While her time among the Southerners had done a lot to alleviate the prejudices she’d once had, she still occasionally found herself wanting to lash out at them for their idiocy. There was something about being able to choose when and where they fought that dulled the tactical skills they should have developed as battle-hardened warriors.

  Subcommander Jates was a perfect example of what kind of soldier the Southern cities tended to produce. He was individually strong, self-confident, and tactically intelligent. However, he was also rash, over-confident, and too eager to bet on his troops' overwhelming superiority.

  “I understand what you’re saying, Ms. Averett, but I still believe it’s unnecessary,” he said once again bringing up what she and everyone else in the command tent considered a settled matter.

  Barely stopping herself from visibly rolling her eyes, she looked away from the map currently being projected over the table to glare at him.

  “Yes, I know. You’ve made that abundantly clear. Your opinion, however, has no bearing on whether or not you’re right. And in this case, you are not,” she replied firmly.

  Jates expression was making it apparent to everyone in the room that he was coming close to his emotional limit. The vein on his forehead was visibly throbbing in tune with his accelerated heart rate.

  “I have the command authority for this position, and you have no right to countermand my orders,” he declared in a hiss.

  Nodding in agreement, Cathleen’s stoic face showed nothing. “You do, and I don’t. That being said, I’ve already contacted central command and they’ve agreed with me. This argument is pointless,” she said.

  Finally losing it, he shouted, “You had no right to contact Commander Dahl directly! This is no place for politics, it’s a field of war!”

  Responding to his pathetically sad display of anger, Cathleen’s expression finally broke into a grin. “Oh? I hadn’t realized. You’ve been treating this as a monster hunt, so I may have unintentionally gotten confused. Do you typically overextend your troops during a war when the enemy has proven their ability to outflank you?” she asked somewhat mockingly.

  “They haven’t outflanked us! We’re underground! There is no flank! Our reserve can simply follow the directions given by the survey teams to collapse the hidden tunnels as they find them. The forward positions do not need to be moved back!” he shouted adamantly.

  Replying in a calm but firm voice, Cathleen replied, “Those aren’t your orders. Your orders have always been to clear out and maintain a growing field of control in this section of the city. Nothing more, nothing less. Having found that the areas currently under our control are riddled with possible hidden tunnels allowing the enemy to get behind our troops, the only logical decision we can make is to pull back until those holes are addressed.”

  “But we haven’t faced anything close to an organized counterassault. There is no point! We can shore up our zone of control while we continue to clear out the kobalds who are amassing in larger numbers. The longer we wait, the more time they have to build up their defenses,” he countered, trying and failing miserably to mirror her calm demeanor.

  “You could very well be correct. However, at worst, my plan will have us facing enemy strongholds built up quickly and with limited supplies. Yours, on the other hand, could lead to our forces being split and taken out piecemeal. The risk is both unwarranted and foolish. Command has agreed, and the matter should be settled. The fact that you continue to rant and rave in support of a position that has already been discarded is not going to change anything,” she said, sounding somewhat like a parent admonishing an unruly child.

  Gesturing with her hand to the rest of the command tent, where multiple people were busily coordinating a withdrawal, she added, “Despite being in ‘command’, no one here is bothering to listen to you. They are all busy doing their jobs, as you should be doing.”

  Turning her head to the left to address one of the soldiers, she asked calmly, “Have any of our assigned survey teams reported in yet?”

  The soldier she was speaking to snapped to attention. “Yes, Battle Leader Averett. Three teams are coordinating with the Tower of Magic to begin working on marking the tunnels nearest to us now. The first has already been dispatched to where we know one is located. They estimate that they should have a working technique to find them within four to five hours.”

  Nodding in appreciation of their efficiency, she replied, “Good. Make sure all our teams are accounted for and are back here as soon as possible. We’ll restart our push as soon as we resupply and have some targets. Be sure to coordinate with the engineers so that they are ready to close the tunnels.”

  Subcommander Jates stood there fuming, absolutely furious that his own soldiers were listening to her. However, there wasn’t much he could do. Both command and everyone in the room had either heard or seen what happened when he’d attempted to duel her.

  It had not been a proud moment for him.

  Rubbing his still aching shoulder which hadn’t seemed to heal right, he stomped out of the room to go and clear his head.

  As he left, he couldn’t help but hear Cathleen mutter, “Weak Southern pretty boys should be seen, and not heard.”

  —--

  Nero shouldn’t have been all that surprised that they were being called back. That had been Natalie’s recommendation, and as far as he could tell, she seemed like the type of woman who knew what she was doing. From what he recalled, she had joined the wackos for the challenge and excitement being around him would offer. Having been a guard captain for Precision Shipping, Vera’s company, she also had plenty of experience leading people. If she thought it was best for them to retreat, then that should have been the end of it.

  Looking back, he realized that he REALLY shouldn’t have said anything.

  It made absolutely no sense to him how she seemed to be taking it as a personal failing that she couldn’t allow him to lead what was likely a doomed assault on the closest kobald position. She’d gone out of her way to offer him the opportunity to take control of the team and lead them into battle despite her orders.

  His opinion should NOT matter to her that much.

  After hearing her once again apologize to him, he replied tiredly, “I told you, it’s fine. I wasn’t even really being serious. It’s probably better that we’re being careful. We should clear out the hidden tunnels and make sure that no one else gets surrounded. Stop worrying about it.”

  Walking alongside him down the hall in the middle of the formation, she replied sadly, “I understand. I just want you to know that I don’t doubt that you would have led us to victory. If at any time you feel the need for us to disregard our orders, you only have to say the word. We’re all behind you. You are the Walker, and where you lead, we shall follow.”

  Nero couldn’t help but droop his shoulders at her sincerity.

  He couldn’t even mock her. She was like a tactical weapon version of a puppy that had for some reason imprinted on him.

  Not wanting to prolong the uncomfortable conversation, he said, “Understood. And I appreciate it. If and when that becomes an issue, I’ll let you know. For now, keep doing what you’re doing and I’ll keep my eyes and ears open. I still have a lot to learn about warfare and how you do things here, so don’t expect me to offer much of an opinion on anything. Just consider me another wacko under your command.”

  Looking like she was nodding in appreciation of his humility, she replied, “Of course, my lord.”

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  Dropping back in the formation, Nero sighed in relief when she didn’t follow him.

  They had been returning through the halls they had already ‘cleared’ to get back to the forward encampment. Apparently, before they pushed deeper into the mountain, they needed to locate and close all the hidden kobald tunnels. Nick had somehow figured out how to do so and was still busy talking to people over his link about it.

  Nero, however, found the entire situation tedious. His one experience with war was the adrenaline-filled assault on the surface of the mountain against the kobald invasion. There was no downtime, and the battle had been one long slugfest filled with spells and steel. It had been awesome.

  Yet, this slow and grueling trudge through the tunnels was nothing like that. Since they’d arrived, they’d been in ONE battle, and it was against what was basically a small group of paper kobalds that had barely managed to put up a fight.

  This was not the WAR he had signed up for.

  Looking around the formation, he could tell that no one else seemed bothered by their progress. In fact, everyone else seemed proud of their little victory.

  Having found himself near the dwarves at the back of the formation, he made his way over to Crusher and interrupted the dwarf’s conversation with the dwarf next to him.

  “Hey, you guys fight in tunnels like this a lot, right?” he asked, completely ignoring the fact that they might have been in the middle of something.

  Looking over at Nero with some confusion, he replied, “Aye, we do.”

  “Is it always like this? You know, slow. We’ve been walking around for like hours and only had one fight… and it sucked,” Nero said angrily.

  Several of the dwarves chuckled, while Crusher replied, “It’s war, lad. What did you expect?”

  Blanking his expression, Nero replied, “I don’t know… fighting? The last time I was in a war, the forces involved numbered more than I could count. There were lines of troops up and down the mountain, and fields of dead enemies that had to be carted off to make way for our advances. It was freaking intense, man. This… this just sucks.”

  Crusher, his tone full of amusement, reassured him, “Ye’ll get your fill of fighting, don’t ya worry. This city is large enough to house hundreds of thousands of kobalds. Probably millions. While we’re only cleaning out the upper floors, there should still be plenty of them to get your axe wet.”

  Cringing at the imagery, Nero replied, “Right. Thanks, I guess.”

  Now no longer wanting to talk to the dwarf, and having no one else to distract him, Nero retook his place in the center of the formation. They were probably halfway back to the forward encampment, and he figured he should probably try and be remotely productive. He should at least get something out of this waste of time.

  Opening up his link, he returned to the book Nick had given him about Though Hubs and all that they entail. Before he’d barely gotten through the introduction, so it should at least occupy him for a while.

  It wasn’t all that hard to read while he walked, since his mind wasn’t occupied by anything else. He had no mage armor up, and he’d already closed off his connection to the command channel because listening to everyone continuously theory-crafting what they might end up doing in the future was doing nothing but pissing him off. So, he let himself get distracted by the tale of how Thought Hubs were developed and why.

  Nothing he was reading was all that interesting as he’d already heard the basics of the story from Nick.

  Some asshole had wanted to take advantage of the fact that crystals could transmit thoughts, and he was bad enough at it that he annoyed the dragon who’d laid claim to the entire continent. He still found the dragon’s name, Plastia, incredibly stupid. Nevertheless, she was the one who helped the guy build the first Though Hub.

  While the book went into a lot more detail, Nero felt a lot of the exposition was totally unnecessary. Why did it matter who was in charge of city monitoring at the time, and why was it such a struggle? From what Nero could tell, the fact that people could actually get away with a crime shouldn’t have been such a surprise to anyone. The book made it sound like crime had been rampant, but looking at their examples, it sounded to him like the typical city experience he’d grown used to.

  Cities back home had tons of homicides and crimes that were never solved. How was that a reason to set up a massive all-knowing uber brain to watch over everything? It sounded to Nero like a bit of an over reaction.

  But, on the other hand… if he were being honest… he could see the appeal of an all-watching sense of community that monitored everyone and handled the day to day. He just couldn’t understand how the people in charge had gotten anyone to agree to it. But apparently, they had, and it had quickly been adopted by practically everyone.

  Central Thought Hubs grew with their city. They were influenced by the minds of everyone connected to them. They had no actual power, and no real sentience, but they were involved in almost everything. Anyone and everyone in range of them could link up to them, and identifying who was who by their spiritual essence imprint was central to their ability to function.

  Banks and government buildings were able to track people and their assets, and therefore hiding funds or relationships was an impossibility. Everything was fundamentally exposed to anyone who had enough reason and access to look for it. Laws were quickly developed, and their intentions were uploaded into the Thought Hubs. To Nero, it sounded similar to an A.I. but also not nearly as intelligent. There were too many things about Thought Hubs that sounded more like beliefs dictating processes than anyone actually coding anything.

  By chapter four, he’d discovered that most of how the Thought Hub was run was dictated by the masses. If people freaked out about someone running down the street with a chainsaw, the Thought Hub would instinctually alert the relevant authorities, and THEY would be the ones to dispatch someone to subdue the nutjob. The Thought Hub itself didn’t actually have a mind to form an opinion about anything.

  Which then led to private Thought Hubs, which were similar, but much less powerful. Houses and estates usually had them. Some were even small enough to fit in rooms, like the one he’d had on his desk at the Center.

  These kinds of Thought Hubs were more like access ports to other Thought Hubs, with limited individual functionality. The book never got too far into explaining how anything was coded into them, or how they were built, but it did cover what they were capable of.

  Battle Hubs were interesting in that they were able to move, and were much more self-reliant than even the city Thought Hubs. Where the ones for the cities were influenced by the people linking up with them, Battle Hubs were statically built and then deployed.

  There was an entire section about early Battle Hubs being influenced by people’s emotions and thoughts during combat, which ended up causing them to be useless. Nero could just imagine how disjointed and confusing it must have been to link up with a group mind filled with dying people.

  One thing of note was that everything he read about Thought Hubs backed up Nick’s assertion that they weren’t dangerous. Even when they failed, they simply became too difficult to interact with. The best analogy Nero could come up with was that they were like a shared document on a computer that everyone could access… all the time… but infinitely more complicated.

  The Thought Hubs themselves never ‘forced’ any information through the link to people, the person using them had to actively go and look for it. The book made it very clear that there was no concept of viruses or any other mental attack that could be passed on through them. There was even an entire chapter on it.

  Nero, as usual, remained skeptical. However, he could at least see now that the system seemed to intrinsically not allow for that sort of thing. But, the people who wrote it could just as easily be lying.

  By the time he was halfway through the book, the formation had arrived back at the forward encampment. So, Nero ended up having to put it away… by closing his link that is.

  Since the last time he’d been here, it was obvious that they’d made a few changes. For one, there were a lot more people around. Whether they were reinforcements or other teams that had been called back, the place was packed. Everywhere he looked, there were groups of people setting up temporary tents and finding a place for themselves.

  The defenses around the exits had evolved past a guy with a clipboard. They now had defensive walls and kill zones, taking up a lot of space in front of them. Troops were on alert behind enchanted walls of stone, and in the center of the chamber, several cannons were arranged in a circle pointing at the possible incursion points. There were even some of those shield generators he recognized all over the place.

  Based on what he could tell, this was becoming less and less of a temporary encampment and more of a permanently fortified fallback position.

  Natalie led them through the crowds quickly, somehow easily finding their assigned place in the chaos. And while she and the scouts went off to report in, the rest of the team was told to set up camp.

  In many ways, it was weird for Nero to set up his tent in a giant chamber underground, but in others, it was kind of nostalgic. It reminded him of his time in the wilds… just with a lot more people around… and this time with dwarves.

  Interestingly, the dwarves didn’t use conventional tents. They instead used runic magic to make little stone dwellings that looked like squat blocks with a door. Some of them were even stacked on top of each other, with little stairs built right into them. To Nero, they looked like squished buildings meant for little fat people.

  Were the dwarves more sociable, Nero might have even tried to get a look inside them. As it was, he knew he’d eventually end up trying to get them to explain how their runic magic worked. Right now, all he could tell was that they imitated spell forms with some sort of language. Nick’s brief explanation hadn’t been much of a help, despite how intricate it had been.

  But for the moment, all Nero could think about was taking a nap and consolidating the experience he’d built up in his soul. Since they weren’t likely to be sent out on a mission any time soon, he figured he at least had enough time to do that much.

  ‘Hopefully, I’ll have some time to finish the Though Hub book so I can prove that bastard wrong about my willingness to learn anything,’ he thought to himself sourly.