Ambition

by Yoshiki Tanaka

  That’s a difficult question, von Schönkopf mused. From just what he knew, Kircheis was another Reinhard in terms of ability, and Mittermeier’s and von Reuentahl’s operational command abilities were also extremely high. The likes of Nguyen Van Thieu probably couldn’t compete with them.

  And still, when he looked at the victorious Yang sitting there unhappily, he could hardly believe it was the same person he’d seen dancing for joy at receiving favorable intelligence. His qualities as an invincible artist of war and his qualities as a serious and conscientious student of history were always in competition inside of him, and when the battle was over, it was the mood of the latter that dominated him.

  “Commander Yang!”

  The voice that made the young black-haired commander turn around belonged to his aide, Lieutenant Frederica Greenhill.

  “Half of the enemy is still left. The longer we wait here, the heavier a load Admiral Fischer will have to bear. Instructions, please!”

  Her words were right on the mark. Yang blinked his eyes twice and stretched.

  “All ships: fall in!” he said. “Reverse course, and head for the orbit of the seventh planet.”

  Meanwhile, a heated argument was being waged among the Eleventh Fleet’s secondary force, which had launched a blitz attack on the sector where Yang was supposed to be, only to find nobody there. One side argued that they should reverse course and go fight with Yang, but the other side had the following idea:

  Given the present circumstances, shouldn’t they abandon the idea of a short, decisive battle, withdraw from the Doria system for the time being, and wait for Yang to besiege Heinessen so as to attack him then from behind? With Artemis’s Necklace there, it was impossible for even someone like Yang to conquer Heinessen in a short time. If they attacked him then from behind, they might be able to win.

  This serious disagreement dragged out between the two sides. The reason that no swift decision could be made was due to a flaw that was clear to see: the highest figure of authority had not yet been clearly determined.

  At last it was decided to locate Yang and challenge him in battle, so they brought all their ships about and started moving. During this period, however, the brief time Yang had wasted had been balanced out by the time they spent arguing.

  Rear Admiral Fischer, however, who at that moment was observing the movements of the secondary enemy force, had determined that the column of ships he saw fighting the solar wind was in disarray and thus issued the order to open fire.

  Fischer’s style of cannon warfare, following Yang’s example, was also characterized by concentrated fire on localized areas. Caught in a completely unexpected downpour of energy beams on its flank, the Military Congress for the Rescue of the Republic suffered serious damage.

  Fischer was an expert at fleet operations, and no matter how long the road to the distant battlefield, there was no fear of vessels losing track of their own positions, or of the fleet losing its shape due to ships dropping out of ranks, as long as he was present. On the other hand, he was rather average as a combat commander. Still, he had a precise grasp of his own abilities and had never gotten overconfident.

  While keeping allied casualties to a bare minimum, he planned to buy time until Yang, who had destroyed the Eleventh Fleet’s main force, could rush over to assist. That strategy was rewarded with success. The Eleventh Fleet’s secondary force, unable to ignore the damage it was taking, assayed to do battle with Fischer’s fleet. When they did so, Fischer pulled back. When the secondary force tried to depart, Fischer followed hot on its heels to launch an attack from behind. While he was repeating this pattern, Yang’s main force appeared in search of a new battlefield, and a formation emerged that had the enemy caught in a pincer movement between its fore and aft.

  Without even Legrange to guide them, the secondary force had no unified command structure and, after brave but fruitless combat, was annihilated. Yang had avoided close combat and had split the enemy column and destroyed the pieces one-by-one using thoroughly concentrated firepower. Taking almost no damage to his own forces, he thus secured the victory.

  IV

  “Eleventh Fleet defeated. Admiral Legrange dead of suicide.”

  “Yang Fleet poised to advance on and attack Heinessen following resupply and repairs.”

  “Security forces and volunteer soldiers from all planets steadily coalescing behind Yang.”

  As these reports came in, an oppressive air came over the Military Congress for the Rescue of the Republic on Heinessen.

  “This is what they mean by ‘fears within and fears without,’ ” muttered someone. They had declared martial law in the capital and, through the use of military force, were trying to regulate and administer every aspect of society, including its political, economic, and social spheres. There was no way to prevent confusion, however. Everyday crime and accidents had been reduced by the curfew order, but more importantly, prices had begun to rise, and shortages of consumables had become noticeable. Fearing that the displeasure and anxiety of the citizenry would mount, the Military Congress for the Rescue of the Republic had embarked on an investigation, asking, among other things, the opinions of a merchant who had come from Phezzan.

  “You soldiers just don’t understand economics,” the merchant said sharply. “Heinessen is currently isolated from other stellar regions. Closed off, it’s a self-contained economic unit, but it’s a deformed one, with vastly more consumption going on than production. That being the case, as long as you have a market-based economic system, it’s only natural that prices will rise. First, you should stop regulating the distribution network and ease up on the control of news reporting in order to reassure the people. If you don’t, you’re not going to have a healthy economy or society.”

  The one who was listening to these remarks was one Captain Evens, who was entrusted with control of the economy, and to him, this sound argument was altogether worthless. For the Military Congress for the Rescue of the Republic to rule Heinessen with its small numbers, control over transmissions, transportation, and distribution was essential, and improving the health of the economy was completely irrelevant. When soldiers designed economic policy, the result often ended up being national socialism implemented through rigid control and supervision. The merchant from Phezzan could see that this captain was no exception.

  “Economies are living things,” he said. “Try to control them, and they will never go in the direction you expect. In the military, an officer can go so far as to strike subordinates to make them follow orders, but there’s going to be trouble if the economy is treated that way. If, instead, you were to leave things to us Phezzanese …”

  “Know your place!” the captain shouted. “We are going to overthrow the tyrants of the Galactic Empire and restore freedom and justice to the whole society of mankind. And when that day dawns, we’ll teach the meaning of justice to you Phezzan mammonites, as well. Don’t delude yourself into thinking that money can uphold society and the hearts of the people.”

  “That’s a great line,” said the merchant, ripples of cool ridicule brimming in his eyes. “However, it might be better with one little change. Put ‘violence’ where ‘money’ is. I imagine you can think of so many examples.”

  Infuriated, Captain Evens put a hand on his blaster, but naturally he didn’t follow through, instead going only so far as to order his soldiers to throw the merchant out of his office. The fact that prices were high and consumable resources scarce, however, could not be gotten rid of so easily. In the end, what he did was arrest several fraudulent merchants and release resources he had requisitioned, which made no contribution whatsoever toward solving the fundamental problem.

  A strange and even troubling rumor was beginning to circulate: the claim that there was an informant inside the Military Congress for the Rescue of the Republic who was leaking information to the Trünicht government.

  First o
f all, how exactly had Job Trünicht managed to escape? In the aftermath of the coup, that question had been on everyone’s minds. Both the acting director of Joint Operational Headquarters and the commander in chief of the space armada had been arrested, so why had it been possible for the chairman to evade the attack?

  Did that mean Trünicht had received intelligence about the coup? All anyone could come up with was that he must have had an informant on the inside who had told him the date and the time that the coup would take place. If not, he could never have disappeared from his office as if it had been planned. Even Admiral Bucock, commander in chief of the space armada, seemed to have somehow gotten vague intel on the matter, not that there had been anything he could have done with it. From that perspective as well, Trünicht must have surely known quite a lot.

  Admiral Greenhill ordered a man called Captain Bay to stamp out such discussions, as he believed nothing good would come of it if his small number of compatriots started eyeing one another with suspicion. The voices of the rumormongers, however, were only lowered, and without disappearing altogether, an insidious atmosphere began to circulate among the members of the Military Congress.

  A number of days passed amid anxiety and unease, without the situation improving in the slightest.

  And then the catastrophe struck. It was what later generations would call the Stadium Massacre.

  Heinessen Memorial Stadium, like the planet on which it stood, took its name from the founding father of the alliance. This was partly because national ceremonies were held there on occasion, but another reason for that name had been the idea of elevating national consciousness. That made this name, lacking in originality, an inevitability.

  The day that it happened was June 22.

  Citizens were gathering inside that huge stadium, which had the capacity to hold three hundred thousand spectators. The stream of people started in the morning, and by noon the number had reached two hundred thousand.

  The declaration of martial law forbade large gatherings of people. The Military Congress for the Rescue of the Republic was astonished at this open act of defiance, and its members turned white with rage when they learned the purpose of this assembly. The slogan that read “Citizens’ Assembly to Restore Peace and Freedom, and Oppose Rule by Violence” was shockingly bold and provocative.

  Who’s behind this … ?

  They looked into the matter, and then growls arose from the table at the result.

  That woman!

  Jessica Edwards. The assemblywoman elected to represent the Terneuzen District, she had been at the forefront of the antiwar movement. She was the woman who had once publicly impeached then Defense Committee Chairman Trünicht and had never stopped criticizing the stupidity of the war and the military. In spite of the declaration of martial law, she had escaped arrest thus far because right now it was all the coup could manage to capture the very highest leaders in the government and military; they simply didn’t have the manpower to be going after leaders of minority parties in the assembly.

  “Disperse the crowd and arrest Assemblywoman Edwards.” The man who received that order and rushed over to the stadium leading three thousand armored troops was Captain Christian, and this was a personnel decision that the leaders of the Military Congress for the Rescue of the Republic would come to rue afterward.

  From the very beginning, Captain Christian had no intention of gently enlightening the multitude.

  Leading his armored troops, he went into the stadium, placed guards at the entrance, and, after intimidating the crowd with his sidearm, ordered his subordinates to find Jessica and bring her before him.

  Jessica appeared before the captain voluntarily and, in an uncompromising tone, asked him why armed soldiers were interfering with a peaceful assembly of citizens.

  “To restore order.”

  “Order? Wasn’t it originally you—you people from the Military Congress for the Rescue of the Republic—who disrupted public order with your violence? When you talk about order, what in the world is that supposed to mean?”

  “Order is what we decide it is,” Captain Christian shot back haughtily. Sheltering in his eyes was the madness of one who believed there were no limits to his power and authority. “Living under a mobocracy has made the alliance’s society lose all restraint, and it must be returned to normalcy.” Turning to his soldiers, he continued: “Now I’m going to find out whether people who spout irresponsible pacifism are willing to do so at the risk of their lives. Bring me exactly ten protesters and line them up here. Any among them will do.”

  The soldiers who received that order dragged about ten of the male participants to him. Dissenting voices rose up from among the citizens trapped inside the stadium, but the captain ignored them. After making a show of drawing his blaster, he came to stand in front of those men, who had, understandably, gone pale.

  “Citizens of lofty ideals …” Mocking them, he looked around at the crowd. “You think peaceful speech is better than violence. That’s what you all want to say, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right.” One of the young men who had been brought forward had answered him in a trembling voice. In that instant, the captain’s wrist flashed, and his blaster’s gunstock broke the young man’s cheekbone.

  “And the next man …”

  Without sparing a glance for the man who had silently fallen to the ground, the captain next asked a skinny middle-aged man, “Do you still say the same thing too?”

  The captain pressed his blaster up against the man’s temple. The man seemed terrified by the blood on its stock. His whole body started to tremble, beads of cold sweat broke out on his pale face, and he begged, “I’m sorry. Please, I’ve got a wife and kid. Please don’t kill me …”

  Laughing loudly, Captain Christian raised the blaster up over his head and brought the stock down hard on the man’s face. His upper lip burst, and blood went flying with scattered pieces of front teeth. The man screamed and was about to fall, but the captain grabbed him by the collar and delivered yet another blow. The sound of his nose breaking was audible.

  “Listen to you, talking big like that when you’re not even ready to die for it … Come on, try saying this: ‘Peace is only preserved through military force. Peace can’t exist separate from the fleet.’ Say it. Say it!”

  “Stop that!”

  Jessica caught the man as he collapsed and, holding up his head, gently laid him down on the ground. Then she rose to her feet. The captain saw flames of anger burning in her eyes.

  “You think that if you’re ready to die for it, you can do just any stupid thing? Any terrible thing?”

  “Shut up, you—”

  “There’s a breed of people who force their own righteousness on others through violence. They come in all sizes, from big ones like the Galactic Empire’s founder, Rudolph von Goldenbaum, to little ones like you, Captain … You are Rudolph’s own son. Understand that. And then get out of this place where you have no right to be!”

  “You whore!”

  In the instant he gasped out that word, the thread of his reason snapped without a sound. A blaster already smeared with the blood of two others was slammed into Jessica’s face. Three times, then four, the captain struck her with all his might, the glint of sanity having vanished from his eyes. Skin split apart. Blood flew through the air, making colorful dots all over the captain’s uniform.

  Civilians and soldiers alike were staring dazedly at the captain’s frenzy, but when at last Jessica was lying on the ground covered in fresh blood and the captain still stomped on her face with his uniform boot, a chorus of shouts rose up like an explosion, and one of the civilians slammed his own body into the captain. The captain staggered, and then, cheeks twisted with fury, he brought his weapon down on the man’s back. There was a dull thud, but it was erased completely by countless cries of rage and footfalls of a crowd that was beginning to stamped
e. Things quickly escalated into a full-blown clash. The captain disappeared beneath the feet of the multitude.

  Soldiers used beam rifles to mow down civilians, but when the rifles ran out of energy or were forcibly taken by civilians, there was not a thing they could do before the raging sea of people. They were beaten to the ground and trampled underfoot.

  The Military Congress for the Rescue of the Republic was uniformly shocked when its members learned of the riot at the stadium. They attempted to calm the people, but when it became clear that several dozen rifles had been stolen by civilians, they decided there was no room for dialogue and pivoted to suppression by force.

  Large numbers of infirmity gas shells were fired into the stadium. The gas itself had no power to kill, although not a few deaths resulted from direct hits by the shells. Those who collapsed after breathing the gas were arrested on charges of violating martial law and thrown into prison, yet even so, quite a few of those involved succeeded in getting away. Lack of personnel prevented the military from pursuing and arresting them, and the security police were not merely uncooperative but displayed a tendency toward active sabotage. And even if broadcasts were tightly controlled, muffling the voice of every person was simply impossible. Dealing with the aftermath of this incident was extremely difficult. In terms of deaths alone, the numbers rose to more than 20,000 civilians and 1,500 soldiers.

  “What do we do if the whole city—the whole planet—rises up together? There’s no way we could handle that. And we can’t just massacre them all, either …”

  The members of the Military Congress for the Rescue of the Republic had realized too late that they were a minority that had never had the support of the people.

  V

  Bagdash, who had been sedated with a sleeping agent, at long last opened his eyes. When informed of the situation, he sat there dazed for a while and then—inexplicably—requested a meeting with Yang.