It opens on paper.
Ink, to be precise: dark, carefully measured strokes pressed onto parchment again and again until the fibers soften and warp under repetition. The room is narrow, lit by a single oil lamp that hisses softly, its flame bending whenever the winter wind slips through the cracks of the shutter. Snow presses against the window like an accusation that will not be answered tonight.
Aldo sits at the desk, shoulders slightly hunched, posture not of defeat but of sustained exertion. His coat is still on. He has not slept properly in days.
Thirty-six sheets lie stacked to his right.
Each is identical. Absolutely.
Each bears the same formal heading, the same carefully calibrated phrasing, the same conclusion written in an unyielding, administrative tone that allows no ambiguity:
Request authorization for deployment of a full regiment, with attached artillery and cavalry elements, in anticipation of insurgent escalation in the Furaberg region.
He signs the last one with controlled pressure, lifts the pen, and sets it down with precision. For a moment, he does not move.
[ Thirty-six should be enough ] he thinks, not with confidence but with a quiet insistence.
[ Redundancy forces reaction. Someone will read. Someone will escalate. ]
This is not desperation. It is method.
Aldo gathers the letters, aligns their edges, and binds them into separate packets, each addressed to a different office, a different branch, a different bureaucratic artery. Logistics. Personnel. Strategic Planning. Regional Defense Oversight. Even one sent indirectly through a clerical review board known more for obstruction than action.
He knows the system.
He has worked within it long enough to understand its habits: delay, diffusion, plausible deniability. Institutions here do not refuse outright. They suffocate requests quietly, under the weight of procedure.
That is why he floods them.
When the messengers arrive, Aldo gives no speech. He issues no warning. He simply hands over the packets, one by one, ensuring each runner understands the destination and the priority stamp affixed in dark red wax.
"Deliver these immediately," he says, voice even. "No substitutions. No consolidations."
The messengers nod. They do not ask questions. They leave.
The room feels emptier afterward, though nothing has physically changed.
Aldo remains at the desk, eyes unfocused now, staring at the grain of the wood. He exhales slowly.
[ If I am wrong…they will think me paranoid. If I am right… they will think it too late… ]
Hours pass.
Not with silence—never silence—but with a particular kind of noise that only administration produces. Footsteps in corridors. Murmured conversations behind doors. The rustle of papers that are being moved but not acted upon.
Responses come back indirectly.
Not letters. Never letters.
Instead, Aldo hears through intermediaries: a logistics officer mentioning in passing that requisition volumes have been "flagged for review." A clerk from Strategic Planning politely inquiring whether the request might be "revised to reflect proportional threat assessment." A regional liaison officer advising patience, suggesting that "local forces should suffice pending confirmation."
No one says no.
No one says yes.
The requests are not denied. They are stalled.
Downgraded here. Deferred there. Routed into committees that meet monthly, quarterly, or only when pressured by catastrophe.
Aldo reads between every line.
[ They think I'm panicking, ] he realizes, the conclusion settling with uncomfortable clarity. [ They think this is another contingency spiral. ]
His reputation precedes him, and not entirely in his favor.
To the bureaucracy, Aldo is not a person. He is not even, strictly speaking, a career officer. He is a slave, a slave-soldier—effective, certainly, but prone to what they privately call "over-preparation."
Extreme redundancy.
Worst-case planning.
Contingencies layered atop contingencies.
In peacetime or stable regions, this makes him invaluable.
On the edge of rebellion, it makes him inconvenient.
One afternoon, as pale winter light filters weakly through the high windows of the administrative hall, Aldo stands to the side while two officers speak nearby. They do not realize he can hear them.
"Thirty-six letters," one says quietly, incredulous. "Identical."
"That's not foresight," the other replies. "That's fear."
Aldo does not turn. His expression does not change.
But institutions do not respond to logic alone. They respond to legitimacy.
And Aldo is beginning to feel it slip.
A formal notice finally arrives—not as an approval, but as a recontextualization. It states that, given "current intelligence assessments" and "the need to avoid overcommitment of strategic reserves," a battalion may be authorized to support operations in the Furaberg region.
A battalion.
No artillery.
No cavalry.
A compromise that is not framed as such.
Aldo reads the document twice. Then a third time.
[ They are protecting themselves, ] he thinks. [ Not the operation. ]
The language is careful, almost apologetic. It cites caution, balance, proportionality. It implies that escalation would be politically embarrassing if proven unnecessary.
That, more than anything, tells Aldo how badly aligned the system is with reality.
The intelligence estimates—when they finally surface—are not from his own channels. They come indirectly, through a rival institution: the Filling Archives Institution of the southern duchies. A whisper passed along to the lieutenant overseeing slave forces. Numbers spoken quietly, without attribution.
Four hundred to eight hundred rebel fighters.
Not a mob. Not a rumor.
A force.
The lieutenant, to his credit, reacts—not with urgency, but with self-preservation. He authorizes the battalion not because Aldo was right, but because being wrong publicly would be worse.
When the Locationary Orb arrives, personally delivered, glowing faintly with containment magic, Aldo accepts it with a nod. He thanks the lieutenant. He does not mention the thirty-six letters.
Later, alone again, he sits on the edge of his bed, the orb resting on the table nearby like a mute witness.
[ I pushed too hard, ] he admits to himself, the thought carrying a thin edge of unease. [ Or not hard enough. ]
The irony does not escape him: his attempt to overwhelm institutional inertia has instead triggered institutional defensiveness. The system has closed ranks—not against him directly, but against escalation itself.
This is new.
Not failure, exactly but friction.
Aldo lies back and stares at the ceiling, tracing invisible lines along old beams darkened by age and smoke. He feels the weight of the coming operation not as fear, but as responsibility slipping partially out of his hands.
[ Preparation alone is no longer sufficient, ] he thinks. [ Authority has to be recognized, not just justified. ]
Outside, the snow continues to fall, indifferent to requisition forms and stamped seals. Somewhere beyond the mountains, rebels organize without charters or committees, without waiting for approval.
The fighting has not started yet.
But the danger already has.
And for the first time, Aldo understands that the greatest misalignment is not between him and the enemy.
It is between foresight and the institution meant to act on it.
The chapter closes where it began: not with blood, but with paperwork.
And the unsettling knowledge that paper, when ignored, can be just as lethal as any blade.
…
The lieutenant's barracks smell of old wood, oil, and smoke.
The room is narrow and functional, walls hung with maps that have not been updated in years. Pins mark trade routes, suppression zones, and old slave uprisings already crushed and forgotten. A single window looks out over the training yard, where recruits move in stiff, synchronized lines, their breath fogging the winter air.
The lieutenant sits behind his desk, boots propped on a low stool, posture relaxed in the way of someone accustomed to power without challenge. A cigar burns slowly between his fingers, its ash growing long and crooked before he taps it against a brass tray.
Thirty-six letters lie stacked before him.
He eyes them with open irritation.
"Thirty-six…" he mutters, flipping through the top few. The content does not change. He already knows that. He exhales smoke through his nose. "Same wording. Same seal. Same demand."
He does not bother reading past the first paragraph anymore.
A full regiment. Artillery. Cavalry.
He snorts quietly, leaning back in his chair.
"That sheep…" he says to the empty room, voice thick with disdain. "Always think war bends to paperwork."
He picks one letter at random, skims it, then tosses it aside onto a growing discard pile. Another follows. And another. Some he does not even open—he recognizes the handwriting, the signature, the wax.
Aldo Patriot.
The name has weight, but not the kind that commands immediate obedience. To the lieutenant, Aldo is competent, yes, that record is personally impressive, but competence does not excuse escalation without consensus. Not here. Not in a region as politically sensitive as Furaberg.
The lieutenant flicks ash into the tray.
"Thirty-six requests for panic," he grumbles. "That's not foresight. That's liability."
He knows the rules. He knows the Committee watches closely for excess. Overreaction invites inquiry. Inquiry invites rivals. And rivals invite blame.
He does not intend to be blamed.
So he does what the system teaches men like him to do: nothing, but formally.
The letters are set aside. Not denied. Not approved. Merely… delayed.
Time passes. The cigar burns down. The training yard empties.
Then there is a knock.
The lieutenant does not look up at first. "If this is another requisition—"
"Lieutenant," a calm voice interrupts, polished and deliberate. "I apologize for the intrusion."
That makes him look up.
The man standing at the door is well-dressed, layered in heavy winter cloth tailored to fit rather than issued. No visible insignia, but the bearing is unmistakable, his bureaucratic confidence sharpened into something more dangerous. He carries a leather satchel embossed with a sigil the lieutenant recognizes immediately.
The Filling Archives Institution.
The lieutenant straightens, removing his boots from the stool. He gestures sharply. "Close the door."
The man complies, stepping inside without haste.
"State your purpose," the lieutenant says, extinguishing his cigar.
The man inclines his head slightly. "I bring findings from the southern duchies of Palantine Heilop. Concerning Furaberg."
That name tightens something behind the lieutenant's eyes.
"Go on."
The man opens his satchel and produces several documents, neatly organized. He does not slide them across the desk yet. He speaks first.
"Our archives confirm organized rebel activity in the Furaberg region. It is not sporadic unrest. Not peasant agitation." He pauses, letting the implication settle. "An estimated force of four to eight hundred partisans…"
The lieutenant's fingers still.
"Four to eight hundred?" he repeats slowly.
The man nods. "Structured cells. Supply chains. External ideological coordination. They're not ordinary rebels…"
The lieutenant leans forward now. "You're saying this isn't local ?"
"I am saying," the man replies evenly, "that if suppression fails, the Committee will ask why…"
Silence stretches between them.
The lieutenant glances at the discarded letters on the side table. Thirty-six identical pleas, suddenly reframed.
He exhales.
"Damn it," he mutters.
His concern is immediate, but not for Aldo. His prestige.
A failed suppression in Furaberg would ripple outward. Committees would convene. Reports would be demanded. Names would surface. Decisions would be dissected.
And somewhere in that chain, his own restraint would be questioned.
"Why was sufficient force not deployed?" they would ask.
He rubs his temple, irritation giving way to calculation.
"A full regiment is excessive," he says finally, more to himself than the man before him. "But doing nothing…is worse…"
He trails off, then straightens.
"I will authorize a battalion," he says decisively.
The man raises an eyebrow, but does not object.
"One battalion is enough to say we acted," the lieutenant continues. "Enough to suppress if Aldo's competence is as advertised."
He taps the desk. "And if it goes wrong?"
The lieutenant's mouth tightens. "Then I will have proof."
He reaches for a small, velvet-lined case and opens it, revealing a faintly glowing sphere etched with runic lines.
"Grant him a Locationary Orb," he says. "I'll deliver it myself."
The man inclines his head again. "A wise compromise."
The lieutenant snorts softly. "No. A controlled one."
—
Aldo receives the letter just after dawn.
The camp is quiet, the air sharp with cold that bites at exposed skin. Frost clings to tents and supply crates alike, glittering faintly in the pale light. Soldiers move with practiced efficiency, boots crunching softly as they prepare for deployment.
Aldo stands near a folding table, reading.
One battalion.
His expression does not change, but his grip tightens minutely on the parchment.
[ Not a regiment, ] he notes. [ But not nothing. ]
The relief is there but it is immediately chased by unease.
He folds the letter carefully and places it inside his coat. His gaze lifts, sweeping over his company as they assemble. Lines straighten. Movements sharpen.
Outwardly, he is calm.
Inside, the noise begins.
He walks the supply line, checking manifests. Once. Twice.
He pauses at the medical crates, lifts the lid, counts bandages, vials, splints. He knows the numbers already.
Still, he counts again.
[ Variables are multiplying, ] he thinks, chest tightening faintly. [ And I do not control the largest ones. ]
He moves to the ammunition stockpile, inspects seals, verifies allocations. A slave-soldier offers a salute. Aldo returns it absently, mind elsewhere.
He stops, closes his eyes briefly, forces a slow breath.
[ This is enough, ] he tells himself. [ You planned for less. ]
Yet his hand drifts back to the checklist, fingers tracing lines he has already memorized.
The battalion will come when called. The orb ensures that they will find the correct location.
But until then, responsibility rests squarely on him.
He straightens, squares his shoulders, and steps into formation range.
"204th !" he calls, voice steady, carrying cleanly through the cold air. "Final verification. Then we move."
The soldiers respond immediately, motion crisp.
Aldo watches them, reassured by discipline even as tension coils quietly beneath his ribs.
[ I am not afraid of dying, ]
[ I am afraid of miscalculation. ]
The snow crunches underfoot as the first ranks begin to march.
Behind them, unseen, institutions reposition pieces on a board they barely understand.
Ahead of them, Furaberg waits.
The advance begins the way Aldo prefers it to begin: slow, measured, almost dull.
He stands at the edge of the clearing, boots half-buried in snow and leaf rot, watching men move according to lines he drew hours earlier on a map that now feels too clean, too confident. The forest of Furaberg rises before them like a wall—dark trunks, overlapping branches, uneven ground layered with ice-crusted needles and old snow. It is quiet in the way that only forests about to be violated can be.
Aldo raises one hand.
Two platoons peel away without question, each twenty soldiers strong. One flows south, the other west, disappearing into the trees with disciplined spacing. Their task is simple on paper: probe, detect, contain. Early warning. Tripwires made of flesh and discipline.
Comtois's 205th Company advances next, cutting along a northeast–southwest axis like a blunt blade. They move louder, heavier. Pressure force. Momentum. Doctrine embodied in boots and breath.
Aldo watches them go, jaw tight.
[ This is correct, ] he tells himself. [ Conservative. Orderly. No unnecessary exposure. ]
On paper, it is a plan that would satisfy any staff academy. Lines are clear. Roles are defined. Redundancies exist.
The forest does not care.
The first gunshot is not dramatic.
There is no warning cry, no shouted contact report. Just a sharp crack that echoes, fractures, and returns distorted, bouncing between trunks until direction loses meaning. A second follows. Then several more, overlapping, collapsing into noise.
The forest erupts.
Aldo's head snaps up as sound detonates from everywhere and nowhere at once. Leaves shudder. Snow cascades from branches. The clean geometry of his formation dissolves as soldiers instinctively seek cover behind trees, rocks, shallow depressions.
"Hold positions—don't bunch—!" he shouts, but his voice is swallowed almost immediately.
Gunfire multiplies. The undergrowth flashes with muzzle flares that vanish as quickly as they appear. Sightlines collapse to ten meters, then five. Smoke and breath and powder hang low between trunks.
It is not a battlefield.
It is a maze.
Aldo moves automatically, crouching, shifting laterally, trying to reestablish bearings. Signals flicker, hand gestures misread, shouted orders arriving late or not at all. What should have been a coordinated advance fractures into isolated pockets of men firing at sounds, at movement, at instinct.
The echoes are the worst part. A shot from the left sounds like it came from the rear. A volley ahead ricochets until it seems to surround them. Aldo realizes, distantly, that the forest has turned every weapon into misinformation.
[ This is becoming trench war, ] he thinks, breath sharp in his chest. [ But improvised. And fragmented. ]
A runner stumbles past him, face pale, eyes too wide.
"Sir—can't tell where they are—!"
Aldo grabs the man by the shoulder, forces eye contact.
"Don't chase sound," he says flatly. "Anchor. Fire only on visual."
The man nods and vanishes again, swallowed by bark and shadow.
Despite everything, the system holds.
Ration packs are opened without panic. Medics move when called, slipping through gaps Aldo designed for exactly this kind of collapse. Ammunition flows forward. No one runs dry. No one is left without bandages.
His logistics work.
And still, men fall.
Not in droves. Not catastrophically. Just enough.
Enough to remind him that systems do not negate entropy—they only delay it.
Aldo is shifting position again when he hears Bojing's voice.
Not a shout. Just a casual call, too normal for the soundscape.
"Hey—Aldo, I think—"
The rest is lost in gunfire.
Aldo turns instinctively, scanning through trees, heart giving a sharp, unwelcome jolt. He catches movement—Bojing repositioning, half-crouched, weapon slung awkwardly as he tries to move between two clusters of soldiers whose signals contradict each other.
"Bojing, don't—"
The words do not finish.
Shots overlap. Crossfire. Unclear origin.
Bojing stumbles. Falls.
No dramatic pause. No last look. Just a body hitting frozen ground wrong.
Aldo's mind registers it the way it registers broken equipment.
Down. It is Casualty.
He is already issuing orders.
"Medic—two o'clock—secure that flank—don't advance—!"
Someone drags Bojing back. Someone else takes his position without comment.
The forest does not slow.
Inside Aldo, something snaps—not loudly, not cleanly. More like a thread pulled too far.
[ That wasn't supposed to happen, ] he thinks, even as his mouth keeps moving.
[ I accounted for this. ]
There had been a vow. Quiet. Private. Never spoken aloud because speaking it would give it shape and vulnerability.
No one under his command would die.
Not because he was merciful.
Because if someone died, it meant he had failed to calculate.
Bojing's body is just another weight on the ground, but the vow collapses anyway, folding inward like paper soaked through.
Aldo does not stop.
He records the casualty with mechanical precision. His name. The time. And approximate cause.
Then he moves on.
There is no space for grief here. Only pressure.
The firefight intensifies. The rebels—PPF, Polar Proletariat Front, now clearly identified—do not charge. They reposition. Shots come from places Aldo had marked as low-risk. Slopes he had deemed too exposed. Hollows he had assumed empty.
[ They are using the terrain dynamically, ] he realizes. [ Not holding ground. Flowing. ]
His command structure strains. Messages contradict. Units drift out of alignment.
Then something worse happens.
A misinterpreted signal. A push that should not have been made. Smoke thickens, vision narrowing until Aldo is suddenly alone with only two soldiers he does not recognize by name.
The forest closes in.
Gunfire continues, but it is distant now, directionless. Aldo realizes, with a cold clarity that cuts through the noise, that he is no longer at the center of anything.
He is isolated.
The Locationary Orb rests against his chest, heavy and inert.
He does not touch it.
Calling reinforcements now would be an admission—not just of danger, but of loss of control. And worse: it would pull more bodies into a situation he no longer fully maps.
[ Not yet, ] he decides, breath shallow. [ Not without clarity. ]
A shot snaps past his head, close enough that he feels the air shift.
He drops, rolls, comes up behind a tree, weapon raised. His body moves on training older than fear.
For a brief, dangerous moment, another thought intrudes.
Withdrawal.
[ I could stop, ] he thinks. [ Step out. Let the system grind on without me. ]
The idea is tempting in its simplicity. Exhaustion presses down, heavy as the snow-laden branches above him. The system demands outcomes regardless of cost. It will not care about Bojing. Or vows. Or calculations made in good faith.
The thought lasts less than a second.
He crushes it.
[ No, ] he tells himself. [ That is surrender without meaning. ]
He reframes, the way he always does.
Bojing's death is not a betrayal of competence.
It is data.
A cost within an imperfect system.
Aldo pushes himself upright, eyes scanning, mind narrowing back into function.
The firefight does not resolve.
It drags. Shifts. Frays.
By the time sound begins to thin and positions stabilize—loosely, temporarily—nothing feels settled. No flag is planted. No victory claimed.
Only uncertainty remains.
Aldo breathes hard, leaning against a tree, sweat cooling rapidly beneath his layers. The forest is scarred now. Broken branches. Blood in the snow. Shell casings scattered like punctuation marks without sentences.
He looks down at his hands. They are steady.
[ I am still operational, ] he thinks. [ But this is no longer my equation alone. ]
Somewhere nearby, the battle continues without him at its center.
It ends with Aldo standing in a forest that no longer obeys his maps, holding a future that resists calculation, and knowing—quietly, irrevocably—that total preparedness was never real.