In omnia paratus

In omnia paratus is the 8th volume of of the Youjo Senki light novel.

Chapter I: A journalist's memory of The Eastern Front
June 8, Unified Year 1927, the multinational coalition forces that consisted of the soldiers from Francois Republic, Commonwealth, Russy Federation, Legadonia Entente Alliance, Principality of Dacia, and the volunteers from the Unified States encircled a kampfgruppe of the Imperial Army that protruded at the forefront of the devastated battlefield.

Even though three divisions participating in the siege outnumbered the surrounded kampfgruppe, the Empire had the most fortified defense and elite units outmatched their unit's skills that could not be broken by simple tactics. Andrew, a young Commonwealth war correspondent, learned that the name of the unit they were fighting against was "Kampfgruppe Lergen", commanded by an obscure Colonel.

Chapter II: The night before Andromeda
May 26, Unified Year 1927, Lt. General von Zettour was called to spare time to attend a meeting between the members of the Imperial General Staff that sought peace and politicians that ordered the military to seek continuation of the war. For the politicians, the capture of the enemy's resources of materials would prevent the Empire from the economic crisis (but it was all for their own business's sake), and it was widely supported by the citizens by considering the survey. Additionally, the Imperial royal government sought for further victories, too.

General von Zettour and the other staff officers just gave in and followed what they asked because it was for the Emperor's wishes. Because his disagreement with the royal government, he was assigned to the inspector of Group B on Eastern Front, which was actually an officer without any authority. He was escorted personally by General von Rudersdorf in the train station. Before von Zettour got on the train, they discussed about his disagreement and Operation Andromeda for a short time.

Few days later, Lt. Col. Tanya von Degurechaff, acted as commander of "Kampfgruppe Lergen/ Kampfgruppe Salamander" (Lergen told her that all the credit will be taken by him whether she failed or succeeded) under the direct control of the General Staff, was ordered to go to the HQ of Group B. She was shocked and stunned by General von Zettour's appearance in the Eastern Front. She felt nervous when she knew the dispute between the Home Front and General Staff. Zettour informed her about the ongoing huge offensive.

Operation Andromeda was a huge southern offensive. Based on the plan, Group A at the south would carry out a concentration of the majority of Imperial battle vehicles, and the Group B at the north would defend its flank. Its goal is to capture the Federation cities that were wealthy of resources. Supreme High Command asked General Staff to capture it, and Operation Andromeda was named by Rudersdorf, meaning 'something too far to reach'. (Read: Operation Case Blue)

General von Zettour told her that he still had the authority to command the units from General Staff because he wasn't dismissed from the deputy director of the Service Corps by the Empire. He would help Group B to complete their duties. Without the authority of the other staffs, he told her he planned to use every available resources to achieve the goal, which made Tanya feel ominous.

The staff of Group B expected the enemy would strike the plains and deployed most units here. However, it would be too risky for their divisions to do that because they had limited supplies and men to perform the plan. But Zettour had a different plan and wanted to use his trump card (wild card) the "Kampfgruppe Lergen" to start with.

He planned to deploy Kampfgruppe Lergen at a little city alongside a half-abandoned railway. This city was named Sodium position 528, located at the border district of the plains. The staffs of Group B deployed few units here since they thought the outskirt of this city was marsh and its train station was seldom used. Different to their expectation, von Zettour assumed the enemies would prefer the railway to a massive armed conflict at the plains. He commanded and ordered Tanya to act as the "bait" to lure enemies to encircle this city near from their long defensive line. With the encirclement, they could hold up many Federation troops here without the huge casualties.

Tanya accepted it even though they did not have much time with only Kampfgruppe Lergen to act as a decoy. If she succeeded to this suicide mission, they could possibly motivate and raise the morale of the soldiers. Before she left, Zettour borrowed Grantz's mage company from her.

Chapter III: Andromeda
June 10, Unified Year 1927, the Soldium Position 528 of the Empire was surrounded by the multinational coalition forces which approximated of 4-5 divisions. The main defense lines of Group B at the plains didn't meet the enemy. As Soldium Position 528 suffered from all stresses from the enemies' offensives, it also urged the relief from Group B.

Although the "Kampfgruppe Salamander" had only plenty of food and lacked the ammunition, they were still struggling against the continuous battle in the field. The main defending units were the infantry of the kampfgruppe, while the tanks and self-propelled artillery lacked the ammunition and were hiding within the streets and the buildings. Because they were limited of resources, she ordered her soldiers to search the supplies from the corpses of the enemies.

During a time of raid, Tanya was irritated by the enemy's elite mages. They were pushed back by Tanya's mages, but their remarkable skills and strength still impressed her. Tanya considered that Russy Federation release the mages from the concentration camps. The stress from the enemy siege increased. The outer streets gradually became ruins due to the bombardment of enemy artillery.

In the HQ of Group B, Zettour received the report from the Imperial air fleet, informed that their air superiority couldn't sustain for long. They needed to hurry up the relief to the surrounded units. He wondered if his motherland was led by the grand strategy, or just some narrow pieces of so-called strategy.

On the other hand, General von Rudersdorf was now busy due to the absence of General von Zettour, his close and best friend. He found the enemy strategic bombardment at night became usual. The industrial district of Low Lands suffered from heavy losses. Although the Imperial foreign office censured the night raids to the cities, Commonwealth claimed that those were done by the air forces of the Federation, who didn't sign a part of international laws. Tons of onerous affairs almost exhausted him. He missed his reliable colleague.

Chapter IV: Encounter and Engage
The siege continued at Soldium Position 528. The artillery bombardment from Federation Army kept weakening the fortifications, while the kampfgruppe lacked materials and equipment to repair them. The night raid of Federation infantry also applied more pressure to their defense units. Tanya even led her mages to join the house-to-house fighting at their defense lines and shoot down the enemy's shells like their retraining mission at Alps.

Their defense circle was reduced day by day. One day, the bombardment from the enemy destroyed some of their reserves outdoor since they didn't have enough underground storerooms.

At the HQ of Group B, the staff officers were discussing about the rescue mission. So far, they used per division to defend per area which should be guarded by three divisions at the standard. However, most offensives happened at the encirclement of Soldium Position 528. Although they had an armored division, a mechanized division, and an infantry division as their reserves and all of them were full-strength, the majority of staff officers of Group B still tended to keep the motionless defense. Zettour found them losing the determination and morale to wage the maneuver warfare because of the numerical inferiority for the most part.

He decided to ask the commanders of the reserve divisions. Thankfully, they were willing to rescue the surrounded comrades. The rescue mission started, and Tanya got the intention of General von Zettour from a short message.

Chapter V: Pocket
General von Zettour joined the spearhead forces to supervise and learn the true nature of the current battlefield. Though Major General Clam, the armored division commander, urged him to get in a light tank instead of a roofless car, Zettour rejected him and promised he would be safe due to the guard of Grantz's mage company.

The spearhead forces kept detouring from the enemy's investment. However, they detected the enemy's tank units. To prevent from the outflanking of enemy's armored units, the commander decided to repulse them first. With the Imperial tank squads covered each other and charged, a tank battle began.

He noticed that the battle situation had been getting worse than he expected. Their new tanks could bear the direct hit from the Imperial tanks from middle distance. The Imperial infantry got off from the vehicles and fought with the tanks as the anti-tank artillery position was being deployed nearby the battlefield by the mechanized infantry. Sooner, the Federation deployed their reserve armored division to counter their attack. As both sides sent more air forces, mages and reserves into this battlefield, the tank battle gradually developed to a massive mixed battle.

Meanwhile, Tanya decided to penetrate the back of the Federation siege and give aid for the rescue forces. To fear the main offensive toward her kampfgruppe as she left, Tanya asked her mages to restrain their mana signal. Nevertheless, Drake still found their left and urged the Federation Army to wage a main offensive to annihilate Kampfgruppe Lergen. He received fierce resistance from Liliya. Unfortunately, their dispute was heard by Mary, who immediately charged to chase Devil of the Rhine. Drake had no choice but gave up the major offensive and commanded his mage battalion to take off.

Mary was out of control, which stunned both Drake and Tanya. Tanya found them chased by two battalions and decided to counter them at once. They struck first by sniping spells, which only caused few damage. She used Type 95 to shoot down an unbelievably tough and swift enemy, but finding the enemy getting no harm. With a short but fierce aerial fight, Tanya considered they couldn't cope with the enemies before arriving the salient, commanding her mages to bombard the air zone and leave immediately. After getting rid of the enemy, her battalion detoured to prevent the enemy's chase. None the less, they were ambushed since the enemy knew their destination was the salient.

When they were fighting over the salient, Tanya baited the enemy to be ambushed by Grantz's company. As the Imperial air forces gained more air superiority and the arrival of Imperial reserves from Group B, Federation Army were forced to retreat and abandon the siege. When Tanya landed and knocked an enemy soldier down by her shovel, she found Zettour holding a rifle and fighting with the Imperial infantry and was stunned. The spearhead forces maneuvered again to relief Kampfgruppe Salamander.

Chapter VI: Hans von Zettour
Although the Federation Army stopped the offensive of the Imperial spearhead forces, they didn't have another reserve armored division to plug the hole on their investment. Under the pursuit of Imperial armored spearhead, their retreat gradually developed to the dispersion in defeat. Drake's and Mikel's battalions volunteered for serving as the rearguard, countering the assault of the Imperial mages. Since almost being shot down at the salient, Mary seemed to return from rage and was willing to obey Drake. On the other hand, after a short firefight, Tanya was unwilling to keep chasing the valiant enemy air forces and called her mages back.

Loliya received the reports from Federation General Staff. Although the siege on the north of the front was defeated, they successfully stopped the massive offensive of Imperial Army on the south. Despite the fall of Josephgrad, Federation generals secured the safety of all cities that were wealthy of resources. Loliya promised the generals that none of them would take responsibility for the fall of Josephgrad. He also guaranteed them that he would persuade their General Secretary to give his commanding generals more liberty to make important command decisions.

Afterwards, the Imperial forces retook Soldium Position 528 and set it as the advance base. Tanya was summoned by Zettour, discussing about the current situation of the Empire. Group A failed to capture the resources of materials of Federation since the armored forces had reached the limit of supplies. Although the railway system was secured by Autonomous Council perfectly, the Empire couldn't send enough supplies to the front. Due to the strategic bombardment of the enemy, the production capacities of the Empire were being reduced.

Zettour said he had ever thought the dilemma would be solved with military moves eventually, but after he came to the battlefront as a inspector by chance and made the on-site-inspection, he deeply realized his expectation was just an illusion after all. Military moves couldn't be the panacea, and morale couldn't, either. He told Tanya that people could neither have food without salt nor only have salt as food. And now, if images salt as morale, citizens of the Empire at the rear were crazy on salt alchemy. They believed salt could be turned into everything they wanted. Zettour guaranteed Tanya without a doubt that their research could only make the Empire pickled like Sodom and Gomorrah. He baited Tanya to claim herself a patriot who always protected the motherland and ordered her to find a best way for their motherland. He didn't need her answer at once, informing her that her next destination for work was their homeland.