Only Tactics

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Ink Burns

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

This is a work of fanfiction, produced according to the principles of transformative fair use as put forward in US copyright law, and abiding by the custom and practice of fan-produced work in Japan, where the source texts were created. No author is in any way affiliated with any of the creators of the source texts, nor with the companies who distribute their products, nor any other rights holder, and these stories were not authorized by either the creators or the producers. Ink Burns is a fan site and the material here is freely provided for the enjoyment of fellow fan-community members; there is no commercial infringement.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 US license at the Ink Burns fanfiction archive (http://alltrees.org/archive/).

Published on 2005-12-19 13:55:54.

Attributions can be made by author's name and a link to the archive.

This ebook edition was published on May 16, 2012 by the Ink Burns fanfiction archive.

Only Tactics

Hakuro reflects grimly on Mustang's influence. Drama, I-2

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