“I always hate that transition.”

“There we are, something to agree on Edward!””

“Though, David, what sort of tanks did you say they were?”

“I dunno,”

“Well surely it said on the manifest and while sure, I am not complaining at all about seeing some tanks, I’m not sure why you decided we needed to see them.”

“They’re tanks, I don’t need any more explanation, nor do you.”

“Ok… Well fair enough. But you sure you saw nothing on what the tanks were? Are the Army’s new Defenders? Marine Thunderers? The earlier Tigers the marines had? Is it some kind of light tank.”

“Again, I don’t know mate.”

“You know we should have taken the spinal lift down, why did we take the workout route?”

David sighed, “Well it’s a workout!”

“Not when you’ve been stuck in centrifugal gravity ships for your entire career.” Edward retorted, “God I’m going to love the full artificial gravity of the Sheffield when we get on it.”

“Yeah but its cardio and arm day in one.”

“David, we fight aboard a spaceship with railguns and missiles that are effective from hundreds, sometimes thousands of kilometres away with some very good aim. Why in the absolute fuck do we need to do cardio!?”

“Well the enemy can’t push a button if you disable his hand!”

“You finally watched it!”

“Yeah!” David smiled as he looked back, “I feel inspired from it!”

“Oh, dear god… I’m not sure if I need to start making some emails over this-”

“What?”

Edward could only sigh as they continued onwards, finally exiting out and finding their way into the tight cargo bay were, sure enough with their IDs, they could enter and found two tanks there which Edward instantly recognised.

“Holy shit David! Its two fucking Defender mark ones! Brand new tanks straight off the production line! What on earth are they doing here!?”

“Hell if I know. They look cool though, come on, lets get closer!”

Edward’s wide eyes shot all over the thing. The thing was in a beautiful digital woodland camo, with it’s 130mm gun standing at attention.

“This must be one of the brigade’s tanks! Brought up so they can be transferred to something like a Striker class transport to bring them over…”

“Now, I know you love logistics and all sorts of ships but we aren’t talking about a cool battleship here, you’re going on about the transport.”

“So?”

“So focus on the tank, this big, beautiful thing right here!” David chuckled, floating onto the tank and grasping onto one of the hatches.

“Oh, it is a lovely tank, cassette style autoloader, battery powered, the latest generation of Chobham armour, hard kill active protection system and all of the advanced computers and optical systems you need. You know it has a four man crew even though it has a autoloader so the fourth crewmember acts as-“

“Edward, shut up. I know you have an engineering degree but shut up. We are floating in space next to a tank, just enjoy the childlike glee that comes from that.”

“But-“

“Please?”

“You never shut up when I ask you even though I’m a superior officer-”

“Sometimes I do.”

“How about you be quiet while you look at this too?”

“Fine.” David finally grunted as the two floated around the tank, tanking in all of the various details on it, Edward wishing he could take pictures of it to help paint models of it whenever they came out, but thought that it might break official secrecy laws. On that…

“David?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m not sure if we’re supposed to be here…”

“Well the door let us in.”

“But this is a different branch’s set of equipment.”

“I’ll take the blame for anything that we get in trouble for, alright?”

“And I’ll be sure to throw you under the bus then.”

“You cunt.”

“You offered to.”

“Well… yeah, I can’t argue with that… I guess I am going to be fucked then.”

They floated there for a few more moments in silence before David finally spoke again.

"You really think your diplomatic plan might work?"

"Well, I hope it will work."

"And you think our chances of fighting a country on a possible 1:3 or even 1:5 ratio will work."

"Well you said it yourself, they have knights, we have machine-guns as well as stuff like this lovely tank here..."