Old College Try

January-April, 476 IC, Odin

Yang woke late the next morning with the worst headache he had ever had in his life. It was partially due to his intense hangover, and partially due to the tender lump on the back of his head, which he poked at with clumsy fingers. He didn't think he had a concussion, just a nasty bruise.

He wished he could say that he didn't remember how he had gotten the bruise, but he remembered it with perfect clarity. In the cold, clear light of day, it didn't make any more sense than it had in the haze of the night before, though.

He took a long, cold shower until he couldn't stand it anymore, then returned to his room and began the tedious process of picking all the shards of broken mirror out of his carpet. Once it at least wasn't dangerous to walk around, he turned his attention to putting the rest of everything back in order: the books that had been knocked down, the unlucky papers that had gotten wine on them, his dress uniform that he had slept in.

Yang kept checking his phone, hoping that Reuenthal would text him, and he left his door ajar as an invitation, in case he walked by and wanted to come in, but there was no sign of him.

At dinner time, Yang went to the cafeteria and sat in his usual spot. He had brought a book to keep himself company, just in case he ended up eating alone, as he had during the beginning of the school year. But his mind refused to focus on the text, and his eyes slid over the pages without comprehension. He pushed his rice around with his fork dolefully and drank his oversteeped tea.

"May I sit here?" Reuenthal asked.

Yang jumped, not having noticed him approach. "You don't have to ask," he said, and closed his book.

Reuenthal sat down, but did not look at Yang directly. He didn't speak, just ate in silence for a minute or so. Yang didn't want to disturb him, so he did the same, looking down at his plate. Finally, Reuenthal spoke. "Last night," he said.

Yang took a breath to say something, but Reuenthal shook his head a fraction, and Yang stopped.

"Last night, I did something unbecoming of myself while under the influence. I apologize. It will not happen again."

"Reuenthal," Yang began.

"Von Leigh." His voice was as cool and professional as it had ever been. Yang hated this sudden change that had come over him. Even though they were in public, in the IOA cafeteria, Yang wanted to hear Reuenthal address him as Yang Wen-li, in the same tone he had used the night before. But that seemed to be a forbidden topic of conversation, now.

Yang looked down at his plate. "I accept your apology," he said, not sure if he should add that there was nothing to apologize for. He couldn't have even described what had happened if he tried. Had it even been improper? His thoughts churned like sea foam.

"Thank you."

From that point on, life returned to some semblance of normal. Classes began again, they continued to be friends, and they did not discuss the matter further. But there was an undeniable difference in the way that Reuenthal acted towards Yang. It was as though there was some kind of invisible barrier between them. Where before Reuenthal might have laid a hand on Yang's arm to point something out, or quietly reached over to fix Yang's bent collar, now he stood slightly away, as though they were two magnets repelling each other. Even in the hand-to-hand class that Yang continued to attend, Reuenthal stopped partnering up with him for exercises, going back to practicing with the higher level students and leaving Yang to flounder alone. They continued to eat dinner together, but Reuenthal was careful to never meet Yang somewhere alone and private. They were only ever together in public.

No one else seemed to notice this change, and Yang began to wonder if he was imagining it, but he knew he wasn't. He wished things could somehow go back to the way they were before, but there was no way for him to pull Reuenthal aside and ask him for that, because it wasn't something that could be put into words. And even if he could ask, there was the fear that Reuenthal would refuse. Yang had managed to break something, unintentionally, something he hadn't even known he had.

It was a terrible kind of loneliness, one that didn't make any sense. How could he miss Reuenthal, when Reuenthal was right there?

Winter turned slowly into spring, coming in with first cold rain and then warm, bright days with the smell of flowers on the wind. Yang had said it to Hilde Mariendorf just as a passing comment, but he was coming to understand that Odin really was a beautiful planet. He could understand why the Empire kept its seat here.

One warm April Wednesday, after GM'ing a war game in which Bittenfeld had been playing against Wahlen (Bittenfeld had lost, barely, because his early charge had been a little too successful, and he had gotten overconfident, allowing Wahlen to take him out), Yang and his little group of friends were sitting on the green. Bittenfeld was trying desperately to get Yang to take his side in the argument he was having.

"I GM'd the game," Yang said. "I think I would know if you deserved to win or not. You could have won, if you hadn't gotten careless." Yang had his head tilted back towards the sun, his arms stretched out behind him, propping him up.

"What do you think, Reuenthal?" Wahlen asked. "Should Bittenfeld have won?"

"I highly doubt it. But if you were on the verge of losing to him early, maybe you should drop a rank as well." There was humor in Reuenthal's tone.

"It seems borderline irresponsible for someone to deploy their entire brigade within the first thirty seconds of the game starting, without doing any preliminary planning or reconnaissance," Wahlen said.

"Clearly I didn't need either of those things," Bittenfeld pointed out. "That wasn't what caused my problem."

"It's amazing, the brain you have, that you can understand that you did cause yourself problems later, and yet still argue that you deserved to win," Reuenthal said.

Bittenfeld huffed. "Not all of us can be perfect."

"I've never once claimed perfection," Reuenthal said.

"I want to see you two go against each other again," Wahlen said, nodding at Yang. "It's been a while."

It was true that Yang and Reuenthal had not played a one-on-one war game against each other in months, though there had been a couple team exercises where they had been on opposite sides.

Bittenfeld snorted. "I don't think Staden wants Leigh to get a chance to dethrone the number one before the end of the year, since no one else would be able to beat you back and take the spot. It would look bad for the freshman class."

A mild pall fell over the conversation then, with Bittenfeld saying aloud an opinion that most people knew of, but felt was not tactful to admit. "I don't care about rank," Yang said. "I'm sure it would be more trouble than it's worth to be first. We can all be grateful that Reuenthal bears that burden for us."

Reuenthal chuckled. "Heavy is the head that wears the crown."

"Still," Wahlen said. "I want to see the matchup."

"You could force Staden to make you play each other," Bittenfeld said. "If you purposefully lost to someone else, then Leigh would be on top by default. He'd have to make you play so you could get the top slot back."

"Are you saying the only way you'd be able to beat me is if I let you win?" Reuenthal asked, and Bittenfeld made an offended noise.

"I never said I was talking about me!"

"Methinks he doth protest too much," Wahlen intoned. "It's fine, we're all just talking hypotheticals."

Bittenfeld was too grumpy to keep discussing it, so he changed the topic. "Have you all started thinking about your summer plans yet?"

“I’m going back to my family, down south.” Wahlen said. “My uncle runs a shipping company. If I have nothing better to do, I’m sure he’ll let me drive a truck.”

“What an elegant job for a top student,” Reuenthal said.

Wahlen laughed. “Until we graduate, ‘student’ is all the respect we get, which is not very much. I’ll take loading boxes and earning a paycheck over doing nothing. What about you?”

Reuenthal’s tone was guarded when he responded. “I intend to spend my summer in leisure. Perhaps I’ll wander about the countryside and empty my father’s liquor cabinet.”

“Sounds thrilling,” Bittenfeld said. “No childhood sweetheart you’re going home to catch up with?”

Reuenthal smiled his grim smile. “Oh, of course, Bittenfeld.”

“What about you, Leigh? Are you going back to Phezzan?” Bittenfeld leaned forward.

Yang had hardly considered his own summer plans, and had almost forgotten that summer break was a thing that existed. He scratched his head. “Er. No.”

“Not worth it for just the two months?” Wahlen asked.

“There’s nothing really there for me,” Yang said. “I guess I should try to…” He trailed off, scratching his head still. Nobody pressed him on it, but the conversation had brought up the subject in Yang’s mind, and he wasn’t sure what to do. He couldn’t stay in his dorm, so he probably had to get a job and sublet an apartment in the city, which sounded like an annoying set of tasks. He wished that the school term was year round, and that he didn’t have to go elsewhere.

After dinner that day, he and Reuenthal were walking back to the dorm. The air was the cool, fresh damp of any April evening, and the sky was mostly clear, leaving the first stars visible. Yang had his hands in his pockets, but he was feeling bolder than usual. “Hey, Reuenthal,” he said.

Reuenthal cocked his head to indicate that he was listening.

“About your summer…” Yang said.

“What about it?” There was a warning note of tension in Reuenthal’s voice, which almost made Yang stop, but he pressed on regardless.

“You don’t-- ah-- are there any places near where you live that I might be able to, uh, get a summer job? And sublet somewhere?” He clenched his hands into fists in his pockets, then tried to relax them.

Reuenthal turned to look at him slightly as they walked. “I’ll find you something,” he said.

Yang backpedaled. “Don’t go out of your way,” he said. “I was just-- if you knew off hand-- you know.” He ran his hand through his hair.

Reuenthal smiled at him. “Don’t worry about it.” In a voice that was a clear attempt at levity, though it fell short of its goal, he added, “I wouldn’t leave you homeless.”

“Thank you,” said Yang with genuine emotion.

May, 476 IC, Odin

It was the last week of classes before finals, which meant it was the last Wednesday practicum of the year. As Yang trooped into the building, Bittenfeld came up behind him and leaned his elbows heavily on Yang’s shoulders. “Guess what?” Bittenfeld asked.

“You’re breaking my back,” Yang said. “What?”

“I talked to Staden during his office hours yesterday.”

“Trying to save your grade?”

“Reuenthal’s bad manners are rubbing off on you,” Bittenfeld said. “No.”

“Alright, what did you talk to him about?”

“I got him to see the light. I convinced him to match you and Reuenthal up, just one last time.”

Yang ducked out from underneath Bittenfeld’s hold. “Why did you do that?” He was actually annoyed.

“Don’t you want to win?”

“Are you really that eager to see me beat him?”

“I think it would be funny. And you didn’t answer my question.”

“Why doesn’t anyone believe me when I say that I don’t care about rank, and that I prefer to GM rather than actually play the game?”

“Because you’re good at the game?” Bittenfeld said, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world. “And you’re still not answering the question.”

Yang frowned. “I don’t want to try to one-up him. He’s my friend.”

Bittenfeld snorted. “He might also think he’s your friend, but that doesn’t mean he would waste a second in trying to beat you, if it came down to it.”

“You have a low opinion of what Reuenthal’s friendship is worth.”

“On the contrary,” Bittenfeld said, “I think that’s an admirable trait. Besides, we’re friends, and you’ve beaten me in here…” He counted on his fingers as he recalled various defeats he had taken at Yang’s hands. “At least four times.”

“Not counting the team games?”

“Why would I count those? That wasn’t my fault.”

Yang laughed. “Okay.”

“Anyway, all I’m saying is that you’re getting one more chance, you might as well take it.”

“You didn’t have to engineer the situation, though.”

Bittenfeld smiled in his approximation of ‘angelic’, then clapped Yang on the back, hard enough to send him stumbling forward a few steps. “I believe in you.”

Yang shook his head, then entered the classroom. Immediately, he could feel everyone’s eyes on him. Apparently, Bittenfeld had not been particularly discreet. He slid into the seat next to Reuenthal, who leaned over to speak to him quietly. Their shoulders brushed, an unusual lapse in Reuenthal’s discipline, which made Yang smile.

“I heard an interesting rumor,” Reuenthal said.

“I did as well. Do you think there’s any truth to it?”

“I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.”

“Nervous?” Yang asked.

“About you? Never.” Reuenthal straightened, a hint of a smile on his face, and paid attention to the front of the room, where Staden was coming in.

Yang could hardly pay attention to the lecture, for once, and he kept tapping his pen on his paper, alternating between watching the clock and glancing at Reuenthal. Reuenthal seemed unaffected, sitting loosely in his seat with his legs stretched out before him, a veritable picture of confidence. When it came time to leave for their game seats, Reuenthal didn’t say anything, just met Yang’s eyes and smirked. On somebody else, it might have been an infuriating expression, but Yang found himself grinning back, against his better intentions.

Despite his earlier protests to Bittenfeld about playing, Yang was filled once again with the strange excitement that always came over him when he was faced with an interesting challenge. He knew Reuenthal’s way of working almost as well as he knew his own, and he knew that it would be a challenge to beat him, indeed.

Yang found out exactly how much of a challenge it was, though, the minute he sat down at his terminal and began to read his assignment. He leaned back in his chair and smiled.

They were playing out an imaginary scene from the beginnings of the Earth-Sirius war, ancient history from before the Goldenbaum dynasty. Reuenthal had the United Earth Government’s forces under his command, and Yang had--

Yang had to laugh. He had almost nothing. Nominally, his “forces” occupied a city, and he had control of the territory, but his forces amounted to a bunch of ill equipped ragtag bands, a few tanks, a few trucks, some stationary artillery defenses, and nothing else.

He didn’t have to send out scouts to surveil Reuenthal’s forces: the GM indicated that he could see them in orbit with the naked eye-- ship after ship after ship.

Yang had been set up to lose. Not only lose, but lose brutally, without a chance. One thing that stood out, always, when reading about the Earth-Sirius War, was the almost incomprehensible number of civilian casualties. Fleets had invaded cities, and started slaughtering civilians on sight. What was Staden thinking, putting Reuenthal in the historical position of enacting such brutality? And what was he intending for Yang to do?

Before he began issuing commands, Yang leaned back in his chair, folded his arms, and stared up at the ceiling. He collected himself. There were no civilians here, there were just numbers on a screen. He didn’t have to worry about actually preventing an atrocity. He didn’t have to worry about Reuenthal actually committing one.

He smiled. Actually, if Reuenthal wasn’t worried about atrocities, the battle would be over before it got started. Even if he didn’t have nuclear warheads on his ships, if he used a few of his ships as simple projectiles, accelerating them at the city by remote control, Reuenthal could wipe out the entire population. Yang would have absolutely no recourse against something like that. The fact that Reuenthal wasn’t doing that either meant he thought that keeping civilians alive was worth points in Staden’s eyes, or he was indicating to Yang that he was going to play fair.

If Reuenthal was going to play fair, that was all the better for Yang. It was an opening that he could use. But Reuenthal playing fair absolutely did not mean that he was required to do the same. After all, the deck was already stacked against him. He might as well do whatever he could.

There was not going to be any winning this fight. A city under siege, with no support coming, from a far more powerful enemy-- it would be physically impossible for Yang to win. But he could make losing hurt. He could even make losing hurt in such a way that it would both look and feel like a victory.

He typed out a question to the GMs. “How many civilians are in this city?”

“Ten million.”

“What’s the weather forecast for the next two weeks?”

“Temperatures in the 20°C range, heavy rain expected to last two days arriving next week.”

That was fine. “I want to address the civilian population. Broadcast on all radio frequencies that I can. I don’t care if the enemy hears it. In fact, it would be better if they did.”

“Message?”

Yang leaned back and considered exactly what he wanted to say. Reuenthal did love a touch of drama. Perhaps he should give him what he wanted. But then again, Yang had never thought of himself as much of a speech-giver. Maybe it was a good thing he was being set up to lose. He certainly didn’t want to be valedictorian and have to speak at graduation in a few years. Eisenach had the right idea. He was getting distracted.

Yang pictured himself standing in some dingy room, a basement, maybe, with a huddle of his compatriots around him (he couldn’t help but picture them as being people he knew: Bittenfeld and Wahlen and even Konev, though Konev had no right to be there). He held a microphone in his hands, trailing wires to a makeshift radio broadcast station. An expectant silence. Yang was really getting into the role. It was fun, in its own kind of way.

“This is a message to the people of this city,” he typed out, muttering it to himself under his breath. “Today, and in the coming days, we must ask ourselves one question: what is there in the world worth dying for? Many of us will have different answers to that question, but I can imagine what most of you will say.

“You will turn to your children, and you will hold them as tightly as you can. You will look into the eyes of your lover. You will place your body in front of your sister’s, your mother’s, your friend’s. You would make that choice, if you needed to.

“But you would not make that choice for a building, or a street, or a fatherland. You may love a building, but it does not love you back. You may recognize a street as your own, but to the street, you are only passing through. And it is the people who live within the fatherland who make it vibrant and worth protecting. These things are abstract, but people are not.

“If you know that you would not die over a piece of land, if you would only take up a gun to protect your brother, I beg you to leave now. Take what you can carry on your back, and leave this place. Do not stay.

“But to those of us who do stay, we must ask ourselves a different question: what do we have worth living for?

“Those of us who remain will fight. But we will not fight just to die. We must not be an army of martyrs. We must fight to live in peace, in freedom from tyranny, in the home that we love. If you remain here, you must fight to survive.

“I want us all to live to drink good tea tomorrow, and the day after that. That is all I ask for.

“To those who leave: go well, and do not look back. To those who stay: I am your brother, and this is our home, and we will live to keep it that way.”

And then the real work began. Yang confirmed that the people who would not be staying to fight were leaving, and then did his best to reorganize the rest, forming them into organized resistance units and posting them at key locations throughout the city. He delved deep into the city’s architecture, internally cursing the fact that since this city was not real, the maps and diagrams of its structure were both somewhat unrealistic and also incomplete. He described what he wanted to do to the GMs as best he could and just hoped that they would put it into practice.

The city had plenty of construction vehicles available. They were repurposed into weapons of war: slow tanks, but heavy, and with a machine gunner on top, a bulldozer could do real damage. He put those units on the streets.

He put people in the sewers, disguising the entrances and exits to underground areas, the tunnels that held the city’s power lines. His maps may have been incomplete, but Reuenthal had none. That was an advantage of playing defense.

He had the GMs tell him exactly what was left in the chemical plants and refineries on the outskirts of the city, and he determined with his limited knowledge of chemistry what exactly could be made to explode, or, at the very least, catch fire.

He made caches of food and supplies throughout the city.

He put snipers in as many windows as he could.

He told everyone to be on the lookout for mirror signals from the rooftops. He put message runners in the tunnels underground, asynchronous communications, messages left in caches, passed hand to hand.

He put dynamite in the stairwells of every building he thought the Earth forces might want.

He collapsed buildings on the outskirts, to block the roads in. He blew up bridges.

He made the city as inhospitable as he could to anyone who did not know it as well as they knew the face of their own mother.

And then Yang simply waited for Reuenthal to respond, which he did as soon as the column of civilians had moved their long and desperate march far enough away from the city. Reuenthal was a man of honor, after all. That had given Yang enough time to prepare.

Reuenthal clearly understood that Yang’s tactic going in was to make as much use of the landscape and the chaotic nature of asymmetrical warfare as he could. He also understood that the longer the conflict drew on, the worse it would be for him. So he came in hard and fast, trying to avoid Yang’s blockades of the city entrances by doing targeted airstrikes to clear buildings, then airdropping in troops, at the same time as his motorized units approached the city from the outside. In Reuenthal’s ideal plan, the two groups would form pincers that would meet up. He probably wanted the airdropped troops to be able to deal with insurgents in the buildings quickly, taking out snipers, ensure that there were no landmines or other problems awaiting the heavy armored vehicles that would slowly clear the rubble and enter the city.

Of course, troops like that were very vulnerable to the same things they were sent in to stop. One only could catch a sniper after first being sniped at, and the paratroops by necessity had little in the way of heavy weaponry. It was an odd choice on Reuenthal’s part-- in some ways, his troops and Yang’s were evenly matched. But it paid off over time when they were able to seize buildings and key intersections that Yang would have preferred to have blown up, if he had time. Without knowing what angle the armored vehicles were going to approach from, Yang hadn’t been able to close those key areas early, and the ground troops prevented him from doing so. So, although Reuenthal’s strategy incurred heavy losses in his initial wave, it also allowed him to have a foothold in the city, one that he might have taken far longer to gain if he hadn’t deployed those troops.

Reuenthal had perhaps been given some kind of edict to maintain city infrastructure, so he kept his aerial attacks limited, even though those would have been the most effective thing against Yang’s forces. Yang had no such compulsion. Reuenthal wanted this battle to be over quickly, but Yang dug himself in. Let him get impatient, he thought.

One key problem that made this kind of irregular warfare difficult in reality, and difficult for the GMs to simulate, was the lack of centralized command. Yang did his best to ameliorate that problem by having as robust of a signaling and message structure as he could. It wasn’t precisely realistic, but he was taking advantage of the falseness of the game. If no one was real, he could spend their lives without guilt. If the game was fake, he could play the GM’s instincts and limitations to his advantage.

So, even though his tactic was designed with chaos in mind, Yang was able to individually direct his insurgent troop movements, which was an advantage he shouldn’t have had. Imaginary people behaved so well and worked in such perfect coordination. He anticipated where Reuenthal would want to move his troops, and he countered with small squads converging from all directions.

The battle stretched on for weeks, more than a month of in game time. Class time, too, ticked along, but Yang was absorbed in the game enough that he hardly noticed.

Reuenthal had what felt like unlimited forces at his disposal, and Yang did not. Yang’s power was being reduced like one might empty a bathtub with a teaspoon: slowly, in drips and drabs, but surely. His forces, though highly mobile, ceded territory when they had to, and didn’t have the manpower to retake it.

Even still, he could practically feel Reuenthal’s impatience. With every building that Yang destroyed, or every street that he blocked off, it was perhaps a tick in his rubric against taking the city whole and sound. It would cost the victor a lot to make this place liveable.

This was the expected outcome. He smiled.

“I would like to make another radio broadcast,” Yang said to the GMs. “Do I have that ability still?”

“Yes.”

“Long ago,” Yang began, “I said that we were not an army of martyrs. Perhaps that was a misstatement: we were not an army at all. We started out with no uniforms, and we end with no bullets left. Hardly a standing army. But there are still enough of us alive who I would like to see avoid becoming martyrs.

“We were fighting for our city. Well, there’s hardly a city left to fight for.

“We were fighting for our friends and brothers. Well, it would be better to live to continue to be friends and brothers.

“We were fighting for our pride. And, in the end, what’s that worth? Not a life.

“To the enemy commander: I know that you have spent a lot to take and hold this patch of ground, far from your own home. For every one of us, we have killed five of you. We could draw this out until you have paid in blood for every last inch of street, every last brick. But what would be the point of that?

“I would like to meet, to discuss the terms of our surrender. You choose the place.”

Yang waited for a response.

“Are you surrendering? -GM”

“@GM, no, I’m discussing the TERMS of surrender. I want to get something out of this. Don’t end the game.”

Yang could practically feel the GMs roll their eyes.

“You receive a message from the enemy commander. He will meet you at this location.” A building flashed up on Yang’s map, one that was in an area that had been controlled by the enemy for a long time. Yang had given it up early, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t still have value.

He overlaid that map with a secondary one, his map of the electrical grid beneath the city, all those conduits and tunnels. It was such a simple thing, to send someone down there. He had avoided using the tunnels for destructive purposes thus far, in the hopes that Reuenthal wouldn’t think they were of strategic importance, or waste time mapping them out.

“I order all my above ground troops into a temporary ceasefire, and I walk to the meeting location.”

“You are meeting with the enemy commander. What are your terms?”

“I do not personally expect to be treated with mercy,” Yang typed.

“That’s not a term.”

Yang smiled. “I ask for a cup of tea.”

“You are given a cup of tea.”

“I drink it very, very slowly,” Yang muttered aloud. But he typed, “@GMs. Give me the timestamp compared to the estimated completion timestamp on my last combat order.”

“One minute.”

“I tell Reuenthal something profound about not being a martyr,” Yang typed. “Advance the clock, please.”

“The enemy commander says, ‘Have you decided what level you’re playing the game on?’”

The clock advanced. “Your last combat order has been carried out. The building at 27 Katchoi St. has been destroyed. You have died.”

Yang’s computer screen blacked out, and he glanced at the real clock on the wall. Four thirty. He cringed a little and gave an apologetic glance to the long suffering TA in the front of the room, who sighed loudly. He stood and stretched, feeling odd in his own skin after so long lost in the fantasy he had been creating. In a way, it felt more real than the hallway that he stepped into, waiting for Reuenthal to show up.

The door down the hall opened, and Reuenthal came out. He wasn’t smiling. “Congratulations on your win,” he said.

“I definitely didn’t win,” Yang said. “At best, I didn’t lose.”

“Staden wants to see you,” Reuenthal said, then jerked his head at the classroom he had just left. “Oh, and this is yours.” He pulled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Yang.

“What is it?”

But Reuenthal was already headed down the hallway.

Yang wondered if maybe he had gone too far. He had known that Reuenthal would probably be annoyed at him, for breaking the accepted rules of not attempting to assassinate the other side’s commander during a surrender. Still, the actual feeling of Reuenthal being annoyed at him was a distinctly uncomfortable one. He ran his fingers through his hair and then went into the other classroom, the one where Staden was waiting for him.

“What was that all about, von Leigh?” Staden asked immediately, no trace of patience on his face or in his tone.

“What do you mean, sir?” Yang asked.

“‘You would not make that choice for the fatherland,’” Staden quoted, misphrasing Yang’s earlier speech. “What kind of garbage is this?”

“I was playing a role, sir.”

“Gods above, von Leigh, I can’t have this in the class record. You’re going to be an officer in the Imperial Fleet.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I was just playing the game. I thought Reuenthal would think it was funny.”

“It’s not a game,” Staden said, standing up from his seat. “This isn’t for your amusement. It’s not for you to have inside jokes with Reuenthal. This is to teach you the rules of warfare.”

“May I speak candidly, sir?” Yang asked.

“Clearly you already have been.”

“If you were intending for me to learn the rules of warfare, you shouldn’t have had me play as an insurgent.”

“You made that choice yourself.”

“Reuenthal would have prefered if we were evenly matched.”

“This isn’t about Reuenthal. It’s about you.”

“Then what was the point?” Yang asked. “Was it to teach Reuenthal to fight against someone who had nothing to lose? Was it to teach me to be creative in an unwinnable circumstance? Was it just to stop me from taking the number one spot?” Lamely, Yang tacked on, “Sir.”

“Let’s get one thing clear, von Leigh. This stunt did not win you the number one spot.”

“I didn’t expect it to,” Yang said calmly. “Math may not be my strong suit, but I did look at the way rank is calculated. I know that class grades count for far less than the practicum, but considering that Reuenthal and I have the same score record in the practicum, and I take twice as many classes as he does, in which I earn high marks, the logic would bear out that I have the top spot. I do not, and I don’t ever expect to get it, no matter how much I win.”

Staden narrowed his eyes at Yang, who stood relaxed in front of him. “This will be marked down as a loss on your record.”

“I know, sir. Was there anything else you wanted from me?”

“Please take care to reread the scenario transcript before submitting your postmortem,” Staden said. His voice was cold as ice.

“I will, sir.”

Yang headed out. Bittenfeld and Wahlen were waiting for him outside the building.

“What did you do to Reuenthal?” Wahlen asked. “I’ve never seen him so… You know.”

“I lost to him,” Yang said. “Don’t worry about it.”

Bittenfeld shook his head. “Such poor manners from our number one. He could stand to win more gracefully.”

“Hopefully he’ll get over it,” Yang said.

Later, back in his dorm, Yang remembered the envelope that Reuenthal had given him. It had neat cursive on the front, and Reuenthal’s name and dorm address. The envelope was already open, so Yang took out the contents.

Oskar,

Of course I would be willing to host your friend for the summer. Any friend of yours is a friend of mine. Please give him the enclosed letter informing him.

And, while he is here, please do come and visit. I feel like I get to see you so rarely. I know you’re a very busy man, but surely over the summer you can spare some time. Please let me know. Hilde loves to see you.

Yours,

Amelie Mariendorf

The second letter, unsurprisingly, was addressed to Yang.

Dear Herr von Leigh,

I hope this letter is not too presumptuous, and that you remember making my acquaintance at my home on New Years. Our mutual friend, Oskar von Reuenthal, has informed me that you are looking for a place to stay over the summer break from the IOA, as you are not from Odin. I would like to extend an invitation for you to stay on my estate for the duration, as my guest.

My daughter, Hildegarde, greatly enjoyed your company when she met you. Even though she is young, I believe her to be an excellent judge of character. Your friendship with Oskar also speaks highly to your character and talents. I admit that this is partially a selfish request: if one of Oskar’s friends is staying in my home, he may be more inclined to visit.

Please consider accepting this offer in the same spirit it was given: mutual friendship and without reservations. I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Countess Amelie Mariendorf