Introduction
Elia returned from Babylon 5 and her temporary assignment to the Aurora looking exhausted, physically, mentally, emotionally. The transporter deposited her below the bridge with a duffel bag over her shoulder, and she started up to report in to the Officer of the Watch.
Arterus had the rotation. Elia liked him, though they hadn't had much time to talk. He sat with confidence in the command chair, and like essentially all Rihannsu (and Vulcanoids in general) registered as a low-level telepath to Elia, though the nature of their telepathy was subtly different, relying more on electrical fields, and thus far more efficacious in direct skin contact. Elia was still envious of a society where everyone was a telepath.
"Lieutenant tr'Rllaillieu, Lieutenant Commander Elia Saumarez, reporting for duty with TDY aboard the ASV Aurora complete."
He rose, and saluted. "Commander Saumarez, welcome back aboard. I'm about to initiate a speed run to our jump position. We were supposed to depart for Drachenfeldt four hours ago, but the Captain ordered us to hold and wait for you instead and make up the time."
Elia's eyes widened briefly. Zhen'var isn't the kind of person who normally makes allowances for friends in operations. Period. "I won't take up another minute then, Lieutenant…"
"Oh, well, you should at least have the chai the Captain had me keep ready for you," Arterus answered with a chuckle. "She left standing orders about that before she retired for the night, Commander."
"I'm not sure if it's too early or too late, which I suppose means I might as well." Elia looked in comfortable surprise at her favourite thermos being supplied full and hot. "You're a perfect gentleman, Lieutenant. Carry-on!"
"Ma'am!"
Elia headed back to the turbolifts and keyed in the code for the Officer's Mess, nursing the spiced tea as she did. It wasn't always her favourite but right now it made her think of Zhen'var, and home, the Huáscar, and that was important. She felt too keyed up to sleep still, and would have nothing to do until she was put back in rotation, so it made sense to not even think of sleeping.
When she got to the Mess, she saw a table near the bar with Anna and Abebech at it, talking. Elia realised with a jerk that it was actually very early morning for the Huáscar, about 0400 in fact, since the ship ran on Portland time when the Aurora ran on New Liberty time… She was still incredibly out of it from her experiences on Babylon 5.
Anna gestured to one of the empty chairs at the table. "Please, Elia, have a seat. Welcome back. Not even enough time to take your duffel back to quarters?"
"Just didn't much want to." Don't want to be alone right now, having to think about everything I talked about with Captain Dale.
"What happened?" Anna asked. "Do you want coffee?"
Elia raised her mug. "On top of my tea? Come on, Anna, I'm not that wired… I might, actually. It might be better to stay awake than sleep; I don't want to ask Nah'dur for some pills that will knock me out for the next twenty-four hours, even though it is tempting."
"The bleary realities of the unending absence of sleep," Abebech murmured, surprising Elia. She was getting used to the woman rarely communicating with her, her shields like some kind of pit into which thoughts would slowly disappear. Elia was grateful that Abebech had essentially worked her job for her in addition to Abebech's own for the past weeks, and Abebech was probably brutally exhausted as a result. But some more communication would have been appreciated.
Abebech was another telepath, even if she was from S0T5, where the history of telepaths-'espers'-was mired in uncertainty and legend surrounding the Earthreign. Many states there, as here, oppressed telepaths, and Elia had hoped to share some kindred sentiments with the formidable woman.
Instead, Abebech had maintained a deep reserve of a type alien to most telepaths of her homeworld. There was no mental contact with her, only with the Dilgar onboard who belonged to the Mha'dorn, welcome friends all, to be sure. But now Abebech regarded her from behind those shades she always wore. Elia decided to risk it: Hi.
"You'd be surprised how much you can keep getting done anyway," Anna interjected.
A very faint smile touched Abebech's lips for a moment. "I am certain the Captain won't return you to rotation for a few days. You can ease yourself back into it."
So much for that. "So what did I interrupt?" Elia dared next.
"Commander Imra and I were having a cordial disagreement about the likely outcome of reorganisation efforts in the Reich. We're going to a planet called Drachenfeldt which has German, Bulgarian and Japanese ethnic communities on it," Anna explained. "Commander Imra thinks the situation will rapidly disintegrate, based on precedent when the local Imperial hegemon is removed and considering Nazi governance practices. Well, I come from the tradition of the Commonwealth, and the voluntary union and collaboration of Poland and Lithuania. I think people actually can learn to work together in the outer regions of the old Reich, even without centuries to become modern or anything else like that."
"The Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów was an exceptional case," Abebech countered. "With little comparable precedent in history. The slow collapse of many great Empires, and not just on the ground but also in the stars, suggests a depressing regularity of war as the hinterlands find themselves no longer subjected to a metropole."
Anna rolled her eyes. "You say that, but we did exist successfully for centuries, and it provides a path forward. Or I'm just one of those idealistic Aurora people… So, Elia, what do you think?"
Elia had looked up Drachenfeldt on her tablet in the meantime. One of the first things in the intelligence report was a nationalist music video that had momentarily transfixed her. She looked up with an expression neither of the others liked. "Ladies, I think we're going to find out."
Undiscovered Frontier: Origins
Season 1 Episode 2
"God Bless the Ottoman Empire"
Act 1
Drachenfeldt was a relatively normal third-wave Reich colony deep into the antispinward reaches of Nazi territory which had been occupied two weeks after the Battle of Welthauptstadt Germania and the surrender of the primary Reich elements. Their orders and their arrival had hardly been attended with any kind of urgency. Despite the very real risk of raids from Reich ships which, by the hundreds, had refused to surrender, the planet had no other allied warships in orbit. A single understrength division from the British Stellar Union formed the garrison. For the most part, the trip there had been occupied by training sessions, attempting to sort out point-and-call and Zhen'var's initiative centric command structure.
The reports were composed on the ship's readiness, Fei'nur's on the Marine battalion readiness for ground operations and Security personnel support capability, Nah'dur's on their ability to support humanitarian relief operations, Elia's on their ability to transporter support for humanitarian supplies and transport, and Abebech's on the status of the support wing. Below her fake windows a faithful image of the planet was revealed in all the blue glory of a garden world, of which the Reich had possessed many.
Zhen'var finished the reports, and then headed to the main conference room. There, Will was preparing the briefing as the full strength of her senior officers-even Lieutenant Tor'jar at comms-was mustered along with the senior NCOs. "All right, comrades. Will has put a fair amount of effort into the briefing prep, and he should give us the top down without any problems. If you are ready, Commander, go ahead and get started."
"Of course, Captain." Will smiled, but as his projection came up, he grimaced. "Welcome to Drachenfeldt. It's a fairly typical of the Reich colonisation scheme, Germans occupy the major cities and the most fertile farmland. A bare plurality of the population is Japanese-even after the war which reduced the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere they were not re-classed as untermensch-but they were subjugated as miners and here were working in the lowest status jobs in processing industries as well. The Japanese are a proud people, and there has been considerable resistance in the past to the Reich overlords." He grimaced again. "With concomitant massacres."
"The next ethnic group comprises the middle-class in the large towns and small cities and holding the marginal farmland and many fishing industry jobs-Bulgarians, who were exempted from the general massacres and reduction of the Slavs by their status as allies during what the Reich historians called the Great Aryan Crusade. It's been the Bulgarian population who have traditionally owned the mines which employ the Japanese, who very slightly outnumber them. Racial enmity between subordinate groups was intentionally kept high by the Gauleiter of the planet according to standard practice in Reich governance. And now comes the bad part."
He took a drink of water, looking up with a wry expression. "So, the commander on the surface has informed us that an extensive store of arms for reserve and second-line forces has been looted and is held in part by all sides; at least some Reich soldiers melted away and are working for the Bulgarian National Council instead of surrendering, and there are probably some Werewolf holdouts as well. So, bottom line: Drachenfeldt is swimming in racial enmity and arms."
"So, you are saying it would be difficult for the situation to be any worse?" A wry tone suffused Zhen'var's voice as she summarized her read of the state of the planet.
Will sucked in his breath and chuckled morbidly as he moved to sit. "Yes, that's about the beginning and the end of it, Captain."
"They aren't shooting each other. Yet." came the gruff voice of their Marine commander, as Zhen'var sarcastically grinned back to Fei'nur. "Thank you, Colonel, you are always capable of finding the way a situation can get worse."
"So… We've got to find a way to help these people all get along when they're interested in score settling and armed to the teeth is the way I see it," Violeta offered. "A challenge, but we've certainly just got to pathfind a solution and keep the peace until civilian resources are brought to bear."
"Were it that simple, Leftenant," Abebech spoke. "The reality is that the Harris Station Charter finds itself committing the Alliance to the partition of Reich space. As a result, our job is to hold order until the final disposition of the planet. No different than one of the great multiethnic Empires of Earth history."
Violeta blanched. She was aware of the Harris Station Charter, but the implications stuck in the craw of any kind of liberty-minded person.
"Not only that, but we must do so with minimal force and an indifferent garrison. A scratch division with limited heavy weapons. Do we have any word on whom the planet is to be assigned to in the…" Her lips curled. "... peace?"
"Not yet, Captain," Will said, more subdued. "Or even 'if'. Might be, might not be. In some way, the collapse of the Reich was faster than expected, the diplomats are still working."
"Not an improvement. Thank you, Commander. We have our orders, even so. We are going to carry them out as best we can, and prepare in case… the usual result of such an ethnic powder-keg comes to pass."
Elia was studying a holo-display from her omnitool. "Captain, shall we deploy a scansat grid? Not just for communications but also to support distributed sensor networking for armaments detection. It seems worthwhile in the situation you've just described."
"Please. Any other ideas from the table? This is going to be a difficult situation, at best." Zhen'var's eyes flicked around the officers and NCOs gathered. "Our intent is to find the best outcome for the planet and its' people, without violating our over-arching orders.."
"We need to find out what the common people actually need," Goodenough offered from the wing of the table occupied by Heermann officers.
"Concur," Anna added. "The Reich has ruled these peoples like serfs-which mean the politically active will be the upper class. We might override whatever their objectives are if we can just offer immediate needs to the mass of the people."
"To a point. Even an under-class can have some level of organization. There will be many conflicting interests, and even more hidden ones we cannot see. Let us try and divine what of them we can. Everyone, get comfortable. We may be here quite a while..."
That evening, Zhen'var received a communication from the surface as she was in her ready room. An officer in British khakis with the rank of Major, a fresh-faced, freckled redhead, appeared on her screen. "Major Sara Haraway, adjutant for CO, Drachenfeldt Garrison Division. Captain Zhen'var, Huáscar commanding?" Receiving a nodded confirmation, she continued. "Brigadier Jonathan Peacham, divisional commander, sends his compliments and invites you and your senior officers to Saackenweld, the planetary capitol, for dinner and an opportunity to meet officials of the local population."
"Thank you, Major. Do you have a preliminary report on the local situation for my officers? We stand ready to assist you as may be needed, with up to a single ad-hoc battalion." She was all business, voice already having developed the same sort of mixed accent Warmaster Shai'jhur possessed.
"It's been hard enough for us to simply patrol the built-up areas around the capitol, I'm afraid, and we only have a brigade-level staff. The briefing you got is probably all the prelims we sent out. BLUF is there's two major organised groups, the Bulgarian National Council, and the Rejuvenation Society, which was a secret society of the ethnically Japanese miners. Both are armed. The Germans are quiescent, frankly in a state of shock over the Reich being defeated. The Brigadier will try to fill you in with more details when you arrive on the surface."
"Good enough, Major. I will assemble a delegation. We will see your CO for dinner. Please extend my thanks to Brigadier Peacham."
"Of course, Captain. Eighteen hundred, if you please. Local, of course-in two and a half hours."
"See you then." With a sharp nod, she let the connection break… already dreading a formal event as this. Now she needed to figure out who to bring. Elia has certain special skills, certainly. Fei'nur is not… exceptionally diplomatic, but useful if the other side is less than diplomatic. I should bring one of the Warrants as well, if I am treating them as warrant officers. Nah'dur will never forgive being left behind. Will will keep in command in my absence… I'll ask Imra if she has any she'd nominate for the experience from her crew as well. Fera'xero can't eat the food… I'll let the Chiefs pick one of their number, remember, intent, Zhen!
Two and a half hours later, Zhen'var had assembled her entourage in the transporter room-mostly. Stasia and Chief Rajia Kerandit, the later a bluish Dorei man, arrived by selection just before Elia came in, leading Arterus and Daria. Fei'nur was already waiting, and Commander Imra had encouraged her to bring Ca'elia, saying the woman had a good bearing for such an event. Nah'dur was dawdling somewhere, since she hadn't showed up yet.
Just because you are my half-sister, Nah'dur, that does not give you license to be tardy!
"Lieutenants, Colonel, Chiefs. Everyone looked over the quick British Mess Etiquette pamphlet sent along with your instructions?"
"Yes," generally came a list of affirmations.
"Never been to anything fancy like this, Captain," Stasia murmured. "Closest thing to it was ceremonial feasts back home."
Before Zhen'var could reply, Nah'dur came running into the transporter room, and then climbed up onto a spare pad without a word, looking innocent while she breathed hard.
"Surgeon-Commander, have you reviewed your etiquette pamphlet, now that you have decided to join us?" She was smiling, even as she delivered the gentle rebuke.
"Oh, ah, well, keep my back stiff and use a fork and knife!"
Zhen'var gave her ship's doctor a look. It was not an approving one. "If you have not reviewed the pamphlet, Surgeon-Commander, are you certain you are ready for this meeting?"
Nah'dur straightened crisply to attention. "Battlemaster, I am prepared to comport myself." The sting had clearly hurt, particularly in public.
Zhen'var gave her a long, searching look, before she gave a single nod and turned towards the transporter operator. "When you are ready, beam us down." Zhen'var's expression didn't show the slight twinge of guilt she felt at reprimanding her half-sister like that, but Nah'dur was still rather… unpolished. She was young.
"Aye-aye, Captain!" The transporter operator looked like he was trying to hide a grin as they vanished. Whatever they would think of it, Zhen'var's sharp dressing down of her sister was going to make waves.
The last thing he saw as the team flashed out of existence was his captain's glowering look of disapproval aimed at his grin.
After the usual pleasantries on the surface, they were taken in seized Daimler aircars to the old Wehrmacht Hauptquartier in Saackenweld. A Brigadier in British mess dress, of a mixed ethnicity similar to Goodenough's, British to the core, stood with a group of three Colonels and two Majors, including Sara, with escorts and guards standing by. Likewise standing at the reception line was a group of eleven men in Reich formal civilian dress.
"Captain Zhen'var," he presented his hand, "and officers of the Huáscar, welcome to Drachenfeldt. I am Brigadier Peacham and, according to someone in the Alliance who thought it a good idea, I am the Governor of Drachenfeldt."
One could, in fact, see a slightly portly man of a vaguely Slavic extraction grimace at the words. He was dark-bearded with a hint of gray, at the head of the group in attendance, which was unsurprisingly all-male. The Reich had enforced gender roles even among its subject nations it had seen fit to allow to live.
Giving her own gloved hand as she stood to attention, Zhen'var gave them a thin smile. "A pleasure, Brigadier Peacham. May I present Colonel Fei'nur, head of my Marines and Security detachments, Commander Saumarez, my Operations officer, Lieutenant Seldayiv, tactical officer, Lieutenant tr'Rllaillieu, astrogation officer, Lieutenant Ca'elia, helmswoman of the Heermann, Chief Warrant Officer Héen, and Senior Chief Petty Officer Kerandit."
"Officers," he said after a moment, and allowed a small smile. "Colonels Roberson, Tirulipatti, and Ferazad. Majors Haraway and Acharya. And, to our left, President Ivan Alferov of the Bulgarian National Council, with the extraordinary committee of the National Council."
Zhen'var nodded politely to each of the officers, before giving a polite "Your Excellency." to President Alferov. This certainly felt fraught enough, and they'd barely even started.
"Captain," he replied, staring sharply at the aliens, herself included, for a moment.
"This way, please, Offiziere und Herren," the maître d'hôtel bowed deeply and precisely. They were shown to their seats according to rank, keeping Peacham, Zhen'var and the 'President' close together.
The table was expansively laid with fish, shrimp and mutton, curries and kedgeree. It was not what one would expect of traditional British cuisine, but the British Stellar Union was a radically different land. It was served with wheat bread, but roti and gurung were the styles, not western loafs. Perhaps the most familiar touch was the pot of something next to the bread that looked suspiciously like Marmite instead of an Indian chutney, and the extensive use of peas in the curries and the presence of kippers and jellied eels amongst the hors d'oeuvre, or the mutton being served with mint sauce.
It was a bittersweet reminder of home for Zhen'var, one she didn't dare let any of their hosts recognize.
"Captain," Ivan began. "I've heard that you Dilgar fought a very famous war yourselves, were defeated, but have lately survived and recovered - everyone knows of the assault on Welthauptstadt Germania, it will live on as a great gesture, many of the liberated nations shall remember it fondly." While he spoke, the Bulgarian man was ladling shrimp and salmon into a roti which he then covered in Raita for the want of sour cream, and finishing his sentence, began to eat with gusto. From the sommelier's wine selections he was downing a Lechthaler from the Trentino.
"The war is very famous in our home universe, at least, sir. It is part of our recovery to pay such dues in blood as fate deems required." Her voice was quiet, as she carefully assembled a plate for herself, small selections of most of the meat dishes adorning it when she was finished.
"I think your national reconstruction is quite well along, Captain!"
He looked like he wished to rise with his wine glass, and Brigadier Peacham quickly tinged his glass and avoided the faux pas for his officers by rising first. "The Queen."
Zhen'var led her officers in responding to the Loyal Toast, as was proper, even if it was doubly strange for her. She was also next in rank and would need to propose the next toast.
She rose, catching herself before starting with 'Warmaster', and spoke calmly; "President Morgan."
They began the table. Ivan Alferov finally had his chance, and rose, but had composed himself, instead of a more informal slavic toast, what followed was impressive bombast. "To the Bulgarian National Liberation Movement!" There was a moment of nervous silence as the allied officers tried to figure out how to respond to it. Before they could, he simply continued talking.
"Comrades, allies, friends of the Bulgarian Nation, who have been so cruelly oppressed by the savage and barbaric, the merciless Nemski, today we stand on the edge of the Dawn! This world, which the Nazis call Drachenfeldt and which we shall call Nowo-Apraxin, shall be the new home of the Bulgarian people! Here shall we remember Tarnovo and Sofiya in our construction, and become the natural home of the Bulgarian nation in exile. Nazdráve, comrades!" He raised his glass and drank. And drank.
He wasn't finished as he refilled his wine from a carafe on the table. "Soon the Bulgarian nation shall join other races like the Gersallians and Dorei as a full member of the Alliance, here where we will obtain our natural and full development. The mines of this world are our natural path to economic sovereignty and prosperity and our inherent and sovereign mineral wealth will allow all of our pensioners to enjoy vacations throughout the Alliance and other natural aspirations of the Bulgarian people to the style of life from which they have for so long been cruelly denied. Bulgarian arms, like those of our brave Dilgar friends, will become renowned throughout the Multiverse, and we shall again propagate the Orthodox faith to our brothers far and wide, and renew the true Christian Church!"
Why, Almighty, why did he just have to keep talking…? Zhen'var's expression had frozen into a polite smile. She had expected the bombast… but there were multiple other groups on this planet that might object.
Elia had a perfectly frozen smile on her face that matched her Captain's. Nah'dur looked like she was fascinated in a disturbingly clinical sense. Perhaps Fei'nur was the least bothered, the Colonel not understanding why there was anything wrong with what the President was doing or saying!
After the dinner was over, Peacham approached Zhen'var as she wandered away from the table, the Bulgarians slowly being herded away in their drunken boisterousness. "Captain, one of the reasons I brought you here was to see the situation in the flesh - my problem is that, to be quite frank, Alferov's Panteri, panthers, the paramilitaries of the Bulgarian National Council, could easily overwhelm my division."
"I am concerned that any of the planetary groups, with how many weapons have gone missing, could cause a disasterous reverse, Brigadier. We should perhaps bring Colonel Fei'nur into this discussion. It will be her that, I think, your request will fall heaviest upon?"
"Certainly, Captain, that's her, correct?" He pointed to Fei'nur. "I confess I'm not familiar with your people, but the look of a veteran is clear enough."
"A long service veteran up from the ranks, she is. The only of us here who fought in that war Alferov mentioned, and has gone through hells darker than I want to imagine to stand here today."
Peacham nodded with a quiet recognition, stepping forward with Zhen'var. "Colonel Fei'nur. Glad to make your acquaintance. Your Captain and I were just discussing some operational matters."
"Brigadier." She stiffened momentarially to attention, before returning to her previous posture. "A Marine deployment is in the offing, Captain?"
"Perhaps worse than that, Colonel. The situation is most poor. Please, continue, Brigadier."
"Alferov's paramilitaries alone have enough strength to overwhelm us, Colonel. But their preoccupation is with the 'Rejuvenation Society', the Japanese paramilitaries who have seized the planet's mines. In particular the entire contents of a major reserve depot called Grunwald 9 were seized by the Rejuvenation Society. I can't realistically get Alferov to disarm until the Rejuvenation Society has been disarmed, so I'd like to use your battalion to search the mining districts near Grunwald 9 for caches of arms."
"It puts small groups of my people in position to be overwhelmed, Brigadier. I would need to come down in force, and it will anger the local populace. Beyond the usual atrocities and retribution that accompany any situation as this. They will resist my efforts and refuse our authority. You still wish me to try, however, by your expression…?"
"We have no choice if we are to keep the peace, Colonel. If you could land as soon as is practical, tomorrow, perhaps?"
Fei'nur's expression was glum, as she nodded. "Let me give them a good breakfast before we beam down, then. Captain, I'll need all the heavy equipment we have, and can replicate. Armour is critical to suppressing overt resistance." She paused, and went on with the air of a woman resigned. "At least until they start firing anti-tank missiles."
The next day around 1100 Huáscar time, the transporters began landing troops and gear, with the transports bringing in certain heavy equipment unsuited for transport behind them. The Marine battalion had only three companies, but with various specialist troops from the Huáscar's FMF, Fei'nur could fill out the rank table of a full battalion. Supporting them was a company of Security personnel, wearing the Navy BDUs rarely seen in the less formal service.
She was still thinking dark thoughts at how utterly stupid this idea was, heading down with the first waves to set up the perimeter for the transports - the Security troops would follow later, though the ad-hoc nature of the full ground deployment made her grind her teeth. The old veteran felt like she was being thrown to the sabre-cats by the 'garrison' of the planet, and she used that term very loosely.
The transports quickly set down the full complement of twelve cruiser tanks which were carried in the holds during war fit, but weren't even necessarily part of the regular peacetime equipment. They had no others, though there was a scouting company of twenty-eight heavy armoured cars and a fire support section of six self-propelled railguns capable of firing smart submunition projecting shells.
As they moved out to establish their first-line perimeter from the landing zone, one of the companies was assigned to set their positions along a rail corridor. Traditional railways were still highly efficient for things like ore hauling, and that's exactly what the Reich was using them for in this case.
The light utility trucks they used for general mobility, and the hover-cars for forward reconnaissance, went zooming down the roads with their heavy repeating pulse rifles and automatic mortars crewed. Giant mountains loomed around them, while the terrain itself featured rolling hills opening into wider valleys, with deep-cut valleys into the rock covered mostly in trees ahead, though several vicious yellow scars from mine tailings were well-visible.
It hadn't been but five minutes or ten when Fei'nur's omnitool flashed an urgent incoming message. "Colonel, this is Sergeant Waters, First Scouting Element." Jessica Waters had been one of the rare soldiers as Corporal Waters on the first Huáscar who had not merely followed Zhen'var into exile, but followed her to her new command as well. "You need to see this, Sir. It's… Bad."
"I have some suspicions. In person, or via the tool, Sergeant?" Fei'nur was already remembering some of the very many horrible things they already could have stumbled upon. Probably bodies. The question is how displayed, in a way that would disturb a combat veteran.
"There's no need to turn it into a theatre," Sergeant Waters answered after a moment. She tapped her omnitool a few times, and projected the image so Fei'nur could see it as a hologram on her own.
It clearly showed a line of at least dozens of decapitated bodies, strung from the catenary towers of the railway line. They were hung upside down with razor wire by the ankles, with the heads on the ground below them and large quantities of blood, suggesting they'd been beheaded in place. Placards with an unfamiliar script-no, it was recognisable, the script of the Japanese and her old Warmaster's great rival-marked each corpse.
The old Colonel's lips curled. "We'll use drones to cut them down, and use the earthmover attachments to at least bury them in a mass grave. The archives are all that needs to keep seeing this. It's clearly begun - the strife I was dreading. Keep your perimeters tight, everyone. Nobody can be presumed friendly here." It's always the same. Fei'nur growled as she cleared the holo-display, the auto-translator helpfully giving her the text the local guerrillas had intended to provide an example.
"This German Defiled Japanese Womanhood"
"This German Killed Japanese Youth"
"Rejuvenation of Society shall come in blood!"
"Let us all join in the national reconstruction."
The bloodletting had begun, and now Fei'nur intended to keep her people out of it. Finding arms caches came second to avoiding the quicksand this situation could become, very, very quickly. Still, she had orders, as she gathered her forces into scratch battle groups.
The next component of the operation required actually meeting with the miners. It had been straightforward enough for Zhen'var to agree to direct Fei'nur to use operational latitude in her approach. Disarming those who were armed was done when they agreed to it, or when they were dead, nothing more.
Battle armor was not exceptionally diplomatic, but it was something Fei'nur would never go without in a hostile situation… unless she was invisible, and that was difficult to reconcile with a diplomatic meeting.
The mining town was stark, simple buildings built of clapboard, tin metal, wood and a little bit of handmade stonework. Company stories and processing facilities. Dust everywhere. And barricades with rising sun flags blocking their direct approach by road or rail. The town had no names on the maps, just O. Targonoff Company Town No.17, the property of someone other than its inhabitants, even the name of its owner twisted to fit German expectations. But now the inhabitants were armed, and they had some idea of their use, from the way positions were emplaced covering the barricades from three angles. The company commander under Fei'nur, Captain Gei'fuor, quickly brought her troops to a halt and prepared to set her dispositions. "We can break through it easily enough, but it will require a set-piece assault to breach, Colonel." The Dilgar mind still turned instinctively toward dealing with the problem directly. The old Empire days were not quite gone from the heart.
"It will, but we aren't going to assault. No Dilgar blood for someone else's future colony. Get me two volunteers, one with a truce flag, another with the Alliance flag. Set your troops in covering positions, though go ahead and draw up the assault plans. I'm going to go try and talk to some brave and stubborn men over there." Her eyes were narrowed through her visor as she breathed through the filters that covered the bottom part of her face.
"Understood, Battlemaster!" A flashed salute, and the positions were laid out. Two volunteers came forward, with quickly improvised flagpoles, reported to Fei'nur, one Dilgar and one human.
"If they start shooting, pop your personal shields and fall back into cover, understood? No heroes for scraps of cloth against this lot. Keep far enough back to not be in the same fire-lines as I. Any questions?" Her mind flashed ahead, as Fei'nur wanted to grit her teeth at the sheer idiocy of this entire plan.
"Understood, Colonel!" Flashed salutes, the Marines weren't about to give them over, and they headed forward under cover.
At first there was no response from the lines of the miners. The two soldiers with their flags stood there, utterly exposed, for two, maybe three minutes. And then a man wearing a hachimaki and miners' overalls stepped forward with a rifle slung at his shoulder, carrying his own Japanese banner, and walked out to meet them.
Fei'nur stood there in the open, daring to let her rank flashes show in the active camouflage paint upon her armor, her own rifle slung the entire time. A single, sharp bow of the head was the most politeness she would give, in an attempt to put the locals at ease.
A second man stepped out. Burly, his hair still dark, he went right for Fei'nur, and stopped ten paces away.
"I am Colonel Fei'nur of the Alliance. What is the name of your village, and who am I talking to?" Her question was level, if wary.
"We call this place Matsuo, alien Colonel," he replied. "I am Haikyo Jun, the Chairman of the Rejuvenation Society for Matsuo. Why do you come to our town, Colonel?"
"I am to keep order in these areas, and attempt to arrange mutual disarmament of heavy weapons between yourselves and the Bulgarian movement." Which is not exactly my orders, but those orders will get me shot with a grenade launcher if inflexibly applied.
"Colonel, you doubtless have your orders," he answered. "However, understand that we have paid for this land in the blood of our fathers, our grandfathers, our sons and brothers, who have died in these mines, and in our daughters and sisters and wives and mothers who have been poisoned here and died. Their blood is in this ground, they are interred in this ground, their spirits are in this ground. They have bought it for us. We no longer have Japan, but here we may be Japanese, honour our ancestors, and restore our traditions. This is what our toil has won, we will not ever concede it to the Bulgarians."
"I… wasn't asking you to." Fei'nur blinked, visibly confused. "Gods, if they'd tried to take our factories and housing blocks from us, we'd have taken up arms just like you have. I'm just trying to help keep more people who don't deserve it from dying. That's all."
"This is exactly what the Bulgarians want! Here, we are Japanese, we want lands enough for our people and these mines," he thundered sharply, now. "Tell the Bulgarians we will partition fairly the lands of the Germans. We are free. We will not take orders from your Alliance, we have not fought you, we have not been defeated by you. We will protect our homes and grow strong with them. That is our terms. The Bulgarians have cut off our supply of food and would starve us into being their slaves! If you do not send us food, or they do not, we will have to take it from the villages around us. That is just the truth, Colonel."
"Humanitarian aid is something I can request. I'm not giving you orders, but my troops won't be leaving, either. Is this understood and fair to your thinking?" Fei'nur was trying to cogitate as quickly as she could to keep the lid on the boiling tension.
"I am stating facts," Jun answered, and folded his arms impassively. "We will not be denied food. Stay out of our towns, Colonel. We are a free people now, and we will not give that up."
"You would be…" Fei'nur trailed off, and shook her head. "Your words are noted, and will be passed on." The veteran Colonel gave a sharp, shallow bow and turned to depart. The situation gets messier and messier...
Zhen'var had at least had an entire week of uninterrupted sleep when the call came from the surface. It flashed on her red priority channel and shook her awake in her cabin in the middle of the ship's night, the light side of Drachenfeldt below her, but the view blanked out to give her a pitch-black rest.
Letting out a softly grumpy noise, she rolled far enough to flick on a dim light, blinking furiously as her eyes tried to adjust, pulling on a uniform jacket and yanking her hair back into order with rough quickness. Only then did she acknowledge the message. "Huáscar Actual, go ahead."
"Captain Zhen'var." It was Brigadier Peacham. "We've had an urgent, and concerning development. There's a local holonet broadcast on the H-band, 22Mhz frequency, which is coming from an unknown vessel at sea. They're using moon bouncing to reach their immediate vicinity and a large part of the planet, and it seems they're broadcasting propaganda associated with the Internal Apraxin Revolutionary Organisation, IARO, which is an extremist splinter group from the Bulgarian National Council."
Zhen'var grimaced, her expression darkening. "So the incitement has begun, then? We will have to move against the transmissions, of course, quietly. A moment, Brigadier." She paused, then pressed her comms key for the intercom. "Captain to bridge. There is someone on the planet below broadcasting an incitement to mass violence via lunar reflection down below. We need it stopped, now."
"We've got the broadcast," Will answered a moment later, having already ordered the science officer on duty to pull it. "Do you want to see it, Captain? We're trying to localise it now."
"Go ahead and feed it down here, Commander. I might as well see how bad it is." She forced herself out of her chair to replicate a cup of chai, hope of more sleep now truly lost.
The broadcast was impressive in its hokey authenticity, considering the bleak subject matter. A green flag with a yellow lion rampant, faced hoist, flashed on the screen, the flag emblazoned with the words in Bulgarian cyrillic "Liberty or Death". Images of beautiful mountains covered in trees in summer flashed by and were replaced with a recording of a band with an accordion, drums and several string instruments. A man was singing. Everyone was wearing a balaclava.
"Bulgarian people, arise from your slumber…"
"...As long as there is Apraxin, Bulgars shall exist.."
The song faded into what looked like a news broadcast being run entirely by people in balaclavas and camo fatigues. This part actually looked live. "This is a News Broadcast of the Resistance Force of the Internal Apraxin Revolutionary Organisation! Comrades, Bulgarians, Christians, tonight we read the truth of resistance."
The man had a rifle on his desk as a prop as he spoke, and he kept one hand lovingly on the barrel shroud. "The incredible defeat of the Nemski has removed forever the notion of Reich invincibility. Right now we are praying for the Christian evangelism of the Nemski, who were subjugated by the precursor of the Anti-Christ, Adolf Hitler himself. A restoration of Christian civilisation generally is absolutely necessary in general and on Apraxin in particular if we are to successfully resist the impetus of the Asiatics, who even now are seizing the legitimate property of the Bulgarian nation."
"Nowo Apraxin is absolutely critical as the legitimate homeland of the Bulgarian nation, to allow our natural, national restoration. The wealth represented on this world will allow us to become a great nation among the Multiverse, and must be stoutly defended. Recall, too, that asiatics have a natural lust for white women and the power the treasonous miners have gained by seizing Reich arms is a severe threat to our civilisation and womanhood. Unless the Alliance moves immediately to restore Bulgarian control of the mines, extreme measures will be required! Nemski, be reminded that we are fellow Europeans, return to God, and understand that the protection of your daughters as well is a sacred charge of Christian Bulgarian manhood. If you respect our rights to Nowo Apraxin, due consideration for your survival and prosperity will be taken into account." He held the rifle up with one hand and shook it. "If you do not, it will be impossible for the manhood of the Bulgarian nation to protect your daughters from the Japanese! You will know the shame of being helpless unless you submit yourselves to our rule!"
Zhen'var turned the feed off. She'd seen enough. "Will, has there been any luck localizing the transmission?"
"No, Captain, it's coming from a large cluster of fishing boats working the same grounds. Because they're bouncing it off the moon-that's an old trick-it's too broad band to identify the exact transmission source in the group. I did however ask that Chief Héen organise a reconnaissance. She chose to scramble the alert fighters for a closer look."
"Understood. They will probably have gone to ground by then, but there is a chance we will get lucky."
Lar'shan usually took the alert lead on the night shift to set a good example for the rest of his pilots so they could actually get some sleep during the normal ship's night. Ironically, this had already led to his being scrambled, since crises seemed to like to evolve on the Huáscar in the middle of the night, following some ancient rule of the universe that trouble woke people up from a well-earned slumber.
They dove through the atmosphere in fifteen minutes, Stasia's slightly warbling and high but cute voice guiding them in. "All right, you're fifty klicks off the bank at five klicks asl, heading two-three-niner. Go ahead and drop down to one klick asl and prepare your pass, PriFly Actual over."
"Copy PriFly Actual, this is WC-50 Actual, we are descending and will make a left bank around Point Echo. Infrared cameras on."
Circling the position, the footage was being broadcast directly to the Huáscar and resolved into a digital, three-dimensional image of each of the trawlers. As each georeferenced point in the orbit of the fighters was correlated relative to each other, a full three-dimensional model of each of the trawlers was constructed by the computers on the starship.
Ensign Oulata in the science department was on duty, and immediately processed the images through standard recognition databanks. The cross-correlation produced nothing. There were no unusual antennae or broadcasts.
"I'm sorry, Sir," he reported to Will. "The models are good, but it doesn't matter. The power draw is the same as the other trawlers and there's no unusual antennae on any of them. We can't localise the signal."
"Lords," Will sighed. "I'm sorry, Captain, but no dice."
Rolling through the valleys, most of the eyes were pointed up, beyond being on swivels. An ambush from top down was always the worst. The hovercars zipped up and down the side slopes while the wheeled vehicles rolled fast down the road, heading toward the next village. The flocks of sheep fled from their approach across the fields marked by wooden fences across steep hillsides. Here and there, a herdsman on horseback or a shepherd boy looked down at the rolling convoy. It was summer, and rich red dust was rolling out behind them from the tyres as the pintle gunners sat uneasy at their mounts.
Jessica Waters was commanding the platoon, since the "scratch" nature of their fourth company made them short on officers. She appreciated the fact Fei'nur trusted her as one of the sergeants with a platoon command in exigencies. Certainly she had never expected to be taking orders from a Dilgar. Fei'nur was as rough and gruff as the worst old GROPOS gunny she could remember, but was a good mustang and remembered where she came from and trusted her and the other human NCOs, if anything a little more than her own.
Unfortunately there was no time for reminiscence. The scene she had witnessed the day before was graphic proof of how dangerous the situation was that kept her platoon hot and ready. The radio crackled every few seconds with a new report from the outriders or the IED detection wheeled drones rolling ahead of the vehicles. The utter medieval nature of the scene around them bothered her, too. Other than the line of fibre-optic and power transmission wire quaintly suspended from wooden poles alongside the road, it looked like a fantasy novel instead of a modern colonial society. To Jess, who grew up with domes, the very human geography was deeply unsettling, right down to the packed dirt her column roared up toward the village of Ticha.
The town was made of crofter's homes of rock, wood and thatch. There was a small clinic of the Health Department of the Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda and a grander building marked Reichspost - Hilfsbüro Esläuft. The signs to the town had been marked Ticha in Bulgarian and Esläuft in German-the Reich had not even permitted their subject peoples uncontested rights to name their villages. A pub or drinking hall and a few shops, barely grander than the houses, rounded the place out. It had perhaps seven hundred inhabitants.
"They have a post office?" One of Jess' soldiers asked incredulously.
"Yeah, subject races were banned from using their extranet to keep it pure and Aryan, so they provided an 'auxiliary post' for them," the driver shouted up.
"Damnit, Jackson, you're some kind of nerd."
Around the now halted column a large number of townspeople had gathered. Sergeant Waters hopped down from the IFV and flipped up the goggles on her helmet. The universal translator handled Bulgarian well enough. "People of Ticha, we are Alliance soldiers who have arrived to restore order after the defeat of the Nazi Reich."
"Heil Allianz!" One of them shouted with a crisp Hitler salute. Many others followed the gesture, almost instinctually. "Thank you for rescuing us from our tormentors!"
Jess saw one of her troopers flinch visibly at the symbology, but she knew that the villagers just didn't know any other way to greet foreign troops, and would have been in hot shit if they hadn't saluted for an SS column rolling through, so why not salute for the Alliance that had liberated them? "Thank you. We will be assessing your needs and moving up the road tomorrow. We'll make camp outside of town on the north side," she explained.
A couple of men stepped forward, exchanging glances. It wasn't hard to figure out they weren't used to women in positions of authority in the military. One of them was an Orthodox Priest, the others slightly more prosperous versions of the mass, shopkeepers perhaps. The Priest spoke. "Shall the livelihoods or faith of the village be altered, Ma'am?"
"Absolutely not! We will, however, provide food and medical assistance, if required."
"Medical treatment?" One of the men in the crowd dared to scoff. "That is what the Germans promise us, but our children just get sick and die, all we have is prayer to Holy God!"
Children get sick and die… Jess grimaced. "May I see?" Glancing back. "Corpsman to the front on the double! PO Symonds," she added, addressing the one science rating from Fera'xero's department, embedded into the platoon for analytics on the surface, "get your sensors running. Atmospherics."
"Understood, Sergeant!" Over the next ridge was one of the largest strip mines they'd ever seen, after all, with warrens of tunnels extending deeper in from it.
Jess and Ger'ahn, the corpsman, went forward together to where a group of children were being kept away from the others. They looked horrible, malnourished and sickly, a couple coughing with disturbing substances coming from their lungs. The medical scanners required only seconds.
"Atmospheric heavy metals poisoning, Ma'am," he said flatly. "They're as bad off as I was as a kit, except they'll just keep getting worse from this instead of reaching a homeostasis like we do with the spores."
"Yeah, I thought so. We need a medical team with a Doctor down here, don't we?" The sheer magnitude of the problem was starting to dawn on her.
"Yes Ma'am. Probably every down-wind village, too."
"I'll comm Commander Saumarez."
The next day, a request for a meeting by CWO Héen flashed onto Zhen'var's calendar. The commander of the small craft support operations was not a common visitor to the Captain's office, though she had certainly been fully willing to bring concerns before, with her forthright practicality as a former merchant mariner.
She tapped 'approved', fitting her just before lunch, wondering just what the Air Boss wanted to bring up. If this is the start of my ideas bearing fruit, I shall take it. She always seemed a skilled sort, one of the founding cadre of the Alliance.
Anastasia arrived for the meeting in her light blue flying corps uniform, crisp with the pinned-up blouse, and hair pulled back in a long braid. "Captain, thank you for seeing me so quickly."
"No issue, Chief. Sit, please. Replicator is yours if you wish anything. I admit, we have not talked very often, what is this about?" Her voice was querulous, not sharp.
"Well," she took a cup of coffee, and smiled faintly. "I want to go to the surface. The fishing boats were operating out of a town called St. Mark of Apraxin, and I think I can find out from the local community, or with their help identify who is behind the broadcasts. I'm a fisherwoman myself, owned my own purse seiner in the past. And though I'm lapsed from the faith, I was raised Orthodox. I can speak their language in a cultural sense. That's going to be the only way to crack this, and I want to, I have tools that are useful and I can help stop a genocide from starting on our watch."
Zhen'var leaned back, face inscrutable as she considered the idea. "It is commendable initiative, Chief, and while I am wary, I support the intent of the idea. You will lead the team."
"A team, Captain? Well, very well; I don't really want to end up dead," she answered back, a hair wryly, and sipped her coffee. "We should have a science officer and a portable sensor pack in case we end up trailing them at sea."
"Agreed. A Mha'dorn as well? Security with an NCO, I think?" She was asking, not ordering, phrasing suggestions in that way.
"All right, a security squad and a Mha'dorn officer as well. That makes… Eleven of us. Quite the little troupe, though," she frowned. "Well. I guess it's needed considering the opposition we might face, and it will look more like an assistance group, then. Yes, that will do, Captain. By your permission?"
"So granted, Chief. Good luck in your first detached command." Her eyes gleamed, in that sort of way that implied the Captain was plotting something.