Prologue: The Eve of a Long Vacation
The day before their long vacation was set to begin, Colonel Tachyon gathered the ship captains who had supported his incompetent battalion commander throughout the war for a modest drinking party.
As the drinks flowed and refilled, they reminisced about the dizzying moments they had faced and paid tribute to their fallen comrades. Then, after a brief pause, a plaintive voice cut through the warm atmosphere.
“Commander, what am I really supposed to do?”
The war that had never granted them a single moment of rest had finally ended. The day they would return home was right in front of them, yet Freesia’s gloomy expression refused to brighten.
“I really don’t know anything at all.”
Colonel Tachyon shook his head as he looked at Freesia, who was about the same age as his own daughter. Unlike himself—a perpetual lieutenant colonel who had only earned his colonel rank right before retirement in the special circumstances of war—she was a talented young subordinate who had climbed the ranks at a dazzling speed.
In the old days he might have felt a twinge of jealousy, but with his discharge just around the corner and the long-dreamed-of promotion to colonel finally secured, he could only offer a warm chuckle.
“I taught you everything worth teaching, didn’t I? Besides, it’s just adding a few more things to what you’ve already been doing. There’s nothing to it for a battalion commander.”
“I learned it all in theory. But isn’t theory supposed to be tested in practice? I honestly don’t know the first thing about any of this. And are you sure it’s really just ‘a few more things’?”
At her repeated grumbling, Tachyon gave a wry smile.
“How old are you this year, again?”
“Wow~. We’ve spent two whole years together and you don’t even know your vice commander’s age?”
“You just wait until you reach my age. Everything turns hazy.”
“I can barely remember what I learned yesterday. Anyway, I’m thirty-four this year.”
Thirty-four.
It wasn’t an especially young age, nor was it particularly old. But when one considered the rank insignia gleaming on Freesia’s epaulets, it was far too young. Most officers in the space forces reached major in their mid-thirties. The quicker ones might manage it in their early thirties. Yet the insignia on Freesia’s shoulder was that of a lieutenant colonel. A rank normally earned after forty had been pinned on her at the tender age of thirty-four. The special circumstances of war had helped, of course, but it was still remarkably fast.
Just as she said, she was at the age when she should have been learning the fundamentals of battalion command after a recent promotion to major and a move beyond company level. Instead, she was suddenly responsible for running an entire battalion. No wonder she was flustered.
Over the past two years as vice commander, she had gained flawless proficiency in ship handling and combat command through real warfare rather than simple pirate suppression. But everything else…
Naturally, Tachyon had his reasons. On a front line that changed by the hour, he had been forced to focus on ship operation and combat command to ensure the unit’s immediate survival. As a result, the administrative and operational aspects of running a battalion had been endlessly postponed. Only after the war ended had they rushed to patch the gaps with theory alone.
“There’s also the Commanders’ Collective Training, so don’t worry too much.”
Freesia’s face soured at Tachyon’s offhand remark as he turned his head slightly.
“Isn’t that just a networking event for newly promoted lieutenant colonels?”
Tachyon said nothing and quietly refilled the empty glasses. So it really was a networking event.
“Still, it’s good that you got promoted. Would you hand back your lieutenant colonel insignia if you stepped down? Because I’m never giving this back.”
“W-well, that’s not exactly…”
When Major Nicola, the second adjutant who had also been promoted, asked if she would return the insignia, Freesia trailed off with an awkward mumble. She had no intention of giving up her hard-earned rank, even if she hadn’t properly learned how to run a unit. How could she return something she had obtained at such cost?
“Then hand it over to me. I’ll be the battalion commander. Lieutenant Colonel Predic. Sounds nice just saying it.”
When the first adjutant, Major Predic, reached out as if to snatch the lieutenant colonel insignia shining on Freesia’s shoulder, she swiftly slapped the back of his impudent hand. As if she would let him touch it.
“I’m not just saying empty words. Being a battalion commander isn’t much once you actually do it. It might be rough at first, but you’ll get used to it in a year or two.”
Although the position came with heavy responsibilities as the commander of a proper tactical unit, it really wasn’t that big a deal in practice.
Even Tachyon had once viewed the rank of lieutenant colonel and the role of battalion commander as impossibly lofty. When he had first been promoted he had been nervous about how he would manage, but he had adapted before he knew it.
Of course, there was a difference. Tachyon had spent his years as a major in a relaxed manner, thoroughly learning everything he needed before his promotion. Freesia, on the other hand, had been thrown into war right after becoming a major and rocketed through the ranks so quickly that she had never had the chance to learn the basics properly.
Still, in Tachyon’s eyes, that was the sort of problem time would solve.
To a captain or major who had only commanded at the company level, a battalion commander might seem endlessly high and mighty. In reality the position wasn’t that exalted. A reconnaissance battalion commander only led about a dozen ships, and even a combat battalion commander commanded around thirty. So even someone without exceptional ability like himself had been able to handle the role without much trouble, right?
“You think so?”
“And when you have time later, search the military network. There’s a lot of useful know-how floating around.”
Freesia’s promotion had been unusually fast and exceptional, but in the long history of the service such people could not have been rare. Even without early promotions, there had always been plenty of novice battalion commanders who struggled with running their units. Even now, countless new commanders were probably suffering through tasks they had never encountered before.
The materials they had gathered—tips and know-how accumulated bit by bit—were all drifting through the military network. Looking them up would surely prove helpful.
“More importantly, what are you all planning to do on your leave? Just what we’ve been granted this time comes to four months.”
“I’m going to stay shut inside my house for at least a month without moving an inch.”
Nicola declared it without hesitation, as if there was nothing to think about. In normal times a four-month vacation would have meant traveling everywhere, but right now he had no desire to move at all. He planned to remain motionless in bed until the aftereffects of the long, long war finally faded, no matter how many months that took.
“I’m thinking of taking my parents to a resort. A quiet rest should help me feel better, don’t you think?”
It seemed Predic had similar thoughts. It was easy to speak so casually now, but during the height of the war there had been few days when any of them had been in their right minds. Forgetting everything for a while and resting deeply would be good.
“Then what about you? Traveling with your boyfriend or…”
Tachyon had been about to ask what the last remaining person—Freesia—planned to do when Predic suddenly clamped a hand over his mouth. Tachyon shot him a glare that asked what he thought he was doing. But only for a moment. Seeing Predic break out in a cold sweat and Nicola trembling as he watched Freesia’s reaction, Tachyon instinctively realized something had gone terribly wrong.
“Boyfriend… right… That’s what I was planning to do originally, but…”
The clear crimson hue had vanished from her eyes, replaced by a dark, ominous shadow. She kept her gaze lowered, muttering curses like “that son of a bitch,” looking exactly like a black magician from a long-lost lineage of the distant past. Was she performing some kind of curse ritual?
When Tachyon asked with his eyes why she was acting that way, Predic carefully gauged Freesia’s mood for a long moment before speaking cautiously.
“They… broke up. He cheated on her not long ago…”
Crack.
At the chilling sound everyone whipped around. The fork in Freesia’s hand was crumpling like paper. The murderous aura radiating from her suggested that if she ever caught the cheating bastard, she would fold his spine exactly like that fork.
In the end, the three men excluding Freesia could do nothing but watch her reactions nervously until the very last moment of their final dinner together.