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“Again, Subedei and Genghis, by destroying the fields before their enemy’s gates, created an environment the enemy believed could not be crossed, and then crossed it, crushing the superior Persian force in detail. They then put the entire region to the sword, which tended to prevent the sort of problems the Americans saw, but that was a different time. Slim used much the same approach in his battles along the Irriwady shore where he was facing a highly capable, proven dangerous enemy. One that had previously beaten him, badly, on the same terrain, I might add.” The young man laid down the chalk and wiped his hand on a rag held by the prosthetic. “One wonders if the generals of that time studied Subedei as well,” he added with a grin.

“But…” the female ensign said.

“Yes, Ensign Van Krief?” he said, mildly.

“What happens if the enemy is smart enough to overcome your indirect approach?” Amosis Van Krief asked. The ensign was just below medium height with short blond hair, a hard, triangular face and a broad, strongly muscled body. She also had bright blue eyes and very nice legs, which the instructor was careful not to comment upon or even appear to notice.

“In that case,” the young man smiled lopsidedly, “you’d better have one hell of a go-to-hell-plan. Because you only use this approach when you don’t have a choice; when your forces are inferior or of parity. It’s always better, if you have a steam hammer, to crack the walnut that way. The problem is, you usually don’t have a steam hammer. Cracking the nut when you don’t appear to have the strength requires subtlety.”

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. She was both in charge of making sure the girls understood their “duties” and managing the logistics of the harem. Since she had gotten very little educationÑprior to the Fall there was no strict need to learn to even write your nameÑmanaging the accounts associated with the girls’ supplies was a day-to-day nightmare. Especially since it all had to be done by hand and Christel could not get the same number twice in a row if she had to add two plus two.

She had taken that frustration out on the girls and they had, in turn, passed it on. When Megan had arrived, conditions had been vicious. The girls knew better than to do permanent or disfiguring damage, but they took out their boredom and frustration in other ways, many of them sexual and all of them cruel.

Megan had dealt with that aspect of the life rather quickly. Her father had trained her intensively in almost lost arts of self-defense; he had seen protection fields fail from “personal” reasons too many times to fully trust them. But a blow to the gut was a blow to the gut.

So the “new girl” had not been the soft touch the regulars had come to expect. She had kept the ability more or less secret, only pointing it out a couple of times to the “Alpha Bitches” in the group. But with them firmly under control, the rest didn’t dare bother her.

Managing Christel had been harder. But as soon as Megan showed that she was more than capable of doing the “logistic” end, Christel had turned the books over to her with an almost audible sigh of relief. Using that wedge Megan had slowly, more or less, taken over the harem. To the point that from time to time she even gave Christel orders.

So that aspect of the life had gotten better. Recognizing that the biggest problem in the harem was boredom she had cajoled Christel into running exercise classes. These led to more structured learning in sewing, singing, musical instruments. Anything to pass the time and give the girls something to do other than bicker and play “practical jokes” on one another.

She had taken control of that aspect of her life, but there was another over which she had no control. And that had taken a long time to… improve.

Megan had not been a virgin when she was brought to Paul’s harem but the subsequent rapes, and there was no other term, were not pleasant. But, over time, she had grown not only to accept them philosophically, but even to fall in love with her captor, horrible as that made her feel.

Paul could be a very charming man and he was the only source of news of the outside available to them. Once Megan had, slowly, gotten over her initial revulsion she had grown, however much she hated it, to first liking Paul and then, strangely, haltingly, loving him. She was a strong-willed young lady, educated beyond ninety percent of her generation. She was the daughter of one of the few remaining police in the pre-Fall period. Under her father’s pressure, and later her own, she had used advanced technology training methods to become more educated than most human beings in history. She was an expert forensic chemist, was highly trained in self-defense, spoke three dead languages, could cookÑanother almost lost artÑand could do calculus in her head.

Being a harem girl had not been on her list of avocations. So it nearly drove her insane that she was “falling” for her captor.

Eventually Paul, who had done research before setting up what he considered nothing more than a “breeding pool,” had explained that her reaction was anticipated. Captives who depended for their survival purely on the will of captors, who kept close and intimate contact, tended to bond to them. Not all; there was one girl, Amber, who had fought the captivity until she was eventually brain drained and left as a willing semivegetable to Paul’s desires. But Megan, like most of the rest of the “girls” had come to know Paul, to bond to him and through that bonding to love him.

But that did not mean she wasn’t going to kill him.

As soon as she figured out how to do it and survive.

What bothered her about the situation, other than being stuck in a harem, was that she now knew more of the inner workings of the New Destiny faction than anyone outside of it. She knew their weaknesses, knew their strengths, which were many. She longed, dreamed, of getting the information out to the Freedom Coalition. But no matter how she pondered the problem, she couldn’t figure out a way to pass on the intelligence and survive. Among other things Paul had let slip in their many conversations was that he had a source very close to the Freedom Council. And escaping with the information would be difficult.