+++ Two weeks ago +++
+++Grid 02180226+++
+++1400 Local+++
It was sleeting, in Bredubar. Again. Or, perhaps more accurately, still. It was a record, at least for the last 20 or so years. March was normally wet, with the prevailing winds from the east, over the Lughenti deserts, shifting to come from the south-west, picking up moisture over Port Finch, and dumping it in a broad swathe from Bredubar all the way up to the mountains south of Highcairn.
This year, though, unseasonal squalls in the Gulf of Kush, and once-in-a-generation cyclonic activity in the Ironharbour Bight had combined to push an intense low pressure system over Bredubar and its hinterland. The competing airflows had created a near-stationary storm cell, parking its overly-potent backside right on top of the city, almost as if a coterie of angry deities were united in wrath against the Protectorate that so insolently demanded that the calls of war be silenced.
It was an odd juxtaposition. Lyras, the Protectorate, so long the near-embodiment of militarism, not just within Greater Dienstad, but the world over, had insisted that violence cease, though admittedly under threat of retaliation on an unprecedented scale. The resultant peace, however, was tenuous at best. The armies didn’t demobilise. Millions of personnel were still under arms, and the strategic weapons were still far too close to both sides’ go-to option.
The ceasefire with the Stevidians was holding, as Warmarshal Krell had, to be frank, suspected it might. The Stevidians were too professional, too disciplined, and on otherwise good terms with the Protectorate, recent conflict notwithstanding. There had been no history of tension, and the conflict itself, fought with requisite diligence, had been almost perfunctory.
Well, it was perceived that way within the Protectorate, Krell chuckled to himself. He suspected that the Stevidians may feel differently. Millions of Stevidian servicepersonnel had been killed on Lyran orders – his orders, to be precise. Not in an abstract, course-of-the-war, fashion, either. It had been, quite literally, his orders that had the 7th Order pulling the trigger on the Stevidian 5th Fleet. Less directly in the case of the Hellions fired by 11th Order, but the buck very much stopped on his desk. He was, in his opinion, unlikely to receive a street parade in his honour down the main boulevard of Stevida Capita.
He drummed his fingers in rhythm with the horrendous rain hammering against the reinforced windows. The Morridane-Imbrinium stoush was, to be frank, of far more concern. It was the most tense border within Greater Dienstad, at a time when the brewing conflict between Fedala and Valdra was front and center of Lyras’ priority list. Unity within Greater Dienstad was crucial. And the echoes of this last war were broadcasting their aftershocks at the worst possible time.
A knock echoed from the open door to the hallway behind him, and he shuffled his stiff torso and legs to face the arrival.
“Colonel Natasha Krell, reporting as ordered, sir.”
He sighed, suppressing a cough as he did so.
“You do know you do not absolutely have to call me ‘sir’ when we are on our own, yes?”
His daughter raised an eyebrow, before walking over to a spare chair next to his desk and flopping down into it.
“Ok, dad. But when you order me and my team off the line, and insist on my seeing you at the earliest possible moment, you do make it sound official.”
Her tone softened.
“How are you? You look well, for what it’s worth.”
The Warmarshal didn’t bother to comment on her use of contraction in speech. It was, apparently, a tough habit to break, and he had other things that needed discussing. Her forays into Diplomatic Command, many years ago, in the Dictatorial Republic of Sumer had broadened her experiences, and taught her a great number of nifty tricks for immobilising and destroying armoured vehicles, and had smoothed out some of the personality traits that the rest of Greater Dienstad considered quintessentially Lyran… but that included introducing her to speech contractions, and he should have known it. Still, he had more pressing matters to discuss with her.
“I am well, daughter mine, considering. But according to my latest scans, and yours, I would expect to outlive you by quite a while. I would have, in fact, expected you to be dead about two months ago. More to the point, however… why did I have to learn this from someone other than you?”
The silence in response was more charged than the electrical storm outside. Jagged forks of uncertainty flickered across the younger Krell’s features.
“I didn’t think it’d be an issue. Wanted to throw myself into the fight. Lead my team for the time I had. I thought I’d be dead, with a bullet in my chest, and you’d remember me as someone that wasn’t wasting away with tubes in my nose.”
The moment stretched, and the Warmarshal said nothing. His daughter’s already frayed nerves stretched further as the tension dragged.
“I wanted to be useful. I didn’t want to shrivel in my bed, while my team takes fire from an enemy I could have drawn from them or suppressed.”
Still, the older officer said nothing, and watched as his daughter began to fidget still more, then spoke again.
“I didn’t want pity, or sympathy, or false hope. I wanted to die with my Stormhammer in my hand, like a Lyran.”
Silence. The Warmarshal didn’t respond, but watched his daughter become ever more agitated in front of him. Lightning flashed in the window, and the answering crack was almost instantaneous, booming across the sky like the supernatural blast of an angry god’s arquebus.
“Dammit, Dad, say something.”
Rolling echoes subsided, bouncing their dying rumbles between the buildings of central Bredubar. It didn’t last as long as it would have in some cities. There were no towering commercial spires, like those of Nephi, in Lamoni, or Sasha, in Greal. There were no colossal temples to the many faces of the divine, as could be found in Uruk or the immense basilicas of Holy Marsh City or Stevida Capita. Nothing tall, wide and vulnerable to bounce sound from structure to supersized structure. This was Bredubar, Lyras, and the city was, low, squat and solidly built. Reinforced walls sprouted machine guns the way buildings in many other countries had flowerbeds. Pillboxes with emplaced anti-tank weapons lay concealed next to fire hydrants and double-redundant building generators. Basements and below ground levels went into the double-digits. Subterranean mass-transit systems and concrete-ceiling-ed utilities nourished the beating heart of the Protectorate, near impervious to the watery fury the atmosphere was hurling at it.
“Ok.”
The younger Krell was so shocked her jaw dropped.
“Ok? That’s it? Ok?”
The Warmarshal raised an eyebrow.
“Want me to lecture you instead? Want me to scream and shout at you? Want me to say you were irresponsible, or selfish, or something of the sort?”
Natasha had no answer, but the old Warmarshal wasn’t finished.
“Because I could, you know. I could rant or yell or plead. I could order you, or confine you or try to make you feel guilty.”
He sat down, placing both hands on top of his desk.
“But what would that achieve? You evidently are not dead, and are looking like you are going to remain not dead for some time, barring the unforeseen. Touch wood.”
He pulled a folder from his top draw and dropped it in front of his stunned daughter.
“Your team’s reports from your operations within Former New Empire.”
Natasha looked at him quizzically, her mind a blur, reaching for the folder almost automatically.
“I found particularly interesting the part where you threw the fellow through a wall, after leaping six meters across the gap between buildings.”
The folder opened, almost of its own volition, and her mind fled back to that day, eyes not seeing the words on the page in front of her.
Something hot and wet spilled over her gloved hands, and poured down the front of the man’s giant chest. Fighting past the pain, Krell didn't stop until she felt her fingers wrap around cold metal. In one smooth movement, she yanked the pin from the grenade and slammed her helmeted head into the soldier's unprotected face. There was a sickening and unmistakable crack of bone and cartilage giving way followed by a few warm drops of blood splashed across Krell's forehead, then she picked him up by his belt, and shoved him forward, sending the man backwards down the stairs with a gurgling howl.
Natasha closed the folder sharply, papers flying out and around the room.
Reaching into the room beside her, Corporal Amanda Hudson brought one of the heavy steel filing cabinets crashing into the hall by tipping it from the top, a few scraps of paper spilling out onto the tile floor. Managing to squeeze most of her slight frame behind the cabinet she brought her LY20 to bare with an incongruous grin. "So, you having fun yet ‘Tasha?"
Quirking a brow, Krell could only shake her head. "Oh yeah. Best birthday ever."
Krell looked back at her father, fighting back memories from what was arguably the darkest part of her life.
“What do you want, Dad? Why did bring me here?”
He left the folder, lying closed in front of his daughter, some of the contents still strewn over the polished hardwood floors.
“Because you, more than anyone else, can be the face of Lyras. And in that, daughter-of-mine, I need you. But I need YOU, and need you here, in the now.”
She cocked her head slightly to the left, gaze moving quizzically to meet her father’s.
“Try not to look so surprised. I know that something happened to you. I saw the reports of your actions at Port Finch. I am sorry it went the way it did. Truly.”
A hint of the haunting knowledge that must stalk the Warmarshal’s psyche flittered into view, before being sealed once more behind the steely visage that the world was far more used to.
“But I also know that you are still here. At least, physically. But I need your mind, as well. Not on the battlefield. I have millions that can do that.”
The Warmarshal wasn’t joking, nor exaggerating. Brilliant as she was, there were billions of soldiers and millions of officers in the Protectorate. Her skills as a special forces colonel, while exceptional, weren’t what she was here for.
“I need you for who you are, as well as for what you know. I need you as my daughter, as much as an officer. I need the world to see, plainly and clearly, that this is not nothing we are undertaking.”
Dread filled the younger Krell’s heart. She knew what was coming, knew she wouldn’t be able to say no, and knew that she was going to dread every minute of it…
“I need you to second High-Marshal Wallins of Diplomatic Command in the coming negotiations. You need to put an end to this conflict, as there are others to come, which we will find potentially far more necessary than this sorry mess we can fight our way through without hurting those who must stand with us.”
He moved back behind his desk, smooth movements giving no hint of the cancer that was eating away at his body, and retrieved another dossier, this one considerably thicker.
“This is a file of our key positions, personnel and objectives. Study it on the way to meet with Wallins. You are going to be his senior agent. Bring our viewpoints, and our earnest desire that this end to all involved parties, from Prime Ministers Stephanos and Conroy to President Milano, Foreign Minister Ley, and everyone in between. You are being granted full diplomatic status, and the requisite immunities, and I am not interested in how far you have to go to make this happen.”
Natasha locked eyes with her father, and he spoke again, this time with the undertone of dismissal.
“I need you to be with us, ‘Tasha. Now, more than ever. What happened, happened. Fight through. Because if you do not, there will be 120 million Lyrans that will have to fight through for you.”
+++Present Day+++
+++Grid 02180226+++
+++1630 Local+++
To say the Colonel was exhausted would be an understatement. The whirlwind diplomatic efforts, almost entirely behind-the-scenes, had been far more harrowing than she had expected. Very little fanfare, very little public acknowledgement, but harrowing nonetheless. More than once she’d had to check what day it was, so out-of-sync was her body clock.
But it had worked, at least in theory.
The Morridane and Imbrinium governments, who would doubtlessly issue their own statements in the days to come, had come to agreement-in-principle on a medium-term peace plan. In some respects, it was remarkably simple, but the interchange was remarkably complex. Nothing was ever done during the public negotiations. It was almost always done during the breaks, behind the façade of refreshments and civility. The senior-diplomats parroted the same arguments, almost as if they hadn’t heard each other, while their Seconds put their heads together to conduct the actual negotiation.
More than once, Krell had seriously considered just letting them go at it. But she couldn’t do that to the countless civilians that would be, once more, caught up in the crossfire.
Borders at status-quo-ante; In some respects, the easiest part to agree on. Neither party wanted to concede, nor to accept detrimental changes. The status quo ante was a logical step, and no one lost face.
Lyro-Lamonian controlled border-zones and ‘regulated force parity'; A little blurry, and doubtlessly the devil would be in the detail, but the Protectorate and Free Republic enjoyed one of the most cordial relationships around, and had the military strength to make the border-zone tough to chew on. Keeping the two states apart, literally, ought to lower the tensions, until interactions could normalise… which might take a while. The exact size of what constituted the ‘border-zone’ was still in discussion, but was expected to be resolved relatively soon. Neither side had anything to gain by playing loose with the peace.
Ongoing Lyran assistance to both Morrdh and Imbrinium to facilitate recovery from conflict's effects; Oddly touchy. Neither side, for obvious reasons, would accept responsibility for the conflict, and the Protectorate saw no advantage in pushing either to do so. With no other way forward, the Protectorate offered to take the lion’s share of reconstruction costs upon itself. In some ways, Lyras was very well placed to do so, with literal armies of construction and engineering troops able to operate in all sorts of conditions, already on the payroll, and able to move at relatively short notice. The Lyran efforts to assist recovery would also feed into goodwill, aimed back at being able to hold the peace together. It would be a fairly potent opportunity cost, but the Protectorate didn’t expect to require those particular forces urgently…
The next war was brewing, and the likelihood of needing construction battalions in that conflict was regarded as remote. Valdra could stay rubble, as far as Krell was concerned…
