He used to play a game in the scouts. What did they call it? Capture the Flag, or something like that. Each side had a hidden flag and the other tried to get it. He was always the planner. How'll we do it, John? And he would tell them, and keep away from the rough stuff, and they nearly always won.
But violence fascinated him as a spectator. Later his reading took him in that direction, and later still his studies. In the middle of his life he found he was one of the leading historical naval tacticians in the world. He started writing historical novels, under a pseudonym, of course, and soon became the world's authority.
Then someone blundered into Aqua.
For a couple hundred years the Terran Confederation and the United Peace Worlds had been at war. Not an open, honest, stand-up-and-get-it war; but an undercover, half ignored, let's-get-the-kids-to-fight war. A galaxywide game, played for planets, using local cultures. And always according to the rules. No new technologies. No new weapons. Use what you have at hand. Play it fair. Because if you do not, neither will we—and together we will eliminate the universe.
Aqua was a natural. It had a war already underway. Deep in the secretmost catacombs of Confederation Central a voice said: "Find a man who knows ancient naval tactics. Find a man who knows sailing. Find a man who knows combustion firearms. Find a man. Now!"
And the order went rattle-rattle, click-click, wink, blink ... and reached out and touched Doctor John Ward.
Although Colonel Ward's training had filled three straight days, there was one thing they forgot to tell him—what do you think about, really, when someone fires a cannon in your face?
A knock came at the door. Ward rubbed his face back into an expression of awareness.
"Come."
Tahn entered briskly and strode to the opposite side of the table. His eyes held a level, challenging look.