“Umm…”
“What is it, Lieutenant?”
“I’m not getting any response from four’s signal lamp. I think they might have fallen behind.”
“Damn it,” I sigh, poring over the night sky through my binoculars. The transport planes have been painted pitch black to reduce visibility from the ground, and conditions are relatively poor, making them hard to spot.
After a time-consuming search, I finally catch sight of a dark shadow floating amid the veil of night. I frantically order a signal to be sent, feeling profound relief once we get a response. After some back-and-forth, it becomes apparent that plane number four had not even realized it had gone off course.
Night flying aside, I am beginning to seriously worry whether we will actually reach enemy territory.
“Ugh… When are we going to get there?” I groan impulsively, cradling my head.
All we were supposed to do was grip the control stick, get assistance from the autopilot systems, and fly straight ahead. That was the plan, at least, but paper theory and hard reality do not mix well. It turns out that flying a plane in a straight line is grueling work. Of course, the original crew warned as much, but to see word-of-mouth knowledge put into practice is a rare thing indeed.
“Expecting amateurs who only know navigation to pilot a plane is insane… Remind me to never do anything like this next time…”
I begin to perspire strangely, thinking about how the success or failure of this operation rests entirely on the success of the pilots’ jump. After a moment, however, I notice Major Weiss staring at me in stunned silence.
“What is it?” I ask.
“No, it’s just…you mentioned a ‘next time,’ Colonel.”
“Yes, I certainly would not want to do this a second time. I think I might refuse even if they ask.”
“But you think such an opportunity might really come up again…?” asks my second-in-command, trembling.
“Of course. Remember, Major Weiss, it is General Zettour we are talking about here. I don’t doubt for a second that he would get such a thought in his head.”
“Yes, of course, that’s true… But, Colonel, aren’t you worried that luck might not be on our side this time and that you might die out there?”
“Die? What are you prattling on about, Major? Why should I waste time worrying about dying when I have no interest in doing so in the first place? That would be awfully unproductive, don’t you think? There’s more future in spending your time worrying about the difficult problems that will remain for us if we do survive,” I say, lecturing my subordinate on the importance of forward thinking.
However, I am forced to resist the urge to bite my tongue when I spot something through the binoculars.
“Hrm? Is that…plane six? Major, can you see it?”
“Plane six—the one with Warrant Officer Kahteijanen aboard? Yes, you’re right; something looks…”
…wrong. But before Major Weiss can finish his sentence, First Lieutenant Serebryakov, in charge of communications, begins shouting a report.
“We’re getting a relay signal from plane two. Six is experiencing an engine malfunction. It looks like their batteries have died as well. Their lights are down, and the only other lights they have on hand are short-range.”
I groan in response.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Of course. Machinery requires the hands of experts. If their flight engineer were on board, he might have been able to wrangle the finicky engine into line. But the flight engineers had already parachuted out. That means… I do the calculations in my head. Plane six is going to go down.
“Bad luck for Kahteijanen and bad luck for me. Major Weiss, we’re going to be down one plane’s worth of mages.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do to stop it from crashing? They said it’s an engine failure… Maybe if you bang on it, it will just fix itself, like an orb!”
“The idea that mana gets clogged in an orb’s circuits and that, if you bang on it, the mana will come loose, is just an old wives’ tale. People have been saying that since the early days. Orbs are precision machines, you know?”
In fact, while the Elinium Type 95 has now been stabilized, if someone had banged on one during its testing phase, it might have caused a massive explosion—a point on which the orb’s designer, Doctor Schugel, has shown woefully little contrition. In fact, he used it as an excuse to complain about the orbs’ users instead.
In any case, perhaps it does say something about the oafishness of soldiers, but a portion of aerial mages have unfortunately convinced themselves that a malfunctioning orb can occasionally be fixed by giving it a good smack. Sighing at the realization that Major Weiss is among them, I begin instructing First Lieutenant Serebryakov on corrective actions.
“Send a signal to plane six. Tell them to prioritize a safe emergency landing, and to keep their magic completely sealed until the scheduled operation start time. Once our operation begins, they are free to attempt to join us or to return to the main front. The decision is in Warrant Officer Kahteijanen’s hands.”
“You don’t want to give them strict orders to rendezvous with us?”
“Don’t get carried away, Visha. I can’t take away their freedom to advance or retreat under circumstances such as these.”
And besides, as unfair as it is to Warrant Officer Kahteijanen, his troops are mostly trainees. We can take all the help we can get, but there is no point in causing an intentional accident along the way. Better to leave the door open for the possibility that they might join us later.
“They should focus on avoiding detection. If they are discovered, have them prioritize retreat. Opening fire for anything other than for self-defense purposes, is strictly forbidden, as is the use of the radio unless it is an emergency report.”
First Lieutenant Serebryakov understands. She deftly begins sending the signal at my bidding.
“Six has confirmed the orders.”
“Tell them I pray for their safety.”
After sending the signal and receiving their response, she interprets for my benefit.
“They said, ‘Good fortune in battle!’”
The expression on her face suggests that she understands how Warrant Officer Kahteijanen must feel. She whispers softly, so that only I can hear, “Poor Officer Kahteijanen.”
“I don’t know. Perhaps we’re the real unlucky ones in this situation.”
“Maybe we both feel the same in the end… The results come down to chance, I suppose.”
I nod, though deep down that is not how I feel. We are obviously the ones in the worst situation right now, Visha.
An airborne assault led not by a battalion but by three whole divisions of aerial mages—the world’s first large-scale, all-mage rear screening operation—is an impossible gamble that requires every transport and mage we can muster. Usually, with three mage divisions at your disposal, you would want to use them to hold the enemy on the front line. The nerve of General Zettour, to commit us to such a massive gamble with a straight face!
“I just wish we would drop already.”
At least then we’d know that things couldn’t get any worse.