A Young Woman's Political Record 43 (Patreon)

AN1: Per my patreon commitment, expect two chapters per week for the foreseeable future. It won't always be YWPR, but it will always be 4-6k words at my usual quality. FYI, I count weeks Mon-Sun.

ooOoo

March 26, 1941

The Francois Republic held off on taking the bait for longer than I had expected. It wasn't until after my third night in their country that I was woken up by the sound of artillery.

Fortunately, by that time our little expeditionary force was well dug in. Our right was anchored by the Saar river, from which point the line ran southeast until reaching a heavily forested area. Overall, the defensive terrain wasn't perfect, but it wasn't bad. We were camped out among a series of rolling hills, facing largely flat terrain. It was the kind of setup that I would have tried to avoid attacking, but it wasn't foreboding enough to ward off the Franks.

Our overarching goal was to hold out long enough for the forces we'd left behind in Germania to make their way south and form a pocket, and also to avoid scaring off the Frankish army before they were surrounded. Mostly, the latter requirement meant that we had to make it seem possible that they might win the magical battle. Since they only brought three hundred mages with them—a roughly even split between colonial and native Franks—our two incognito mage battalions would have to remain in reserve.

Neumann was, of course, in command of aerial operations. I'd been torn over whether I ought to reinstate myself at my old rank or award myself some new rank. In the end, I'd just assigned myself as a special observer attached to Neumann's command platoon. I had put on an aerial mage's uniform free of any rank insignia and limited my decorations to the Silver Wings Assault Badge. It was enough to entitle me to the protection of a uniformed combatant under the laws of war, while the simple appearance kept my image free of any associations with tin pot military dictators. Avoiding the confusion of having two majors in one battalion was an added bonus.

I was impressed with the performance of Neumann's battalion. Our enemies had tried to corral us by splitting into two. One unit had three battalions of Frankish mages and seemed intended to act as the hammer, while the remaining Frankish and colonial mages acted as a slow moving anvil. Whatever their intentions, Neumann led us in a graceful aerial dance around them, staying safely out of range the whole time. He even created a few opportunities for devastating attack runs. Most impressively, he showed restraint and passed those chances by, putting the needs of the mission ahead of his own killer instinct.

I was able to spare some attention to observe the battle below. The Francois Republic had come after us with what looked like fifteen or twenty divisions, along with a decent helping of armored support. We hadn't had enough time to set up serious fortifications, but our defensive lines were at least to the point that the tanks couldn't just roll right through. Without heavy magical support, clearing out our defenses would come down to an infantry slugging match.

Credit to the Franks, they were up for it. Each time we passed over the battlefield, they had pushed just a little farther into our defenses. They had paid the price for every meter. Even as I was lamenting their progress, I saw a flight of Jo 87s pass over the battlefield, their revolver cannons doing a number on the foremost enemy tank. The crew bailed out, scrambling out of the way of the next tank in line as it moved forward to take aim at our most vulnerable bunker. Our defenses weren't to the point of breaking, but they were more strained than I would have liked.

The bulk of our air fleet was elsewhere, working to keep Frankish planes away from the battlefield in general and especially to keep them from spotting our reinforcements. The only air support available was from the improvised landing strip we'd set up behind our defenses.

For their part, the Francois Republic's entire focus in the air was on our battalion. I kept expecting their mages to take advantage of their numbers to break off and attack our ground troops, but they never wavered from their attempts to bring us to battle. My plan to act as bait proved extremely effective, although I had to share the credit with Neumann's ability to keep our battalion dangling right on the edge of being trapped for hours on end.

Our ground troops fought hard even as they gave ground in the face of relentless Frankish assaults. They were finally pushed back to the final defensive line, but still showed no sign of giving up. Salvation came when the forward elements of Romel's army linked up with our left flank in the mid-afternoon. The Frankish army finally had to break off their offensive upon finding themselves under fire from all sides.

With the enemy forces more or less surrounded, our other two battalions of mages were finally allowed into the action. We gave the Frankish mages a pretty good mauling before they fled the battlefield, leaving the ground troops stuck in the jaws of a trap.

The rest of the day was spent digging in to prevent the enemy army from slipping away. I did my part, providing harassing fire from the air in order to help stymie any dangerous counterattacks. By the time evening fell, ending my latest stint of aerial combat, I thought that I had put in a pretty good day's work.

I spent most of the next day in the command tent with Ziegler and Romel. It was the first time that I'd been so close to a battle without taking part in it personally. Conducting warfare by issuing orders at a normal conversational tone of voice while watching attendants push pieces around on a map... I couldn't help the bittersweet feeling that welled up within me. If I'd just had a few more years before the Great War broke out I might have advanced far enough up the ladder that this would have been my only experience of battle.

Well, there was no use of dwelling on what might have been. I kept my regrets to myself and just watched quietly as the Frankish position began to collapse. It was to be expected. Cut off from help or retreat and under intense attack from the air, any troops would have started to waver. This army wasn't the hardened group of elites that had made up their initial invasion force, either. By mid afternoon I was confident that everything would be wrapped up by next morning at the latest.

"General Romel, are the preparations for Operation Red Carpet complete?" I asked, taking advantage of a lull in the action.

He nodded. "One hundred P-50 tanks and one hundred tracked APCs have been set aside, along with trucks carrying enough fuel and spare parts to get to Parisee."

"Excellent. We'll leave at dusk," I said. "I'll also be taking three battalions of aerial mages with me."

Two additional battalions had made the dash south along with Romel. With the Frankish mages knocked out of the fight, they should be more than sufficient to handle whatever tasks might come up as Romel and Ziegler finished cleaning up the pocketed troops.

"Please remember to notify Berun that the operation is a go," I added.

With three aerial mage battalions by my side I would be able to extract myself from any kind of sticky situation, but the non-magical troops under my command wouldn't be so lucky. I wouldn't have risked the embarrassment of getting them killed on a dangerous gamble if I didn't have Elya tilting the odds in my favor.

"Yes, Chancellor," Romel said. He hesitated for a moment before continuing. "Chancellor, the risk of this operation compared to the military gains... are you sure you want to go through with this?"

"The Francois Republic has happily gotten drunk on the wine of victory," I said, smiling. "I intend to wake them from their delusions and force them to face the hangover and bar tab."

The force I would be leading, while highly mobile and capable of punching above its weight, was still woefully inadequate when it came to accomplishing any direct military objective. It should be just about the right size, though, for a direct assault on enemy morale.

ooOoo

March 27, 1941

Carl Troeger had always wanted to fly. It was a great disappointment to him as a child when he tested negative for magical ability. Even so, he'd held on to the dream of flight and sought out a recruiter for the Germanian Air Force as soon as he turned eighteen. He'd told the man that he wanted to be a pilot. After being put through a battery of tests, the recruiter had assured him that with his scores he'd be flying fighter planes in no time.

When he'd mentioned his dream during basic training, the instructor had taken one look at him and burst out laughing. Once the man had calmed down, he explained that at his height and size Troeger wouldn't even fit in the Germanian fighter planes. And that the air force wasn't going to entrust one of its precious bombers to the hands of a rookie pilot.

He'd stuck it out through basic training. He wasn't a quitter. But he'd written a letter to his uncle to start sounding out whether he could transfer over to the army and try and make it as a parachute trooper. He didn't think they had any height restrictions, and there was no point being in the air force if he was going to be stuck on the ground.

While he was waiting to hear back, he was told that based on his test scores he could put in for training as a bombardier. He'd gone along with it and found he enjoyed the work. It was an important job, it got him up in the air, and he seemed to have a knack for it. Judging angles, picking the right time to act, it all just came naturally.

By the time he heard back from his uncle he felt a little embarrassed at ever having doubted his future in the air force. Fortunately, it was simple enough to write back and decline his offer to help.

Life in the military during peace time was a steady diet of training and testing. Troeger had a lot to learn in order to perform his duties as both bombardier and navigator, but he'd picked it up quickly. It hadn't taken long before his team had a mortal lock on first place in the base's weekly bombing accuracy competitions. Which was nice, but it didn't mean much more than a free beer every week from the guys in last place.

At least, not until the top scorers were all recruited into a secret project. It all had sounded a bit crazy the first time they told him about it. Who ever heard of aiming a bomb after it had been dropped? But the training had proven reasonably straightforward and, as always, Troeger had a good eye for angles and timing. Soon enough his crew had been topping a new leaderboard, with the new bomb—the FX guidance package, inevitably picking up the nickname 'Fritz'—allowing for accuracy on a level that he previously would have considered a joke.

Improved accuracy or not, it had still been the same old peacetime routine of training, training, testing, and more training. Troeger enjoyed being in the air and he liked the challenge of putting bombs on target, but life in the military wasn't quite as exciting as he'd expected.

Then the Francois Republic invaded.

He had been excited to do his part and drop a few bombs on the invading army. Unfortunately, his crew and their plane, along with the whole experimental bombing squadron, were instead transferred up to an airfield in Daneland. They had hurried up there right after the war started. Then they had to wait around without bombing anybody for a few days until they were finally called in for a mission briefing.

The plan called for a bold, sophisticated strike against the Frankish blockade. Troeger had stepped out of the briefing room excited and ready to go. Then they had been told that low lying clouds meant that the operation would have to wait. The next day, another briefing, refreshing their memories from the day before. Then another delay.

Finally, almost two weeks after the war had started, the day dawned bright and clear. Troeger had a good feeling that was confirmed when the control tower told them the mission was a go. After being briefed so many times he had the whole mission memorized, let alone his part in it. For all the times he'd been in the air, he still felt a bit nervous as they took off for the first time with the intent of bombing the enemy.

The cramped seating in the Jo 88 bomber made it relatively easy to talk to each other, but for a good few minutes after they were under way the only sound that filled the cabin was the growl of the engines and the buzz of the propellers clawing through the air. It was their pilot who finally spoke up.

"I'm glad we finally get to take Fritz out to meet some new people. He was going a bit strange, cooped up in the hangar all day."

A veteran of the Great War, Kaspar Alspach had taken the younger members of the crew under his wing, so to speak, as they had come together to learn their trade. He and Troeger were sat almost shoulder to shoulder whenever they were in the air, and had almost been forced by proximity to become friends. It was only natural that he'd make the effort to settle their nerves.

"I'm sure his new friends will be very impressed to meet him."

Gerhard Fieser was the rear gunner and radio man, seated back to back with Troeger. He'd entered the air force at the same time as Troeger and Johan Heuss, the ventral gunner. He was a natural genius with electronic equipment but a lousy skat player.

"Carl just has to make sure introductions go smoothly," Heuss called up from his position, lying on the belly of the plane behind Alspach.

"Yeah, yeah," Troeger said, "Fritz is a good boy, everything will be fine."

The tension drained out of him as the cabin started to feel more like it had during all their training. It was almost enough to make him forget that they were doing anything special until he saw the pair of mages up ahead, using flares to indicate their new heading.

Troeger had mixed feelings about the extravagant use of mages as navigation aids. It was an obvious sign of the importance the navy and air force were both putting on this mission. He was a bit put out to be effectively relieved of his own duties as a navigator, but on the other hand he was relieved not to have to steer them over a featureless ocean by dead reckoning.

He turned his head around and watched the flares disappear into the distance as Alspach put them on their new course. He wondered how the mages felt to be limited to directing traffic. They were probably capable of keeping up with the bomber squadron, but the brass had emphasized that magic was not to be used anywhere that enemy detection was even remotely possible until the attack began.

Besides the mages off in the distance, he could also see the rest of their squadron. All told, twelve bombers were carrying guided bombs to their rendezvous with the Frankish navy. Another two bombers had been specially modified to bring a more magical cargo along. All were Jo 88s, and the twin engine bombers were making good time, even with Fritz bolted to the undercarriage to disrupt their aerodynamics.

It wasn't long before the Germanian navy's lone aircraft carrier came into view, surrounded by a protective huddle of six destroyers. All thirty six of the Count Bützow's Bf 109 fighter planes were already circling in midair, waiting for their arrival. The last of the Jo 87s were still waiting to take off. The poky dive bombers would be part of the second wave of attacks.

The fighters now took the lead, accelerating enough to put a bit of space between themselves and Troeger's squadron. Even with the ungainly missile pods under each wing, the Bf 109 was a beautiful machine. Troeger couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy as he watched them flit through the air. It was easier to shake off the feeling than it might have been a month ago. After all, the fighter planes might look impressive in flight, but they couldn't do much to an enemy warship.

Troeger wasn't just admiring the pretty planes. He'd had it pounded into his head time after time during training that everybody on a bomber was on lookout duty. Tearing his gaze away from the fighters up ahead, he diligently scanned left to right and up and down. The first sign that they were headed in the right direction came in the form of friendly ships in the water below. Fourteen destroyers, heading full steam ahead in the same direction they were flying.

Troeger took advantage of the opportunity to do an initial calibration of his bomb sight, though he was extra careful to make sure it was safed. The sight was a clockwork contraption that could control the plane with an autopilot, adjust for airspeed and crosswinds, and even release the bomb without any further input once he'd set a target. It was fussy and complicated compared to the simple devices he had initially been trained on, but he couldn't argue with the results.

The destroyers slipped away out of sight below, and Troeger turned his attention to the gun in front of him. If he had to use it on this mission then it meant that something had gone badly wrong, but that was no reason to be sloppy. He confirmed again what he had already checked before takeoff and satisfied himself that he wouldn't have a problem firing at any target that presented itself.

The first he knew that they had reached the enemy was when four fighters peeled out from the group leading the way. A moment later he saw the flickering lights of rocket engines trailing lines of smoke as the battle with what must have been the Frankish air patrol kicked off. At least two of the missiles exploded. Troeger winced, remembering the video he had seen describing the missile's effects. He didn't think those fighters would be a problem.

He turned his attention to his bomb sight. In addition to the view straight down, it also had a telescopic lens aiming out ahead of the aircraft. He used that to peek ahead and let out an involuntary whistle.

"That's their whole damn fleet," he said, before pulling himself away from the bomb sight to address Fieser. "We'll take the flattop."

He turned back to the bomb sight and listened with one ear as Fieser relayed the direction. Their group of twelve bombers had been divided into four chains of three. Each chain would focus on one target, one after the other. Troeger's performance on the training ground had earned him the place of chain one, bomber one, and first pick of target. Once he'd confirmed that the carrier was present, it was an easy choice.

Part of it was because it was the easiest ship to pick out. The mission briefing had claimed that the Francois Navy was keeping the bulk of their fleet together near the center of the blockade, ostensibly out of fear of defeat in detail. The actual blockading was being carried out by a mixture of airplanes and destroyers, with the main body of the fleet poised to beat back any moves made by the Germanian Navy.

Even with less than a year under his belt, Troeger knew to be skeptical of military intelligence, but they'd nailed their prediction this time. In addition to the aircraft carrier, there were at least six battleships down there and maybe thirty other ships, a mix of destroyers and cruisers. It was enough firepower to make him feel nervous, even five thousand meters up in the air.

"Starting the bombing run," Alspach said, bringing them more or less on a course to pass over the aircraft carrier.

"Starting the bombing run," Troeger echoed, activating the bomb sight. The autopilot allowed for finer adjustments of their flight path compared to trying to relay verbal directions to the pilot.

The first thing to do was to designate the aircraft carrier as the target. Once that was locked in, he watched as the ship drifted out of the crosshairs. This was not just because the ship was moving, but also the action of the bomb sight demonstrating that not every variable had yet been accounted for.

He fiddled with the controls to put the carrier back in the center of the crosshairs. He felt the plane shift around him in response. The carrier drifted out of the center again, slower this time. He adjusted the controls until it was steady. The rest of the world gradually faded away. There was nothing but his target, a set of crosshairs, and the controls he had to use to bring them together.

He couldn't have said how many times he adjusted the bomb sight before he heard a great thunk as Fritz was released from their bomber to begin his journey.

Alspach knew what to do. He didn't hesitate to take back control of the aircraft and pull them back into a steep climb. No matter how many times they did it in training, Troeger still felt a little unsettled at the feeling of his stomach being left a thousand meters below.

He suppressed the tinge of nausea with the aid of experience and kept his focus on the bomb sight. With the aiming correction disengaged, it gave him a gyroscopically stabilized view of the sea beneath them. Alspach had done his job well. They were passing right over the carrier. The technicians had done their job well, too, as a bright purple dot appeared beneath them, steadily closing in on the ship below.

"I see it!" Troeger announced.

The air force had reached deep into its bag of tricks for this mission. Each chain of bombers had seen its bombs outfitted with specially treated flares that would burn with different colors. Purple, red, orange, and green. There would be no confusion as to which bomb was which.

Troeger shifted his hands over to the joystick that controlled the flight of the bomb. Fritz was looking to miss to the left. He clicked the stick over to the right, and the dot below him shifted right. For a moment, Troeger almost felt he could see the long chain of people stretching out behind him, from the scientist who had designed the guided bomb to the scouts who tracked the enemy fleet to the generals who had planned out this battle to the men sitting beside him in the plane. All working together to deliver this bomb to this target in this moment.

As long as he did his part.

The carrier was moving a bit quicker than he'd expected. He clicked the joystick down, sending Fritz out to lead the target a bit more.

The controls of the guided bomb were simple. In principle, moving a dot so that it was on top of a target was also simple. In practice, the trickiest part was to judge how long it would take Fritz to reach the ground. Troeger had developed a pretty decent gut feeling, but he still dreaded the thought of leading off the whole attack by dropping a bomb in front of or behind his target.

He clicked the stick right twice, then down. The carrier had gone into a turn. The dot was still a little ways in front, but Troeger felt good about it.

It almost looked like the carrier was running to catch Fritz before he could hit the water. The dot held in place as the ship slid underneath until suddenly the dot disappeared. A moment later a great cloud of black smoke billowed up from the target.

"Hit!" Troeger called out.

Alspach responded immediately, pouring on the power and banking into a sharp turn. Troeger felt better to be off their predictable course, even if all of the Frankish anti-aircraft fire had looked to be exploding beneath them.

"Ha! I knew it! Good job, Carl!" Fieser said.

"Calm down and do your job," Alspach chided him, "even without a place to land their fighters can come after us."

"They're going to be busy," Fieser grumbled, but he turned his attention back to scanning the sky behind them.

"It only takes one asshole," Alspach said, before glancing over at Carl. "Nice work, Troeger."

"Thanks," he said, looking over at the pilot.

With his job as a bombardier over, Troeger was back on lookout duty. Thankfully, the enemy fighters did appear to be otherwise occupied. The only movement that caught his eye came as they flew past one of the other bombers. Its bomb bay doors opened up and a whole stream of mages came tumbling out into mid air. He couldn't help but stare at the sight.

Alspach followed his gaze. "They're crazy bastards. I'm glad they're on our side."

Troeger nodded. The next phase of the plan called for mages, dive bombers, and fighter planes to all work together at close range. Part of him yearned for the excitement, but another part of him was starting to appreciate the privilege of doing his work five kilometers in the air.

ooOoo

March 28, 1941

Ian Flemons took the last drag from his cigarette, then used it to get the next one started. He looked down to make extra sure he stubbed out the butt in an ashtray rather than his coffee cup. Normally he wouldn't have to worry about that kind of thing, but normally he was operating on more than an hour of sleep.

A ship of the Francois Republic's navy had shown up in Albish waters the previous day, packed to the gills with aerial mages and happy to share all the information they had so long as they didn't have to fight the Devil any longer. The awkward politics of offering asylum to the troops of a friendly nation would be somebody else's problem. The task of gathering and analyzing the proffered information as quickly as possible was his.

In a way, it was flattering to be tapped for such an important assignment. It was stressful work, though, and with each project like this Flemons could feel his dream of securing a posting to the Caribbean drifting just a little further out of reach.

He took a sip from his coffee as he surveyed the room. He welcomed the scalding heat as it gave him something to focus on other than the sheer quantity of people gathered around who could ruin his career with a word. Flemons wasn't given to stage fright, but even so he could feel some butterflies in his stomach. If he cocked this up, forget about the Caribbean, he'd be lucky not to be posted to the Falklands to count penguins.

The room itself was quite impressive. The dominating feature was an enormous map of the southern region of the North Sea that took up most of the sunken area in the center of the room. The map was large enough to require a separate attendant to be stationed in each cardinal direction to push units about. A cluster of thirty-eight ship models on the edge of the Germanian bight, two hundred miles north of Amstreldam, depicted the state of forces as of yesterday morning.

Flemons himself was at the front of the room, on a level with the audience, standing behind a podium and in front of a projection screen. Using magic during an informational briefing was considered somewhat gauche, which meant that he had spent several tedious hours after he finished his analysis assembling slides for rush development. He could only hope that they had all made it into the projector in the proper order.

The raised seating that circled the room was occupied by, as far as Flemons could tell, whomever had the political pull to obtain an invitation. He'd known that the Royal Navy employed a great many admirals, but he'd never seen so many of them gathered in one place before. Not to mention the cluster of men in suits surrounding a figure that he had only ever seen in newsreels.

Churbull noticed his scrutiny and favored him with a friendly smile. "Oh, don't mind me. It's such a mess on the continent right now that I couldn't resist the chance to hear some straight answers."

That confusing mess was precisely the reason that so many august personages were in attendance. Thanks to the chill in their relation with the Francois Republic, there had been no permission granted for Albish observers to spectate the beginning of the war. The less friendly attempts to gather information had turned up a mixed bag. One report would claim that the Francois army was one battle away from winning the whole war, the next would state that the Devil herself was burning the country to the ground on her way to Parisee. It was enough to make Flemons wonder if the Franks themselves had any idea how the war was progressing.

Now that the Prime Minister had spoken, it was time for him to begin. Flemons set down his coffee and gestured to the young lady running the slide projector. A moment later the first slide appeared on the screen behind him, detailing the balance of forces. For the Francois Republic: five battleships, an aircraft carrier, ten cruisers, and twenty two destroyers. For Germania, one aircraft carrier and fourteen destroyers. By displacement, it was roughly three hundred thousand tons against fifty thousand.

He took a long drag from his cigarette. Best to give the audience a moment to read the slide before he began. Nerves settled, he exhaled.

"Yesterday was the worst day for the Francois Republic's navy since Trafalgar," Flemons said. Strictly the numbers, it was probably the worst day ever. "I can speak with some confidence as to what transpired, but I am afraid I can only speculate as to what Admiral Duquesne was thinking."

Their little ship of refugees contained a great many mages with a great many recordings of what had transpired, which made discerning the facts of the matter a simple matter of diligent effort. Unfortunately, nobody on the ship had been on the bridge of the Frankish flagship. They had a record of the orders given, but no explanation as to why.

"At 8:45 in the morning, a pilot on close air patrol reported a small fleet of Germanian destroyers approaching from the southeast," Flemons said. He gestured, and the southern map attendant pushed fourteen figurines bearing the Germanian flag into place. "The order was given to maintain their present heading and speed. Over the next hour, the destroyers closed to within fifty miles of the fleet."

The attendant dutifully moved the figurines closer to the fleet. Flemons signaled the projectionist, and the data slide was replaced by a photograph of an explosion devastating an airplane in mid air. The slide was the result of magnifying a still frame of a recording taken from some distance away, blurring the details, but it was still straightforward enough to make out what was happening.

"The initial attack came through the air. Seen here is the rumored Germanian unrotated projectile," Flemons said. "It seems quite effective, although given the numerical disparity the choice of weapon hardly mattered. Germanian forces counted some thirty six fighters and fourteen bombers. They were up against four fighters, the remaining Frankish airplanes either parked on the Béarn or scattered about to enforce the blockade."

"With the sky cleared, the bombers could go to work," Flemons said. "Twelve bombs were dropped, of which nine hit their target."

"That's good work."

Flemons wasn't sure who had spoken, but as they no doubt outranked him he took the interruption in stride. "Impossibly good. Attacking a moving ship from twenty thousand feet, just one hit out of twelve would be fortunate."

Even the bomb sight manufacturers wouldn't claim a seventy five percent hit rate. They had to keep their exaggerations plausible in order to close a sale.

"The bombs had to have been guided somehow," Flemons continued. "Nobody's made a guidance spell work on anything larger than a bullet without taking the mage along for the ride, but if anybody has cracked it, well..."

He cleared his throat and looked down at his notes. Every man in this room would have his own speculations, and most of them had far more experience in naval warfare than he did. He intended to stick to the facts.

"At this point, the Béarn was a total loss. Jean Bart and Parisee were badly damaged, but perhaps salvageable," Flemons said. "Dunkerque had taken one hit and lost all power, and would have needed to be towed back to port."

He paused for a moment to let the damage report sink in. All told, capital ships totaling over a hundred thousand tons in displacement had been crippled or destroyed in a single bombing run.

"The next phase of the attack began with the last two bombers dropping twenty mages each into the battle," Flemons continued. "The mages joined up with the fighters and two newly arrived squadrons of dive bombers to attack the two undamaged battleships."

He signaled the advance to the next slide. He was rather proud of it, as it had taken quite a late night screaming fit to convince the technician to combine four photographs into one. The top left showed a rocket lancing out from beneath a fighter plane. The top right caught a team of mages as they peppered their target with explosive spells. The bottom left showed a dive bomber pulling up shortly after releasing its bomb, while the bottom right showed a departing dive bomber disintegrating under anti-aircraft fire.

"It was at this point that the Germanians suffered their only casualties, losing three dive bombers and one fighter plane," Flemons said. "In exchange, the Strasbourg and Richelieu were both badly battered. The Strasbourg would have needed help just to get back to port, and both would have needed months of repairs."

He paused again, double checking his notes. "I should add that the unrotated projectiles did not do significant damage to either ship, but were effective in suppressing anti-aircraft fire, as were the aerial mages."

"At this point the Germanian air force headed for home, but the mages were just starting their work," Flemons continued. "To begin with, their attack on the battleships culminated with a boarding action."

"A boarding action?"

"Someone ring Jackie and see if he kept his old training manuals."

Flemons ignored the byplay. He'd had an extra few hours to get over the shock of seeing a boarding party do their work in the twentieth century. Once you set aside the absurdity of the idea, the danger of mages in close combat made sobering food for thought. The Frankish sailors hadn't been able to do much more than fort up inside and prepare for a siege, despite having a handful of marine mages on board.

He again advanced to the next slide. This photograph showed a platoon of Germanian mages hovering over a quadruple gun turret, each in various stages of the process of fishing something out of the backpack they were wearing.

"They used what appear to be shaped charges to disable the primary armaments," Flemons said, "as well as directing explosive spells at anything that looked a likely target."

Even Germanian mages couldn't do much against a warship's heavy armor. However, there were an awful lot of things on a modern warship that weren't behind heavy armor.

"Rather than attempt to seize a ship outright, the mages moved on once the damage was done. They then proceeded to gather together and proceed from ship to ship," he continued. "The low altitude made firing on them extremely difficult. Over two battalions of Frankish mages were present at the battle, but they were scattered throughout the fleet. The result was a great deal of superficial damage and overall chaos."

He looked around the room and saw to his satisfaction that the sense of amusement had largely disappeared. Instead he could see concern starting to spread as his audience considered how they would fare when faced with a heavy battalion of mages running amok at close range.

"The Frankish formation became more compressed throughout the battle in an attempt to provide mutual support and to concentrate anti-aircraft fire," Flemons said. "They may have been able to drive off the mages eventually, but it was at this point that the Germanian destroyers entered the fray."

He waited a moment for the attendants down below to push the ships around in accordance with their earlier directions. The Frankish ships were pushed closer together, while the Germanians split up. Six destroyers approached from the south, while four each attacked from the south east and north east. Even with all the damage that had already been done, the Germanians would have been severe underdogs in the coming fight, if not for the last trick up their sleeve.

The next slide came from a recording that had actually been taken later in the battle by a mage fleeing a sinking ship. It provided the cleanest view that Flemons had been able to find of a Germanian destroyer on an attack run. For the slide, Flemons had captured a photograph of the moment after a torpedo had been fired but before it splashed into the water.

"At thirty feet long, this torpedo can make forty five to fifty five knots and is deadly from at least eight miles out," Flemons said. "It leaves less of a bubble trail than you might expect, and it appears to be on a magnetic detonator."

Out of all the new information, this tidbit was the most galling. Before Degurechaff, he would have had the design document to this torpedo on his desk before it had even been prototyped. Now, with his sources going missing or clamming up almost as soon as he could develop them, he had to wait for the weapon to be deployed in battle before he could even begin to analyze it.

"The Germanians made a series of attacks from five to eight miles away," he continued. "Under the circumstances, the Frankish gunnery was understandably poor, and, well."

The next slide was the last photograph he'd extracted, looking back over the rail of a Frankish destroyer at what had once been a fleet. Broken ships, all in various stages of sinking into the water, filled the screen.

"The Volta had been detached to blockade duty. It began steaming towards the battle as soon as it began, and turned to run once it was clear that she would be no help," Flemons said. "The marine mages flocked to the last visible ship still afloat. The Germanians began rescue operations rather than pursue."

He gestured for the projectionist to advance to the final slide. This was a duplicate of the original slide comparing the number of ships available for each side, except that the ships that had been lost were marked with an x, while the ships whose fates were unknown were marked with a question mark. It was a sobering sight.

"In the last war a lot of aerial mages learned their business by cribbing from Degurechaff's notes," Flemons said. "It seems school is back in session. We're fortunate that the Francois Republic has footed the bill for our tuition."

"Degurechaff's notes? Surely some other bright sparks must exist in that country."

Flemons looked up to see that the question had come from Admiral Godsby. He felt a brief flash of trepidation as he realized that he had overstepped his bounds. He gave Godsby a grateful nod. By jumping in front of the question, his boss had given him a chance to defend his point without having to contradict somebody who would hold a grudge.

"I daresay it's her vision being put into place. If I may?" Flemons asked, holding up his computation orb. Receiving a nod, he continued. "This is from a conversation in October, 1939."

He pulled up the recording that he had reviewed many times before. Degurechaff's familiar face appeared next to the projection screen.

"Naturally, victory at sea begins in the air."

He kept the recording playing as she disdained the battleship before revealing what still looked to him to be genuine ignorance of the Jeune École. He had never been able to figure out just how thoroughly she had been toying with him that day in Hambrück.

"The age of great naval gun battles is drawing to a close. But you're right, it's not over yet."

He stopped the recording. Words that had once seemed like pie in the sky futurism took on a rather ominous cast when juxtaposed against a list of the carnage wrought the previous day.

The room was silent for a moment before Churbull let out a great bark of laughter. "She just told us what she was going to do! And they say the woman has no sense of humor."

Flemons noticed that his cigarette had burnt itself out. He dropped it in the ashtray and fished out the next one. The rest of this conversation was going to be above his pay grade.

"Now, Dudley," Churbull began, turning to address the First Sea Lord, "could we have done this?"

"Could we have sunk the Frankish fleet? Certainly," Admiral Rogers began. "Could we have achieved the same victory with the same resources? Not as such, no. We're working on our own implementation of the technologies on display, but they haven't yet reached maturity."

The impressive thing about the battle, in Flemons's opinion, didn't come from any particular wonder weapon but rather from the level of coordination and cooperation on display. That was what had compounded each incremental advantage until the result became so lopsided. He could only imagine how much time Degurechaff had spent riding herd on her admirals in order to convince them to adopt such novel tactics. Of course, he knew better than to speak up when he was faced with such a wonderful opportunity to keep his mouth shut.

"Hmm," Churbull said, tapping his cigar against an ashtray. "Are they any threat to us?"

"No," Admiral Rogers said, not hesitating in the least. "An opponent to be respected, certainly, but yesterday's battle involved substantially their entire navy."

"I see," Churbull said, then sighed. "I must admit, what truly worries me is this: if this is happening at sea, how badly have they cocked up the war on the ground?"

ooOoo

AN2: This campaign is going to spawn a lot of alt-history fiction.

AN3: Also, every time I do an Albish PoV I slip into British spelling. I think I caught everything on re-reading.