by Blaze Ward
Em appreciated the way Bhattacharya blushed, ever so slightly, while the Khan grinned like a Cheshire Cat, all eyes and cheeks.
“And that all requests to Buran for official diplomatic relations have, ere now, been met with firm negation,” Em continued.
“Ah, but those were delivered with a gun, Grand Admiral,” Ul replied quietly. “Ill-mannered barbarians raiding civilized villages. Red Admiral Keller chose a different approach. A more subtle one, if you will.”
Em felt the sarcasm infect his face. Let it. Let them see it. Was rewarded with more grins.
Seriously? This was not how diplomacy was supposed to be conducted.
“Acknowledged,” Em said. “And now you have now appointed yourself Ambassador to the Barbarians, Minister Ul?”
“We live in ignorance of one another, Grand Admiral Wachturm who was once the much-feared Red Admiral,” the man noted. “Only the Warriors communicated, leaving the Scholars unfulfilled. My mission is to find more Scholars disguised as Warriors and help them to learn the folly of warfare. To that end, I have requested security clearance to read more of your books.”
“More?” Em asked.
“I found Jessica Keller, Volume One most enlightening, sir, if a touch self-aggrandizing,” the Khan replied.
Em bristled just the slightest bit, but thought he managed to suppress it. Apparently not, from the knowing grin on the stranger’s face.
“And I feel I would learn more about you if I were to read your books in publication order, following the development of your tactical and strategic genius up to the point it ran into the irresistible force that is Keller,” Ul continued. “Already, I have learned a tremendous amount about your culture from the audio works of Centurion zu Wiegand. Specifically, her symphonies.”
Casey?
“How so?” Em asked, aware that he had already lost control of the meeting, but willing to follow the twists and turns of this man’s mind. Nobody had ever gotten inside Buran’s head.
“As Princess Kasimira, she wrote music that spoke to the soul of Fribourg itself,” the Khan said, his eyes staring into the distance. “By opening myself to that, I was able to understand more of your nature. You are a proud, martial folk beset by a slight cultural inferiority complex, but upheld by bedrock principles. Generally happy, but sadly limited.”
All that from music?
Em made a note to buy Casey’s entire catalog and listen to it with a more critical ear. Before this, it had been merely background music that had become amazingly popular with the populace even before the woman became the Savior of the Empire.
Em felt his hand come up to interrupt the stranger, but Ul nodded graciously.
“And I am aware that my observations on the topic would not be generally welcomed here, beyond a very circumscribed circle of Scholars, such as yourself and Amala,” the Khan nodded. “I wished to make my position clear as a Scholar, and not a Warrior or a Spy, Grand Admiral. One suspects that I would find my return to Winterhome something less than welcome, at present.”
“I see,” Em said. Maybe he did, at that. “What, then, is your purpose, if we cannot guarantee you safe passage home?”
“I wish to write a book, Grand Admiral,” Ul replied, his high voice suddenly taking on great gravity. “I wish to tell my story, and that of my people, the children of The Holding, that you might understand us, as I have come to understand you. To speak to the Scholars and Artisans, and not just the Technicians and Warriors.”
“A book?” Em forced the skepticism out of his voice before he spoke.
“Yes,” Yuur Ul pronounced. “It will be entitled Lord of Winter.”
Overture: Denis
Date of the Republic May 19, 401 Grand Fleet HQ, St. Legier
Denis Jež gave up trying to suppress the grin on his face and sighed happily at the sight. Through the wide portal, a brand new ship was docked in an interior bay. She looked average-sized until you saw the Imperial light cruiser in the next slot over, looking like a new-borne puppy cuddled up against his mother for warmth. Only then did the immensity of the warship become obvious.
“I take she meets your approval?” the man on his left asked in a droll, knowing voice.
Denis turned to Emmerich Wachturm and smiled.
“Even Yan Bedrov didn’t believe that the old designs for a warship were so vulnerable, Grand Admiral,” Denis opined. “A couple of degrees to the left and the flag bridge of Auberon might have been annihilated. Along with Jessica, Casey, and everyone else. We need something better.”
“I’ve seen her reports,” Wachturm said. “And Bedrov’s. And yours. That Star Controller has no business on the front lines. And carriers are an even worse idea, although Bedrov tells me he might have a solution to that. My grain of salt awaits his genius.”
Denis nodded, sober but still grinning.
“You’ll get her home safe?” he asked. “And not steal all her secrets?”
“Jež, my spies are exceptional,” the Grand Admiral smiled back. “I had the complete as-built plans for Auberon even before you went off to Corynthe. Nothing you did there under Whughy altered that significantly. I’ll have a skeleton crew under Iskra Vlahovic get your battered, old vessel and her flight wing home safely. I need you back out there with Jessica too much to do anything else.”
“And this, sir?” Denis continued, pulling on the sleeve of his new white jacket. “What will the First Lord and the Senate say?”
It felt weird, being in someone else’s uniform, even if it had been tailored for him. Baggy, blue slacks. White, button-up shirt with a folding collar. White, double-breasted jacket with gold trim and a single, thick ring around both wrists.
“Jež, you are the Command Centurion of the flagship of First Expeditionary Fleet,” Wachturm turned deadly serious. “In Fribourg service, that’s an admiral’s slot, not a captain’s. I appreciate that you want to be a warrior like Aeliaes or d’Maine, so you’d rather remain a command centurion, instead of becoming a Fleet Centurion. But I want my people treating you like you deserve. If Naoumov has a problem with that, she’s welcome to come to St. Legier and argue with me and the Emperor. I have his backing on this.”
Denis nodded, still shocked, but letting it flow through him.
Denis Jež, Imperial Admiral of the White.
They both turned to the ship waiting out there.
“And Auberon was a flagship, Jež,” Wachturm continued, pointing at the ship before them. “I need you and Jessica in another flagship, and safe, so you can continue the war.”
If RAN VI Ferrata, Bedrov’s Expeditionary Cruiser design, was a long sword, this monster was a greatsword. She had the same general lines, but was nearly a third bigger in all dimensions.
IFV Vanguard. The first of another revolution in naval warfare.
Imperial Fighting Vessel. But so much more.
Something so new, so big, that Yan Bedrov had run out of adjectives to describe the design. Not that he had given it much thought. Most of his effort had been on the three Expeditionary Star Controller designs he had finalized for Jessica and the Aquitaine Senate. But all of them had been carriers. None would likely ever be built, not after First Trusski.
Only by luck and the Grace of God had da Vinci and her wing come back with as minimal casualties as they had at that battle. They should have been simply obliterated, stomped like ants.
And everyone here knew that. Even the pilots weren’t bitching too much about going home, those who had survived.
So now, instead of a Star Controller, the Grand Admiral was sending him out in a pure warship. Four administrative shuttles and two fast couriers comprised her total flight bay. Tucked inside a lot of engines, generators, and guns.
What Bedrov had called a Heavy Dreadnaught in his design notes.
DH-001. Vanguard.
Denis knew that her first sister ship was about a third completed now, almost halfway around the planet at a dedicated shipyard. IFV Valiant.
But Vanguard
would be his. Denis Jež and Nina Vanek would get to go on the big raids with VI Ferrata and VI Victrix now, instead of hiding safely behind Tomas Kigali’s skirts, even as dangerous as CA-264 had proven herself to be.
Denis had originally earned his stripes on a Strike Carrier, but done it in direct combat. It would be good to get back to that.
He absorbed Wachturm’s words about Jessica needing to be there in a flagship to command, and him needing to be her commander, just like they had done with Auberon.
“We’ll do you proud, sir,” he said.
“I’m counting on that, Denis,” the big man said. “Very soon, I plan to take the war to Buran.”
Overture: Vo
Imperial Founding: 179/06/01. Army Base Midlands South, St. Legier
The field was huge. Perfectly level and grassed over, such that you could have had at least a dozen separate rugby matches going on simultaneously, with space left over for fans on all the sidelines. It promised to be a warm day, but only later. The morning sun was just now burning off the low clouds.
General Vo zu Arlo watched on a monitor from the cooler confines of his command transport as the last of the troops filed into place. For now, over six hundred vehicles were lined up for review in several rows across. The tanks and self-propelled artillery loomed heavy at the rear, with a variety of skiffs: both assault and scout versions; closer in. Just over five thousand men as well, grouped nervously into teams and crews, forwarded from other units whose commanders felt that those men met the strenuous requirements Vo had set forth.
His own command transport was parked behind a small stage in front of those men, built high enough so that most of the men out there could see him when he climbed the stairs and started today’s events.
The factory had taken a basic assault skiff and turned it into an armored box capable of holding Vo, his communications team, and the support group he kept close at hand. Old timers, for the most part, men who had been with him at St. Legier, and before that, Thuringwell.
Killers like Hans Danville and Iakov Street. For those times he needed that.
But today would be an entirely different process. Five thousand men hoping to make the cut. To prove that they belonged.
“Sir, it’s time,” Danville said quietly, standing and checking his weapons: the pistol, plus the various knives and other implements he carried everywhere he went. Around him, the rest of the team followed their own similar rituals.
Vo nodded and stood. One of the modifications that he had required for his transport was ceilings high enough he could stand without bashing his head, unlike most models. He figured that being in charge allowed him that small perk, adding forty centimeters of space to the original design.
“Field team, go ahead,” Vo ordered, just as quietly. “I’ll follow in a minute. Comm team will handle everything from here.”
Vo watched as half the men filed out, his bodyguards, leaving him with the remaining six. Nobody was going to attempt an assassination in the next two minutes. Not here.
One more heavy breath drawn deep. Shortly, the entire world would change for a number of people.
Normally, Vo would have been in the green and tan splattered field uniform he preferred for maneuvers, but this was official business. So instead, he was in sage, the Class Two uniform he would wear while inside the building at headquarters, or calling on government officials and higher-ranking officers.
He stepped to the hooks beside the aft hatch and grabbed his leather belt. Matte black, 12mm revolver in a holster on the right. Scabbarded long sword on the left hip. Six kilograms of metal, plus all the cartridges across the back, like an ancient cowboy from a vid.
Vo turned to the man on the other side of the hatchway as he strapped it all on. Command Decanus Reese Borel. No longer a Master Sergeant, but the senior non-comm in what would become this new unit.
His new unit.
Borel was the man who was becoming his left hand, even as Danville and Street were his right. Communications. Organization. Details. A military unit like this required soldiers and drivers, but it also needed mechanics, cooks, and personnel managers like Borel.
“Audio pickups are live, General,” Borel said simply. “Talk in a normal voice once you emerge on the stage and we’ll make sure the men hear.”
Vo nodded, unwilling to trust his voice right now. He was too far into the zone.
There had been a speech he wrote for this. Well, rewrote half a dozen times before he realized that reading something to these men was the wrong way to approach them. He could have sent it in the mail if that was what they needed.
This had to be from his heart. His soul.
Vo stepped out into the mid-morning sun and assaulted the wooden steps up to the platform. There was an awning over it to provide some shade, but it was a nice day yet.
Below, thousands of men came slowly to silence, faces intent on the stranger, this famous foreigner who might yet become their commanding officer.
Vo looked at the small group down front, immediately below the stage. They were turned at an angle to the rest, so they could look out over the field, and be seen by those men. But they could also look up and see Vo standing close at hand.
They had earned their place here.
Master Sergeant Edgar Horst. Color Sergeant for the 189th Division. Now Color Decurion for the 189th Legion. Nearly thirty years in uniform, and currently the longest-serving active-duty man in the unit. In one hand, the pole with the unit’s proud flag, dating back to before the original conquest of Thuringwell, an event memorialized by Karl IV with an Eternal Guard. A group of men that had come painfully close to being annihilated by Fourth Saxon and Ninth Pohang during the invasion, but for Horst.
And one Centurion Vo Arlo, Grand Army of the Republic.
Vo paused and stared out at the men. Let the moment build. He had written words, but they failed him. They were just words. He needed something bigger today.
“Our story begins on Imperial Date April 30, 174,” he began in a low voice that nevertheless boomed across the field as Borel was as good as his word. “At a place called Yonin, on the little-known planet of Thuringwell.”
Vo glanced down and picked out the four men who had stood that day, and all the rest who had stood with them. With him.
“The Republic of Aquitaine launched a full planetary invasion on that day,” Vo continued. “At Yonin, the men of the 189th Division stood firm. They would have gladly died at their post, because they were doing their duty. Sometimes, that is what is called for.”
Many of those men glanced up and smiled.
“But it was not their day to die, even as they had resigned themselves to doing their duty with honor. Those fifty-seven men survived. Some have retired and others will join them soon, once this last task is done. Many of the others will return to Thuringwell, where Fourth Saxon is currently holding the Eternal Guard for us, so that they could all be here. Because they wanted to stand here today. Eventually, all of you who remain will serve a hitch on Thuringwell, guarding an Imperial monument on a Republic world, so you can understand what that dedication to duty looks like.”
Vo took a deep breath and looked up at the field, sage with uniforms and vehicles.
“Later, twenty-four of those men were selected to come here, to St. Legier, to honor the man who had kept them from being slaughtered. When the Emperor made me a Ritter, and Honorary Colonel, Third Regiment, 189th division. Those men have earned their place on this field. The rest of you have not.”
A sound went through the crowd. Perhaps a low moan. Maybe a touch of a growl as well.
“If you look at those twenty-four men, you will see they only wear two tags on their dress uniform,” Vo challenged the men now with his tone. “My first standing order on taking command was that no other tag was necessary, if they wore one of those two. The first is the Defense of Thuringwell medal, given to the fifty-seven men who stood that day, and forged by Michele Ali al-Inverness, the Armourer of Fourth Saxon
herself. The woman who also made all the swords the Honor Guard bears to this day. That badge comes from the same bronze that was used to make the plaque placed at the front of the older memorial, ordered by the Aquitaine Senate to honor the peace, when war was the option.”
Vo found himself pacing now, walking in slow, measured steps first to the right, and then back and across. It helped center him as he spoke.
“The other medal is for Imperial Honors,” Vo said. “For those twenty-four men who stood with me when we found it necessary to challenge the entire Empire. To do what was right, rather than what was merely expedient. In one of her only official acts, Emperor Karl VIII commanded that the divisional flag for the 189th be modified to include these words across the bottom: We stood. Gentlemen, that is what the 189th Division means, to me, and to those men. We stood.”
Vo let the pause draw out.
“But this is no longer the 189th Division, even as we inherit the history, the honors, and the memories. The Grand Marshal has commanded me to create a new thing, a Legion, and to build it on the bones of that old division and her troops. Two hundred and seventy-three of you chose to volunteer for this new duty. The rest were honorably transferred to the 17th Division and we wish them well. The 17th is another training unit, as the 189th was, and those men who left us will turn out better troopers, some of whom will find their way here in future days. That unit patch on your shoulder was your invitation to join us today, but you have not earned your spot, either.”
Vo turned and faced the field now, squaring his shoulders and bringing his head up as the fire took hold.
“A Legion is not comprised of regiments, but of cohorts. And cohorts are made up of soldiers. There are only five thousand of you here today because I set very high standards for those men who would be allowed to volunteer for this duty. Four years active service in a line unit. A willingness to learn a whole new way to soldier. And an expectation that earning your place here will be the hardest thing you ever do.”
