by Kali Altsoba
Not the Network. It supports Briand and the War Hawks, a term that started as a pejorative for his people and point of view before the war, but now is a proud boast of intellectual acuity and moral commitment to the war. It’s also shorthand for his policy of total war, “even to knuckle and knife.” Key members are Admiral Gaétan Maçon and Generals Lian Sòng, Juan Castro, and Gaspard Leclerc. But there are many others. All Calmari. Farfolk like Magda Aklyan and Jan Wysocki are his close allies, and often brought into the know. But they’re not War Hawks. Perhaps they're birds of prey in spirit? But then, all Krevans are these days.
“Yes Georges, but really. It’s too much to bear with our troops suffering and fighting and dying across the worlds. Why in a time of war must we put up with charter members of the Triple A Club?”
“Triple A Club? Enlighten me Gaspard.” Puff, puff.
“Aides, Adjutants, and Assholes.”
“Ha! You’re right, of course. I’ll take care of it as you ask. Your ‘Triple A’ will ship out to Amasia on the next convoy. But don’t think Lian will thank us for the favor!” Puff, puff.
None of the War Hawks have any patience left for bureaucratic runarounds or pettiness. It’s well known within the Union civil service that neither the PM nor his infamous Director of Armaments trusts career agents. They’re both blunt men of action who won’t suffer fools or personal schemers gladly. So it really means something that they agree Leclerc should go to Amasia to talk to Lian Sòng, and to assess things directly for the PM. She’s an old and trusted intimate and longtime member of the inner circle, but she hasn’t left Amasia since before the war started. Despite orders that she “get some damn rest, Lian. We can’t afford to lose you.”
No one thought Amasia could hold. Not after Operations Roundup and Eagle Claws left it isolated at the end of a multi bohr supply line as skinny as a first class stripper’s G-string. But hold out Amasia did, and still does in the fulcrum fight of the whole Fourth Orion War. Leclerc wants to see how things really are, to report exactly what he sees and thinks. No more or less. His main interest is the fighting condition of the troops. How is morale in this third and hardest winter of trench warfare? How long can hardpressed armies hold out without relief? How much time can Amasia give the Alliance to build the armadas and armies needed to turn back the Dauran-Grün invasions, to then invade the twin Tyrants’ stars in turn?
Only personal observation will tell him and the PM all that. Even Lian Sòng is eager to have his fresh perspective, to have him cast a cold eye on her problems, and on her command. He’s not sure exactly what he’s looking for, only that he’ll know it when he sees it. Besides, he tells Briand over a third very large, you-know-I really-have-to-go tumbler of scotch. “Georges, I just have to get away from Kars and Caspia for a time. There’s too much godsdamn politics here and not enough true concern for our fighting men and women. I need to walk the frontlines. I need to see and feel and smell the real war, as they see and feel and smell and taste it.”
“Then go with my blessing, Gaspard.” Briand speaks from inside a fresh pipe load of yellowish cloud. This one smells of nutmeg and wild cherry, with a strong hint of fresh honey. It’s from Hellene. It’s about as expensive as tobacco gets in Orion. “But hurry back. I need you here to keep bureaucrats and civilians in line.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, I need you to tell me when I’m wrong, or getting cocky, or not listening to the best advice my best advisers offer. I mean it Gaspard. I’m humble enough to know that I’m far too proud. That’s a real danger in this job.”
“Good for you, Georges. Pride of emperors, elites, and star nations is what dragged us and all Orion into this war.”
***
Leclerc is bounding along a rutted ice road in a camoed convoy of Troikas, recalling his last conversations in New Beijing. He arrived on Amasia ten days ago. Already, he’s nearly finished a flash inspection of the frontlines. He has just one more trip to make, to the far northern sectors where Blues and popovs are dying.
“He really said that? That the Daurans are not a threat to us?”
“He did. In exactly those words.”
“And now you want me to put him on my staff?”
“No, Lian. We would never tell you who to have on your command staff. We want you to put him to work. We want him humbled. More important, we want him to do something useful.”
“Well, to start, he can be your driver. After that, maybe something closer to the front.”
“Up north, where its cold? Up by the Dauran Gate?”
“Don’t be vindictive, Gaspard. It doesn’t suit. You owe me for the other one already. You remember, don’t you, that this new fellow is not the first agent with soft hands you’ve sent to me to look after on this hard world?”
“How’s the little twerp Sanjay Pradip doing?”
“After he failed in Accounts and Records, I pretty much gave up. I sent him down to work in Kitchen Services. It turns out, he’s happy there. Since his wife left him, left New Beijing to go back on her own to Lowestoft-on-Stamos, he’s genuinely taken to his new line of work. Network says so.”
“I should have thought they had more important things to inform you about. But never mind that. Let’s just say that he’s an odd duck.”
“That he is. Tried to get the clocks reset to UST. All of them, not just military. All over Lemuria. Wrote me a long memo about how I should use my emergency powers to reset Time. But that was over a year ago. He has adjusted. In fact, I have to admit, the food trays that come up from Kitchen Services these days are a lot better than they used to be, given shortages. I just can’t get him to approve a curry. And I love curry. I have to sneak out to buy mine from the street vendors.”
“No curries up north, I hear.”
“No, nor much food of any kind. The north is quiet but also bloody on a daily basis, like the whole war here. The difference is that the enemy up there is Dauran. Popovs and the DRA are a strange lot. Very different from locusts and Rikugun.”
“How different?” Leclerc asks.
“Interesting possibilities...”
“Interesting enough to give us a shot at breaking out of this damn stalemate? Clearing the enemy from the planet and system? Amasia could then be the bridge we need to take the war to Pyotr’s stars. And to desiccated Jahandar.”
Lian refuses to speculate. “We can discuss going over to offense another time, Gaspard. Right now, I need you to tell Georges how he can best help me defend Amasia. We’re not out of the woods here. The enemy outnumbers and outguns us on the ground even now.”
“So I understand. But not by enough to force a critical breakthrough. Your Great Black Wall is holding, and we’re catching up in the numbers game, yes?”
“Yes. So we bleed each other, month after month. Wearing each other down, looking for that one crack we can get through, then race our concentrated mobile strength to the other coast. They must move west to win. We want to go east.”
“East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.’ What bloody fool said that? Out here is where they meet in blood and bone every day. Gods! I wish I could take every memex poet and every bureaucrat by the scruff of his neck and shove their faces into a trench!”
“Maybe that would lead to more urgency on Kars and Caspia, below Cabinet level.”
“There needs to be, Lian. We could still lose this war.”
“I know. That’s why you should go north, Gaspard.”
“I intend to, but you hint at more? Something urgent?”
“Go out on the snow and ice. Go and see for yourself what we really face in the Daurans. I know what you’ll find, but it’s best that you see it on your own.”
***
He has no choice on the long road trip but to talk to his driver, head of CIS until just a week ago, but swiftly reposted to New Beijing. The man is trying hard to get back to Caspia. “Ask me anything sir. Happy to be of service.”
“How big is the Dauran deplo
yment on Lemuria?”
“An army of over four million DRA disembarked here years ago.”
“I also read the background brief. I asked how many are here now. How many new arrivals, minus their dead?”
“I’ll have to check on that, general. A lot more than before, I think.”
Why is Daura here, on Amasia? They came to show ‘the eternal bond between Jahandar and Pyotr Shaka and their two great peoples.’ That’s what both enemy memexes said back then. Everybody was lying, of course. Alliance, too. It told its people it was stronger than the combined eastern empires. Well, that’s what the war is testing, isn’t it? It’s the main reason to have a war in the first place. War clarifies how things really are, out there across Orion. So that we can sit down afterward, with clearer heads and fewer illusions, knowing who is actually more powerful and therefore who gets to keep what systems and why. Diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means. Always has been.
Rikugun generals handed off a chunk of north country to the DRA, roughly 2,200 klics of tundra and permafrost that everyone calls the Dauran Gate. But it’s not the highest arctic. Rikugun holds that sector, straddling the DRA on either side. To the north is a chunk of black that slides 3,000 klics across the high tundra and ice to Fort Desolation. Southward, 18,000 klics of Rikugun trenches run from the lower hinge of the Gate to the austral mountains. That way lies black earth and desert, grassland and farm country, and vast forest from all pine to tropical. All of it is divided, split like an open incision by a dragon’s spine of black fortifications.
“It’s almost like they don’t trust their ally of the moment. Rikugun I mean, sir. That the Grünen don’t trust the Daurans.”
“You don’t say?”
“It’s not obvious, sir. But to a trained, analytical eye…”
“You know, I am a general. I can read a damn map.”
“Of course you can, sir. But it helps to have critical analysis to…”
“Alright. Talking was a mistake. Shut up and get me to the northern maglev.”
Looks like the former head of CIS won’t be going back to Caspia, not anytime soon. It won’t help that, when he gets back to New Beijing in two hours, he must report to General Sòng on “the conditions for sex workers in trench city brothels. I want to know if any systematic abuse is occurring, beyond what my MPs and civilian police can control.”
He checked prewar CIS briefing files on Lemuria before he left to drive Major General Leclerc up the first length of ice road. He couldn’t find anything in the files that referenced a “trench city,” or any place outlandishly called “Prairie Dog” or “Ghoul Snakes.” He even looked on the memex. He thinks it might be a hoax. His three days to file a report is up today. That’s OK. The old boss of CIS, now Director of HQ Kitchen Services in New Beijing, Mr. Sanjay Pradip, Esquire, needs a potato peeler and pot washer. His last one is on his way to Fort Desolation.
***
Georges Briand reads in grim silence his friend’s sobering report on the state of the war at the end of Year Three. Around him is a cloud of unusual aromatic smoke that smells like pine needles and fresh green moss, with a hint of agarwood and cloves. Leclerc brought it from New Beijing, to help soften the blow of what he intends to say. Briand lays down the scroll. Puff puff.
“Well, well, Gaspard François Marie. You don’t mince words, do you?”
“Why would I, especially to you?”
“Is there anything more I need to hear that’s not in your … harrumph … very thorough and even more depressing report?”
“Yes, Georges, but I think it’s best to say it to you personally. Not the kind of thing to ever write down, even on flash paper.”
“I thought so. You do know that it’s your peculiar way, don’t you? I suspect it comes from all that sneaking around virtual castles you do. You like to ambush people in odd places and ways.” Puff puff.
“Murder holes are very useful, Georges, if one is intent on murder.”
“Why do I feel like I am about to be assassinated?”
“Because on one day out of three, you would certainly deserve it. However, on the other two we just can’t get on without you.”
“Ha! Proceed, my friend. What unmeasurable thing is it that you need to tell me that’s not in all those damned depressing stats about comparative casualties and material gains and losses?” Puff puff.
“The war on Amasia and wider war is no longer about control of star systems or enforcing one ideology over another, if it ever was.”
“Interesting. Everyone but you says it is.” Puff, puff.
“No one fights for territory or ideas in Orion. Not anymore.”
“What do you mean?” Puff puff.
“No matter what the propaganda says, theirs and ours, this fight is not about Purity or the rule of law or the rights of invaded Neutrals, or to save our precious and so called democratic way of life.”
“That will be news to the Party, and to most Calmaris. It’s not what I’ve been saying in the Lok Sabra or even in closed sessions of the War Cabinet for the last three years. Are you saying that we don’t fight for ideals?” Puff, puff.
“We oppose the dual tyrannies of Pyotr and mad Jahandar on principle, as well as in our material and political interest. No one fights for principles in this war, at least not beyond the naïfs who we may excuse for being 18 or 20, and the dim of mind who may be excused for being touched by the gods.”
“No, seriously Gaspard. Do you believe this?” Puff puff puff.
“Yes. And it is important that I make you believe it Georges.”
“I do not.” Puff puff.
“Listen to me, Georges. No one wearing brown or green, no popov or Rikugun fights for any political or strategic objective. They're not motivated at that level.”
“What about Alliance soldiers, sailors and marines?”
“On the ground, in the space lanes, there’s no difference among fighters that makes a difference. We also fight for basic reasons. We only say that we fight for freedom in Orion. That’s not why the troops fight. They just want to survive.”
“So, you and I are liars on the grandest of stages? As are Pyotr and Jahandar?”
“Pyotr and Jahandar believe in nothing beyond themselves, not even in their own empires. You and I and the War Hawks have profound principles and sincere beliefs that guide policy and action. But I’m not talking about us.”
“Who then? Damn it, spit it out Gaspard!” Puff puff, puff puff.
“Everybody else.”
“Again, what the hell do you mean by that?”
“This war has moved beyond its causes, past where any leader wants to take it, including you. It’s out of anyone’s control. We are all surfing a tsunami that’s about to crest. And in case you haven’t noticed, you and I sit here drinking Baku scotch. We’re not pissing in a trench or defending a convoy behind thin walls!”
“Touché. What’s your godsdamn point?” Puff puff.
“Most fighters have no idea what the strategy of their own side is or care much about it. Yet they fight. Why do they do it?”
“In the wisdom of your gray hairs, I presume you’re about to tell me?”
“To survive. We’re down to primitivism, Georges. It has come to this: kill the enemy or he will surely kill you. That’s all anyone out there thinks about this war. It doesn’t matter how we do it, only that we do it. The troops get it, ours and theirs. This is a fight to the death, no less but not much more. That said, as a particularly intelligent young private said to me, we best get on with all the killing.”
“So how do we do it, Gaspard? How do we win? Your report says the popovs are the weak link in the Dual Powers military, and the chains binding Amasia, but that they’re too strong to try a breakthrough yet.” Puff puff.
“It’s all about endurance Georges. It’s about who can kill the greatest number of fighters and machines on the other side, but more about which of us takes the killing without quitting.”
“That
’s it? That’s all you have for me? This bleakness of your own soul that you offer me as our war policy?” Briand has never spoken like this to Leclerc.
“Slander me as you will, prime minister. I tell you this war will go on and on, and on. None of us can stop. Our own people would hang us for killing so many of their children if we stop and say to them. ‘Sorry, it was a terrible mistake.’”
“Agreed. So how do we win?” Puff puff, puff puff.
“There’s no magic bullet, Georges. There’s only one way to win, by grinding. By attrition. Black walls are good for that. Factories and foundries and shipyards help. But it’s the black on a dozen contested worlds that we must use to suck in tens of millions of mouthless dead from Daura and the Imperium. We must draw them to war, march them to their graves alongside our own silent, pale battalions.”
