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The first indication that something had gone wrong was not the artillery.
Artillery was expected.
Artillery had schedules, ammunition tables, range calculations, weather allowances, maintenance failures, and officers whose competence could usually be estimated by the distance between their first shell and its intended target. Artillery was loud, destructive, and occasionally murderous, but it was comprehensible.
The music was not.
Major Tanya von Degurechaff was three hundred meters above a burning village when a brass section erupted across the Imperial emergency frequency.
She nearly flew into a chimney.
“Major?” Captain Viktoriya Ivanovna Serebryakov called.
“I heard it.”
Tanya corrected her course with an irritated burst of mana. Beneath them, Republican infantry poured through the shattered streets while Imperial defenders withdrew from house to house. Rifle fire flashed through broken windows. A tank ground over the remains of a stone wall and turned its turret toward the railway embankment. Above the village, the 203rd Aerial Mage Battalion fought beneath a sky the color of old iron. Their blue defensive shells gleamed through drifting smoke. Twenty-four mages moved in disciplined pairs, diving through anti-aircraft fire and carving apart the Republican aerial screen with ruthless efficiency. It had been, until the intrusion of the brass band, a perfectly ordinary disaster.
“Emergency channel has been overridden,” Lieutenant Weiss reported.
“I am aware.”
“It appears to be an official transmission.”
“I am painfully aware.”
The music swelled. Drums joined the brass, establishing a firm marching cadence. Not a cheerful rhythm, exactly. It was too heavy for that. Each beat landed with the weight of boots sinking into mud. A male announcer began speaking. His voice possessed the polished confidence of a man who had never had to shout over gunfire.
“Soldiers of the Empire,” he declared, “this special broadcast is dedicated to the brave men and women defending civilization at every front.”
Tanya shot a Republican mage through the shoulder. The wounded man spun away, trailing sparks.
“Whose idea was this?” she asked.
“No information, ma’am,” Weiss replied.
“Find out.”
“During the battle?”
“Do you anticipate a more convenient time?”
“No, ma’am.”
A Republican spell struck Tanya’s barrier. Light burst across it in a spiderweb of gold. She rolled through the impact, raised her rifle, and fired into the enemy formation. Two mages broke away. Visha caught one in a crossing volley. Grantz chased the other toward the rooftops. The announcer continued.
“The voice you are about to hear belongs to one of the Empire’s finest soldiers. A hero of unmatched courage. A symbol of determination in the face of adversity.”
Tanya stopped moving. For half a second, she simply hovered. The battlefield moved around her. Smoke climbed. Tracers crossed. An artillery shell burst against the railway embankment. Visha turned sharply toward Tanya, alarmed by the sudden stillness.
“Major?”
Tanya’s face had become blank.
Not calm.
Blank.
There was a difference, and every veteran of the 203rd knew it. Calm meant Tanya had a plan. Blank meant someone else had made one. Then the singing began. The voice was clear, young, and unmistakable. It carried over the battlefield with merciless precision. The first phrase was delivered without ornament. No heroic flourish. No swelling optimism. Just a cold statement, sung in the voice of someone describing a fact too obvious to debate. The battalion channel fell silent. Grantz stopped pursuing his target. The Republican mage, perhaps equally startled by the broadcast, looked back. Grantz shot him automatically.
Nobody spoke.
The singer continued.
The melody marched forward, but the words dragged chains behind it. They spoke of soldiers packed into lines and fed into slaughter. Of men who knew they had been deceived but lacked the safety to say so aloud. Of obedience demanded by people standing far from the consequences. Visha stared at Tanya. Tanya stared straight ahead. Her face remained completely expressionless. The song’s voice was younger than Tanya sounded during briefings. Less clipped. The recording had preserved the natural brightness beneath her command tone, but there was no innocence in it. The words were bitter. Not dramatically bitter. Not the theatrical sorrow of an opera singer lamenting a fictional battlefield. They were bitter in the way old coffee was bitter. In the way frostbitten fingers were bitter. In the way casualty reports were bitter when the names belonged to people who had shared your breakfast. Lieutenant Weiss cleared his throat over the channel.
“Major.”
“No.”
“I have not asked a question.”
“No.”
Weiss accepted this. The brass section surged beneath the vocals. The rhythm accelerated, urging the song onward as its words described men being ordered deeper into ruin. It was, structurally, a march. In spirit, it was an accusation. Grantz’s microphone clicked on.
“That’s you.”
The battalion experienced a collective spiritual collapse.
Koenig hissed, “Grantz.”
“What? It is.”
“Radio discipline.”
“We are all thinking it.”
“We are not all saying it.”
Tanya turned her head by a fraction.
“Lieutenant Grantz.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Do you see the enemy artillery observation team above the western ridge?”
Grantz checked the horizon.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Remove it.”
“Immediately, ma’am.”
Grantz accelerated so violently that the air cracked behind him. The song continued. The lyrics turned toward decorations awarded after death, empty consolation fashioned into polished metal. The singer’s tone sharpened around those lines. The contempt in it was unmistakable. Weiss’s gaze drifted toward the Silver Wings Assault Badge on Tanya’s uniform. Tanya noticed.
“Lieutenant.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“If you look at my decorations again, I will assign you to inventory every medal in the Imperial Army.”
Weiss snapped his eyes forward.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Below them, the Republican armor resumed its advance. The tank at the center of the street fired. The shell struck an Imperial position at the railway embankment, throwing men and timber into the air. Tanya’s expression changed. Embarrassment vanished beneath operational focus.
“First Company, descend. Break the armor column at the intersection. Second Company, eliminate anti-air positions. Weiss, take command of the upper element.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Captain Serebryakov, with me.”
Visha’s heart leapt in a manner she considered militarily inappropriate.
“Yes, Major.”
Tanya folded into a dive. The battalion followed. They plunged through smoke as the song played across every Imperial receiver in the sector. The broadcast was not limited to the mages. Field radios carried it into the trenches. Loudspeaker wagons behind the lines amplified it across the valley. Signal operators, unable or unwilling to override an official Ministry transmission, let it continue. Imperial soldiers heard Tanya’s voice describe war not as noble sacrifice, but as a machine that consumed obedience. Then they watched her descend from the sky. Tanya hit the first tank with an armor-piercing spell. The roof vanished. Fire punched from every hatch. Visha took the second vehicle, driving a shot into its rear engine compartment. The tank slewed sideways and struck a collapsed building. Weiss’s element passed overhead, firing into rooftop machine-gun nests. The music kept marching. The singer moved from anger into weariness. The words no longer attacked only the battlefield. They reached beyond it, toward clean offices and untouched cities. Toward distant voices demanding endurance from people they would never meet. One of the Republican radio operators must have found the Imperial frequency. Enemy receivers began carrying the song too.
Tanya learned this when a Republican mage shouted across the open channel.
“What in God’s name are you people broadcasting?”
Tanya shot him.
“Psychological warfare,” Grantz offered.
“It is not psychological warfare,” Tanya said.
“It appears to be working.”
“It is an administrative error.”
The Republican mage’s wingman fired at Grantz. Grantz rolled beneath the shot.
“An extremely effective administrative error.”
“Lieutenant.”
“Removing myself from the discussion, ma’am.”
The Republican armor column tried to spread through side streets. Tanya anticipated the maneuver.
“Koenig, collapse the eastern buildings. Neumann, seal the north road. Drive them into the square.”
Explosions answered. Masonry crashed into the streets. A tank attempted to reverse, struck another vehicle, and blocked the route behind it. The remaining armor crowded into the town square. Tanya climbed above them. The song reached its first great rise. The drums intensified. Brass and strings pressed upward together. The singer’s voice cut through them, no longer detached. Now there was something close to fury in it. She sang of men pushed forward until terror became routine. Of loyalty proven through suffering. Of survival treated almost as insubordination. Tanya raised one hand. The 203rd formed above the square.
“Volley.”
Twenty-four rifles fired. The town square disappeared beneath white light. The shock wave climbed past the rooftops and struck the battalion’s barriers. Fire rolled through the streets. Tank ammunition detonated in uneven bursts. When the smoke cleared, the Republican armored thrust no longer existed. The Imperial infantry at the railway embankment began cheering. Their voices rose beneath the broadcast. Tanya looked down at them. The soldiers were exhausted. Mud-covered. Bloodied. Some had lost helmets. Others had bandages wrapped around their heads or arms. One man waved a broken entrenching tool as though it were a ceremonial sword. They were cheering the small officer floating above the burning square. They were also cheering the voice telling them they were being spent. Tanya’s mouth tightened.
“This is absurd.”
Visha hovered beside her.
“The attack has stalled.”
“That is not the absurdity.”
“No, Major.”
The song softened. The change was almost worse. A distant piano entered beneath the orchestration. The drums became quieter. The singer’s voice lost its anger and settled into something tired enough to be honest. The lyrics turned to evening. To the strange sameness of tomorrow. To comrades vanishing one by one until the gaps in formation became more familiar than the faces. Visha felt the words settle inside her. She had seen Tanya angry. She had seen her furious at officers, logistics, politicians, weather, bad maps, defective ammunition, and the inherent irrationality of human beings. She had seen Tanya cold enough to order an assault through enemy fire. She had watched her reduce war to probabilities because probabilities were easier to survive than grief. But this was different. The song did not sound like the Devil of the Rhine. It sounded like the person who counted every empty chair. Visha looked at her commander. Tanya kept her eyes fixed on the western horizon. Her cheeks had gone faintly red. It might have been cold.
It was not cold.
“Major,” Visha said gently.
“No.”
“I only wanted to ask how this happened.”
“I know what you wanted to ask.”
“And?”
“And I refuse.”
The Republican artillery opened fire again. Shells rose from beyond the ridge.
“Incoming!” Weiss shouted.
The battalion scattered. The first burst caught two mages at the edge of its radius. Their barriers flared. One lost control and dropped toward the rooftops. Visha dove after him. Tanya intercepted her.
“Leave him to his wingman.”
“He’s falling.”
“Captain.”
Visha hesitated. The wounded mage’s partner reached him and stabilized his flight. Tanya seized Visha’s harness and dragged her away as another shell burst where she had been. Shrapnel rattled across Tanya’s barrier.
“Do not abandon formation without authorization.”
“He could have died.”
“So could you.”
Tanya’s grip tightened. Their faces were close. Close enough for Visha to see reflected fire in Tanya’s blue eyes. Close enough to notice the fear behind her anger. The song continued around them, its words circling the same truth. How many people could disappear before someone, somewhere, decided the price had become too high?
Visha swallowed.
“Yes, Major.”
Tanya released her.
“Maintain position.”
“Yes.”
Tanya looked away first. The Republican artillery observers remained hidden behind the western ridge. Grantz had destroyed the first team, but another had replaced it. Weiss marked the likely position.
“Major, permission to strike the ridge.”
“Denied. They expect an aerial assault.”
“Then how do we silence the guns?”
Tanya studied the terrain. The village sat in a shallow basin. To the west, a forested ridge concealed the observation post. South of it ran an abandoned rail spur, partly collapsed into a ravine. Republican mages were gathering above the ridge. At least forty. Fresh reserves. Tanya smiled. The expression sent a chill through Visha that had nothing to do with altitude.
“We will allow them to believe the song has damaged our morale.”
Grantz’s voice returned.
“Has it?”
“No.”
“Because I personally feel several new emotions.”
“You will survive them.”
“I’m not certain.”
“You will.”
Tanya switched to command frequency.
“All units, reduce speed. Loosen spacing. Simulate confusion.”
The 203rd hesitated. They had trained too well. Their first attempt at disorder produced an elegant staggered line. Tanya stared at it.
“That resembles choreography.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” Weiss said.
“Become less competent.”
The formation became marginally uglier.
“Worse.”
Grantz drifted backward and nearly collided with Koenig. Koenig cursed at him.
“Better,” Tanya said.
The Republican mages advanced. They must have believed the broadcast was a sign of desperation. Perhaps they thought the Empire had finally abandoned patriotic illusion and begun singing openly about defeat. Perhaps they assumed Tanya’s battalion had been shaken by hearing their own commander give voice to despair. It was a reasonable interpretation. The 203rd had cultivated a reputation for unreasonable outcomes. The enemy formation split into three groups. One moved high. Two descended on the flanks. Tanya watched them come. The song’s pace increased again. The singer had reached the portion about anger curdling into hatred, about screams nobody dared make aloud. Her voice had gained a raw edge beneath the studio polish. Grantz stopped joking. Weiss’s mouth became a thin line. Even the Republican pilots seemed quieter. The song was too bleak to dismiss and too direct to ignore. It did not promise meaning. It did not promise reward. It offered only the terrible possibility that everyone listening already understood the fraud and kept moving because stopping would kill them faster. The enemy crossed Tanya’s chosen line.
“Now,” she said.
The 203rd snapped into formation. Their first volley shattered the lower-left Republican element. The second drove the upper group toward the clouds. Tanya led the center through the gap. The sky became fire. Spells crossed in every direction. Defensive shells burst and reformed. Rifles cracked. Computation jewels screamed under overloaded formulas. Visha stayed on Tanya’s right. An enemy mage fired from above. Visha raised her barrier. The shot struck hard enough to numb her arm. Tanya rolled beneath her and returned fire. The enemy mage’s shield failed in a burst of green light. Another came from the left. Visha shot him through the thigh. He folded, screaming, and fell toward the trees. Tanya accelerated. The song’s rhythm aligned with her attack. Not perfectly. Nothing so convenient. But close enough that the battalion began to feel its momentum. The drums marked the pressure of the advance. The rise in the singer’s voice came with Tanya’s climb. The heavy brass struck as the 203rd rolled over the Republican center.
Weiss began calling firing intervals between phrases.
“Hold. Hold. Fire.”
Six rifles cracked. An enemy shield collapsed.
“Advance three seconds. Break right. Fire.”
Another Republican dropped. Grantz started humming beneath his breath. Koenig joined him. Not the melody itself, exactly. Just the rhythm. A wordless pulse over the command channel. Tanya heard it.
“Stop that.”
Grantz went silent. Three seconds later, Neumann picked it up.
Tanya’s eye twitched.
“Lieutenant Neumann.”
“Apologies, ma’am.”
The humming ceased. Visha lasted almost ten seconds. The sound escaped her without permission. Barely audible. Tanya turned. Visha smiled helplessly.
“The rhythm is useful.”
“It is contaminating the channel.”
“It helps with timing.”
“We have clocks.”
“Not musical ones.”
“Captain.”
“Yes, Major.”
Visha stopped. The Republican high element dived. Tanya met them head-on. She cast a wide suppression formula, forcing them to scatter. Weiss cut across their escape route. Grantz and Koenig climbed from below. The 203rd enclosed them. The song reached its most furious passage. The singer’s voice rose over the battlefield and condemned the language of victory itself. The lyrics treated defeat and triumph as labels applied by people who did not bleed for either. The words struck Tanya with the force of a physical blow. She remembered the recording room. A cramped studio beneath the Ministry of Information. A sweating sound engineer. Three civilian officials with expensive pens. They had asked her to read a “soldier’s perspective” for a morale campaign. She had assumed they wanted clipped phrases about discipline and duty.
The text they provided had been strange. Too honest. She had asked who wrote it. Nobody answered directly. One official claimed it had been assembled from letters taken at the front. Another called it “authentic emotional material.” A third promised that participation would improve the 203rd’s supply priority. Tanya had read the lines. Then they asked her to repeat them with greater force. Then again, slower. Then again, in rhythm. At no point had anyone used the word song. The melody had been added afterward. So had the orchestra. So had several notes beyond the range Tanya was prepared to admit possessing. She had filed a complaint. The Ministry responded by thanking her for her enthusiasm.
Now thousands of soldiers were hearing it. Possibly millions, if the national broadcast had begun. Tanya shot an enemy mage out of the sky.
“I am going to kill them.”
Visha fired beside her.
“The Republicans?”
“The Ministry.”
“After the Republicans?”
“Obviously.”
The enemy formation broke. Some fled west. Others dropped toward the ridge, hoping to shelter beneath anti-aircraft batteries. Tanya anticipated that too.
“Second Company, drive them south.”
The 203rd pressed. Republican mages retreated along the ridge. Directly over the abandoned railway spur.
“Detonate charges,” Tanya ordered.
Far below, Imperial engineers triggered the explosives planted during the previous night. The rail bed vanished. Stone and timber collapsed into the ravine. The blast tore through concealed Republican gun positions. Ammunition stores erupted beneath the trees. The observation post disintegrated. The artillery fell silent. A cheer ran through the Imperial line. The remaining Republican mages fled. The 203rd hovered above the shattered ridge. Smoke rose around them. The song entered its final section. The orchestration became enormous. Not triumphant. The melody climbed while the words returned to the same unbearable demand: continue, continue, continue, no matter what has been lost. The singer sounded exhausted now.
Not weak.
Never weak.
But worn down to something harder than hope. Tanya listened to her own voice asking how long despair could be repeated before it became the only anthem anyone remembered. For several seconds, nobody in the battalion spoke.
Then Grantz said quietly, “Major.”
Tanya did not threaten him.
“Yes?”
“Did you know what the words were when you recorded it?”
“Of course.”
“And they let you say all that?”
“They appeared delighted.”
“Why?”
“Because the Ministry is staffed by lunatics.”
Weiss looked toward the Imperial trenches. Soldiers were climbing from cover. Not recklessly. Not cheering now. They stood in small groups, listening. Some removed their helmets. Others stared toward the smoke where their comrades had died. The song had not inflamed them. It had recognized them. For once, the voice coming from a distant speaker did not claim their fear was weakness or their suffering glorious. It told them that terror was real, obedience was costly, and the people giving orders might never understand the price. Yet the marching rhythm continued. Not because the war was righteous. Because the soldier beside them was still moving.
Visha understood why the Ministry liked it. They had mistaken endurance for patriotism. They had heard the demand to advance and ignored everything surrounding it. They believed despair could be harnessed if the drums were loud enough. Tanya understood it too. Her expression twisted. Not quite anger. Something more complicated.
“The idiots,” she whispered.
Visha moved closer.
“Major?”
“They think it is encouraging.”
“It is.”
Tanya looked at her sharply.
Visha continued before courage failed.
“Not in the way they think.”
The final refrain approached. The battalion began returning toward the village. Their formation was slower now. Ammunition was low. Several mages were wounded. Koenig’s left barrier projector flickered. Grantz had blood running from his temple. Below, medics moved through the streets. The loudspeakers carried Tanya’s recorded voice over the ruined houses. Visha looked at the soldiers listening.
“They hear someone admitting what this costs,” she said. “That matters.”
“It does not change the cost.”
“No.”
“It does not make the dead less dead.”
“No.”
“It does not make the orders less absurd.”
“No.”
Visha met her eyes.
“But it tells them they are not cowards for hating it.”
Tanya said nothing. The music built. The battalion continued east. Grantz resumed humming. This time Tanya did not stop him. Koenig joined. Then Neumann. The sound spread gradually through the formation. No words. Only the tune’s grim, steady shape carried through closed mouths and tired throats. Weiss added a low harmony. It was not particularly good. Grantz glanced at him.
“Sir, are you flat?”
“I am senior to you.”
“That does not answer the question.”
“It should.”
Visha began humming too. Tanya flew in silence. The recorded voice rose toward the final passage. Its anger had burned itself down. What remained was grief disciplined into motion. Tanya’s mouth moved. At first, Visha thought she was speaking. Then she heard it.
Tanya was singing along. Quietly.
The words did not enter the command channel at first. They existed only in the air between her and Visha, carried beneath the engines of their flight formulas. Her live voice was different from the recording.
Lower.
Rougher.
Less controlled.
The studio version had been polished until every note marched in line. The voice beside Visha still carried breath, fatigue, and the slight rasp of smoke.
It was beautiful.
Not because it was sweet. Because it was true. Visha joined her without speaking the words loudly. Tanya glanced sideways. Her cheeks flushed. Visha expected an order to stop.
None came.
Weiss heard them next. His head turned. Then Grantz. Then the whole battalion. The humming died. For one suspended moment, Tanya sang alone above the battlefield. Her voice carried through an open microphone she had forgotten to mute. Every member of the 203rd heard her. So did the Imperial units below. The signals officer at the regional command post heard it too. He stared at the levels on his board. The live channel was cleaner than the ground microphones. The voice came through above the interference, fragile and immediate beneath the official recording.
He made a decision.
Later, he would insist that the patch had been accidental. No one would believe him. The regional loudspeakers shifted. Tanya’s voice joined the broadcast. She heard the echo from below.
Her eyes widened.
“Who did that?”
No one answered. Her voice now rolled across the valley twice: the polished recording and the living officer above it. The soldiers in the streets looked up. Visha saw Tanya consider stopping. Every instinct in her demanding it. This was exposure without tactical value. Vulnerability distributed across an entire army. A catastrophic breach of privacy and command decorum. Then the final section began. The words returned to sacrifice, distance, and voices swallowed by war. Tanya looked down at the men in the ruins. She saw one soldier holding the hand of another while a medic worked. She saw an officer kneeling beside a body he had no time to bury. She saw a boy who could not have been much older than Visha clutching a rifle with both hands because one had begun to shake.
Tanya continued singing. The 203rd joined her. Not beautifully. Grantz entered too early. Koenig missed a note. Weiss attempted harmony and produced something better suited to an artillery warning. Someone in Second Company forgot half the melody and compensated by singing the correct rhythm on a single vowel. Visha laughed in the middle of a line. That made Grantz laugh. His voice cracked. The formation wobbled.
Tanya stopped singing long enough to shout, “Maintain spacing!”
The battalion corrected itself. Then they resumed. Below, the Imperial soldiers joined. They did not know all the words. The song had only just been released. Most had heard it for the first time minutes earlier. But the structure repeated. They caught fragments. A line here. A phrase there. Enough to sing the shape of it. The result was ragged and immense. A battlefield choir assembled from infantrymen, medics, engineers, tank crews, signal operators, and twenty-four exhausted aerial mages. The Republican troops withdrawing beyond the ridge heard it. They expected a victory march. What reached them was something far more unsettling.
The enemy was singing about the horror of the war. About being used. About dying unseen. And they were advancing anyway. Not with joy. Not with blind loyalty. With the grim fellowship of people who understood exactly what the machine intended to do to them and had chosen, for one more day, not to let it take the person beside them. The final note faded. For a moment, the entire front seemed quiet. Then Imperial artillery fired. The guns resumed. The war continued.
Tanya closed her eyes.
“Anyone who speaks of this will be transferred to a penal accounting unit.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Weiss said.
Grantz raised a hand in flight.
“Does that include singing about it?”
“Especially singing.”
“What about humming?”
“Lieutenant.”
“Understood.”
The battalion descended toward the village. As they neared the ground, Visha moved closer to Tanya.
“Your microphone is still open.”
Tanya looked down. The channel indicator glowed. She switched it off with enough force to nearly break the device.
“Why did nobody tell me?”
“We were listening.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the honest one.”
Tanya landed in the courtyard of a damaged schoolhouse that had become the Imperial command post. Her boots touched mud. The battalion came down behind her. Infantrymen crowded the courtyard. They were filthy, exhausted, and grinning. Tanya immediately disliked the situation. A colonel pushed through the crowd. He saluted.
“Major Degurechaff.”
“Colonel.”
“That was extraordinary.”
“It was a communications failure.”
“It rallied the entire sector.”
“The destruction of the enemy artillery position rallied the sector.”
“The singing helped.”
“The singing occurred after the enemy withdrew.”
The colonel smiled.
“Then it helped afterward.”
Tanya stared at him. He wisely moved on.
“The Ministry is already requesting confirmation that you performed live.”
“The Ministry may request whatever it likes.”
“They intend to rebroadcast the engagement.”
“No.”
The colonel’s smile weakened.
“Major?”
“No.”
“It may not be optional.”
“Then I will make it expensive.”
The colonel looked toward Visha. Visha gave him a sympathetic expression. He saluted again and retreated. The battalion began dispersing toward ammunition checks, medical inspection, and debriefing. Grantz lingered. Tanya noticed.
“What?”
He appeared to be struggling with a dangerous impulse.
“Major, I wanted to say…”
“Do not.”
“It was…”
“Lieutenant.”
“Very…”
“Grantz.”
“Moving.”
The courtyard froze. Tanya’s eyes narrowed. Grantz saluted.
“I will report to latrine duty.”
“You will.”
“For how long?”
“Until the war ends.”
Grantz nodded solemnly.
“A just punishment.”
He turned away. Then, before Tanya could stop him, he began humming. Koenig joined from across the courtyard. Neumann answered from beside the ammunition truck. Within seconds, half the battalion had picked it up again. Tanya reached for her sidearm. Visha gently caught her wrist.
“Not in front of the infantry.”
“They are mutinying.”
“They are humming.”
“It is the beginning of mutiny.”
The humming spread into the command post. A wounded soldier joined from a stretcher. One of the medics picked up the rhythm. Tanya looked around at them. Nobody was mocking her. That was almost worse. They were grateful. She had no procedure for gratitude. No field manual covered what to do when several hundred soldiers looked at an officer as though she had given voice to something they had buried to keep functioning. Tanya pulled her wrist free from Visha’s hand. But she did not draw the pistol.
“Debriefing in twenty minutes,” she announced.
The humming stopped.
“Medical inspection first. Ammunition records immediately afterward. Any man who omits equipment damage because he is distracted by musical enthusiasm will reimburse the Empire personally.”
The soldiers scattered. Order returned. Mostly. Grantz hummed one last note before vanishing into the schoolhouse. Tanya heard it. Her eye twitched. Visha smiled.
“You encourage him.”
“I threaten him.”
“He interprets attention generously.”
“That is a severe cognitive defect.”
They entered the schoolhouse. The former classroom used by the 203rd smelled of wet wool, chalk dust, coffee substitute, and antiseptic. Maps covered one wall. Desks had been pushed together into a command table. Tanya removed her cap. Visha closed the door. The noise outside became muffled. For the first time since the broadcast began, they were alone. Tanya placed both hands on the table and lowered her head. Visha waited. Several seconds passed.
Then Tanya said, “I am going to destroy every copy.”
Visha leaned against the door.
“That may be difficult.”
“I have overcome difficult objectives.”
“It has already been broadcast across the front.”
“I will destroy the front.”
“That may affect the war effort.”
Tanya looked up. Visha smiled. The corner of Tanya’s mouth moved despite her. Only slightly.
“It was not amusing,” Tanya said.
“No.”
“You are smiling.”
“I’m relieved.”
“Why?”
“We survived.”
“That is generally the expected outcome of competent operations.”
“And because I learned something.”
Tanya became wary.
“What?”
Visha approached the table. The room felt smaller than it had a moment earlier.
“I learned why you always sound angry when headquarters talks about acceptable losses.”
“I sound angry because their projections are mathematically illiterate.”
“That too.”
“There is no ‘too.’”
Visha stopped beside her.
“Tanya.”
The use of her name changed the room. Tanya looked at the closed door. Then back at Visha.
“We are in an operational headquarters.”
“We are alone.”
“That does not alter the building’s function.”
“No.”
Visha reached toward her. Slowly. Giving Tanya time to refuse. Her fingers brushed a streak of soot from Tanya’s cheek. Tanya went still.
“You sounded sad,” Visha said.
“The recording was manipulated.”
“I mean when you sang with us.”
“That was tactical.”
Visha raised an eyebrow.
“Tactical singing?”
“The cadence improved group coordination.”
“Of course.”
“And abandoning the performance after it was patched into the ground broadcast might have disrupted morale.”
“Very practical.”
“Yes.”
“And singing quietly before they patched it through?”
Tanya did not answer. Visha’s thumb rested near the edge of her jaw. Tanya’s skin was warm.
“There was no tactical reason for that,” Visha said.
“You do not know every tactical variable.”
“No.”
“I may have been evaluating the acoustic properties of the formation.”
“In the middle of a retreat?”
“It was a return flight.”
“While blushing?”
Tanya caught Visha’s wrist. Her grip was firm. Visha’s breath caught. Tanya looked furious. Embarrassed. Cornered. And beneath it all, unbearably young.
“The song is dangerous,” Tanya said.
Visha’s smile faded.
“Because it criticizes the government?”
“Because soldiers may misunderstand it.”
“How?”
“They may think suffering creates moral authority. It does not. Pain does not make people wise. Sacrifice does not make a strategy correct. Death does not purify incompetence.”
Visha listened. Tanya’s grip loosened slightly.
“They will turn it into another tool,” Tanya continued. “They will tell soldiers that knowing they are being sacrificed somehow makes the sacrifice noble. They will wrap despair in orchestration and call it courage.”
“Yes.”
“They will praise endurance while remaining safely behind the lines.”
“Yes.”
“They will hear the order to continue and ignore the accusation beneath it.”
“Yes.”
Tanya’s voice lowered.
“They always do.”
Visha moved closer.
“But we heard it.”
Tanya looked at her.
“The 203rd heard it,” Visha said. “The infantry heard it. I heard it.”
“That changes nothing.”
“It changes how alone you are.”
Silence. Outside, someone shouted for a medic. A truck engine coughed to life. Distant guns rolled beyond the village. Tanya still held Visha’s wrist. Her thumb rested over Visha’s pulse.
“You are making an unjustified assumption,” Tanya said.
“About what?”
“That I felt alone.”
“You put an entire battlefield into a song.”
“I read a document.”
“You sang with us after the document ended.”
Tanya opened her mouth. Closed it. Visha leaned down. Their foreheads nearly touched.
“You can call it tactical,” she whispered.
“It was.”
“Then this can be tactical too.”
“What can?”
Visha kissed her. Softly. No sudden collision. No desperate grasp. Just warmth and the quiet pressure of lips in a room built for orders. Tanya froze. Visha began to withdraw. Then Tanya’s hand moved from her wrist to her sleeve. She held her there. The second kiss belonged to both of them. It deepened carefully. Tanya’s other hand found Visha’s waist. Visha rested one palm against the table and the other behind Tanya’s neck. They kissed beneath maps of the front, beside casualty reports and ammunition ledgers, while war continued beyond the classroom walls. When they separated, Tanya remained close. Her breathing was unsteady.
“This is not tactical,” she said.
“No.”
“It is reckless.”
“Yes.”
“It may compromise the command structure.”
“Probably.”
Tanya frowned.
“You agreed too quickly.”
“I’ve had time to consider it.”
“How much time?”
Visha thought of the Rhine. Of snowfields. Of hospital rooms. Of every glance across a briefing table.
“A while.”
Tanya’s face reddened again.
“That is extremely vague.”
“It is meant to be kind.”
“I do not require kindness.”
“No.”
Visha kissed the corner of her mouth. Tanya’s fingers tightened at her waist.
“Captain.”
“Yes, Major?”
“That was insubordinate.”
“I can write a report.”
“You will not.”
“A detailed one.”
“Absolutely not.”
“With recommendations.”
Tanya pulled her closer. Visha laughed against her lips. A floorboard creaked outside. They separated instantly. Tanya snatched up her cap. Visha straightened her uniform. The door opened three centimeters. Grantz’s eye appeared in the gap. Tanya drew her pistol. The door slammed. Footsteps fled down the corridor.
“Lieutenant Grantz!” Tanya roared.
From outside came his panicked response.
“I saw nothing, ma’am!”
“You opened the door!”
“I saw almost nothing!”
Tanya lunged toward the hallway. Visha caught her around the waist.
“Tanya.”
“He has forfeited his future.”
“You cannot execute him for poor timing.”
“I can reclassify it as espionage.”
Grantz’s footsteps receded. Then, faintly, he began humming. Tanya went rigid. The humming spread. Weiss joined from somewhere near the stairs. Koenig answered from the courtyard. Soon the entire command post vibrated with the melody. No words. Just the tune. A grim little march crawling through walls and under doors. Tanya stopped struggling. Visha rested her chin lightly on Tanya’s head.
“We’ll never escape it.”
“I will have them all transferred.”
“To where?”
“Different continents.”
“They’ll teach it to everyone there.”
“Then I will transfer myself.”
“I’ll follow.”
“That defeats the purpose.”
“For you, perhaps.”
Tanya turned in Visha’s arms. She looked tired. Mortified. And, somewhere beneath all that resistance, happy. It was not a grand happiness. Nothing in war was grand except explosions and administrative failure. It was small enough to fit between artillery reports. Small enough to hide behind a locked classroom door. Small enough to survive. Tanya glanced toward the hallway. The humming continued.
“If they perform this during inspection,” she said, “I will deny knowing any of them.”
“Of course.”
“And the Ministry will receive a formal complaint.”
“Naturally.”
“And the signals officer responsible for the live patch will be court-martialed.”
“Probably decorated.”
Tanya’s expression soured.
“Yes.”
Visha smiled. Tanya looked up at her.
“Do not ask me to sing again.”
“I won’t.”
“That answer was too easy.”
“I don’t need to ask.”
Tanya narrowed her eyes. Visha hummed one note. Tanya kissed her to stop it. Outside, the 203rd reached the rising part of the melody. Someone struck a desk in time like a drum. Grantz attempted a harmony and failed catastrophically. Weiss ordered him to stop. Nobody stopped. The song moved through the ruined village, through the trenches, through field hospitals and artillery pits. It carried no promise that the war was just, that sacrifice would be rewarded, or that victory would make the dead return. It promised nothing. Perhaps that was why the soldiers believed it.
And above the distant guns, behind a closed classroom door, Tanya von Degurechaff listened to her battalion mangle the tune she had never intended to sing.
For once, she did not order them silent.