BALADA: The Sight Of You Recalls The Grief's That Locked Within man’s Bosom Bide;

by Solea Razvan

Volun 4 Imperial fleet, Skyfall.

  “You’ll help me?” Zulanasai said genuinely confused at what she had just heard.

  “Yup!” Metternich said with almost childlike glee.

  “Why? What reason would you have for aiding the destruction of your own powerbase? I mean it’s the last thing anybody would do.”

  To this his smile widened and he replied with:

  “You’ve just answered your own question ‘Spymaster’.”

  “What? You can’t possibly mean that this is your strategy?!.”

  “Exactly!”

  “But the general purpose of that idea is to make you victorious in the end, how is this suppose to make you win?” she asked, to which Metternich simply raised one of his eyebrows and gave her a look that said ‘Really? You really expect me to answer that question given the current circumstances?’, to which after a moment she realized just what she had done and blushed.

  “Oh, sorry!”

  “Don’t worry about it, anyway you’ll find out soon enough, until then goodnight your highness!” he said and extended his hand for her, she grasped it, they shook hands and he added a kiss on her palm before rising from his seat and moving towards the door.

  “And that was not a declaration of war!” he said in jest just before exiting the door, to which she replied with a small chuckle, but after he was gone her brain went into overdrive.

  “Which of them can it be? Which of the stratagems of war is he implementing?!” the spymaster thought to herself as she supported her chin with her right palm as her mind went over the numerous possibilities which this entailed to.

  The 36 stratagems where the quintessential ways of making war, passed down over countless millennia, whole governments, countries, civilizations and even species came and went, but these 36 principles remained, for although over time everything faded, they would still stand and despite the infinite ways of war can, is and will be waged, their teachings would always remain valid for any of them.

  “Which one!? ‘Deceive the heavens and cross the ocean’?”

  “ Does he intend to mask his true goals with a fake one, have me jump at a false alarm and confuse me until his real attack begins?”

  “‘Clamor in the East and attack in the West’, make this the focus of my attention while he attacks me somewhere else?”

  “‘Hide a knife behind a smile’ therefore making me drop my guard and trust him until he strikes when I’m most vulnerable?”

  “‘Beat the Grass to Startle the Snake’ and make me reveal my various ways of hidden attacks and emergency plans?”

  “‘Sacrifice the Plum Tree to Preserve the Peach Tree’ is this a sacrifice of his short term goals, so his long terms ones can prosper? Which is it?!”

  Her mind raced through the 36 stratagems, she placed her hand on her chest and she felt something that she hadn’t felt in a very long time.

  It was a heartbeat!

  Imperial fleet, Skyfall flagship main docking bay.

  Ealiupus 18th 8:55 Imperial Standard Time.

  Her heart was pounding, her body refused to stay still, her mind was racing and her soul ached with great pain.

  “This is my fault! This is all my fault!” the Supreme commander lamented to herself, massaging her temples from the headache she had from trying to find a way out of this mess.

  That was how High Princess Cornelia felt as she looked as Metternich and his lieutenants got on the shuttle which would take them to the Vampire’s Vengeance, after which they would meet with their reinforcements and with that they would depart for Galiana.

  Prime Minister Aian was well known for sending whole armies and fleets to capture very difficult objectives with little support in order to fail so their respective commanders could either lose face, or be replaced by those loyal to him and that was the least of his draconian but effective strategies.

  He had done so many times before with Galiana, by not only sending the Empire’s fleets to that hellhole, resulting in his opponents defeat and countless lives wasted in a futile attempt to capture it.

  The only thing worse besides the fact that the new force was only a single battle wing, who was about a third of a full fleet and a new one at that, was also the fact that there was no way out of it.

  It was an unspoken rule among any organization that once you receive a promotion your first few assignments where to double as an evaluation test how you would perform in this new role.

  If you did well you could keep your promotion, if not you would lose it or be transferred to a powerless command.

  Meaning even if Metternich had refused the mission, his position along with Cornelia’s would be permanently damaged.

  But that was not what was bothering her, damn her rank and power, what she cared about was her warriors, she wowed long ago that she would never send her boys and girls to senseless battles and this tragedy was one of her own making.

  And even thought she knew that the whole high command of that new battle wing where all competent and experience commanders, who knew when to and when not to fight and would probably come out of this disaster in one piece, it did not change the fact that she failed to do the one thing she had put her mind on since her first day as an ensign all those years ago when for the very first time she participated on an assault on the fortress.

  “We could send more, more ships, more supplies, more of anything to help him.” Husainus who was to her right suggested.

  “That would be a solution, but we are overstretched as it is, I sincerely doubt that we could do that and still leave enough here to build a viable fallback point, let alone a proper defense.” stationed on her left Cuiunecas countered to which Husainus gave out a sight of regret, he deep down knew that it was true, and that Jack being older and with more battles under his belt knew what he was talking about, but it was still hard to accept the unforgiving nature of this reality.

  “This could have been avoided if I didn’t recommend him so early for promotion, it’s my fault!”

  “You can’t blame yourself Nelly, what where you suppose to do? Not reward someone for his merits or delay it? How much could you put this off a month, a year? Even without the promotion, he’s becoming too great a threat to Tiberius, this was inevitable.” Zula who was a few feet in front of her offered, not in comfort, at least not totally but rather within the intention of using logic and reasoning to any given situation.

  “He did accept the mission.” Cornelia said, but it was obvious from the tone of her voice that it offered little comfort to her.

  “Do you think he can do it?”

  “Don’t know your highness, odds are against him, but that may be in his advantage!”

  “What do you mean Cuiunecas?”

  “I recall that long ago I served as chief of staff for a skirmish cavalry regiment under some wet behind the hears, bratty, spoiled rotten, ignorant blonde High Noble who had never before been in battle, against a whole enemy brigade who not only outnumber us and outshot us, but were also on the high ground.”

  “And this little bugger suddenly ordered a charge up the hill; I thought that I had gone insane! It was the last thing you should use skirmishers for, the enemy knew it and calibrated their bows and crossbows to shoot at long range, so when we passed the skirmish point and continued advancing the volley either went over our heads or in the ground before us and we managed to get to their lines before the second one was fired and we took that hill!”

  “No one expected that little brat would order something like that, let alone succeed, by all accounts she was caught in a desperate situation which seemed doomed from the start, but this world can sometimes still surprise you.” Cuiunecas said with a smile.

  “I wasn’t blonde Cuiunecas; it was a light orange color that I used to bleach my hair.” Cornelia said and a chuckle was shared amongst the group.

  “He will either capture it or withdraw before they can catch him; those are the only two viable options.” Zula replied with confidence in he
r voice from a combination of his past exploits and from meeting Metternich directly.

  “He can do it, he’s faced 50 to 100 to one odds and won, now it will only be 10 to one odds in terms of enemy ships and maybe 40 to one in terms of overall enemy firepower if you take Galiana into account, if anything this battle is in his favor!” Gerula said from behind them, where he, Casper and the other high ranking members of the space fleet officers and the air force where gathered.

  “You’re right! And it is our duty to prepare for either scenario; General Rodband I want you to get this base battle worthy as soon as possible, General Cuiunecas I want you to work with High Admiral Gerula and create a proper defensive area along that jump point as soon as possible, also I want plans to be made for not only helping the 378th wing if they return, but for also defending this position until the supplies arrive, for retreating as fast as we can if it comes to that and for advancing upon Galiana if they actually manage to take it.” Cornelia ordered and they all snapped to attention and went to fulfill their duties.

  “Zula I have a special little task for you.”

  “What’s that Nelly?”

  “It’s regarding our current predicament; I want you to leak the fact that we have most our supplies being transported with minimal escort to our location.”

  “I’m correct in the assumption that you want this to not only be heard by the enemies spies but also by anyone who has a windwaker, farview, universas unit and just about everyone who is in hearing range?” the spymaster said with a wicked smile.

  “Correct! This situation is too absurd to be considered real, so if we pretend like it’s some kind of intentional deception, we may have a chance of getting those supplies intact. Do you think it will work?”

  “Of course it will.”

  “You sound surprisingly confident in this matter!”

  At this Monas simply shook her head in affection and replied with:

  “Nelly, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years of espionage it’s that a plausible lie is more easily accepted because the truth is often too strange to be considered real.”