Game of Life

"But how the devil did you determine that, my friend?" I asked.

"Elementary, my dear Watson. I knew he was an avid billiards player from the chalkmarks between his fingers, and the mortar underneath his fingernails indicates the man is involved in construction. Combined with Mr. Cooper's statement that-"

Knock knock.

Warrant Officer Dawn Ellis looked up from her tablet in annoyance. This was her first down time in almost an entire week, aside from maybe 15 combined hours of sleep, due to the massive work restoring the Gwazine-class spaceship. Why couldn't she just spend it relaxing? Sighing, she got up and pulled on a t-shirt, while the knocking came again. "Just a minute..." Dawn finally cracked the door open, then slid it further open when she looked up at her guest, surprised.

"Arronax? What in the world happened to you?"

Officer Candidate Rachel Arronax was a mess. She had obviously showered recently, for her hair was still wet, but she obviously didn't bother combing it. Her glasses were dirty and seated unevenly on her nose. Her uniform was on, but it wasn't buttoned evenly, and only half tucked into her skirt, and her stockings had a rip along one of her legs. Her eyes were red, she had no makeup on, and there was a large bruise on the side of her face. She was clearly on the verge of tears.

Rachel slowly handed a sheet of paper to Dawn, who had to tug it before Rachel remembered to let go. Dawn quickly scanned it; it was a standard casualty report, from the last 3 days. The combined Federal and Zeon KIA/MIA estimates totalled...

1,026?! Dawn looked up at Rachel suddenly, with a look of understanding in her eyes. "Come inside for a second, I need to get dressed."

Although it was cramped with even one person, Dawn didn't want to leave Rachel standing in the hall like that alone, so she made Rachel sit on her bed while she changed into the casual dress version of her uniform. There was no talking between the two at first, and Rachel uneasily looked around the small room, her eyes eventually settling on a photograph of a suggestively dressed young woman, with handwritten words beneath in a foreign language. Her curiosity and troubled mental state overriding her social graces, she asked, "Dawn, ...are you into women?"

Putting on her watch, Dawn furrowed her brow, puzzled, and turned to face Rachel. "Only when I've had too much to drink, why?" Rachel merely pointed at the picture on the wall. Dawn involuntarily glanced at the casualty report lying next to Rachel on the bed for a moment. "That belonged to the last person who used that bunk, I haven't had time to clean it up yet."

Taking the photo down, Rachel looked at it, tears brimming in her eyes again,when suddenly a hand grabbed her shoulder firmly. Jerking her head up, Rachel saw Dawn holding up a long, thin, wooden box, a sad but concerned smile on her face. "Come on. You need some food. Let's hit the mess."

***

Alexa Winters walked down the hallway to the mess hall on autopilot, too absorbed in scrolling through the report on Admiral Jamitov's newest test design to notice the usual stares. The core of this "Anti-Newtype" weapon seemed to be its control system, everything else about it seemed conventional, if not ordinary. The mobile suit appeared to have an adapted version of the FF-X7 Core Fighter's learning computer the V Project suits were equipped with, built upon until it was as close to an AI as it could ever be. Of course, how that made it "Anti-Newtype," she didn't really know, but the only things she knew about these "Newtypes" were learned in passing from idle comments made by the admiral. All she had really managed to piece together was that they were closely related to the Zeon idea of "spacenoid superiority."

And, in Alexa's opinion, any weapon designed to fight that deserved full backing.

Entering the mess hall, she grabbed a tray of food mindlessly, not really caring what was on it, as she continued to read her PDA. And, as always, she ignored the chuckles and giggles as she pulled herself up onto a chair and began eating, her head barely above the level of the table, and her feet a foot off the ground. As usual, she intended on eating quickly and getting out of there as fast as possible. She unfortunately found out that today was one of the rare days they got to have steak, which meant there was no fast way to eat today.

"And there goes your other rook, Dawn."

As Alexa turned, there was a giggle in response to the statement. Two women were playing chess on a small wooden chessboard that someone must have had in their personal effects. One was the girl inept at interrogating that prisoner, and the other was-

Alexa quickly turned around before Dawn could meet her eye and identify her, but it was too late.

"Ensign Winters, is that you? It has to be, no other officer is that short! Come join us!" Dawn waved to Alexa, who fumed silently as she gathered her tray and awkwardly hopped off the bench to move to Dawn's table. With a helping hand from that bimbo she met in the interrogation room earlier (Arronax? That's the one Admiral Jamitov asked me to keep an eye on) she reseated herself.

"Warrant Officer Ellis, it's been a while. Haven't seen you since the final testing of the VX-76." Alexa tried to remain aloof, this woman made her feel too open. She glanced down at the chessboard as a distraction from the stupid grin on Ellis' face, and took stock of the game play. Arronax was playing black, and had a mountain of white pieces near her, while Ellis only had a handful of black ones. The board was pretty distributed, with the 4 central control tiles pawnlocked. Aside from that, though, the board was a sea of black, with maybe 5 white pieces.

"We can talk after this game is over, which shouldn't be long," muttered Ellis. This drew a surprised look from Rachel, who studied the board again. Too late, though. Dawn moved a bishop right next to the king, which was fairly boxed in with Rachel's own pieces.

"Checkmate, Rachel."

"..." Rachel was silent as she verified that it was, in fact, checkmate. She sighed, looking depressed again. Alexa wanted to slap her for being such a bad loser, but Dawn caught her eye and shook her head slightly.

"Do you know why you lost, Rachel?"

Sighing, she nodded. "Yes, because I failed to see that opening. Keeping track of everything isn't easy."

Dawn shook her head. "No. I probably would have won anyway. Rachel, you let me play the game however I wanted, because you were afraid of losing pieces. You're terrified of trading. Because of that, I was able to force my way into the game I wanted, and even worse, your own pieces limited your mobility. I won because I made sacrifices. You lost everything because you were afraid to lose anything. Do you understand?"

Rachel sat there, uncomfortable, for a moment. Alexa, while not trying to stare, tried to read her expression, when she noticed Rachel's eyes were glistening. Rachel reached under her glasses with a handkerchief and wiped her eyes, then leaned across the table to hug Dawn, knocking over most of the pieces.

"...I understand. Thank you. I have to go clean myself up. I'm very, very sorry for troubling you today." She smiled slightly. "You wouldn't mind if we had a rematch sometime soon, would you?" At Dawn's smile and nod, Rachel bowed slightly, smiling brighter, and walked off.

Alexa stared after her. "What the hell was that all about?"

Dawn slid next to her. "I was teaching her one of the hardest lessons of leadership: How to kill your own men." She reached over to Alexa's plate and cut the steak in half, and slid the larger portion to her plate. "It looked like a bit much for you, and I'm still hungry. Hope you don't mind."

Alexa merely reddened and looked at her plate, before responding, "Well, one of us has to keep a sleek figure, you know? Don't worry though, I heard some guys love a rounder girl."

Dawn almost choked on her food from laughing, and finally swallowed. "You're welcome, Alexa. It's good to see you again."

Alexa responded by focusing on her meal, though it took work keeping a smile from sneaking onto her face.