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

by Carlo Zen

  Would that party really want its army to be trained by officers from capitalist countries?

  Even if the Commies overcame that conflict of interest, each country has its own doctrines. Can something new be applied so rapidly in the middle of a war?

  Even if they resolve all those issues, is it possible to get results this fast?

  “No, it’s really just impossible.”

  The enemy is undeniably adaptable, and I’m not about to start underestimating them. Still, the word reality deserves some emphasis here. In this case, the only answer is mid-career hires.

  But unlike a corporation, the Federation is a country. The state has a monopoly on violence—that is to say, it’s the worst sort of monopolistic enterprise.

  “Where could they even hire from?” Tanya grumbles as if to say, You’ve got to be kidding.

  Does this mean even Commies have the concept of competition on the civilian level? But then it wouldn’t make sense that the quality of Soviet consumer products is so consistently abysmal. There’s no way the same people who had to recruit specialists from the lageri have the redundancy for that.

  ……Wait. There, Tanya freezes.

  This is only a theory, a preposterous supposition, but…could they be hiring those guys?

  The Federation Army existed before it became the party’s army. In other words…there’s a pool of mid-career human resources that could potentially be recruited.

  “Shit, shit, shit! So that’s what they’re doing!!”

  It hits me only after saying it aloud—I deserve to be shot by firing squad for my obliviousness. What an incredible lack of imagination. How could I think so dogmatically—what am I, a Commie?!

  “The lageri! Argh, fucking Commies! You should have just killed them all in the camps!”

  Apparently, these Communists are strangely talented at holding on to things.

  In propaganda, they denounced political prisoners as enemies of their state, as class enemies, as reactionaries, as relics of the abominable past—and yet, they preserved a ton of them in the lageri.

  Worse, Tanya knows next to nothing about those guys. If they were useless fools, that would be one thing. But having fought them…it’s obvious they’re skilled.

  “…Who would be familiar with Federation Army mage units from the previous era?”

  Though Tanya’s military career is rich due to the ongoing war, it’s inevitably still commensurate with her age. Thus, even she hasn’t had the opportunity to hear from the generation who knew the Federation as the empire it used to be. After twenty years pass, it’s not uncommon for institutional memory to fade, no matter how or why it happens.

  “Talk about information asymmetry. Inheriting and passing down knowledge sure is hard. What a nightmare!”

  I don’t know.

  In other words: ignorance.

  War is governed by the fundamental premise: If you don’t know, it’s your fault. No one told you? So what?—that sort of thing.

  Gentle egalitarians may advise that brandishing knowledge is unfair, but knowledge is power. In a war, the side that can employ more power than a school has the edge.

  If you’re looking for war without knowledge, you probably have to go back to pre–Stone Age—ape-men level if possible—scuffles.

  So I ask myself…

  Do you know your enemy?

  “…No, not at all.”

  I’ve prepped and reviewed with all the available intel. If I still don’t know, that means that information on the pre-revolution Federation Army magic units is missing from the official record.

  How were they taught?

  What were their doctrines?

  I don’t know a single thing about them.

  Tanya is uninformed—to a vexing degree. Basically, no one in the army has any understanding of the current situation. In an age with no Internet, once you lose touch with a memory or record, it might actually be lost forever.

  This certainly throws a wrench in things. We can’t fight a war if we don’t know the enemy. I can’t believe I only just noticed this massive gap in our knowledge! Even if the war itself is a waste to begin with, we have to at least win it—argh!

  In short, we need to dig up ancient records. Luckily, I’m fairly certain there was contact with them in the past. As far as Tanya can tell, contact means that there should be old data left somewhere inside the bureaucratic system.

  “The problem is labor! All I see in my future is labor!”

  Data that haven’t been organized…

  Any member of an organization knows what a headache unorganized data are. Take a mountain of uncategorized receipts, for instance. Or having to find an important document in a warehouse.

  How lucky for you if you even know which warehouse it’s in.

  Oftentimes you don’t know where to start looking. That’s especially true of documents that aren’t handed off properly. No matter how valuable the data, it’s hard for it not to be lost in a pile of junk the moment the person in charge of it transfers out of the department.

  It’s not malice, incompetence, or laziness but simply the reality that unused things are forgotten.

  Even if Tanya makes a request, imagining the amount of time it will take for someone to find what she needs is dizzying.

  “The library needs to be turned inside out. Those data must be in the General Staff Office somewhere. I have to get them to find them for me.”

  I won’t apply as myself but as Colonel von Lergen. After all, I’m stuck in this situation operating under his name. If a donkey can borrow a lion’s skin, who would say no?

  I have to get them on it right away. Tanya steels herself.

  She rushes out of her room and heads to the duty officer’s post. After momentarily scanning for a certain person—there she is!

  Seeing Serebryakov jump up and salute like she’s spring powered makes Tanya smile to herself in satisfaction.

  There’s no time to spare returning the salute, but rules are rules. She moves her arm slightly to perform the regulation motion and races through greetings to get down to business. “Lieutenant Serebryakov, this is an emergency. Set up a long-distance call with the General Staff Office. I’d like to send an officer with the message, but the situation being what it is, this will have to do. Use the strongest cipher possible and hurry.”

  “Yes, ma’am! I’ll go wake up the crypto personnel right away. What is it you need exactly?”

  “A request in Colonel von Lergen’s name to recheck the data we have on the Federation Army. Or rather, I need to get them to dig up some documents that are in the process of becoming history. Naturally, this is of the highest priority.”

  “Huh?”

  Tanya elaborates after seeing her adjutant’s blank expression. “The enemy improved too quickly. I can only conclude that rather than training up new recruits, they’ve begun sourcing an instant fighting force from somewhere else.”

  If she asks using the name of someone from Operations, the General Staff is sure to process it as an internal request.

  It’s not good to discriminate based on who is asking and via what channel, but prioritization hierarchies are a reality of bureaucracy.

  In order to light a fire under their asses, Tanya needs to exploit every trick in the book.

  “I’m fairly certain they’ve mixed in some troops from before the army turned Commie. In other words, there’s a very good chance that some veteran aces are mixed in.”

  “You’ll have to excuse me, but I find that hard to believe. Class enemies of the type that would normally be sent to the lageri…? This is the Federation we’re talking about.”

  “Lieutenant Serebryakov, I appreciate your perspective. Your insight and sensibility are valuable.”

  As far as the issue of the Federation goes, it’s dangerous to disregard the opinions of those with experience. That said, there’s a nonzero chance of reality betraying historical trends.

  “And I’m grateful for your advice and assis
tance. I respect you as a professional, Lieutenant; however, I will give you this warning with confidence.”

  To know something is to be clad in preconceived notions. It’s fundamentally the same issue the army faces as an organization that relies too heavily on preconceptions of what is supposedly common sense. As a sensible person herself, Tanya can sympathize with Serebryakov’s misunderstanding.

  It’s true that if you’re familiar with the Commie ideology, it’s hard to think that they would simply release people from the lageri. But they can sure do it anyway.

  “Don’t get caught up in the Communists’ official position. They can talk out of three sides of their mouths. If they find something that lets them infuriate people, they’ll be as diligent about it as religious fanatics.” Tanya practically spits the words out in exasperation. “Forget principles. These Commies are driven more by their needs in the moment than their ideology. Authoritarians in the guise of revolutionaries have always used this trick—it’s no surprise.”

  Commies, Commies, Commies.

  You could call them an awful societal reaction.

  So what’s so formidable about them? Tanya knows well. She can’t help but understand.

  “These bastards steal causes for their own ends. Expect the worst.”

  “…Understood.”

  “I’m really getting sick of this. Arrogant ideologues are simple, but patriots? They really get in the way.”

  What a pain when they operate according to not logic but love for their Heimat. Modernity is the age of love. Unconditional confessions of adoration to a shared construct known as the state.

  Blind love.

  What a heartwarming, maddeningly saccharine, and elegant poison.

  “Truly, what a pain in the neck.”

  It’s extremely difficult to talk of love in Tanya’s language. It’s absurd. Love is nothing but a bundle of absurdities and irrationality.

  But if there’s one thing that’s clear, it’s this:

  Love transcends logic.

  That much is true. Even if you add the caveat “for certain types of people,” it’s a major threat. The world is rife with people ready to challenge logic.

  It’s a world lifetimes removed from Tanya’s, but sadly, it exists.

  JUNE 16, UNIFIED YEAR 1927, B GROUP HEADQUARTERS ON THE EASTERN FRONT, OFFICE FOR HIGH-RANKING OFFICERS

  Though his job as inspector was only nominal, this unexpected opportunity to directly observe the situation in the field was more than welcome.

  It didn’t exactly compare to leisurely desk work, where he could kick back in an easy chair with a smoking pipe, but it did allow him to see things he couldn’t as the deputy chief of the Service Corps back at the General Staff Office.

  Of course, you could say the imperial bureaucracy was the best-appointed organization of its era. Details about the situation on the eastern front were collected, analyzed, and delivered along the proper channels to the General Staff Office.

  And to be assertive about picking up information himself, Zettour made efforts to stay in touch with and receive reports and advice from mid-ranking officers such as Lergen, Uger, and Degurechaff.

  But the world is full of surprises. They weren’t kidding when they said a picture is worth a thousand words.

  “I’ll send relief. That’s for sure.”

  He had promised it, so it was his duty. But faced with reality, even Lieutenant General von Zettour was forced into internal anguish.

  This is too awful.

  He thought he had understood their plight on paper, but compared to reality, it seemed positively optimistic. The B Front’s defensive lines were literally theoretical. It made sense why the B Group staffers were apprehensive.

  Logically, one could say that as a conclusion, it was incorrect. But emotionally, he understood the reason for their confusion.

  It was clear at a glance when he compared the situation to the Rhine front. Frankly, it was absurd to even call these lines. It was less like units stationed at various points along a contiguous front and more like they were simply defending their individual positions.

  The battle to break out Lieutenant Colonel von Degurechaff’s Lergen Kampfgruppe would be difficult.

  Getting a unit there without overexposing its flank or losing its edge—and most importantly, before it was too late—was going to be…quite a challenge.

  The only thing that Zettour felt conflicted about was how relieved he felt that it was Degurechaff he had made the bait. If the enemy hadn’t taken the poisoned lure, they would have been forced to halt a real army with defensive lines that existed only on paper.

  Thank God and fatherland that the Federation Army didn’t commit to a reckless charge.

  “…Air force attrition is occurring at three times the rate we anticipated. The drop operational tempo is getting serious; we won’t be able to maintain air superiority for long like this.”

  Though control of the sky was a minimum requirement, the eastern army didn’t have much strength to spare in the first place. Even considering concentration of forces in the west to handle the aerial battles breaking out there, the standards here could only be described as poor.

  “I thought we annihilated the Federation’s air force in Operation Iron Hammer… Does that really mean…?” He murmured and sighed at the photograph in his hand. It was a picture shot by an imperial air force gun camera depicting a fighter plane that looked to be of Unified States’s make.

  It was pleasant to see it bursting into flames, but the enemy plane was the one on fire because this was the picture in his possession. Plenty of imperial aircraft had been shot down, too. Surely the enemy gun cameras (nice ones with nice film from the Unified States) had photographed the reverse happening.

  “What an utter pain.”

  A murmur of perplexity.

  He understood with his brain, but something was still bothering him. Zettour shook his head to try to clear the strange feeling out of his mind and stared at the aerial photo.

  “…The colors are awfully faded.”

  Acquiring aircraft parts was the highest priority, but the quality was still inferior enough that the colors seemed muted. Apparently, the Council for Self-Government was urgently procuring former Federation Army gear.

  “Actively using seized gear…? I guess it makes sense that wouldn’t be emphasized in the reports. I suppose in the end…it’s the same sort of issue as the socks.”

  Maybe it was different to inquire about. He could clearly recall Colonel von Lergen, back from his inspection of the front lines, relaying the issue of the socks.

  He had spoken so hesitantly, everyone thought something horrible had happened on the front, but what it ended up being was socks. All the staff officers were absolutely baffled. But at least it was something they could understand if they listened…

  “Bizarrely, until someone explained it to us, we were incapable of understanding. How much of the information the front deems not worth saying are we able to pick up in the rear…? It’s concerning…”

  The administration considered itself to be working hard to understand the front lines as much as possible. That went for Zettour and every member of the organization.

  The socks oversight was due to a difference in awareness or a gap in perception. It was an example of how cultural obstacles regulate group thoughts and actions more than most people imagined. Apparently, old paradigms make their presence felt when you’re not looking.

  “I thought being on the front lines myself and breathing the same air would give me a different perspective, but…only now that I’ve seen it do I realize things can’t go on like this.”

  The front lines were captive to their circumstances, and the rear was captive to theirs. He could understand the reasons and the circumstances behind B Group’s reluctance, but they weren’t being terribly inventive. So did someone in the rear have a big plan to turn things around…? The maneuvers via Ildoa had hit a setback, and the fact that he was even here m
eant the situation was no laughing matter.

  He did let Colonel Calandro know thereafter that he still wanted to stay in touch and strive for improvement, but frankly, it was clear that the Empire had put a damper on Ildoa’s efforts to mediate.

  Sadly, what Zettour felt keenly standing on the front lines was that nobody fully grasped what was happening out here.

  There was Supreme Command, the General Staff, the army, the government, and they all considered themselves strategists, but what they actually decided was the strategic level, and the foundational grand strategy it should have been nesting under had yet to materialize.

  “A huge war with no guiding principles… Before the war, I would have laughed in the face of such an idea, saying How could something so foolish come to pass?”

  …It was a height of stupidity he couldn’t have imagined, and it made him sick.

  The Imperial Army most likely doesn’t have enough combat units. Can the Empire really take on the world like this?

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t his job to worry about that.

  “…It really is concerning.”

  THE SAME DAY, THE GENERAL STAFF OFFICE

  Though at night they conducted a thorough blackout, the General Staff Office was a fortress that never slept, like the beating administrative heart of the Empire.

  So though it was nighttime, Lieutenant General von Rudersdorf was roused from his dozing by the clamorous ringing of the telephone.

  “General von Rudersdorf, it’s Lieutenant Colonel Uger. Terribly sorry to bother you while you’re sleeping, but I have a report.”

  “Thanks. What is it?” He was used to calls interrupting his light sleep.

  When Rudersdorf urged Uger to continue, the lieutenant colonel made his report apologetically. “There was another nighttime raid on the lowland industrial zone.”

  The aerial war in the west was in a lull, but both sides were doing everything their cunning could come up with to harass each other; it was turning into a spiteful conflict far removed from the sort Rudersdorf preferred.