by Carlo Zen
His method was extraordinarily thorough. Before the judicial officer, representing the will of Supreme Command, could even open his mouth, Zettour got in a terribly fierce opening jab.
It proved how against the inquiry Zettour and all the General Staff officers were, but at the same time, regardless of their opposition, the meeting was still being held.
By clearing Degurechaff’s name, they would protect everyone else’s from being disparaged as well. Even if they had ultimately overcome the General Staff and Eastern Army Group’s resistance for that purpose, they still felt the Supreme Command was being too cutthroat in its treatment of Degurechaff.
“Then I’ll start with the matter of her independent actions…”
And then, looking at the list of charges the judicial officer presented one by one, Lergen had to sigh. I knew it.
The tension in the meeting room was the officers’ anger. It was easy to guess the target of the inquiry felt the same way, though she maintained a sober, sincere exterior.
“…This is giving me a headache.”
To Lergen, it was self-evident that the conclusion reached today would not reproach Degurechaff. How many people were there who could withstand the gazes of Zettour as he presided and the others, and strip her of her honor and qualifications as an officer?
The head of the inquiry committee was nominally the head of the General Staff. Zettour, as the one leading the inquiry in practical terms, was a critical member of the General Staff.
It had to be obvious that everyone felt the inquiry was a farce. Zettour, probably in the spirit of protest, began eyeing his nearby cigarette case while the judicial officer was talking and ended up borrowing a light from someone next to him.
The majority of the officers thought the inquiry was absurd. While they sneered at every word the judicial officer said, they nodded at everything the defense said. There were even some who went so far as to applaud.
When Zettour dutifully banged the mallet for order, the comedy was unavoidable.
That was why—why Lergen had to grumble.
“…Couldn’t we have avoided this? This whole inquiry?”
He was caught in the throes of shameful regret.
There had been multiple hints of the danger. There was a severe disparity in awareness between the army and the rear. He had been convinced he was being careful.
He had done his utmost to exchange opinions on the war situation with those in the rear and keep abreast of both the army’s position and circumstances on the home front. Those might have been abnormal activities for a staff officer in Operations, but he strongly believed that a unified rear was necessary in order to take military action smoothly. And when the attacking Federation Army was annihilated in an unconventional maneuver battle, he had proudly drunk to the clearly functioning coordination between the front lines and the home front.
And then this. How did we get here? Why did they even need this defense’s fierce rebuttal and the overwhelmed judicial officer? He could only find it extremely regrettable that they couldn’t have avoided this inquiry. All it’s doing is exacerbating the discord.
After all, just watching, he knew what the outcome would be. Degurechaff answered each insulting question matter-of-factly, suppressing her emotions. The moderator was neutral in name only and persistently hurled sarcasm at the prosecutor. The defense didn’t even try to hide their determination to oppose this unjust attack on an officer’s honor.
Regarding her solo actions, the General Staff officers proclaimed for the record that they had no problem. And about the excessiveness of the attack, the defense ended up laying tenaciously into the prosecution using the precedent of strikes on military facilities as well as quotes from army memos.
The following even made it into the record: “She avoided civilian facilities. We should officially praise her hard work in limiting the attack only to party or military facilities.”
When the badly sweating prosecutor leaned over his desk and his counterarguments trailed off, Zettour finally brought the farce to an end.
“Well, it seems like we’ve run out of things to debate.” After making a formal remark that everyone had presented their arguments in detail, he turned to the main topic at hand. “This inquiry reaches the following conclusion. Major Tanya von Degurechaff, we regard the allegations against you as refuted.”
Zettour gave the verdict in a tone that said, The charade is over, and the officers nodded as if that was only natural… Was the reason every last one of them was wearing the Field Service Badges given for combat experience pinned to their uniforms to tacitly express the fury of the front lines?
“Major Tanya von Degurechaff, your name has been cleared. I hereby bring this inquiry to a close. May you continue to fight in the fiercest battles and devote yourself to our cause. That is all.”
For now, the matter had come to a close.
But as he left the meeting room to attend to his next tasks, Lergen was feeling horribly weighed down. All he could think was how wrong he had been.
He never thought Supreme Command, especially Foreign Intelligence and the cabinet, would not only express anger about the attack on Moskva and Major von Degurechaff’s other military actions but also have such a disconnect with the army that they would demand an inquiry.
…When he received the first report, he’d screamed that he couldn’t believe it. Once he’d calmed down, he finally started to understand the nature of the problem. He understood that Degurechaff was apt to carry out unyielding plans in order to get results. Sometimes he worried about it. But not like that.
He may have had reason to be anxious, but it was her means—he had no thought of reproaching her for her ends. Actually, apart from his qualms about her character, she was outstanding. You could even call her a model Imperial Army officer.
“…Did I just get used to her way of thinking somewhere along the line? Does that mean…she’s right?”
If we can hit Moskva, we can pull at least some of the Federation troops out of the eastern border fight.
“In a way, she was trying to re-create what happened on the Rhine front… And all you can say is that she did a great job. Thanks to her attack, many of the aerial forces on the eastern front were pulled back. It’s a magnificent feat, and there’s nothing problematic about it.”
…Of course, he had to add that this was a soldier’s perspective.
By coming from a distance and raiding important facilities and bases in their country, they forced the enemy to strengthen their defenses in the rear, which resulted in their being able to send only limited resources to the forward-most lines. That’s a harassment attack.
From the Imperial Army’s point of view, by demonstrating that they could attack Moskva at any time, they pinned Federation troops to the vicinity of the capital.
He never in a million years thought that authorizing Degurechaff’s attack plan would cause so much trouble, so he couldn’t help but be puzzled by the internal arguments.
Then once he recovered from his confusion and understood, he felt hopeless. Probably the Empire’s rear was controlled by prewar logic. They weren’t changing their minds according to the reports that came in the newspapers or over the radio, they were simply making calls using prewar logic!
What spectacular cross-purposes they were at in this debate.
War is something soldiers fight through with the support of the home front. But of late, war had become the army’s jurisdiction, and the rear was indifferent to the army’s situation.
To put it nicely, perhaps they trust the army… To be less generous, they simply don’t understand.
“Either way, something must be done or we’ll be in trouble…” He continued, “No, first comes the matter of Major von Degurechaff.”
Lergen casually switched gears and refocused on the task before him.
At present, the court of inquiry had looked into Degurechaff’s past and showed there were no problems. As a result, various papers were hand
ed out to members of the court, and they were notified that Degurechaff’s acquittal would be noted in the public record.
With that, it would be official that she had never done anything problematic. The army had denied the rear and the authority of Supreme High Command. If the home front and the front lines had to clash, Lergen regretted that he couldn’t have had it happen in a more subdued way.
But at the same time, he had to be “considerate” and think of where to send Degurechaff and her battalion next. They wanted to ask her opinion, so since he and she were acquaintances, the job fell to him. Well, it’s a good opportunity. At the very least, it was definitely a chance to understand her and get a handle on her intentions.
It was when he stepped into the room at the General Staff Office where he’d had her wait for him that he finally realized he should have brought Major Uger with him. Maybe even someone who’s irritated from an unwanted inquiry would relax somewhat if a classmate from war college was there.
But he was already running late.
Degurechaff stood and gave him a precise textbook salute. He winced as he returned her salute.
“I guess it’s been a while. Sorry for the wait, Major.”
She was much calmer than he expected as she replied that she didn’t mind.
“Great, then let’s talk about where you’ll be stationed. Any requests?”
Her reply, however, was so shocking, he nearly fell over backward.
“You’d like to do something besides frontline duty… Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir,” she responded matter-of-factly with no hesitation or scheming in her eyes. The war is hot and Major von Degurechaff…doesn’t want to serve on the front lines? If she were a new recruit or a replacement, he could reprove her for being scared, but if a tough-as-nails commander who charged the Republican Army’s headquarters on the Rhine front was avoiding the front, that was a different story.
Thus, confirming her intention was simply administrative procedure—his opening move, if you would.
“All right. Then, Major, I have a question I’d like you to answer.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Feel free to consider this a personal conversation. Major von Degurechaff, why would a soldier as outstanding as yourself want to avoid the forward-most line?”
He wanted to know just one thing: the reason. His own interest also lay there. No, you could say it lay only there.
So, though he wasn’t sure how to go about it, he had to ask.
It was a perfectly natural question to have: Why would she, feared as Rusted Silver, choose service in the rear?
“To put it exceedingly briefly, frontline duty is annoying. I’m requesting rear service for entirely personal reasons. Also, I meant to say so sooner, but I have a suggestion about who my successor should be—the new commander of the 203rd Aerial Mage Battalion, I mean. I would like to recommend my second-in-command, Captain Weiss.”
The news went around the General Staff Office in a flash. Major Tanya von Degurechaff, commander of the 203rd Aerial Mage Battalion, earnestly desired to work in the rear! The reason? The inquiry over her achievements in battle used up the last of her patience.
For a moment, everyone could understand—Makes sense—but to those who worked with her, it was no joke. At the head of that pack was General von Zettour.
When he received the report from Lergen and flew into the colonel’s office looking for her, the first words out of his mouth were firm. “…Let’s say what we mean. What…is this?”
In his hand was the memo Lergen had dashed off just a few moments ago regarding Degurechaff’s assignment preference.
When she looked at him unfazed, he hurled the report, where it said her inclination was toward rear service, to the floor.
His demeanor changed so fast, any normal officer would have gone deathly pale. As if expressing Zettour’s anger, the bundle of papers broke apart as it slammed into the floor, and the sheets scattered in a fluttering mess. This was probably the first exhibition of such rage Lergen had seen since joining the army.
Could the sergeants attached to training platoons even manifest such striking fury? Frankly, he didn’t know it was possible for someone to get so mad.
But.
Anyone who noticed what happened next was amazed… Degurechaff was staring at him, dumbfounded. Not calmly, not furious at being denied, but dumbfounded.
That…that combat doll. That human in a monster’s clothing. She looks shocked.
“Answer me, Major. What possible reason do you have to abandon your duty?”
“General, I don’t understand the intent of your question.”
The question’s intent was clear. Even if the rear was interfering, this behavior was far beyond the code of the permissible. What purpose could she have for betraying the expectations of the army and the General Staff, then launching such a bullish verbal attack on top of it all?
“And I’ll ask this, too: You not only want to avoid combat duty in the east but in the west and at home as well?”
“Yes, General. I intend to continue to give my all in the course of duty. Please allow me to say that I’m surprised you would doubt me enough to say I would abandon it.”
“Sorry, so that’s what you meant when you said you couldn’t understand?”
“Yes, sir, that’s right. I don’t understand.”
You have no explanation of why you would request something that is practically equivalent to abandoning your duty? Even Lergen could understand the tacit intent of Zettour’s question.
And yet…
And yet.
She doesn’t get it?
Degurechaff’s answer was so unexpected that for a moment, everyone froze in spite of themselves. What is she saying? The being before his eyes suddenly seemed like an incomprehensible monster. What just came out of her mouth?
“…What? You don’t understand? It’s just what I asked, Major. Why would an elite like you, with an alias, volunteer for rear service?”
Yes.
Yes, that was exactly it.
Major Tanya von Degurechaff’s career as a mage was practically equivalent to her life. In that way, she had spent half her existence with the army and most of that in the gambling den of the forward-most lines.
And now she’s trying to evade combat service?
What Zettour was doing was less like asking what caused her mind to change and more like grilling her, and he wouldn’t stop. Maybe that was why…Degurechaff, seeming resigned at last, mumbled her true feelings.
“General, the orders I received were to attack the Federation capital. All I did was follow the General Staff’s orders. I followed the orders and got an inquiry opened on me, so it seems to me like people doubt my very capacity to obey.”
“Are you being serious?”
“Of course, General.”
Her reply on that point was childlike, in the sense that she was so assured of her own correctness, but from a soldier’s perspective, it was an incredibly suspicious thing to say.
Just looking at her, she seemed like a kid who had run her first errand, chest puffed proudly out. It was almost as if she was saying, I went and bought the potatoes you asked for!
…The vibe felt very odd in this context.
“So you’re saying you made this remark because you followed the General Staff’s orders, but the result was a court of inquiry?”
If Lergen looked closely, he could see Zettour’s temples pulsing. Mm, you don’t even have to look. He winced. No one would want to stand before the general like he was now. His rage was rolling off his entire body.
“Yes, General. I carried out the distraction mission to support the main lines in the east. But I feel like if any officer has doubts about even one of my military actions, then maybe I lack the aptitude to serve in operations.”
“…Do you not realize what you’re saying? Or are you playing with fire in full comprehension of what you’re doing?”
This must be what it
feels like to watch someone play with matches near a powder magazine. To nervously wonder when it will explode. Less like butterflies in the chest, more like a stabbing pain in the gut.
Lergen could only feel sorry for himself that he happened to be witness to this confrontation. If he was lucky, he would drink whiskey—stronger than wine—and forget it.
…If forgetting it would even be possible.
“No, General. I’m a soldier, and as such, I believe only in following the code of conduct.”
The major answered as if she didn’t know what she was being asked, as if she hadn’t understood what the question was getting at. And she didn’t look guilty at all. Her face was a mask of confusion at getting the third degree from her superior officer.
“Major, is there anything else you’d like to say in response to that question?” the general replied.
He had poured so much anger into his expression that it seemed like no individual would ever be able to top such a display of the emotion.
If Lergen had had a choice, he wouldn’t have been within a hundred meters of this scene.
Is that really what’s on my mind right now?
…Lergen sensed that in some corner of his brain he was having escapist thoughts, but he couldn’t make them stop.
“General, I’ve been saying this for a while now, but I don’t have anything else to add.”
“…Major, I value your eye for strategy.”
With a marvelous show of self-restraint, Zettour just barely managed to keep from exploding—with a rage that would have melted an iron will. Historians should praise him in posterity for that moment.
“I’m honored, General.” And surely historians would also make note of Degurechaff’s even reply.
Let’s be honest. Lergen had never felt successful verbal communication to be such a wonder until this moment. What Degurechaff meant with that remark was outside the realm of his comprehension.
