But is he coming to blame Tanya, commend her, or merely to rendezvous? I smile in discomfort as I send off my perplexing visitor, Colonel Lergen, from the command center.
“So it is not His Majesty the Emperor’s visit but General Zettour’s, and the emperor is just along for the ride?”
The way Lergen spoke made it sound as if General Zettour was the main attraction and that the emperor was just an afterthought.
“The military has certainly rubbed off on Colonel Lergen, I see.”
It is not the kind of slip that an officer who had come up from the aristocracy—the logical embodiment of imperial worship—was likely to overlook. For General Zettour to come before His Majesty the Emperor! Imperial etiquette would dictate the opposite. Perhaps this is a sign that social values are growing more mutable than before.
“My oh my. My oh my, indeed.”
I can’t help but grimace. The Empire is changing. The end is nearly in sight. It is almost time—almost time to shape how this war will end.
EARLY FEBRUARY, UNIFIED YEAR 1928, THE ILDOAN PENINSULA, ALLIANCE COMMAND
He must have been lost in thought, pondering how the war should end. Before the man knew it, quite some time had passed.
Staring at the fine clock on the wall, this old military man grimaced and rose from his chair. He glanced at the mirror to be sure he was presentable. His uniform was impeccably arranged, not a wrinkle in sight. While the face resting atop that uniform seemed to embody sincerity, beneath the surface awaited a hard-nosed veteran.
It was his eyes. They had seen far too much hell to take pride in being a puffed-up figurehead.
“Well, well, so this is what I’ve become.”
General Gassman, of the Ildoan Army, stroked his face and twisted his mouth to the side glumly. For someone who was supposedly a military politician, he looked incredibly brutish at the moment.
“I look like some rogue who has weaseled his way into the elegant back offices of someplace he does not belong…like some sort of pirate boss, even…”
Hmph. Glancing around the room, he noticed a hat on display that looked as if it would be just perfect for a king of pirates. It was probably a replica. Although…on second thought, who knows—it may have been the real thing.
After all, the building Gassman currently occupied—requisitioned as Alliance Command—had apparently originally belonged to a trading company.
The original owners must have had some strange tastes.
The interior was laid out harmoniously, with a sense of exoticism; each piece was elegant yet seemingly wrapped in its own storied anecdotes, introducing a fantastic sense of color to the bright local patterns of southern Ildoa. Although the room was generally cheerful, shadows emerged to add a strange depth.
Of all the things that could be found in that room, a pirate hat—discord amid harmony.
A trading house handles ships. Perhaps, rather than the Sword of Damocles, they had simply chosen a pirate hat as their symbol instead. In any case, most would likely consider such a thing uncouth. Of course, the original occupants of the house—whoever had so delighted in such a warped sense of design—had already been evacuated, and whatever culture had previously hung about the place had been banished by the tumult of war.
“A bit of a shame, really…”
In place of the luxurious goods the trading house once dealt in, the warehouses were now filled with a growing mountain of military supplies, and instead of elegant guests in their best finery, the most ill-bred soldiers and civilian personnel now wandered rampant along the halls.
In the end, their use of this place was crude. For better or for worse, the Alliance official who had outfitted the place for command had likely been more focused on practical concerns and capacity.
“A real shame, for a cultural asset like this.”
General Gassman sighed softly as he sat before an extravagant desk made from a solid slab of rosewood.
The entire manor had likely been decorated in that style originally, but now that the engineers and clerks had had their way with it, it had been transformed into a tasteless and utilitarian space. It was practically a miracle that this pirate hat—or any whiff of culture at all—remained in the office.
“Imperial Army and Commonwealth alike, when it comes to stark practicality, some people will go to any lengths…”
On one wall, a massive map had been pinned up, and the soft lamps had been replaced with garish electric bulbs. The majority of the room, which had once been filled with fine, high-quality furniture, was now savagely and overwhelmingly bare.
“How repugnant… What a disappointment.”
Even throwing his general’s badge about and surrounded by specialized support personnel and adjutants, the most he had managed to protect was this one good office. He was hardly free to do as he pleased.
Hmph. With a cluck of his tongue, General Gassman placed one of his private cigars into his mouth. It was an excellent opportunity to think, as he slowly puffed on the cigar and exhaled hazy smoke.
“There’s something very unsatisfying about it all,” he muttered, setting his cigar down in an opulent jade ashtray and stroking his chin.
He crossed his arms with a grunt, the seat he occupied feeling less than comfortable. In contrast to the rest of the office, it was a military-standard folding field chair, after all—about as eclectic a combination as one could imagine. Like a true Alliance camp, even this office was full of random items cobbled together from whatever could be found at the moment.
Time is a hard resource to obtain.
How should something so precious be used? It was the only question on General Gassman’s mind as he turned his eyes back toward the map on the wall.
“Well now, General Zettour has shown fine adaptability indeed.”
He was a monster, really. Gassman tipped his hat to the man.
“He spends all his time, since the start of the war, as a military administrator, and then, when emergency hits, we get this—an artist…an improviser. There is no other way to describe him.”
When it came to military politics, Gassman was fairly certain he could stand toe to toe with Zettour, but when it came to strategy, he knew he did not stand a chance. Gassman had been completely astonished by the way the recent fierce fighting, which had played out over less than a month, had concluded.
A massive counterattack, what they termed a “strategic offensive,” on the part of the Federation Army. This attack, Operating Rising Dawn, had been an impressive strategic surprise. A strong, targeted attack on the flank of General Zettour’s army while the general was knee deep in Ildoa.
Despite this, however, judging from the map, the Imperial Army must have seen through the Federation Army’s intentions completely and had even managed to turn the tables and temporarily envelop the Federation instead.
“Of course, their actions didn’t rise to the point of a siege and destruction…”
The results of the fight had been decided. The Empire had not lost. And from an outside perspective, Gassman admitted with astonishment, it might even appear as if they had “won.”
They had beaten back fate—what should have been an inevitable strategic defeat—through exceptional on-site resourcefulness and operational victory. Gassman could honestly admit that it was not something he would have been capable of.
Gassman, the soldier, did not need history to tell him that he was an unimpressive strategist. He was well aware of that fact. Even in his role as a specialist, he barely had the minimum knowledge required. In his own judgment, based solely on the blunders he had made to date, Gassman knew he was critically lacking when it came to the quick decisiveness indispensable for field commanders.
Or, at least, he was keenly aware that in that regard, he couldn’t hold a candle to the war-addled officers of the Empire.
“General Zettour is certainly an object to fear.”
Zettour was one of the finest among them, having snatched such a brilliant victory. The way he had directed things was masterful—a strategic genius of massive proportions such that, as someone in the same field, Gassman could only feel a strange mix of respect, envy, and fear when thinking of the man.
But not even such brilliance could blind General Gassman’s reasoning. He understood that the general’s apparently grand victory was, in fact, a desperate last resort.
“It was a successful counterattack—a brilliant riposte. The parrying blade struck fast and sharp. On paper, it all appears excellent. But in reality, it was an act necessitated by the fact that the Empire no longer holds the initiative.”
The Imperial Army had danced its part well. But the Federation had maintained the lead throughout the ordeal. That was still the crux of the matter.
“Obviously, this was a performance—a trick to give the impression that the Empire is objectively in the leading role. But it is General Zettour’s skill in forcing even us, the enemy, to play along with this show that is truly impressive.”
There is something to be said for being a charlatan, thought Gassman absentmindedly as he toyed with his cigar. Ildoa itself was feeling that fact keenly at the moment. After all, they had just successfully recaptured the royal capital—a massive victory in propaganda terms.
As an expert in logistics and military administration, however, General Gassman was painfully aware of what it really meant. In general, a nation’s capital is its political center—a center of consumption, not of production, where political prestige and national pride reside.