by Solea Razvan
Volun 4, Imperial Fleet, 378th corps, Vampire’s Vengeance main conference room.
Ealiupus 17th 18:00
The table used for the meeting was a simple mahogany wood one, designed to be elegant, practical and above all else affordable.
But not even this beautiful piece of furniture could lift the spirits of the room’s occupants as the news was delivered to them.
And eerie silenced reigned the room as none dare speak after learning their mission.
“Galiana………. Galiana…………….!” Dalius was the first to exclaim.
“One battle wing and a new one at that!” was what Valyria added to the conversation.
Next to them Horatia was deep in thought muttering a prayer under her breath, though she was attentive to the meeting since she was rather adequate at multitasking.
No joke, no sarcastic comment from neither Dalius nor Valyria and no praising of providence from Horatia, that spoke volumes of the dangers ahead.
The rest where at an equal loss of words and even Adrian seemed a bit doubtful of this mission.
Werner and the Black Berets seemed unfazed, they were used to fighting dire situations and he himself was a veteran of many attempts on Galiana and so where the rest of the lot, except Casper who was a recent addition to their brigade.
The fighter leaders, represented by Ataru where nonplussed by this, he too had participated in previous attempts at capturing Galiana.
That was not to say that they were not afraid of returning to that monstrosity, but rather they learned to temper that feeling with past experiences that taught them that you can survive even in that nightmare and the present knowledge that their current commander knew how to survive if not win a very hard battle.
But even they could not say anything positive or encouraging about the situation.
“Alright that’s enough!” the voice of Tarkan bellowed trough the room and shook everyone out of their stupor.
“Get your act together! Remember that you are officers and an officer’s duty is to remain calm and confident when the chips are down; if not, then how can you expect the men and women to fight for victory if their own leaders don’t even believe in victory?” The sergeant turned commissioned officer said, which restored them to their previous selves, an act borne from the combination of being reminded of their duties and the fact that Tarkan was a very scary when he wanted to be!
Just goes to show you that sometimes the key to winning a battle or war is not strategy or tactics, but yelling.
Yell until your problems run away or until you need to breathe.
“Thank you Tarkan, but you’re reactions are understandable and I can tell that many of your have doubts about this operation, so I want you to listen to it and if your actually think that it is unfeasible, than we will simply abandon the mission.” Metternich said cheerfully since he was confident that they would do so.
But his cheerful demeanor had the unintended effect of helping the others restore their confidents.
Happiness was after all the only cure for despair!
And so the newly christened rear admiral outlined the basics of his plan and when it was over the decision was made.
“My lord, this plan seems to have the best chance of success, but………” Adrian struggled to find the right words, for the plan was a sound one, but very, very risky!
If he would have been the one tasked to lead an assault against Galiana he would probably do either a straight up battle of attrition or something similar to this, though he wasn’t so sure he could come up with something this imaginative.
“There’s a lot of potential for unforeseen developments at many critical junctions and the plan can be difficult to pull off, there is a very high change it can fail….” Antonius added, and was regretting those words; it was not like him to not offer support when it was due.
“What happens if the plan doesn’t work out, or we can’t put it into action?” Dalius asked.
“We withdraw of course.” Metternich said as a matter of fact as he took a cup of kava from Butz and replied with a polite ‘thank you’.
“But sir, it’s Galiana! The origin of the curse ‘Go to Galiana’ we can’t just withdraw like that!”
“Of course we can Dalius.”
“But how?”
“By retreating of course!” Metternich surprised that such an obvious answer was not uttered by anybody.
“But the enemy will pursue us!”
“Then we simply have a portion of our fleet, let’s say a third, put their sailors in escape pods, have the pods attach themselves to the rest of the main body of crafts and use the automated pilot program in the empty ships universas to make them act as a means to keep our pursuers busy until we get out of there.” the rear admiral replied as sipped his drink.
“Automatic ships? Not a rear guard?”
“Yes, that’s right Antonius.”
“Retreat without a fight and give up a third of the wing, which we just got and you only now received your commission?”
“Yes, that’s the general idea of what we do if things go rotten Valyria.”
“I got nothing!” Commodore Treakle said and shook her head.
“But sir w-we, w-we-WE CANNOT JUST DO THINGS AS SIMPLE AS THAT!” Georgaian said out loud, the dire nature of the situation was getting to him, and he was having trouble finding one positive fact about this whole situation.
“And will shouting and screaming solve the problem? Will getting angry make things easier?” Alontaire was cut short by Metternich’s retort; his cheerfulness had been replaced with a calm but confident tone, which carried great power in it.
“No! The problem will be solved by finding a solution, and we have three of them! The plan either works and we win, or we cannot apply it and we withdraw; or we simply do not go to Galiana, or has that though slipped through your mind? Fellow sentients pick one!”
At this the commanders of the 378th corps and of the new battle wing looked to each other, since they didn’t know what do to.
They were smart enough not to fight a losing battle or an impossible to win one, but this was or rather had the potential to be a victorious battle, though a very difficult one to pull off!
But at the same time they remembered the previous attempts on Galiana.
They’ve all participated in one or two attacks on the fortress, all of them where done by competent leaders and none of them ever succeeded; some came close, but that was as far as they ever got.
“Come on Oscar, now’s your turn, oppose it and you can take over, I can use the refusal as a pretext to resign and since Akanthos is here I can leave immediately!” Metternich thought to himself as he raised his cup to his lips once more and drank, all the while looking all around the table at his soon to be ex-subordinates or so he thought.
“And you Adrian my friend? I know you will speak up and try to defend my plan, but even you who is fearless cannot but have doubts about it, do your duty my friend; defend me, and Oscar after that will then have his say and way.”
“Speak up against me Oscar and say do not do this mission! This is the perfect time to gain control of this battle wing; you get your authority, I get an excuse to resign and be free; they get to not go to Galiana; It’s a win-win for everyone!”
Commodore de Morowetz drew in a breath of air, exhaled it slowly and discreetly, and only then did he open his mouth to speak.
“I say we fulfill the mission!” was the sentence that was heard in the room, but they did not come from Adrian.
Every single pair of eyes looked on to the source of the voice and much to everyone’s surprise it was Oscar.