Nail - 7

 Soon, the commander stopped complaining and resumed his job of tracking enemy units. And he did it very efficiently. It was him who deployed his team immediately after the first attack after all, who was now cautiously surrounding the underground sectors with potential enemy units. On the largest screen of the INFOCON was now the cross-sectional map of the underground sectors of the republic, which stretched out to nearly three kilometers under sea level, and covered nearly all of the republic’s rocky treacherous terrains on the surface level. Han sat in front of the computer and navigated through it smoothly. She was very familiar with it, as they casually called it “the sponge” in academia, though the one on the screen was more focused on underground canals and caverns. The size of the map still left Han in awe, after years of working on it with her colleagues. Even the huge screen that made Han’s neck ache could cover only a portion of it at once. The special forces, equipped with heavy-duty flashlights, rappels, oxygen tanks, and decades of climbing experience, moved rapidly through channels, with the assist of helicopters flying above them. But when Han looked at the map, on which they appeared as small blue dots, it seemed that they were no better than ants trying to conquer a forest. The underground terrains, which were formed from tectonic plates being crushed, were extremely complicated, as any geologist would expect, and most terrains that appeared on the map were never explored. The detail of the map was almost completely due to seismic wave scanning on the surface level, done by hardworking geologists all over the world.

Given the shallow academic training the officers get, it was a given fact that all these details were ignored by the generals. They had to make very detailed instructions of relocating the teams, with a lot to consider, so Han’s job was to not distract them with technical details while she operated the map to assist their discussion. Of their consideration, first of all was civilians’ safety, which was not trivial because the cities of the republic were spotted on the scarce surface area, narrow bridges connecting them like cobwebs above jagged lower grounds. The special forces had to block every underground route that could be exploited by potential enemy mortar units to bomber cities. And meanwhile, they had to stop enemies from fleeing away too. The generals discussed deploying normal infantry soldiers around the vulnerable cities so that their teams could move more freely. They were not capable of climbing cliffs, of course, but at least they could guard their positions.

“So, let’s tell the 3rd division commander our plan,” the commander concluded. “Wait, do you guys remember who’s the commander there?”

The Special Warfare Commander has been busy with the generals in the army headquarters that he could not spare time to know much about the reserve division of his region, one of the most boring divisions this country had, until now.

“Yes, sir. BG Jung is holding that position”, one of the BGs answered. “He’s class of 1550, like me.”

“Well, then, you gotta go and tell him ‘bout this.” MG Lim replied. He was glad that he graduated from the academy in 1549, a year faster than BG Jung, which provided him with some authority that BG Jung, who was virtually a stranger because there was not a chance to meet him for decades, could not simply ignore. Han read this from his face. As a person who never heard about the academy before joining the army, she felt blessed that she was not a graduate of that school. Because of this, she was always treated like a stranger, a civilian, a visitor, within the command center, which was in practice favorable to Han because she did not have to worry a random officer older than her throwing a transcript file toward her face, unlike the INFOCON major, who was standing in a corner of the control room, staring at the floor, unsuccessfully attempting to curve his emotions from appearing on his face. Han glanced at her commander’s grinning face once more, blinked her eyes a couple of times, and resumed her job of operating the map.