Chương 12

I stared at the board. Philip's forces were closing in. In two turns, maybe three, my entire strike force would be surrounded and eliminated. The game would be over, and I would have proven exactly what he expected; that an unranked player couldn't compete at this level. The crowd was silent. I could feel their eyes on me, already anticipating my inevitable defeat. And yet… Something in the back of my mind nagged me. I could feel something was wrong with Philip's position. Tactically, it was flawless, sure.

The trap was perfectly executed. He had read me like an open book, anticipated my response, and baited me into exactly the position he wanted. I looked at Philip instead. He looked confident and was probably thinking what to do after this game ended. He had done this before, probably dozens of times. Identified an opponent's tendency, created a trap, and smugly watched them walk into it. Not today, Phil.

"Your move," Philip repeated. I decided to take established strategy out back behind the shed and give it a lead gift. I split my force in two, one group slightly larger than the other. Basically suicide, when faced against a larger army. Instead of choosing between sacrificing units and trying to break out of the closing encirclement, I did both. I pushed the larger group toward his secondary settlement and advanced deeper into the trap.

In the same move, I pulled the smaller group back toward the edge of the crescent his forces had formed. Philip's expression flickered.

"What are you doing?" I just smiled slightly, my eyes not leaving the board. My smaller group of units couldn't escape his forces. That was the point of the trap after all. He had planned it perfectly, with the assumption I would try to preserve as many of my forces as I could. What I noticed, though, is that my larger group of units could pass through his heavy units, get out of their reach, and reach his settlement juuust before their health bottomed out.

And, once reached it, if they could tie it up in combat for even a few turns, his entire economic engine would stall.

"You're sacrificing both groups," Philip said slowly, slightly bewildered.

"This is madness. You must know that I'll take both forces with less losses now that they're split up."

"Mhm."

"Then why?" He studied the board, looking for a counterattack or something that I must have been setting up.

"Your home territory is exposed. I could push simply push through onto it now."

"You won't." Philip paused.

"Excuse me?"

"You won't push." I leaned back in my chair, a bit smug myself now.

"You chose a safe composition. Your heavy units don't move as fast as mine. If you make a move now, you're giving up on that pretty trap of yours, and on top of that the surviving units will harass you on the way over."

"Hmm… So," Philip mumbled as he pieced together my plan.

"I have to chose to either take your bigger group of units and let your smaller group escape, or I close the formation and lose a settlement in the crossfire." The silence in the room felt almost physical. Philip's eyes moved across the board. I watched him come to the same conclusion that I had. There was no clean solution. His trap had been designed to end the game, but my gamble had turned it into a trade. He could destroy my army or save his economy, but he could not do both.

"This is insane," Philip said.

"You're trading basically your entire military in exchange for, what, stopping my economy for a couple of turns?"

"I'm trading for tempo." I shrugged.

"I remember you saying something about how patience compounds. Well, so does desperation, if you use it right."

"I've never seen anyone do that." He shook his head, genuinely amused.

"This is the first time someone has walked deeper into a trap on purpose."

"You assumed I would try to fight and rebuild my crippled army. Unfortunately for your perfect trap, I have been told I am a bit reckless at times." I winked. Philip closed the crescent, his forces butchering the half of my army I left behind. My strike force died over the next six turns, ground down by his superior numbers. But they didn't die quietly. He chose to annihilate it completely, leaving no stragglers, which let my smaller group of units hold the majority of his forces for two whole turns.

That allowed my bigger group of units to reach his secondary settlement on turn seventy-two and cripple it, freezing his production and supply lines. His economy, which had been steadily compounding toward an insurmountable advantage, suddenly stopped growing.

"He's insane," someone whispered from the crowd. I was inclined to agree. Philip tried to minimize the damage, pulling units from his formation to reinforce the settlement. I grinned. Every unit that he pulled so far back mean that much more time for me to rebuild a new army.

"Why didn't you build defenses?" Philip asked as he watched my home territory sitting nearly unprotected.

"You had to know I would see the opening."

"I did."

"And you just... left it?"

"You showed me your unit composition too early. You can't attack my home territory without a slow march." I watched my units die one by one, selling themselves dearly against his settlement's garrison.

"You built a trap that required commitment. I'm just making you pay for it now." Meanwhile, back at my home territory, I had rebuilt my forces with a group of ranged units that would counter his heavy units. Stolen novel; please report. By turn seventy-eight, my orphaned strike force was gone, but so was Philip's economic advantage. His secondary settlement was damaged, and his momentum was shattered. It would take him at least half a dozen turns to repair everything and get it all started again.

We were back to even, and now I had the better units.

"You sacrificed eight units," Philip said slowly, "to buy yourself six turns of uncontested development."

"Seven turns, actually. You had to spend one reorganizing after my forces reached your settlement."

"Seven turns. Madness." He shook his head.

"That's not a trade most players would make."

"Most players didn't grow up playing with the mindset that 'acceptable losses' meant 'everyone except me.'""Unexpected, coming from someone who wanted to pull the Drop Zone Theta soldiers out early," Philip muttered quietly.

"It's a good that there's no such thing as morale in Dominion! For better or worse, in this game my troops will fight and die with a smile on their face, regardless of circumstance. If Commander Thane pulled those soldiers out earlier, it would have inspired more confidence in the rest of her troops for future campaigns once they realized what kind of commander she was."

"Victory inspired them plenty." I chuckled.

"You also won against my mobility-type units. Let's see where that leads us." The next twenty turns were a different kind of battle. Philip fought brilliantly, squeezing every possible advantage from his position. But I'd seen behind the curtain now. I knew every one of his units and built counters to them. Without the secondary settlement, he didn't have the economy to change strategies without giving me a major opening, and by the time his economy re-established itself, it was too late. Turn ninety-two.

Philip's last settlement fell.

"I concede." He sighed the words loud enough for the room to hear. He stood and extended his hand across the table.

"Well played, Jax." I shook his hand.

"You almost had me."

"Almost only counts in orbital bombardment." Philip's grip was firm, his face still somewhat bewildered at the outcome, now also showing hints of respect.

"That move on turn seventy. Charging into the trap recklessly like that. Where did you even learn that?"

"I didn't. That's kinda the point."

"No, I understand the concept. Unpredictability as a weapon. But there's a difference between being unpredictable and being effective. You didn't just surprise me, you found the one move that actually let you survive another day." Philip tilted his head.

"How?" I tool some time to consider the question seriously.

"Let's put it like this. When you sprang your trap, I stopped thinking about victory conditions and started thinking about survival. What's the minimum I needed to stay in the game? The answer to that was pretty simple. As long as I deny you your economic advantage, there was a chance. Everything else was secondary. It just so happened that by staying in the game longer, I accumulated enough advantages to win."

"That's not how ranked players think."

"I know. That's why I'm not ranked." He laughed again.

"You know, I was hoping you would be good. After yesterday I mean. I wanted to see if you could back your attitude up." He released my hand.

"I'm glad I was right." [THRESHOLD EXCEEDED: MIND +1] Before I could respond to Philip or the new notification, the crowd began to converge. The match was over, and everyone wanted to discuss it. A tall man with graying temples and sharp eyes appeared at Philip's shoulder. His uniform bore an insignia I didn't recognize, but the way carried himself was enough to signify his status.

"Interesting choice on turn seventy," the man said, addressing me directly.

"Most players would have tried to break out with their entire force." I scratched my head.

"The idea did cross my mind."

"Perhaps." He turned to Philip.

"Your assessment?" Philip snapped a response out.

"He's raw but creative. No formal training, which shows, but he thinks around problems instead of trying to plow through them. He would be… frustrating to play against regularly."

"Hah! High praise, coming from you." The man nodded at both of us.

"I look forward to seeing you at our next meeting, Jax. We could use someone who doesn't think like the rest of us!" He moved away, and others took his place. For the next few minutes, I fielded questions and observations from Entoli members who wanted to understand my thought process. Some were genuinely curious. Others seemed to be probing for weaknesses in my reasoning. I answered the questions as honestly as I could. Yes, the counter build was deliberate. No, I hadn't planned the exact sequence of moves.

Yes, I had gotten lucky with the timing. No, I didn't think luck was the primary factor. Through it all, I caught glimpses of Charlotte at the edge of the crowd. Finally, she pushed through to my side and took my arm.

"Excuse us," she interrupted an Entoli member mid-sentence of yet another question.

"He has a prior commitment, I hope you understand."

"Of course." The member, a young woman, smiled knowingly.

"Congratulations on your victory, Jax. We'll talk more later." Charlotte steered me away from the table and toward a quieter section of the recreation commons.

"Was that necessary?" I asked.

"Isn't cutting them off in the middle of a question like that a bit rude?" She shook her head.

"Not a question, exactly. She was in the middle of recruitment. You just beat Philip Aldric in front of half the Entoli Society. Every faction in that group is now trying to figure out how to bring you in." Charlotte found a corner screened by a maintenance alcove and pulled me into it.

"I'm rescuing you, temporarily at least, from politics."

"That's very considerate." I smiled, looking down at her.

"I'm a considerate person." She joined me in the space. In the narrow alcove, she was close enough that I could smell that tantalizing mix of her perfume and shampoo.

"You won."

"I did."

"You remember our agreement?" she asked. My heart started beating faster. The air suddenly felt very warm. Did the air conditioning systems break down?? I had been stressed enough that it had completely slipped my mind during the game, but now… our prior conversation came crashing back to the forefront of my mind.

"Of course. Kind of hard to forget something like that."

"Good." Charlotte's featured softened as she blushed, her earlier confidence disappearing from her voice.

"Because I wasn't bluffing." She stepped closer, pressing herself against me. Suddenly, I was acutely aware of just how warm, and soft, certain parts of her body were, and I could feel her erratic heartbeat. It was definitely… strange seeing Charlotte Valen so uncertain. She has always seemed so sure of herself and her place in the world. And now… she looked more nervous than I ever thought she could be. All because she wanted something and was afraid of how it might turn out.

"Charlotte."

"Yes?"

"I should probably mention this in advance." I reached up and brushed a strand of silver hair from her face.

"I would have tried just as hard to win even without the incentive."

"I know. That's why I offered it." She winked.

"That… doesn't make sense."

"Doesn't it?" Charlotte's breath became slightly uneven as she tiptoed and reached up to rest her arms on my shoulders. Her touch felt like an electric current as she stroked the back of my neck.

"Think about it. If I'd just... if I'd just kissed you without any pretense, what would that have meant?"

"That you wanted to kiss me?"

"Sure, but now I have an excuse~" She locked her lips with mine. The feeling was much softer than I expected. For a moment, neither of us moved. The world felt like it came to a standstill. This wasn't my first time doing something like this, and yet… it somehow felt different this time. I kissed her back. One of her hands stayed on the back of my neck as the other went slightly higher and threaded through my hair. She pulled me closer, and what had started as gentle became something else entirely.

I pressed her against the alcove wall, my hands wandering down to her waist. A soft sound escaped her lips as she pulled me closer still. For a long moment, all I cared about was the warmth of her lips and the cute sounds she made when I found a particularly good angle. That, and the way her fingers tightened in my hair when I pulled back slightly, then relaxed when I leaned in again.