On January 30, an imperial expeditionary force under Reinhard gathered in the Porewit Stellar Region. Leaving half of their ground forces back on Phezzan, they joined up with the Wittenfeld and Fahrenheit fleets deep in the heart of alliance territory. All told, these forces reached a grand total of 112,700 battleships; 41,900 support ships for supplies, transport, and med bays; and 16,600,000 officers. It was the first time for Reinhard to have such an extensive command in actual combat. Even when he had confronted the alliance, over thirty million strong, at the Battle of Amritsar, his forces had been less than half that number.
As Reinhard and his admirals assembled on the bridge of the imperial flagship Brünhild, Mittermeier stood up to deliver his report.
“It’s likely the Alliance Armed Forces regards this sector of space as our naval threshold, and it would seem they’re preparing for a counterattack or an all-out offensive.”
As Mittermeier spoke, the superior intel they’d gathered on Phezzan was put up on several screens. One of the most significant strategic successes of their occupation of Phezzan was the wealth of cartographic information they’d confiscated regarding the alliance’s vast territory. With this in their possession, the fruits of total victory were all but guaranteed.
“From the Porewit Stellar Region all the way to Rantemario, we detect no inhabited planets. To avoid bringing harm to its citizens, the alliance will have no choice but to wage battle in this sector. I say this with absolute confidence.”
When the Gale Wolf was finished, Reinhard rose to his feet in one flowing motion.
Those who saw him in his uniform couldn’t help but imagine that the fashion house originally entrusted to outfit the Imperial Navy had designed this black-and-silver uniform somehow knowing that, in the distant future, a young man would appear whom it would fit so perfectly.
“I think your observations are correct. The alliance forces have managed to hold out this far, but any day now they’ll have to go to war to put their people at ease. Rest assured, we’ll answer their salutation in kind with a two-headed snake formation.”
In response to Reinhard’s triumphant declaration, a hot wind of excitement whipped around the admirals.
The two-headed snake was a traditional battle formation often employed by armies in surface combat and now utilized in outer space.
Imagine a giant snake, with a head on either end of its long body. If someone goes in for the kill by attacking one of its heads, the other comes around and bites the aggressor. And if the body is attacked anywhere in the middle, both heads simultaneously strike.
A victory gained by means of this formation would burn a most magnificent and dynamic display of commanding genius into the eyes of the regretful losers.
The catch to using this formation was that it required having numerically superior forces. If one part of the formation were subject to concentrated attack, it had to withstand that attack long enough for the heads to come around. Otherwise, the enemy might breach the entire formation and prevail.
And because flexibility and adaptability were essential, maintaining the snake’s functionality was of the utmost importance, especially when it came to communication and maneuvers. If these networks were compromised, soldiers would be forced to look on as their comrades were attacked in the distance.
For this reason, the Imperial Navy’s communications network was outfitted with an anti-jamming system. In the unlikely event that this failed, two thousand shuttles with short-distance warping capabilities were readied for backup. Commander in chief Reinhard’s leadership was impeccable, and so long as transmission of his commands and the mobility to answer them were possible, victory was sure to be swift. Once that point was settled, the topic of discussion shifted to reassignments.
“It goes without saying that the first division—the first head, if you please—will be commanded by Mittermeier.”
At least that’s what the admirals had expected him to say, but they doubted their own ears when he commanded otherwise.
“Are you suggesting that you’ll be commanding the front?” Neidhart Müller rose halfway from his seat. “It’s a big risk. The alliance forces may be weakening, but that just increases the likelihood of them fighting like berserkers. I think you should stick to the rear and let us fight.”
“In this battle formation, there is no rear, Müller. There’s only the second head,” Reinhard pointed out coolly.
Müller went silent, and the young dictator untangled his luxurious golden hair with supple white fingers.
“Mittermeier, you command the body. That’s where the alliance is sure to attack if it plans on breaking us apart. You will, obviously, be the actual front line.”
“But …”
“I came here to win, Mittermeier. To do that, we must fight, and I’m not about to curl up in a corner for my own protection.”
After allocating all other assignments, Reinhard motioned for a one-hour recess and walked off as his admirals stood and saluted behind him.
“A warrior to the end.”
Mittermeier felt this sentiment more strongly than ever.
“He finds meaning in the victory of battle. No born ruler would be so obsessed with how we get there.”
As Reinhard walked toward his private room, his elegant cadence was interrupted by a reserved yet determined voice coming from a corner of the hallway. Reinhard swung his piercing gaze to see a boy soldier of thirteen or fourteen with reddish-brown hair standing against the wall. The boy’s flushed cheeks and nervous posture gave him an impression of innocence. From his uniform, Reinhard pegged the boy as a cadet in training.
“May I help you?”
“Your Excellency, please forgive my rudeness, but I wanted to ask something of you if I could. Please win, and unite the universe …”
Thoughts of pure, intense admiration and aspiration made the boy’s voice tremble passionately. Seeing in the boy a living mirror of himself in the distant past, Reinhard’s ice-blue eyes softened. From that same mouth that rebuked grand space armadas came a gentle voice.
“May I know your name?”
“Yes, it’s Emil von Selle.”
“A fine name. So you want me to win, do you?”
“Yes … I do!”
“Very well. Then you’ll understand if I don’t leave any enemies behind for you to defeat in the future?”
The young dictator smiled at the boy, who was at a loss to answer. The grace of that smile was something the boy would never forget until he felt the cold hand of death closing his eyes.
“Emil, I will win because you wish for me to win. So that you can go back home alive and tell your family, ‘I’m the one who inspired Reinhard von Lohengramm to victory at Rantemario.’ ”
II
The alliance, which should’ve held a welcome banquet for the invaders, had no room on its menu for a full-course meal of such high uniformity and integrity as the empire’s. That they’d chosen the Rantemario Stellar Region as their decisive battlespace was, of course, the result of a process of elimination.
“The Imperial Navy has gathered the entirety of its forces in the Porewit Stellar Region, and while they’re reorganizing, I suspect they’ll advance on the capital of Heinessen.”
The last information to be sent from the JL77 base, despite the empire’s jamming signal, arrived during a joint session between Space Armada Command and Joint Operational Headquarters on the first day of February. Sleep-deprived and impatient, the faces of the high-ranking officers assembled in an underground conference room were pale and streaked with worry lines.
“Assuming they proceed straightaway to Heinessen, they’ll pass through the Rantemario, Jamshid, and Kerim stellar regions along the way.”
“Do you really think the Imperial Navy would take such a direct route? It’s too obvious.”
“At this point, the empire has no reason to d
o otherwise. They’re sure to take the shortest route to Heinessen.”
“All the planets between Jamshid and here are inhabited. Rantemario, no longer worthy of being called a frontier, is our last line of defense against the enemy.”
“That goes for timing, as well.”
The timing of which they spoke wasn’t purely military. It was also political.
The alliance government had only managed to defend the capital of Heinessen, and fears that they’d forsaken citizens elsewhere were piling in through invisible channels from every stellar region. To make the best of their minimal resources, the plan was to shield Heinessen with their remaining forces and court a decisive battle with an enemy who’d made the long march to get there.
But since a walled city had been built somewhere on the planet’s surface, suspicions arose that those in power, hiding behind their precious just cause, were only hogging military power to protect themselves when they should’ve been safeguarding their citizens. As those suspicions grew and fears intensified, and the alliance government showed no signs of wanting to protect its territories, there was a very real danger of frontier star system governments declaring neutrality in secession from the alliance. One cry of foul might be enough to trigger a chain reaction among the masses, from the mouth of the Phezzan Corridor all the way to the sparsely populated Bharat star system. Neutrality would therefore be something of a misnomer, as each nation hid itself under the empire’s coercive umbrella. The alliance had no choice but to secure loyalty by fighting and winning. Such circumstances were difficult for the government to accept, but it was true that they had no excuse if their inability to guarantee the safety of those star systems was thrown back in their faces. Three years earlier, diehards of both the government and military authorities had conspired together to carry out an impulsive invasion of imperial territory, losing the greater part of their military forces at Amritsar, and now they were feeling the pinch of that folly.
Drafting strategies at Joint Operational Headquarters was no longer an option. They’d been forced into a woefully disadvantageous position, swaying on a narrow bridge over a chasm between panic and nihilistic defeatism. And so they’d taken over Space Armada Command instead.
Director of Joint Operational Headquarters, Admiral Dawson, revealed that, through a connection with a government VIP, he’d been given highest military clearance. While he wasn’t openly overwhelmed by this, it drained him of his assertiveness and independence, and without orders from the National Defense Committee chairman or counsel from his subordinates, he played things safe. By only approving the documents submitted to him and handling everyday administration, he’d holed himself away in a monomaniacal cell of self-isolation, continuously averting his eyes from impending catastrophe.
The Alliance Armed Forces had inspired everyone to give it their all. No one had asked what might happen if they lost.
After being ordered to carry out a full-frontal attack, proximate in time and distance, the entire military, apart from Dawson, was buzzing with activity. Their narrow tactical objective was easy enough for career soldiers to have real feelings about. Only Yang Wen-li hadn’t battled with the empire head-on in the past two years, and everyone found inspiration in their inborn will to fight.
Taking Chung Wu-cheng’s advice to delay the battle, Yang Wen-li abandoned Iserlohn and headed for Heinessen to protect his citizens. Chung Wu-cheng had been insistent on the value of Yang’s soldiers from the beginning.
Yang relinquished Iserlohn on January 18. He hadn’t gone far, but if somewhere along the way he found refuge for his citizens on a suitable planet and hurried toward Rantemario? Chung Wu-cheng had entertained this very possibility and found it difficult to abandon. Assuming all went well, the Yang fleet would reach the Rantemario Stellar Region on February 15. And if they postponed an outbreak of war until then, they could rapidly fortify their forces and oppose the empire. Then again, there was a distinct possibility that imperial forces could pour into the Bharat star system ahead of Yang’s arrival, to say nothing of the grand detached imperial force closing in from behind, which meant that while Yang was battling in the Rantemario area, he might end up sacrificing the Bharat star system to an imperial detachment. These risks rendered the plan dead on arrival.
Now at least, the Defense Committee—that is, the alliance government under a different name, and fueled by a fervent leadership unthinkable half a year ago—evacuated the planet Heinessen’s urban population into the mountains and forests for their protection and launched its space armada, all while preparing to receive Iserlohn’s refugees. The committee also sent out edicts to every star system in support of any planets wishing to surrender to the empire to avoid conflict.
On February 4, the Alliance Armed Forces Space Armada left Heinessen and the Bharat star system. Under Alexandor Bucock’s direct command was a core first fleet of 32,900 ships and 5,206,000 soldiers.
The old admiral, who this year would turn 73, received word from the government just prior to launch that he was being promoted to marshal.
“Is this their way of telling me not to come back alive?”
“No, it’s probably just out of desperation,” came the deadpan reply of chief of staff Chung Wu-cheng, himself newly promoted to full admiral, as he brushed bread crumbs from his chest.
Yang Wen-li, for reasons of his own, didn’t look the part of a military man. When he assumed the role of an academy instructor and appeared for inspection in civilian clothes, he was escorted to the rear door of the mess hall by a student who mistook Yang for a food vendor. It was a well-known legend, but because the name of that student was never given, people doubted its authenticity. Either way, a man for whom such a story wasn’t surprising was an unlikely candidate for admiral in such times of fading peace.
As the alliance forces approached the decisive battlespace of the Rantemario Stellar Region, their collective nervousness intensified. Those employed in the enemy search and reconnaissance divisions were acutely aware of their enormous responsibility. This awareness alone fueled their stress. Their faces pale and stern, operators betrayed their anxiety by wringing their hands out of sight, under the control panels at their stations.
“It’s a shame to see this,” said Bucock’s new aide.
Said aide was the butt of constant ridicule on the part of his comrades and subordinates, and by no fault of his own. His appearance and demeanor were quite ordinary, but he could accomplish any given task. The reason behind this mistreatment could be traced back to a distant relative, from whom he’d inherited a meager plot of land and with it a uniquely odd surname: Soulzzcuaritter.
His self-identification as such was inevitably followed by a question on how to spell it. And anyone who saw it in writing, without exception, would furrow their brow, wondering how to pronounce it. Moreover, his given name was “Soon,” and when he was honored as the head of his class in middle school, every syllable of it was like a knife in his chest.
“Graduating class representative: Soon Soulzzcuaritter!”
That voice still rang in his head, as did the laughter that erupted throughout the hallowed graduation-ceremony hall. Even the principal, who had power to put a stop to it, joined in.
When Soulzzcuaritter entered Officers’ Academy, he dreaded the embarrassment of becoming head of his incoming class. This proved to be a needless fear, however, when he became aware of another class representative by the name of Fork. From then on, his career as an alliance military man began in earnest, and in the same way he cursed his ancestors, he himself would come to be cursed by future historians. Not even the most brazenly lazy scholar would disavow that name in the Battle of Rantemario.
The day before the fleet launch, Lieutenant Commander Soulzzcuaritter was appointed as Marshal Bucock’s aide because his former aide, Lieutenant Commander Pfeifer, had fallen into in a deep coma after a heart attack and was being kept under observation at a
military hospital. The young officer with the strange name who’d frequently helped Pfeifer with military affairs was known for being outspoken, but because of his tireless emergency first aid he grew close to the old admiral. In succession with the alliance’s chief of staff, the division’s central personnel were exempted from battle and switched out.
The old admiral easily dispensed with the question of the aide’s unusual and difficult name and decided on calling him by the first four letters of his fifteen-letter surname. Thus, he was nicknamed “Lieutenant Commander Soul.” Much to his delight, this eventually became his official surname. Although it meant profaning his heritage, he was more than happy to avoid the usual insult: “The truth is, he’s got three potential fathers, and since no one knows which is the real one, they mashed all three names together to make his last name.” As long as he was Lieutenant Commander Soon Soulzzcuaritter, he would never be free from such harassment.
The new aide conveyed his trepidation to the old admiral at 1240 on February 7, after the officers had finished eating their lunch. Bucock, along with chief of staff Chung Wu-cheng and Commander Emerson, captain of the flagship Rio Grande, were in the high-ranking officers’ mess hall. The chief of staff was clumsy and careless when it came to eating, and so his napkin was ten times as stained as everyone else’s. Once, at a party, Yang Wen-li had whispered to Julian Mintz, “He makes even me look refined.”
To which Julian had said, “Don’t set the bar so low for yourself.”
An urgent message from the first reconnaissance ship alerted them to the location of the Imperial Navy, followed by a flood of similar reports. All twelve screens on the ship’s bridge were alive with tactical data being relayed to headquarters.
“The empire has assumed the two-headed snake formation? In which case, they’ll want us to attack the middle. It’s too risky, if you ask me.”
Mobilization Page 9
