by Carlo Zen
Sorry, he apologized internally, and when he jumped out of the open hatch, he was met by the sweet, rich sea air.
Yesss, the sea.
That his unusually irritated internal state was soothed on deck as he was headed to the battlefield made him feel like he was past saving, and he smiled wryly.
He had missed the salty sea air dearly. Even if he had gotten used to being run around on dismal Intelligence errands, at heart he was a soldier who valued honor.
His conscience complained that duty was calling.
In that case. Drake stood on the narrow deck of the sub and looked up at the sky with a confident nod.
Time for work.
Rather than wavering, rather than getting annoyed, it was better to do his job step by step.
"Marine mages, I need you up on deck!"
The moment of shouting, Move out! came with a brisk feeling he wouldn't trade for anything. Wearing his computation orb, rifle in hand, he faced the water hoping he, too, could be brave.
What did he have to worry about regarding his duties as a soldier, warrior, and individual?
"Commander Mikel gave the signal for all units to move out."
His subordinate's clear reporting voice sounded so full of energy.
"Very good." He responded to the mage's fierceness in kind. "Once we get up there, get into assault formation! Our destination is the Osfjord! Lieutenant Sue, take point! Guide us to your fatherland!"
"Yes, sir! Leave the vanguard to me!"
Her reply was decisive.
When he glanced over at the lieutenant, her face was lit up with joy. She was on her way home. It wasn't a bad thing for her to be excited, and it wasn't surprising.
But he couldn't help but be slightly worried.
"Don't get cocky, Lieutenant."
"Understood! You can leave the forward watch to me!"
"All right."
Though he nodded, she seemed impatient enough that he wasn't sure if she really understood. He couldn't help but think this was risky.
The location they had chosen to charge as their entryway into the former Entente Alliance was the Osfjord. He had heard Sue's father had fought there. And it was the battlefield where the imperial fleet had landed and made rubble out of the Entente Alliance lines.
Can she stay composed? He couldn't shake his doubt.
But vexingly, no matter how worried he was, he couldn't take her off point.
The mainland's requests always prioritized politics. The nobles in Whitehall wanted to see someone from one of the occupied countries pitted in a flashy fight against the Empire.
She and her Unified States unit of volunteers from the former Entente Alliance would make great propaganda material.
Drake had strict orders to get them into the thick of the fight.
It was an operation for political ends directed by politicians.
War may be a continuation of politics, but as a commander in the field, he felt this relationship was a bit too cozy. Given it was a joint operation between the Federation and the Commonwealth for the purposes of propaganda, it was a natural request, but Drake couldn't help but find it annoying.
"I love the sea... Ah, but I can't mess around."
They were up and on their way to the Osfjord. Though he had done exercises on paper a number of times and learned the military geography, this was his first time performing a sneak attack from a submarine.
He had just thought, So this is another first, when he realized something.
"...An invasion via submarine, a sneak attack after sending in an aerial mage battalion. To think the day would come when us pros would be imitating everything those amateurs started."
The navy of a maritime state was playing catch-up to a continental state. This was how it felt for their precious Goddess of the Sea to sleep with someone else.
"That's a pretty sad thing for us champions of the sea."
They thought they were pioneers, but they had been lapped. For a country who had boasted being number one in the field, it was a disgrace. Honestly, it didn't feel very good.
The sailors found both ships and the sea to be quite jealous. But it went both ways. Men of the sea and ship were both full of passionate emotion. This newcomer the Empire is coming into our wide ocean and acting tough? There was no reason something so ridiculous should be happening.
Drake clenched his fists, sucked in the sea breeze, and roared with laughter.
"We're late to the trend? No matter! We'll just nail it!"
As someone from his country with a reputation for taking only love and war seriously, he would have to represent. And in the first place, he was the commander of a marine mage unit. It wasn't as if he were a newbie on his first amphibious operation.
He just hadn't factored in the submarine before.
If you had the basics down, application wasn't difficult. If there was any issue, it was that this was a joint mission.
"Boss, Colonel Mikel is..."
"On my way."
Drake responded to his subordinate's voice concisely.
"I guess things can't just go smoothly when it's your first time. Man, the Goddess of Fate sure is a bitch. Seems like everything depends on her mood."
Perfect coordination almost never happened outside of armchair fantasies.
It was hard enough to coordinate among your own units, much less troops from an allied army. It took an awful lot of time, bloody vomit, and sweat to turn complete strangers into those organic beings who share your fate on the battlefield known as brothers-in-arms.
"...Well, oftentimes your first time is one you'd rather forget."
Being in sync had nothing to do with logic.
The Federation Army's Colonel Mikel was a soldier worthy of trust and respect.
Personally, Drake wouldn't be averse to having him cover his back. But even with someone you could trust to some extent, being able to coordinate was a whole different issue.
They'd been on two or three joint missions, but...they just happened to be fighting alongside each other on the same battlefield in those cases.
And he had no idea what to expect from the partisan units.
On your first joint operation, even the best of pals have to be ready to fail. And when it came to cooperation between not only mage units but local partisan ground troops, the risk variables started to accumulate rapidly.
"Whoever said to do what you can and let God do the rest was on to something. If this were poker, I'd be folding about now!"
He didn't want to fall to the earth having mistaken the smile of the Goddess of Luck as being adored by Fate. Flying toward the sun with wax wings would be a ridiculous plan, wouldn't it?
Mikel glanced up at the sky and scowled. Whoever said that the eyes could be just as eloquent as the mouth was right.
"I got some bad news."
"What is it?"
"The sub that was supposed to be at sortie point three got detected by the enemy warning line and didn't make it. They're reporting their location, but...it's really far away."
Drake looked down and clicked his tongue in spite of himself.
This was the sort of trouble you could expect in the field, but...to think they would get tripped up on their first step.
"...So one battalion is down for the count? We won't have enough people."
"A third of our troops are out before we even start the fight. If we're going to declare we've been wiped out, it's now or never."
Their situation was extremely grave.
"So you and I are fools who let a third of our troops drop out before the battle even started?" Mikel's voice sounded dry, and Drake's must have seemed just as defeated. He didn't have the fight to put up a strong front. "Do we just call it one of the challenges of submarine operations? I had resigned myself to the fact that we couldn't expect close communications in the fleet... Well, I thought I understood how hard it was..."
Any understanding had to be in past tense now.
Submarines u
nderwater couldn't use wireless communications. If they couldn't use the wireless, they couldn't report their statuses.
Learning precisely how significant that was through experience really stung.
"I would think you've got enough of the salt about you to know."
"My job is to go over the sea. I might as well be a newbie when it comes to its depths."
Learning something new was a precious experience---as long as the tuition fees weren't profiteering.
"I hate that even though out in the world we have nothing to fear, the sound of a screw propeller makes us jump. And I'm sick of feeling like I've got the watchful eye of a dorm monitor on my back, even when we've had no major incidents along the way."
"Yeah, even just the memory of that is unpleasant."
So you were a bad kid? They eyed each other and Drake laughed it off. If there wasn't anything he could do about his situation, he had to accept it.
"I'm sick of hearing the engines of unidentified ships."
Approaching by submarine, surfacing, and sending out the mage units---they were all maneuvers performed on the assumption of a sneak attack. If there was even one ship in the vicinity when they surfaced, they could no longer expect secrecy to be maintained. The worries about secrecy were constant.
How ironic, then, that they couldn't even keep tabs on their own subs and found out at the last second that they were short on troops.
"By the way, what are we going to do about the missing battalion?"
"Well...it's impossible to carry out a large-scale feint, so what about switching to a hit-and-run? If we attack enemy torpedo storage, we should be able to secure the Northern Sea route's safety to some extent."
From Mikel's tone of voice, he didn't seem that serious about it. Still, it wasn't a bad idea.
Two battalions were more than enough to get one strike in.
And though people tended to forget, the fact was that torpedoes were a lot to deal with. They fell under the umbrella of extremely good targets.
The average submarine torpedo weighed well over 1.5 metric tons and was between six and seven meters long. They were huge both in terms of size and weight, but what really made them a handful was how sensitive they were. One careless move and the fuse would refuse to work properly. Unlike shells, they couldn't be easily mass-produced; they were essentially large collections of precise machinery. If they struck the imperial torpedo stockpile, there was a good chance the Empire's submarines and torpedo boats wouldn't be able to operate properly for the near future.
"You're saying we should attack the imperial munitions facility on the Osfjord? An eye for an eye, then, huh?" To Drake, as he smiled back at Mikel, it sounded like a thoroughly enjoyable plan. Hitting torpedoes was the kind of idea someone well versed in maritime affairs could get behind. And more than anything, he wasn't against that spirit of revenge.
Yes, it made him crack a smile.
"Sounds like fun." Sadly, it should probably be said, he had to continue, "Please consider our situation, though. Speaking as a member of your allied forces, it's our first joint operation in this mage regiment, and it's expected that we get proper political results."
In other words? Mikel asked with his eyes and Drake continued bitterly.
"Striking the torpedo or whatnot stock and withdrawing isn't a very good way to demonstrate our strong coordination with the partisans on the ground there. We need to take this farce seriously."
While it had military logic to it, this operation was limited by political circumstances.
An air raid on torpedo stores would be quite flashy, but...it wouldn't help them achieve their political goal of coordinating with the partisans.
"Honestly, it's great to have you along for this farce, Colonel Drake. It's hard to be free with a collar on."
"Well, it's a mix of the political situation and what works for the military."
Mikel nodded with an expression that said, That's for sure. It had to be hard for him. As someone in the same field, Drake sympathized from the bottom of his heart.
Fighting such a tough bunch as the Imperial Army was hard enough on its own. But this colonel had to fight them while keeping an eye out for the secret police and conspiracies behind his back.
"A two-front operation is always hard."
"Ain't that the eternal truth. And on that point, my apologies, but I'm glad I come from an island nation."
If his self of a few years ago heard him, he would have questioned his sanity, but he meant it---he had even found a new appreciation for the greatness of his beloved Commonwealth's politicians.
At least I don't have to worry about watching my back, and there's no way any of our politicians would say they want to attach political officers to our units. I do have it better.
A political officer boarding a submarine is more impudent than a rat.
"All right, that's enough politics talk."
Drake nodded at Mikel and mentioned something he had been worried about for a while. "I hope we can actually contact the partisans."
"Supposedly, they've been on standby for a week now... Although we won't know until we go see."
Drake could only answer, "Right." But it was incredibly frustrating to him. The Entente Alliance's territory had been under imperial military rule since its defeat.
He had heard that since the Federation was adjacent, its army's General Staff and central political administration had been giving quite a bit of support to partisan activities since before the fighting had started.
But... Drake could remember more than a few reports in the Commonwealth's domestic records that gave unpleasant hints of what was to come.
Public opinion in a nutshell was, Better the Empire than Communism.
"If the partisans don't have enough manpower, we can always just go wild and pull out."
"In terms of propaganda purposes, it would be better if they had enough..."
"Well, let's not expect---"
It happened right as he was about to finish with too much.
"Attention, all units. We have contact with a Wanderer. I'll patch them through."
At the sound of Lieutenant Sue's proud voice, Drake exchanged surprised looks with Mikel.
"Wanderer 03 to all of you. Welcome home."
It must have been Federation language that followed the fluent Commonwealth address.
"We've been waiting for you. I'll be your guide. Please begin your descent promptly."
EARLY APRIL, UNIFIED YEAR 1927
The harassment attacks on the fjord were carried out as a distraction by a volunteer company of mages from the Entente Alliance, Commonwealth marine mages, and a battalion of Federation mages. As a commando operation to support the main lines in the east through coordination with the partisans, it was typical.
That's all it would be known as, looking back in history.
The people of this generation would be laughed at in hindsight by those of later ones. You didn't even realize something so basic?
But that had nothing to do with the people at the time.
"What?! An air raid?!"
"Don't be ridiculous! We're not picking up any mana signals! Even for an incursion behind the lines, there has to be a limit to the distance they can strike from!"
"It's true that the local garrisons are experiencing sporadic combat!"
As the officers racked their brains over scattered reports of engagements and sightings in the din of the local Imperial Army garrison headquarters, more and more info came pouring in.
Some half-shrieked reports even said they were taking fire from naval cannons.
At the local garrison headquarters, they had to urgently inform their superiors of the situation while also alerting all units under them. All both the senders and receivers could do was despise the fog of war.
Thus it was that the upper-level organizations who received the vague, confused information mixed with speculation passed unclear summaries down to the units beneath them.
Eve
n the Empire's precision instrument of violence couldn't run perfectly forever.
And so, is how it should probably be said...
The shameful affair of these chaotic reports arriving at the core of the army caused some discerning officers to be wholeheartedly anxious.
Among the officers who received the urgent report and were forced to sigh were Lieutenant Colonel Tanya von Degurechaff and the other officers of the Salamander Kampfgruppe, a force currently stationed on the outskirts of the imperial capital and prepped for quick response.
For better or worse, a crew used to the battlefield knows that intelligence always comes in tangles. Tanya has thoughts about the guys at high command who can't see through the complications.
But setting her frustrations aside, it takes only a moment for her to get her brain in gear to comprehend the situation.
"...There's a chance they're mimicking us."
"You mean they infiltrated via submarine?"
"Yeah," she responds to her adjutant who immediately grasps what she means. "I suppose we can consider it retaliation from the Federation. Even the inactive Federation Navy could probably manage to transport some mages."
Sadly, the Imperial Navy has essentially no antisub capabilities. The main forces of the High Seas Fleet have a unit of destroyers as escorts, and they do about as good a job as can be expected, but...there was no reason the navy would surrender its precious babies.
They had their hands full securing the waters between the mainland and Norden.
The air fleet and submarines deployed in the northern waters were on a mission to destroy the enemy's sea lane, so patrolling against subs was too much to hope for from them.
"So, Colonel von Degurechaff...you're saying this isn't a mistake but the truth?"
"There's a good chance. Well, if the reports are this confused, there's a really good chance. What are the local units doing?"
Tanya is more surprised that the local HQ failed at selecting intel. Was it because they had sent all the brains to the front lines in the east? It's the moment her fear that officer quality is dropping takes on some reality.
But she soon learns that was only the beginning. Faced with the stream of incoming reports, the officers of the Salamander Kampfgruppe all furrow their brows.
