by Kali Altsoba
‘Well, that’s rather much. I hear the stories told in Toruń, but across Orion?’
Constance doesn’t tell him that she made sure of it with exaggerated tales added to her dispatches to the War Government when Madjenik was in Pilsudski Wood, along with advice to declassify and rebroadcast his story by all and any means to all Krevan homeworlds. And even out to the Calmar Union and other potential allies who thought Krevo already lost. She doesn’t tell him either that she made sure the RSU and RIK HQ heard the very wildest tales about ‘The Ghost,’ until real fear and even respect crept into intel reports and down the ranks.
Even before that, he’d gotten into the enemy’s head. His reputation burrowed deep into RIK minds from his time in the woods. He’s still in there, scaring recruits and replacements arriving by orbital shuttle on the coast of Northland. After Brusilov’s excuse-making, even RSU misidentified “Jan the Ghost” as the KRA special forces commander on Genève. As the leader of a vast forest resistance movement, not the captain of a single lost company that he was. It served Brusilov to build up his foe that way, to explain his own failures to his cousin.
The stories spread off-world, as evacuated RIK wounded from 10th Armored relayed scared tales about the ‘Ghost of Genève’ back on their homeworlds, taller and wilder tales with each retelling. The sobriquet curled back around until today no one knows who first used it or why. Was it 10th Armored officers? The RSU? Brusilov? Constance? KRA Special Branch?
Jan’s name scared and scarred the RIK medical corps after a secret gas bomb he ordered planted inside a dead officer’s anus took out the very top medical examiner and 22 assistants on Kestino. It left them coughing up bits of their own lungs all over the floor of the morgue. Hover scout replacements from 10th Armored tell other tales of his ruses and tricks. An entire division from Manmō that wears a double-moon flash vows revenge, but secretly wants no part of him.
After he’s seen striding deliberately away from The Crater, the ‘Ghost’ appears in RSU and RIK intel reports that wrongly put him in command of the defense of Toruń. Constance tells her own intel officers to confirm the error in leaks and KRA disinformation broadcasts sent over the berm to nervous RIK recruits in forward camps and jump-off assault trenches.
“Legends have a way of growing over time. And that I can use. Don’t worry, captain. We shan’t keep you in thrall forever. We’ll tolerate you as hero only until we can replace you. We are a little people, hence wise enough in the end to prefer smaller heroes to great ones.”
Jan doesn’t know what to say. This isn’t the conversation he ever expected or wanted. Before he can think of anything smart or helpful, or just not further embarrassing, Constance shocks him to his core with her next remark.
“I’m expanding your command. You’re brevet-promoted. Your new rank is full-bird colonel. Effective immediately, Lt. Jablonski also jumps two rakkr, to brevet-major. That’s so she can lawfully command a full KRA battalion. Several NCOs in Madjenik will be promoted commensurate with their demonstrated command ability, based on your report. I have a list...”
His head is spinning from heavy, solitary drinking since he lost Zofia, but more from his promotion and loss of Madjenik. Colonel is too high a rank to command a single company. ‘She’s going to take Madjenik away.’
It’s the first time he admits that he wants command, that he doesn’t want to surrender responsibility as he thought he did, to hand off to some other officer who doesn’t know and intensely love his troopers like he does.
‘Will I float into starry exile on a tide of sorrows, and the jetsam of my past life?’
“... of names of your top NCOs. Several look like real combat officer material. We’ll bring them along first and fastest. You’ll need to....”
“What?”
He emerges from foreboding premonition to splutter the blunt, awkward interruption. Forgetting to say “sir” or use General Constance’s proper title as a superior officer. Forgetting his place before a formidable woman and general officer in mid-sentence, delivering him his orders. Forgetting everything but the hard knot that’s forming in his gut. Then he does it again.
“Jablonski? Which battalion?”
Constance looks up from her notes meaning to admonish him hard and coldly for his rudeness and failure of military protocol, but she sees his immense confusion and discomfort. She’s surprised that his outburst leaped right over his own promotion to his young lieutenant.
‘What’s going on? And can I use it?’
“Sorry sir. I mean ... I’m just surprised. I thought we were going back on the line. I mean Madjenik, sir. By ‘we,’ I mean. Going back on the line with Madjenik, is what I mean.”
She doesn’t answer right away. She pauses her planned delivery of a long list of orders, tilting her head to the side to assess his peculiar and befuddled reaction, like a hawk watching a confused field mouse wander out into the open where she knows he can’t escape her talons.
Jan tries to take advantage but only manages to ask in a crestfallen tone:
“What about Madjenik? Do I lose the company and Jablonski, sir?”
At least he remembered to add the “sir” this time, if only on the tail of his sentence.
General Constance looks at Jan for a long considered moment, but almost smilingly this time. A sudden softness in her face surprises him.
“Yes and no, colonel. Yes and no.”
Her first use of his new rank startles him. Even when she’s being kind, with him she has a deeper, secret purpose. This time, he notices. His instinctive defenses start to rise. He moves behind a shooting slit in the castle wall, ready to defend himself at last.
She decides to ignore his agitation, resuming her presentation as if it never happened, still thinking on how to use what he just revealed. Or whether to use it. His after-action report and her orders to him are on a graphene touch-scroll as thin as parchment and much lighter. She smooths it over the shiny oak desktop, her other hand poised with an e-stylus at the ready.
He filed the report two days after entering Toruń, hurling himself into its dictation on the long morning he lost Zofia. He identified natural leaders among the brevet NCOs, and even several privates. She was impressed by his straightforward account and his character judgment.
It’s damned confusing for Jan, standing in front of her, watching his report unrolled on an old oak desk 30 stories up a stolid wooden tower, so soon after leaving filthy and burned-out Toruń Wood and The Crater. He feels decentered. He loses confidence again. He feels absurd.
‘Please just give me orders and let me go.’
He’s remembering that he spent the day before filing the report, then a long and languid night, in a cramped teak hotel room and bed filled with laughter and love-making with Zofia.
‘Ummm, Lt. Jablonski. Errr, Major Jablonski. OK, I guess it’s good that’s all over.’
His head is spinning from too heavy and solitary drinking over the week since he lost her, but far more now by his promotion and hence loss of Madjenik Company. For ‘colonel’ is far too high a rank to command a company.
‘She’s going to move me on, take away Madjenik. I’m going to lose the company.’
It’s the first time he realizes and admits to himself that he wants to keep command, that he doesn’t really want to surrender his responsibilities as he really thought he did, to hand them off to some other officer who doesn’t know and intensely love his troopers like he does.
Constance is back reading out orders, seemingly ignoring him. She makes official his brevet field promotions of 15 NCOs, all former privates now bumped to corporal or sergeant. She agrees with his recommendation to jump Corporal Tom Hipper and his two best regular sergeants all to 2nd lieutenant, first of the KRA junior officer rakkr. Low-level commissions aren’t something a KRA general normally reviews. Constance does, methodically confirming Jan’s field combat assessments out loud. Working quietly to boost his command confidence.
“You are responsible to t
rain up all these young men and women to their new duties as junior combat officers, colonel. And I mean the whole book, just as you learned it in OTS.”
‘Which I had to attend twice.’
He took night and weekend officer-training on Genève after failing out of the KRA Academy on Aral, at the end of his first and only year there.
“Yes sir. They’re all good fighters, sir. They’ll make good officers.”
“Agreed.”
His vertigo passes.
“I’m grateful for these well-deserved promotions within Madjenik. I just don’t know what you want me to do next. Please general, please sir, can you tell me what will happen to Madjenik? When does it redeploy, and where? You can use the company on the berm. Let me tell my fighters where they’re going. At least to do that, before you relieve and transfer me.”
Constance finally shows mercy. “You’re not losing Madjenik, colonel.”
“I’m not, but you said I was promoted, Doesn’t that mean … ”
“Madjenik Company is herewith upgraded to battalion status. We’ll raise its barracks-complement to 1,600. In fact, I’m giving you 8,000 fighters in all. Five new battalions, all to be integrated as a heavy combat brigade. You’ll outfit, refit, and lead the brigade.”
“A brigade, general?”
“Madjenik will be senior battalion in your new brigade, still under your command. So you see, you are neither transferred not relieved, no matter what you think or say you want. I read your obscurantist after-action reports, colonel. Don’t every try that on with me again!”
Jan is utterly taken aback, so lost by the news he hardly notices the rebuke or revelation that she saw right through his self-deprecation in his debrief and written reports.
‘A brigade? Five battalions? That’s many multiples of what I had at the company level. Maybe I could handle a battalion, if I had to. But surely not a full combat brigade!’
It’s as if she’s reading his thoughts, again.
“Yes colonel, you can do it. You have to do it. We’re running out of good, tested combat officers. We’ve taken a heavy set of casualties defending this city, and everywhere we’ve lost across Genève. With even more lost on our other worlds.”
“I know, sir. I mean, so I’ve heard. It’s just...”
He doesn’t finish the thought, realizing that if he pleads inadequacy after what she just said about casualties he’ll only anger her. And rightly so. He’s a soldier. He submits.
She sees it in his face.
“Madjenik Battalion we’ll beef out by building around your existing core. The other four battalions we’ll raise from scratch, and very fast.”
“Where will I get so many fighters?”
“Start with the veterans of The Crater. Your own from Madjenik, of course, and the 967 from Relief One who made it back alive. They all say they want to fight under your command.”
He wonders when they were asked, but nods agreement. He’s finding it easier to submit to her, even though he can’t stop his thoughts flitting back rapid-fire to the debacle at the MDL, then to the sweetgrass meadow, back to Pilsudski and the Old Oak Forest, and on to The Crater.
‘All of his fighters know that
their colonel will blunder.
Theirs not to...’
“Take all the lightly wounded from Madjenik and Relief One as well. They’ve earned it, and they’ll recover faster among their mates. They’re experienced fighters. All of them.”
He makes his first foray into brigade command.
“We had a good record integrating strays from the MDL and in the forest. Lots of Madjenik’s fighters, the majority, are pick-up orphans from the retreat over the plains or from Pilsudski Wood. There’s not a lot left from the prewar company. Just a few dozen, actually.”
He starts to apologize.
“All told, I lost over 200 fighters out of the 315 troopers I had on the first day at the MDL, on Breakthrough Day, when they hit us so hard and...”
She interrupts, deliberately ignoring his recitation of the company body count and his dwelling on his MDL fiasco and the KRA’s defeat. She has read his after-action reports. But she also read everyone else’s, paying special attention to the report by the only other officer.
“You see, colonel, we think alike after all.”
He’s fairly certain that isn’t true.
“How so, general?”
“I’ve already added to your list 5,000 from shattered and decommissioned units who need immediate reassignment. When these loose-end fighters heard you were in the city they approached my officers and investigators to say ‘we’ll follow Captain Wysocki into battle anytime.’ Soldiers don’t say that about all my combat leaders. Hardly ever, in fact.”
He’s not sure what to say to that. The numbers she’s giving him are overwhelming. He repeats that it’s a good idea to use strays. She curtly thanks him for his unnecessary approval.
“Names, ranks and old units are listed with your operations orders. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir. I’m to build-up the brigade from multiple broken units.”
“Draw your last volunteers from the Toruń garrison. My staff has a list of all who are due to leave on the Exodus ships. Take your recruits exclusively from that list. No one else.”
It’s the first hint she gives that he’ll be leaving Genève with his new brigade.
“I’ll send over more names from the reserve along with an elite tenth from decimation of two units presently defending the berm. We’re going to give your combat brigade a stiff backbone of tough, experienced troops. Use them well in the off-world battles that lie ahead.”
‘There, she just confirmed it. We’re leaving on the Exodus flotilla.’
“As for Major Jablonski,” he stiffens to full attention as she speaks the name, seemingly without a hint of suspicion of their illicit and unprofessional relationship, “she’ll serve in your brigade as a battalion leader. I’ll also transfer over three more brand new majors. They’ll also be battalion leaders. I recommend that Major Jablonski take Madjenik, but that’s your call.”
“Thank you sir. Good to hear.”
His heart is pounding with suppressed excitement he hopes doesn’t show on his face.
‘Why is she smiling? It’s worse when she smiles.’
“It’s no longer peacetime, captain. Old rules don’t apply. How can they?”
“Sir?”
“How you get along, umm, personally, with junior officers in your unit, well that’s for the two of you to work out.”
‘Does she know? How could she? Maybe because you’re blushing beet read as a schoolboy with his pants down and stumbling over every answer. You fool!’
“Do whatever gets you though the war, Colonel Wysocki, with whomever gets you through its days and nights. You’re going to need the major’s help and more where I’ll be sending you.”
He’s astonished by her insight and even more by her bluntness.
“Yes, sir. Thank you. Major Jablonski is a first-rate officer, glad to have her onboard the new brigade ... and all the new majors.”
“Exactly so, colonel.”
“After all, you chose them, sir.”
It’s only half of what he’s thinking. ‘But then you also chose me to lead them and your bloody new combat brigade, so I’m really not so sure I trust your judgment.’
“I can only give you one experienced battalion commander, but I’ll let you have two staff officers to help set things up. One is from my own staff, Lt. Dylan Byers. You met him at the Gate. He’s smart and he’s intensely loyal. You can rely on Byers to take all routine brigade administration off your hands as well as for political advice from time-to-time. He’s that good.”
‘Politics? Why do I need to do politics? I’m a combat officer. And how much longer am I going to live to do any godsdamn politics? Barbarians are howling at the Gate, literally.’
“You should know that he volunteered for your command the moment he got back from
your interview. He was damn near insolent about not taking no from me for an answer.”
“Very glad to have him.”
“I’m sorry to lose him, but I’m pleased that he’ll be with you. Look after him for me.”
Her tone is almost tender.
‘There’s far more to this extraordinary woman than meets the eye. I’d still like to see her wear that ridiculous general’s hat, though.’
“As for brigade logistics … ”
Jan falls into worry about a bloated command he doesn’t feel ready for. He tosses it all over in his mind, losing Zofia but not losing her. Five battalions and immense responsibility. All of it. He’s completely lost in his own thoughts for a very long time. Suddenly, he recalls where he is and realizes that he’s not been listening to the general for a least a minute or more. Sees that she stopped talking about orders listed on her scroll and is staring intently at him.
