“They’ll be along, they’ll be along.” He laughed. “They’re being brought in from the Eponar air base, full of new parts. But they’ll be a couple of hours or so.”
“We can adjust the itinerary,” Zima said. “Are you hungry?”
“Famished. Unless it’s you who’s cooking.” He chuckled at his own joke and turned to Linné. Here it came. She steeled herself for the wide eyes, the recognition. “You ever tried anything your commander made?”
He still didn’t know her. She supposed it wasn’t so strange—she’d last seen him years ago, and she didn’t exactly look the same in her soldier’s uniform. “No, sir.” She kept her eyes trained on the empty field.
“It’s probably why you’re still here,” Tcerlin said, and elbowed Zima. “She cooked for Isaak once. We nearly put her on trial for attempted poisoning. Then we gave her a medal instead.” Still laughing, he made his way off the field, hooking his arm through Zima’s so that she was dragged in tow.
Linné followed not far behind. She couldn’t help thinking that the last time she’d seen Tcerlin, he hadn’t seemed like such an ass.
“I doubt you’ll find Intelgard to your liking,” Tcerlin said as they toured the base. “I requisitioned as much of the field for you as I dared before the other squadron commanders started muttering about murder.” He guffawed again. Linné knew full well if anyone had breathed so much as a syllable of discontent, they’d be off to the mines before their subordinates could finish saying thank you for the promotion. But to Tcerlin it was all a joke. Linné remembered his laugh from when she’d attended party functions as a child. Back then his laughter had a way of making everyone feel more comfortable, of putting her father and Isaak Vannin and the other volatile heads of state at ease. Here, it was the opposite. When he laughed, others had better laugh with him.
“Intelgard is a lovely place,” said Zima. “And the gentlemen aviators have been nothing but kind.”
Tcerlin surely recognized the bald-faced lie. Linné expected his face to darken, his laughter to fade. Lies are the greatest enemy of the Union, he’d once said in an address at Eternal Square in the center of Mistelgard. But Tcerlin said nothing. He merely nodded.
Zima must have sweet-talked the regimental cook, because when they went back to her office, a cart waited with thick reindeer steaks so rare they still leaked red. Bowls crowded her desk—cabbage, string beans, and a thick gravy. A pale-haired girl named Asya laid the plates between them, then retreated to the corner. She shot Linné a sharp, almost resentful look as Linné found a bottle of wine with two silver cups. Linné poured for Zima and Tcerlin, who toasted the health of the Union.
“How’s the front?” Zima said.
“Which one?” Tcerlin paused to take a long drink. “They’re about how you’d expect. Everyone’s miserable; the fight goes on. The southern front is mostly stationary, the western front is covered in Dragons, and the sea front lacks for men. We have them surrounded in the Berechovy, but it looks like they might blow it up before they give it back.”
“So much for their love of God Spaces,” Zima said. The Berechovy Forest had been one of the most sacred places in the Union, back when they’d had sacred places.
Tcerlin nodded. “They’ve used blackout gas over the entire area. My guards wouldn’t even let me enter the base. They couldn’t see more than five meters in front of themselves.”
Linné hadn’t encountered blackout gas, but seasoned soldiers said it stuck to you for days, like a lingering shadow, and even hot spark couldn’t get rid of it. Men in a blackout zone often panicked, shooting indiscriminately.
“They’re training the spark there for more precision,” Tcerlin said. He held a hand up until a thin, bright sliver of spark stabbed out a few centimeters from his fingertips. It sputtered, fighting to turn into a full blaze. “The fighting’s all close quarters, since no one can tell who to shoot. This works almost as well as a bayonet.”
Linné had practiced with the spark in her old regiment, hurling projectiles and imbuing bullets until they glowed. She’d seen some men wind the spark around a weapon. But she’d never seen this, the making of a blade. How long could a weapon like that get? Her fingers itched to try.
“Interesting technique,” Zima said. “I’m sure my girls would be keen to learn.”
“Oh, I don’t think they’d be able to learn that,” Tcerlin said with a wave of his hand. “It requires enormous concentration.”
On the other side of the room, Asya frowned. Linné thought of the ice roses the others conjured and destroyed with a few quick touches, and waited for Zima to tell him where to stick his fancy tactics. But she only said, “And Mistelgard? Is all well there?” Linné hoped to the Union that Zima was choosing her battles instead of rolling over.
“Much the same,” Tcerlin replied. “Once a week, someone tries to kill me, or Isaak or Alexei. Once a month, someone tries to surrender to the Elda. The war makes us all desperate in different ways, and the southern reachings have been hit hard.”
“That’s what we’re here for,” Zima said. “To get them back.”
Tcerlin smacked at his cabbage and cleared his palate with a gulp of wine. “Not every minister is convinced your squadron is necessary in the operation.”
“And why is that? Is the war going so well?” Zima smiled over her wineglass, but her voice held a tone that Linné hadn’t heard from her before. She hid a core of iron beneath her smiles.
Tcerlin didn’t answer. He didn’t smile, either. He set down his knife and fork and regarded Zima silently. Linné recognized his look. Her father called it the last-chance look. The speaker had one last chance to smooth the waters.
Zima continued. “We are a strong country. We are a proud country. But we do not have an unlimited supply of young men, and our allies are tied up in conflicting interests or wars of their own. Women have an equal love for the land and deserve the chance to defend it. You can’t deny that you need us, not when you’ve lowered the draft age to thirteen.”
Tcerlin’s eyes hardened. He breathed deep, a demon readying to spew fire, and Linné saw how angry a man who laughed so much could be. He could pack Zima off to the mines or even shoot her here in the office. But something held him back. Maybe it was the truth of her words; maybe it was the rumors of her involvement with Supreme Commander Vannin.
He picked up his wineglass, and by the time he swallowed, his composure had returned. “A number of ministers are concerned by the influence that a women’s squadron might have on the men. Some say it will distract them. Others feel it is unthinkable to watch their sisters or wives die at the front. War has never been women’s work. Why is it now?”
Zima smiled again. “Is this your way of telling me you haven’t brought my planes?”
Again, Tcerlin paused before he spoke. “The planes are on their way,” he said at last. “But I would forbid any daughter of mine from flying them.”
“What about your sons?” Zima said. “None of these girls came to the front thinking it would be easy. They are determined to make a difference, and they have skills. I’m told that Linné here was the best shot in her previous regiment.”