In times of war, some places are ignored compared to others. Even the great Plan 315 that the Empire cooked up to protect and bolster the entire border against enemies was set to make certain fronts more important than others…and in some cases, that can make a very simple situation into something a tad more desperate.
Take Magna Rumeli for instance, when Dacia had its force cut off at the head their neighboring country definitely saw the writing on the wall and began to bolster its forces, gaining help from the Commonwealth and Unified States before the Empire noticed, however by the time the small country would become its own theater of war…both sides stopped caring about it a whole lot less.
The issue over the border to Magna Rumelli and the Empire was simple, a hell of a lot of mountains. It made it near impossible to create a decent supply line into Rumeli territory and on the other hand, the Fatherlands own territory didn't have a mountain problem at all, so they could easily set up a large defense past the mountains by ceding just a bit of territory.
However, that was really the issue here. Rumeli wanted to do something in this war, they wanted to push back and make themselves known so that they wouldn't fall as easily as Dacia, meanwhile the Empire found it utterly embarrassing to cede even the smallest strip of land even in this war.
So, born of this situation was a conflict over a plateau of mountain ranges and ridges on the border between both lands. Both sides were given proper anti air support to make sure no planes or aerial mages could interfere but not much else, well…except for tanks and men, all fighting over a front line at Vinnies Ridge.
However, someone has to rebuild and service those tanks…and that someone has much larger ambitions.
13 miles away from the front line, just half a mile from the main military camps is a tractor factory, tucked away in a small, muddy and constantly wet field. Hundreds of tank tires tracks go in…and hundreds come out.
The place itself had been turned into something of a tank hospital, repairing and refitting any of the Empire's tanks in the area that needed it. Though the factory itself was a rather dank place, always quiet when there wasn't work to be done…and mostly because there was really one worker and she was asleep.
Geniuses often have bad sleeping habits, it comes with the territory of a mind that's hard to shut down. The momentum of thought in an acute mind can roll over needs like sleep, food and more given the right amount of focus.
Veronika didn't consider herself a genius, or all that smart really. She was just a girl who loved tanks. Ever since she was young and saw the great machines rolling down her neighborhood back in times of revolution she knew she would work on one of them someday. To her, they were the true great weapons of the time and had only reached a fraction of their potential.
So, when her sister went into the army, she had decided to go into it as well to hopefully work on incredible machines…and to one day create a tank worthy of the heroes of old.
Now, reality had hit the girl rather quickly in the army. No one wanted to listen to her ideas, nor did they care much for mechanized warfare when aerial mages were more of the draw, but the girl was driven to at least get a position where she could work on tanks and hopefully get her ideas noticed.
In fact, she had been slowly and secretly building on her idea in the factory itself, using parts and other items to finally put together the skeleton of her magnum opus. For months now she had been working on it in secret when she had free time, putting all the work she physically could into it by herself, so much so that she even began to sleep in the cramped thing as well as eat in it.
That's why when dear Veronika was jostled from sleep by someone calling out to her from inside the machine, part of her panicked for two reasons. One, it looked like she was sleeping on the job…and two, inside the machine she had been rather naked. A situation that was unavoidable because of how hot it would get inside whenever she tinkered with the engine.
The neurotic girl's eyes began to dash around the small interior of the machine, pulling her socks and her dirty, mechanics coveralls off of a pile of wires connected to eight computational jewels.
Once she's dressed, she pokes her head over the tank hatch to try to get a look at who's out there.
Seemingly, it was two corporals…but their uniforms were clean, and they had come in with rather large duffel bags.
"New recruits? That's odd…we barely ever get anyone new…" She says to herself as she observes them.
Of the two men, Corporal Harald Vist was beginning to regret a few decisions that had led him to this dark, dank factory. He didn't belong here of all places, he was a trained aerial mage, meant for flying through the sky and feeling the win run through his dark, well maintained hair.
"At least…it's quiet around here." He says aloud, feeling a little bit like he's being watched.
Kurst Walhorf, on the other hand, felt nothing but a bitter, terrible anger that they were sent here. "Ya, too goddamn quiet. I didn't train for months, fight Entente and nearly get my ass blown away in some pillbox just to get reassigned to this crap place."
"Well, at least we're not dead, that's something to be thankful about."
"We might as well be dead, I'm sure everyone else thinks that. I bet that goddamn little girl is having a good laugh reading that report, thinking we're dead."
"Along with everyone else we knew." Harald sighed before looking around again and catching sight of the eyes looking his way.
Veronika suddenly slithers back down into her machine, trying to go unnoticed.
The dark haired man signals to his friend, telling him to be quiet as he points out the tank without treads situated all the way at the back. Silently they both walk between lanes of tractors that have been stripped bare for parts as they come upon the machine itself. It frankly didn't look like much to either of them, a bit small actually for a tank from the others they had seen in the main camp…but then again, that made it less surprising that it was here and not there.
Harald was the first to break the silence, knocking his hand against the hull of the thing. "Um, hello? I'm corporal Harald, corporal Kurst and I have been reassigned to the 3rd Mobile Armour Testing Division? We were told that someone would be here?"
Steeling herself, the girl pokes her head out again as the two see her shortly cut, greasy with oil hair and face punctuated with a pair of large, expressively blue eyes that seemed strangely familiar to them both.
"Hello…I'm the Warrant Officer in charge here." She says, slowly poking her head out more. "I didn't think we would get new people here, let alone anyone to come work with me."
"Just a Warrant Officer? We were told there would be a Captain here to greet us. What utter disrespect for great mages like us, hey Harald?" Kurst states, grabbing his friend's shoulder before moving in to whisper something. "At least we get to work with a woman, she's at least a little cute, eh?"
The dark haired young man nearly blushed as he pulled away from his smiling friend. He took a moment to straighten himself out before addressing her again. "Oh…uh, you didn't tell us your name, miss?"
"Oh! Veronika Serebryakov, or just Nika…if you wanna call me that." She says while poking her fingers together, sort of embarrassed.
"Wait…Serebryakov? Do you happen to be related to Viktoriya?"
Dear Nika hadn't thought of the prospect of meeting anyone who had actually served with Visha during the war. To her, the part of the war that her sister was a part of seemed so far away and always changing compared to what she did in a dank, converted tractor factory.
The two men were thinking something a little different though, as maybe it would be possible for one of them to woo the girl and for the other to get Visha in the future through the friendship, however those thoughts were dashed the moment Nika pulled herself from the tank.
Even before the moment her feet landed on the ground the two corporals could see her frankly insane height for a woman. She towered over both of them at a height of at least six feet. She seemed almost slightly underfed and skinny to the bone, filling out her coveralls the way a scarecrow might if you had only half the straw needed to fill one up. Those big eyes that looked almost cute on the sister looked almost damn intimidating looking down at them with her froggish face.
"Come with me, I'll show you guys around and where you'll be sleeping." She gives them a bit of an awkward smile as she strides past them both, her long gangly legs giving her quite the distance at even just a walking pace.
"First a crazed, short girl, and now an awkward tall one…we really do get the worst people to follow." Kurst sighed to himself, ruffling through his blonde, unkempt hair in frustration before he followed with Harald not being too far behind.
Visha showed them to their quarters…or what passed for quarters. Mostly it was just a couple of cots in a dingy room that had piles upon piles of greasy mufflers and broken down hardware almost reaching up to the ceilings. Nika explains that for the most part she was just using it as something of a storage room since she didn't expect any other help to come along, but that they could clean it up and put everything somewhere else in the facility.
"I wouldn't bother with it," Kurst says before he takes a seat on one of the terrible cots. "We're mages, I mean even if we disobeyed orders, we're a finite resource. I bet we make one call tomorrow and we can get reassigned to somewhere with better beds. No offense here girl."
"My um…n-name is Nika?" She stammers out, not appreciating just being called a girl in such a way but not knowing how to really confront him.
"I mean seriously, they can't just leave us here…what would we do? Fix tanks like a bunch of greasy mechanics? We're meant for the fight here Harald, and I don't like it."
The dark haired man wipes his face, a little frustrated himself with how tactless his friend was being around the girl. After all, she was being nice to them…he shouldn't have been pretending her job wasn't useful in some way…even though in his heart, he did agree as they were both mages and could be utilized much better.
"Well um…this is also a research division." Nika meekly says, turning her face away to stare at the floor. "I know that…tanks can be boring to people, but I want to make a really interesting one…one that can use mages and can be powerful on the battlefield too!"
Kurts looked at Harald, and Harald back to Kurst…before both men burst out laughing at her.
"That's utterly insane!" The blonde one has to catch his breath after a few seconds of uninterrupted laughter. "It would be an utter waste too! Might as well put wheels on a pillbox with how much resources it would cost if one tank worth of mages went down!"
Harald was trying to stifle his own laughter a bit more in the face of Nika's pained expression, but it was damn hard. "He's…well not wrong, the idea of a mage tank is…pretty ludicrous."
Nika was not used to ridicule, she was used to spending time in her own thoughts and world. She spoke to people mostly when they would bring a tank in and tell her the issues they had with it or some little problem she could always find…but she had always felt at the very least, important in her own way.
So when the two started laughing at what she wanted…well, she just left. She strutted away, trying to get back to her happy place before she broke down like the machine she was desperately trying to get working again and again and again.
However, as she came toward it…she saw another duffel bag, sitting atop the machine. She had seen the other two bring their bags, so someone else had come…and they were inside her baby. She could hear them, scrambling around and just the thought of someone touching it in this moment made her almost cry.
So, she took a nearby wrench and battered it against the hull of the machine three times. "Get out of there or I swear I'll-"
15 minutes earlier
King's eyes opened after another bump on the roads through the Magna Rumelli mountains…only to find that they still hadn't reached their destination.
"Mountains? We're still only in the mountains? Jeez." He was experiencing firsthand the absolutely terrible traveling conditions, sitting in the back of a truck with half a dozen crates of ammo while he looked outside, seeing the gray skies and feeling the chill of the high up air around the area.
He really wished he could have woken up back in the city, where he had a nice apartment. Things made much more sense there, all he had to do was file and read orders and battle reports…but then again, complaining about his lot in life is what had gotten him into all of this in the first place.
Besides, he should be grateful for the string Hauser pulled for him. After his apparent "bravery" in that duel he wasn't going to let King go to the worst of the front lines…not that he was gonna get off easy either.
All he wanted was an easy, safe place to be…and for his sins they gave him what he wanted, though it had come with more than a few caveats.
He would have to worry about those later though, as the truck was finally making its stop once they came downhill. One of the drivers banged out against the trailer separating the canvas from the back and King knew it was his time to get out.
His polished boots met the wet mud of the roads before the truck slowly pulled away to head to the main camp. King could feel the mud trying to suck the soles off his feet before he stepped onto some wet grass on his way to the only building in the area, a large warehouse looking place with dozens of tracks heading in and out of the area.
"Guess that's where they fix all the tanks…" He mumbles to himself as he approaches, looking around at the literal tons of machinery made to help lift parts as well as half a dozen tractors and tanks that had been scavenged and taken apart, some not even from the Empire from what he could see.
He felt something like a pulse in his pocket however. Reaching in he took out his T4 as it glowed slightly as he moved through the rows of tanks looking for someone.
For the last month, he's been trying to learn as much as he could about how to use his computational jewel and what he could do with it. One of the more interesting ways was to sense not only magic, but other computational jewels in the area. Back before he was shipped off to Rumeli he had just started testing it, but he hadn't expected there to be enough mages in the area to get the kind of reaction he was getting from his T4 at the moment.
He followed the signal, seeing that there were two other orbs that were in the vicinity as well, but all of them were being drowned out by a greater collection of them…inside of what looked like an out of service tank that didn't even have its treads on. It was also strange to note that it didn't look like the other tanks at all, being small and without paint or even a gun on it at the moment.
King put his bag down on it before letting his curiosity guide him into climbing atop the thing, heading straight into its hatch and seeing that most of it was still not even built yet. There was a seat, as well as some uneaten food and a small blanket, but most of everything else was a mountain or wires, simplistic monitors and an engine in the back that looks like it had replaced one that had exploded and torn the metal around it apart.
The T4 was almost going nuts and it wasn't hard to see why when his eyes caught into the eight Type 13 Operation Orbs connected through a gaggle of wires to the different parts of the tank itself.
"What the…I thought they didn't have orbs in these kinds of machines?" He states aloud before he takes on in his hand and starts to look over the data…and what he sees begins to amaze him a little.
Whoever had worked on this had decided to do their homework. Instead of trying to do multiple programs through one connected and powerful system, they had assigned each core to a different system because each one itself wasn't that advanced. They all fed info to one another, each covering a specific kind of spell and set of abilities rather than incantations fed through a mage…these would only need someone with a magical aptitude for a source of power…but even so, to use all of this for a tank was certainly a bit of a weird idea.
It made King wonder where someone even got all these orbs? After all, each one was worth more than the tank around him and eight together like this was like a goldmine between his hands.
It was then that three loud bangs reverberated through the tank, catching his attention.
"Get out of there or I swear I'll-"
King raised his hand out of the top of the machine. He probably would have raised a white flag too if he had one as he reached up to pull himself out.
"Sorry about all of that…was just curious is all, you have a lot of orbs in there." He pulls himself out with his back turned. Only to look back and with how little he can turn his head, see a wrench upraised to possibly attack him if he doesn't get out fast enough.
He climbs down, trying to explain himself. "I'm here because I was assigned to woah, tall."
He suddenly stops when he turns toward the girl holding up her wrench and is surprised to see she nearly matches him eye to eye in height. She might be only an inch shorter and it seems to surprise him as much as it does her as she gets a look at the scars over his eyes.
"Uh…do you still plan to hit me?" He asks, gesturing toward the wrench. "Because you know, I am a Captain here."
Looking at her hand, and then to his uniform, seeing his rank was more than apparent, she slowly pulls down her arm as King sighs in a bit of relief…only for his anxiety to kick in when he sees two more people rush in.
"Hey! You're the Captain!?" A blonde young man in uniform jumped over a broken down tractor to run over. "I got a complaint or two that I want you to take up the chain, courtesy of Corporal Kurst."
"Oh, I'm Harald by the way!" Another young man headed around the machines to lag behind the other when he approached King.
"Ah, you're the two corporals right?" King states as they both stand at attention before him as he tries to remember what Hauser taught him about all the military positions and what words to say. "Uh…at ease men, I can take any complaints up the chain, but I'm surprised you have some this early."
"Well ya, we shouldn't even be here." Kurst says as changes position.
"What? Why not? I'm the one who asked for you both."
The two men looked at him in utter confusion, as well as Nika…and King sensed that he should explain a bit.
He started with how a month ago Hauser used his power to promote him to the position of Captain, however with that position would mean that he would have to be in command of something and he was allowed to pick. He chose an outpost position in Magna Rumeli because out of all the reports he had read, it was considered the least hellish of the front lines in the war.
There weren't any squads to take command of, but there was a small section of the budget going toward a tank program. There were a lot of requisition forms as well but nothing had been signed over to the program nor had any extra resources been allocated to it. He figured it was just a defunct program that was away from the front lines and would be a pretty safe job all things considered.
"That…still doesn't explain why we're here sir?" Harald stated.
"Oh, well I assume this girl here is the one who tried to requisition so much. According to reports, she wanted the help of mages with her systems…and well, to be honest…they didn't plan to send you two anywhere fun, trust me. From what I hear of the Russy Federation border, the Pillboxes there are just as cold as they are deadly."
Ugh, not that gave Kurst a few chills, but even then he was still annoyed over all this. "So that's it then? Military career over? Now I'm stuck fixing tanks in the backlines?"
King sighed, unsure how to answer. "Look, you want me to take it up the chain, you go ahead, but until then I want good behavior here. From what I understand, you two are on probation basically. Maybe I can get you reassigned to a spot you would be more comfortable…but until then you're under my command…is that uh…understood guys?"
Harald and Kurst looked at one another…and sighed before turning back to their supposed superior. "Yes Captain King, understood."
He dismisses them both to allow them to get some rest, he knew he would need some after his rather bumpy sleep on the way here. "Still…can't get used to Captain King, makes me sound like a breakfast cereal mascot."
"A what?" The girl asked from his side, making him almost jump as he had forgotten she had moved out of the way.
He straightens himself out, trying to look a bit more official before he addresses things. "Oh it's nothing, just a joke where I come from, kind of like war propaganda but for a product…you know, nevermind. You're Veronika, I didn't get that wrong?"
She nods quietly, averting his gaze from his. "Yes…but you can call me Nika if you want. My sister calls me that."
"Alright then…Nika." He smiles before turning to the tank itself. "What can you tell me about what you're making there? I took a look and I have to say, the way you've ratioed out the magical calculations among the orbs is amazing."
Her eyes went wide with surprise. "You…you can actually understand all the equations?"
"Ehhh…" He shrugs just a little. "More like…maybe 20 percent of it. It's good work. I didn't get the best look but even I can see what you're going for, at least if you can get it to work. I figure it might be a good pet project for us, don't you think?"
It was as if the holidays had come early for the girl and she wasn't sure how to take it. For years she had been treated like some obsessive weirdo and now someone had come along and actually looked at what she was doing and more than that actually understood even if just a little.
Nika was actually trying really hard to hide a blush with a goofy smile as King seemed to be more focused on the machine itself. "Does it have a name? Or a designation?"
She nodded furiously. "I…have it commissioned and have the blueprints labeled as the SPW-LV-R1…but I just take the last three letters and well, I like to call it the Lover."
King smiled at that, thinking that it was similar to calling an airplane the Waifu…and honestly, that sort of silliness felt like it suited him a lot more.
"Alright…the Lover it is."
"You know, you people have some absolutely horrid chocolate."
Donnel was getting tired. Ever since he had brought back some coffee and a few chocolate bars for the old woman to eat, she had spent half her time talking about history from before he was born and the other half bemoaning that chocolate from his country tastes like utter puke.
He almost had no doubt that she would probably criticize the coffee he made as well despite all the hard work he put into that, but after the chocolate she seemed to get a little contemplative, giving him time to interrogate a question or two on his mind.
"I hope you don't mind me asking, but…from what I understood, the Lover…well, wasn't it not a tank?"
The old woman put a half finished chocolate bar away, wondering if she should just ask for some water instead to wash down the terrible flavor instead of testing out the coffee.
"Feh, for a military historian, even an amateur one, I consider that a pretty hefty oversight." She states before wiping her dry, old lips and giving him something of a glare she would once give the least effective soldiers in her units. "…but at least it's an understandable one. There was a lot of misinformation going around after what happened at the end of the war with King, especially when it came to the weapons used. What you happen to be thinking of just became synonymous with that tank, as well as the crew, King and everything else pertaining to Vinnies Ridge. All of it became connected."
He drinks some of his own coffee, thinking about why there would be so much misinformation…and it wasn't a tough guess. People had been after King since the war ended after all…and if anyone had gotten access to him or any information about the weapons he made, well…it would be a whole different ball game as far as war is concerned today.
"The way you talk about him…I'm sorry to ask, but did you hate him?"
She doesn't seem to even notice the question for a moment, at least from what Louis can see. He thinks maybe she is quietly considering her own feelings over it before she finally answers.
"No, it's not him…it was never him. He was just a dupe now that I think about it."
"A dupe?"
"Yes yes, gallivanting around, doing what he did…you know all the stories. Hell, I'll probably be telling you every single one I heard as well…but don't misunderstand. He wasn't some grand hero or genius, he was just a puppet, being played on strings. He could get scared, but that didn't change the fact he had something bigger on his side."
He blinks at her, trying to pass her logic for the moment. "Are you…saying he had god on his side?"
"God, the devil, Being X, whatever you want to call it, it picked favorites." She sighs before finally grabbing her coffee, figuring that even a bad one was better than nothing at this point.
"Wait wait…how can you be so sure that something like god was involved with a single soldier? How do you even tell that god meddles in anything?"
The old woman would probably have prepared a logical answer for the young man, satiating his curiosity…but then something changed as she drank down her coffee. Just a simple sip had brought something of a wave of pleasant memories associated with just the right way it hit her tastebuds combined with the aroma. It almost made her feel young again.
It was nostalgia…and it was answering his question, but not to him.
"This is a rather good blend…how did you make it?"
"Oh, old family secret. When my grandmother emigrated she opened a small cafe where she served blends like this." Donnel answers. "My parents took it over when she died, and well…I picked up how to brew a good cup as well beforeI joined up."
"Ah…I see." Thoughts of the woman drifted to humble Visha, knowing now that she had herself a nice simple life left a pang of remorse through the old woman's heart, making her wonder why she hadn't spent a moment trying to find her.
Years and years of having to stomach bad coffee when her lieutenant could have still served her a good cup. What an utter waste…and it was all his fault.
"Enough about coffee and god here." She says quietly. "Not every player is assembled on the board yet…we're missing the bravest of the bunch, a man who quite literally looked death in the face and joked about it."
To see one's ambitions through, it takes hard work and quite a fair bit of persistence. Nika had the hard work down and persistence had come easily to her when they were actually making strides on getting her tank going.
Of course, that still didn't convince their superior, Major Gutwald. A man that she argued with for half an hour at the front lines as he tried to command his troop, giving her a stern no by the end of it all.
It was always the same thing, too little resources, too little actual tanks on this front and too little help to supposedly fix them. She could understand his position but it seemed to her that he didn't try to see hers as well, leaving her nothing to do but head back to the factory.
The last month of work had gone a lot worse and a lot smoother than she had hoped. The two corporals, Kurst and Harald had made sure to always note that they didn't want to be there, half assing any order or even just failing to help move some parts around for repairs, which then required King to step in.
Now when it came to King, Nika had a much brighter opinion. Of course that was understandable because he had been the only man to really understand what she wanted to do with that machine. He had even helped her work out many of the kinks in the system as it was quite the overwhelming task to work on alone.
There was one simple issue though, even if they could get the system to work, the machine itself was still missing a litany of parts that it couldn't move without. Nika's unit had a decent grant for resources but there was almost no way to transport it through the mountains along with everything else Gutwald needed.
It frustrated her to no end upon her trip back to the factory in a transport truck. A vehicle like this could carry almost every part she needed to get the Lover working…but no, she would have to spend the next couple years continuing to scavenge what she could off of dead tank carcasses dragged into the factory until her machine is completed years and years after the war is over, left in the dust after it no longer needs to see use.
It's a terrible thing to see one's magnum opus go unnoticed or untouched…and day by day despite making more progress than she was before, Nika could see now that things would go nowhere quickly at the pace they were getting equipment.
She wasn't the only one feeling a little stuck though, for she heard more than a few shots going off just outside of the factory as she approached, making her run out to see what was going on, hoping that they weren't being attacked or something.
Instead, she just found Kurst and Harald, shooting their rifles at tank plates they had set up a couple dozen meters away.
"Hey! Aren't you two supposed to be stripping the armor off the machine that came in this morning for repairs."
Harald turned to her and nodded. "We did all that, but most of the damage is gonna need someone with more experience to fix it, so we asked King if we could take some time to do some target practice."
"Besides," Kurst said, not even turning toward her to answer, instead keeping his eyes and gun on the target before firing at it again. "We're not trained for this. Harald knows it, I know, King knows it and you know it. The easier time we have knowing that we mages aren't supposed to be here is an easier time King will have transferring us."
Nika was able to produce a smile that she aimed right at the jerk as she passed. "Oh, by the way..Gutwald wants me to tell you to stop requesting a transfer. You're going to be stuck here until we get more troops to bolster the front, so…maybe sometime when the war ends?"
The blonde jerk's eyes in this case began to fill up with rage as he felt like snapping his rifle over his knee while Harald tried to calm him by putting his hand on his shoulder, but that only made Kurst walk away to inflict his anger on the woman instead.
"Hey! This is some absolute madness and you know it." He shouts at her as she grabs onto some reports. "I should be up in the sky, shooting down the enemy and winning battles with my fellow mages! Instead I'm stuck here in a front where nothing I seem to do matters, especially when it comes to you and your little pet project!"
"It is not just some pet project…" She replies back quietly, receding into herself as his anger radiates off of him. "It's gonna change absolutely everything about tank warfare."
"NOBODY CARES ABOUT TANKS!" Kurst shouts. "All the major battles are being won by mages who fly! That's all that matters in this war and if we're not out there we might as well have gotten blown to smithereens in a pillbox for all that it matters!"
When one's life feels directed toward being a soldier and fighting for one's country, being stuck on the sidelines can make one feel more than a little…useless.
Kurst had nearly died with his friend back in that pillbox, only to survive. It should have been the first great chapter in his story, sent to a place to die for insubordination only to survive and carry on the fight…only to end up on some backwater front, taking orders from a lanky woman and a man without even a first name.
Before the young, blonde man began to contemplate ways to get himself kicked out of the military which may have included punching Nika, a sound erupted which scared the ever living hell out of all of them.
The noise was so loud and strong it was shaking the damn ground. All three turned to look deeper into the factory to see a pillar of smoke erupting from the end, right near where the Lover is.
Nika was the first to dash over, thinking that something wrong might have happened…and instead, found something going right instead.
The engine had been something she had been trying to get working for ages using stored magical power created through the operational orbs. However the system for doing so and combining it with a more primitive engine had been incredibly hard to get working. In theory it would create an extremely fast tank with all that power…but she had never expected it to go off so loudly.
A few moments passed though, and with that the machine itself sputtered out as half a ton of smoke began to bellow out from the insides. The top hatch that Nika had installed just a week ago was flung open as King pulled himself out, his face covered with soot while he was coughing to all hell.
The girl was going to ask what was going on when another voice called out from inside of the machine. "Don't forget about me boy! I'm not gonna die in a machine that hasn't even seen a single battle yet!"
Struggling to catch his breath, King quickly gestures to Kurst and Harald to jump onto the machine with him. He reaches inside as they join him, each of them trying not to breathe in some of the smoke as it begins to thin out while Nika was worrying harder about the machine itself.
She watches them pull out a thin, battered old man wearing what looks like a suit. He has a wild, bushy kaiser mustache with a bald head, but his most distinguishing features were an eye patch over his right eye, covering it but not an immense amount of scars over the side of his wrinkled face.
"Ah, you must be the missy who made this contraption!" He points to her with a hand missing two fingers and part of his thumb. "The engine filters on this heap are terrible! You'll kill the entire crew of it with smoke inhalation with an engine like that going."
Nika felt a little personally attacked by that. It was one thing for someone to come at her without knowing her machine and call it useless like Kurst often did, but it was another entirely for someone to come along knowing an issue that wasn't her fault.
"I do not have access to better materials." She replies back, crossing her arms. "I was barely able to requisition the panels needed for the armor and that-"
"Another thing about that!" He interrupts her, smacking his limited knuckles against the hull. "This armor is absolutely garbage!"
"That's absurd! It's state of the art!" She fired back as her desperate frustration began to grow. "I ordered those steel plates to be heat treated beyond anything our current forces have! Those plates are harder than anything else on the frontline!"
The one eyed bag of bones laughs at her while King is off to the side, trying to catch his breath a bit still.
"Huh, you're a tall gal ain't ya. Gonna guess you're a Russy too?"
"What does that have to do with anything?" She demanded.
He smacks the tank again. "Comes off in the design of this thing. All power, trying new ideas, not knowing they're old ones. All focused on making something nobody has ever seen before than being reliable. That's as Russy as it gets without leaving empty bottles of vodka around the treads."
Pure utter vitriol did not come easy to Nika, she just wasn't someone who was good with conflict…but this man was really making her wish she was.
"Ooof, forgot myself for a moment there, where are my manners?" He gives her a brash smile before twirling his thick, bushing mustache with his thumb and pinky on account of the fingers missing on his hand. "Name's Maximilian Jenko, you can call me Max, or Jenko, or even Jenk if you want, but never Maximilian, that's for family and business partners."
Through unimpressed, gritted teeth, Nika spoke. "Jenko, get off my tank."
"Ah, just like a Russy gal to be territorial." The old man gestures to Kurst and Harald to help him down, helping him make sure his legs don't hit the ground hard before he pulls out a cane that he had placed down near the treads. "By the Kaiser's horse, you are a statue of a woman. Heh, should have been making statues of you in Moskow and not any of those commie assholes, would have been closer in size."
Jenko was smiling at her, trying to be funny but in reality the girl only felt his presence had been attacking her. He had touched her tank, insulted her and it…and was now making fun of her height and speaking of her nationality?
She was almost ready to have a fit when King finally got control back of his lungs. "Ugh…sorry about all that. I should probably explain…Mister Jenko here is a friend Nika, he wants to help us out."
That got her to blink a few times as she turned to King. "Help? How?"
"Help how I like Miss Russy." The cyclops states before he starts to take short paces around the machine itself, showcasing a limp along with every other wound that's prominent. "I can see the work you put into this girl, and it's admirable. A tank with magic, a multi core system…there's definitely some potential, especially if everything King has told me is true."
"Jenko is experienced with machines like this." King states as he scratches the back of his head, seeing the confused looks he realizes he has to explain more. "Well, we were having issues…so I wrote to friend of mine who used to serve in the military-"
"Pfft, saying that Strauss served is a little of an understatement!" Jenko states before giving the boy a weak wack to the calf. "You know a real war hero there, one that I served with for years. So don't put him so lightly."
"Wait…your friends with a big war hero?" Harald asked.
"Well, sort of…I worked for him, then we sort of became friends. I'm actually in the military because of him…oh, and I also worked for a Major who was also a noble and we are sort of friends now as well…I think."
"What does this have to do with my tank?" Nika finally cut in, feeling exhausted by all of this.
"Oh, yes…well, my friend got Jenko in touch. He used to work on armored vehicles before the unification of the Empire apparently, he also-"
King stops when the man gives his shin another wack. "You really are good with understatements. I didn't just work on armored vehicles, I led a damn scientific division trying to do what you're doing right now. Integrating magic into mechanized warfare. In fact, one could say that the only reason your little designs can even interface with that machine of yours is because of the work I used to do back in the day."
He then brings his cane down against the hull of the machine, smiling at it as if it was a beautiful woman. "This rig you got here, it's got real potential…but your inexperience shows. You know why you don't heat treat the metal to make it so hard? It gets brittle Miss Russy! Hardness doesn't equal safety. One good shot and this hull will break apart and everyone inside will learn the hard way what spalling is."
"Uh…what is spalling?" Harald asks, a little curious.
"Imagine a part of a grenade going off inside of the tank." Jenko replies, snapping his cane against the hull again. "If the armor is hard, but brittle, one good hit makes the insides crack and break apart at high velocity. Bits of steel shoot out and might even kill everyone inside the machine. Heck, I think I still got a few pieces of shrapnel in me hip that keep me up because of designs like this…so, every bit of the armor has to be replaced."
"Every…bit…?" Nika was floored, because he was right. She hadn't considered spalling at all because every tank she worked on hadn't shown any signs of it during battle. She hadn't considered that their weaker armor might have changed conditions compared to the stronger armor she had ordered. It was an utterly stupid mistake.
Worse was how much of a setback it was. Even with all the stripped down machines she had…there wasn't enough armor for the Lover. She would have to try to requisition all of it again…but that could take years now.
Nika was about damn ready to deflate in defeat, but then her Captain put his hand on her shoulder.
"Don't worry about the refit, Jenko has all of it taken care of." King explains while turning to look at the old man, whispering into the girl's ear so the bag of bones won't hear. "He may not look like much, but the guy owns a pretty hefty truck company that transports goods around. Strauss says he can transport anything we need through the mountains."
"I'm missing a lot boy, more than a few fingers, but not ears." Jenko replied while out of sight on the other side of the tank.
"But…Gutwald won't allow it." Nika states, unsure of all of this despite how much it sounds like good news.
"Oh, don't worry about that," King says, giving her a smile. "Anything Jenko's trucks will bring in will also bring in fresh supplies for Gutwald and his men, happily donated by Jenko's truck company to the war effort…though there are some stipulations."
"Indeed there are!" The old man saunters back over, pulling up his cane right at Nika's face. "You need a few things Miss Russy, you need someone with practical experience, someone who's been fighting in tanks since before you were crapping your pants in Moskow, and more than all of that your gonna need a driver that can handle all the power of that machine you have there."
"Wait…you want to be the driver too?" King asks, confused as that wasn't part of the original deal.
"Oh definitely, this Lover of yours…she ain't some heavy set gal that any young buck can just slap away at to get her going. She'll have some real speed and power to her once the engine is fixed up and going and you need a stud with the experience to keep a girl like her in his hands otherwise she'll slip away everytime she gets up to speed."
The tall, gangly woman blinked a few times before she grabbed King by his shoulder, pulling him away while swearing she told him that she wanted to speak to him alone, but never actually saying the words…so to everyone there, it's almost as if she just kidnapped him away.
The girl, despite looking lanky as all hell, did have some strength in her bones as she damn near threw King against a wall in a storage room so that she could get her thoughts straight on all of this.
"I don't…even know where to start on all this. Why did you go over my head on all this and have another man touch that machine?"
"Over your head? Aren't I the Captain here?" King says, looking down at his uniform. "Besides, he actually helped get the engine going…for a few seconds."
That didn't make the girl comfortable with it, and despite the help the man could bring she didn't like things spiraling out of control too fast. It made her more nervous than when she was young with her sister and they had to leave the old country to come to the Empire.
King, hesitantly, moved behind the girl and put his hands on her shoulders to steady her. "Nika, it's okay, really. I get it…you don't want things getting out of hand too quickly, but don't worry. He's not here to utterly change your tank or take it away from you. He loves the thing is all, and he really does like your design…he just has an interesting way of showing it."
She sighs, feeling just a slight bit calmer, but no less okay about it all. "Are we really going to let him drive it?"
King nods. "All part of the deal. I'm petitioning to reinstate him as a Warrant Officer, but don't worry…he answers to me. I just want you to understand that he has a lot of practical experience with all this…and the resources he can bring to the table can't be ignored. He could really help us get the Lover going."
The scarred man smiles at her, trying to show his optimism in the face of her unease…and it works just a little bit as she smiles back, if only a little. "Okay…but he doesn't do a thing I don't sign off on."
"Well, that WE don't sign off on, but sure." King pulls his hands away, happy to have taken care of another problem in his so far short career as Captain. "Now, I think I need something to drink and eat…how about we have Harald scare up some food?"
"Sure…oh, and King?"
"Hmm?"
"Thanks…for getting us the help."
He nods, heading off to speak to the rest of the men while she takes a seat and thinks about things, especially her gratefulness toward King and what he's done for her, not knowing that her gratitude would soon change into other kinds of feelings over the war.
Meanwhile, while King walks back, satisfied with the way he's handled things…he hears explosions going off in the far distance. A barrage meant to attack their frontlines no doubt…the serenade of a war that he felt was getting closer every day despite knowing that the front line hadn't moved an inch.
Strauss had impressed one thing to him before he left and even in letters, reminding him again and again that if one chooses the path of a soldier, no matter the intentions…his path will be to walk over the corpses of others…lest you end up getting walked over by others on the path.
Despite feeling safe, despite knowing his team was not meant for the front lines…he knew God would not let things go so smoothly for him.
He would have to walk forward…and figure out his way soon, before a higher power made him walk the path over anyone in his way.
The old woman sneezes for a moment before looking out at the darkness outside the window of the meeting room, stopping her telling of the story as the night is more apparent than it ever was before.
"I could request a cot for you ma'am, perhaps a bed could be procured?"
The old, battered woman exhales. "Forget it…hard or soft, it's hard to sleep with these old bones anyways. The chair I'm sitting in will do just fine for me…but I expect you must need some sleep, don't you Donnel?"
He smiles at her. "I could…but…"
"Don't you worry your head off now." She states in almost a grandmotherly tone. "I'll still be here tomorrow. They'll keep me where I am until the men from high command arrive. You're dismissed soldier."
He yawns for a moment, straightening himself out before he stands. "Thank you ma'am. It's much appreciated…could I ask though, when I do come back, can you tell me more about the battles King was involved in."
"We'll go over the battles, his victories, the people around him and all of that. Now get out of here and let an old woman think." She said, letting only a sliver of her bitterness out.
The young man headed to the door, opening it only to see his superior, the General, standing before him.
"Oh sir! I was just about to leave. Do you have need of me?"
"No Lieutenant, I was coming to make sure that you headed off to bed. I didn't want you spending the whole night listening to stories. Our interrogators won't be here until the day after tomorrow so she'll still be here. So for now you're dismissed.
Donnel gave the decorated man a sturdy salute before he went off down the halls to head over to the barracks…but the General didn't leave, not yet at least. He stayed right at the open door of the room, standing at the threshold with the two guardsmen at his sides as he looked down at the old woman and she at him with a rather knowing smile.
"My oh my, I can't wait to meet these 'interrogators' of yours…if there really are any. Have you not told the boy what is to be done with me?"
The General scowled. "How would you know what's going on at all?"
"Oh please, don't pretend you don't know who I am or what I'm here for. You know I came here with a plan in mind, you probably even know what I want…my only wonder is why you don't have those men at your side kill me right here and now before I start spilling secrets."
The two guards looked over at the General while he kept his eyes on her. "I have no idea what you're talking about and in the end it doesn't matter what you believe. You can tell Donnel whatever you want, then…all of this will end soon, Mister-"
Just then, the woman heard a name she hadn't heard in a long time. A Japanese name, one that had belonged to her…and yet it wasn't hers at the same time. It was merely a relic of a lost life, one that was impossible for anyone in this world to have known.
The door is closed before her…and for once in all her years of age since the war, in all the time her body could have grown and yet it stubbornly persisted in keeping her small…Tanya von Degurachaff wonders if maybe she's made a fatal mistake.
Had she played right into her enemy's hands…or was there something else going on here?
Story by Ekroth Ekronicus
Written NOT by me, but by Joe D Mercala, also known by his alias JoeTheMercenary on fanfic. If you like his writing here, go check him out, commision a fic or two and support his activities. His discord is: Joe D. Mercala#8764