Unified Year 1923, General Staff HQ
The opulent room was filled with paintings of the contemporary style that was distinctive of Imperial artwork. It could be said to have been decorated beyond what was necessary for a place of war and efficiency. A massive dining table, built of solid dark mahogany that was polished to a gleaming finish stood in the center of the room, only adding to the total price tag.
Forks clanged as two middle-aged men who sat across from each other in the middle of the table ate their meal. It was served on gold-inlaid porcelain, more fitting for an art museum than as regular tableware. They wore dark grey button-up military uniforms, shining metal epaulets adorning their shoulders. Each of them had a grim expression on their face, full of deep contours and shadow as they picked at their meals.
The quality of the food on the pure-white porcelain was in stark contrast to the rich surroundings. Dark bread with a texture as grainy as sand was served, along with steaming lumps of boiled sausage and potato, tasting of nothing but salt. A pile of what looked to be greenish toothpicks sat to the side of each man's plate, a dish that the kitchen staff claimed to be a salad, although the healthy connotations of the word were at odds with the reality of the dish.
"Zettour, it's unlike you to be so quiet," said the burlier of the two men, setting down his fork. He had a thick brown mustache, adding to his powerful image. "If I didn't know you so well, I'd think you were nervous." He laughed, more like a dog's bark than anything else.
The smaller man finished chewing a thick slice of bread before responding. "Well then, dear Rudersdorf, it appears you don't know me as well as you think. My heart hasn't beat this fast in years."
He laughed, "Oh, that's a coincidence. Mine too." The stocky man leaned back in his hard wooden chair, another carved piece of art that belonged elsewhere. "Do you want to stop choking down this sorry excuse for a meal and get to the point of this meeting?"
"It would seem we have no other option, as sad as it is." He waved to the waiter behind him.
Seconds later, their plates were gone, and the two men were alone in the room, looking at each other with blank faces. They both sighed, then started laughing at each other, the throaty sound echoing in the high-vaulted ceiling.
"It truly is unlike us, to be so grim. Are we not men of the Empire, willing to brave any challenge for the fatherland?" said Rudersdorf after the sound died out. "Are we not the dastardly duo, ready to defeat our foes spectacularly, never leaving a single man alive? What happened to us?"
"While you exaggerate, I suppose what you said is true," Zettour replied with a smile. "But do you not believe that even evil men have their limits? I'd like to think that even we have a heart, hidden away somewhere in our body. Although if we ever did find it, that would mean the end of our careers as officers of the General Staff. The Empire really does demand much from its soldiers."
"Bah," he harrumphed. "It's our job to remove our hearts, the job of every man in the rear. The soldiers on the front lines are the ones whose job it is to die. Compared to that task, we have it much better."
Zettour sighed. "Decisive as always, Operations man. Some say that I think too much, that I'm too much of a scholar for war. That may be right if you can steel your nerves so easily."
He laughed, "You know as well as I do that they're nothing but hot air. Those idiots wouldn't understand war even if we tossed them straight into the Rhine, to see for themselves the product of their mistake."
Zettour winced at the reminder of the situation on the western front. "Ah, well, I think they understand their transgressions well enough. Being fired and stripped of everything but the skin on your back tends to instill a lesson quite severely." He paused, "But I digress, there's no point in talking about the past."
"That's certainly true."
He raised his eyebrow. "Do you want to start, or should I? I certainly don't mind if you take the honor of reviewing that… proposal."
Both men, each of them having tested their mettle time and time again in both training and as leaders of their branches in the General Staff, felt chills run down their spine. The feeling branched out, worming its way throughout their entire body until settling in their guts, a dense ball of unease.
With a grimace on his face, Rudersdorf replied, "I think I'll let you take all the glory this time. The Service Corps doesn't get nearly enough credit for what it does."
After a brief staredown, Zettour relented. "Fine, but I hope you'll remember this the next time I ask for a favor."
Reaching towards the center of the table, he grabbed a brown manila folder that had been sitting between them during the meal. With delicate side-steps, they had been ignoring the matter, not wanting to think about the issue any sooner than necessary.
He opened the folder, the stack of papers inside full of text and various pictures. With organized grace, he took the mass of files and spread them out on the table in front of him. There were various types of information - pictures, long blocks of text, or graphs - each showing information related to the Empire's war efforts. All except for one, that is, which held two words in chunky black text that filled up the center of the page.
"Operation Reisende." Clearing his throat with a cough, he continued, "A proposal drafted by Dr. Schugel, the engineering director of the Klusross testing facility, as an analysis of a potential application of the result of the top-secret military project he was heading. On a visit by Lieutenant Colonel Lergen to the facility, he passed this file to him, claiming it required the utmost of secrecy, and should the details of the plan ever come to light, it is to be immediately scrapped and all traces removed. While Lergen found it to be a breach of protocol, he read through the plan, and decided that it should be immediately given to us, leaving the facility on the same day."
A small sigh escaped Rudersdorf's mustachioed lips. "It already sounds so wonderful, and we haven't even begun to talk about what it is."
"Let's wait until we get to the good part to start complaining, shall we?"
"Good point, carry on."
Zettour coughed again, his mouth feeling dry. "The plan itself is built on multiple assumptions and relies on completely new technology. An elite strike team of mages capable of sustained non-magic combat operations needs to be built, around the size of a battalion, while hidden from the rest of the military at all costs. This unit would be led by the current sole mage capable of using the experimental Elenium Type 95 operation orb, Second Lieutenant Tanya Degurechaff, who is currently… ten years old. The rest of the mages will be supplied with the Elenium Type 97, a more usable version of the Type 95 that Dr. Schugel is currently still working on."
"Is this the good part yet?" Rudersdorf asked.
"I'm afraid we've yet to even begin the 'good part,' as you call it," Zettour sighed, knowing his next words were to be painful. "Reisende will use this elite group in months-long journeys deep in enemy territory to strike large cities in the rear, damaging both industrial outputs and what the Schugel calls 'the spirit of the people.' The linchpin of the strategy is the Type 95, which can store mana to use in these strike missions, providing overwhelming firepower. After gathering supplies, the rest of the battalion is tasked with defending Degurechaff, retreating to an area where conventional forces can't follow.
With his head in his hands, Rudersdorf groaned, "A question before I mention the obvious. What if they get captured? The Elenium assault series represents the best computation orb technology the Empire has."
Zettour replied, seeming dejected, "In it, the plan states that in the worst-case scenario, the unit can self-destruct their computation orbs inside a major city to destroy all traces of the technology and eliminate the target, although their technological superiority almost guarantees escape from or the annihilation of any enemy they encounter. The cost/benefit analysis states that at minimum, Reisende is likely to achieve complete annihilation of an industrial center of the enemy, along with the effect of drawing away reinforcements from the front lines and eliminating them as well."
The burly man clenched his fists. "And what is the best-case scenario?"
He set down the paper he had been reading from. Stone-faced, Zettour almost whispered his reply. "Unprecedented reduction of a country's ability to fight, at little cost to us."
They sat in silence, the excess luxury of the room growing more and more annoying to the men as they looked away from the manila folder, anywhere except where the innocent-looking sheet of papers lay. Their hearts beat faster, the beating of drums in their chest drowning out their thoughts.
After a while, Rudersdorf said, "This plan ignores reality. It's a war crime."
The small lights installed around the room flickered for a moment, casting the slender man's face in shadow. "Maybe, but the Empire maintains plausible deniability unless the unit gets captured alive, which is unlikely considering the self-destruction option detailed in the paper. We can use mages who haven't been identified by the enemy yet, and Degurechaff was removed from action in Norden by equipment failure before she even made contact with the enemy. Also, no hostile nation would be able to imitate Reisende during any projected span of the war, seeing that it relies on multiple advantages that are unique to the Empire, so we shouldn't have to worry about retaliation."
"Everyone would know it was us just from the quality of the computation orbs! And what about our honor? We're intentionally attacking civilian population centers," he said, his trademarked anger swelling up. "No matter how much we try to dress it up as destroying only industrial centers, thousands of civilians will be killed if we do this. What the hell do you think the 'spirit of the people' means? This kind of targeted strike against a country's people is unprecedented, the Francois Republic may be our enemy, but there's a limit to war."
Zettour stared at his counterpart. Then, he reached into a cigarette box on his right, taking one out. Fire danced out from the lighter he took out of the breast pocket of his military uniform, igniting the end of the roll.
He took a deep puff as he thought, planning what he would say. The smoke curled upwards, creating a haze of dirty smog around the general. Then, after what seemed to be a time much longer than the few seconds that had passed, he removed the cigarette from his lips, holding it with two fingers.
"The war is not going well," he said, stating the fact.
Rudersdorf fumed, his thick horse-hair like mustache twitching. "Yes, what about it?"
"Our regional forces in the north took more losses than expected and were making little progress, so the Great Army was dispatched as a political measure to crush the Entente Alliance in retaliation for their invasion," he said, with no emotion on his wrinkled face. "The Francois Republic attacked us when they saw this vulnerability, due to our misreading of public opinion in the country. We are in a two-front war now, and the Great Army is taking too long to redeploy to the Western Front. As of yet, we have no great successes in this war. These are the facts of our situation."
The larger man had no reply, waiting for his trusted friend to continue. He saw the conclusion he was going towards, thinking about it, and detesting it to the point of wishing he was someone else, perhaps a minor civil official in the government. A position without any power, with just mundane paperwork to be stamped and signed.
"Not only this, but we have suspicions that the Commonwealth is helping our enemies, even if only through intelligence-gathering and other such things. But considering the national interests of the Isles, they are likely to intervene even further if the Republic begins to lose. And since the Unified States are friendly with the Commonwealth, they will at least sell our enemies resources, if only to make as much money as they can. The situation in the west guarantees that we will never have a long-term material advantage, not against the combined wealth of all of our enemies."
He continued, his mask never breaking. "While we have a non-aggression pact with the Federation, there are no guarantees with the communists. Our standing reserves in the East alone are a numerical symbol of the chances of conflict with the Rus."
Sighing, a deep sound that spoke of the feelings in his heart, he said, "In a sense, it's a good thing we didn't achieve a sweet victory against the Entente Alliance, otherwise we may have been caught up in the world of the short-term dream of conquest. The Empire cannot win against our enemies without a miraculous trick, and even then, the more we win, the more enemies we gain. Qualitative superiority is what we have, and we have focused on that end to near-perfection. But quantitative superiority on the scale of the entire world cannot be defeated by that alone, and that is what we would have to face if we want victory."
Having said his piece, Zettour shifted back in his chair, a hair's difference as he looked at Rudersdorf, catching his breath.
Seeing the look, Rudersdorf said, "So we have only two options," having figured out the horrible idea his companion was proposing. "We can stand down, with no borders changed, even as our public cries out like a bunch of damn fools for a conquering, invincible Empire, or…"
After a small pause, Zettour smiled, a hollow smile that was a warning to anyone that saw it. The sign of a winding shell-riddled road ahead. "Or we can continue to fight, fight for the sake of bleeding our enemy dry. The Empire can conquer, gain as many victories as the public wants in the long-term. Reisende would be the beginning of the new type of war."
In step with his peer, Rudersdorf replied, "Where there are no limits. Where we don't win by smashing our enemies, but by slowly poisoning them to death." He looked as if he was witnessing adultery in a church, the idea going against his occupation as an Operations man, and against the humanity that was thumping in his heart, a blaring siren in his conscience.
Grimacing, Zettour said, "Yes, I suppose that's an apt analogy." placing the cigarette he had been holding at his side to his lips.
They sat, Rudersdorf pulling out a cigarette too, inhaling the fumes that blackened their weathered lungs like charcoal. But the nicotine rush was pleasurable, and they sat in companionable silence, the two men who understood the Empire's military better than anyone.
Remembering a detail, Rudersdorf frowned. "Are you sure about trusting Reisende to Degurechaff? She's young, how can she be expected to handle that sort of operation without cracking? You know as well as I do that it's not going to be pretty."
At his objection, Zettour cracked an expression of real happiness for the first time, even if twisted. "Oh, don't worry about that," he said, chuckling like he had just made a funny joke.
"What's so funny?" Rudersdorf looked annoyed. "This is a serious flaw, grounds for aborting the mission if it's not possible to get a replacement, as Schugel claims."
"Have you read her file yet?" Zettour asked.
"No, what about it?" Rudersdorf replied.
"Well, if we think ourselves as evil puppet-masters, then how should I put it?" he said, scratching his chin. He thought for a moment, until he leaned back in his chair, having come to a conclusion that seemed to amuse him. "I asked the same question to Lergen, and I believe his original answer still suits it best."
The stocky man asked, "And what would that be?"
Zettour dropped his jubilance, his eyes that seemed to be closed so often finally opening, revealing piercing gray pupils. He shivered, thinking of the disgusting things to come. And, he thought about the Lieutenant Colonel who had shivered in the same way, answering the same question.
Who would carry out the work of the Empire? Who would be their instrument of violence? Who would do their job, never hesitating?
"A monster in the skin of a little girl. Nothing more, nothing less."