by Kali Altsoba
Rikugun
Volume VI
The Orion War
by
Kali Altsoba
Second Edition
©
Kali Altsoba
(2019)
About the Author
Kali Altsoba is the pen name used to publish future military fiction by the award winning military historian, Cathal J. Nolan. He is the author of multivolume works of international and military history. He received the top international award for military history in 2018, the Gilder Lehrman Prize, for his acclaimed The Allure of Battle (Oxford UP). His histories have been feature reviewed in academic and military journals, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and The National. He has given public lectures in Argentina, Britain, Canada, Israel, and all across the United States. Recent venues include the Chautauqua Institute, National World War II Museum, New York Historical Society, the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center at Ft. Leavenworth, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Kabul, Afghanistan), National Intelligence University, World Affairs Forum, and Center for Military and Diplomatic History. He has interviewed for or appeared on CBS Radio, Fox Radio, Radio Free Europe, Newstalk (Ireland), BBC Mundo, PBS and C-Span. He regularly consults on military historical research to the PBS series NOVA. He is featured on camera in the 2018 NOVA documentary on Dunkirk.
Author’s Note (First Edition)
Some events in this series derive from real world acts of war, including war crimes and atrocities adapted from After Action reports, combat memoirs and eyewitness accounts. They come from widely varied armies, times and cultures, in dozens of wars across many centuries. The result is often grim and not for the fainthearted, cruel and pitiless, but true to the wide human experience of war waged over time. As dark as the tale becomes, as savage as some characters and combat depictions are, I hope my effort to root this series in a deeply human experience of the high politics of empire and the brutality of war will be rewarding to some readers.
Author’s Note (Second Edition)
This book is reorganized, rewritten, and expanded. Seven new chapters are added, along with character and situational development in all other chapters. The story develops earlier themes in the series, adds plot twists and enhanced character arcs that continue in follow on books. Combat depictions may echo real events drawn from veteran experience, but are all reset within a complex weave of character development and future war that is reshaping the history of the Thousand Worlds of Orion yet to come. There are numerous literary references woven into names, plot twists, characters, and dialogue. Some are explicit. Many are left implicit, as a kind of cultural “easter egg” for curious readers to discover and explore.
Contents
Tedi
Recruit
Kolno
Barrage
Flotsam
Leyla
Ghouls
Lovers
Beetle
Nest
Fury
Thrice
Rollbahn
Troika
Inferno
Rock
Boots
Shadows
Officer
Shrew
Soma
Nectar
Winter
Spring
Mutiny
Bitch
Appendix A
Appendix B
Sample
“With me, you gave birth to your own death.”
Pyotr Shaka III to Dowager Mary Oetkert
on the night of her death
Tedi
Tedi Shipcka is petite, but lithe and athletic. She has waterfalls of blonde hair and brilliant blue eyes that sparkle with laughter and intelligence. From the corner of each oval spread three finely etched lines. They’re cat’s whisker tribal marks, worn by most women native to Daegu, planet of Tedi’s birth and rearing. That’s all over. She’s turning seventeen real soon and is eager to leave it all behind. Her homeworld, her family, her childhood. Tedi wants to go to war. And now she can.
Officially, throughout the Krevan War it was Imperium policy that women had no place near the frontlines of war, let alone in combat. That was reaffirmed in a broadcast that went out Imperium wide in the first week of the Liberation War against the Calmar Union. A rotund, red faced, self-satisfied Minister for Families laid out the rules: “The war to recover our Lost Children will not change our old and proven ways. Women make and raise our men, then our men make history. It is the role of Grün womanhood to raise boys to manhood to serve in the armies and fleets that bring home glory to us all.” The dumpling shaped minister was the sole woman seated in the High Council of Advisers, a honorific post traditionally occupied by the pliant spouse of an Imperial favorite. These days, that means her husband is one of The Admitted, the innermost circle around Pyotr Shaka III.
Tedi Shipcka was just fifteen when she heard the minister give the speech, live over the civvy memex. Her mother and grandmother and billions of older women wholeheartedly agreed with the policy, nodding moral approval. But the dowdy, stuffy old minister didn’t know or understand that throughout her dull speech Tedi and hundreds of millions of girls and young women scowled at their affirmatively nodding, more conservative mothers and grandmothers. So she continued, blithe and blind to their newfound ambition. “Women must cultivate the warrior in their sons, but not seek to take men’s place in war. Things native to men will remain in the country of men. Women should cleave to their nature and serve in other ways. Tennō Pyotr Shaka III admires all our strong and loyal women. He exalts women. There’s no greater glory in Grün society than to be a brave woman who willingly gives the life of her son to the cause of Purity and to the armies of Tennō Pyotr.”
Tedi never heard the end of the speech. She stomped out of the room in a 16-year old’s huff, running to a nearby range to take more target practice with a naval reserve pistol her father gave her when he was last home on leave on Daegu, well after the Krevan Outrage, before he left for a new and wider war against a collage of star states that calls itself the Grand Alliance. She loudly disapproved of Mom’s timid reluctance to see her third and youngest son leave home to train for the war, after she lost her firstborn to a notice that declared he Died for the Imperium. She has heard nothing at all about her husband and second son. “Soooo unpatriotic! How can you not be, like, soooo proud? Like, don’t you get it, Mom? Tommy’s a hero now, one of the Glorious Fallen! And now our Johnny’s gonna be a soldier!”
Everyone knows that Rikugun and Kaigun are together winning the Liberation War. Yet there’s unease at how long it’s taking to finish. There’s puzzlement that Rikugun is scraping the barrel sides and the bottom by admitting into its ranks all types of men that it earlier labeled “substandard.” Prewar scrubeens and older men are accepted by recruiting boards that waive almost all the old physical standards. Several divisions are fielding men shorter than allowed by the rules. Much shorter. In fact, Rikugun has started to put these recruits all in the same divisions. They’re called “bantams” in polite society, but “dwarf divisions” more often on the streets. Officially, they’re designated by Rikugun as “Special Formations.” It intended to use them only as rear area guards on occupied worlds, to free regular divisions to fight. But it has to commit the Specials to combat as the war grinds on. Tonight a memex series is premiering Imperium wide, celebrating all their heroic exploits. The show is called Pocket Hercules Platoon. There has been lots of advance buzz.
“You two gonna watch?”
“Sure. I hear it’s a comedy.”
“You heard wrong. I saw a preview. It’s not a comedy.”
“Damn! I got no choice: it’s mandatory to watch at the factory.”
“First we lost all our war bots in the initial battles, now this!”
“Ho
w do you know about the bots?”
“What do you think I do all night? We used to make lots of dillos and walkers and gatling bots where I work, and lots of other kinds of fighting machines. Now we mostly make infantry carrier assists and stretcher bots.”
“Well, that’s important war work, too.”
“Hey! Maybe if you’re making stretchers for the new dwarf divisions you only gotta make ‘em half as big? That’ll double your production run!”
“Very funny, Spike. Always the comedian.”
“Bantam divisions! What’s next?”
Next, is that women will serve on frontline worlds, although solely in unarmed and noncombatant roles. After the sinister Bad Camberg black op launched the Krevan War with a lie, Main HQ on Kestino agreed to accept female volunteers, allowing them into auxiliary support battalions. It used them for logistics support on the homeworlds: bumblebee loader operators, cargo haulers, maglev and God’s Lift drivers, replacing males it moved into combat training divisions. Going far beyond using little men, Rikugun will now ship out its support service Women’s Auxiliary Battalions to places like Portus Cale and Amasia. Women auxiliaries are going into active combat zones. They’re still unarmed, but they’ll work close to the frontlines as drivers, coms operators, cooks, nurses, and in other supply and combat support roles. A few will be permitted to work as anti-skycraft gun crews, as an experiment in the deep rear areas. On Amasia, they’ll move into the zone between the back of Third Trench and the distant, occupied east coast of Lemuria.
“This is a great reward from Imperator Pyotr Shaka to our most loyal women,” the Minister for Families solemnly announces to a surprised public just a half year into the Liberation War, amending her original speech and the longstanding policy of the military without acknowledging the change. Shifting of Women Auxiliaries into rear areas of active combat zones appalls all older women, but delights Tedi and most of her excitedly patriotic schoolmates. Tedi has just turned sixteen, when the change in policy is announced. She’s thrilled at this chance to serve that her beloved Pyotr grants to Grün womanhood. “I’m going to drive a maglev, or maybe a troika, right up to the edge of The Black!” she affirms every day of her sixteenth summer, the last summer of her evaporating civvy life on Daegu.
Civvies always say “The Black” in capitals. Soldiers who actually serve at the long, buried walls on Amasia and a dozen other contested worlds are strictly lower case about it. It has to do with respect and fear. It has to do with actually knowing war. It has to do with understanding that the black is not a line on a combat map, or a buried wall, or a defense-in-depth trench system. It’s a ghostly place of endless torment, of suffering and sudden, random death. It’s also called the Yue ming, the obscure region lying between life and death where Diyu daemons built Youdu the Dark Capital and invited King Yan to dwell and be served by Gozu and Mezu, by Ox Head and Horse Face, who make lists of dead souls and their time of passing.
“This is a reward for our women’s deep devotion to Imperator Pyotr and our brave fighting men.” Repetition isn’t really persuasion, so the minister reassures an uneasy older public that nothing essential will ever change. “Martial instead of marital mobilization of women is a temporary measure, a special circumstance. It’s not a permanent change in our proven social or military order.” She has to say it. Women soldiers make civvies uncomfortable. “Amazons” are a stock feature of memex propaganda about decadent farfolk societies, fighting on the other side of this war. Female soldiers defy everything holy in the misogynist history of the Imperium. Correcting immoral blurring of rightful and righteous segregation of the sexes, reestablishing a proper hierarchy of castes, and of class and elect genes, that’s what this war and Purity restoration is all about! Everyone knows that, too.
Except the military needs to enlist women. Rikugun and even Kaigun must make up terrible losses of pliant young males suffered in extended fights on and above hard resisting Alliance worlds. They must fill in reserve divisions and fill out garrisons, crew spread out fleets and guard supply lines required by straining occupations of dozens of sullen, conquered systems. The old ways are breaking, so policy on women has to change. Imperium officials face long, darkening days of bad news about casualties becoming worse news. Stalemates can’t be hidden. Protracted fighting means the count of war dead is reaching hundreds of millions. Military dead are expected to exceed 350 million by the end of Year Two. Not as bad as for the reeling Alliance, and there are fewer civilian dead. Still, it’s a drain on the male population. The stream of volunteers is down to a trickle. More are waiting to be called up, refusing to volunteer. More mothers give sons unwillingly than willingly to what seems a stalled, uncertain cause. There’s sand in the gears.
All the generals and admirals are surprised by how many troops and ships they have to keep back from major fighting fronts like Amasia. How many are needed to maintain order, to police nearly 200 overrun but sullen and rebellious planets: occupation is proving harder than conquest. Some in the High Council on Kestino call for harsher measures, especially for more executions. They cite the Dauran model of zero tolerance of any resistance. They want execution as the sole penalty for any violation of martial law, from breaking curfew to failing to step aside or look down when an officer passes. That’s done on some occupied worlds already, but to mixed results. Others say that harsher methods only encourage resistance.
Imperium assets are stretched over 12 occupied Krevan systems, 61 overrun worlds taken from Threes and Helvetics, and 122 Calmari systems. It’s a helluva job, holding down 200 restless worlds; even for a military secretly preparing for almost 20 years to make aggressive war. War is one thing, occupation is another. Pyotr’s advisers finally agree on a solution that surprises even them. “Let armed women fill up our occupation battalions and divisions, freeing our men to fight at the active war fronts.” Rising male casualties are one reason why Rikugun adds segregated, armed women’s units to occupation forces. OK, it’s the main reason. Yeah right, it’s the only reason that the misogynist bastards do it.
Rikugun hastily arms its Women’s Auxiliary units, which prove good enough to carry out reserve duty and replacement roles. But losses continue. The slope of resistance slips as male casualties continue to rise on Amasia and in other vicious fights. A trickle becomes a torrent. With the service barricade down, renaming the Women’s Auxiliary units then sending them into combat is a short next step. Then comes the stumble: the renamed Women’s Combat Brigades aren’t combat trained or ready for active duty. The first fights they enter lead to such appalling casualties and worse tactical results that it’s decided to start afresh with brand new WCBs, this time recruited and trained to fight the same as men. Even at Kolno Barracks.
It’s an enormous step even for segregated WCBs to serve with male fighting divisions. After 1,500 years of Broderbund inspired misogyny, the scars left on Grün culture and on the military it produces are ugly and wide. So change comes in stagger steps, even under the intense pressure of war. To start, WCB officers at brigade command level, at the rank of colonel or above, will be male only. Lower ranking males may serve in a WCB if they choose, and there are strong incentives of fast promotion for any male volunteer who does. Even so, Rikugun can’t get enough men to take the new commissions. There’s a deep stigma against women throughout the Officer Corps. So officers are reassigned to WCBs, ready or not.
Although not fully integrated, women are finally getting ready to fight under the same Invincible Black Eagle flag as men, to kill and die for the Empire just like men. Already, it’s causing a quiet revolution in social and cultural life. Waters of ancient bigotry run deep under the Imperium’s foundation. No one is ready for full gender integration at the fronts, and certainly not on the homeworlds. Older women perhaps least of all. There are fierce private arguments in family kitchens and bedrooms about how and where women should serve. WCBs are something exceptional required of society in an extraordinary time. Most people get that. But they also fear that t
he war is changing everything: the future for younger women, the meaning of the past for their mothers’ and older generations, family life, Jade Court politics, homeworld traditions, and how women view Pyotr and relate to the Imperium. No one knows where it might lead. Already, the war is spinning change that no one can stop. Already it’s beyond control of the men who started it.
***
Tedi hasn’t come down all her sixteenth year, not since she heard the most exciting news that she ever heard. “Like ever!” Rikugun will now accept female volunteers! “Women’s Combat Brigades will be attached to every division that forms part of the undefeated Rikugun, serving Pyotr Shaka Oetkert III, Liberator of the Lost Children Worlds.” That’s how the official announcement put it, that it was another opportunity the war brings to everyone. It never mentioned the rise in male casualties or the desperate stalemates bogging down Rikugun on world after world across south central Orion. It never mentioned that most war bots are gone, and that cheap and abundant flesh must go to war instead. Female flesh, too.
When she hears the memex broadcast, Tedi runs all the way home after school to announce to her weeping mother that “I can’t wait until my Military Majority Day arrives!” She means her seventeenth birthday. “I’m going to enlist, Mom, the moment I turn seventeen!” She doesn’t need to say it. Fear and foreboding settle darkly over her mother and the Shipcka home the same hour that approval of the WCBs is announced. Everyone who knows Tedi knows that she will enlist. They always knew that she would find some way to get to the war.