"This is a fucking nightmare!"
Zettour could not help but sigh as he set pushed open the door to his office. He knew his friend wouldn't be able to keep a lid on his anger forever, and it was commendable that he'd tempered his anger for as long as he had after the Kaiser's… proclamation.
To head off anymore of his ranting, he quickly stepped inside and brought out the supplies he kept for calming Rudersdorf – a cigar in one hand and a bottle of Burgundy that had been delivered to him last month, as a gift from the commander of the Francois garrison were both offered and taken without another word.
"Calm yourself, dear friend, we must-"
Rudersdorf shot a piercing glare through his head and then let out a tired breath of smoke. "I stand by what I said."
Zettour just nodded sadly. He did agree with the sentiment, even if he'd never word their situation so crassly.
They'd just finished with a meeting of the General Staff called by the Kaiser. Technically his power to do so had been curtailed during the war, with any such commands needing to be approved by the Chief of the General Staff, in the name of efficiency.
Without an enemy to fight, however, their Kaiser was using the opportunity to claw back some of his old power.
He hadn't minced his words either: he'd acknowledged the truth that the army in general and the General Staff in particular had been running the country for the past few years. No one had said as much openly – anything they needed the civilian government to do were always phrased as 'suggestions' to preserve the feelings of all involved.
If he had just said that, perhaps the people in the room wouldn't have looked like so many kicked puppies. The tone the Kaiser had taken with them had not, unfortunately, left any room for misinterpretation: he was not happy with that fact.
Still, he'd admitted that it was a wartime necessity-
"As if we could have won without us in charge," Rudersdorf muttered, almost reading Zettour's mind.
He nodded. "Indeed. And, with the change in our situation, should things not… change?" Zettour asked rhetorically. Rudersdorf scoffed.
"We're in the middle of the ocean fighting against unknown foes and he thinks that now is a good time to start tearing each other apart?"
Zettour tutted. "Not each other. Just us."
Or, the army as a whole, but still. "It's just a goddamn justification. If he could have pulled this during the war, he would have gladly done so-"
"But you know as well as I do that he couldn't have. Without the chaos that the transmigration caused, he never would have gotten the chance."
They sat there in silence, contemplating the future. Rudersdorf let out a long sigh, and Zettour felt confident moving on to more concrete matters.
"I got word from our friends in the navy that a few ships have been spotted. Not sleek and black like those invaders, but more… normal. No attempts at contact have been reciprocated."
Rudersdorf snorted and let out another breath of smoke. "Hmm."
A few moments more of silence, and Zettour looked at the sheaf of paper he had been handed.
The details were quite… vague, but the outline of the Kaiser's 'restructuring' seemed disastrous. The army would be reduced in size to a quarter of what it was now over the next three months, with an extra fifth of its size reduced until it was only a third of what it had been before the war had started.
The masses of soldiers leaving the army would be paid using the money that wouldn't have to feed the army. The Kaiser had blown through any concerns of an economic shock through dual platitudes that 'money would be found' and that such a problem 'wasn't their concern.'
The army was to divest itself of its planes and pilots so that an 'air force' could be formed – Zettour didn't mind such a thing, considering how much more expansive the duties of the air force had become, having them form their own branch would probably reduce some inefficiencies that had been popping up. What he could not abide by was something similar being done with their mages.
He chuckled to himself. "What could you possibly find funny in this situation?"
"The public's reaction to White Silver, of course," he retorted, looking over the top of the papers. His friend's acidic bite melted away, and he let a wry smile mar his face. "I suppose that could justify a laugh. Honestly, her popularity almost makes me feel jealous."
Indeed, the propaganda department's fascination with that girl had always struck him as odd… until he'd seen exactly how much money they and the newspapers of the Empire as a whole made whenever they ran a story on her, at which point he'd just shaken his head.
There were many reasons for people to look up to her. She was a seemingly perfect soldier, she seemed able to produce victory no matter how tall the odds, she embodied the best of the Empire's meritocracy, and she did it all without having even hit twenty.
He glanced up from the sheaf of papers towards his friend once more. "What rumors have you heard?" he asked. Hopefully, it would be something relevant to this… crisis, but he'd take any old bit of gossip if it made him forget the army's looming implosion.
Rudersdorf's gaze darkened. "Well, the Empire is probably on Earth. The position of the stars apparently place us somewhere in the southern hemisphere…"
He blinked. "Hmm. I had heard yesterday that the conservative, center, and social democratic parties were all gearing up to announce something. I hadn't guessed it would be this."
Quiet for a few moments more, and then-
"Dammit Zettour! Why aren't you pissed! We should tell the Kaiser to take his stupid 'reconstruction' plan and shove it up his-"
"Careful, Rudersdorf. Such a statement could be seen as… treasonous."
That did still his friend's anger once more, and Zettour steepled his hands. "Everyone is aligned against us. The three major factions of the government are all working together on this, which I cannot think they have ever done with anything else, ever, except for their support of the war. He must have agreed to keep some of his more… conciliatory promises he made during the war to get them to all agree. Plus, while it's not a large part of the plan, money is to be set aside for the navy 'reflecting the increasing role they will play in defense of the Empire,' which means he's probably gotten the factions to agree to back him."
Rudersdorf crossed his arms as Zettour continued. "The rank and file soldiers are tired of fighting, and I can't imagine many are happy to discover that everything they fought and died for has come undone. I imagine they'd even be less happy to be ordered to fight their Kaiser."
"And you heard some of the officers in there," he reminded his friend. Rudersdorf nodded. "Some of them think the plan is a good idea-"
"And is it?"
Zettour just sighed. "The fact of the matter is we don't have any other country on our borders. Would the general staff have ever planned to have an army as large as it has traditionally been if we were in as good circumstances as we are now?"
Rudersdorf set his jaw. "We don't have a clue how or why this happened. If we appear back where we were-"
"And if we don't?"
Rudersdorf began to formulate a response, but Zettour cut him off. "Besides, whether the plan is a good idea or not, it doesn't matter. The general staff doesn't have nearly the support this plan does, which the Kaiser is either backing out of self-interest or he created it."
"Then what is to be the legacy of the army of the Empire? Are we to tear each other apart, seeking to demonstrate our loyalty to the Kaiser by throwing anyone who could possibly challenge him to the wolves? What will be left of the meritocracy built by our predecessors then?"
Zettour held up the papers again. "The army will have limited jurisdiction in domestic affairs and, if the need presents itself, limited expeditionary abilities."
That need might present itself soon. Those ships spotted by the navy did not bear any colors the Empire recognized, which meant they were not located on a planet made up of one vast ocean, and a ship sent to Antarctica hadn't come back.
Rudersdorf let out another puff of smoke. Zettour also let out a sigh.
He was probably asking himself if he cared more about his position or his country. Keeping the army as big as it was would not be tolerated without either an enemy closing in around them… or a command from on high.
He could see that it would probably be in the best interest of the Empire to downsize the army.
"If we tried to fight this…" Rudersdorf began, something dangerous rising in his voice.
"We would probably lose."
"Could we throw Degurechaff at the problem?"
That, Zettour did not know. He had not taken a lot of time to learn her opinions about the domestic state of the Empire – her time away on the front had meant a disheartening lack of opportunity to speak with her on such matters.
"Even if she would support the general staff," he began, although he had serious doubts as to whether she would, "could she even win if she fought against the rest of the Empire?"
Rudersdorf… collapsed into his chair. "Is this our reward? Decades of loyal service to the Empire, going above and beyond the requirements of our station, only to receive a swift boot to the backside?"
Zettour's first platitude – that they may survive whatever 'restructuring' the Kaiser had planned – died on his lips. Neither of them had the stomach for the kind of backroom dealing and backstabbing that the Kaiser would make the army go through to prove themselves to him.
He went with his second idea. "Well, people aren't actually angry at the army. If they were, I don't doubt we might end up on the list of 'treasonous' generals," he said.
Rudersdorf let out a mirthless laugh. "So… we just go quietly into the night?"
Zettour let out a mirthless chuckle of his own. "Oh, I don't know about that… but let's try and enjoy the fact that we don't appear to be facing a major conflict for the time being."
Rudersdorf just nodded. "Alright, you old fox. Keep your cards close to your chest, just tell me before whatever you try to pull goes off so I can get a good seat to watch it blow up in someone else's face."
He raised an eyebrow as Rudersdorf rose. "Oh? You don't think it'll blow up in my face?"
He let out one last chuckle. "I have no doubt that if it blows up in your face, I won't have time to get a seat before you face the consequences of your schemes!"
-OxOxO-
In the two days since Tanya had woken up, she had had quite a bit of time to think. There wasn't exactly much else for her to do in the face of the absolute mundanity of the hospital ward she was in – no books to read, no cracks in the walls or ceiling to study, and not even a mirror for her to study her reflection in.
Her battalion was in safe hands – Weiss, Neumann, and Koenig had taken turns acting as the drill instructor, which she was somewhat thankful for… though not as thankful as she would have been were she to get her position in the rear…
Which she was probably never going to get now.
Oh, the Empire was undoubtedly in a better position than it had been. It had kept the borders it had had before the war had started – a conclusion the Empire never could have achieved when facing the combined weight of the communist hordes, the Albish navy, and American industry.
Additionally, while it couldn't recoup the horrific losses the war had enacted by annexing land or ransacking the territory it occupied, it would never have to face an invasion over land again thanks to its newfound position as an island.
Unlike most islands, however, a vast majority of the coastline of the Empire was made up of sheer cliffs. That did reduce the area where ports and other such seaside infrastructure could be constructed, but it also meant most of that coastline was not suitable for naval invasions in any major capacity.
By contrast to the huge favor Being X had done the Empire, her own position was looking absolutely horrible!
True, she wasn't going to be put before a firing squad upon the inevitable capitulation of the Empire when faced with the weight of the world, but the army was apparently going to be 'restructured.' It did not take a genius to figure out that meant it was going to be downsized in the face of the complete lack of enemies for an army to fight.
Downsizing meant she wasn't getting her promotion to a cushy desk job anytime soon…
But she couldn't leave the army and attempt to apply her skills somewhere in the civilian sector either. She was still a mage, and the Empire was at war with whoever had bombed Kopenhyagen,
She spared a glance towards her bedside table and the newspaper on it. She had a feeling the many other newspapers were calling her much the same – the Angel of the Empire, White Silver, and so many other titles that she really could care less about. What was more important than what they called her was what they said about her actions:
She was the only thing that had been able to fight against the invaders. Most of the north sea fleet had been sunk, the army had been next to useless, while the few other mages that had been able to get into the air had been destroyed, save for the remnants of her own battalion.
"Colonel!"
Her gaze snapped towards the door to her room and her frown softened as they barged in without even knocking.
"What if I'd been changing?" she asked rhetorically.
"Really? Visha, why didn't you tell us the Colonel had clothing that isn't her uniform?" Neumann asked, feigning shock.
Tanya just groaned as Viktoriya blinked owlishly. "I had no idea! Is it possible you kept that red dress the propaganda department pulls out every month?"
That earned her adjutant a glare that caused the group to laugh as they regaled her with stories of their latest training.
Despite her attempts to keep a straight face, she couldn't help but smile fondly. She was thankful to have resources as carefully cultivated as these…
She let a small frown mark her face for only a moment before shaking her head. Perhaps with the army reorganizing itself, she wouldn't have them much longer, which necessitated her taking steps to ensure she could keep in contact with them.
Losing access to people as competent and loyal as these would be a travesty almost on par with her rebirth here.
-OxOxO-
He was not the smartest or hardest-working scientist, but he had a good mixture of both and a willingness to put up with quite a lot of… eccentricity.
Of course, even he had broken under the strain of working with Schugel, which was why he was surprised the man was here in the largest lecture room the University of Berlun had access to.
As with everyone else in the scientific community, he'd thought Schugel becoming a religious nutcase was the start of a bad joke to tell behind the man's back, but he supposed the man holding an impromptu sermon higher up in the seating was proof the rumors were true…
With recent events in mind, he was not surprised a fair number of scientists were actually listening to him as he went on about how the Empire being transported to this 'alternate universe' was a part of his plan to lead them to ever-more advanced scientific discoveries to be made.
"Dr. Schugel, could you please put your sermon on hold?" asked a square-faced man standing at the front of the room. He did, after a few more words concluding his sentence, and the military man began to speak.
He spoke stiffly, hands clasped behind his back as he stared straight ahead. "I am not the one who ordered you all brought together, but I am the one here to tell you why you are here-"
"Pah! What an insipid question! God is the reason we are here! Without him, what man or woman would be alive? And how else could the Empire have been transported to another universe?"
He didn't like to think that Schugel was right very often, but in this case he had to concede the point to the man. It was quite obvious that they were here to somehow… address the Empire's new geography.
He wasn't so sure it was god who was the cause of the Empire's new position… but he didn't really have any better ideas at the moment.
"Of course, Dr. Schugel," the man at the front said. "Can you tell me how god accomplished this 'miracle?'"
That, it seemed, was able to take the wind out of Schugel's sails. "That is what you are all here to figure out. How did this happen, and how can we reverse it."
More muttering began – the chief question being how they could possibly be expected to pull something like that off.
"You all will, of course, be provided with every possible resource the army can provide," he said, gesturing woodenly towards several tables packed with sleek, metallic-looking materials and boxes. "We have some technology that was salvaged from the bombing of Kopenhyagen, even. If you require some vice to keep working in peak condition – cocaine, opium, women or men, wine, beer, caviar – then you need but ask for it to have it provided."
His stance loosened slightly. "And, should you figure out how to get the Empire back home… there is no reward you cannot demand and have satiated."
That set off more muttering… and, inevitably-
"I have no need for some sinful vice! I am a man of God, and all I need is my faith to see the job finished better than any other hack in this gentrified sports arena!"
The man at the front of the room seemed to have anticipated that, if the smile carved into his face was any indication. "Of course. Then, you would not mind if we took the carefully preserved copies of the bible from the tenth century and put them in a museum? Or if we just threw out this piece of wood that the religious men in the Russy Federation assured us was a piece of the true cross-"
Schugel jumped from his seat, and he could only watch in horror as the man began to step on the assembled scientist's heads to get down to the front faster. "Don't you dare! I'll figure this out in an hour, starting with those shiny shards of blue glass that are glowing ominously! Also, I have dibs on the cocaine!"
With that, the following words of the military man – "Claim any workspace you wish in the university, and figure this problem out! Every minute we are here is another we aren't spending crushing our enemies into dust!" – were almost lost as everyone began to compete for the scarce pieces of technology, forming teams and figuring out just what they wanted to get ahold of.
He watched as Schugel carted out a crate of the blue glass shards. Perhaps putting up with Schugel once more was not outside of his abilities in this instance…
-OxOxO-
A/N 1: Again, having a lot of fun with this, especially with the ideas I've been brainstorming for the various shipgirls the Empire will create. Minor spoilers ahead, but I'm thinking of an odd mix of the Iron Blood, some of the two French factions's religiosity, a deference to the monarchy like the Royal Navy, with pirates thrown in for good measure.
A/N 2: If you'd like to donate to support me monetarily and gain access to the monthly poll, search for Sugarcane Soldier on the website of the Patrons.
A/N 3: Thanks to lekille for being a Basic Patron.
Many thanks to Afforess and Twin for being Super Patrons.
A big thank you to WarmasterOku for being an Ultra Patron.