He was uneasy: there was an impossible skip in his heart that he could neither explain nor make others understand. Once I’ve captured Phezzan and conquered the Free Planets Alliance to rule the entire universe, he thought, how will I ever endure a life without enemies?
When Reinhard was born into this world, the fires of war had been raging between the empire and the alliance for 130 years. That was 1,140,000 hours. Reinhard had known nothing but war. To him, peace was just a thin slice of ham wedged between the thick bread of strife. But after felling his nemeses and unifying the universe, thereby leading the way to a new dynasty, he’d lose any and all opponents against whom he might wield his intellect and courage.
This golden-haired youth, who from day one had lived to fight, win, and conquer, had to brace himself for the weight of peace and ennui. Then again …
Reinhard smiled wryly. He was getting ahead of himself. Victory wasn’t his just yet. Would a sorrowful elegy be played for him instead? How many men of ambition had won battle after battle, only to exit the stage in the final act? But he refused to be like them. He had every intention of spending today without incident while turning his attention toward tomorrow. From this day forward, his life would no longer be his own.
At 4:00 a.m. the party dispersed, and people left for their respective lodgings to prepare for the battle ahead. Senior Admiral Wolfgang Mittermeier’s fleet ships were already launching into the dusky heavens from Phezzan’s central spaceport. The Gale Wolf’s first mission of the new year was to secure the alliance’s end of the Phezzan Corridor.
II
Relatively few Free Planets Alliance high officials were lifting their glasses, as most were panicking over a maelstrom of new responsibilities and wanted nothing less than the confirmation of the new year’s arrival. Reports of the Imperial Navy’s occupation of Phezzan were being kept under wraps, but like a netted beast, that information gnawed a hole through its veil of secrecy and flooded the alliance’s media channels. The government’s top executives had meanwhile gathered their pale faces in a conference room enclosed by thick walls. But even as they began to discuss going public, on a street corner not one kilometer away from their roundtable, spacefarers who’d returned from Phezzan were broadcasting the dangers to come.
With no effective defense plan in sight, the levees of complacency broke to unleash a muddy stream of mass hysteria. The alliance government’s dignity was barely salvaged by the fact that, during the period of informational lockdown, not one high official tried to escape—though rumors insisted this was only because no safe zones had been declared. The alliance government had therefore failed to regain the people’s trust, even on a moral level.
Instead, and with no other recourse, good citizens turned to their government authorities as emotional outlets. Between condemning their representatives as “incompetents” and “salary thieves,” they demanded decisive action and countermeasures in the same breath.
All the while, the alliance government was under command of the “eloquent sophist” known as High Council Chairman Job Trünicht. As a politician, he belonged to what one might call a younger generation. He was possessed of an outstanding appearance and impeccable career, and was even popular among female voters. A background in the defense industry had guaranteed his access to enormous political funds. Even the Military Congress for the Rescue of the Republic’s coup d’état, which might otherwise have destroyed his reputation, hardly left a scratch on him. The people expected nothing less than eloquent persuasion in his speech. And when they couldn’t decide whether he was just paying them lip service, he hid himself away from his “beloved people” and issued a statement via the governmental press secretary:
“I fully realize the weight of my responsibility.”
Saying only that, and without clarifying his whereabouts, he’d severely deepened the misgivings of his own people. Job Trünicht, they now said, was a pandering demagogue straight out of some classical civilization who ran with his tail between his legs at the first sign of crisis.
Iserlohn Fortress’s commander, Admiral Yang Wen-li, who despised Trünicht with every fiber of his being, had a different point of view. His impression of Trünicht was of a man who could wriggle his way out of any situation. Whether Yang’s observation was an over- or underestimation, the fact was that Trünicht had wounded his people’s short-term expectations. Making matters worse, those same trade journalists who’d once introduced Trünicht has a beacon of hope in the political sphere, and who’d won the public over through their praise of him, now pardoned him by saying, “We must realize it’s not the chairman’s responsibility alone but the responsibility of all of us.” Thus, the press had turned criticism back on its readers, who were “only underscoring the privilege of their government by refusing to go along with its measures.”
Walter Islands, chairman of the Defense Committee despite being no more than Trünicht’s antebellum henchman, wasn’t necessarily seen as being equally untrustworthy. Trünicht had only appointed him as Defense Committee chair in the first place because predecessors of the alliance, fearing dictatorship, had lawfully prohibited adjunct appointments of any council and committee chairman. But as malicious gossip had confirmed, the “moochable” Chairman Islands was nothing more than a point of contact between Trünicht and military authorities. He’d never once shared an independent view or policy and seemed content in being nothing more than a third-rate statesman snatched like so many leftover parts from the conveyor belt that linked Trünicht and alliance munitions corporations.
After the Imperial Navy’s invasion of Phezzan, however, his apparently minuscule value had been given a grand amendment.
After manifesting the primary factors behind his future ill repute, Trünicht concealed himself in a private paradise. It took none other than Walter Islands to reprimand his confused colleagues in a flash cabinet meeting, where he adopted political measures to protect against the disintegration of the alliance government. In his midfifties, and now seated as cabinet minister for the first time, he seemed ten years younger despite the difficult situation in which he’d been placed. His posture was upright, his skin luminescent, and his footsteps vigorously paced. The only thing that didn’t come springing back to life was the hair he’d lost on his head.
“As far as battle commands are concerned, we’ll leave those to the experts. Right now, we need to decide whether to surrender or resist. In other words, to determine the future path of our nation and get all military authorities to go along with it. Shirk this responsibility now, and the effects will trickle down to every soldier on the front line, inviting a chaotic downfall and useless bloodshed. It would mean the veritable suicide of our democratic government,” Islands said.
Seeing that no one in attendance expressed an interest in surrender, the Defense Committee chairman changed the subject.
“Should we choose do resist, are we to fight the invading forces until the alliance is razed to the ground and every citizen has perished? Or do we take up arms as a practical measure toward the larger goal of reconciliation and peace? That’s the decision we currently face.”
The other cabinet ministers sat in silent bewilderment, less over the gravity of the situation than the lucid attack on their prejudice by a Defense Committee chairman who, although until recently a mere nominal official, had grasped the situation with exacting discernment and cognizance, and had now laid before his colleagues the most expedient path toward resolution with dignified speech as his weapon of persuasion.
Islands’s existence under peace had been as a parasite on this administration’s soiled posterior. But when faced with crisis, his inner spirit arose powerfully, like a democratic phoenix from the ashes of a patronage politician. After half a century of inactivity, his name would at last become engraved in the tablet of posterity.
While it was true that the commander in chief of the Alliance Armed Forces Space Armada, the sharp-tongu
ed Admiral Alexandor Bucock, was very much a cynic, such temperament had no effect on his impartiality. The old admiral, now past seventy, was more than willing to cooperate with the Defense Committee chairman, a man he believed was trying his best as both a politician and human being in a compressed timeline. Where before he had vehemently criticized Islands’s lassitude and rashness, now he saw a revitalized chairman showing his face at Space Armada Command Headquarters to openly critique his own past behavior. Bucock was half-convinced at first, but as the Defense Committee chairman demanded the cooperation of military authorities in deciding the “terms of reconciliation,” he couldn’t help but think Islands had finally come into his own.
“It seems the Defense Committee chairman’s guardian angel has come out of retirement,” muttered the old admiral after Islands had adjourned the conference and exited the room. “Better late than never.”
Bucock’s aide, lieutenant commander Pfeifer, didn’t entirely agree with his superior’s quip. He was rather upset that Islands hadn’t opened his eyes to reality sooner.
“Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but I sometimes wonder if things wouldn’t be better if last year’s coup d’état by the Military Congress for the Rescue of the Republic had succeeded. It might’ve been just the shot in the arm our national defenses needed.”
“And pit the empire’s despotism and the alliance’s military dictatorship against one another in a battle for universal hegemony? What hope would there have been in that?”
The old admiral’s tone, while far from cynical, was nonetheless acidic. The black beret on the old man’s head made his hair appear a shade whiter.
“If there’s anything I’m proud of, it’s having been a soldier for democratic republicanism. I’d never condone turning the alliance into an undemocratic system as an excuse to oppose the empire’s political dictatorship. I’d much rather the alliance perish as a democracy than survive as a dictatorship.”
Seeing that he’d made the lieutenant commander uncomfortable, the old admiral smiled impishly.
“I suppose that sounds harsh. But the truth of the matter is, if it can’t protect its founding principles and the lives of its citizens, there’s no reason for a nation to go on existing as such. If you ask me, it’s worth fighting for our founding principles—namely our democratic government and the lives of its citizens.”
Admirol Bucock left to pay a visit to Admiral Dawson, director of Joint Operational Headquarters and the only man in uniform he could rightly call his superior. The director was the petty official type whose duties had dulled his complexion and appetite, but who, at Bucock’s behest, had restored their headquarters to working order in anticipation of a precise defensive battle.
The top brass of the alliance had consolidated their military forces. Along with the First Fleet under Admiral Paetta’s command, a few smaller fleets had been hastily put together since the previous year, consisting mainly of heavy infantry divisions culled from interstellar patrols and guards from every star system, for a meager total of thirty-five thousand ships. Untested and otherwise obsolete ships scheduled for demolition were also included in that number, to be used for communication and as diversions. Bucock divided twenty thousand ships unaffiliated with the First Fleet into the Fourteenth and Fifteenth. Lionel Morton was assigned to the former, Ralph Carlsen to the latter. Upon being debriefed at Joint Operational Headquarters, both were promoted from rear to vice admiral, albeit at the sacrifice of having to wage battle with disorderly, inexperienced troops and inadequate resources against an infinitely stronger Imperial Navy.
Bucock, together with three fleet commanders and the space armada’s general chief of staff, drafted plans for counterattacking the imperial forces. General chief of staff Vice Admiral Haussmann, having collapsed from a brain aneurysm, had been relocated to a military hospital. The unfortunate general chief of staff was relieved of duty while still in his sickbed, and vice chief of staff Chung Wu-cheng, a man in his thirties accustomed only to paperwork, walked into the conference room along the carpet of his unexpected promotion. Just three weeks prior, he’d been teaching a graduate course in strategy at the alliance Officers’ Academy, a young star among a team of already-gifted professors, but those more experienced in military affairs took to calling him a second-generation baker. Two years ago, during the Military Congress for the Rescue of the Republic’s coup d’état, he had managed to meet with Bucock, who was under house arrest for abetting the congress’s surveillance. And now, clutching a worn paper bag under the arm of his civilian clothes, he looked curiously around him like some dimwitted country bumpkin.
Chung Wu-cheng bowed to his superiors from his important council seat and mumbled a greeting, a half-eaten ham sandwich peeking out from the chest pocket of his military uniform. Even the tenacious Vice Admiral Carlsen was surprised. The newly appointed general chief of staff nonetheless smiled with an air of composure.
“Oh, this? Don’t worry. Even stale bread tastes pretty good when you steam it a little.”
Carlsen thought he was completely out of place but saw no use in making a point of it. He turned to Bucock.
His conclusion was to the point. Engaging the invading forces head-on at the end of the Phezzan Corridor was less than ideal. Their only option was to wait for the enemy to exhaust its mobility and supply lines, then force withdrawal by scrambling their command systems, communications, and supplies. For the time being, the alliance didn’t have enough military forces to deploy in the Phezzan Corridor.
“What if we called Admiral Yang Wen-li back from Iserlohn Fortress?” proposed the newly appointed general chief of staff, Chung Wu-cheng, the half-eaten sandwich still sticking out of his chest pocket.
The others were taken aback by the disconnect between the seriousness of what he’d just proposed and the leisurely way he’d proposed it. Bucock raised his white eyebrows by way of demanding an explanation.
“Admiral Yang’s resourcefulness and the strength of his fleet are extremely valuable to our forces, but if we leave him in Iserlohn as is, it would be like putting freshly baked bread in the refrigerator.”
In making use of this simile, the new general chief of staff confirmed his status as a “second-generation baker.”
“Once Iserlohn Fortress is hemmed in by military forces on either side of the corridor,” he concluded, “you can be sure its strategic value will skyrocket. But if both ends are equally closed off by our enemy, Iserlohn will be as good as sealed. Even if the empire doesn’t capture the impregnable fortress through bloodshed, it will have succeeded in rendering the fortress powerless without firing a single shot. Seeing that imperial forces have already passed through the Phezzan Corridor, it would be pointless to waste further resources on protecting Iserlohn.”
“You may be right, but Admiral Yang is currently squaring off with a detached force of the Imperial Navy. It’s not like we can just move him out of there.”
Chung Wu-cheng was unmoved by Paetta’s fastidious observation.
“Admiral Yang will figure something out. Without him, we’d be at a great disadvantage from a purely military standpoint.”
It was an overly frank opinion but not one they could refute. To the Alliance Armed Forces, the name of Yang Wen-li was becoming synonymous with victory. Paetta, once Yang’s superior, had been rescued from certain doom by Yang in the Battle of Astarte.
“Even if we made an overture of peace, the Imperial Navy would demand control of Iserlohn Fortress as part of those conditions. In which case, no amount of resourcefulness on Yang’s part would do the alliance any good. With enough strength and time on our hands, perhaps that would be otherwise, but as things stand, we should make him do the dirty work for us.”
“You mean we command Yang to abandon Iserlohn.”
“No, Your Excellency Commander in Chief, there’s no need for anything so specific. It’ll be enough to assure Yang that Space Armada Command w
ill take full responsibility and that he should proceed as he sees fit. I gather he won’t be too keen on sticking around to protect Iserlohn Fortress.”
Thus concluding his audacious proposal, Chung Wu-cheng leisurely plucked the half-eaten sandwich from his pocket and resumed his interrupted lunch.
III
Those suffering greatest censure on Heinessen were a group of refugees who’d once boasted of forming the “legitimate imperial galactic government” not half a year earlier.
Having in their possession Emperor Erwin Josef II, who’d “escaped” from the imperial capital of Odin, and borrowing the Free Planets Alliance’s military power, they would overthrow Reinhard von Lohengramm’s military dictatorship. According to their pact with the alliance, a shift toward a constitutional system was inevitable, but under that system the old nobility’s sovereignty and privilege would be restored, and those who’d been unable to avoid defection would recover many times over all those things they’d lost. The canvas of their self-determination was being torn to shreds before their very eyes.
No longer will those incompetents try to paint a sweet picture of reality by dissolving their paints in sugar water.
Such were the thoughts of Bernhard von Schneider, on whom the so-called legitimate government had bestowed the rank of commander. Being the clever specimen that he was, von Schneider didn’t have an ounce of illusion about the exiled nobles’ castle in the sky, built entirely on wishful thinking. Although he felt far from hopeless, neither could he act as if he were spectating this farce from a high vantage point. The object of his loyalty, Wiliabard Joachim Merkatz, since defecting from the empire, had been treated as a “guest admiral,” but as secretary of defense for the legitimate imperial galactic government he was reluctantly organizing a new regiment. Even as he worked tirelessly as Merkatz’s aide, von Schneider was thinking hard about the future.
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