Fitz Hakuro eyed a sheaf of papers on his desk with distaste. Transfer requests didn’t normally merit that kind of glare, but these weren’t normal transfers. In fact, they were special requests from the Minister of Defense that certain officers and enlisted be permitted to leave active status so they could take civilian positions with the Ministry and “contribute the perspective of professional soldiers” to “achieve a balanced and equitable view from which to formulate policy” without “permanently removing trained officers from the pipeline, should they be needed”.

It was a messy idea, a jury-rigged, special-dispensation way to disorder records and assignments. It proposed to bend regulations into pretzels without ever quite breaking their letter.

It was Mustang all over.

Which, these days, he reflected sourly, meant he couldn’t deny it without a really good reason. He should have just demoted the man.

He sighed and pulled the papers towards him. Hindsight was twenty-twenty and so forth. On the bright side, at least Mustang wanted to grab off ones who were traitorously loyal to him from the start. Sergeant Fury, Lieutenant Ross, Private Scieszka. Really, it was too bad he couldn’t palm Armstrong off on Mustang, too, and put all the bad eggs in one basket. Fortunately the buffoon seemed happy enough with his field assignments in the East and didn’t make trouble. He signed off on one after another.

He tossed his pen on the stack, when he was done, and sat back. Let Mustang have joy of them. It would get them off his hands and away, and that was the important part.

Especially if he ever wanted to do something about Mustang.

He sat back with a small, dreamy smile and contemplated the future.

TBC