Dean **Malcolm Reid** ended his encrypted call with **Admiral Marcus Sterling**, a faint tremor of excitement flashing through his aged yet still sharp eyes. In all his decades of military service, few conversations had stirred his blood quite like this one. Sterling had dropped *two* bombshells that would send ripples across the Federation's academies.
The first: **Adrian Vale's debut combat mission**.
Reid had expected a promising start—perhaps a clean tactical withdrawal or a minor engagement to test the boy's mettle—but what Sterling described was something else entirely. Adrian's operation hadn't been a victory; it had been *a masterpiece*. A textbook annihilation of the Orcus Empire's fleet, worthy of being etched into the Academy's training curriculum.
The second: a direct order from the **Federation High Command**.
Henceforth, select truths about the ongoing war—the ones long buried beneath official propaganda—would be **partially declassified** within the military academies. Only the cadets and instructors would know. Civilian populations were to remain blissfully unaware until the Orcus Empire was finally driven out of Sol System.
That policy alone was monumental. The government had suppressed the reality of the war for decades, feeding the public sanitized stories of "border skirmishes" and "peacefront diplomacy." Now, with the **capture of the Orcus Ninth Prince**, the Federation brass clearly believed morale among future officers was worth more than secrecy.
Dean Reid could barely contain his anticipation.
Tonight, his cadets would witness not just a lecture, but a revelation.
---
That evening, in his dimly lit office overlooking the silver towers of the **Interstellar Military Academy**, Reid worked long past midnight. His desk was buried under glowing holo-pads and streaming data logs.
The holotank in the center of his office replayed the battle in perfect clarity—every maneuver, every flash of nuclear light. He watched again and again, eyes flickering across lines of telemetry: the precise angle of asteroid trajectories, the decoy formations, the calculated silence before detonation.
Asteroids, laced with hidden nukes, drifted innocently into enemy formations. Then—white fire.
The Orcus fleet was reduced to cosmic dust within minutes.
Reid leaned back, stunned despite having seen it five times already. "That boy…" he muttered, rubbing his temples with a grin of disbelief. "Adrian Vale, you insane genius. You turned the asteroid belt into a minefield of gods."
By dawn, the dean had rewritten his entire lecture plan. His notes had transformed from academic bullet points into something alive—a tapestry of tactical artistry that would burn itself into the minds of his cadets.
---
At **10:00 AM**, the **Grand Lecture Hall** of the Interstellar Military Academy buzzed with confusion and curiosity. Rows of pristine white uniforms gleamed beneath the hall's light panels. The entire **Command Department**, every cadet from first to final year, had been summoned—an unprecedented order.
Whispers rippled through the hall.
"Why's the Dean calling everyone at once?"
"Even the faculty's here… and sitting *with* us?"
"I heard it's about a new campaign near Proxima."
"No way. The last major engagement was years ago!"
Indeed, the Federation's known wars against the **Orcus Empire** were few but catastrophic. Humanity had fought fewer than twenty interstellar conflicts, and in most of them, they'd been crushed. Only one true victory stood out—the legendary **Battle of the Belt**, fought six years ago under Admiral Marcus Sterling. That triumph had been dissected endlessly in classrooms and documentaries alike.
So what could Reid possibly show that they hadn't already studied to death?
Then the great doors hissed open, and the murmurs died instantly.
Dean Malcolm Reid strode to the podium. His steps were slow, deliberate, every movement radiating the unspoken command of a man who had stared down alien fleets and lived. His iron-grey hair gleamed under the lights, his uniform crisp, his gaze steady as steel.
"Cadets," he began, voice resonant enough to carry across the vast hall, "today we will analyze a battle fought *yesterday*—a confrontation between the **101st Combined Squadron**, Fourth Fleet, Mars Base, and a strike force of the **Orcus Empire** in the asteroid belt."
The silence that followed was shattered by gasps.
"Yesterday?"
"Did he say the Orcus Empire?"
"Impossible! That war ended years ago!"
"Has the Dean lost it?"
The room erupted in noise—confusion, disbelief, even laughter.
"Quiet!"
Reid's voice cracked like a thunderclap. The air itself seemed to hold its breath.
"I know what you're thinking," he said, eyes narrowing. "In Federal Year 52, Admiral Sterling's Fourth Fleet *did* destroy 200,000 Orcus warships in the Belt. That is fact. But…" He paused, letting tension build. "The enemy did *not* retreat from Sol System. They have remained entrenched at Jupiter ever since—watching, waiting, rebuilding."
A stunned silence swept the room. Some cadets went pale.
"Small-scale clashes," Reid continued, "have been raging in the shadows. Yesterday's battle was one of them. Classified, until now."
He folded his hands behind his back. "From this moment on, you hold knowledge forbidden to civilians. If a single word of this leaks—there will be no leniency."
A heavy silence followed. Dozens of young officers-in-training stared blankly, struggling to process the revelation that the war they'd thought *won* was still very much alive.
---
After a full minute, Reid activated the holotank.
A three-dimensional battlefield bloomed into being—hundreds of glowing red and blue markers scattered across a digital asteroid field.
"At 1300 hours yesterday," Reid narrated, "Mars Base received a distress signal from Sector 279. A resource collection convoy was pinned down by 208 Orcus warships. The 101st Combined Squadron responded."
He began to dissect the operation in painstaking detail. Every maneuver was explained—why it worked, what alternatives existed, what psychological effect it had on the enemy.
The cadets leaned forward, breath held, as the holographic simulation replayed the critical moments.
Adrian's feint toward Sector 280…
The hidden asteroids packed with nuclear warheads…
The moment of detonation, when the enemy fleet's formation fractured like glass under a hammer…
Then, the **mech swarm**.
Thousands of autonomously piloted strike units surged from behind debris, tearing through Orcus ships like predators through flesh. Explosions rippled across the simulation, lighting up the darkened hall in hues of red and gold.
For two hours, Reid guided them through the chaos, turning a violent battle into an elegant lesson on precision warfare.
When the final explosion faded and the holograms dimmed, a stunned silence filled the hall—followed by an uproar.
"That's Sterling's genius!" one cadet yelled. "Classic asteroid ambush!"
"Our God of War never fails!" another shouted.
Reid's expression darkened. "Did I say Admiral Sterling commanded this battle?"
The cheering faltered.
Murmurs spread. "If not Sterling, then who…?"
The dean allowed himself a faint, knowing smile. "The 101st's new commanding officer," he said evenly. "A man you all know."
All eyes turned to **Adeline Hart**, sitting stiffly in the front row. Her pulse quickened. *No… it couldn't be.*
But Reid's gaze met hers, and she knew the answer before he said it.
"That's right," he declared. "**Colonel Adrian Vale**—commanding his first mission, mere hours after arriving at Mars Base."
The hall erupted like an exploding star.
"Vale?!"
"He just graduated!"
"How is that even possible?!"
Cadets shouted, laughed, cheered, some even stood on their seats, chanting his name like a war cry. Adrian Vale—the academy's brightest prodigy, the legend-in-the-making—had already outperformed every living officer save perhaps Sterling himself.
Adeline's chest swelled with pride, then constricted with something sharper, more personal. Around her, female cadets squealed half-jokingly about "having Adrian's babies," earning a glare from her so sharp it could cut metal. The whispers died instantly.
Reid let them roar for a while. Their excitement wasn't just noise—it was transformation. The spark of purpose he had hoped for was now an inferno.
When the cheering finally subsided, he looked over the sea of faces—each one burning with conviction, eyes gleaming with the same fire that once fueled him.
*The brass made the right call,* he thought. *The boy isn't just a commander—he's a symbol. A spark for a generation that's forgotten what it means to fight.*