“Ya gotta love it,” Gerson Tao said, collapsing theatrically on Van Krief’s bunk. The ensign was larger than most of his class, if not of the massive stature of their instructor, and while he kept up with the studies, he was never going to make honor graduate. “Come up with three alternates to a campaign I’d never heard of before today?”

“Two campaigns,” the ensign said. “And get up, you’re ruining my dressing.”

“Well, excuse me,” Tao said, getting up and expertly tightening the blue woolen blanket on the bunk. When he was done a bronze chit would bounce off it.

“Hmmm,” the female ensign said, picking up a book and leafing through the pages until she got to a map. “I read the alternate plans in here somewhere…”

“What?” Tao replied, sitting up as the door opened. “What is that?”

“Mo,” Ensign Asghar Destrang said, walking into the room without knocking. The ensign was a tall, elegant young man with sandy hair and an abstracted manner. But the three had sparred enough to know that while he did not have Tao’s mass he was lightning quick. And all the thoughtfulness he gave to his studies came out when he had a sword in his hand. “I’m reading about the Myanmar campaign…”

“Is that Defeat Into Victory?” Van Krief asked, not bothering to look up. “Read it.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Destrang said with a grin. He was a thin young man, just starting to get his full adult form. But his forearms were corded with wiry muscles and like the rest he moved with a confidence that was sometimes belied by his abstracted frown. “What have you got?”