Colonel Aziz cussed at the man before him madly, while flanked by the officers of Thunderbolt Battalion. The man he was yelling at was from the hastily-created First Airborne Battalion, which was a nice-sounding term for a slightly smaller mob of people able to fly.

“You had at least one entire day to prepare and assign logistics, and your men didn’t get it done? Are you a fool?” Aziz hollered at the man, a lieutenant colonel like him, and then gestured all around him. “Look at my captains! They already knew what to do after a short briefing from me, but you? Wow! You thought it was easy being a battalion commander, eh? No need for briefings, hm? So your men are stuck without food for three days, and it’s all on you!”

“You can spare us some food, right?”

“If you didn’t realise,” Aziz replied through gritted teeth, “Spring Fury is an operation that can last up to two weeks. We do not have a dedicated logistics team. You, on the other hand, should man up and ask your division commander for bloody help before you doom your men.”

“But—”

“But what? You’re going to get scolded? Listen, colonel, if you were my subordinate, and you screwed up this badly, I will boot your lazy ass out of the armed forces myself.” Aziz pointed at the slow-moving wall of troops to his right. “Now either you return, or I escort you back with an armed party, exposing the truth when your division commander inevitably asks me why I had to do that.”

The man’s face paled. “W-wait. At least tell me what I should do.”

“How on Orb did you become an officer?” Aziz held his head, and then looked at the officers of Alpha and Charlie for support. Captain Hans stifled a giggle, and then floated towards the distraught colonel.

“For starters,” he said, “you can consider coming clean to your division commander. Better you do it now, then have the whole thing fall on your head when your men start rioting. It’s early enough in the operation that a logistics train isn’t impossible to do.”

“Commodore Tenouji’s going to tear me a new one,” the colonel muttered.

“With all due respect, sir, any blunder on this level is going to tear you a new one anyway. Keeping your life is a plus point at this level. Isn’t it the basics to actually check on your troop logistics before heading out for an operation? What were you guys doing in the afternoon?” Hans asked, curious.

He mumbled something that turned Hans red. For a moment, Aziz wanted to ask what it was, but considering the captain’s reaction, it was probably something that wouldn’t go well with the ladies nearby. After making a few mental jibes about having an overly-lively body, the colonel turned his attention towards the on-going operation.

Spring Fury had begun two hours ago, at the stroke of midnight. The vanguards, the ones in charge of clearing the path of any possible observers, had went ahead long ago. From what he knew, the East had been clearing their designated route of any guards and outposts on a daily basis some time ago. Such an action was targeted at the longevity of the great god and his servants, making use of their longevity and their tendency to create routines after a while. Their target was the southern shorelines of Eo-Seu, taking a detour to avoid Eo-Seu’s west, which was heavily fortified and protected.

Of course, the latter bit about creating routines was just a theory the Plenum subscribed to, after someone wrote a paper about it. Marie had attempted to force Aziz into reading it, but the colonel was too busy reading up about Orb’s history from sixty to forty thousand years ago.

But at any rate, it wasn’t too much of a stretch to claim that the success of this operation hinged upon whether the theory was correct…and if the Lifespring used more than just guard posts to warn against incoming invasions. Unfortunately, no one knew how the great gods operated…or if they even acted in ways comprehensible to mortals.

“Sir?”

Aziz blinked, and looked around hurriedly. “Something happened?”

“No sir, just that you looked distracted,” Captain Augustus replied. “It’s dangerous to do that while flying.”

“You’re teaching your grandmother to suck eggs there, captain.” Aziz smiled. “I’m the one who wrote the entire playbook on airborne safety, remember?”

“You and Marshal Marie, sir.”

“Not much of a difference there,” the colonel replied. He stretched his neck. “Still, our approach is really, really slow.”

“It’s better than the exercise we had a few days back, sir,” Hans said quietly. “Breaking them up into battalions increased their speed by four times. I think that’s a good enough record.”

“Not really,” said Augustus. “They practiced movement, but they never got around to firing in formation. We’ll see lots of nasty accidents later when we make contact. It’ll be a short, quick mess.”

“Harsh, but true.” The colonel sighed. “Well, this is how real operations typically are like on the ground. We spend hours walking cautiously, and then spend a far shorter time beating the other side up. That’s the military life of ground troops during an operation.”

“We’ve been deployed to combat zones the entire time, so it really doesn’t feel that way, does it?” Augustus said. “Still, I’m glad I made the jump during Thunderbolt’s recruitment. I do not want to walk fifty kilometres anymore, now that I can fly.”

“Now that you mention it,” Aziz said, “I too feel that way. It seems that we’ve been spoiled from flying too much?”

“That doesn’t sound good, does it?”

“Well, so long as we aren’t ever going to walk long distances again, it doesn’t seem so bad,” the colonel replied.

“You just jinxed it, sir.” Augustus rubbed his nose and turned to Hans. “Pray that nothing happens, or you’ll be doing your first ever route march as a captain. Your feet will be callused, you’ll see tens of blisters, and you’ll start questioning your role in life.”

“But we’re all Squires,” Hans replied. “I don’t think there’s going to be much damage to our feet by simply walking over long distances, is there?”

“Ah.”

“Maybe we should do a field test or something after we return to the Republic,” said Aziz. “After all, walking is one of the fundamentals of soldiering.”

The two captains stared at each other in dismay, before promptly trying to dissuade the colonel from such an action. It was a welcome distraction for everyone who was listening, given that their escort target was moving at a slow pace for fliers.

It would be hours before they saw Eo-Seu’s southern shoreline.