Page 105 of Veiled

“Evacuate the town?” Voss says.

“No.” Calderon’s jaw ticks. “You do not have enough time, resources, or the authority to force an evacuation on locals.” His tone hardens. “Try again.”

Emily Tarlows’s hand shoots up, and Calderon nods for her to answer. “Sir, we could divert them. Make noise deeper in the valley, fake a larger force. Lights. Disturbances. A misdirection.”

“A deception tactic,” Calderon says, consideringly. “Executed by whom?”

Emily hesitates. “Uh. Our team?”

“You have a very short window of opportunity, and trainees who barely slept last night, it won’t work. Next.”

A few students snicker.

The professor turns, eyes scanning, and landing directly on me.

But before he can utter a word, Recruit Reyna Ashford, a girl with sharp cheekbones and sharper opinions, raises her hand, then speaks without waiting to be called on. “Why don’t we collapse the north ridgeline?” she says. “Trap them between the landslide and us.”

The room erupts.

“That could kill civilians—”

“The debris would be massive—”

“What if the landslide hits Harrow’s Rest?”

Calderon lifts one hand. Silence.

“Recruit Ashford,” he says, “tell me how many civilians live along the ridgeline trail.”

She blinks. “I—I don’t know.”

“Which is why we do not bury terrain we have not surveyed.”

Across the room, Recruit Meren snorts. “So what? We just charge in and hope for the best?”

Calderon’s eyes snap to him. “Recruit Meren. If your strategy is ‘run forward and pray,’ transfer to the infantry…they admire that kind of idiocy.”

Laughter ripples.

Calderon steps closer to the board.

“This,” he says, tapping the map sharply, “is why strategy matters. Civilians complicate everything. Their panic becomes your problem. Their unpredictability becomes your liability. Their deaths become your failure.”

His gaze sweeps the room.

“Teams of four,” Calderon says abruptly. “Draft your engagement plans. Hand them in at the end of class. I expect competence.”

Chairs scrape. Students scramble.

Matt spins toward me. “Okay, team up? Please say yes, or I’m going to get stuck with Ashwood and her murderous strategies.”

Sasha drops her notebook onto my desk.

Reyna leans over from behind. “I’m your fourth. I refuse to listen to Meren butcher tactics again.”

Nodding, I pull my map closer. “Right, so let’s plan another battle.”

I practically fall through the door after Environmental Tactics and thank the powers that be that I don’t have track classes on Saturdays.