by Carlo Zen
“It was a misidentification. The observer mage didn’t get enough training…”
But hearing the word misidentification, Tanya explodes. “I want your excuses officially—on paper—at a later date! How are we supposed to keep morale up when we’re under observed fire from our own artillery?!”
“It was the observer mage’s mistake. Because the fighting is so chaotic…”
“Don’t they even know standard procedure?! What do we even have identification signals and communications ciphers for?!”
“Very sorry. I’ll have him write a formal apology…”
Oh, the bureaucratic reply.
“Great! Send one copy to the General Staff and one here! You’ll be officially censured afterward!” Tanya slams down the receiver and takes one deep breath before exploding again. “These fucking amateurs! What do they think war is?! The lives of imperial soldiers are on the line! Take this seriously! No confirmation—are you kidding me?!”
This is people’s lives. There’s no recovering or taking them back.
Under no circumstances will I tolerate a casually mistaken bombardment. This is a major incident that put people’s lives in danger—what are they thinking? Tanya is shocked at this disaster brought about by a lack of professionalism.
“Shit! Why can’t our observer mages tell our own troops from the enemy?! What are they even observing?!”
I can understand being fired on by the enemy.
We can just fire back. That’s only fair.
Being fired on by your own artillery is not fair.
I can even accept an accident due to gun trouble or whatnot during a rolling barrage. Just because a shelling is scheduled doesn’t mean the trajectories can be calculated with 100 percent accuracy.
“Give me a casualty report!”
“No serious losses. Just a few shells fell on our defensive position; there won’t be any notable casualties.”
Major Weiss responds promptly and Tanya has to ask back, “What? You’re sure?”
“Yes, Colonel.”
Her vice commander wouldn’t give her an unconfirmed report. Knowing that, she understands that he’s being serious.
“…I’m…really glad to hear that.”
“Haaah…,” she sighs in relief. Suffering casualties over something like this would be despairingly absurd. The fact that they were fired on makes her furious, but the news that they haven’t incurred losses is a hopeful-enough reality to cool her raging head.
“Just to confirm, no damage to tanks or guns?”
“No, ma’am. If necessary, we’re ready to fire against the artillery.”
“Ha-ha-ha, right now I’m thrilled that it doesn’t seem to be necessary.”
The command post is relaxing before her eyes, a warmth returning to the atmosphere. No damage is truly the blessing in this curse.
Sheesh, thinks Tanya, but her troubles don’t end there.
“Excuse me, Colonel.”
“Colonel Calandro? I was worried there would be an international incident if you were killed in friendly fire. Very glad to see you’re safe.”
Calandro pops in, looking fit as a fiddle.
“Yes, thankfully I’m fine. Your artillery units are surprisingly sloppy.”
“And thanks to that, we survived. I never imagined the day would come that I’d be delighted at their sloppiness. Of course, maybe it’s because they’re sloppy that we were fired on in the first place.”
““Ha-ha-ha.””
The stupid ones get mocked for being stupid. It’s a natural principle.
“Still, I admire your unit. Fearing actual firing for effect, you were taking shelter, but the efficiency with which it was carried out… Your defense against artillery fire is impressive. It seems you’ve trained your men quite well.”
“You’re going to make me blush. It’s just that I’ve been in many an artillery battle on the Rhine front…”
“Maybe it’s impossible for me to comprehend, since I haven’t experienced that terror myself. It brings the importance of experience into sharp relief.”
“Yes, my adjutant, vice commander, and I have a wealth of that.” She brags slightly that they’re elites who have been through hard times.
“Now then, I’m sure you know why I’ve come… Do you mind explaining what happened?”
“Certainly.” When Calandro expresses interest, Tanya laments to him. “To put it plainly, as you’ve gathered, we’ve been fired on by our own artillery. The cause was the observer mage mistaking us for Federation troops.”
“Mistaking? Wow, ‘fog of war’ is right, huh?”
“Truly. But luckily, we managed across the board to avoid getting hit.” Tanya comments that it was the blessing in this curse, but Calandro eyes her with suspicion.
“That’s what I’m wondering about, Colonel. I’m surprised you were able to stop them before they fired for effect. How in the world did you do it?”
“Huh? I called them up, gave them the cipher, and told them to cease fire.”
“Which is a feat of coordination indeed… So how did you pull it off? Regardless of the theory, the practical details elude me. For future reference, it would be great if you could tell me.”
“We’re risking our lives, you know; it’s just the case that all our safety mechanisms functioned.”
“So you can’t explain the finer points? As a military observer, I’m desperate for that sort of info.”
“I see,” she says, but beneath her polite smile, Tanya sneers. It’s not happening.
No matter how hard he digs, she can’t tell him she got them to stop by threatening them!
Just try leaving that on record! Something listed in the official record becomes something that officially happened. If it got into the record that I was fired at by mistake and threatened them, it would be a stain on my CV!
This is different from logic in a moment of rage. Once you have the breathing room to think about long-term preservation of the self, you need to keep up appearances.
Perfect résumé, perfect career, perfect future. This three-item set must be defended with one’s life.
“First the friend-or-foe identification signal and then an appropriate conversational exchange. And the grace of God. Yes, I think that’s about it.”
Calandro leaves the room with an “I see” and a “Thank you,” either because he realizes I’m busy or because he wants to observe the situation some more.
Whichever it is, I’m grateful he’s gone.
“I can’t believe I have to deal with this ineptitude… The instructors who sent these idiots to the front can rot. Observer accuracy is the root of the Imperial Army’s firepower!”
If we’re getting lax with that, the future is bleak.
“…As losses reach their limit, the quality of the replenishments is bound to drop.”
“I know, Major Weiss.”
It’d be stranger to replace veterans with part-timers and expect things to function without issue as normal… Would the General Staff really cling to such stupid wishful thinking?
Hmm… Tanya sinks into thought for a moment.
The more she regains her composure, the stranger it all seems. It’s common knowledge that the army is running short on fighting power. She can’t deny that committing newbies to the front is a theoretically sound last-ditch measure.
But that’s not what happened. The essential point is that the Imperial Army still has some sturdy personnel left. Running low and running out are two different things.
“…Unless the home country has mental issues, something weird is going on.”
It was just such a shit show. It’s difficult to imagine that coming out of nowhere. I’m not citing insurance statistics, but usually an accident is preceded by a flood of previous smaller stresses.
The incident this time seemed much larger than a simple mistake. So then has the quality of the troops shifted so radically? In the span of a few days?
“In the past few
days, we had the advance order from yesterday and the sudden retreat order today.”
Talk about getting jerked around. Normally this would be an indication of how much chaos the Imperial Army is facing.
Normally, that is…
“…Not experiencing confusion in the field would be more of a surprise, but actually right now, things are fairly orderly?”
She thought maybe the idea was to purposely tangle the lines, but in any case, this is too quick of a reversal. It’s easy to say, The lines are tangled, so retreat for now, but much harder to pull off.
If it was so simple to retreat with the enemy right there, they would never need a rear guard.
“…But the higher-ups mean for us to do it.”
And, she adds in her head. We can’t say that there’s zero confusion. But for a unit riddled with rookies, those guys have been operating in a relatively organized fashion up until now!
This is blatantly suspect. It couldn’t have happened unless someone somewhere was manipulating things.
“In which case, the question is the aims of the actor.”
A modest advance, a clash, and a tidying up of the lines. If we were going by the textbook, the order would probably be to build up a defensive position, but…what are all these newbies doing on the front lines? What are they planning to do by freeing up the veterans?
“Recon-in-force? But if they want to push all the lines up…”
Usually it would just be a Kampfgruppe like us sent in. It’s not something you need the whole army for, and it isn’t the Imperial Army’s custom to perform reconnaissance in force with a whole corps.
“Colonel? Is something wrong?”
Tanya suddenly realizes she’s been in her own world for quite a while. It wasn’t until her adjutant prodded her with a stare that she noticed.
“Oh, no, I was just thinking. An officer’s bad habit.”
Anyhow. She shakes her head. Leaving her questions on a note in the back of her mind and recalling her role, she knows what she needs to do is simple.
She re-confronts the situation before her.
She has to present her subordinates with a plan to remediate and give them their next orders.
“Troops, I’m glad we didn’t end up having to charge on the numbskulls in that other unit. If something had happened to Colonel Calandro, it would have been an international incident, so I’m glad we escaped that, too.”
“““Ha-ha-ha!””” The officers who burst out laughing, including Tospan, must all be beefing up their nerves here on the eastern front. Tanya finds adaptability to be a powerful force.
Wow, she’s compelled to marvel.
All that’s left is to alternate an appropriate level of tension with appropriate rest. That’s the task of Tanya and the other personnel-managing members of the General Staff. Human resources function perfectly when managed appropriately.
“Let’s seize apology and consolatory gifts from headquarters. The requisition I leave up to she who is supposedly the most merciless among us, Lieutenant Serebryakov!”
“Wha—? I—I object, Colonel!” But Serebryakov’s sputtering protest is the minority opinion in the Kampfgruppe. All the officers must have been fleeced by her multiple times.
“That’s our commander, always keeping a sharp eye on her subordinates.”
“Yes, I hope that my eye for people, at least, is accurate, Captain Ahrens. But she’s robbed more than just the magic officers?”
“I certainly have no desire to play cards with her.” There’s something sad in Ahrens’s eyes as he murmurs that. It must mean she’s beaten him more than once.
She glances around and sees that all the officers seem to agree.
“Captain Meybert, Lieutenant Tospan, judging from the looks on your faces, you agree with Captain Ahrens? Did you hear that, Major Weiss?”
“Sure did. What an embarrassment. She’s utterly ruthless.”
The duet of sighs plays out perfectly.
As a light topic of conversation, it’s not bad. Maybe it’s a bit obnoxious, but it’s important to share a sense of humor if you’re going to be working together. Tanya had been worried that she couldn’t connect to her subordinates in that way, so she feels like she has stumbled upon some handy material.
“…I’m not going to tell you to have mercy on the enemy, but you might want to rethink being so heartless toward your friends and fellows.”
“Colonel?! Major?!”
“““Ha-ha-ha!””” The laughter reviving inside Kampfgruppe HQ is a sign that precious normalcy is returning. Harmony is invaluable.
“All right, troops. That’s that for the settlement. Make sure you tell Lieutenant Serebryakov what you’d like later.” Tanya tenses up her expression to head back to the point. “We need to retreat to the designated line in order to tidy up the front. Major Weiss, you’re on rear guard. Captain Ahrens, you’re in charging of securing our route.” When she glances at them, she sees the faces of veterans who know what they’re doing. “So the aerial mage battalion, with their mobility, will protect the rear, and the armored forces, with their breakthrough capacity, will lead the way out. Let’s set ourselves up for a solid withdrawal!” She makes her intentions clear. “Lieutenant Tospan, operate under Captain Meybert. Assist the artillery in their retreat. Lieutenant Serebryakov, you’ll go with them and escort Colonel Calandro.”
“Understood!”
The fact that she can leave that to her adjutant means she has a great adjutant. You can’t find support like that just anywhere. She thanks Serebryakov and doles out tasks to her other equally trustworthy officers.
“Okay, Major Weiss, Lieutenant Grantz. We’ll leave last as usual. Boy, it’s a drag that managers don’t get paid for overtime.”
“Same as always, then. But I’m one of the lower ranking of the lowest ranks, so I’d like to apply for overtime pay.”
“Oh?” she blurts as Grantz’s uncharacteristic banter catches her by surprise. Right, Weiss is mid-ranking, but Grantz is still lower. “The privileges of being a lieutenant. Sheesh, I can’t argue with that. I’ll make sure we get you a form to apply for the overtime allowance. If we can get Legal and General Affairs to sign off, you’ll get your extra pay.”
“…Your kindness brings tears to my eyes.”
“Ha-ha-ha. Well, just think of it as being an aerial mage on call to scramble includes your flight, rapid response, and overtime allowances.”
“That’s just what I’d expect a manager from the homeland to say.”
By the point he raises his hands in surrender, Grantz must have accurately comprehended the power differential between them. Very good, Tanya thinks, shooting a wry grin at Weiss.
“Well, I am a general staffer who came through the war college, remember. I know a thing or two about military administration.”
“So, then?”
“If I could, I’d get one of those refined desk-polishing jobs.”
Weiss’s face says he finds that unexpected as he murmurs, “So you wanted to work in the rear, Colonel?”
“That’s right, Major. Perhaps I’m a different animal than you. It’s not as if I was hoping to be serving on the front lines.”
“This is what it means to be truly surprised.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It just doesn’t sound like the sort of thing an officer who has stood on pretty much every front would say.”
“That’s for sure.” She groans at Weiss’s comment. Even she finds her perfect attendance–like score odd. Maybe she needs to pay more attention to her work-life balance.
“How much better would it have been—how much better!—if that wasn’t true.” She smiles bitterly and nods. “That said, you can’t wish the world into being a certain way. Ever since I got mixed up in combat in Norden, I seem to have a connection to war.”
Or more like ever since I was hurled into this world by Being X? Malicious beings really cause nothing but trouble for good civilized people.
“Fate? You have no idea how much of a relief it would be if I could shout, ‘Nein!’” She sighs heavily. “We’re at war even as we have this ridiculous conversation. For someone with common sense like me, it’s truly painful.”
“If I may, ma’am, I agree.”
“Oh, you understand, do you? That’s great, Lieutenant Grantz.”
Major Weiss, who pipes up with a “It really is,” has spent as much time with Grantz as Tanya has. He probably has a thing or two on his mind. “I’m impressed with how far you’ve come. How about a simple quiz, then?”
“A quiz? What should we have him do?” Tanya asks, her interest piqued.
“Hmm, what about having him explain the war situation?”
“Good. Okay, let’s get to it. Lieutenant Grantz, I’ll ask you just like back in the academy. Explain this order to retreat and the background to it.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Grantz stiffens before speaking. “…It’s a sort of weird way to reorganize the defense lines.”
“How so?”
“It’s a question of timing, Colonel. Isn’t it strange to reorganize the lines while there’s still combat continuing in various places…instead of after the fighting is over?”
“You felt the same way, hmm?”
“Yes… You thought the same thing, ma’am?”
“…I have the feeling that maybe, just maybe…the home country is planning a major counteroffensive? The way they’re moving forces around feels a bit peculiar. It feels somehow deliberate. Oh, but that said…” She smiles bitterly. “This is just one officer’s guesswork. I think that’s enough chatter for now. Time to retreat; let’s do it. We’ll withdraw to the rear and thank headquarters for those shells.”
“““Understood!”””
[chapter] IV Operation Iron Hammer
MAY 5, UNIFIED YEAR 1927, THE KINGDOM OF ILDOA, GENERAL GASSMAN’S OFFICE
A messenger, for better or worse, is tasked with accurately conveying the sender’s intentions. To put it another way, being a messenger requires the resourcefulness to deliver the words as stated, unaltered. When an officer performs a messenger mission, it’s something different.