"We've got the regiment-level commanders down, at least," Wei sighed after we had been sitting at the picnic table for nearly thirty minutes, and the entire surface of the table was covered with military documents. Initially, I was concerned that it could start raining, or a gust of wind would blow the documents away, but I remembered that we were still in a giant can in space. It didn't rain or storm in Zum City.
Something had been nagging at me for the entirety of our meeting in the park. It was only after we had been sitting there for such a long period of time that the source of my lingering discomfort became clear to me.
"There are no birds," I muttered.
"What?" Ramos asked. His head had been pressed against an empty space on the table for the past ten minutes. Like all military men, Ramos was very good at waiting in silence for extended periods of time. "Birds?"
"They're the buzzing animals on Earth that spread disease," Stradivari said, gesturing with his hands in an approximation of an insect.
"No, those are bugs," Wei said without looking up from his paperwork. "Birds are bigger and have feathers. What was that about birds, Captain?"
"It was nothing," I said. "Can you remind me who the regimental commanders are, Wei?"
"The infantry will be handled by Commander Jacob Omondi, the armored column will be handled by Commander Susan Miller, and the mobile suit unit will be handled by Commander David Lancaster," Wei said, looking down at the paperwork. "These three will primarily work in an organizational capacity, since operations in the 3rd Brigade will be handled at the battalion level. Next, you'll need an adjutant: someone who will act as your direct advisor and handle things when you're somewhere else. If you intend to deploy in your own Zaku, this person will often be in full operational command of the 3rd Brigade."
"My direct advisor?" I asked rhetorically. "That sounds like you, Wei. Are you open to the job?"
"I'm flattered, Captain," Wei said without blinking, "but that's a bad idea. I'm an intelligence officer. I don't have the experience to command a full brigade."
"You'd be better at it than me," I said. It was kind of funny. After looking at the organizational structure of the 3rd Brigade, the most obvious flaw was the brigade commander, myself. I had no experience commanding any unit larger than three men, and they were bumping me up to one with 5,000 men. I was a pilot, not a commander.
"That's precisely why you need a good adjutant," Wei said, and I found his argument particularly convincing. "My recommendation is Commander Eliza Bernstein. There are five people you can pick from, but she's the only field officer with experience in ground combat."
"Commander Bernstein was on Earth?" I asked.
"No, she was involved in the clean-up operation on Side 5," Wei said. "Fighting on a colony is the closest thing to Earth combat we have, I'm afraid."
"Okay," I said, gesturing impatiently. "I got it. Bernstein will be my adjutant." I paused for a moment, looking closely at Wei. "I wasn't joking earlier, Lieutenant Commander Wei. It would help me a lot if you were in the 3rd Brigade. You've basically been walking me through all of this stuff since Solomon Base."
"Okay," Wei said with a muted smile. "I'll add myself to the 3rd Brigade's intelligence unit."
I knew that Wei was absolutely a spy for Kycilia, but he was too useful for me to discard. He complemented my skills well, and I needed somebody under my command with some amount of skill in subtlety.
"Can we take a ten minute break?" I asked, stretching my neck out. "I want to spend a little time training with the new guy."
"You don't have to ask me, Captain," Wei said. "You're two ranks above me."
I smiled back at Wei. "In that case, I'm hereby declaring a ten minute break. Stradivari, stand over there."
"Yes, sir," Stradivari said.
We walked over to a wide patch of soft grass. I pressed my foot against the ground and found that it would be sufficient to break my fall if necessary. There was something I wanted to test. If it was true that Newtype abilities operated on an empathic level, I wondered how that would interface with a mental condition defined by a lack of empathy.
"Let's do some basic sparring," I said to Stradivari. "Basic rules of conduct, first to score a knock-down wins. Got it?"
"Yes, sir," Stradivari said dryly as he took up a boxing stance.
"Careful," Ramos said. "The Captain is a hell of a fighter… for a field officer, that is."
"Thanks," I said sarcastically.
"Go," I said.
Without warning, a merciless jab shot toward my nose. I was barely able to block the attack. My sight was momentarily blocked by my own arms, and Stradivari used this moment of weakness to strike me hard in my liver. An immense pain shot through my body, and a slowly-growing panic filled my mind. Compared to my sparring matches against Ramos and Vultee, I felt like a toddler flailing against a trained fighter.
I knew that retreat would never work against such a merciless opponent, so I took a step forward and struck desperately at Stradivari's face. My attack was horrendously predictable, but I still struck my target. Stradivari moved his head with the attack, minimizing the damage as he grabbed my arm. My vision became a blur of movement, and I ended up on my back with Stradivari's knee on my neck.
"Okay, you got me," I sputtered out, tapping my hand against Stradivari's knee.
For a moment, I was afraid that he wouldn't release me, and I would need to rely on Ramos or Wei to get me out of that bad situation, but Stradivari removed his knee from my neck with no hesitation. I sat up and took a moment to assess the fight. It had been an immediate and obvious loss on my part. If that had been a real fight, Stradivari could have killed me, and all I managed to do was bruise his face slightly. That was the first time I had lost a fight ever since I had arrived in the Earth Sphere, and I was just happy it happened during a sparring match.
Still, that fight had been an indispensable learning experience for me. Fighting Stradivari was an entirely different experience compared to fighting a normal person. Normal people, especially those with a particularly strong moral compass like Ramos, had to build themselves up mentally for a few fractions of a second before launching a violent attack. I was able to pick up on that subconsciously and dodge the incoming attack.
Stradivari was different. There was no hesitation or empathic response when he attacked, so there was nothing for my Newtype powers to pick up on.
In short, Stradivari was a Newtype killer.