Courtly Chronicles 8

I completely forgot I was supposed to post this today. Sorry about that. 

[Tanya Degurechaff von Goethe aka Tenya Deguchiya aka Archduchess von Goethe, circa 1927, age 13]

One of the primary criticisms Tanya has with the Japanese legal system is how the police were more concerned with getting plausible convictions than they were with catching the actual culprit to the majority of crimes. It was why the gathering of evidence was so important in hero work. Depending on the particular jurisdiction, you could get police that took a hero passing a criminal along to them as a mandate to make sure that person goes to jail, no matter what it takes. It was a troubling lesson to learn, but Mother’s farce of a trial was very much the exception, not the rule. The common accusation was Japanese prosecutors had a habit of passing on any case that didn’t include a signed confession, and while it wasn’t quite true, it was close enough to the truth to be rather disturbing given the lengths the police would go to to get such a confession.

As in all things, Tanya did their best to make sure they did not contribute to the problem while attempting to address the issue how they could. It was not as successful of an effort as most of their other accomplishments, but instilling a sense of responsibility in heroes did more to improve matters than anything else they tried. It didn’t really sit right with Tanya to essentially guilt heroes into being more careful with who they turn over to the police, but no one wields political power without learning the lesson of what you couldn’t accomplish with however much you had.

It was a lesson that served Tanya well in this life, and ended up with them here, at Lothiern. Tanya had always maligned the various interrogation techniques utilized by the police, they relied on imposing fear on the person they were subjected to, and that was no way to conduct an investigation.

But when it came to complicated negotiations? There was a little thing called ‘good cop, bad cop’ that worked incredibly well. Tanya was the reasonable one who just wanted all of this bloodshed to stop and for all of those young strappling lads to get out of army fatigues and back into work overalls. Farmers and factory workers are the backbone of the economy, and everyone loves it when the economy is doing well. The Kaiser, on the other hand, was the one who could, if given a bad enough deal, could hang Tanya for treason and then throw out whatever treaty was worked out. On top of that, if negotiations took too long… the Kaiser might get impatient, and given how many Francois citizens were in the range of the Empire’s guns… The Francois’s bargaining position was only so strong. Exploiting the honor and good nature of someone so blatantly was a very chancy proposition, even when facing Pro Heroes; It was unquestionably a bad idea when you were talking about Emperors.

But they did have some leverage. Much like how the Empire’s occupation of the Francois Republic represented a metaphorical sword to their throats, the Russy invasion of the Empire meant that the Empire could sorely use the hundreds of thousands of men that were tied up with the occupation. Further, the Albish and the Americans were still their allies, and while the Albish weren’t much of a concern, given the understanding Tanya was able to reach with them…

Any treaty that led to the Francois being unable to pay off their debts to their Americans was going to be heavily pushed against.

“Now Missy,” The American representative, Mr. Clint Jones, was one of the most odious men Tanya had met in this life. That was a position with some stiff competition. “-I’m not sure you’ve been understanding what I’ve been saying.”

When meeting with people, a common tactic was to flex your own power, make it clear that the person in front of you is less important. In their last life, Tanya favored the multitasking route. Not ignoring them, or making them wait, but handling some minor matter at the same time; Possibly hobby work rather than actual work.

So while Mr. Jones was condescending to them, Tanya was inspecting each and every part of the Rolex Modell 12 for warping, the civilian orb that they had been given to tinker with during the summit. It was a compromise, as the other nations never really believed that Tanya could cast better without an orb than with one, and the Empire would never allow them to inspect an Empire-made one to confirm that it was not a flight-capable orb.

“I suspect it’s the opposite, but go on ahead: What have you failed to convey?” Tanya wouldn’t ordinarily use such confrontational language, but Mr. Jones was annoying them. “It seems obvious to me: You’ve backed the wrong horse, bet the farm and now you’ve got to bite the bullet and pay the piper.” Rocketti was not a pro heroine that Tanya worked with for more than a few dozen cases, but they were an excellent source of folksy American idioms when she got drunk, which she did a lot. “You put all of your eggs in one basket, double downed, and gone bust.” Tanya glared at the idiot. “Was that enough Americanisms for you?”

“This isn’t just some bet at the races here, Missy.” Mr. Jones replied. “When that much money goes away, everyone starts hurting. It’s the kind of pain that makes the boys on Capitol Hill twitchy.”

“I’m sorry if I gave you the impression that I have pity for war profiteers.” Tanya retorted. “The Empire weren’t saints with their disproportionate response towards the Legadonian invasion, but the Francois invaded, in essence, because they thought they could win. Give the Kaiser a bloody nose and he’ll give in just so he won’t have to go to war with multiple nations.” Tanya shrugged. “The Unified States saw this and thought they could make money. So you all decided to lend them some, which they spent buying your guns.” Tanya snapped their fingers. “A fine investment, with an excellent potential rate of return.” Tanya took out the very last piece of the operations orb from the casing with their tweezers, setting it onto the silk cloth they were using to keep the tiny bits of metal safe from dust. “Alas, every investment comes with an element of risk. Every loan, a chance to default. It’s not my problem if you’ll have to bail out your rich industrialists… again.”

“Hey now, we’ve never done that!” The offended Mr. Jones spat back. Wait, when did America start doing that kind of thing?

“...I’ll need to fact check that.” Tanya admitted as they picked up a warped spring and a gear with a bent tooth with their tweezers, examining their dimensions with the aid of a lens formula. “I may have been attributing future acts to your government, and I apologize if that’s the case.” America was rather infamous for it, both before and after quirks.

“Right, this future timeline nonsense.” Mr. Jones said derisively. “I know you need to lie and cheat to do stuff that’s worth respecting, but invoking Delphi? Seriously?” Odious and sexist as the man was, he was at least a well-educated fool.

“You don’t hold any real power at this summit except in the form of inflating Francois’ opinion of how much leverage they have.” Tanya said flatly. “Everyone else accepts reincarnation as an adequate explanation for how someone my apparent age can be so knowledgeable.”

“That’s because they’re suckers.” Mr. Jones retorted. “You’re not some little girl, you’re just short and came up with this cock and bull story to gain credibility.” That was a new Americanism. Rocketti was not a fan of profanity, it was one of the reasons she got on so well with Vine, they were both devout Christians. From context, it was just another way to say bullshit.

“You’re welcome to think that.” Tanya said dryly, as they took the small ingot provided and invoked a quick formula to carve off a replacement for the broken gear, moving on to a much slower process to carve out the replacement spring. “It does not change the situation: You don’t scare me. From the very start of this conversation, you have blustered and intimidated. Spittle was boiled by my sterilization formula seven times. Your hand drifted towards your service pistol four times. You’ve attempted to bribe me five times. You’ve used my name zero times. You’ve used my title zero times. You’ve shown respect… zero times.” With the fresh spring properly created, Tanya began assembling the orb once more. “You’ve vaguely alluded to American military action twice. You’ve suggested that we should include in our demands an assurance that you be repaid promptly for the weapons you wielded against the Empire. You’ve implied that the Empire is somehow responsible for the war, and that our demands that the Republic assume that blame is therefore a large concession on their part. “ Normally, assembling an Operations orb takes about seven minutes if you knew exactly what you were doing. When you coded a script to assemble it in one large sequence instead of a series of steps, it took substantially less time. It was probably not the best idea to show off this technique to the oaf, but Mr. Jones wasn’t a mage, just a banker turned politician.

…Pro heroes were all a bit obsessed with drama and flair. With a flare of mana to start the assembly and one smooth motion, Tanya grabbed the active operations orb and set it to very slowly lift Tanya into the air as they stood up. Normally, an orb this limited couldn’t pull it off. That conventional wisdom relied on the fact that most military mages were eighty plus kilogram adult men, not forty kilo young women. “Now, Clint Northwood Jones, is there anything material to this meeting, or have you wasted my time?” Tanya once saw an American movie where the lead’s mother used their full name when angry with them. It seemed appropriate.

Mr. Jones flushed with anger. “You’ve made a very powerful enemy today, Missy.”

Tanya probably did. But allowing the Americans to push the Empire around without at least forcing them to use proper threats rather than the pathetic posturing this politician peddled? International relations in this time had everything to do with strength, real or perceived. It was still true in the future, but mutually assured destruction and the proven value of international trade blunted this kind of nonsense. Also Pro Heroes being used as proxies for military strength, that helped. “Please instruct your superiors to send someone older next time. I’m tired of dealing with impetuous children. Get out of my office, boy.”

The American seemed even more insulted at that diminutive than Tanya expected him to. Nevertheless, he at least had the sense to not risk the wrath of a mage with access to flight. He left without another word, still an impressive shade of scarlet.

Settling back down, Tanya examined the orb’s internal diagnostic tools. With another curse, they proceeded to once more disassemble the device. “Still too much. It’s not even the Elenium, it’s the bronze-zinc ratio. The resistance is too great, it’s heating up too much through the mana channeling…” Grumbling to themselves, Tanya got back to work.

They couldn’t wait to be back home, where the orbs aren’t crap. Some people would say that working with inferior hardware motivated you to be more efficient. That was bullshit.

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Despite operating under something of an ultimatum, the delegates weren’t locked into the hotel the talks had taken over. As such, Tanya took some time to wander the streets of Brabrant, Lothiern’s capital. It was still kind of odd, how everything’s names were so different. Belgium was Lothiern, Brussels was Brabant…

They had an escort, of course. Tanya was sent with about thirty military personnel, although half of them were support staff. They secured Tanya’s room, drove the car Tanya used to tour the city, and also drove the escort vehicle. They took shifts, so that five soldiers were theoretically assuring Tanya’s safety at all times. In practice, they just kept watch for anything shady going on. Some of those support staff were Imperial Intelligence, tasked with any counterespionage that needed doing. It was insulting to the competence of Lothiern’s own security forces… but the Kaiser was perfectly willing to issue that insult, and the force was small enough that it wasn’t worth raising too much of a stink over.

Skilled professionals, the lot of them. This included one very fetching lady by the name of Elya Roth. Her inclusion was breaking the rules of the summit, as she was a mage, and she had a smuggled military orb, a Francois model looted by the western army, but Tanya had snooped around a bit, and overheard a few of the Lothiern officers express consternation that the Imperials had played by the rules. As if that was a surprise. So even if they were caught, Tanya doesn’t expect there to be a huge stink over it. She apparently took basic training with Visha, which allowed for some delightful story exchanges.

“Her cheeks were puffed out so much I thought it was going to shoot out of her nose when she moaned in pleasure from the flavor.” Tanya said, telling the tale of Visha’s first experience with Japanese-style pancakes. “She somehow managed to swallow it, and immediately shoved the second pancake into her mouth, whole.”

Elya laughed at the image, faithfully reproduced by illusion. “Those pancakes do sound delicious, but seriously, Visha?” She shook her head ruefully at the other girl’s antics. “That reminds me of the time the drill sergeant threatened Visha with a skipped meal.” It’s always an empty threat, but lying to recruits was drill sergeant basics. “Her growl made the entire unit run for the rest of the exercise. A few of us actually thought there was an angry bear!”

Tanya chuckled at the image. “Visha does remind me a lot of myself: a peace loving person who nevertheless has a talent for violence and danger.” Come to think of it, didn’t Father threaten to deny Tanya dinner if they didn’t land a hit once back when they were ten? It was one of the few times Father had to call in a favor with a healing quirk user… who, in hindsight, was definitely a member of the MLA. He never did it again.

Elya hummed. “Well, I suppose you’d know better than me of her skill.” She said demurely.

Tanya got out of the car, walking towards the cafe the Prime Minister recommended. It was bustling, of course, but they had sent someone ahead to secure a table. “So have there been any plots that you’ve noticed? I’m curious.”

Elya shook her head. “Nothing definitive. There's maybe something from the Rus, but it could just be the local communists talking big.”

“Well, I may not be in law enforcement anymore, but I’d be willing to make an exception for communists.” Tanya said as they looked over the menu. It all looked exquisite… even if it will inevitably be lacking. It was a bit of an exaggeration, as unlike in Tanya’s time, the evils of communist governments weren’t fully known. But even the rank and file of the communists were generally the type to think that they were owed what others have, regardless of the merits of that position. Capitalism required the moderating hand of strong regulations to prevent the greatest excesses, but it was still the best system to maximize the average standard of living.

“Greetings, mademoiselles.” Said the waiter in Francois, despite them speaking Germanian with each other. “Are you ready to order?”

Tanya ordered in Francois without an issue, as did Elya. The recommendation of the Prime Minister were the famous waffles, so that and some additional pastries were the order of the day. The waiter showed the barest hint of disappointment for not confusing the foreigners by using the wrong language, but recovered quickly enough.

As the waiter left, Elya frowned a bit. “How many languages do you know?” She asked.

“Fluent in twenty-seven, literate in twelve more.” Tanya replied. “I tried to cover my bases, you see. One of the enduring consequences of colonization was that the primary languages of the European powers became the primary languages of large swathes of Africa-” Tanya paused. “The Southern Continent, and Iberian America. So I speak most of them. I ended up doing quite a bit of work in the Pacific Islands, so I picked up a few languages there, and I naturally picked up the languages of the neighbors, but really, you could find someone who spoke Eng- I mean Albish pretty much anywhere. It’s why they taught it to everyone in my country, although few actually became fluent in it.” Also, translator software made most of that language learning useless, but Momo loved learning languages even more than Tanya did, so they kept learning more.

“Now that one, I know, was on purpose.” Elya said with a wry smile.

Tanya gave a sneaky grin of their own. “Ah, the fact that everything has changed names shouldn’t bother me as much as it does. It’s like getting annoyed at a painting that’s slanted just a few degrees. You’re annoyed, and you’re annoyed at the fact you’re annoyed.” Tanya huffed. “It’s like that man over there that’s been following us.” Tanya said, to Elya’s visible surprise. “Yes, any plot they have couldn’t possibly succeed, but there’s going to be collateral damage, the Lothiern government’s going to raise a stink over the amount of force I’ll need to deal with them, or because a stray bullet from Hans over there hit a civilian, or whatever ends up happening.”

Elya checked her makeup with a compact, using the mirror to spot the man. “I would have noticed him if he was following us.” She said defensively.

“Well, that one’s only been following us for about two streets before setting up at that other cafe.” Tanya explained. “He had two comrades who passed the tail to each other, but they were too obvious with the pursuit, no one moves that purposefully for food they treat so dismissively. Good handoffs though. Well timed.” Tanya tutted at the poor craft. “It’s still sloppy work. I’m thinking they’re amateurs who are being organized by someone who knows what they’re doing. Given what you said about the communists, I’m guessing two or three Russy agents coordinating a larger group of local communists with minimal training in spycraft.” As was usual for this kind of conversation, Tanya kept their face casual and kept an appearance of complete ignorance of the observer. Elya followed Tanya’s lead without issue.

Despite outwardly seeming unbothered, Elya still seemed rather uncomfortable. “That’s a lot of guesswork.” She observed.

Tanya shrugged, smiling as if giggling to sell the deception. “Ah, it’s helpful to guess the worst case, but you must also remember not to overestimate your enemy’s resources. That way leads to madness.” Conspiracy theories, to be more precise. “Keep your models of your opposition realistic, but do not forget that your enemies can always work against you.” Tanya really should follow their own advice, but they’ve never seen a hint of Being X interfering in their life, beyond possibly Mary, but she was on the Empire’s side in the war. It didn’t make sense that she would be an agent of Being X that was directed against Tanya. “Ruining the peace talks benefits the Rus, but they must be careful; if they fail, they could instead turn the wrath of the Albish against them.” Theoretically they could also piss off the Legadonian Entente, but their military has been propped up by the Albish for months now, so it’s them that’s the actual threat.

Elya hummed at the question, passing it off as something lewd by placing her hands a certain distance from each other. Tanya dutifully pretended to be scandalized at the implied topic. “There’s not a lot we can do here beyond protecting you directly.” She eventually said. “Somehow I don’t think your intuition is going to be enough to nail a Lothiern citizen with anything, even a communist.”

Tanya waved off Elya’s concern, overacting it as trying to get Elya to put her hands down. “It’s not a concern. One of the side-benefits of working with limited mana for so long is that I have numerous formulae that can protect me with minimal mana usage right up until it actually needs to protect me.” Taking a deep breath to calm their temporary persona, Tanya continued. “I am somewhat concerned about them using drugs in my food as a vector for an attack, but you’ve been keeping me well protected from that.”

Elya hummed, taking on a smug mein to continue the false conversation. The observer wasn’t even uncomfortable, so he clearly didn’t have ears on the table. The formula Tanya was running to occlude such things was probably unnecessary. “Heinrich hasn’t caught anything amiss in the kitchen, don’t you worry, Tanya.”

Faking a blush with magic, Tanya made it look like they were scolding Elya. “Thank you. I have a few formulas that can help against some toxins and drugs, but I can’t use my quirk at all when I’m drunk. I don’t avoid it just because of this young body.” That was true, but deceptive. The drunker Tanya got, the less they could use Mathemagician, and even small amounts of intoxication significantly impaired them, but they would need to be outright pickled to be unable to do the simplest of formulae. In this world of plentiful mana, even simple effects can be a significant threat.

“No alcohol?” Elya asked. “How do you live like that?”

Tanya snorted, but then remembered how boring everything is in the early 19th century. “It’s easier than it sounds. Given the entertainment options you have, passing the time in a drunken haze does seem like a viable activity.”

“Oh, you probably have better birth control in the future, I didn’t consider that.” Elya said, a look of wonder on her face.

Tanya flushed genuinely at that. “What? No!” After a beat, she conceded the point. “Well, yes, there are many effective, safe, and inexpensive options for that.” Japan had to make some rather significant aid programs to incentivize having children at some point for a reason, after all. “But I was a very busy man, I didn’t have time for boredom, most of the time.” There was always something they were putting off at all times, so any boredom could immediately be turned into productivity.

“You know, Visha told me about your wife.” Elya teased. “She used to see me as the epitome of feminine beauty, you know? Key words there: Used. to.” Was that why Visha asked them to put her hair up like Momo’s that one time? Visha’s hair didn’t have the body necessary for it, unfortunately, and as a soldier she just didn’t have access to adequate hair care products to force the issue. They might not even exist, but Tanya never checked. They should really sit down with some chemists one of these days.

Mercifully, the food arrived. Heinrich saluted them as he left the kitchen and resumed his guard posting. With the food’s quality assured, Tanya dug in enthusiastically rather than responding to Elya’s unspoken question.

The observer’s table had a woman, possibly playing the role of the man’s wife or girlfriend, sit down, and they pretended to converse. If Tanya didn’t keep catching them checking back at Tanya’s table from sixty meters away, they would begin to have second thoughts about the observer’s cover. It was a painful example of how all the planning in the world can do nothing if you don’t have well-trained agents.

Jokes about the poor quality of 20th century ingredients aside, Tanya decided that these waffles would be able to sit among 23rd century desserts with pride. They will have to come here again. “So given that we can’t just stop the communists from keeping a close eye on our movements,” Tanya began, starting a new topic altogether rather than continue the last one. “-perhaps we could lay a trap? The Francois seem to be mostly trying to stall, and at first I was thinking they were just trying to get the Americans to intimidate me…” The initial suggestion to see the sights of Brabant was from one of Mr. Jones’ assistants, after all. “They may be attempting something covert. It wouldn’t make sense for them to want it to succeed, but if it was intended to fail, I can see a few potential benefits to them.” Benefits that would only manifest if Tanya was as helpless as they seemed to think bereft of magical protection. The type 95’s existence seemed to convince the other powers that Tanya just had it then, which was the source of their performance at the Arenne Evacuation.

It’s almost like they couldn’t believe that someone would hold as much power as Tanya did and not use it on the battlefield in the name of God and the Emperor. As if Tanya didn’t already do plenty to aid the war effort without needing to personally add tens of thousands of men onto their kill count. Tanya liked keeping that figure below their age, thank you.

It was more important to ensure the war actually ended, and Tanya wouldn’t trust one of those warmongers in the Imperial Court to accept anything that didn’t drive the Francois to the brink of despair. If that required Tanya to concede some kind of espionage victory to ‘manipulate’ them… then so be it. “Covert operatives have a tendency to wait until an opportune moment to strike, which is a nightmare to deal with. But if you were to manufacture an opportune moment for them…” Tanya trailed off for Elya to continue.

“Then you could bring them out of hiding! It wouldn’t work against skilled spies, who are too patient for that, but these aren’t skilled, and the ones that are aren’t the ones laying eyes on things.” Elya giggled honestly, which still extended the fake narrative of two girls chatting casually. “Even if they don’t bite, we’ll know they’re backed by someone competent.”

Tanya grinned. “If we time things right, we could even get any inside agents to tip their hands, by forcing the agents to go through security we do not control.”

Elya hummed. “If they do stop them…”

“Then maybe they’ll stop lollygagging to capitalize on my ‘gratitude’.” Tanya finished.

“Let’s go back to the hotel room.” Elya said. “Even with your magic, I’m nervous discussing operational details in the open like this.”

“Of course.”

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Boredom was the enemy. This was a lesson taught to Tanya at a very young age. Every moment can and should be spent productively, in any way that can be discerned. Now, Mother wasn’t entirely unreasonable when judging what counted as productive. She acknowledged that rest was important, she just had somewhat different opinions on how much rest was required.

Hawks taught a different lesson. Boredom was the result of someone thinking that they were not being productive, a form of fear that they would fall behind in the rat race of society. Fear, now that was the enemy.

As a result, Tanya had learned patience in waiting for the right time to act, or to be more precise they learned a meditation technique that allowed one to remain alert for things happening  while allowing time to pass you by.

Needless to say, that didn’t help much when the time you were bored was because you were in largely boring company. Thus, the plan to speed things along.

It was a simple plan, but flexible. First, they would get some bespoke clothing. While doing that, they would secure a “disguise” to allow for Tanya to travel more freely around Brabant. This part of the plan was a total success, as the communists did manage to get an ear in the tailor’s shop in the form of a serious looking young woman, exactly the kind of idealist that falls for the communist’s rhetoric. Tanya immediately bribed that woman to deliver the disguise to the hotel outside the view of Tanya’s security detail.

Combined with increasing the expression of frustration on how things were going in ways that maximized gossip propagation among the hotel staff, the stage was set.

At first, Tanya got a little worried when the outfit didn’t have any listening devices or anything, but Elya reminded them that there just wasn’t a transceiver discreet enough to work without using mana. In other words, no spy bugs.

Tanya “locked themselves in their room, not to be disturbed” on the morning of the thirteenth day of the summit. Meanwhile, rather than being blonde with hair worn in a style befitting an ojou-sama, hair drills and all (a private joke they decided to use for the summit), the understated but warm dress they were wearing before, the girl who left the hotel had brown hair tied into a side ponytail, a lighter dress that really didn’t fit the weather, a sweater on top of that, and garters holding up their long socks. Where Tanya usually preferred to keep calm and serious, they instead took on an intensely interested, fun-loving persona for this trap. The perfect victim for anyone who would have untoward intentions. If it wasn’t for the fact that Tanya ensured the communists would know exactly what they were wearing, it would be a perfect disguise.

They were really just tossing it across the plate here, but baseball metaphors aside, if they had any plans at all requiring Tanya’s security to drop… here was their chance.

Wandering the streets of Brabant was a distinctly different experience. They pretended to look around with a sense of wonder, but wandering as another unknown civilian was easy enough to achieve that it didn’t provoke any genuine emotion. Just another day on the job. Idly, as they walked, Tanya noticed a pickpocket. It was an older man, fleecing the easy targets as naturally as he walked. More naturally, in fact, as he had a small limp that didn’t seem faked.

It was an easy matter to appreh-wait. Tanya wasn’t patrolling today. Or ever. As they were already on an interception trajectory, Tanya transitioned their approach to instead just trip the man as he attempted to grab the wallet within Tanya’s purse. Wallets spilled out of the man’s coat, marking his profession easily. Tanya made a production of grabbing their wallet back. “Why I never!” With a feminine sniff of anger, Tanya stomped a dainty foot on the man’s arm before storming off. A large man placed a foot on the man’s back to restrain him, calling for the constables as the other people in the street checked their pockets.

Leaving the growing scene behind, Tanya noted their tail had swapped. Good, that means they can coordinate. Tanya pretended to browse the stores, taking the opportunity to do a little bit of market research for their post-war corporation.

After thirty minutes of such browsing, Tanya walked into a park and planted themselves at a shady tree, pretending to take a nap in clear view of the group of men that had been following Tanya for the last five streets. What was taking them so long? Tanya used a sound formula to spy on them.

“Look, she’s right there. In and out, no orb, she’s powerless.” Whispered one voice in Dutc-Flemish. It’s called Flemish here.

“Come on, look at her. You’ve seen how happy she was to be out and about. How can kidnapping such a cute girl be the right thing?” Whispered another.

“...I can’t do it, comrades.” Admitted a third. “Kidnapping a child, no matter how important, it’s not right.”

“Look, that ‘little girl’ is an Imperial Archduchess, and she’s only here to ensure the Empire can crush Communism in the crib.” The first voice said again. “Before it can flourish to bring the world together in harmonious collectivism. It doesn’t matter that she’s a little girl, she needs to go so the frogs can get their balls back.”

A fourth voice spoke up. “I thought the point was to deliver her to the NKVD?”

“Yeah? They need to interrogate her or something.” The first voice replied.

“There’s stories about what happens to little girls that get near Loliya.” The fourth voice said with a shudder. Oh?

A moment of silence passed between the Lothiern citizens. “Abort.” The first person eventually said. “What do we tell Comrade Volkov?”

“It was a trap.” The second said immediately. “It was too easy, you got a gut feeling, and then you saw an Imperial Soldier nearby.” Tanya resisted the impulse to groan.

“Good idea, Finn.” The first voice said. “Back to the party headquarters.”

This time, Tanya did groan in frustration. “This is why you can’t count on Communists to do anything right.” Tanya said to themselves as they stood back up. “It attracts the lazy and unmotivated. On top of that, the leadership is always so unimaginably corrupt that this bullshit happens.” Tanya walked past where Elya was hiding and gestured for her to follow.

After another block, Tanya asked: “Who is Loliya? He should be associated with the NKVD.”

“The Rus secret police?” Elya asked to fill time as she thought. “He’s the head of it. One of the few men that report directly to Comrade Josef.” Imperial intelligence couldn’t really infiltrate the Russy Federation properly, to Tanya’s understanding, but there were enough prisoners of war to interrogate that widely-known information with Rus was known to them.

“Does there happen to be any rumors that you know of related to that man and young girls?” Tanya asked dangerously.

“Many, but only one or two that are considered credible.” Elya replied. “I suspect you already know the nature of those rumors.”

“Of course they are.” Tanya replied bitterly.

Fucking. Communists.

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