Colonel Aziz watched silently as Thunderbolt Battalion rained hell upon the Lifespring’s troops. Within the span of five days, Conrah’s forces had met incredible setbacks on the ground and low-air theatre, largely due to Thunderbolt’s presence. Unlike the East’s fliers, Thunderbolt was a force that traversed the entire lower airspace freely.

Such a feat was only possible due to discipline and long periods of training. If one who was used to watching Thunderbolt looked at the East’s own airborne forces, they would immediately notice a glaring lack of coordination and control. With such numbers, flying in close-knit groups like Thunderbolt was a recipe for collisions, accidents and friendly fire.

Therefore, the East’s Squires were restricted in movement. Most of them would be stationed in a single area, restricted from any large-scale movement. It was a wise choice, under all the constraints the sudden attack by the Lifespring had forced onto the Eastern Territories, but as a tactical…decision, it was severely underwhelming.

But every cloud had a silver lining, and Thunderbolt’s presence and feats had made the entire battalion more confident about themselves. He glanced at Charlie Company, who was holding position around him as the reserve force, and shook his head.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Aziz, “bored?”

“Very, sir.” Charlie’s commander, Captain Augustus, replied.

“Yeah, well,” said a soldier, “who knew that our commander who suck that hard at Skulls? We haven’t seen action for five days running, because he kept losing.”

“Who said that?” Captain Augustus asked irritably. “If you think you’re that good, why not step up and take my place? I’m also pissed with losing that many times!”

There was a moment of silence, one in which Aziz and Augustus looked around expectantly, but no one dared to raise their hand.

“See?” said Augustus. “It’s not my fault if you suckers don’t want to help your lousy commander. Go on, keep laughing at me.”

“Relax, soldiers.” Aziz folded his arms. “We’ll all be participating in Spring Fury. You’ll be crying for a rest then, so enjoy this lucky break while you can.”

“Sir, Spring Fury is in two days’ time, right?” Augustus asked. “Do we have our marching orders from the East already?”

“Not yet,” Aziz replied, “but the marshal told us that they should be sent down by tomorrow. It seems that there are some conflicts regarding our presence, but none of them should be particularly serious. So you’ll get to spill your fair share of guts out, although you guys should really tone down your aggression.”

“We’re soldiers, Sir, not wimpy schoolkids that’ll cry at the first sight of blood,” Augustus replied curtly.

“Hmph. If you say so, then.” Aziz closed his eyes. The Lifespring’s ground forces were being butchered by Thunderbolt, who was dealing more damage and casualties per person than any other in their current theatre. It wouldn’t take long before the battle ended — like the East, Conrah treated the land battles as the main battleground. Once his ground troops were obliterated, the others would retreat shortly afterwards.

As to why that was the case, Aziz and Marie only had theories, none of which would probably pass muster when scrutinised by the trained eye of expert war-makers. The best they had agreed on was that the airborne troops were still treated as a supportive element, rather than an occupying one, although the brains back in the Republic would probably have a few choice words to say about their theory.

Aziz opened his eyes as the sounds of a few hundred windstreams entered his ears. Thunderbolt Battalion was back from its routine task of culling mobs, and as usual, casualties were non-existent.

“You’d think that the Lifespring would have learnt to use some ranged weapons by now,” Marie said.

“Welcome back, ma’am.” Aziz saluted, before breaking into a grin. “How were the others?”

Marie winked, and then raised her voice. “Well, I suppose there’s more practice needed for high-speed turns and U-turns. Maybe we’ll have one this afternoon, instead of our usual practice duels.”

A groan ran through the assembled battalion as her words echoed through the air. No one, however, was dumb enough to blame another company for their failings — the last time they tried that, Aziz had cracked down harshly on the offender. Instead, the soldiers began to make googly eyes at Marshal Marie, hoping that she would be amused enough to spare them from a boring drill.

“Can’t help it, ladies and gentlemen,” Marie replied. “As you all know, Spring Fury is upon us, in less than forty-eight hours from now. I don’t want to carry bodies all the way back to the South. Surely, you wouldn’t want me to cry, right?”

“And there you have it,” said Colonel Aziz. “Good job out there today, but practice and drills are what kept you guys the best troops in this warfront, and we aren’t going to stop that. You guys are irreplaceable.”

Marie clapped her hands. “Everyone’s dismissed. But be back here at three in the afternoon. We’ll be conducting drills all the way until midnight. Am I clear?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Their combined reply, one full of spirit, drew awestruck looks from all over the defence line, and Marie nodded in approval. “Excellent. Go, get some rest and good food.”

“You’ve grown a tad soft, marshal.” Aziz watched as the companies began to organise their own lunch.

“You think?”

“I expected a full-day drill,” said the colonel.

“We’re on a vacation trip,” Marie replied. “Pushing them too hard won’t help either.”

“True. And if they want to defect — not like they’ll defect from you — the Plenum would be very welcoming of such experts.” Aziz tapped the Straight Shot hanging at his side thoughtfully. “And besides, it wouldn’t look good on us if we were to try someone for treason.”

The Radio hanging off Marie’s shoulder crackled, and the marshal frowned slightly as a couple of instructions rolled off it.

“New instructions,” Marie said grimly. “Afternoon drills has been suspended. We’ll be carrying out an exercise to simulate Spring Fury at night later on. And…Gaius will be there. This will be our best opportunity to observe him from an operational standpoint.”

“Judging from the lack of giant floaty balls of death,” said Aziz, “I think he’s been shifted to a different role, however.”

“We’ll see.” Marie glanced at the dispersing troops of Thunderbolt. “Disseminate my new orders, and then get some rest.”

She held up a finger, and Aziz held his tongue. “That’s a command.”

“Y-yes, ma’am.”