The Saga of Tanya The Evil, Vol. 8: In Omnia Paratus

by Carlo Zen

  She was being so dense, Drake’s irritation built up to the point that he nearly spat. “That’s exactly why securing the railway is such high priority! If we’re just surrounding the urban district, we won’t get anywhere, but if we get rid of the Lergen Kampfgruppe in our way, we’ve basically acquired an attack route! If we can destroy them here and now, the effect on the Imperial Army will be massive!” Why can’t she understand? She may be a political officer, but she still wears the insignia of a first lieutenant! “Isn’t the whole point here to have the multinational and other remaining units be aggressive about putting pressure on the imperial lines in order to support the south?!”

  Though the fighting was hard, they were apparently evenly matched. He had heard a couple of days ago that it might even be possible to hold out. It was unclear how true that was, but if their allies could really hold in the south… Why doesn’t she understand that a strike here would then be even more significant?

  “That’s not our call to make!”

  This unbelievable comment rendered Drake speechless. The role of an officer was to make calls. To give orders based on those calls. And then to take responsibility for the outcome.

  But she refuses to even evaluate the situation?

  Then who will?

  “The party’s commanded us to lay a siege. Our orders are to keep the enemy tightly surrounded.”

  “…You’re telling me to obey the party?”

  “Of course.”

  The way she declared it as if she had no doubts whatsoever felt a bit chilling on the battlefield. If that attitude was consistent throughout the Federation, then their officers weren’t even officers.

  “Ma’am, allow me to say something.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’m a soldier of the Commonwealth trained to obey the intentions of an order. I have no plan to follow an order to twiddle our thumbs in a siege when it would mean surrendering the initiative.”

  Not only military officers but anyone leading others needs to grasp the intentions of their orders and strive to achieve their true objective. That’s what officers are for. Why even have officers otherwise?!

  “Please inform Colonel Mikel that I’m a soldier of the Commonwealth and will only be bound by the operation objective to which we agreed. There’s no reason I should have to follow the orders of another country’s Communist Party.”

  “It’s unacceptable that you would propose something that crushes our dignity in front of Western journalists!”

  “Ma’am, I beg your pardon, but let me remind you: We’re at war with the Empire!”

  “As you so astutely observe, we’re in the middle of a war!”

  Shouting matches with political officers were the ultimate exercise in futility. At that very moment, time more precious than gold was passing them by. While they were wasting time debating, their victory was liable to slip through their fingers.

  “Then how about just the tanks?! For mages, we’ll make do with the Commonwealth’s! Send out your army’s tanks! We’ll coordinate with them to get the job done!”

  “I can’t do that! Taking action on one’s own discretion ruins the army’s order and discipline!”

  “Fine, then! Sorry, but I need to speak to HQ, not the political officer attached to our unit! Please connect me with Colonel Mikel!” He had been taught at the officers’ academy not to get emotional. Had he forgotten the reason why? Or perhaps the eastern front was just that exhausting. “The Devil of the Rhine is among those who have disappeared, you know! We can’t let this chance go by! We need an all-out offensive!”

  He had let his guard down just slightly and ended up raising his voice against the unreasonable political officer. The fact that he did so without checking who might be listening proved fatal.

  When Drake instinctively turned around in response to the strange clatter of something falling, it was the sight of a young magic first lieutenant, face flushed and fists clenched, not at all concerned about the canteen she had dropped, that leaped into his eyes.

  Here and now was the absolute worst timing.

  “…She’s gone?”

  It was too late to do anything.

  “Lieutenant Sue? Lieutenant Sue!”

  Letting Drake’s shout to stop ricochet right off her, she ran away. And he was well aware that she wasn’t the type to go to her room and sit quietly.

  “Shit, that girl’s always jumping the gun!”

  Spending any more time talking to the political officer was now out of the question. I have to stop her, thought Drake as he raced after Sue.

  And it was strange how quick she was in this and only this sort of situation. By the time he saw her fly away, just after voluntary mages in full gear who appeared to be on standby tried to restrain her…it was clear that they had failed to stop her rampage. And watching her closely, it was obvious where she was headed. Apparently, she was setting off on a long-range flight, bypassing the enemy position.

  “Of all the—Is she really trying to go after her?”

  If she just wanted to explode, there were better directions she could have stormed away in!

  “She could have attacked the enemy position, but instead she’s trying to follow the enemy mages?! Why?!” spat Drake but at the same time bracing himself.

  At this point, hesitation is the enemy. I’ll have to give up on quietly raiding the enemy position. The rest of the troops can handle the encirclement—it’s time to clash with those pesky mages.

  In truth, he really didn’t want to go. He was wholeheartedly against it.

  Was it sane to go up against the main enemy defensive force solo?

  He didn’t even have to ask himself—the answer was clear. It would be the worst. How many bereaved families would end up hating him?

  He could already see them grieving. Surely, left before the hearths of the home country, they would ask, Why did that incompetent superior officer have to go charging after the main enemy force with no plan?

  But from a purely tactical standpoint, it was a great chance to tie up the enemy.

  If they had to do what they had to do, then they simply had to do it.

  “Notice to HQ! The Lergen Kampfgruppe appears to have sortied on its own discretion, and we’re going after them!”

  From the spirited letter of the message, some might have assumed he was thrilled for a chance to engage in a pursuit battle. But Drake expected that if Mikel received it, the colonel would understand how he really felt.

  “You can leave it to me!”

  Drake wasn’t a fan of leaping haphazardly into action, but momentum was a factor. He couldn’t deny that.

  THE SAME TIME, AIRSPACE OF THE EASTERN MILITARY DISTRICT, AT THE HEAD OF THE 203RD AERIAL MAGE BATTALION

  The battalion, flying as stealthily as possible, intends to break through and give the enemy a good beating. We shall be the ones to sneak up on the enemy and kick them in the rear.

  But their innocent conviction wavers immediately after sortieing.

  “Colonel! The enemy’s on the move!”

  “What? It’s too soon!” Tanya replies with a face that is half-doubt.

  The 203rd Aerial Mage Battalion excels at hide-and-seek. Even Tanya, one of the top five imperial mages of the present era, struggles to pick up the mana signal of one of her subordinates if they are serious about hiding.

  They’ve been improving their covert flight skills ever since the trench battles on the Rhine. Even using the twin-engine Type 97 orbs, there’s no way mana is leaking.

  The idea that that, of all things, was the indirect cause of the enemy movement is beyond Tanya’s imagination—which is why she’s so confused.

  “Are you saying they found us even with our magic suppressed?”

  We’ve been operating under the assumption that we had some time until the imperial position would be attacked. Tanya worries that if the enemy has detected the core aerial mage battalion missing, the remaining troops are in danger, but her ability to fret ab
out the issue as someone else’s problem ends right there.

  “Colonel! Look!”

  “They came after us?!”

  Her adjutant points at a sprinkling of specks in the distance. The moment they’re in the air, they’re heading for us. Enemies. Enemy mages.

  “This isn’t funny!” yells Tanya. “Of all the—They’re coming after me? Normally, if the mages are gone, you strike the position they just left!”

  Taking mages out of your defensive position is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. It’s logical for the enemy to rush the position with zero hesitation—to the point that Tanya had assumed the enemy would mount an all-out attack once they discovered the 203rd had left.

  “…I can’t believe this. They’re really headed this way.”

  Even the veteran officers Weiss, Ahrens, and Meybert had expressed the same fear prior to departure, so Tanya made sure that the Salamander Kampfgruppe—rather, the Lergen Kampfgruppe was thoroughly prepared for a defensive battle in the mages’ absence.

  Of course, Tanya isn’t happy-go-lucky enough to think they could continue to hide the mage battalion’s absence indefinitely, but she didn’t anticipate it coming out this soon.

  “I was resigned to the fact that our exposure was a matter of time, but…I never thought they would pursue us.”

  If I were in the enemy’s shoes, I wouldn’t go after the pesky enemies but the position that the pesky enemies had left open.

  Which marbles do you have to lose to decide to charge after us?

  “…If I had known the enemy would come this way, I would have done things differently.”

  She thought she had covered her bases for the worst-case scenario by giving rather final orders to her underlings to defend to the last and fight outside the position.

  And though it’s an awful way to go about things, quite a few of them have managed to stay alive. Tanya is ready to prioritize protecting herself. Her will to survive is not about to be crushed.

  So she should be in a nice position no matter how it turns out, but…if the enemy is in pursuit, her position and premises have completely changed.

  Having to join up with Lieutenant General von Zettour’s offensive while being pursued takes her out of the frying pan and thrusts her into the fire. She wants to wail about how overworked she is.

  —I’ll just have to make this work.

  This is the battlefield. Sadly, it’s an uncivilized world. Worlds where regulated violence carries more weight than civilized debate can rot. Or rather, jerks like Being X can rot.

  I need to live, return to the rear, and slap everyone back there with my objections and discontent in the form of a mountain of written complaints.

  “Major Weiss, cancel mana suppression. Prepare to enter combat at full strength. Don’t hesitate to use the trick up our sleeve—the anti-magic sniping formula rounds.”

  “Yes, ma’am! Canceling mana suppression and engaging with the pursuing enemy unit at full power!”

  I had been secretly hoping that the two-headed chimera of the Federation and Commonwealth armies might help us out by being slow to react.

  But I guess I shouldn’t have counted my chickens before they hatched.

  If I have to do this, then let’s get it done.

  The one thing we can’t do is slow down.

  “Major Weiss, fighting back is good, but no matter what, we keep advancing! Deal with pursuers as they catch up to us!”

  “We’re advancing even while the enemy is chasing us?!”

  In response to her aghast subordinate, Tanya nods as if it’s only natural. “It’d be worse if we stopped! Forward, forward! Fire back as necessary while maintaining speed!”

  If the shock troops supposed to be making the breakthrough get caught up here, we’ll have missed the point. And in the first place, mixing it up with the enemy instead of taking advantage of the Elinium Arms Type 97 Assault Computation Orb’s speed would be a waste of time.

  After giving the order to shake them off and fight with ranged attacks only, Tanya is brought back to her senses by the voice of her adjutant.

  “The enemy’s in firing range!” The unit in range is an enemy mage company.

  I realize it takes a minute to go from suppressing your mana signal to max combat velocity, but they’re still fast.

  She can’t help but be impressed that it’s a company that has showed up to cling to her. They’re not even performing evasive maneuvers, just coming straight in—what determined ducks.

  “Baptize these heroes of a bygone era with modern long-range fire! This time we’re blasting straight through their defensive shells!”

  With one word from Tanya, the two companies return fire. The volley, both quantitatively and qualitatively the best of the age, splendidly slams into the oncoming company, sending enemy soldiers crashing into the Federation earth.

  But they don’t achieve as much as Tanya expected.

  She figured one attack would cut down half of them, but only a few were downed.

  The little speck of what must be an officer leading the way should have been on the receiving end of multiple concentrated shots from Tanya’s subordinates, but their leader seems fine as ever.

  Even taking into account the long-range firing conditions, this fellow is incredibly hardy.

  “Tsk, what a stubborn stalker!” Clicking her tongue in annoyance, Tanya tries to manifest a formula that will pierce the enemy defensive shells, selecting an optical sniping formula, but right as she’s about to fire, she notices incoming enemy long-range fire.

  Did part of the group coming up behind the breakout company stop to snipe? When she looks, it seems like there is another battalion. I don’t really feel like going at it with two companies and a full battalion.

  But it’s clear from this small engagement that these opponents aren’t going to give up so easily.

  “Entering medium-range and close-quarters combat! This was a very fast move for the Federation. Too fast!”

  “Know who you’re fighting, Major! They’re multinational units. That is, they’re not as slow as the Federation. We won’t be able to get our job done with these nimble pursuers following us around.”

  Guess I have no choice. Tanya accepts her fate. Tanya gives Weiss, who nods that he catches her drift, a little smack in the shoulder, then swaps partners to pair with her buddy, First Lieutenant Serebryakov.

  The skill on display as the two companies immediately get back into formation to hunt the prominent enemy company is so dreamy.

  The mages of the 203rd charge wildly to secure local numerical superiority, and the fate of the enemy company on the receiving end of their strike is miserable indeed. With no time to recover mentally from the shock of going from the hunter to the hunted, most of them die heroic deaths, unable to muster the toughness they had only moments ago.

  Obnoxiously, though, the officer who seems to be commanding the breakaway unit is still fine.

  “What’s with this bastard?”

  Is this detachment dependent on that single mage’s abilities?

  Tanya furrows her brow at this inscrutable arrangement, but there’s no reason for her to be concerned with every little detail. She should probably mourn the poor enemy soldiers led by such a lousy officer, but she can do that after staying alive and achieving victory.

  For now, she has to get everyone back in formation to meet the approaching follow-up battalion.

  “02 to 01, it’s urgent! More enemies from the rear! It’s the Federation Army!”

  “What?!” The alert from her vice commander is earth-shattering. “Of all the—! The Commies, too? What are they thinking?! They’re abandoning the urban area and coming after us?!”

  With this level of numerical inferiority, it’s hard to want to form up and try to outfight the enemy. And more importantly, I’m struggling to understand why they’re here.

  They’ve abandoned Soldim 528.

  Though bewildered, Tanya can’t ignore the reality right in
front of her. What a mess. Still, the enemy mages aren’t courteous enough to let her consider things at her leisure.

  “Let me handle the enemy mages! I’ll take them down!”

  “Okay. Make short work of them!”

  Serebryakov, who had been next to her, flies off to buy some time by counterattacking, so Tanya takes advantage of the opening to review the situation.

  As far as she can tell from a glance at the battlefield, the Federation troops aren’t terribly fast-moving. These are different from the old ones they had faced the other day. It’s dangerous to be overconfident, but it’s probably fair to assume these mages are using the slower type of computation orb.

  By the time I figure that out, I really want to get out of there.

  The enemy’s plan must be for the speedy Commonwealth-Federation composite unit to run us down, then have the main forces attack once we’ve been halted. In that case, playing along by counterattacking would be the height of folly.

  Most of the clingy, high-speed enemies have been clobbered. Maybe we should withdraw.

  “Major Weiss, restart the withdrawal! There’s no reason we have to fight both the John Bulls and the Commies at once!”

  “But they’re still following us!”

  “It’s better than getting bogged down in a melee!”

  “…Understood!”

  He must have been convinced. The way he promptly begins reorganizing his unit is the mark of a real veteran. I don’t want to get shown up, but Tanya can leave it to her adjutant.

  “Huh?”

  But she suddenly notices Serebryakov isn’t next to her. No, it’s not strange that she’s gone, since she volunteered to go intercept the enemy, but…she hasn’t returned?

  “Lieutenant Serebryakov? Are you still out playing?”

  Tanya calls to her over the radio, but there’s no answer.

  Just as she starts wondering where she could be, a fragmented voice enters her ears.

  “Can’t…shake this one…”

  The hard breathing confirms something isn’t right. Tanya’s adjutant doesn’t lose composure over nothing.

  She changes her mind temporarily and orders her forces to shoot down a single enemy. Once the location is confirmed and identification complete, she unhesitatingly attacks with full force.