V2 Chapter 75: Give Me a Combat Group. I Will Take This World in Three Weeks.
Every officer on the flag bridge of the Absalom was waiting.
The great ship was holding position in the centre-line mobile command group at Sveren's outer system perimeter, well back from the forward battle line. Two cruisers and several escort formations held station around her, and in the distant void the flashes of broadside salvoes were still visible.
It was not a safe position. It was not the most dangerous position either.
Marshal Slaydo stood at the bridge's centre before the enormous strategic holo-projection. Sveren, Cossiminus, the Rosewater Plague quarantine zone in the Lucide direction, and the Ashek II action report were all suspended in the display. Every red marker represented a front somewhere that was bleeding.
"Silent Verdict has cleared warzone identification," a vox officer reported. "Two light cruisers are escorting it to the command group's outer perimeter."
Slaydo did not look up. He nodded once.
A moment later another report came through.
"Inquisitorial landing craft has departed the Silent Verdict. Passengers: Lord Inquisitor Heinz Werner, Colonel-Commissar Duvette Erdmann, and a small personal escort."
Several officers on the bridge raised their heads.
The name Duvette was not unfamiliar to any of them.
Formal Prime and the first Ashek II campaign three years ago had given this young commissar a reputation within the expedition that reached well beyond his regiment. And now he had returned and immediately participated in the boarding action against the enemy flagship, helping the Ashek II defenders destroy an entire counter-offensive fleet element.
But what produced the genuine silence on the bridge was the other name.
Lord Inquisitor Heinz Werner.
No one on a flag bridge needed to be told what a Lord Inquisitor represented within the Imperial hierarchy.
Shortly afterward, the sound of a metal staff striking the deck came from the bridge's side entrance.
One impact. Two. Three.
The noise of the command deck went quiet. Staff officers, vox operators, and the scribes attending the bridge all turned toward the sound without thinking.
Led by two adjutants, Duvette came into their view.
He walked at the column's centre, the commissar's greatcoat as neat as it could be made, scorch marks at the hem that had not been fully cleaned away. A master-crafted power sword was across his back. The plasma pistol hung at his hip. In his right hand he carried a staff topped with a dragon's skull, and each time the staff touched the metal deck it produced a clean, sharp sound.
The object was clearly not an ordinary staff.
No one asked about it.
At his side, Lord Inquisitor Heinz walked in silence, half a step behind. It was not quite the posture of a subordinate, but that half-step was sufficient for every officer on the bridge to register that something was not as it should be.
A Lord Inquisitor was allowing a Colonel-Commissar to walk ahead.
More than a few of them showed surprise.
Marshal Slaydo moved directly away from the holo-projection and crossed the bridge toward Duvette.
He did not arrange himself with the formal weight of a Warmaster receiving a subordinate. He stopped in front of Duvette, put one hand on his shoulder, and gave him a brief, firm embrace.
"You are late." Slaydo said.
Duvette allowed himself a slight smile. "From my perspective, it was not quite so long, Marshal."
"Your explanation had better be worth something."
"The complications I have brought back with me are worth something."
Slaydo glanced at him, then at Heinz, and did not pursue the question.
"The immediate situation first." He said.
Duvette nodded and followed Slaydo to the holo-projection.
Macaroth stood at its side and expanded the Sveren ground situation. Nev City was covered in red encirclement markers. The Imperial indicators in the Colchis direction were intermittent. Above the Lamerly assembly point, the symbols marking enemy air superiority and anti-aircraft coverage were blinking steadily.
"The Sveren ground forces are under severe pressure." Slaydo said. "Nev City is fully encircled. General Petrov is still holding, but his ammunition and supply situation cannot last much longer."
Macaroth continued. "The Colchis outer districts have fallen. The Lamerly assembly point has been cut off by enemy air superiority. General Bleddin has reached the outer theatre, but his forces still require consolidation."
Duvette looked at the projection without speaking immediately.
Slaydo continued. "The Rosewater Plague in the rear has tied down close to a third of our reserve strength. Transport vessels are under quarantine, the supply lines are moving slowly, and neither the Departmento Munitorum nor the Inquisition's observers will accept the risk of an outbreak spreading forward."
"And every front is under Nadzybar's counter-offensive simultaneously," Macaroth added. "Cossiminus is also requesting reinforcement. Every unit in our hands right now has a specific value we cannot easily spend."
Duvette gave a nod.
Then he raised a hand and pointed to General Bleddin's position on the holo-projection.
"There." He said. "General Bleddin can win. But he needs time. The standard approach requires more artillery, more armour, more logistical depth, and enough infantry to clear every street individually."
Macaroth said evenly: "That is the most reliable method."
"It is." Duvette agreed. "But what this situation lacks is not reliability. It lacks time."
He looked at Slaydo directly. "Give me an independently mobile ground combat group. Give me three days of orbital drop priority. Give me every historical campaign record covering Lamerly, Colchis, and Nev City. I will take Sveren for you within three weeks."
The moment those words landed, the command deck went quiet again.
Duvette had already built his reputation on decapitation strikes and unconventional operations that should not have worked. But Sveren was an entirely different problem. It was not a single hive's upper levels, a heavy cruiser, or a cogitator array. It was an entire world being torn apart by Nadzybar's counter-offensive.
Three weeks. This world.
To many of the officers present, it was close to an absurd claim.
Slaydo did not answer immediately.
He looked at Duvette. His expression became measured.
"Are you certain?" Slaydo asked. "There are no idle words in this army. This is not the moment for boldness without foundation, Commissar Duvette."
Duvette did not look away.
"Marshal. From Farrak IV to now, I have fought a great many engagements I should not have won."
He looked around the bridge at the expressions looking back at him: surprise, doubt, something closer to envy, and something closer to resentment. Then he looked back at Slaydo.
"But as it stands, I have yet to lose one."
Heinz stood behind him without any expression of surprise, as though the statement were entirely unremarkable. As though the outcome it implied had already been settled.
Duvette continued. "My position remains the same. Give me a combat group. Three weeks, and I will take this world."
He paused.
"If I am wrong, you may deal with me as you see fit afterward."
Slaydo was quiet.
He looked at the holo-projection again. The red encirclement of Nev City. The lost ground markers at Colchis. The air superiority indicators cutting off Lamerly. Cossiminus's reinforcement requests. All of it blinking without pause.
Bleddin could win Sveren.
Slaydo knew that.
But Bleddin needed time, and the Departmento Munitorum needed time, and the rear plague quarantine needed time, and Cossiminus was consuming time.
Time was the one thing he did not have.
"General Bleddin will not appreciate this order," Macaroth said quietly from beside him.
"He does not need to appreciate it." Slaydo said. "He needs to win."
Slaydo turned to Duvette.
"Agreed." He said. "I will give you the force."
Several officers on the bridge visibly changed expression.
Slaydo took no notice.
"I will instruct General Bleddin to detach an independent combat group from his ground forces and place it under your command. You will hold tactical overall command of that group, along with three days of orbital drop priority."
He looked at Duvette. "I am placing my trust in you, Commissar Duvette."
Duvette inclined his head slightly. "I am grateful for it, Marshal."
When he raised his head, the confidence on his face was exactly the kind that made people around it uncomfortable.
"Wait for a victory worth calling a miracle, Marshal."
"I have never yet let anyone down."
Slaydo looked at him, and for one brief moment something uncertain moved through him.
He saw something of himself in this man. A version of himself from many years ago, when he had commanded a large force to his first major victory and believed he could take every impossible battlefield and reverse it.
And now, standing in front of him, this Colonel-Commissar seemed to carry something additional. Slaydo knew exactly what it was: the settled certainty of a man who had walked out of killing grounds enough times that victory had stopped feeling contingent.
Slaydo produced a short sound of amusement and put his hand on Duvette's shoulder.
"Then go prove it to them."
Duvette nodded.
"I will."
Slaydo said nothing more. He turned to Macaroth.
"Notify General Bleddin."
"Tell him the expedition intends to finish Sveren in three weeks."
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