Captain Ezekiel Short sat in his office sorting through the larger-than-normal pile of paperwork. With Major Holliday's abrupt departure, the administration of the 303rd Steam Cavalry fell solely to him, and Zeke was feeling the extra workload after four days.
“Ugh, for Rahm's sake . . . more requisition forms? How does he deal with all of it?”
“Sir?”
Zeke looked up. Corporal Attley was standing in the doorway, carrying a stack of large envelopes.
“Oh, you've brought me more paper. Lovely. Thank you so much, Attley.”
“Sir?” The young officer hesitated halfway across the threshold of Zeke's office.
“Sarcasm, Attley. Sarcasm.”
“Ah, yes, of course sir. Would you like it on the desk?”
“Where else, Corporal?”
Attley deposited the stack of mismatched envelopes on Zeke's desk and made to escape the room.
“Corporal!”
Attley turned back to face Zeke. “Yes, sir?”
“Tell me, was humor outlawed in Slate's unit?”
“Not that I'm aware of, sir.”
“I see. Dismissed, Attley.”
The young man saluted and fled from the room. Zeke sighed again and looked back at his desk, speaking to himself. “What are we going to do with you, Attley?” He picked up the nearest piece of mail and tore it open.
It read:
"From: Maj. Holliday, 303rd Steam Cavalry
To: Cap. Short, 303rd S.C.
Zeke -- captain of Hermite seems competent. Orders seem clear enough. Should be an easy assignment. I seem to have misplaced my travel compass -- can you ask around?"
Zeke frowned. “Not like you, writing just to say hello, Isaac.” He turned over the next letter. It was another thin envelope, resealed and with a hand-scrawled note on the front. “Let me know that you've gotten this. -H.”
He slit it open. Inside, the letter read:
"Dearest Helen,
I arrived in Moorehead safely, so don't worry about me. The train ride was a bit rough, but not too bad. This assignment should be a peach -- they tell me it comes from high up but I don't know where.
Give my love to the children, and let them know their favorite uncle will be back soon from Saint Marcos.
As always, your brother,
Isaac"
“Oh, this is not good. Isaac, did you get yourself in trouble already?” The greeting, “Dearest Helen,” was a sign from Isaac that he was really trying to contact Zeke. It was a system they'd been using since their earliest days in the Academy, invented to circumvent some of the institution's more troublesome rules. Isaac hasn't used it in a few years, but the meaning was clear.
Zeke compared the two notes beside one another. It took a careful eye to notice, but part of the first had clearly been rewritten by an expert. He held it up to his desk lamp, but the original message had been totally obliterated.
“Hmm.” He picked up Isaac's letter to his sister again. “What are you worried about, Isaac? The assignment? I thought it came from Agincourt . . . usually there's no trouble there.” He thought for a minute. “Whatever it is, someone in central command is rewriting his mail. I need to talk to the Colonel. Corporal -- !”
Attley reappeared in the doorway. “Sir!”
Zeke scribbled a memo, ripping it off a pad on his desk. “Take this message to Command. I need to see Colonel Agincourt, at his earliest convenience. Understood?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Dismissed.”
Attley dissapeared once again, and Zeke continued working through the stack of papers. A few minutes later he uncovered a thick white envelope, sealed with red wax just as Isaac's orders had been. Inside was a thick bundle wrapped in waxed paper. Zeke tore it open and read the contents with increasingly raised eyebrows. After a second pass through the official document, he got up from the desk and headed downstairs.
The 303rd steam cavalry unit did not have a standard barracks like most units of the Cimbrian military did outside of Oberon. They weren't garrisonned at the palace, either, with the Royal Guard, or at the defense complex with the Central Command garrison. Instead, the 303rd occupied a converted warehouse on the outskirts of the harbor district. The wide expanse of flat dirt inside the building served as an ideal testing ground for the prototype cavalry units that were delivered to the loading dock in large wooden crates. A variety of obstacle courses and challenges had been erected, as well as a wide ring where pilots could spar (often to the dismay of concerned engineers).
Zeke's booted feet clattered down the metal ladder from the offices above. The floor was quiet today – last week the 303rd had been testing a pair of Asfarian mounts, captured in the Thyrennian campaign, and as soon as they were finished with the official analysis the pilots had gleefully dueled the two units into scrap in the sparring ring. It had been a slow week since Isaac's departure.
“. . . no lateral controller!”
“Are you serious?”
“Dead serious. They used a D-ring linkage with no lateral controller. I'd rather take an old 37 onto the field than that piece of junk.”
“Maybe Gabe had ripped it off already when he beat you the first time!”
This last statement was met with widespread laughter. The remaining seven pilots of the 303rd were sitting in a rough circle made of old crates and barrels of lubricating oil. Two of them were sitting at a chessboard, while another was doing pull ups at a bar mounted to the wall.
“Oy there, officer on deck!”
Five men and two women scrambled to their feet. “At ease, you numbskulls.” said Zeke. “We got orders.” He began tacking a series of pages to the cork bulletin board. “Another rush job.”
“Seriously?” There was a shuffle of feet towards the board. “Ah, man, babysitting.”
“Of all the luck . . .”
“The Major gets a paid vacation, and we pull ceremonial duty.”
“Cripes, tonight? Really?”
Zeke nodded. “We meet at the army railyard at 1800. Someone go roust the mechanics, we'll need the S86's ready for transit in two hours. Bring full dress uniforms, too; we'll need 'em where we're headed.”
“Where's that, Captain?”
“Listeria.”
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