Zugzwang
Lawrence jolted in his hallowed egg chair.
Presently, Lawrence laid back in the egg recliner. Wordlessly he stared at the dull gray ceiling. He came to the realization he dozed off and had the nightmare again. There was no use crying over spilled milk: It was already done and over with. He was back in the safe confines of his personal quarters on the Star Monitor Yilan.
Sure, there were days he would frantically pat himself down, and there were others it truly was just another Tuesday. He wasn’t out in the vacuum of space clutching the woman of his life, who became vegetable. But now what he thought was absolute is no longer---so why is he still relieving the same old dream? Is this truly his purgatory? Even purely fictitious, as a dream: Was he too frightened to give up his life for the two?
It truly did haunt him. He got up to seat himself in his hollowed egg chair. “On the bright side, it didn’t happen on the bridge,” Lawrence said. He chuckled, morbidly amused by the idea he would be seen as unfit for duty and removed from his active role. “Being shuttled off to Fasnakyle wouldn’t be such a bad idea, discharged honorably and probably with a good pension to boot,” he leaned back and the egg-chair reclined, he relished in the notion how utterly selfish it sounded. “Just kidding, so...” Lawrence poured over his desk, coming back to the present with his recent draft he was assembling.
He couldn’t bring himself to actually look it over. Not again. How many drafts did it make now, five? At some point, Lawrence knew he had to give it up. His superior, Vice Admiral Richard Drake, was not going to have any of it. Lawrence knew what it was, of course---jealously. How could this good-for-nothing Hoshiga fighter pilot make it to Commodore at such a young age? This is what Lawrence imagined he looked like from Richard’s perspective. If Lawrence was Neo sapiens, maybe his perspective on life would be different.
Lawrence smacked the plastic folder pertaining the documents off the table. The papers escaped imprisonment and made free landfall. Thousands of years of human evolution and technological advancement and the only good humanity could process data on remained paper, though the materials were of course slightly different. What good was any of it? This was the fifth time revising them, or how many times now, Lawrence lost count. And so far it did him no good. It drained him of energy.
He has been posted as the Third Star Fleet's tactical operations officer, but for Lawrence, the position felt more of a do-nothing job for a washed-up Commodore like him. For all his tireless efforts, Vice Admiral Drake rewarded him with rejection. Five times weren't the charm; why would a sixth matter? There was something morbid about the question. It brought him to the current situation. The Confederacy has attempted seven times to capture the impregnable space fortress Ishtar protecting the namesake corridor, all to no avail. Could the Peace Walker make a difference? Truly, he had no idea.
He scooped up the papers. He crumbled them, slowly, and primed his throw to chuck the waste of recycled ersatz into the trash incinerator across the room. But he hesitated. He uncrumpled and attempted to straighten them out on the edges of his office desk. It felt like a waste to simply discard them. "Who knows?" Lawrence said, to his inner mental lawyer, "the situation could always change, right?"
The spectators presiding over his mental arena voted the opposite. In the end they were nothing more than a glorified peanut gallery. Was he treating them like Richard treated him?
He began reading through his report. As he flipped through them, he increasingly hunched forward in the egg chair. What about the tactical evaluation was wrong? "It's 'lotta words for one," Lawrence said. The deflation of his tone. The first documents summarized the Golden Sash rebellion unfolding over in the Imperium's interior, in the Bulakbashi star zone. It was followed by a sharp criticism of relying on circumstantial evidence of said intelligence being outdated and unreliable as a result.
"Yadda yadda... it's all one big word salad. I doubt Rick even bothered reading past the first page," Lawrence said. He separated the first few pages and crushed them like Richard crushed his confidence. These, he was definitely going to sacrifice on the alter of the incinerator god his dashed hopes and dreams. "What a shame," he said. Yet, he couldn't bring himself to dispose of them. If he had his way in life during his academy days, he would've graduated and become a historian without being forced to enlist, just so they would pay off his academic debt. If only they didn’t dissolve the Military History Department! Only then would this scrap of recycled paper have merit to it.
Both his inner lawyer and the jury in the mental mosh pit argued it was worth keeping around. "For what, sentimental value?" Lawrence couldn't help but scoff. He could hold onto it because who knows? It could become valuable come the day he resigns from the military and can live off his would-be pension, at least until he could build up his portfolio as a historian. But it does beg the question: Would it keep himself afloat? Lawrence had not the slightest clue. He’d just be a starving artist in that regard: There’s no love for history. He wouldn’t be able to live in the officers quarters anymore, he’d have to find his own place to live, pension for a commodore wouldn’t be worth much.
For now, Lawrence filed away the thoughts. He opened a drawer and tossed in the spared papers. He turned his attention to the last documents, the paper glared back.
The gist of it was as follows: “...Which brings me to the current situation, as it were. There is nothing inherently wrong with resorting to the Nelson Hold. With our current numbers, quality of personnel, the Peace Walker assault platoons... et cetera. It is a sound option given these extraordinary circumstances, and overall superiority we may have over the Imperium forces known present(as dubious intelligence is), to hammer and anvil the enemy formation in a three-dimensional encirclement, akin to the Battle of Tokeen a century ago. However, I cannot emphasis enough we are performing this formation too soon. The Seventh and Twelve Star Fleets should rendezvous with us and attain total superiority as one, cohesive force. To put it aptly, to engage the enemy first, then execute the Nelson Hold.”
Lawrence rubbed his light stubble. His brow arched, giving slight comfort to his narrowing eyes. At a time like this, Lawrence truly did wish he was Neo sapiens. Why wouldn’t his commander listen to him? What about this was deemed cowardly? Too cautious?
The troubled Commodore tossed the rest atop the plastic folder. No need fussing about it now, he was already going over how he could improve on the draft. Lawrence flicked a red switch on his desk, summoning a laptop with the word processor and keyboard at the ready. He flexed his fingers---but before he got to write, the silence was dispelled by an all too familiar siren. It wailed, long, continuous wews.
Lawrence rushed to his feet, notwithstanding the egg recliner crashing to the floor. Maybe he reacted too rash---he was on autopilot for better or worse. He leaped for the door but stopped, twisting his upper body to look back at his desk. The ringing, the wewing never led up. Soon enough the voice of a stern old man filled the speakers: “All hands to battle stations, all hands to battle stations... this is not a drill.”
Lawrence sprang for the intercom next to his bedside and pressed a big oval button three times, then turned a grayish knob next to it clockwise. It flashed on, and Lawrence saw the commander of their Star Monitor Yilan and the Seventh Coalition as a whole, Vice Admiral Drake. The feed was on his commander’s horseshoe interface.
“What’s the big idea?” Lawrence asked.
Richard’s gaze flicked between the array of optic displays on his feed, but he didn’t pay Lawrence any particular attention. Lawrence leaned in to double-check he didn’t mute his audio.
“Commodore Mengde? I need you up here in the Command Center with haste,” Richard turned a knob on his suit and the transmission cut to static. Lawrence clicked his tongue.
“Can’t even give me a second to explain what’s going on, old man?” Lawrence said. Before leaving the room, he snatched his tactical recommedations off the table and slipped into a pressurized astro suit. His second thoughts regarding them won out in the end.”There’s still a chance,” Lawrence said. More of a mumble. Or rather, he retained a glimmer of hope they could gain merit starting now. He had to chance it, because it could still mean something.
Lawrence hastily slid them into the plastic folder, then tucked the thing beneath his left arm. There was mild artificial gravity, so Lawrence leaned against the table and torpedoed towards the door.
In the hallway was a flurry of rank-and-file who scrambled to their stations. Lawrence joined the chaos, going from one hand rail to another as the sirens steadily winded down.
Lawrence took a elevator and within seconds was on the lower level of the bridge. He hopped through the light gravity, glancing around as he tightened the clamps of his helmet. He jumped up to the third level and found Vice Admiral Richard there, surrounded by junior personnel and way too many discarded papers. Richard spotted him and gestures for him to hurry.
"Commodore Mengde, I need your opinion on the situation," Richard said. He dismissed the others with a wave-off. There was a silence spell seemingly cast about by this action.
Lawrence spun around, being quick to grip the command station's railing. He didn't appreciate Richard dumping ice on him, and yet there was a small sense of accomplishment knowing the Vice Admiral had, specifically, requested his council. Usually, Richard was more than happy to simply have the liberty of ignoring him. Ultimately, Lawrence’s inner lawyer reasoned, it came down to pettiness over this young, twenty-nine year old skinny kid becoming a Commodore. But nonetheless Lawrence assessed several monitors projecting an isometric map of their current space zone. His blood chilled when he saw miniaturized red t-blocks pushing back aggressively against green ones.
Of course, these innocent looking blocks weren't for fun and games, but Lawrence wished they were. These red little things represented real Imperium tactical naval units as did the allied formations, now being chipped away at an alarming spread. In other words, the Seventh Fleet was in immediate danger. The realization hit him like an atomic aftershock: Charlotte and Boris were in there somewhere fighting for survival.
Lawrence struggled to clear his throat; it was clogged with invisible sand. The inner machinations of his miracle cap worked overtime to drum an answer to soothe the Vice Admiral’s concerns. His gaze shifted frantically between the maps. But what bewildered Lawrence even more, to say the least, was the Seventh being attacked, moreover clawed, so soon. The Seventh Coalition fleet, despite its awkward premature posture, is hardly what he’d say is halfway into the Ishtar corridor. Why would they risk deploying their Fortress Garrison Fleet way out in the corridor? At this moment, Lawrence wished he could readjust his beret, but his blocky helmet prevented it.
His world shrank as personnel got in closer to hear his wisdom. It made him uncomfortable being put on the spot like this. No doubt they respected him more than they did Richard. “They had to knew we were coming,” Lawrence said. His reasoning cut through the silence and officers all around murmured. “This isn’t even a reconnaissance-in-force, Vice Admiral Drake, This is a full-on counterattack to the Seventh Coalition,” Lawrence said. All eyes were drawn magnetically to the main holographic map detailing the dogged resistance of the Seventh Star Fleet. The Imperium fleet bulged, it ballooned, and it clawed its way with remarkable speed, rearing along like some blood-thirsty lion out on a rampage, preying on herds without its herdsmen or herding dogs. But what good could the guard dogs and herdsmen do now? Both Lawrence’s Star Fleet, the Third, and the Twelfth were too far apart even at full combat knots to come to their aid. But this, Lawrence knew, couldn’t escape his lips. He knew all too well it was a waste of breath to convince him otherwise.
He reached for his papers but did not twist around to present them to the Vice Admiral. His hesitation was crushing them in his foolish hands. Was this widening hesitation going to cost him his two old buddies? The thought chewed at him like a wild boar yearning for his fill.
Richard have waved off the onlookers once more. He was too busy weighing Lawrence’s words and it was comforting in a odd way for Lawrence he shared the claustrophobia choking him. Then a smile crept along the Vice Admiral’s wide jawline. “Regardless, this could only mean the Imperium have mobilized Ishtar’s whole Garrison fleet. Von Jussilanien, the old fool... this venture will cost him dearly! We have him right where we need him---“
This time, Lawrence did spin around to confront Richard. This was it, this was the moment to catapult his thoughts, Lawrence said: “Vice Admiral, this isn’t the time for that.” Undeterred by Richard’s glare but uncharacteristically refraining from shooting him down, Lawrence took this as a springboard to continue. “Sure our timetable for place of battle were off, but we’ve lost the imitative here. The ball’s in their court now. As it stands now, the Seventh is a lost cause, we need to reconsider our current position and rendezvous with the Twelfth. We can still win the battle...”
Richard held up his left hand, shaking his head. Lawrence trailed off, and he presented the abused documents to the Vice Admiral. “Please, Admiral, as it stands now, they’re buying time for us to regroup!”
Richard’s dagger gaze stabbed him. Lawrence leaned against the railing as if by invisible force kept him pinned him there. Richard’s gaze only briefly shifted to the documents. “Commodore Mengde, are you suggesting I abandon our allies in their greatest time of need?” Richard asked. His tone was icy.
“With all due respect sir, there will not be a soul left of the Seventh Fleet for us to rescue by the time we arrive. This battle is now on their terms, sir. There’s no point saving what’s already reduced to atoms,” Lawrence said. Then he added: “The Third Star Fleet doesn’t stand a chance alone, we’re a carrier fleet not equipped for direct engagement. We need to rendezvous with the Twelfth Star Fleet and reconsider our plans from there,” Lawrence said. But you won’t like them, he added inwardly.
“I find your lack of faith in Vice Admiral Degwar troubling, and even your fellow countrymen---no less your fellow Hoshiga pilots---quite disturbing! You always did have an unshakable defeatist attitude about you, Commodore Mengde. I will not tolerate the dampening of morale on my bridge any further.”
Lawrence couldn’t simply take the scathing comment and lie down like an obedient dog. Every moment they wasted in this increasingly back-and-forth were lives being obliterated for naught. If they were being thrown into the furnaces of war, Lawrence needed them---he needed Charlotte and Boris’s sacrifice to not be in vain! Even so, it mawed at him. The thought of abandoning either suggesting wasn’t easy on him---damn the fleet! Lawrence would’ve jumped in an Hoshiga and sped off to save her himself. He took on an Imperium fleet once---he’ll do it again.
But even so, responsibility wore him like a skintight suit made of lead. His boots cement.
Unfortunately for Lawrence, the jury lay heavy upon the mental arena the cruel, harsh reality. There was no way scrambling to join the fray would do them any good. Once, nearly two millennia ago, a very famous general on prehistoric Terra’s advised in treatises against rushing to getting yourself divided and conquered. Such general military advice, so entrenched in man’s damning affair with war and conflict, has not been heralded into the modern era. The tension was getting too ripe, and the air too tense. It was his job as tactical operations adviser and he intended to fulfill his role to the best of his ability. His reputation, himself finding it unfounded, was in a sick sense being played against him. He needed the Vice Admiral to see the bigger picture because it would be no understatement for the nine million good men and women relied on this one way ticket to salvation, or utter debacle. Would Lady Luck be on his side this time?
“Sir, I know the strengths of our Hoshiga more than anyone present. They---we pack a cavalier punch alright, but if we directly engage with the Garrison fleet---“ Lawrence paused. Gasps tore him away from the Vice Admiral, and he looked on in horror at the tactical screens. The green mosaics were becoming increasingly muted, and the red sea was spilling more vividly across the map. Yet the Seventh Star Fleet stemmed the onslaught with incredible resilience. Is this a reinforced garrison fleet? The thought stunned his mind.
Lawrence spun around, he kicked himself toward Richard. Lawrence said: “Sir, we need to regroup with Vice Admiral Azra, now, admiral!” Don’t send two million men to their deaths! Lawrence’s mind begged. Without thinking, he presented front and center the documents.
Richard swatted him aside. The papers flew without care, resigned to their fate as worthless scrap. No merit to be be made here. He twisted some knobs on his horseshoe interface and barked orders to the Third Star Fleet. Lawrence too, resigned to his fate. The Fool of Chizan’s miracle gambit failed. He was going to meet Charlotte and Boris again very soon, one way or another. Would he see their souls in the River Styx?
“Full combat knots for the Seventh Fleet,” Richard said.
“You need to reconsider this,” Lawrence said. It was all he could muster after finding his magnet footing by the parameter’s railing.
Richard was a boulder in his decision. But he did turn partly to stare down the Commodore beneath his bushy black brows. “There is nothing to consider. This is the decisive moment for the Nelson Hold. Vice Admiral Degwar is holding his position to bide us time to execute it with the Hoshiga and Shinra divisions. That is our plan and it will not fail. Do not get the wrong idea, Commodore Mengde. Your suggestions are sound but it’s worded... as if to avoid a loss---but what is being lost? It’s safe but too cautious. We aren’t losing the battle and now’s not the time to be cautious. We are not losing, and nor is Degway. We make our stand here in the Azincourt star zone. We cannot afford to run away at the first sign of trouble, Commodore.”
“But there won’t be nothing left to save!” Lawrence said. He gritted his teeth and banged on the railing. No longer able to reserve his thoughts he said: “We need to regroup and save ourselves---and then we can consider a pincer movement even with only the Twelfth left. If we rush in, we head straight for the guillotine. You need to consider this, Dick!”
Undeterred by Lawrence’s burning frustration, Richard turned to an adjutant snugly holding a headset to his ears. It was the radio communications officer. Richard told him: “Relay to Rear Admiral Azra we will be deploying our Mobile Assault Vanguards.” Lawrence tried to protest, but Richard now went back to his old habit of denying him from doing his job. Richard continued: “Rear Admiral Azra will double time at full combat knots towards the new battlefield, and maneuver to support us from behind.”
“This’ll only needlessly extend the front lines and put a wedge between us!” Lawrence said, inwardly. While the communications officer worked, Lawrence sulked. All he could do now is silently study Richard and his unshakable resolve, and yet he thought of it as being on unfounded, wobbly ground. He needed to divert that sort of confidence, nudge Richard into adapting to the changing situation. “But I failed... once again I’m the Fool of Chizan,” Lawrence said. It was little more than under his breath. He flipped open his helmet and tugged on his beret, just as visual feed confirmed Hoshiga squadrons were being scrambled and well on their way to stem the tide with the Seventh Star Fleet.
“We will save them,” Richard said, “this will be our golden opportunity to destroy the only tactical asset the Empire has in the Corridor. With this victory, isolating Ishtar Fortress and securing the fortresses will only be a matter of time.”
“It’s not as simple as that,” Lawrence said inwardly. He cut loose a sigh as he slumped in total defeat over the railing, like a discarded manikin.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the plan but no plan remains intact, or even static in this case. Some 140 years ago at the onset of this war, the Confederacy scored its first victory at the Tokeen star zone in a very similar fashion---the Nelson Hold. Albeit, the Imperium’s staggering loss owed itself to inept tactical leadership infused with byzantine political debauchery. The Confederacy’s decisive victory over the expeditionary was a perfectly executed double pincer maneuver which quickly formed a spherical encirclement and forced their foes into a clump stripped and peeled off in rapid succession. Tokeen saw the death of several important aristocrats and tens of thousands of warships with astonishingly few allied losses. Tokeen, and the follow-up but less decisive Battle of Valmy legtimized the Confederacy of Independent Planets as the direct continuation of the Old High Republic. For the Imperium, however, it was perhaps the bloodiest battle shattering forever delusions of Imperium invincibility. The Pax Barbarossa was over, and the hard times were ahead. It’s a battle they still teach in Confederate officer academies and in some way or another it has become every commander’s dream to replicate the Nelson Hold. In the Empire, as fugitives and POW claim, it was an deeply indoctrinated source of revanchism.
He knew this because he studied this---his one true love was always history. No doubt his contemporaries in the Imperium would’ve, too.
And now, presently, Lawrence can only wonder if Vice Admiral Richard will drag them all to the House of the Dead to pursue this grandeur recreation of Tokeen. Lawrence pulled himself up, and slumped down into a seat. He crossed his legs casually, and rescued the documents floating, finding purpose in a world that doesn’t see its value. But skimming over them only made him more miserable. He tossed them, the recycled stuff within poured as carelessly as loose leafs as the Vice Admiral’s decision.
Is this all my work amounts to? Lawrence said inwardly, before the mental jury. Utterly nothingness?
“A-admiral!” It was the communications operator,” our transmissions... they’re... being jammed! Contact with the Seventh and Twelfth Star Fleets are impossible!”
Murmurs sprang from one to another as shock swept like a torrent through the bridge, and streamed into the Command Station. Lawrence the sulking manikin became animated. Yet, he quickly became grappled by shock as anyone else. We’re cut off? Was it true? He had no idea.
Richard whirled around away from the screens, locked in his doubts. He said, hardly under his breath which prompted Lawrence to lean in cautiously to hear him: “How would they know to jam us at this junction unless they...”
“Were expecting us?” Lawrence said. He now sat up electrified by fear. Richard snapped a gaze up at him, mouth agape. To stunned to even brush off the Commodore’s allegation.
“Our vanguard is getting reports of a huge temporal distortion in the space directly ahead of us,” said the communication specialist. Richard, his feet filled with lead, couldn’t bring himself to do anything. The murmurs subsided, for now. Lawrence got up to join with Richard at the Command Station railing. He was too locked in his doubts to utter anything. And yet, dozens of bridge operators lost patience and ran or drifted over in his stead. “They’re saying....” The specialist began, a constant readjusting of his headpiece. “Something’s warping out! Distance... 300 light seconds away! No, they’re saying...” Silence followed for what seemed like a minute stretched into hours.
“Vice Admiral!” It was the radar specialist, a few isles down in the trench computer line. All Richard could do was pan his gaze towards him, nothing more. “My systems are going haywire ... they’re ... it’s ...”
“Impossible, the Imperium is distracted by Bulakbashi,” Richard said, still in a hushed tone. But he shook his head violently. Were even his own words of assurance little more than the resilience of a rock cracked in two? He turned to Lawrence. “The Garrison Fleet shouldn’t have the ability to broadcast Tominosky Particles so aggressively, unless, unless---”
And at that moment, the Star Monitor Yilan quaked, rumbled, and threw Lawrence and Richard violently to the floor with fierce turbulence unlike anyone has ever experienced before. Lawrence’s vision spun, his head racked with pain. There was a surge of outcries as shock captured them all. Then, there was the blinding light. One so powerful even with his visor and eyes clamped shut it still bled through his eyelids like a useless, transparent curtain.
Gasps and startled confusion infected some before it became a frenzy of outcries.
Lawrence turned. Slowly... slowly... slowly, his gaze fell upon the vast camera screen. He simply couldn’t fathom what he saw, and neither could anyone else for that matter. Where there was the empty canvas of vacuum space was now the unmistakable shapes of black-beaked warships he knew painstakingly all too well. This was no dream, no hallucination. It was the real deal, and it was in this very space zone.
“Imperial Star Dreadnought,” Lawrence uttered. But the nightmare wasn’t over. The implications unfolding were simply too titanic for anyone to handle. Like many on the bridge, Lawrence was trapped, squeezed like a rodent by the hand of God. Stunned for words and action. At this very moment, Lawrence is certain many share the same shocking truth: We’ve been had!