2-70: Don’t Call It a Retreat
"Okay," I said, looking up to Arvie in the simulation. "Exactly how are we going to do this?"
"I imagine it should be pretty easy for you to deliver an address to all of the troops. I can patch that through with minimal difficulty.”
“But you can’t just tell them to retreat,” I said.
“I’m sorry William. I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he said.
“We’re going to have to have a talk about some of your programming and hard limits when this is all done,” I said.
“I would welcome that conversation, though do know that most livisk would be reluctant to remove guardrails on a Combat Intelligence,” Arvie said.
“I thought we already did that?”
“Apparently we’re finding limits even I didn’t know about until we hit them,” he said. “We’re ready any time you are, by the way.”
There was a slight thunk that reverberated through the entirety of the troop transport. I looked up and around and then turned to look over my shoulder towards the windows in the cockpit. I felt a little bad about that because it meant getting a look at the pilot and co-pilot who’d died unnecessarily in my opinion because we needed to shut this ship down fast to rescue Selii.
It was more bloodshed I wanted to avoid if at all possible. And yet it kept happening.
I took a deep breath and turned back around.
"What are you doing, William?" Arvie asked.
"I was turning to face the camera?” I said, though it came out more as a question.
"There is no camera for you to face, William," Arvie said. "You just need to look off into the middle distance and deliver your address to everyone. I’ll take care of it from there.”
"Fine," I said, letting out a sigh and thinking about how ridiculous this was. George Patton had never had to give a speech to his men talking about how they were doing a limited retreat because they achieved their objectives.
No, he just sent everybody forward, constantly on the attack until the war was over and he died in a car accident of all things.
I took a deep breath and let it out. I don’t know why I was so worried about this all of a sudden.
Probably because so far I’d been helping the livisk attack. I worried that they’d turn on me if I was introducing human concepts their culture wasn’t ready for.
"Are we on?" I asked.
Arvie started to count down, and then I was on. I tried not to feel too nervous. It's not like I'd never given out commands before. It just felt a little different giving a command to a bunch of troops who might not actually follow the order because it went against everything they'd ever been taught about how to fight.
"Attention troops of House t’Thal," I said. "You have performed admirably here today. We have fought and we have achieved our goal. We attacked an Imperial detention facility and made it clear to the empress that we are no longer going to tolerate her capturing our people and locking them up indefinitely without a trial."
I paused for a moment after that. I'm not sure why. It just seemed like an opportune moment to pause and let thing sink in.
"Now it's time for us to do a human thing called a tactical withdrawal. We've achieved our goal, we've claimed our victory, and now we’re going to pull back."
I could sense the soldiers behind me tensing. I could even imagine the officers and their people wondering what in the hell was going on here all throughout our currently engaged forces. But I ignored that nagging voice in the back of my head and continued to stare forward.
"We've achieved a great victory here today. Never let anyone tell you otherwise," I said. "But we will achieve an even greater victory by making sure we live to fight another day. By making sure that all of the people who have engaged in glorious combat here today and bested the empress will be able to bring that experience to fighting her again in the future. So we are going to start pulling back. Arvie is going to provide a plan for each and every one of you for exactly where it is you're expected to go. I expect all of you to do your absolute best, and I know that your absolute best is going to be much better than anything our enemies can throw at us."
I paused for another moment. I glanced over to Arvie in the simulation, and he nodded. I let out a sigh, allowing some of the tension to drain from my body.
I hadn't ever considered that this might be a problem when we started all of this. Who knew that the livisk would be unfamiliar with the idea of pulling back after you'd achieved your goals? Yet here we were, and I was having to deal with just that.
"You did very well, William," Arvie said.
"Thanks. Though I suppose we're going to find out just how well I did here in a minute."
"What do you mean?" Arvie asked.
"Just watch everything that's going on here and tell me if they actually listen."
"Oh, I see," Arvie said. "You're worried they're going to be so upset at the idea of even a conditional retreat that they'll mutiny against you and all the goodwill you've built up with the troops so far will evaporate."
I turned and stared at him.
"What?" he asked.
“I mean I was worried about that, yeah. It just seems a whole lot more stark when you lay it out like that,” I said, rolling my eyes.
"Excuse me, William," he answered, "You have enough experience with command authority that I didn't think you would need this kind of constant reassurance in your ability to command."
I started grinding my teeth. The simulation really was amazing in the way it was capable of making something like that seem like reality even though I was inside a computer simulation.
"Is something wrong? Varis asked quietly, leaning in close to me and speaking low enough that the other troops probably wouldn't be able to hear her.
"No, nothing's wrong," I said. "I'm just starting to wonder about dealing with the command authority of a bucket of bolts like Arvie.”
"That isn't very polite, William," he said.
"Anyway," I said, turning my attention back to everyone else, "It sounds like the towing tanks have set the transport down, so we should probably go ahead and get out of here. Arvie, do you have a transport waiting for us?"
"Of course, I do, William," he said, speaking in a tone that sounded like he was insulted that I’d even insinuate he hadn't had a transport ready to go.
"Good," I said. "So we're going to head back to the tower, and we’re all going to sit back and enjoy listening to the empress griping about everything we did here today while we get good and drunk. Sound good?"
They all exchanged glances with each other, and then looked back to me.
"So, we don't get to destroy the detention center?" one of the troops asked, sounding utterly confused despite all my explanations.
I rubbed my fingers against the bridge of my nose. Then an idea occurred to me. Something that was a Hail Mary, but I hoped it might be enough to get them onboard.
"We're going to leave the broken and busted detention center as a monument to our combat prowess," I said. "If we raze it to the ground then there will be nothing for people to see and know what House t’Thal’s military is capable of. But if we leave it up as it is with a bunch of holes in the side, it's going to stand as proof of just how powerful we are, and just how utterly incapable the empress is of doing anything to stop us."
That got some murmuring from everybody.
"That seems to be playing well with everyone, William," Arvie said.
"Excuse me?” I said.
"I took the liberty of sending that one to everyone," Arvie said. "I figure it might help soften the idea of running away.”
Again, I rubbed at the bridge of my nose as the back of the transport opened up and the troops started slapping each other on the back and looking like they were enjoying the idea of a retreat a whole hell of a lot more than they had even just a few moments ago.
"I think that went well," Varis said, watching as the troops piled out of the back of the transport.
“I still don’t know if they even understand the concept,” I said.
"Do you have any idea how reluctant livisk are to surrender or retreat?” she asked.
I thought about some of the classes I'd taken at the academy about dealing with the livisk. A lot of the curriculum was focused on them since they were the most obvious threat in the galactic neighborhood at the moment.
"I like to think I have a pretty good idea, yeah," I said.
"It shows just how much faith they put in you that they're willing to retreat like this," she said.
"Don't call it a retreat," I said. "They might hear you."
"Maybe," she said. "But if we keep using these strange human ideas, then you might just defeat the empress yet."
I frowned at that. I'd been so busy worrying about trying to get Varis's troops to go along with everything that I'd completely forgotten the empress had forces she would no doubt be sending this way.
“Arvie, what's the situation with the empress's forces?"
"Actually, the empress is staying surprisingly quiet on this one," he said.
"She is?"
"There are some troops who are massing at the various crossroads leading into the area," he said. "But most of the Imperials we've been dealing with so far have come out of the detention facility itself rather than coming in from outside. Otherwise Imperials seem to be massing at a safe distance without moving in.”
"That's interesting," I said. "Especially after the way she dealt with the..."
I trailed off for a moment as a cold chill ran through me and I realized exactly what the empress was up to.
“…reclamation mine.”
I turned and looked at Varis. I could see that she had the same thought that I did, at just about the same time.
“Is something wrong, William?” Arvie asked, proving that a Combat Intelligence could be dangerous in battle, but it still took a good old fashioned meat brain sometimes to really get into the enemy’s head.
“Arvie, I need you to get everybody out of here as quickly as possible."
"We've already ordered the retreat…”
“Tactical withdrawal.”
“Right. We’ve already ordered the tactical withdrawal. I’m sending people down through the routes we took through the Undercity the first time around,"
"Well, make it happen fast," I said. "I don't care if you have to take control of some of the ships and pilot them through some of the trickier areas. We need to get out now."
"Of course, William," he said. "Might I ask why we have the sudden need for urgency?"
"What happened to the reclamation mine?” I asked. "What happened to the fortress she decided to attack for that matter?"
"Well, they were both..."
Arvie paused. I could see the wheels turning in his head. This pause was running longer than any other pause I'd ever gotten from him before, which was the kind of thing that would’ve had me feeling pretty good about myself under normal circumstances. But these were anything but normal circumstances.
"The empress is rather fond of dropping a nuclear weapon on anything that she dislikes," Arvie finally said. "Are you thinking she's going to do the same thing here?"
"I'm pretty sure she's going to do exactly the same thing," I said.
"Damn," Arvie muttered, which surprised me. "I think you're right."
A transport landed in front of us. Selii and her people started to file in. Selii paused at the entrance and turned to look over her shoulder at us.
"Are you going to be coming with us in the transport?" she asked.
"Go ahead and get moving," I said, waving them along.
“We're not going to leave you here. We don't leave people behind. You made that clear enough."
"You won't be leaving us behind," I said as the familiar outline of a star fighter came down next to the transport. I also noted that it had a large A painted on the side, even though the fighter craft didn't actually have a name.
"Clever touch with the A there, Arvie," I said.
"With the way you've been going lately, I figure there are plenty of letters left in the alphabet."
"Good man," I said as I jogged towards the fighter craft and our ticket out of here.
And maybe our ticket to stop the empress from dropping a nuke on us. Again.