Situation Foxtrot (SAO/Foxhole) [COMPLETE]

"Orr, I need a small favor."

Nine times out of ten if you heard those words your response would be running for the hills. Rodrigues would use it to con you into doing his paperwork, Sundowner would make you pull an extra shift in the Kindergarten, or the weirdoes would make you take care of the Bladewolves again. None of this was a good use of your time.

The tenth time, though?

"Sure, Kirito. What's up?"

"I've been offered- well, ordered, really- a job from the government, and I need some help. Do you remember the, uh, the thing. The thing I had for when we rescued Asuna?"

"Yes, I absolutely remember 'the thing'," you said, grinning. "Paperwork thing or mechanical thing?"

"Both?"

"Both? Both is good," you chuckled. "Call your government contact guy, tell him you're under contract with World Marshal for this one. I'll be your handling officer. You mind if I put you on hold for a minute?"

"Yeah, sure. Got to ask your boss?"

"You know how it is," you groaned theatrically. "If I'm on his plans, its tempo tempo tempo. If I'm on my plans, its call home once a week and tell the nanny you were a good girl and don't need the mechanic to change your oil."

"Sounds like my government handler…"

"Right, yeah. Putting you on hold now."

Tabbing the side of your head in a little mnemonic gesture, you dialed up Sundowner. As usual, the man was out halfway across the world, adventuring for some fucking reason while leaving you here in the World Marshall headquarters. Urg.

Seriously, the man was evil, and he didn't even have the decency to drag you along with him on the field trips of evil. If you weren't trying your amateur best to deprogram the brain-in-a-jars in the kindergarten and getting them to view you as a parental figure by accident, then your duty station was riding herd on the World Marshal additions to the Colorado State Police. Admittedly, you liked working with the CSP since you could 'suggest' doing thunder runs on white neighborhoods since someone was inevitably dumb enough to try and pot the WM investments and get the borgs some action.

Needless to say, you hated your job.

Somehow, Sundowner actually picked up when you called him at least. "Orr. What's up? You haven't called in a while- no problems with the kiddos?"

"By your definition, no, no problem with the kiddos," you said with a sigh. "It's a job offer, actually. Remember that gig in Japan? With the LDP trying to hush up their connections to the VR company you dragged into the Foxtrot business?"

"Ah yeah, that part of the plan! How's that going, by the way?"

"I don't know, I haven't tracked down that dumbfuck accountant you put in charge of it this week," you snapped.

"Temper temper~"

"I'll check in with Schumer, alright? And if he tries to grope me again, he's gonna find out real fucking fast I can choose not to have genetalia. Anyway. Getting off track. My contractor in Japan wants me for a job because his guy just started ringing bells."

"Think you'll be able to get another major company over a barrel again?"

"Won't know until I get there. This is a prelim call."

Sundowner scoffed, before pitching his voice to externals. "Candy! Candy, did I tell Goldie she had to call me before she left the country? Yeah? Ah right, she's in the kid's division, they gotta call me for shit."

Oh god, now he was talking to one of the secretaries. Not the good ones, no, this was the whore ones. Not the competent whore ones, either: the incompetent whore ones. There was a valid distinction to be made.

"Here's the deal," Sundowner said, back on internals and only talking to you now. "I was gonna send Sammy over to Japan to do whatever the fuck he does and sell some new metal next month anyway. Take a company of Geckos, and some new cybernetics merch, and get that shit out of inventory. If you can clear that up in the next two months, I'll leave you on Japan Station and you can telework to the Kindergarten when they need you. Sound good?"

"Standard company resources?"

"Yeah. Get to it."

"And side work?"

"Usual rules apply. Get going, Goldie, I got things to do. Hey Candy!"

You could not hang up fast enough, a full-body shudder racking your frame. God, you needed a shower.

Wait. You were in your 'home' office, attached to your suite in the World Marshal Tower. You could do that. Stripping down to your false-skin, you hopped in the shower and set it to a hair under 'nuclear warmth', and picked the line back up on Kirito.

"Hey, buddy, called it in and I'm good to come over and deal with your snoop."

"Awesome!" Kirito called out in a rare flash of audible emotion. "I'll see you soon, okay?"

"Okay. Tell the wife she's cute for me, okay?"

"Aghbl-"

Click, went the phone, and you had to chuckle. Now all you had to do was crowdsource out some Japanese weapons import law out to Legal, find a buyer- who was likely gonna be a straw purchaser for some wacko Korean cult like the moonies- and figure out a way to 'lose' a few suits of cyberarmor so you could get your fleshy and meaty friends suited up in some of the actual decent shit.

///

A week later and all your merch tied up in Legal, you walked into a shady little cafe with Kirito. You were dressed quite casually in your opinion: black slacks, cyan shirt, white vest, and no visible weapons. The knife in your boot did not count. The suit visibly flinched when he saw you, though, so that was a point in your favor. A second was his face when you slid him your World Marshal business card.

So, the government wanted to send Kirito in to clean up their messes? Alright then. Three fifty USD an hour should cover it. Five hundred on holidays, weekends, or graveyard shifts. The suit was naturally coughing blood, and you manually flicked through your interface to lock your face in a professional blankness as you laughed your ass off internally. Alright, clown, what's your next move?

Illegal peripheral systems? Nonsense. Your contractor didn't have any of those, and it would be defamation to imply otherwise. The fact you'd gotten Kirito a new NervGear with the serial numbers ground off the minute he told you about Asuna getting stuck was beside the point.

Possession of unlicensed hardware? Complete garbage! Come on, you were the illegal hardware supplier, and you weren't gonna ask him to store a set of cyber ninja armor under his bed! Tokugawa Heavy Industries vibrosword, sure, but not an entire-ass suit of armor! You'd let the bullshit claims about illegal peripherals fly, but this was absurd. It looked like Kirito was now charging four hundred an hour, with six hundred on pay scale two hours.

Going into your briefcase, you scrawled some numbers onto a copy of a standard World Marshal Contractor sheet, tossed it at the suit, and dragged Kirito out.

///

Needless to say, the kid got the job and you got your sweet sweet one-third cut of the gig to go straight into your massive gaping red hole full of debt for your cyber-body, where it could sit pretty next to you selling a bunch of cultists some war machines. Two days later, you had your partner in crime hooked up to a sanitizer server bank, and were ready to dive.

"Question, Kirito," you said lightly, popping off the detachable panel in your arm to get at your hardwired connections. "Any reason you didn't want to bring Asuna to this? It was a decent bit of work to get me out here."

"You'll see in a minute once you're in. I took a peek on a burner account, and er, well, you need to see for yourself."

"Alright then. Time to chip in."

Slotting the cable home, you mentally tabbed over to firing up your Full Dive software, logging into the presequenced SEED system tag in your hardware. From there, it was over to your game copy on the sanitizer server, and you were in.

Sliding into digitality with barely a whisper, you sighed happily as you spawned in. No tutorial, no starting interface notices, just pure kinesthetic full dive goodness. Rolling your neck, you stepped off the teleport platform, and looked yourself over. Light gray blouse, suspenders, blue trousers, heavy leather boots with gaiters, and you were wearing a double-breasted coat open-faced. Wait a second.

Taking a second to do up the coat fully and open your menu to set 'render tactical equipment' on, you laughed for a minute. They'd spawned you in with your Warden field officer uniform! It was all there, even A Caovish Reminder and your trusty Cascadier. Taking it out to slide a clip of eight-mil in, you sighed and took out your hat.

"Feels depressingly like Moors," you joked, looking around the remains of the crashed starship that made up the starting city. "What do you think, Kirito-"

Turning around, you saw a fellow Warden behind you. Long, voluminous black hair, ghost-pale skin, and the same open-faced officer's uniform decorated the person behind you. Delicate eyelashes batted at you, and a dry swallow filled your throat. Oh. Oh no.

"How do I look, Orr?" Kirito asked.

Er. Shit. "You look wonderful," you said, taking a screenshot quickly. "I, er, gonna send you a pic."

SEED Messenger PM to: Asuna, Kirito
SUBJECT: Kirito-chan's new look

Hey, Asuna. Please come play GGO with us. Its for work. I'll comp you the game, but Kirito needs the support. See attachment for reasons.

With love, Orr Melanie
[Attachment: Kiri-chan_is_too_much.png]

Kirito's face when he opened the PM said it all. "I thought we were friends," he said sadly.

"Well, we are friends," you replied back sanguinely. "And as part of being friends, I'm making sure your girlfriend knows I am the queen of thirst and you're a tall drink of water right now."

SEED Messenger PM to: Orr Melanie, Kirito
SUBJECT: RE: Kirito-chan's new look

I'll be there in twenty don't you dare do anything Melanie

Col. Asuna, 15e Flying Artillery (Mechanized), Folkavangr Royal Brigade

"Oh, huh," you muttered. "Asuna never changed her auto-signer."

"That is your biggest concern right now?" Kirito asked you, with the least alive eyes you'd ever seen in a young man's face. "Really?"

"Yes, of course-" you said, right before a massive raid group came around the corner, before looking at you and whistling.

"Woo, cosplay yuri!" someone yelled. "Don't run, hime-chan, the yankee will be gentle just for you!"

Any and every amorous thought left your head at the speed of light. Turning around, you watched a lock of blonde hair drift out of your cone of sight as you looked at the eight chuds in front of you that looked like a biker gang from Mad Max crossed over with a Star Wars prop gun fire sale. "Excuse me?" you asked. "Care to repeat that?"

"I said, yankee, that'll you'll know how to treat that hime-chan just right, leaving her screaming all night long-"

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Oh no. Your hand slipped. Straight onto your Cascadier, which drew and fired of its own accord. Bah, guess the devil's right hand did it again. As the moron tried to talk through a shot-out throat, you grinned.

"Any other smart remarks?" you asked, raising an eyebrow as the gunsmoke floated up.

"Fucking cosplay bitch thinks she can fight us-" one of the gangers said, before another stopped him.

"Wait, dumbass. We've all got beam shields, so that was a gun gun. A broomhandle gun with triple burst fire. On an old Warden uniform."

"So?"

"So do the math, balls for brains. There's exactly one gun that does that, and nobody carries it because the Caovish Armories questline is ass and the guns are the last one in the chain."

You gave the smart one a half-smile. "Cascadier 873, yes. Eight mil, twelve in the clip."

"Yeah. She's a Foxhole survivor, dumbasses. Don't fuck with her."

"Or what?" another idiot asks.

"I could just kill you," you proposed, but Kirito stuck her- his! His! He just looked like a cute girl, Orr, keep a hold of yourself!- hand out.

"Let me deal with it, Colonel," Kirito muttered. "I'll handle the trash."

"Oh, so the princess has teeth. Let's see if she can use them-"

It was at that point Kirito pulled out his bayonet, flipped it to hold the damn near sword of a knife by the blade, and hurl it straight into the offending chud's chest. At that, the smart guy dipped and the melee was joined.

///

About eighteen minutes later, Asuna spawned in much as you had: flash of light, dress uniform open, irate look on face.

"Melanie!"

Oh yeah she was pissed. "Hi, Asuna, how are you doing? Good? Like the game?"

"Melanie I am going to string you up by your ankles if you lay a hand on Kirito!"

"Love you too, but listen, this was not my fault."

"Kirito?" Asuna asked.

"We ran into some idiots," he explained from behind you, reading a player manual. "Incidentally, while this game does let you PvP in safe zones, the only things that drop from players that way are ammo and five percent liquid wealth. So we didn't screw these guys over when they respawn."

"Ah, okay. And why did you need to get into a fight right out the gate? I thought you were here for work!"

"Yep. Orr's just providing security. And a helping hand grinding."

"Hey, hey, I can speak for myself you know," you complained lightly. "I just didn't bring Asuna in because I can't wave the contractor card at her."

"Oh? You needed to wave the contractor card?"

Fuck fuck fuck change tack change tack

"Well yeah," you lied. "I was in town, and wanted to have a way to comp Kirito for the playtime."

"In a game you're liable to hate. Yeah. I'll get to the bottom of it later, for now I just want to find a pick up group and see how screwed we are," Asuna muttered. "I'm sure we can find someone."

"Or," a new voice said, and you nearly turned at the homonym of your name, "someone could find you."

Out of the shadows a young woman walked up. Blue hair, along with a thin tan leotard and what looked like almost hotpants got you sufficiently distracted from Kirito's new avatar, and her smile was too cute for words.

If you started thinking thoughts about Asuna and her wonderful, gigantic mass of auburn hair and long shapely legs, then you knew you really needed to get laid.

Wait. Shit.

Yeah you needed to get laid. You also needed to pay attention to things, as Asuna had already introduced herself, and the new girl you'd just met was holding her hand out to you. "I'm Sinon, a sniper and long-range PK specialist. More importantly," she said, chuckling a little at your collection of blue coats, "I was part of the 27th Infantry and 109th Commandos."

You blinked. "You were with the Red Hand?"

"Yeah. I wasn't good for much at the start, but sniping was pretty decent. Then I learned how to get sneaky, and well… now I'm here," Sinon said with a little laugh. "Now I'm helping three cute girls get ready for the Ballad of Bullets I guess?"

Kirito was about to open his big fat mouth, so you put your hand on your sabre in just the right way to swing it around and whack him as he was about to clarify his gender. You could deal with that later.

"I guess you are, yeah," you chuckled. "Well, we'll need the help since we were all artillery."

"Oh good!" Sinon said with a smile. "Nobody wants to help me with the boring bits of being a sniper, but you guys should know all the ballistics, right?"

"Well, I remember a fair bit," Asuna admitted, "but I was an officer, not a gun-layer."

"What unit?"

"The 15e, under-"

Oh no. No no no no no Asuna no don't you dare!

"-my good friend Mel-chan here!"

"Mel-chan?" Sinon asked, before doing the mental math on your name. "Wait, as in Melanie?"

"Yep!"

"So that means, that- that this is the- this is the Golden Valkyrie herself?"

"I really hate that name," you said, sighing deeply. "But yes. I'm Orr Melanie. Asuna, you motherfucker."

"This is for trying to squirrel away Kirito, so you know."

"If I didn't love you I'd hate you for this."

"I know," Asuna replied back with a cheeky little grin. "At least now poor Sinon knows what's chasing her skirt, though."

Sinon laughed a little confusedly. "Excuse me?"

"So you know," Asuna said conspiratorially, "those old rumors about her? Completely correct."

"You don't mean-?"

"Yep."

You blanched. "What rumors?"

"Oh," Sinon muttered, flushing beet-red.

"Asuna, what rumors?!"


AN: I'm on Enforced Vacation (yay expiring vacation days) this week so y'all get bonus material until the threat scrapes together enough votes for an update.

Settling down in your new and kind of still garbage fortifications around Sanctum, you groaned dramatically. This fortnight had been a mess, no matter how you looked at it. There had been dramatic highs, there had been catastrophic lows, and most importantly you wanted your damn concrete bunker base back where you could sleep in a real bed and snuggle your romantic victim partner of choice with impunity. You hated being on campaign. Marban's Hollow didn't even have the decency to snow properly- just this cold, wet, miserable sleet-thing that reminded you of global warming and despair. Fortunately, you could at least suffer in company: the 72e had decided that their place was jacketed up with you as tight as possible since you naturally had the most defenses around you.

If they weren't terrified out of their minds to be in an active front-line hex, you'd have been giving them so many headpats and gallons of hot chocolate. Instead, you bundled them off to Viper's Pit every chance you got, and rotated the teams running the Intel Center back home regularly. It was about as good as you could do for them.

Unlike Silica's latest project.

///

There were many things you disliked in life. Early mornings. Dry spells. No coffee. Child soldiers. Paperwork. Being stuck in a death game. Rain.

Silica, in a herculean effort unknown to man, had managed to combine all of these as she presented her latest regimental-scale recruitment to you: the 115e Uhlans Cavalry Regiment. A hundred and ten resolute, steadfast troopers rallied around the flag of a respected regiment with a well-trained command staff. You'd even taken a night taxi up to Viper's Pit to see them parade in so that they could sign on the line in your Brigade Ledger.

When you first laid eyes on them and their eighteen Drummonds, your eye started twitching. Slowly turning to Silica, you looked at your miniature commissar with her peaked cap and her big sash and her bigger smile. 'Did I do good?' it asked, hoping for some dollop of approval.

"Major," you asked, breathing deeply, "what's the average age of the recruits in this regiment?"

"Over eighteen, ma'am."

Slowly, one gimlet eye turned towards Silica. "Would you care to take a more precise estimate?"

"Twenty-two, ma'am, with outliers included."

"Outliers."

"Yes. Counting the four persons over eighty years of age."

Great. So they're all sixteen-ish then, and you could see them starting to quail at your gaze. "Do they have any organic heavy equipment, or no?"

"No. I got them from Speaking Woods. Not a lot of equipment back there, sadly- but they're ready to learn!"

Your head fell into your hands. "Fine. Fine. What do they have?"

"Uniforms, Loughcasters, plenty of ammo. The usual rookie things."

You sighed, getting out the ledger and going over to the table you had for signing people in. Sitting it down, you opened it up to the page to add a new regiment to the Folkvangr Brigade. Walking up, the 115e's colonel tried to smile at you, before a small shudder went through him as he got closer. Hopefully, it was just a game effect. Hopefully.

"Colonel Hesperus, reporting," he said, stiff and squeaky as new leather boots.

"You do know I don't strong-arm people into my brigade, right?" you asked.

"Yes, ma'am, but I've been sitting for too long. Might as well try and do something rather than just wait to die."

"It's going to suck."

Hesperus smiled bitterly. "And the Woods will suck more. I'll take my chances."

With that, he signed, and every trooper in front of you was now equipped with the unit patch of the Folkvangr Brigade. They might have been kids, but that didn't mean you wouldn't take the volunteers.

"Silica," you said to your commissar, "get them inside, and some hot food for everyone. They'll need it."

"Yes!"

///

The question of your new Uhlans unit aside, Silica didn't have a long string of recruitment busts like you did. Her major noncombat contribution to the brigade was a fairly decent engineering regiment, the 41e Engineers. While they didn't have any massive fortresses to their name, what they did have was a solid and workmanlike attitude they brought to getting the frontline fortifications of the Marban spur up to date. Most of this involved swearing: Marban's geography was hell for building, and the number of 'compromised' bunker nodes was too damn many. Still, your frontline forces were at least fairly cozy now, and you would be too if it wasn't for how much ground in the spur you had to defend.

The 115e and 163e both got blooded in the intervening weeks, though. It was inevitable, considering how broad the frontage was on the backside of the mountains, but that inevitability wasn't something you cherished. Many a truck was lost to those wilds, and radio repeater towers were constantly going up and down in a war of intelligence across that front.

It didn't stop the Colonials, though, especially when a handful of Oleander Light Guard units split off and formed raiding companies working out of the north of Deadlands to border-hop and harass your units up in Callahans and in Viper Pit. When they found your work-sites to extend a rail spur down into Marban's though, the raiding companies turned into raiding battalions running a shadow war across the hex borders. You couldn't match them in intensity, so it was decided that in lieu of committing the 64e to guard the spur you'd just eat the loss and wait. The decision rankled, but needs must: you only had so many tools right now, and the Marban Salient as it was becoming known was constantly simmering.

It didn't worry you overmuch, though. Your time in Weathering Halls had proven good for your organization, and complex troop movements were getting easier by the day as you shuffled the soldiers around. On a near-weekly basis, platoons were getting rotated back to rest and re-arm, cycling through the bars and barracks in Kirknell and Viper's Pit as your little worker bees made sure everything was fresh from the crate with spit-shine and boot oil dripping off. Old Fiddlers and Loughcasters were traded in for Liars and Blakerows, while machine gun teams swapped over from Ratcatchers to Malones and grenadier teams swapped from Ospreys to Cutlers. More importantly, every vehicle got new armor packs, and the handful of prototypes plaguing your force got cycled out of the fleet.

Nothing out of the ordinary at all was happening. It was bliss.

[NEW TECH UNLOCKED]

It was bliss. Your desk phone started ringing off the hook like a demon had possessed it.

"General, we have Colonel Theresa on line one, Colonel Loup on line two, Colonel Asuna on line three, Colonel Zairman on line four, and Colonel Kazoo on line five," the desk called out. God damnit. Dialing in to line one, you braced yourself.

"Orr!" Theresa called out, clearly drunk. What the hell? It was barely two in the afternoon. "Fuck'yew! I'm not doin it! I quit!"

"Theresa, sober up for a minute," you snapped. "What's the problem."

"All the good SPGs unlocked!" she yelled at you. "The Noble Dowagers, and the Flood Stains! 120 and 150mm self propelled guns! I can't do it!"

"Theresa, the armor regiments handle their own vics, I'll handle it," you said, sighing. "I'll call when you're sober."

Hanging up, you looked at the desk. "Someone send a wellness check to Theresa, and get me some wine. I'm going to do a lot of talking today."

"Yes, ma'am."

Next up was Asuna. Loup, as much as you loved her, could wait. "Asuna. What's up?"

"150mm guns dropped," she said flatly. "I'm sending my logistics teams, I need to replace my 120s with them and possibly get the old guns converted to SPGs. You know any shops that can do that?"

"There's one up in Morgen's," you said idly. "That said, expect some delays on the 150s. Theresa is having a bit of a day."

"Got it."

You hung up, before breathing deeply. This was a mess- and then the desk called you. "Ma'am, Colonel Zairman is no longer on line four, and Colonel Kazoo has also dropped his call with the message 'Tymur is bringing his sugar'. Whatever that means."

You just nodded, and dialed in to Loup. "Hey, darling," you drawled into the handset.

"General Orr, please," Loup groaned into her handset. "Not the time. I need to finish dealing with your pet commandos, the little shits stole five vics of Collie tech-mats. Somehow. We are currently now in a rank panic over this tech increase."

"Alright, alright," you said, sighing. "I thought the Commandos were off on their downtime cycle, though?"

"Kirito said 'hitting a scroop field is downtime' and they found the trucks out there waiting for him. I just fed the lot of them lunch and now they're lazing about my garrison house like cats."

You shrugged. "Well, have fun with them?"

"I will. See you soon, I hope."

"You too."

Naturally, the second the phone hit the cradle, your office door was kicked in. Standing there in travel-stained officer blues was Zairman, holding a bouquet of roses and a madcap smile. "Melanie!"

"Tymur," you blinked. "What's all this? Roses?"

"Light of my life, you got us an early start on developing new tanks. Of course I came in to express my thanks in person!"

A small smile bloomed on your face as you cleared your desk, walking towards Tymur with a light step. "Good. I was getting lonely, and someone to light things up is always good."

"Of course. C'mon, I heard the mess has some wonderful stew, someone figured out how to make fatoush!"

Now that smile was going nuclear. "I haven't had that in, god, it feels like years."

"I never have, but I knew you liked foreign food," Tymur admitted, before pulling a small set of forms out of his messenger bag, before tossing them on your desk. "Just some garbage for later, nothing serious."

You laughed. "I'll do it now, so we have a free slate after lunch. Do some… discussions. Maybe dance practice for the next time there's a ball."

"I'd love that-" Tymur said, as you picked up the packet "-but there's only so much lamb to go around down there, you know?"

"Mmm," you shrugged, taking the cover letter. Flood Mk.I battle tanks? Well, you weren't against upgrading your armored fist. "It's just a minute, I can read just fine."

"It's seriously nothing major-!"

You got down to the cost and your eyes widened like someone had thumbscrews to open them. "Three hundred and fifty R-mats apiece!"

"Ah, shit," Tymur muttered.

"I could buy a pair of 150s for this! Per! And these running costs are absurd! Two hundred twenty B-Mats to repair to full? Six hundred liters of diesel to fill it? This thing must cost more than a platoon of Devitts!"

"Closer to two, but who's counting?" Tymur asked flippantly, putting the roses in a convenient vase. "I only need four to use as command tanks, Melanie. They'll keep me safe, the regiment moving, and demolish any anti-tank structure in our way. Hell, the only thing that's got the building and demolition power of a 75mm gun is a 150, and I'm not bolting that to my tanks!"

"Tymur, we've got Skycallers for that!"

"No, Asuna has Skycallers for that," he corrected. "I had to ditch almost all my organic artillery to keep up with force mechanizations, so the only way I can punch through enemy lines is with armor."

"We've got a spotter crew taped on to your headquarters, though. Calling in a strike should be a piece of cake."

"Yes, except let me riddle you this? What's the uptime on a Skycaller battery?"

You stopped. "A Wasp Nest? About forty minutes out of an hour."

"Skycallers are half that. Twenty minutes an hour, less if there's a traffic jam at the reloading base. Asuna isn't doing field reload teams, so artillery uptime is maintained by her rotating on-call batteries for fires."

"Great, so I need to look into combat sustainment," you groaned. "Fine. I'll get with Asuna on it. She's planning on developing a 120mm SPG battery anyway, this won't hurt."

Tymur blinked. "We have that now?"

"Yeah, it's a Noble chassis variant. You want some too?"

He shook his head. "I'm good. I've already had to start trying to figure out how to work in Widows into my force org, and so far only Vasily Battalion wants them."

"What's not to like about Widows?"

"Slug rounds. That's the real reason I need the Floods: those 75s are HE filled, but the 68 on the Widows are AP only."

You looked at Tymur, and considered everything. He'd been obviously trying to butter you up, but there was a legitimate need for this in his forces. Guh. You hated messes like this. Finally, you got out a requisition form and started writing it out.

"You get one, and a battery of Stockades. I don't want to tell you to make it work, but we're R-mat pinched right now. Sorry, Tymur."

He just offered you a wan smile. "It's one more than I expected, at least. Thanks, Melanie."

"No problem," you laughed. "Now, I believed you mentioned they were serving fatoush for dinner?"

"Yep."

///

Your last major project was working with the 72e, also known as your erstaz headquarters. Mostly? This just meant living with them in Viper Pit. They were a lot of kids, and while you didn't want to strip them of their callow youth there was a certain amount of seasoning they needed to be useful as a brigade-level communications asset. Mostly, this meant drilling the snot out of them on procedure and protocol half the time, while the other half of your time was spent teaching them about paperwork and what went into the life of a brigade clerk.

The problem, quite simply, was resource paucity. You didn't have a lot of dedicated resource-gathering assets, and Theresa could either spend time getting R-mats, HE-mats, or ConMats; choose one. Therefore, in order to break that position, you needed to figure out exactly what R-mats and HE-mats you needed. This meant adding up the cost of replacement tanks and flatbeds, the cost of new concrete, the cost of 150mm and 75mm shells you needed to stockpile, the cost of new guns, and of course the cost of the innumerable number of APCs and IFVs that were deployed by your formations.

For all they were kids, the 72e was decent at the clerical work half of the job. Every shift, a new team of kids would roll in, get their pens out, and start fielding frustrating math problems that defined the backbone of your steamroller advance. For example:

A platoon of the 62e Infantry is preparing for a rest and refit cycle. What is the maximum amount of weapons and ammo they need?

First off: exceptions to the rules, the vehicle crew. Vehicle crew need a gas mask, four filters, forty B-mats, a Fiddler, and two sticks of ammo. The 62e infantry uses a driver and a co-driver on their vehicles, and a standard platoon has two vehicles. Ergo: four gas masks and Fiddlers, eight sticks of 9mm ammo and filters, and 160 B-mats. The commanding officer would then add another Fiddler, four sticks of ammo, gas mask, four filters, binoculars, wrench, and a hand radio. Finally, the medic would require their Cometa revolver, their trauma bag, first aid bag, five units of blood, twenty units of bandages, and two clips of ammo.

Second off: the platoon heavy weapons. Each platoon had two grenadiers, a chemical weapons expert, and a light machine gunner. That meant two Cutlers, sixteen RPG rounds, an Osprey and Loughcaster, twelve Green Ash gas grenades, a Malone, and eighteen belts of 12.7mm ammunition. Plus their gas mask and two filters each.

Third off: the rest of the troopers! Eight dudes, each with a gas mask and two filters as standard kit, then a Blakerow and four mags or a Fiddler and six sticks, divided as standard four and four. In sum: eight masks, sixteen filters, four Blakerows, sixteen mags of 7.62, four Fiddlers, twenty-four sticks of 9mm, and a pair of wrenches to be distributed at will.

That was one platoon. The 62e had sixteen of those. That was one regiment, too- you still had the 115e, the 162e, the 64e, and the 15e to worry about; each with their own unique demands. It had been hard to just calculate the numbers of crates Theresa needed to make before, but as your organization got bigger, every individual element started loosing more and more of their full time clerical staff. Now the company clerks were also vehicle drivers or cannon cockers, and paperwork quality was falling like a rock. You'd need to fix it at some point. You'd need to fix a lot of things at some point.

Fortunately, that was what working on a new doctrine was for.

While most people didn't understand what a doctrine was, at the most basic level it was "how we fight" as a method of operation. If there was a question, ask the doctrine. About what? About anything. It was a comprehensive list of tools and solutions to problems, and meant that everyone was on the same page at the same time no matter what. Right now, though? That same page you were about to introduce to your subordinate officers was called "have a full-time clerical staff you overconfident chucklefucks" and you'd ram it down throats if you needed to.

And if anyone complained? You'd make it a full time English-speaking clerical staff. Just because you were bilingual in English and French with a decent start worked in on Ukranian and a pinch of Japanese did not mean you understood either of the later two enough to do paperwork in them, especially when considering the amount of slang, abbreviation, and slop that those speakers used. The form filling would continue until language skills improved, and in this you would be the coldest person in the game for. Now, more than ever: not one step back in the paper-drenched fields of this war!

///

VOTE

1st Brigade, Folkvangr, Staff Company (Noncombat)
-[] [Folkvangr] Support another regiment (Grants 1x bonus action)
--[] [Folkvangr] Write-in regiment & Topic
-[] [Folkvangr] Organize rolling rest and refit periods for the Brigade
-[] [Folkvangr] Engage in diplomacy with another Brigade
--[] Write-in Brigade & Topic
-[] [Folkvangr] Collect and Analyze Data
--[] Write-in Topic
-[] Work on developing Brigade Doctrine (5/25)
-[] [Folkvangr] Attempt to recruit another regiment into the Brigade.
-[] [Folkvangr] Begin planning a combat operation
--[] Continue planning Deadlands assault
--[] Write in operational details.

15e Regiment, High King's Valkyries, Flying Artillery (Orange/3)
-[] [15e] Adjust Manning, Doctrine, or other Regimental Operation
--[] Write-in Adjustments
-[] [15e] Engage in offensive operations…
--[] …in Marban
--[] …in Foxcatcher
--[] …in Deadlands
--[] …elsewhere (write-in)
-[] [15e] Conduct resupply and training operations
-[] [15e] Fortify an area
--[] Write in an existent fort or location to take and hold.
-[] [15e] Begin planning a combat operation
--[] Write in operational details.
-[] [15e] Donate help to Brigade Staff (Grants one Staff Action)

9e Regiment, Balfour Bitches, Sustainment (Green/4)
-[] [9e] Adjust Manning, Doctrine, or other Regimental Operation
--[] Write-in Adjustments
-[] [9e] Conduct resupply and training operations
-[] [9e] Begin planning an operation
--[] Write in operational details.
-[] [9e] Procure supplies for regimental adjustment
--[] Write-in regiment and supplies to procure
-[] [9e] Procure additional vehicles for regiments and staff
-[] [9e] Donate help to Brigade Staff (Grants one Staff Action)

62e Regiment, The Weathered Line, Grenadiers (Orange/4)
-[] [62e] Adjust Manning, Doctrine, or other Regimental Operation
--[] Write-in Adjustments
-[] [62e] Engage in offensive operations…
--[] …in Marban
--[] …in Foxcatcher
--[] …in Deadlands
--[] …elsewhere (write-in)
-[] [62e] Conduct resupply and training operations
-[] [62e] Fortify an area
--[] Write in an existent fort or location to take and hold.
-[] [62e] Begin planning a combat operation
--[] Write in operational details.
-[] [62e] Donate help to Brigade Staff (Grants one Staff Action)

64e Regiment, Golden Mail, Armored Cavalry (Orange/4)
-[] [64e] Adjust Manning, Doctrine, or other Regimental Operation
--[] Write-in Adjustments
-[] [64e] Engage in offensive operations…
--[] …in Marban
--[] …in Foxcatcher
--[] …in Deadlands
--[] …elsewhere (write-in)
-[] [64e] Conduct resupply and training operations
-[] [64e] Fortify an area
--[] Write in an existent fort or location to take and hold.
-[] [64e] Begin planning a combat operation
--[] Write in operational details.
-[] [64e] Donate help to Brigade Staff (Grants one Staff Action)

115e Regiment, Uhlans (Yellow/3)
-[] [115e] Adjust Manning, Doctrine, or other Regimental Operation
--[] Write-in Adjustments
-[] [115e] Engage in offensive operations…
--[] …in Marban
--[] …in Foxcatcher
--[] …in Deadlands
--[] …elsewhere (write-in)
-[] [115e] Conduct resupply and training operations
-[] [115e] Fortify an area
--[] Write in an existent fort or location to take and hold.
-[] [115e] Begin planning a combat operation
--[] Write in operational details.
-[] [11e] Donate help to Brigade Staff (Grants one Staff Action)

163e Regiment, Motor Rifles (Orange/3)
-[] [163e] Adjust Manning, Doctrine, or other Regimental Operation
--[] Write-in Adjustments
-[] [163e] Engage in offensive operations…
--[] …in Marban
--[] …in Foxcatcher
--[] …in Deadlands
--[] …elsewhere (write-in)
-[] [163e] Conduct resupply and training operations
-[] [163e] Fortify an area
--[] Write in an existent fort or location to take and hold.
-[] [163e] Begin planning a combat operation
--[] Write in operational details.
-[] [163e] Donate help to Brigade Staff (Grants one Staff Action)

241e Regiment, Research (Green/4)
-[] [241e] Adjust Manning, Doctrine, or other Regimental Operation
--[] Write-in Adjustments
-[] [241e] Conduct resupply and training operations
-[] [241e] Begin planning an operation
--[] Write in operational details.
-[] [241e] Procure supplies for regimental adjustment
--[] Write-in regiment and supplies to procure
-[] [241e] Develop specific prototype equipment for the Brigade
-[] [241e] Donate help to Brigade Staff (Grants one Staff Action)

142e Regiment, East Trains, Locomotive (Green/5)
-[] [142e] Adjust Manning, Doctrine, or other Regimental Operation
--[] Write-in Adjustments
-[] [142e] Conduct resupply and training operations
-[] [142e] Begin planning an operation
--[] Write in operational details.
-[] [142e] Procure supplies for regimental adjustment
--[] Write-in regiment and supplies to procure
-[] [142e] Perform supplies transshipment to focus on one front
--[] Write-in receiving unit/stockpile town
-[] [142e] Donate help to Brigade Staff (Grants one Staff Action)

26e Regiment, Commando (Red/2)
-[] [26e] Adjust Manning, Doctrine, or other Regimental Operation
--[] Write-in Adjustments
-[] [26e] Conduct resupply and training operations
-[] [26e] Begin planning an operation
--[] Write in operational details.
-[] [26e] Search for Relic Bases and Caches
-[] [26e] Perform Operational Reconnaissance

72e Regiment, Golden Eyes, Signals (Green/1)
-[] [72e] Adjust Manning, Doctrine, or other Regimental Operation
--[] Write-in Adjustments
-[] [72e] Conduct training operations
-[] [72e] Begin planning an operation
--[] Write in operational details.
-[] [72e] Establish a communication link to another Regiment or Brigade
--[] Write-in target
-[] [72e] Operate Intelligence Center(s)
-[] [72e] Donate help to Brigade Staff (Grants one Staff Action)

41e Regiment, Engineering (Green/3)
-[] [41e] Adjust Manning, Doctrine, or other Regimental Operation
--[] Write-in Adjustments
-[] [41e] Conduct resupply and training operations
-[] [41e] Begin planning an operation
--[] Write in operational details.
-[] [41e] Build infrastructure improvements
--[] Where? (Write-in)
-[] [41e] Build additional fortifications
--[] Where? (Write-in)
-[] [41e] Donate help to Brigade Staff (Grants one Staff Action)