A Young Girl’s Outer Heaven
10
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Commissioned by Sneakydevil.
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I sipped at my coffee as I relaxed in my chair at the head of the big briefing room table. Picking up my napkin, I took up one of the pastries someone had brought in before I’d gotten here, along with a bunch of other traditional German breakfast food. It couldn’t have been Visha, because she was still in bed when I got up to shower and get my day started, so it was probably one of the many other people who helped keep this place running.
Reminds me of home, I sighed, biting into the cinnamon roll like pastry and making a happy noise at the taste. I’m sure the men will be happy.
This was just one of the benefits about getting so many of our countrymen coming over. It wasn’t just our military people who had decided to flee the country and escape to Brasa. Word had spread back home, apparently. Soldiers talked to their families, who left to avoid persecution for association. Those families told their communities, many of whom decided to also leave to avoid occupation under the commies if they decided to break up the country. No, the writing was on the wall and anyone with sense could see it. Dark times were coming and a lot of people were leaving.
They brought with them skills and trades that had been in their families for generations, a sense of community with their fellow Germans, and that German work ethic they were so well known for. Already, land had been leased to be purchased in time and an entire new community was being built from the ground up. A few of the wealthier people had already bought temporary store fronts and housing and were loaning those out to our countrymen, to get them on their feet.
That was how we now had a variety of new shops, including a number of them selling traditional German food. There were no less than three bakeries that I knew of and probably a few I didn’t. It warmed my capitalist heart to see them doing so well, after having fled their homes, some with just the clothes on their backs and relying on the kindness of strangers.
Eventually, the officers began to filter in. Visha came in, looking harried as she looked around, before spotting me and wincing. Hurrying over, she murmured a quick apology as she grabbed the carafe and topped up my cup of coffee. “Sorry, ma’am. I slept in.”
“No, it’s fine. I got up early. My mind was too busy to get much sleep,” I waved her off. “Sit, eat.”
Visha looked embarrassed, but quickly took her seat and did just that as she began making herself up a plate. I reached out and snagged something with strawberries on top and sighed happily as I bit into it. As I did, my thoughts wandered to Schugel and his abominable tests.
As it turned out, I hadn’t survived the blast that was setting off the Type 95. At least, not all of me. My magic and will had. My soul, if you will. The squishy biological parts of my body were gone. Burned up and destroyed. I had known it, of course, but it was a different thing to have it confirmed.
My body at the moment was largely composed of mana. Schugel’s tests had shown that I was slowly putting myself back together, however. Seemingly from memory, or at least that was his theory. I ate and processed food as a normal person would, though I didn’t technically need to anymore if I only cared about my mana formed body.
But my body did what bodies do and converted food into fuel, then healed. I was somehow regrowing biological tissue. I had no idea how it was surviving without blood, bone, and all that good stuff, but Schugel believed that it was my mana keeping everything going and mimicking those processes. Artificial blood pumping through my veins, carrying oxygen and nutrients to new cells that were quickly growing into a new physical body.
Already, my skin and hair were fully biological, according to the samples Schugel had taken. Other parts were forming as well, all according to what the mad scientist and his new lab assistants assured me was very similar to the natural process and schedule of the body replacing its cells over time. Except it appeared to be going very quickly. The more I ate, especially protein, the faster it happened.
Reminded of that fact, I reached out and speared a couple of sausages with my fork and put them on my plate as I systematically routed and destroyed my breakfast while waiting for the others. Eventually, the last of us entered—Weiss coming in carrying several folders. Looking around and seeing us all here, he began passing out folders to everyone before he took his usual seat to my right.
“Good morning, everyone,” Weiss nodded as he began making himself up a plate, earning echoed greetings around the table. “Colonel, with your permission, I’ll begin.”
“Please,” I agreed, waving for Weiss to start.
The man did a quick spell and a hologram popped up over the table. It was an org chart, complete with photographs, for the Brasa government—starting with President Julio Vargas and going down through his cabinet, advisors, everyone who worked directly for the man. Every member of the government who supported the current president and was part of the current regime, who supported the communist blight infecting our new home. All the way down to the chefs and the janitors and spreading outwards to their immediate families. Weiss had taken the one he had made a few short months ago when we arrived and expanded upon it.
I whistled quietly at the level of detail. “You’ve had our intelligence department busy, I see,” I mused, taking a sip of my coffee. “Tell me your plan for dealing with this.”
“We’ve come up with a few plans.”
I grinned. “You’re spoiling me for choice, Weiss. Go on then.”
The man chuckled, taking a moment to bite into his own breakfast pastry and chew. Eventually, he washed it down and asked, “How obvious do you want us to be, colonel? Would you prefer it not look suspicious at all, or do you prefer to go for intimidation?”
Humming as I chewed on a bite of sausage, I considered it.
On the one hand I wanted Pedro, as our replacement, to have clean hands in this—at least, as far as anyone investigating would be able to tell. He needed to appear squeaky clean. A retired military man with a stellar reputation coming in to clean up the country and selling the dream of a peaceful, prosperous Brasa joining the likes of the United States in being a world leader.
On the other hand, I knew the value of fear. Of intimidation. It was a handy tool to turn against your enemies, and it could be crippling if the enemy used it against you. But a population living under fear? That could be either very useful, or very bad. Fear made people stupid. Reactionary, in a bad way. It put them on the back foot and had them jumping at shadows, willing to do anything, give nearly anything, to see the source of that fear go away. They could be more easily manipulated. Made to do what anyone in power wanted, if you worded it the right way—even give up basic civil liberties in exchange for even the illusion of safety. Individually, a person was smart, but as a group people tended to be sheep.
“Can we do both?” I asked, and Weiss smiled.
“I thought you might ask that, so that was actually the first one on the list.”
“You know me too well.”
“To be fair, you’re fairly predictable, ma’am,” Visha giggled, and I rolled my eyes.
Weiss chuckled but began detailing the plan he and our people had cooked up. “This plan has three primary stages. Stage one: assassinate President Vargas and make it look like a suicide. Stage two: eliminate the rest of the current government and pin it on the communists. Stage three: cleaning up and quietly putting our own people into place to replace them.”
A gesture from Weiss changed the hologram, showing several photographs of the president’s residence. “This is where the president is staying. As you can see, it’s a fairly newly constructed villa style residence for the president and his immediate staff.” More photos joined the others, detailing the inside of the building, all taken using a night vision spell. “Security is tight, but like the rest of the country, they completely lack a mage presence.”
“That’s a mistake,” I murmured, shaking my head but gesturing him to go on. I had a feeling I knew where this was going.
“We can send in a three-man team of mages under invisibility formulas. We’ll take one of his guns prior to the mission but bring a spare Brasa military service sidearm just in case. Our team will infiltrate and shadow the president, and wait for him to be alone in his office. He keeps these doors onto this balcony outside the office open most of the time. Once alone, one of our men will shoot him in the head with the pistol. They’ll use a silencing formula to remove the sound and fire a second shot out the balcony doors with the gun in his hand, to make sure he has powder residue on his hand. After that, they’ll exfiltrate via the balcony and fly back to one of our safe houses overnight, to make sure they weren’t followed, just in case something changes and they’ve invested in mage detection equipment or hired a mage of their own in between now and the time this goes down.”
And there it was, exactly what I was expecting. We lived in a world of magic. You needed mages to deal with mage problems. As we had seen with Dacia, mages were superior to regular forces and if you couldn’t field your own mages, you were doomed from the start. Brasa had no mages. More importantly the government had no mages and none of the technology that might detect a mage that every major side in the war had employed. Going up against regular people as a mage might as well be cheating.
Not that I was going to complain when it went in my favor! I would take advantage of this tactical boon for as long as I could. If my enemies kept making the same mistakes, I wasn’t going to interrupt them!
It was a such a simple trick to counter, too. It was so simple that I had used it as the entrance exam into the 203rd when I’d first been ordered to construct an aerial mage battalion, and it had filtered roughly ninety percent of the potential recruits.
Invisibility fell under the ‘Illusion’ school of magic, which all worked off of creating, projecting, or redirecting light and sound. It was so simple and useful that every mage recruit was taught it in their first year of training. It was used for everything from taking photographs, to making presentations like the one Weiss was giving, to creating a blind, or just rendering oneself or a piece of equipment invisible to the naked eye.
Except it was so common and so easy to use that anyone with a lick of magical detection skill could tell when one was being used. It actively used mana, so of course you’d be able to detect it—either with equipment or as a mage, using your own sense of mana. That was why it had been such a great filter for potential troops. If someone walking into a room couldn’t tell the person they were talking to was an illusion and that the actual interviewers were all hidden off to the side under another illusion, then they were too stupid and unobservant to live. They would only get themselves and those around them killed by missing a mage trying to sneak in under invisibility or an illusory disguise—which didn’t actually happen often specifically for that reason.
But if you couldn’t detect it at all, then suddenly, those tactics that we just didn’t use against mage troops and only used under very specific circumstances suddenly became a whole lot more viable. Or, to put it another way… We may as well be playing Metal Gear with the sneaking suit!
My grin gave away my enthusiasm for the idea, but it still deserved to be said. “I love this plan. And stage two?”
“If you like that, then how about a little…” he turned to Visha. “What did you call it?”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Cosplay!” my adjutant answered, and I raised an eyebrow. I knew I had used the word before a few times, but I hadn’t realized it had stuck.
“Oh?”
“When we raided the communists, we found a cache of uniforms for their officers in charge. The ones from the Russy Federation,” Weiss explained, and my eyes went wide.
“Russy uniforms? Weiss, don’t tell me you’re going to stage a false flag attack!”
The man nodded, a smile coming to his lips. “That’s exactly it. We’ll equip a few men with them and use some communist vehicles we acquired to put on a little show. When President Vargas tragically commits suicide, the government will have to appoint an interim leader until new elections can take place. They’ll have to meet for that. All of them conveniently in one place. A few days before, we’ll set demo and incendiary charges in the building. Then on the day of, send in a squad in uniforms and masks, have them gun down nearly everyone in attendance, and destroy the building as they leave.”
Laughing, I shook my head. “Ah, if only I could go. You’re making me want to step in and do it myself. But somehow, I think that having someone on the team half the size of the others might give us away.”
At that, Weiss smirked. “I thought you might say that, so I made preparations to include you as well.”
I blinked, sending him a perplexed look. “You did? And what role did you have in mind for me?”
“A demonstration, ma’am. We did some research on what would happen, if the president were to die suddenly. The meeting to appoint a new president would be, not open to the public, but open to other elected officials and any ‘interested parties of sufficient standing.’ If the president were to take his own life, the governor could show up and voice his own opinion, as both a governor and former general. He would be allowed to bring guests, staff, or bodyguards. Up to three could come inside the building, but only one would be allowed to sit with him.”
“So you want me there beside him, keeping him alive through the shooting and evacuating him?”
“The governor, and a few people we’ve flagged as being opposed to the president’s actions of late,” Weiss nodded. “Our men will make sure to not target them directly. They tend to self-segregate, so if you were seated near enough, you could put a shield over them and lead them to safety.”
“It makes me look like a hero and showcases the strength of even a single mage to change the outcome of an encounter,” I mused. “Very good PR and it advances our eventual goals of putting together an aerial mage recruiting and training academy to bolster our numbers. I like it.”
“I thought so. Additionally, there will be press there. We’ll be sending a reporter from Bellum, of course.”
“We own this one?” I asked, and Weiss nodded. “Even better! So I take it we’ll invite them as a guest and let them fly with us to Brasilia?” When Weiss nodded again, I added, “Check with Edwina and make sure our transport is ready to make the trip in style.”
“I’ll have someone take care of it,” Weiss made a note in his own folder before continuing. “As for the last phase. Cleanup. We’ll have more attacks by ‘Russy communists’ against key political figures and certain wealthy business owners. Full assaults, car bombings, driving up and shooting up their vehicles as they’re traveling. Some of those will succeed, others will fail. We’ll remove the last of the communist sympathizers, keep most of the moderates who we think will side with us alive, and make sure those who were against it stay alive. Anyone of rank or wealth who has directly aided the communist cause in Brasa is going to be dealt with. At the same time, we’ll be publicly conducting operations against the communists in retaliation for the attack.”
“It’ll be a public relations coup,” I laughed. “And what about the election? We still have to give the illusion of holding a ‘free and fair’ election to ensure there are no complaints when Pedro takes office.”
“That’s simple. First, we duplicate the ballots, once it’s decided who’s going to be on them. Then, we fill them out so that it looks like our candidate of choice wins in a landslide, with believable numbers for any other candidates. We’ll box them up and move them to secure locations outside of polling centers in the lead up to the election. After that, we infiltrate the polling centers. Put some people in each. Use illusions to steal the real ballots and swap them with the duplicates. Then burn them in a secure location, after.”
“That would work, just make sure we don’t make a martyr of one of his political opponents,” one of the others spoke up from down the table, earning nods all around.
“Or worse, try it and miss, or only wound the target. It would only rally support for them, if they survived.”
“We should be on the lookout for the communists to try similar strategies. Either attacking their own in false flag attacks, or trying to infiltrate our campaign or places where governor Vazquez is speaking and get a shot off.”
“We should double the mage detail around him when he goes out, following the assassination.”
I listened, sitting back and sipping my coffee with a smile as my people did their jobs. Eventually, I prompted Weiss to present his other plans and listened intently to each, weighing their merits. However, it seemed that my subordinates were in agreement with me and the first plan was agreed to be the best.
“Very well. Get it done, Lt. Col. Weiss. Keep me updated.”
Weiss gave a salute where he sat. “Yes, ma’am.”
“If there’s nothing else, I’ll be off. I have a meeting scheduled with,” I shuddered, “Herr Doktor Schugel.”
There were some looks and sounds of sympathy around the table as I pushed my chair out and left. Heading outside, I took to the air and flew across the island, to the remote bunker we had built to stuff Schugel into—hopefully isolated enough from anything and anyone that if he blew himself up, it would be mostly contained to that part of the island.
The man on duty saluted as I made my way inside, pausing to let him verify my identity and magical signature before continuing on my way. I only had to follow the yelling to find Schugel.
“You idiot! I am the head of this department! I should not need to fill out requisition forms in damned triplicate to get a sample of something as simple as elinium to work with!”
“Sir, my orders come from the colonel herself! They expressly forbid all hands on experimentation without her express consent!”
“And should I ask for permission and sign three damned forms every time I need to take a piss?!”
I pushed the door to the room open. “Yes.”
Schugel turned on me with laser like focus. “Colonel von Degurechaff! This is completely unacceptable! I can’t work under these conditions!”
Sending the man an amused look, I asked, “Do you want that budget?”
He frowned. “You know I do.”
“Then sign the damned forms, doctor.” Turning to the aid I’d assigned to stay on top of the doctor, I sent him a smile. “Keep up the good work. Don’t let him bully you.”
“Yes ma’am,” he chuckled, before thrusting the forms out at Schugel. “Please sign, doctor.”
Schugel let out a sigh of defeat and collapsed into his chair. “Very well. I feel as though my very soul is being drained by this bureaucracy you’ve shackled me with, but fine. Fine! If it means getting the resources I need.”
“Mm. And what exactly do you need today?” I asked, moving over to look over the forms as Schugel began to write out a brief description of the materials needed.
“A computation orb and some samples of the local elinium. I’ve been assured that we have some, or can procure it. I need to test its purity and viability.”
“Oh, is that all?” I asked, and he snorted.
“Of course that’s not all! I was going to make a small prototype of the device we mentioned. I believe half a pound should be sufficient—”
I choked. “Half a—are you insane?!” I yelped, going wide-eyed. Grabbing the forms, I quickly crossed out his requested amount and lowered it down to less than a gram per sample. “You know damn well what I did with only a few grams of elinium and my own magic, you idiot! If you tried it with that much, forget the island, I’m pretty sure half of Brasa would go up in a fireball!”
Turning a stern look on the requisitions officer, I gestured towards Schugel. “This is why he isn’t allowed to make requisitions without my permission and why he always needs to fill out the forms! Do not, under any circumstances, fill any requisition he makes without my express consent! I don’t care if it’s for replacement coffee, it needs to have my signature before he gets it!”
“Yes ma’am! I mean, no ma’am! I won’t, colonel!”
Schugel pouted like I had taken away his toys and I sent the man a glare. “Any testing is to be done with tiny samples and far, far away from here. We’ll eventually build a test facility in the mountains for it. Until then, you can conduct tests from a boat, off the coast. Understood?”
The doctor sighed. “Bah. If I must. It isn’t as though it would have been immediately dangerous anyway. Without a mage supplying them mana directly, they’ll have to pull in mana from our surroundings. It would take weeks to get to the point of being dangerous to anyone outside of the building.”
I sent him a flat look. “And how likely are you to get distracted by something else and forget it for months?”
Schugel waved my concerns off. “Never mind that! Here, the reason I requested a meeting. I need you to sign off on materials, development, and testing for a new type of bomb casing. This is just for the casing, mind you, not the payload.” As I took the sheet and began to read over it, he continued, “I call them ‘smart bombs!’ Lenkwaffenmunition! Or ‘guided bomb units’ if you want to be dry about the language. These will have fins on the front and back and be able to maneuver as they fall towards their selected target.”
“I see,” I murmured, nodding as I signed and handed it off to the req. officer, before sending him on his way.
“Until we can get rocket production going, it’s the best I can do. A bomb unit such as this would allow us to quickly install a magical warhead, which could then be flown in and dropped over the target of your choosing.”
Considering the scientist, I asked, “How hard would it be to enchant it to actually fly, using a bit of power from the warhead?”
Schugel hummed, leaning back in his chair as a considering look crossed his face. “I suppose that would depend on how far you want it to fly. Oh, the enchanting process will be easy enough. It will require some of the same sorts of tools used to produce computation orbs. You would need a factory for large scale production. A factory, machinery, workers,” he waved a hand idly in the air, ticking off each need. “But the actual enchantment part is simple enough. You would just need to make a single purpose computation orb.”
Blinking, I sent him a curious look. “You can use a computation orb for that? Without a mage?”
Schugel grinned. “Of course! It’s all a matter of programming in the correct sequence of operations by inscribing them onto the orb’s mechanisms, or parts connected to it. After that, why, you could make it so simple any idiot could operate it with the flip of a switch! We needed mages before to provide mana and do the calculations, but now that I understand more about mana fixing and absorbing ambient mana, having an orb pull in only the mana it needs and use it automatically, even doing the calculations itself and responding according to its programming, would be simplicity itself.”
Staring at the man, I quietly asked, “And if I asked you to build a computation orb that, if given the right equipment, and resources, could build other, new computation orbs or whatever it was told to on its own?”
The madman froze on the spot, before going wide-eyed, then roaring with laughter. “Ahahaha~! This! This is why you and I work so well together, fraulein! You have such marvelous ideas! Why yes, yes I believe I could!” Popping up from his chair, he began to pace. “And if you could make a computation orb build other computation orbs, why not have it make rifles, bullets, tanks, planes, uniforms, boots, and everything else you need?! Moving beyond the needs of the war machine, you could put them on an assembly line, replacing human workers, and have them make cars, clothes, can food, and everything else a nation needs!
“And why stop there? You could build them into every step of the process! We need to mine for iron? Build a machine around a computation orb capable of doing so by itself! That iron must then be refined, so we’ll have another orb to do that. Then another to make steel. Then another, and another. All of the mundane tasks that have to be done by hand or complicated machinery, we can switch to computation orbs! Farming? Build a piece of farm equipment and stick an orb in it! Water treatment, sewage, power production—not making electricity directly, that’s inefficient, but managing the systems that produce power, yes! It would almost completely automate most things and reduce the need for workers, or move most jobs over to supervising the machines to make sure they didn’t make any mistakes, or repairing them when they broke down. It’s, it’s—!”
Schugel fell back into his chair, clutching his head and breathing hard. I studied him with concern, performing a quick medical diagnostic formula and finding he was hyperventilating and his heart was racing, but otherwise seemed okay. “Oooh… a bit too much excitement for this old man. My head feels like it’s on fire. I have so many new ideas I feel like I can’t contain them all!”
Looking up, Schugel met my gaze, his eyes having a mad look to them. “Thank you, fraulein! From the bottom of my heart! Oh, with this, we are going to change the world. I need my assistants! Quickly, now!”
Deciding to help him strike while the iron was hot, I left the room and found the closest of Schugel’s lab assistants—those students we had recruited out of the local college. “Herr Doktor needs you in his lab. Gather the others, quickly,” I instructed, and the woman nodded and hurried off.
Shaking my head, I left the lab and took to the sky again, heading back to my office. I was sure there was paperwork in need of doing—there always was—and I needed some time to clear my own head. I had hoped Schugel would catch the hint I was handing him, but I hadn’t expected him to take it and run with it as he had. He had basically went straight from computation orbs, to computers, to automation of basically everything we would need to give Brasa an advantage over America and everywhere else.
The United States in my first world had been a major contributing factor to winning WWII despite coming in so late because they had the advantage in numbers. Not just in people, but in resources and production. I remember reading about how the Germans were, like our Germany, using horses to get around the back country at times because they were cheap and easier to get down narrow trails, and keeping trucks and other vehicles fueled would have been a nightmare. And yet, the Americans did it anyway. They brought their own vehicles, their own fuel, and often times they made their own roads. That was the big wake up call the Germany of that world needed to realize that America had them beat on scale.
It had happened similarly in this world, with the Americans always being more well supplied than our own people, as long as they weren’t too far from their supply lines. Some of the best supplies we had ever strategically acquired had come from American forces. That was what I wanted for Brasa and, through Brasa, for my Military Without Borders and myself. To be able to project power anywhere, globally, within forty-eight hours. To be armed with the best and most feared tools, such that no one would dare attack us, for fear of retaliation.
The question is, how long is it going to take to set up? I know that once it gets started, it’s going to snowball, building faster and bigger. But how long for that initial pebble to turn into something too big to stop? And will it be fast enough to dissuade the Americans, once they inevitably come sniffing around?
I doubted even Schugel had an answer. Which meant that I needed to build up my forces and ensure our roots in Brasa were deep before they got here. I needed to entrench us and be ready to hold this position if it came down to it.
Then again there’s always the alternative. We have bombers. We’ll have bombs to load on them soon. We’d only need a few to make a statement, if it came down to it.
I do prefer being proactive to reactive. Perform a few decapitation strikes and let the enemy do the reacting. As it should be!