Mock Battle (1): How Could You Not Contact Me Even Once?
Freesia hung her head in silence, feeling every bit the criminal under Lorraine’s sharp, pointed tone—the kind of rebuke with bones in it, and very jagged ones at that.
“This time you told me the rear lines would be safe, yet not even ten days after deployment you said you couldn’t contact me because you were being sent on an operation. And then you went and vanished for a full six months on one of those long~ operations. Isn’t that right?”
“Th-that’s…”
“That’s?”
Freesia had been about to offer some defense, but Lorraine’s razor-sharp retort made her quietly close her mouth. Even if she had ten mouths—no, a hundred—she would still have nothing to say.
The video call from Lorraine had come in while Freesia was organizing a few documents after dinner. She had answered with a bright smile, happy to hear from a childhood friend she had known for more than thirty years, only to see a clearly furious face appear on the screen. Her ears folded flat against her head on reflex.
“You… exactly when did you get back?!”
The shout was loud enough to rupture eardrums, and it was followed by an hour-long barrage of every kind of scolding imaginable. Freesia endured it all in mute acceptance. Her friend had barely made it back alive from the battlefield; even though this new deployment wasn’t to the absolute front lines, the fact that she was heading out again had prompted Lorraine to extract a promise of frequent contact whenever nothing urgent was happening.
But the moment Freesia arrived in the Garion System she had been thrown into an asteroid-belt search operation. She had sent one hurried message saying she probably wouldn’t be able to call for a while. That had been six months ago. She had actually finished the search four months earlier, yet the mountain of administrative work had left her screaming at her desk, followed by shooting tests, physical evaluations, and a dozen other urgent tasks that had swallowed her whole. Before she knew it, her promise to Lorraine had drifted into the far reaches of memory.
Worried that something serious might have happened, Lorraine had quietly asked Melanie whether she had heard anything about Freesia’s unit. And what did she discover? That Freesia had completed her operation ages ago and had even spent a cozy afternoon with her aunt three months earlier.
“You really…” Lorraine let out a long breath. “Never mind. The more I say, the angrier I only get.”
“I’m sorry.”
If the delay had only been a little late, Lorraine might have sulked but would have understood. She’s a commander now, so she must be busier than before. And she was promoted years ahead of schedule, so of course there would be difficulties. That was what she would have told herself. But six months? Even subtracting the actual operation period, more than four months had still passed. If you grabbed any random passerby, an android, or even Camilla—the housekeeping android programmed to obey only Freesia—she would agree that Freesia was in the wrong.
Even after more than an hour of nonstop nagging, Lorraine’s anger refused to subside. She growled for a long while, then drank cold water in loud gulps. The problem was that the fire in her chest still felt like a burning lump of coal. Still, when Freesia had returned from the battlefield her eyes had been completely unfocused and her face gaunt and lifeless; seeing her looking healthy now was a relief.
“From now on, actually call us, okay? Do you have any idea how worried Lucia and Ayla have been?”
“Ugh!”
Just thinking about Lucia made Freesia feel as if her breath was caught in her throat. Compared to her, Ayla—who simply laughed and said all’s well that ends well—and even the fiercely scolding Lorraine suddenly seemed like saints. She had no idea whether Lucia had spent the entire time sobbing her heart out, crying about how worried she had been.
“It’s the grave you chose. You’ll just have to endure it with sheer willpower.”
She was right. No matter how busy or distracted she had been, Freesia could have at least left a message. The fact that she hadn’t managed even that simple courtesy was entirely her own fault.
After catching up on everything that had piled up over the months, they ended the call. Freesia checked her calendar and stared at the date in blank amazement.
Six months…
It had already been half a year since she had taken up her post as commander of the 2nd Search Battalion. When Laura had mentioned that the first snow had fallen recently, Freesia had been shocked. She had left when the flowers were in full bloom.
I searched the asteroid belt, collapsed once, thought the distortion field had vanished, got on the chief of staff’s bad side, took a shooting test, underwent a physical evaluation…
Looking back, an astonishing number of things had happened in just six months. And if she had to pick the most notable recent event, it would be the replacement of the personnel officer and technical officer.
The two officers the personnel director had personally selected to help Freesia adapt to her new role as battalion commander had left the 2nd Search Battalion last week. After six months of service they would each receive about two weeks of leave before reporting to new units. She had heard the personnel officer was heading to the 17th Division while the technical officer, now a brevet major, was being assigned to 3rd Fleet Headquarters.
They were talented individuals the headquarters personnel director had carefully chosen to assist an incompetent battalion commander, so they would surely excel wherever they went. The real problem was Freesia herself.
The new personnel and technical officers were perfectly ordinary people who had received no special briefings about her. Naturally, the detailed editing and annotations they used to add to her reports had disappeared. She no longer had to suffer through late-night overtime like before, but she still occasionally found herself handling a bit of paperwork after dinner.
According to the schedule, the maintenance officer and communications officer would rotate out in two months, followed by the supply officer and operations officer two months after that. And on the day she reached her one-year anniversary as commander, both the operations chief and the vice commander would be replaced.
In other words, Freesia had to successfully stand on her own as a proper battalion commander by the time that one-year mark arrived. At least she could take comfort in the fact that Frederick would remain at her side, assisting her until the day she left the search battalion. He was scheduled to retire with honor one week before she transferred out—an honorable end to sixty-five years of military service.
Sixty-five years in the military? Freesia had lived barely thirty years total if you added up her entire life. She sat in a daze, lost in random thoughts, then finally opened the contact list on her terminal and searched for Lucia. She had indulged in a brief escape from reality; now it was time to face the music.
She had sent a message apologizing for the late contact and suggesting they talk when Lucia had time. Less than five minutes later, her terminal erupted in a loud alarm announcing an incoming video call.
“Ah…”
She had expected to be scolded, but she hadn’t calculated on it happening quite this fast.
With a trembling finger she tapped the accept button. On the other side of the large hologram, Lucia stared with wide, round eyes, as if she could not believe what she was seeing.
“Liz… Is it really you, Liz?”
“Uh, hello?”
Freesia waved awkwardly. At once, tears welled up in those clear blue eyes that reminded her of a pristine sea.
Ah…
That day, Freesia spent more than two hours trying to console Lucia.
“Commander, did you stay up all night again?”
“No. Just… something came up.”
Even though she was only half beastman, Freesia had inherited the hardy constitution of the tiger clan. She should have been perfectly fine after one all-nighter—two, even. But consoling someone who was crying their eyes out was an entirely different matter.
At least Lucia could speak and made a genuine effort to stop crying, yet Freesia still felt completely drained. She could not imagine how mothers managed to soothe babies who cried at all hours of the day and night.
“Commander. An official document has arrived from the 3rd Supply Corps under Logistics Command.”
Pulled from her thoughts, Freesia checked the document the supply officer had forwarded. Her expression brightened at once.
“They say the Ctls-A1 model will be deployed tomorrow.”
Three months earlier, the Chris-class fighter that had been damaged by an engine shutdown and placed in line for retirement was finally being replaced. On the front lines a new craft would have arrived within days, but this was the very rear of the rear. It had taken a full three months for the replacement to arrive.
It was not the new Talum-class, nor even the repeatedly upgraded A3 variant of the Cutlass-class—just the oldest A1 model. Even so, she was grateful. After all, the fighter that had been destroyed had also been an early A1 model. At least they had skipped an entire generation; she wouldn’t have to worry about sudden shutdowns during routine operations anymore.
After receiving reports from Supply, Personnel, Maintenance, Technical, and every other department, and confirming the schedule, the final turn came to Operations.
“Commander. We have one cooperation document.”
After receiving permission, the operations chief displayed the document in large format across the main panel.
“Huh?”
The sentence stamped clearly on the first page. Behind a large shield lay a magic circle; in front of it was a drawn sword—the emblem of the Federation’s highest special forces, the Knight Order General Headquarters.
“Now that I think about it, the time has come.”
Some of the officers wore expressions that said it’s finally here, while others looked puzzled, as if asking why would the Knight Order contact us? Naturally, Freesia belonged to the latter group. A mere battalion—moreover, a search battalion—what possible cooperation could they have with the Knight Order? Knight deployments usually began at squadron level or higher.
“This cooperation document arrived at dawn today. By AST 00 it is noon.”
It was the end of the year, with the new year not far away. Every December, the Knight Order conducted examinations for apprentice knights about to receive formal appointment, selecting those candidates who seemed ready. The test took the form of a mock battle against a company-sized marine battalion.
The knight candidates’ objective was to break through the marines—whether by annihilating them, evading them, or any other means—and seize the bridge. The marines’ objective was to prevent the candidates from succeeding for a full thirty minutes by any means necessary. As a result, cooperation documents were usually sent to cruisers equipped with company-level marine units.
Since it was an annual event, those who served aboard cruisers encountered it from time to time. Freesia, however, had never experienced it. During her time as a second lieutenant and first lieutenant she had served on high-speed boats, destroyers, and patrol ships. As a captain she had spent four years as a company commander. She had served as adjutant aboard a cruiser for one year, but the battalion she belonged to at the time had not received a cooperation document. After her promotion to major she had spent two years enduring hell on the battlefield. This was the first time she had even learned such documents existed.
“The mock battle is scheduled for two weeks from now—3 p.m. on December 8 by AST 00. By GrST 00 that is 9:30 a.m. on December 8.”
The mock battle would take place in a virtual space modeled after a Carnelian-class light cruiser. After reading the document carefully, Freesia summoned the expert and the person directly involved.
“Call the Marine Battalion Commander up here.”