by Carlo Zen
“What? Lieutenant Tospan? Give it here.” She snatches the receiver away from Serebryakov. The hunch that the expected headache has just arrived sends a chill up her spine.
We have enough on our plate with just the Commies. We’ll borrow any help we can get our hands on at this point. We’ve already hit our limits. Just try and pull some stupid shit, Lieutenant Tospan. I may be a sensible individual, but you’ll learn that my patience is finite.
“This is Lieutenant Colonel von Degurechaff. I’ll thank you to keep it brief, Lieutenant Tospan.”
“Yes, ma’am. Then may I have your orders?”
“Orders?” Caught off guard, she merely parrots the word back at him. She’s already given instructions for the defensive line. The defense plan has been drawn up, the personnel positioned—everyone knows how things should flow.
At the last minute, surrounded and under attack, what orders could she possibly have for the commander of the infantry stationed on the defensive line?
The only thing there ever is to do is defend. He shouldn’t have to confirm that with the commander of the Kampfgruppe back at HQ.
“Sorry, Lieutenant Tospan. What do you mean, orders? I’m fairly certain I already issued them. If it’s the plan for directing the defense, you should have received it earlier.”
“Yes, Colonel. About that, as a rule, the army would have us retreat when facing an enemy attack of this scale. But if we can’t do that, it’s possible for the commander of the unit to issue orders to fight to our deaths.”
“…Wait, retreat and death? You’re citing the infantry manual2?!”
“Yes, if you give the order to defend with our lives…”
I take back what I said. I even judge myself for thinking it.
Tanya grins unconsciously.
Moving the receiver away from her ear, she praises him loud enough that all the officers present can hear. “What a guy.”
A stubborn fool, in other words, is a useful human sacrifice—someone who will doggedly carry out whatever they are told to do. More sensitive the minds, the faster their gears turn, the more likely they are to flee in a crisis. Even a fool, if they have a tenacious spirit…can be an uncommonly fine meat shield and a welcome asset.
Oh, Lieutenant Tospan. Tanya is of a mind to heartily celebrate his excessive honesty.
I bet I would run away.
No, I have no doubt I’d be long gone. I respect you for willingly holding your ground as if fighting to the death is a given.
Moving the receiver closer to her mouth, Tanya expresses her sympathy as one gear in the machine to another. “I like you, Lieutenant Tospan!”
“Ma’am?”
“I’ll send over the order in Colonel von Lergen’s name.”
Doing it in his name is only for show. It’s Tanya giving the order to fight to the death. It’s only sensible that an action deserves a reaction.
“And you can keep the ones who bring you the orders as reinforcements. I need you to hold firm. Firm! After all, we’re surrounded. Where are we supposed to retreat to?”
With First Lieutenant Grantz’s unit, which had been originally paired with Tospan’s unit, off with Lieutenant General von Zettour, the infantry was operating with reduced firepower. I would rather save First Lieutenant Wüstemann’s company, but this is probably the time to use them to fill the gap.
At the moment, I won’t be inconvenienced by only having two mage companies at my disposal. If the infantry can hold, keeping Ahrens and Meybert with their artillery and armor as strategic reserves should be plenty.
“Right, Colonel. Just as a matter of regulation, I had to confirm. I hope you understand.”
“That’s fine! Just fine! I approve! I truly do understand, Lieutenant Tospan!”
Infantry. Independent infantry.
In other words, the cornerstone of war.
You can’t build a functioning corporation with executives only. A holding company is basically like a general staff. Without people below actually doing the work, the enterprise can’t exist.
In the end, Tanya is forced to demonstrate her cruel management skills and work honest Tospan and his troops to the bone.
“I’ll send out Lieutenant Wüstemann’s mage company. He’s not up to Grantz’s level, but, well, do what you can with him.”
“Thank you!”
Subordinates who understand their role must be given appropriate performance evaluations. The willingness to defend a position with your life when ordered to is convenient for Tanya.
Certainly, during peacetime, it’s an utterly useless, timid attitude. But in wartime, in a defensive battle, there’s nothing better than soldiers of that rare nature. It makes sense that a general from ancient times argued that rather than clever soldiers, he preferred stubborn ones who would tenaciously carry out their mission once they got their orders.
They’re so easy to use. Human resources who don’t whine or complain! That’s getting encouragingly close to a manager’s eternal ideal. Even setting aside my personal sentiments, if the infantry can be the axle in your plans, it becomes much easier to fight a war.
“You heard that, right, Lieutenant Wüstemann? After delivering the orders to Lieutenant Tospan, you’re to support him in combat.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
Nodding at his enthusiastic reply, Tanya rotates her shoulders.
The rear, huh? It wouldn’t be bad to kick back in a reasonably safe headquarters, or more like that’s my personal ideal, but…to someone fighting as hard as Tospan, being the commander issuing the order to defend with your life must sound pretty good.
Meybert is a duty officer, so he has a handle on the overall situation. There won’t be any problems if Tanya leaves the rest to him.
Reputation, reputation, reputation.
It is what it is. Humans are political animals. They’ll do what needs to be done.
“Captain Meybert, I’m leaving command here to you.”
“Yes, ma’am! You can count on me! But where are you going?”
“To the front lines, of course,” Tanya declares with a grave expression plastered on her face. Really, she’d like to trade places with him and stay behind instead, but her rank won’t allow it.
In that case, she should at least score some points.
“I’m just a little girl. I’m not so thick-skinned that I can order my troops to hold their ground in exchange for their lives and then kick back in a lounge chair—though life sure would be a piece of cake if I were!”
“Ha-ha-ha!” The dry laughter filling the command post indicates that her subordinates appreciate the gravity of the situation and are not in danger of being crushed by it.
The effects of laughter on mental health really are substantial. It’d be great to get a support visit from a comedian, but…if someone’s going to come from the Empire, maybe it makes more sense to find a circus? Maybe I should look into it the next chance I have.
“Lieutenant Serebryakov, we’re joining the firefight on the periphery, too. Let’s make things easy on Lieutenant Tospan and the others. This is what you call that beautiful spirit of solidarity.”
“Yes, ma’am! I’ll follow you to hell and back!”
Serebryakov’s lively reply is a breath of fresh air. Even an annoying job is welcome if I have an eager subordinate.
And so, keeping things voluntary, Tanya heads for line one, where Tospan is commanding the defense.
We’re at war, so enemy attacks are expected.
But the sight that greets her when she arrives is despicably hideous.
“…This is unbelievable,” she murmurs at the sight of the bodies of enemy soldiers.
Yes, plural. Corpses are strewn all over.
If this were the Rhine front in the early days, say 1923, it would be a different story.
In an era where we hadn’t yet learned the might of machine guns, maybe the doctrine of charging so bunched up could still be justified.
But this is Unified Year 1927
.
How many years has this war been going on? Or does Federation ideology warp space-time? What year is it here? Did you call up an ancient legion or something? What’s with the close formation?
Of course, even the Federation Army has its troops dispersed to some degree. But they might as well be human bullets, the way they’re charging at the buttoned-up and fortified imperial firing positions. And it seems like they’re bunching up on purpose to make it easier to maintain unit cohesion. Maybe things would have been a little different with a smoke screen, but as it is, they’re sitting ducks.
The rhythmic fire of our light machine guns is heartening, but people are being mowed down before Tanya’s eyes.
“These damn Communists. Do they value human life at all?”
This squandering of resources can’t be justified in terms of humanity, the economy, or the military. Honestly, Communism is the only way of thinking that finds this acceptable.
What do they think human resources are?
As a decent person, I feel sick when I think of these cultists—as sinister as Being X.
“These guys who only give orders are entirely too irresponsible. This sort of thing has to be changed.” Tanya voices her righteous indignation in spite of herself.
Come to think of it, how the Federation chooses to waste its human resources isn’t something Tanya has to care about.
In fact, I’m happy they’re numbskulls.
Still, Tanya von Degurechaff—though she’s proud of being a good citizen—must despair. She can laugh off the idiocy of the Dacians—they were foolish because they didn’t know any better—but there’s nothing to chuckle about where the Federation Army is concerned; they know better.
But Tanya draws a clear line between free thought and her duty.
This is a defensive position on the forward-most line, so if the enemy is rushing them, it’s Tanya’s job to see how efficiently she can mass-produce enemy corpses and obliterate their will to fight.
They’re enemies, so they simply have to die. I do feel for them, dying such pointless deaths, but that’s a separate conversation. Even legally, if it’s kill or be killed, then it’s the plank of Carneades.3
“Draw them in! Hold your fire! Not yet!”
Cheerfully mowing them down is an easy method, but laziness and corner cutting are to be avoided on the battlefield. Sadly, unlike on the Rhine, light machine gun barrels and ammo are too scarce to waste on the eastern front.
Since we don’t have the resources for unrestricted suppressive fire, the troops can’t just let loose with a hail of bullets. Under the current circumstances, the only decent option is to leave the timing of the close-range salvo to the most experienced gunners and wait it out.
It’s still irritating to be so short on ammo. We wasted an eye-watering amount on the Rhine. You could even call it a “dim-witted waste of national resources on an unbelievable scale.”
But we were also in the grip of a mania wherein the supply network, supported by raison d’état, reliably delivered an unprecedented amount of supplies.
That said, I’m not sure if it was the sane enabling the insane or the insane enabling the sane.
On the eastern front, something must have run out. We catch glimpses of the limits of our logistics. The supply of things like shells, which should be abundant, is particularly dire—so blatantly that we can’t pretend to not notice.
“Heavy artillery incoming!”
The warning shout from her adjutant brings Tanya back to her senses.
So the enemy guns that have been quiet are just now getting down to business? This is the worst possible time for a bombardment. Well, shit. Turns out they were saving ammo.
Just as their infantry is advancing, the artillery pins us down with a barrage overhead. This is the optimal move as long as you ignore the casualties inevitably incurred when Federation infantry are hit by stray Federation artillery fire.
“These vicious bastards. So their infantry is expendable?!”
This is what it means to shudder in response to evil. Do Communists just have no concept of human rights?
“What about enemy mages?!”
“Signals visible, maintaining their distance.”
What should we do? Tanya thinks for just a moment. Fighting a defensive battle while enemy artillery forces us to keep our heads down is the worst. Right as she wishes she could order counter-battery fire or a retreat…the field telephone begins to ring.
Having leaped at it, Serebryakov raises her head to report. “It’s Captain Meybert. He’s urgently requesting permission to return fire!”
“Rejected!”
The words Serebryakov relays with a tense expression are terribly tempting. Tanya wants to shut the enemy artillery up. Any soldier being shot at knows the feeling.
But she immediately shakes her head.
Of course, personally speaking, I would love to let them fire. How great it would feel to say, Blow away those obnoxious enemy artillery crews. Sadly, even Meybert, with his duty-focused tunnel vision, can recognize that our stores of shells are strained. We don’t have any to spare.
“But, Colonel!” Tanya’s adjutant replies, seeming dissatisfied with her verdict. “If I may! I think simply continuing to endure this bombardment will affect morale!”
“I said no!”
“Can’t we at least counterattack?”
“No means no! We absolutely do not have the shells for it! Don’t tempt me any more!”
It’s not as if I don’t understand the desperation on Serebryakov’s face as she refuses to back down. On the contrary, Tanya feels the same way.
Should she celebrate the fact that she and her subordinate share that feeling? Or should she lament that fate forces her to say the opposite of what she really thinks? Surely the answer is the latter.
Unfortunately, I’m being toyed with by both Being X and organizational logic. Oh, how I must suffer. For a moment, in spite of herself, Tanya weeps internally at her pitiful plight.
“But, ma’am! At this rate, we could be completely pinned down!”
“No problem! We’ll have the mages prevent that.” She continues, “Call up Major Weiss.”
With the receiver in hand, waiting as the phone rings, Tanya has to ask herself if this is really the right thing to do.
Shouldn’t we be on guard against the enemy mages?
But the mage unit is currently acting as a distraction. In that case, being overly wary and leaving Weiss and the others idle probably poses a greater risk.
“Colonel, this is Major Weiss.”
“Hi, Major. Time to go to work.”
“Yes, ma’am. At your service.”
How encouraging it is to get such a lively reply even at times like these.
“Knock the enemy’s annoying shells out of the sky, Major. I want the mages on defense against artillery.”
“You want to protect a position of this scale…with just us?”
Rousing her borderline annoyed spirit, she goes ahead and hits Weiss with a demanding order. If things were slightly different, I would’ve probably commiserated with him.
Humans are bound to their position down to the slightest remark. Though Tanya would like nothing more than to groan about the restriction of her freedoms due to professional necessity, this isn’t an issue that can be solved by complaining. It would only be more wasted effort.
“You’ve been trained for it. Remember our good times in the homeland. We did it while surrounded by the beauty of nature around the time the battalion was formed.”
“Colonel! Our troop density is way too low! We can’t cover this huge area with just two companies of aerial mages!”
“Major Weiss, what did I teach you on the exercise grounds? Did past me teach you to whine like that?”
People who keep their subordinates from voicing legitimate objections using a mind-over-matter attitude are hopeless. There can’t be any reality less pleasant than the one where I need to employ such distaste
ful orders.
It’s a cruel world.
This is none other than the epitome of middle management misery. First Tospan, now Weiss—glossing things over with empty encouragement makes me want to cry.
“U-understood… We’ll do our best.”
There’s hardly time to debate responding to his stiff reply with a peppering of arbitrary support before the war situation shifts.
“Enemy infantry approaching our zone!”
Is it Tospan or one of the infantry’s noncoms? In any case, the warning from a lower-ranking officer causes Tanya to look up.
She’s been having them hold their fire, so it makes sense that the enemy is advancing. Before anyone realizes it, the enemy has gotten so close, we can make out their faces. If Tanya has her troops wait any longer, they risk getting charged. Right as she’s thinking they should probably fight back in full force, something dawns on her.
It’s just a little idea, but little ideas often lead to big changes. Surely there’s no harm in trying it.
“Mages, hold up! I want just the infantry to return fire!”
“Huh?”
Paying no mind to the perplexed mages, the infantry begins to shoot. Smiling at Serebryakov next to her, Tanya points out that they’re mimicking the enemy’s tactics.
“Let’s lull them into a sweet dream. We’ll pretend we don’t have mages, just like our Federation opponents pretended they didn’t have artillery.”
“Do you think they’ll fall for it?”
Tanya responds boldly to Serebryakov’s skepticism. “I appreciate your efforts, Magic First Lieutenant, but try thinking like a foot soldier.”
“Hmm?”
It seems that magic officers frequently undervalue their own abilities, taking them for granted. Since she’s not a foot soldier, Tanya can only guess, but she can still imagine how terrified the enemy infantry must be of mages overhead.
We should recognize that they’re always nervously looking at the sky, checking for mages. And they tend to split into squads to run for cover when trying to escape machine gun fire.
…Now then, if they’re convinced there are no mages, how often will they look up at the sky?
Up… Now, there’s an idea. Tanya grins.