The door to the room opened softly and a young female private entered and popped to attention.

“Captain Herrick,” she squeaked nervously, “the general wants to see you at… at your…”

“Earliest convenience?” the instructor asked with a slight grin, wiping his hands again.

“Yes, sir,” the private replied.

“The commandant?”

“No, sir,” the private said, biting her lip, “Duke Talbot, sir.”

The instructor paused and then turned on one heel to the fascinated ensigns.

“Class,” he snapped. “Your assignment for tomorrow is to examine the Inchon landing and the Nipponese attack on Myanmar in the Axis-Allies War. Come up with at least three viable alternatives for each. Be prepared to defend your alternatives. Attention!” He waited until the group had snapped to the position of attention then looked around at them.

“What’s our motto, boys and girls?” he sang out.

“No plan survives contact with the enemy!” the class shouted in unison.

“And who are we?” he asked.

“THE ENEMY!”

“Dismissed.”

With that he marched out of the room.

* * *

Megan “Sung” checked the level of liquid in her “waste” retort and shook her head. She had had enough material for her plans for months, had had to, carefully, dispose of the excess, but just kept building it up. She knew how to kill Paul, but she wasn’t sure what to do after that.

Megan had been sixteen when an old traveler found the tall, lithe, pretty, if rather dirty and underfed, young brunette washing clothes by the side of a Ropasan stream. She had helped the old man across the river and the next thing she knew she was here, wherever “here” was, in the harem of Paul Bowman, head of the New Destiny faction of the Council of Key-holders.

Things had initially been… tough. The senior female in the harem was Christel Meazell, one of the women with whom Paul had had a child prior to the Fall.