Divine Milking System

Chapter 463: 463 | Co-Command and a Cliff

The room did that thing where nobody breathes for a second and everybody’s brain runs the same math at the same time, and every single one of us arrived at the same answer, which was absolutely not.

Blair got there loudest.

"No." One syllable, flat as a dropped plate. "Absolutely not. My squad does not."

"Your squad is three people and a corpse’s paperwork." Vale said it without cruelty, which somehow made it worse. "Regulations don’t care about your feelings. Neither do I, but at least I’m consistent about it."

"There are procedures for this." Blair’s chin came up. "Squad restructuring goes through the Dean’s office with faculty review and written consent from both captains."

"It did. This morning. I filed it, Reika signed off, and the Dean rubber-stamped it because a student died on academy authorization inside a misclassified gate and right now she’ll approve anything that looks like corrective action." Vale spread his hands. "You’re welcome to appeal. The appeal window closes six days after winter evaluations, which means by the time anyone reads it you’ll have already run three gates as one unit or you’ll have run zero and scored nothing. Your father can call whoever he likes. He can’t make a clock go backwards."

Blair’s mouth closed. Her hand stayed clamped on her own forearm.

Jordan raised a finger from the row behind me. "Quick question. Is this the part where we all die?"

"Eventually," Vale said. "Statistically speaking."

"Cool. Cool cool cool." Jordan put his head back down on the desk.

I sat there and ran it. Because that’s what I do, that’s the only actual skill I brought over from the last life along with a working knowledge of manual transmissions and the ability to identify bad writing on sight. Eight people. Misato commanding, Blair commanding, and both of them constitutionally incapable of being second at anything. Belle would treat Blair like a hostile audit. Naomi would try to make everyone comfortable and get chewed up doing it. Javier would take notes about it. Hikaru would say four words in five weeks and one of them would be a threat. Jordan would nap through the entire collapse of civilization.

And Blair Davenport had kissed me in a stone coffin four days ago and told me it meant nothing, and now she was on my squad, and I was going to have to look at her every morning at six a.m. while Misato screamed at both of us about formation spacing.

The graft in my chest gave a slow, satisfied pulse.

Oh, you absolute pervert of a divine system. You’re loving this.

"Sir." Javier’s hand was up like we were in a lecture, notebook clutched against his ribs. "Eight is over the standard squad cap. Regulations specify five for gate authorization and six for extended operations. Eight would classify us as a strike element, which requires."

"Which requires faculty oversight, elevated tier clearance, and a sanctioned command structure." Vale looked genuinely pleased. "Mendoza reads. Somebody buy the man a sandwich."

"You’re upgrading us." Belle’s nails started again. Tap. Tap. "Not just merging. You’re filing us as a strike element so we can bid on Tier Threes."

"Tier Three minimum. Tier Four if you don’t embarrass me."

"Tier Four." Jordan lifted his head three inches. "Tier Four is where people actually die."

"People actually died in a Tier Two on Thursday," Vale said.

That landed. Nobody had anything for it.

"Here’s the shape of it." He picked the coffee cup back up out of habit, remembered it was empty, and set it down with visible disappointment. "Eight of you. One roster. You bid as a strike element, which means bigger payouts, bigger point weights, and every entity in the fracture space adjusting its behavior around a group your size, because eight bodies moving together read differently to a pack hunter than five do. You will need to relearn everything you think you know about spacing, sightlines, and who covers whose blind side."

"And command?" Misato asked. First words she’d said. Her voice came out level, which with Misato meant she was holding something down with both hands.

"Co-command." Vale pointed at her, then at Blair. "Ayame runs movement, positioning, and extraction calls. Davenport runs engagement, target priority, and offensive tempo. Same split you ran in the Void, because it was the only part of that operation that functioned."

"That is not a command structure." Blair’s voice sharpened to a point. "That is two people with a shared steering wheel and a cliff."

"Correct." Vale smiled. "Figure it out."

I watched Misato’s jaw work. I watched Blair’s shoulders come up. Two women who had spent nine years in the same house, one paying for the other’s existence, one being paid for, and neither of them had ever once had to stand on the same rung.

"There’s a third thing." Vale straightened off the podium and pulled the sunglasses back out of his collar, which was his tell for the part he actually cared about. "Field lead."

"That’s the same as command," Belle said.

"It isn’t. Command decides the plan. Field lead is the person the squad looks at when the plan dies." He put the sunglasses on. "Every strike element needs one. When Ayame and Davenport disagree in the middle of a collapse, somebody has to speak and have seven people move. That person is not necessarily the strongest. That person is the one nobody argues with when the ceiling comes down."

He said it to the room. He was looking at me.

I know he was looking at me because everyone else turned to look at me, and Naomi’s hand came off her lap and landed on my forearm like she was staking a claim on whatever happened next, and Belle stopped drumming entirely.

"Absolutely not," Blair said.

"Wasn’t a nomination," Vale said. "It’s an observation. You’ll sort it out in the field, and you’ll sort it out badly at first, and then it’ll cost you something and after that you’ll sort it out fine." He picked up his tablet. "First joint session tomorrow. Oh six hundred, east field. Full gear. Bring water, because Ayame has been designing something since I texted her at four this morning and she used the word cardiovascular nine times."

"Six." Jordan’s voice came out muffled through the desk. "Six in the morning. On a joint squad. With her."

"You want an earlier slot, Wayne?"

"No sir. Six is my favorite number. I love six."

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