The Finest Hour Read online

  Anyone who believes machines work completely according to design either has no idea what it's like in the field or is a designer in a lab who turns a blind eye.

  Certainly, according to its specs, the V-1 has a speed of one thousand knots during its terminal phase. And in reality, Tanya can guarantee they were going at least that fast. It was no lie when the engineers assured her that a direct hit with that much kinetic energy would smash even a pillbox to smithereens.

  But the engineers and designers forgot one critical thing. Yes, it's physically possible for a V-1 to obliterate anything that isn't an underground shelter fortified to paranoia levels in case of nuclear war. And given those things don't exist in this world yet, that means V-1s can destroy practically any hardened position.

  But Tanya thinks of another important condition. These results are only possible if the V-1 lands a direct hit. Put another way, if it doesn't score that hit, it's just throwing away energy.

  ...Wasting so much of that extreme destructive potential is so pointless it's distressing.

  This issue must be due to the engineering crew's disregard for cost-effectiveness. Something that scatters like a cluster bomb would have worked better. If I get to return to base, I'll berate those asses in the Imperial Army Technical Arsenal.

  "No sign of enemy mana signals."

  "Not detecting any here, either."

  "Okay, let's do this."

  Still, for now it's time to focus on the operation. Our first move means everything.

  Success depends on us attacking before the enemy can respond. From the lack of enemy signals, it seems they're concentrating entirely on dealing with the aftermath of the rockets.

  ...Well, that just makes sense.

  Tanya almost feels for the enemy on that point. No one's going to be thinking about a direct assault. A sane person wouldn't expect humans to be hitching a ride on long-range shells or rockets.

  In other words, in a sense, their first move will be somewhat easy. Sure, there are probably guards around the headquarters. But if the numbers are even, well, her subordinates are war crazy and have earned the title of veterans even from an objective standpoint. They'll be able to eliminate them.

  "01 to all units. Watch the clock. Ten minutes in is the most we can hope to get before Republican reinforcements show up."

  From the sounds we can catch and what else we can make of the situation, the Republicans don't seem to understand what's going on at all. At least, instead of scrambling, they're prioritizing damage control. Well, they're trying to figure out how to handle their first time being attacked by long-range rockets. They're so busy puzzling over the impacts, they haven't realized that attackers have snuck in.

  Otherwise, there's no explanation for the lack of mana signals.

  "03 to 01. I've succeeded in intercepting a signal. It's uncoded."

  Tanya is sure of it when she hears the report from her man making observations and tuning into the waves. The Republican Army really has no idea we're here.

  "That's a good sign. Push in with your mana signals suppressed. After the attack on the headquarters, withdraw at full speed. We'll shoot two rendezvous beacons ten minutes after we leave."

  "Roger."

  Suppressing a sigh, she clutches her weapon and flies toward the enemy headquarters with the others. If only her buddy Lieutenant Serebryakov had messed up landing, Tanya could have loudly claimed she couldn't abandon someone who'd been under her since the Rhine Battle and pretend to search for her while sending in the rest of the unit.

  No, I should use my legitimate sabotage card (as a laborer) for later.

  Now, the correct thing to do is be happy that my partner has been improving so tangibly since the Rhine Battle or thereabouts. I should appreciate any increase in human capital.

  "All right, we're going in."

  The second lieutenant following behind her looks so dependable when she nods that Tanya's conviction deepens that humans are great beings capable of growth and development. Meanwhile, she suppresses her mana signal as much as possible and charges.

  Her subordinates follow behind her.

  And what Tanya finds when she arrives is enemy soldiers caught utterly off guard, gaping at them.

  Maybe the problem is that it's a rear base. The officers here clearly have no idea how to get a handle on this kind of confusion. Not that I can blame them.

  Tanya smiles as she sweeps them with the submachine gun she "found," thinking how user-friendly it is as she cleans up the Republican soldiers while continuing her advance.

  I feel slightly uneasy about the fact that many of them aren't carrying weapons, but in the end, assuming people at the base are combatants and shooting them won't be an international legal issue.

  So I just have to calmly eliminate the enemy. The word enemy is so convenient in that it requires no discussion, Tanya thinks as she looks over at her subordinates, and her face inadvertently relaxes into a smile.

  Promptly shooting in response to the four words It's the enemy! Fire! is the apex of military discipline. Operant conditioning is truly great for improving effectiveness in combat.

  "Lieutenant, how's it look over there?"

  "Clear! No problems."

  Upon receiving exactly the answer she wanted from Lieutenant Serebryakov, who was keeping an eye on their back, Tanya grins with pleasure. Wonderful.

  For a unit charging forward, finding no sign whatsoever of any of those fearsome enemies who pursue from behind is unexpected good news. I'm surprised, but it appears that the General Staff's prediction that the Republican Army headquarters would be heavily defended was way off.

  "A failure of rationalists. They couldn't believe the enemy would be that stupid. Well, I should be careful myself."

  The rationalists who work on the General Staff consider the headquarters as the cornerstone of the command structure and something that should be guarded with one's life no matter the cost. According to the Imperial Army's common sense, the Republican Rhine Army Group headquarters should be defended like a fortress. Hence, why the generals Rudersdorf and Zettour embarked on this sneak-attack plan that entails bending over backward to launch aerial mages in V-1s.

  And...Tanya had barged in here nervous about what might be waiting for them, but now that she takes a look, it seems like an awfully slack rear base.

  In other words, the Republicans assumed that this place wouldn't become a battlefield. From the looks of it...there aren't very many experienced NCOs around, either.

  So we can be a bit bolder.

  A civilian financial institution has better security than this. Managing badges for entry and IC tags is actually quite effective, and the guards are more prepared.

  "What can I say...? I guess once in a while it's not bad to be foolhardy."

  This is the kind of thing that makes me want to slump forward and grumble. The eat-or-be-eaten determination found in civilian financial institution guards is a natural result of necessity. In a way, everything works according to the market principle.

  In that sense, this is pretty much what happens with a conscript army. You can't very well expect guards to take their duties seriously when they're clinging to the wishful thought that enemies won't appear in the rear.

  "Major, look."

  "...Is it a trap? I don't see how. Are we in the wrong place? Four seems like awfully few to be guarding an ammo dump."

  When you encounter the unexpected, you inherently can't predict what will happen. My intention was to blow up the enemy ammunition dump to cause chaos, but...there are only four guys in front of the warehouse that appears to be the target. Not only that, but they look like MPs, and they're smoking and chatting without a care in the world.

  What military policeman would smoke right in front of an ammunition dump? It's hard to imagine those sticklers for regulation breaking rules in the disciplinarian heaven of the rear. In other words, circumstantial evidence indicates that none of these buildings are anything remotely like an ammun
ition dump. For Tanya's platoon, it means they've been approaching the wrong target. All pain, no gain.

  "Remember, they could be using optical camouflage. Any irregularities in the refraction ratio?"

  "No. No suspicious signals, either... Those guys are probably it, Major."

  "...Intelligence sure did a bang-up job this time. Well, we have no choice, Lieutenant. Let's blow this thing to pieces and head back to make Weiss's life easier."

  "Understood, Major." Lieutenant Serebryakov nods.

  Tanya whispers that they'll take it out in a single attack as she loads several formula rounds into her submachine gun.

  To be extra safe, I double-check before attacking, but the number of enemy guards really is so low that it's equal to our forces. And they're regular old infantry. The only notable thing is that there are awfully few of them.

  I see, so it's not the ammunition dump. This is just some storage facility. In that sense, it's easy to understand why no one's coming after us. From the way those four are equipped, they're MPs. In other words, they're standing guard there purely as a formality.

  "Is this really the Republican Rhine Army Group headquarters? It's hard to believe given how lax the security is."

  "Ahh, Major, umm, well..."

  "If you have something to say, Lieutenant Serebryakov, go ahead and say it. I'm not so narrow-minded that I would refuse to listen to a subordinate's valid advice."

  "Yes, Major. Perhaps...the enemy soldiers are only concentrated at the more critical facilities...?"

  Lieutenant Serebryakov meekly offers her suggestion. But it's a point Tanya can agree with. If the Republicans aren't the least bit concerned if this place gets approached, then surely they can't understand why anyone would target it. If I myself consider how many troops to station at an unimportant position versus a critical one, the outcome is self-evident.

  "That's very possible, but what a pain."

  Tanya sighs as the weight of her near future presses down on her.

  If there aren't any enemy soldiers around here not because they're incompetent but because this area just isn't very important...? It means that Weiss's unit could be up against far more resistance than expected.

  In that case, we might be unable to achieve our objectives, endure endless counterattacks, and miss our rendezvous with the submarine.

  None of that is good.

  "Okay, Lieutenant. All the more reason to hurry."

  It's the worst possible future.

  No, it's a horrible outcome that we must do everything in our power to avoid. I'm not interested in getting shot down over the sea or roaming around forever.

  "We'll eliminate them. Let's go. We clean these guys up right quick and then get back to help the others."

  So Major Tanya von Degurechaff makes up her mind.

  As long as we're here, we have to do what we came for.

  What's done is done, as they say. I meant to leave the dangerous act of storming in for my subordinates and act as their support, but considering the possibility of someone catching up to us from behind, maybe charging into the tiger's den isn't so bad.

  That said, I can't ignore the objective right in front of me: This is the designated point. Tanya's only choice is to take rapid action.

  Don't laugh at my bureaucratic mind-set. Even if I blow this worthless facility up, it's not going to count as any sort of achievement. For that, I'd like to unleash a treasury's worth of curses on Intelligence for apparently seizing on and passing along false information. At the moment, though, those gripes will do me no good.

  So there's no point in talking about it now.

  Since I have orders to destroy this place, it'll be insubordination if I don't. Tanya would like nothing better than to scream, Eat shit! However, as a disciplined cog of a modern nation, the notion of a right to refuse doesn't exist for her.

  When it comes down to it, as long as Tanya has orders, it doesn't matter what else happens. She has to blast that nondescript concrete building to bits.

  And if she has to eliminate these four measly guards to do it, she doesn't feel so much as a shred of guilt.

  In the end, she may be the one shooting the gun, but what makes her open fire is the state's will. It's the country's power that wields the war machine. Guns don't shoot people. People shoot guns---and it's the army, on the state's orders, that gives them those orders.

  So pulling the trigger launches lead bullets from the barrel as it always does, which leads to the utterly natural result of four fallen lumps of protein that used to be alive.

  "Clear!"

  Nodding in response, Tanya follows the rest of the platoon to back them up as they kick through the gate the MPs had been guarding, beginning their raid. Her subordinates advance with superb skill. They go in vigilantly despite the worthlessness of the target, which is reassuring.

  Tanya covers their charge with her own. She's prepared for a gunfight, and it should be easy to maneuver with her submachine gun indoors.

  She's already attached to the gun she swiped from that Entente Alliance officer, which she didn't expect at all. It suits her body size better than her rifle, although she's not as keen to admit to that benefit.

  Anyhow, Tanya and her crew should have been triumphant once they stormed the place, but instead they're struck by disappointment. Still confused, and with nothing else to do, they shift their attention inside the building to search for a target.

  As expected, in a way, the building is vacant with almost no signs of use.

  Or really just empty.

  It seems like it's being kept clean, but there's next to nothing in it. When Tanya sighs and says they should at least look through the records, she steps into the area that seems to have been used as an office. All the memos stuck to the wall and the calendar are relics from almost a year ago.

  On top of that, the cabinets and safes that should be securely locked have been left wide open. Tanya and her troops ransack the place, but everything they find indicates that this location was abandoned. Apparently, the area was closed off long ago because it was too far from the main base.

  I suppose this is just a total failure on Intelligence's part.

  No, it's not like I personally wanted the winning ticket, so I'm not sad there aren't any enemies here. I just thought that if we could blow up the ammunition dump...we could wreak some havoc, so I'm a little bit disappointed.

  "'Better luck next time,' then, huh? Oh, well. It's a waste, but our orders are to blow this place up. Let's blast it."

  "Understood. Then just in case, I'll stand guard."

  "Okay, Lieutenant Serebryakov. Let Lieutenant Weiss know that this one was a dud, so it won't do anything to help him. We're getting this over with and heading to the next objective."

  "Roger."

  "All right, I'll secure our retreat... Hold up, a mana signal?!"

  At that moment, Tanya's guard could be described as out of focus---a rare occurrence. The situation was entirely different from the harsh battle of fierce resistance she had been expecting. Contrary to Tanya's fears that the enemy was using every available second to prepare themselves, taking care of the guards was such a leisurely endeavor that it threw off her instincts. That was why despite being keenly farseeing, she missed what was right under her nose.

  At that moment, Tanya is caught off guard.

  But conversely, that's all that happens.

  Suddenly the wall opens, someone leaps out, and once her brain processes this information, she makes her call right there. It's not "someone." This is enemy territory, so she doesn't need any other information to judge the situation.

  The moment she identifies the person as an enemy, she internalizes the information that an assailant has appeared. Then, the instant the enemy casts a hostile look her way, she responds with nearly mechanical precision.

  She slams interference formulas into her bullets and fires immediately. Her submachine gun bangs out the results in a battle to subdue the room.

  Lu
ckily, the enemy mage who popped out, anticipating an advantage with the element of surprise, is only putting up a weak protective film. That's why Tanya's able to get past it with just 9 mm rounds and penetration formulas, sinking multiple shots into the defenseless human's flesh and easily rendering her target helpless.

  "Engage! Clear the room!"

  The other three promptly take up their guns against the enemy mage who has lurched forward and collapsed from the shock of the gunshots.

  I'm a mage, too, so I know how they work. Mages are tougher than they look, and it's too optimistic to think you can down one with just a handful of bullets.

  A live mage is like a hand grenade with the safety pin removed. Until they've stopped breathing, you can't relax. If they have even the tiniest chance, they're liable to blow themselves up as a last resort.

  Sometimes mages die too late, but they can never die too early. And because Tanya pounded that lesson into her subordinates, they swiftly deprive the enemy mage of the chance to counterattack.

  After finishing the sudden encounter battle, Tanya and her troops immediately turn their barrels on the hidden door the mage appeared from and set about inspecting it.

  For a moment, the worry that more soldiers might pop out grates on her nerves. But the space is so quiet all they can hear is their own slight movements and the accompanying rustling of their gear, much less any footsteps. No sign of any changes.

  "...I didn't expect it to be this deep!" Having kicked aside the corpse of the enemy mage, her subordinate inspecting the door delivers the report with a click of his tongue.

  The door was concealed in an awfully clever way. It appears to lead underground. And it seems like it goes quite far down.

  "How deep is it?"

  "Take a look, ma'am."

  "Let me see."

  Even Tanya gasps when she looks into the endless-seeming tunnel. A muzzle light can't even reach the bottom.

  The stairway goes unusually deep. Even if this building suffered a direct hit in a bombing or shelling, this basement would probably go unscathed. It might even be able to withstand 280 mm railway gun shells. And from the way the entrance is hidden, it seems like they really took a lot of care when constructing it.