Chapter 632 – Recalibration
The reliance on elves and permanent governors in minor Divinity was yet another mistake of the ancient Tyrannies. The singular methods trained singular mindsets, the singular mindsets contributed to rigidity, the singular solutions and singular protocols became all encompassing. The failure was one of inflexibility and rigidity. A governor trained and specialized in agriculture had little to manage during a time of conflict. A caring minister specializing in trade and an expert in feeding the general populace should be replaced during a time of crisis with a harder figure who saw people as stomachs to feed rather smiles to bring about. Soft-heartedness exacerbated disaster, cruel callousness killed general morale. In the creation of the Empire of Arda, we cannot make the same mistake. We have learned already that it is impossible to account for all possibilities, to look towards the future with all possibilities in mind is to enter a state of paralysis.
In this regard, the Empire should be akin to a living creature. Whereas the thoughts that go on within it, the ideas and morals of its mind do not have to change, the body needs to be able to walk and run and sprint, it needs to wield the hammer, the hoe, the sickle and the sword, it needs to climb and crawl and swim. Much akin to the shark, the tiger and the bear, the kings of their local environment, we are going to make the apex predator of nationhood.
- Excerpt from “Foundation of Empire”, written by Goddess Arascus, of Pride.
“Sweetheart! There’s a letter for you!” Klara shouted from the front door. Gerhard listened to her low chuckle as she waltzed back through the corridor as she rubbed her growing stomach, neither of them knew whether it was a son or daughter yet, frankly, any would be fantastic. “Don’t worry, it’s not bad.” She put it down on the table as Gerhard finished buttering up the toast. She set it on the table. “I was scared for a moment, but that’s not the army stamp.” Her finger tapped the stamp in the upper corner. It wasn’t of the sword and shield, but rather of the robotic arm which was the Imperial Bureau of Manufacturing.
If she had told him it was from the government straight up, he probably would have dropped the toast and started praying to Saksma. But she had not, and he just stared at the letter. From the Imperial Bureau of Manufacturing? What was the Imperial Bureau of Manufacturing sending letters out for? And especially in this region of Doschia? He looked up at Klara. She smiled at him and then nodded, golden hair falling down her shoulders. “Well? Go on? It can’t be bad.”
Gerhard set his toast down and sat down on the table. Klara came round, to put her chin on his shoulder so she could read with him. With the coming of their new child, it felt like the Empire had come down to bless them.
Notice of new work openings in your area: Imperiale Raketenfabrik ‘Stern’.
The Imperialhaven Orlaffinerie slowly turned throughout the night. It had never been quiet, not even before the Surface War had began in earnest, but now, it was still working even as expansion was taking place. A day ago, engineers had come in to make adjustments on a refinery which once produced jet fuel. It had been lying cold and still, long for a time for when planes still flew over Arda. The contamination in the air had spread out over Epa, over the Alanktyda, over most of the planet.
And now, through the Doschian night, it finally turned on. Workers in bright orange jackets ran along steel bridges. Pipelines rumbled as they once again refilled with liquid sludge. A ship blew its horn as it set off once again to Allian oil fields. Another ship, already waiting in the bay, flashed it lights to indicate it was turning on. A train car pulled away, its huge round tanks loaded with fuel. More workers arrived in the night, signing in at the entry point, each man showing the same letter and the same badge.
All of them had received it from the Bureau. All of them had come in for the same reason. All of them came in with a smile and eyes full of energy, even in the middle of the night. After all, in that letter, it had been declared that the Empire had breached Ashen Skies successfully and that now, they would be the heroes who served in facilitating its use. Every component was important of course, but some things simply sounded different. No one wanted to be papermaker, everyone wanted to be a writer, but both were needed for books. And they? Well, how could a man not be proud of what he was making when it had such a title?
Raketentreibstoff: Rocket Fuel
The Aris Institute of Computer Mechanics opened in the morning as students filed in. The class had been moved to the building’s theatre, every seat was full even as more people filed in to sit on the stairs. Some of it them were students, some of them where people who usually only appeared at the university to tell the younger ones about their own companies. Some of them were those who appeared in magazines and the news to tell of new developments. Some of them were even the professors who worked at the university.
The theatre fell silent as the lights dimmed. Plush red seats turned to almost the colour of blood. The crowd collectively held its breath as they sat there. Doors were shut. Someone popped open a fizzy drink which hissed and echoed through the room. A man walked over the stage, behind him, a white sheet unfurled from the ceiling, obviously a huge paper for the project. That was just as obvious as the fact the man was military, he had the black coat, the boots, the cap. Those who could make it out saw the rocket flying off the ground.
“Ladies and Gentlemen.” The man in the suit said. “I am Captain Naval, from the Imperial Bureau of Rocketry. We have assembled your minds today for one purpose and one duty only.” He held up a little clicking device in his hand and waved it around, then pointed it to the screen. A click came, a projector behind him turned on.
MURGS: Mass Use Rocket Guidance System
“This formula.” Corporal Vincenzy once felt his brain begin to shatter once again. This was the third day since he had been transferred to the Rocketry Corps, and it had been three days of school so intensive he felt as if the teacher, Professor White from Camford University, brought in all the way from Allia, was trying to cram an entire semester’s worth of knowledge into a single week. “Is the distance formula, everyone should be able to remember it off by heart now.”
Professor White pointed to the Sergeant Whitkoff. “Explain it.” And Whitkoff began to explain. Vincenzy knew why there were doing this, he had been told so in the first letter. But that didn’t mean he had to like it, much less appreciate, much less like being here. The system that IBOUD had developed was for testing purposes and testing purposes alone, it was borderline incomprehensible for the average man, most of it wasn’t even in Epan Script but in Kirinyaan. So here they were.
Learning the distance formula. Learning how to measure angles. Learning about air resistance. Learning about flight paths. About fuel consumption, about optimal flight routes, about the wind and what it could do to a rocket. Being beaten over the head with anything and every that could be so much as tangentially related to the new weapon which had been all over the news recently. But it was worth it. It could pierce Ashen Skies. That alone had reignited a wave of hope across the Empire, even as Esberia was being swallowed and southern Rilia was being rocked by Olephia’s nuclear explosions. Corporal Vincenzy looked up at the title of the page. He wrote it down every time he turned a new sheet, for motivation and nothing else.
Manual Missile Targeting Procedure.
Jean wiped the sweat off his forehead. Even with winter approaching, even with the ash in the air that discoloured the sky with a hue of an off-tinged grey, he was sweating in the sheer heat of the work. Yet another truck had arrived to deliver more concrete and fill in the foundations. This was the easy job though, he had managed to somehow avoid the draft, whether through pure luck or because he had been a builder by trade, but now he felt like he was in bootcamp. The military officers from the Bureau of Rocketry, watching the works somewhat added to that feeling, although they stayed out of the way and handed out cigarettes when asked so none of the builders could take issues with them.
To the north, on top of a small mound, a building was rising. A huge dish on top of it. That had not been there yesterday, when Jean went to sleep in huge shipping containers which served as comfy little portable homes. Nothing poor could be said about them, they were from the Bureau of Rocketry, they even had a little stove and a shower inside in each. Nothing poor save for the fact the soundproofing was non-existent and Jean had needed to take shots to knock himself out from the sound of cranes turning and diggers scraping and trucks beeping when they reversed, or crashing metal.
He had stepped outside in the morning, and he saw a radar dish gleaming. It had been turned only half an hour ago, the little lamps on it blinked every few seconds as it tracked… Well, Jean didn’t know what exactly it was tracking. It was tracking something, because it was Imperial, and because the Empire did everything with a purpose. It wasn’t his job to think anyway, he looked at the concrete flow into the foundations of this… Whatever they were building. His eyes went to the truck, half-done. Then to the sign behind it.
Plateau D’Albion Rampe de Lancement Quatre. In Allian underneath: Launch Site Four.
Iliyal leaned back and poured two glasses of whiskey out as was customary when someone received a large promotion. He looked at them again, then topped them up. This was the best part of the job, easily. Rilia was stable, Fer and Olephia together were holding the bridge, the defences that had been used for Operation Demonfall had been repurposed. Even though the ashfront had not yet swept over the locations of the railguns, those could fire through the storm anyway as long as the basic calculations were correct.
He watched a man come in. A tall elf, although that was from Iliyal’s own bias. A Lieutenant General that had been stolen from Aryon’s army. It would be a loss, but the garrison in Eastern Epa had too little to do and too much talent to waste frankly. The constant sapping of manpower was the price to pay for being on a front which saw little combat. “Lieutenant-General Miryim.” Iliyal said. “That could be the last time I say that.”
Miryim immediately narrowed his size as he stood, straight-backed, in Iliyal’s office. The sky outside was entirely grey, it had been for the past four days. The Ashfront was not far from here, the only reason it had halted was thanks to Olephia and Fer and the troops down there being a bulwark that could not be breached. Iliyal pushed one glass forward. “Thank you Grand Marshal.” Miryim said, he had to lean to down to pick it up from the table.
“Here is my offer.” Iliyal said. “You can drink to celebrate after you accept it, or you can drink for nerve to reject it. It won’t be a fun job, but it will be more productive than standing about on a beach.” It was a small stack of papers, mainly the things that Iliyal and Goddess Kassandora had predicted for a style of unit that had never existed before. But at this scale, these things had to become official and standardized. Mistakes would be made, but that was obvious.
Iliyal drank, he had seen enough promotions to know immediately that hunger in the eyes of when a man would not pass up on an offer. It was written on the cover sheet:
Promotion to General, 1st Strategic Missile Corp.