Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Volume 6

by Yoshiki Tanaka

  It was a bluff, but the formidable track record of von Schönkopf and the Rosen Ritter was enough to strike fear in the Central Public Prosecutor Office’s guards. Their belligerence quickly went extinct, as short-lived as their bravery and audacity. Although the alliance government used to exaggerate the ferocity of von Schönkopf and his gang to strike fear into enemy nations, now it was their former allies who’d grown afraid of the thorns.

  The moment Yang changed into his military uniform in the back seat of a landcar rushing through the night, his short stint as a pensioner ended. He reverted to the man he once had been on Iserlohn Fortress. Frederica looked happily upon the gallant figure of her husband.

  “Mind telling me what tonight’s ‘volunteer work’ was all about, Vice Admiral von Schönkpopf?” asked Yang of the principal offender as his wife adjusted his black beret.

  “I’ve always had a great interest in how order-following, law-abiding men such as yourself think and act when they escape the kind of bondage you were under. Isn’t that reason enough?”

  Without answering, Yang fiddled with the shortwave emission device that was disguised as a cufflink, a little something Frederica had attached to the safari jacket she’d given him when he was arrested. It had alerted his wife to his location and saved his life. As he put this accessory to which he was so indebted into his pocket, Yang’s mind was elsewhere. He asked an unrelated question instead.

  “You’ve always supported me, telling me I should grab power by the reins. But what happens when I take power into my own hands and my character changes?”

  “If you do change, you’ll be no different than anyone who came before you. History would repeat itself, and you’d be just another character in textbooks who will trouble future middle schoolers for centuries to come. Anyway, why not try a bite before you go criticizing the flavor?”

  Yang folded his arms and groaned quietly.

  Even his Officers’ Academy junior Dusty Attenborough nodded with a grimace.

  “Vice Admiral von Schönkopf is right. Admiral Yang, at the very least you have a responsibility to fight for those who fought for you. You don’t owe the alliance government anything anymore. It’s time you went all-in.”

  “Sounds like a threat to me,” grumbled Yang, only half-serious.

  From the moment his life was saved, Yang had ceased to be his own property.

  “You’re being too optimistic,” Yang continued. “Anyone who thinks he can survive with both the empire and the alliance as his enemies is beyond mad. Tomorrow, I might very well be part of a funeral procession.”

  “Well, I suppose that could happen. You’re not immortal. If I had to die, I wouldn’t mind going out that way myself. I’d rather die as a staff officer for Admiral Yang the famous rebel than as the slave of a slave of the empire. At least my descendants will remember me fondly.”

  At this point, it was Yang’s stomach, not his mouth, that protested. He hadn’t eaten in more than half a day. With a knowing look, Frederica took out a basket.

  “I brought some sandwiches. Here you go, dear.”

  “Wow, thanks.”

  “Of course. I’ve got black tea, too.”

  “With brandy?”

  “Of course.”

  “Are we having a picnic now?” muttered Attenborough, stroking his chin.

  Von Schönkopf responded with a bitter smile.

  “Not even. A picnic would be a lot more involved.”

  When Yang Wen-li’s figure seized the center of his vision, João Lebello reflexively did a double take. It was because of him that the alliance’s prime minister had necessarily upheld dignity and advocated for justice. Seeing Lebello’s elated figure puffed up with pride, it was Yang who couldn’t suppress a sigh. While he respected Lebello as a public figure, he just couldn’t abide by him as a man.

  Their secure hideout was a room in a building the Rosen Ritter had boldly set up not one kilometer away from the Hotel Shangri-La, which housed the imperial high commissioner’s office. Its owner had gone bankrupt before it had even been finished, and the building had been abandoned ever since. Its bare inner concrete walls were soundproofed. As a welcome space for a prime minister, it left much to be desired.

  The prisoner in question was the first to speak.

  “Admiral Yang, you do have some sense of the crimes you’ve committed, right? Breaking the law with force, wounding our national sanctity, showing contempt for public order. Need I go on?”

  “And just how have I broken the law?”

  “Are you really going to cajole me into pardoning you after you’ve unlawfully imprisoned me like this?”

  “Ah, I see.”

  A bitter smile crossed Yang’s face, like that of an assistant professor who’d just pointed out a grammatical error in a student’s essay. Attenborough laughed at Lebello. That’s when Lebello understood. He went pale with humiliation.

  “If you don’t want to add to your crimes, I suggest you release me at once!”

  Yang took off his black beret and ruffled his hair, taking on the expression of a drama teacher scrutinizing his protégé’s performance. Daunted, Lebello relaxed his shoulders.

  “Do you have any demands? If so, then just tell me.”

  “The truth.”

  Lebello said nothing.

  “Just kidding. I would never ask for something so pointless. I only ask that you guarantee our safety. Not indefinitely, but within a given period of time.”

  “You are public enemies of the state. I cannot make any deals that would defy justice.”

  “Are you saying that so long as the Free Planets Alliance government exists, my friends and I will never know peace?”

  Lebello gave no immediate reply, having sensed something akin to danger in Yang’s tone.

  “If that’s the case, I must also become a disciple of egoism. If necessary, I might even sell my own nation to the empire for next to nothing.”

  “Do you think I’d allow you to do something like that?! As an admiral, you also held an important position in the state. Does your conscience harbor no shame?”

  “Now there’s a fine piece of logic,” von Schönkopf interjected, fixing his gaze on Lebello. “It’s okay for a nation to sell individuals, but not vice versa?”

  Yang cleared his throat slightly.

  “So, will you at least consider my proposal?”

  “Proposal?”

  “We take Commissioner Lennenkamp hostage, then leave planet Heinessen. The alliance government will go through the motions of pursuing us without actually doing so. I will take full responsibility for any conflict with the empire. Should the alliance bow to the empire and ask them to rat out and arrest Yang Wen-li, you’ll end up saving face.”

  Lebello mulled over Yang’s proposal in silence. His self-interest was running around a maze in his heart, looking for a safe exit.

  “I have one more condition. I should hope you won’t punish anyone who has remained in the alliance government. Those who served under me—Caselnes, Fischer, Murai, Patrichev, and many others besides—had absolutely nothing to do with this whole ordeal. If you can swear to me, by all the dignity invested in you by the alliance government and democracy, that no harm will come to them, then I will leave Heinessen. Of course, we will release you, Chairman, and bother the people no longer. Does that sound reasonable?”

  It wasn’t the government but the part about “the people” that spoke for Yang’s sentiments. Lebello heaved a sigh. It seemed he’d found an exit after all.

  “Admiral Yang, I have no intention of apologizing to you. I’ve been entrusted with the heaviest of responsibilities in the most difficult of times. For the sake of ensuring the survival of the Free Planets Alliance and the generations to come, I will resort to any method, no matter how underhanded. I am, of course, resigned to any censure that arises from my acti
ons.”

  “In other words, you agree to my proposal to take Lennenkamp hostage,” was the ever-prosaic Yang’s response. “Then that’s that. Vice Admiral

  von Schönkopf, I leave you in command.”

  “You can count on me.”

  Von Schönkopf nodded happily. Lebello wanted nothing more than to call them warmongers, but instead asked when he could expect to regain his freedom.

  “When His Most Unfortunate Excellency Lennenkamp loses his.”

  A member of the group, Captain Bagdash, who’d been observing from the sidelines, walked up to von Schönkopf and whispered in his ear.

  “It’s not my place to say so, but I don’t think you should trust them. Not only Chairman Lebello, but all those powerful men he surrounds himself with. They bow only to the highest bidder.”

  “Does that mean they’ll deny Admiral Yang’s proposal?”

  “They’ll say ‘yes,’ if only because they failed to conceal the incident itself and they want to strong-arm Admiral Yang and everyone responsible. But who knows how the situation might change? If it’s to their advantage, I wouldn’t put it past them to erase Lennenkamp and all of us with him.”

  Bagdash was an expert in intel and subversive activities, and had once belonged to the camp that antagonized Yang, so even after having his name entered as Yang’s staff officer, he was constantly being frowned upon. In this instance, however, he’d been instrumental in the gathering and analysis of information, and in planning the attack on Lebello, and by those services rendered had established a foothold and trust within the group. Maybe they’d missed their chance after all.

  “What worries me is Admiral Yang’s lingering affection for the alliance’s democratic government. I’d be concerned if he thought his punishment would have any positive effect on the alliance.”

  “I think everything will work out. Even if he regrets it now and goes back, he can kiss his pension goodbye. He’ll have to give it up and become self-reliant.”

  “And you? Have you given it up?”

  “Giving up is one of my redeeming qualities. It was the same when Your

  Excellency von Schönkopf saw through my plans two years ago.”

  “The sun will be out any second now.”

  From the thick summer clouds, Bharat’s sun cast its first beams. The night was quickly retreating, but left behind chaos in its wake, making no attempt to dispel the deep black shadows. Traffic was intercepted throughout the city as alliance troops and police ran wild under a broken chain of command.

  “All right, then, shall we begin our assault at dawn?”

  Von Schönkopf picked up his helmet.

  “The Hotel Shangri-La it is.”

  Commander Blumhardt tore up the pavement of his memory, on the underside of which was recorded some beneficial information. He smiled knowingly, confident of their success, gathering his company commanders and doling out his tactical commands.

  The Hotel Shangri-La had become a bastion of sorts, surrounded as it now was by a sea of fully armed imperial soldiers. At Lennenkamp’s instructions, they’d gained control of key locations in the city streets of the alliance capital of Heinessen and assumed battle formation, easily declaring martial law. Since the alliance capital had become prisoner of war to a supposed group of rebel soldiers, any nonsense such as esteem for sovereignty had been thrown down the garbage chute.

  The alliance, naturally unaware of the situation brewing in the imperial mainland, had stormed its own capital.

  At around midnight, the alliance government had been desperately trying to keep knowledge of these developments from reaching the Imperial Navy. After midnight, the Imperial Navy’s occupying forces in Heinessen were anxious about leaking information to their allies.

  Lennenkamp, who’d taken up position on the hotel’s fifteenth floor, intended to deal with the situation using Heinessen’s ground forces—in other words, the sixteen regiments of soldiers under his command. And if that wasn’t enough to staunch the flames, then those flames would jump through the abyss of the universe and alight themselves on the torch of Admiral Steinmetz stationed in the Gandharva star system.

  In that case, the task of subjugation would revert to Steinmetz, and Lennenkamp’s ineffective handling would be denounced. If Lennenkamp, after suppressing Yang’s clique and enslaving the alliance government, couldn’t gain a new position and power befitting of his achievement, then the mayhem of the previous night would be rendered meaningless.

  The group of rebel soldiers, even with the formidable Rosen Ritter regiment at its core, numbered little more than a thousand. Alliance government officials had let rage get the better of them when they tried to rush Yang’s execution, only to be beaten at their own game. Even Lennenkamp couldn’t fully grasp their movements, unaware that he’d already been sold by Lebello to the Yang camp.

  At 5:40 a.m., the thick carpet beneath Lennenkamp’s feet undulated for a moment, followed by the sounds of muffled explosions. If not for the early-morning cityscape outside his window, he might’ve been deluded into thinking he’d sustained a direct hit from an enemy warship cannon. Just as he was considering the possibility of an earthquake, an officer pale with shock burst into his office and announced that the fourteenth floor directly beneath them had been occupied by unidentified soldiers. Lennenkamp jumped to his feet.

  Almost like magic, von Schönkopf and his men had gone through the underground communications conduits, then the elevator repair shaft, which ran vertically throughout the entire building, to reach the fourteenth floor. They blew up two elevators and three stairways, but were confronted by imperial forces at the top of the eastern stairway, which they’d barely managed to obstruct. An imperial officer with a captain’s insignia shouted at them.

  “Stop your useless resistance! If you don’t come out, I’ll have you swimming in a sea of your own blood.”

  “Too bad I didn’t bring my swimsuit.”

  The officer’s blood pressure shot up at having been ridiculed.

  “I’ll let that one slide. Now surrender. If you refuse, I can assure you we’ll hold nothing back.”

  “Then show us what you’ve got.”

  “Very well. Be prepared to put your scraps where your mouth is, sewer rats.”

  “Same goes for you. You should’ve thought twice before blowing things up without listening to everything your opponent has to say.”

  The captain’s open mouth was plugged up by an invisible fist. A subordinate’s announcement barely stopped him before he screamed in retaliation.

  “Not so fast, we can’t use firearms. The concentration of Seffl particles has reached critical mass.”

  The captain gritted his teeth over the enemy’s craftiness, and immediately went to Plan B. Five of his company’s armed grenadiers were called into the hotel. They would need to fight their way in using hand-to-hand combat and rescue the high commissioner from his confinement.

  Von Schönkopf calmly watched through his helmet as a crowd of shining silver-gray battle suits gathered at the foot of the stairs. These figures, who appeared to have left their fear back in the womb, were the living definition of bravery. Even Blumhardt thought as much, and the callousness and pride of the imperial soldiers as they drew near made his entire body grow red hot. When the command to charge was given, the imperial soldiers stampeded up the stairs. The soldier at the front held a carbon-crystal tomahawk which glinted in the light. Von Schönkopf leapt at him, thus setting off what would come to be known by diehard romantics as the “red cascade.” The first blood was to be scattered from this unhappy soldier’s body. Von Schönkopf ducked under the tomahawk as it cleaved the air. In the following moment, he swung his own tomahawk obliquely, slicing through the helmet and seams of the soldier’s uniform to meet the jugular underneath. As blood spewed everywhere, the soldier fell, and a voice filled with anger and hatred spouted from below.r />
  “Vice Admiral,” Blumhardt shouted, “it’s dangerous for you to be commanding from the front line.”

  “No need to worry. I plan on living to a hundred and fifty. I still have a hundred and fifteen years to go. I’m not going to die here.”

  “There aren’t any women here, either.”

  Blumhardt, well aware of the glorious achievements of von Schönkopf off the battlefield, knew his words wouldn’t be taken as a joke. There was no time for von Schönkopf to object, anyway. The dreadful sound of many footsteps came rushing up the stairs.

  Von Schönkopf and Blumhardt immediately entered a cyclone of bellows and shrieks, metallic impacts, blood and mingling sparks. As carbon-crystal tomahawks drew arcs in the air, fatally wounded imperial soldiers fell down the stairs, covered in blood.

  Von Schönkopf wasn’t about to make the mistake of taking on several enemies at the same time. His four limbs and five senses were all under the perfect control of his central nervous system, orchestrating short yet severe slashing attacks into every opponent, staving off battle fatigue at every turn.

  Dodging one attack with a twist of his tall body, he countered with another to the neck. As each fatally wounded enemy fell to the floor, von Schönkopf was already moving on to the next one.

  A tomahawk kicked up wind, while another cleaved that wind. Clashing blades sent sparks and carbon-crystal fragments flying, while spurting blood painted a morbid jigsaw puzzle across the floor and walls. Massive amounts of pain ensued, interrupted only by death. Von Schönkopf at first avoided the spurts of blood from his victims, but eventually could no longer favor aesthetics over perfect defense. His silver-gray battle suit, which reminded one of medieval armor, was covered in several different blood types, fresh from his defeated enemies. Unable to endure their losses, the imperial troops retreated downstairs, even as they ground their teeth with regret. Von Schönkopf clapped Blumhardt on the shoulder.