“Did we win all these victories only to lose in the end? Kircheis, is this as far as I was meant to go?”
Gripping the pendant in his white hand, he asked himself these silent questions within his bottomless loneliness. His redheaded friend gave no answer. Neither could Reinhard make him.
The imperial forces were on their last legs, just waiting for the moment when they would fall like an enormous evergreen oak struck by lightning.
Reinhard’s chief aide, Rear Admiral Arthur von Streit, walked up to his young master. Known as a man of sincere reasoning, he gave counsel, doing his best to maintain determination in the face of catastrophe.
“Your Excellency, a shuttle will be ready for you shortly. Please, you must escape while you can …”
Reinhard stared back at his aide. At that moment, the cold glint in his ice-blue eyes was beautiful enough to make the one they regarded catch his breath.
“Don’t overstep your bounds. I’ve never heard of any strategy that involves running when it isn’t necessary. Since when do cowards triumph?”
“Forgive me for speaking out of turn. But fleeing the battleground at this point doesn’t mean you’ll lose. Once we’ve gathered all the admirals’ forces, we can jump back into the arena for a return match.”
The golden-haired youth was stubborn, forgetting what he himself had persuaded Emil of the other day.
“If I’m killed by Yang Wen-li here, that’s all I will amount to. What kind of supreme ruler will I be then? Those I killed will mock me from hell to Valhalla. Do you want me to become a laughingstock?”
“Your Excellency, don’t take your precious life so lightly. We’ll start afresh. Please, get out while you can,” implored Captain Günter Kissling, of Reinhard’s personal guard, with his topaz eyes.
But Reinhard’s expression, retaining its porcelainlike solemnity, rejected his appeal. Von Streit shifted his gaze to Kissling. Although it went against his master’s intentions, he silently hinted that he should escape from the flagship. Kissling nodded.
At that moment, the three protective warships in front of Brünhild became victims of concentrated fire. One of the ships was hit in its power core and vanished in a ball of flame. Another was split in two, while the last spit out a torrent of debris from its open wound and staggered out of firing range.
Their explosions flashed across the screen, shocking those inside Brünhild. Enormous volumes of released energy kicked at Brünhild like a pack of wild horses, violently rocking the imperial flagship. Everyone on the bridge, save one, fell to the floor. Only the young, golden-haired dictator managed to avoid falling over by virtue of his unbelievable balance and agility.
And then, a strange thing happened. There was a lull in the alliance’s fierce tirade. As Reinhard tried to help up the boy Emil, he threw a sharp glance at the screen. The maelstrom of light beams vanished, and the screen reverted briefly to the darkness of space.
“It’s Müller’s fleet,” the operator shouted. “Müller has come to our aid—we’re saved!”
Those last words expressed for all the true feelings of the bridge, and were answered by a chorus of approval.
IV
There was a reason why, among the imperial generals dispersed to carry out Reinhard’s grand encirclement, Neidhart Müller was the first to go on the offensive. Having been ordered to seize the Lucas Stellar Region distribution base, which was relatively close to Vermillion, he’d planned on going back to fight once he was finished with that task. The base appeared fortified, and would therefore require a few days to subjugate. But when Müller arrived at the Lucas Stellar Region, word came that the base would be welcoming them without resistance.
It was the one responsible for the base, a man by the name of Aubrey Cochran, who handed everything over to the empire. Of course, his many subordinates insisted that the materials therein were too precious to give up. They were about to irradiate and render useless eighty million tons of grain, twenty-four million tons of edible meat, sixty-five million tons of domestic animal feed, 2.6 million carats of diamonds for industrial use, 38.4 million tons of liquid hydrogen, and comparable stores of rare metals, fuel, and petroleum products. But Cochran refused, explaining his reasoning thusly.
“Were the supplies amassed here for military use, that would be one thing, but they’re all for civilians. No matter how our leaders and political system may change, the lives of the people mustn’t be destroyed. Maybe I’ll be called a traitor, but that’ll be my cross to bear.”
The extremists among his men, having no intention of handing over their resources to the empire, forced themselves upon Cochran, but others held them back. In the end, the Lucas Stellar Region supply base was surrendered to the empire without incident. At first, Müller detested Cochran for what he deemed selfish and traitorous actions. Later, after learning of Cochran’s reasoning from his men, he was impressed and invited him to join his own staff officers. He thought of giving him the important office of supervising supplies and finances.
Cochran turned down the offer. Thinking himself a coward, he was worried how others might see him and how he would never be able to stop people from saying he’d sold off their resources to the enemy just to secure a post. He was promised that the resources would be used only for civilians and that he and his men would be allowed to return to Heinessen. Once reassured of this, Müller left quietly. But Cochran’s good faith was betrayed. After returning to Heinessen, according to his former subordinates’ indictment, he was arrested on suspicion of abetting the enemy and sent to a remote POW detention camp to await punishment. Amid political and military chaos, his existence might’ve been forgotten if not for the efforts of one man. Two years later, when the Bharat star system uprising was ending, Neidhart Müller would dispatch his men in search of Cochran’s whereabouts and rescue him from death by malnutrition in the detention camp. Cochran would subsequently come to work as head accountant under Müller, but that’s another story.
Neidhart Müller’s return and rescue brought about the third sea change in the Vermillion War.
Without his acute flank attack on May 2, the alliance might very well have captured Reinhard von Lohengramm before the day’s end, or so future historians, who couldn’t resist the temptation to dramatize their subject, would unanimously conjecture. Since the previous day, Yang Wen-li’s tactical command had been almost infallible, momentarily surpassing even Reinhard’s. But he, too, was about to meet with an unavoidable setback.
The Müller fleet’s appearance revitalized the imperial forces. They opened their gunports, determined to vanquish the alliance with all the energy at their disposal, and showered their formidable opponents with beams and missiles.
Flowers of light bloomed amid rows of alliance ships and disappeared to reveal barren, dark holes. As they were being herded into a disadvantageous position, the alliance forces fired back, crushing the imperial flagship.
Rear Admiral Dusty Attenborough of the alliance, reaching the limits of his stamina, continued his frontline command without sleep or rest.
“Our commanders shouldn’t give up and run away just because one imperial fleet has joined the fray. I’d like to see what else Miracle Yang has up his sleeve,” remarked Attenborough as he stroked his stubbled chin.
Müller’s fleet had quickly left stragglers behind and arrived in the battlespace with 60 percent of its forces—hardly worthy of being called a fleet. This was a small success for Yang.
To him, Müller’s appearance smacked more of chance than calculation. Among the imperial admirals, he thought that Wolfgang Mittermeier, he of incomparable rapidity, would’ve arrived ahead of the rest, and Yang had planned on taking down Reinhard before that happened. As of that moment, the income and expenditure of his plans were well-balanced. If the situation continued as it was, victory was within his grasp. But not without a new plan.
Yang muttered to himself as h
e fanned his face with his beret.
“I really got ahead of myself by ignoring Müller …”
He hadn’t planned on making light of the Imperial Navy’s youngest admiral, but he’d ended up doing just that.
The first to take the brunt of Müller’s offensive was Admiral Lionel Morton.
It was a most severe attack. Morton’s fleet, which at the start of the battle totaled 3,690 ships, was reduced to 1,560 after an hour. Their losses in that hour amounted to 57.7 percent—a figure that, while perfectly accurate, would look doubtful in the eyes of military historians.
Of course, the imperial forces paid no small compensation, either. The alliance’s encirclement held its form, hitting the advancing imperial flagship with everything it had, unleashing currents of explosive light and energy all the while. But at this moment, Müller excelled Yang by the sheer force with which he’d surged into the arena.
“Admiral Morton has been killed in action.”
Upon hearing this mournful report, Yang briefly closed his eyes. Noticing the sure colors of despair and weariness in his youthful face, Julian and Frederica exchanged glances.
The remainders of Morton’s fleet, having lost their commander, and under intense fire, barely managed to hold their ranks and regroup with Yang’s main fleet. Müller, having killed Morton in action, forced his way between Yang and Reinhard and appeared to shield his master from enemy attacks with his own body.
“He’s a first-rate commander. Reads the situation well, fights well, and protects his emperor well.”
Yang wasn’t the only one with the bad habit of praising his enemy’s strength. Reinhard was similarly afflicted, and it wasn’t uncommon for his mentality and sensitivity as a military man to do a full one-eighty into utmost respect and adoration for his enemies and contempt and hatred for his comrades.
But this time, there was no leeway for admiration. The violence of Müller’s attack was too much for the alliance to absorb as the imperial forces bored their way into their midst. Flashes and flares rained down on the alliance forces in a storm of superheated flames. Lethal striations lanced in every direction, for a moment lighting the dark path to death, playing a silent requiem for their victims.
“Müller has done well,” muttered Reinhard from the bridge of Brünhild, now saved from retreat. He wiped his beautiful face with the towel handed to him by Emil and literally caught his breath.
V
The alliance forces had been made to stand at the precipice between life and death. Had Müller been able to muster his entire fleet, he would’ve pushed them over that precipice.
None of which meant the imperial forces had the upper hand on all fronts. To be sure, the fighting going on between the alliance and the imperial forces hemmed within its unbroken ring of entrapment had taken up an overwhelming amount of time and energy. Both the Aldringen and Brauhitsch fleets were no more than military wreckage, while the Thurneisen, Carnap, and Grünemann fleets had little strength left to break through the encirclement. Thurneisen’s hands were occupied with defense, and Grünemann, having suffered serious injuries, relinquished command to his chief of staff.
A full twenty-four hours later, Carnap, too, had succumbed to the power of the alliance’s siege, and after accumulating enough losses contacted Reinhard’s main fleet to request reinforcements. When he heard this from the communications officer, the young dictator swung his luxurious golden locks.
“I have no surplus forces. Let them die as they are. If he wants to say something, I’ll hear him out in Valhalla.”
Reinhard wasn’t just being coldhearted. He truly had not one spare soldier or ship to his name.
Carnap, on the other hand, didn’t take too kindly to this advice.
“Die as we are, he says?! So be it. And if I die first, I’ll reach Valhalla ahead of you and make you my errand boy, Reinhard von Lohengramm!”
Carnap rose from his commander’s chair, giving orders to all depleted fleets under his command to attack with all the speed at their disposal. Had their efforts been focused on a single point, or had the encirclement broken, the Yang fleet might’ve collapsed. Carnap’s decision was only natural, but it gave Yang a valuable opportunity.
“Open fire, as accurately and efficiently as you can.”
Yang made it a point to stress that last part, because the alliance was beginning to run low on energy supplies. He had a corner of the encirclement sustaining fire from both sides intentionally opened.
The imperial forces were pleasantly surprised. And when those inside the encirclement attempted to escape from within it, the outer imperial forces tried to burst in to save their comrades. Both sides rushed toward the same point of empty space, congesting the area as they did. This left the Yang fleet easily able to brandish its special skill—concentrating fire on a single point.
Carnap evaporated along with his fleet, which left a vast graveyard of shining light in space to show for its last stand.
Thus, the state of the war changed for a fourth time.
Neidhart Müller saw his foremost fleet engulfed in flame. Colorful tornadoes reflected in his sandy eyes. The severity and strength of the alliance’s destructive power at the last moment was nothing short of marvelous. The flagship was damaged in six places, enough to breach its nuclear fusion reactor, forcing crew members to take cover.
“Your Excellency,” implored Commander Guzman, beads of sweat forming on his pale face, “please abandon this ship. Its fate is sealed.”
Müller gently nodded his head in reluctant agreement, but he didn’t simply want to abandon ship.
“All right, then, we’ll move our headquarters elsewhere. What’s the closest battleship?”
Upon learning it was Neustadt, Müller nodded.
“You’re coming with me in the shuttle.”
That order alone prevented the captain from committing suicide. Reinhard’s feet were inevitably bound by the chains of his own search for glory, but Müller, who had once suffered a great defeat at the hands of Yang, had learned to be flexible in the face of certain doom. He entrusted himself to the shuttle and left his flagship to die.
But when Müller changed flagships, the alliance homed in on Neustadt’s center, rendering it inoperable. Five minutes after Müller and his men had made their escape, it vanished in a ball of flame.
“Am I lucky or unlucky?” said Müller with a bitter smile.
He moved his headquarters to the battleship Offenburg, and two hours later to the battleship Helten. Müller did so not out of cowardice, but as proof of his determination to continue fighting tenaciously even in the heat of a losing battle.
Thus, Neidhart Müller would be greatly renowned in future generations as the admiral of three different ships in the same war. But his valor and devoted fighting style weren’t enough to stave off Yang Wen-li’s onslaught. His future biographers would forever stress how this one human being fought with such quiet determination and outstanding powers of judgment, struggling through so many dangers in his attempts to grab the tail of victory. Yang overcame the extreme danger of Müller’s involvement in the war and formulated a new battle plan, which he carried out to perfection.
But on May 5, the fifth sudden change of the war took place. Its cause was something in the alliance capital of Heinessen, 3.6 light-years away from the battlespace. On this day, at 2240, an FTL was sent to Yang. Chairman of the alliance High Council Job Trünicht had ordered an unconditional cease-fire. When the order was received, the alliance’s battery was just about to get Reinhard von Lohengramm’s flagship Brünhild in its sights.
I
A cease-fire.
Yang Wen-li had his hands wrapped around the empire’s neck when the order came and was just preparing to administer a fatal squeeze when he was thrown back into a corner by his own government.
“What are those bastards on Heinessen thinking!”
It wasn’t a question, but a violent anger manifested in verbal form.
“Have our superiors also gone crazy?! We were just about to win. No, we have won! Why must we stop now?!”
With an angry roar, Attenborough threw his beret to the floor, as he had been hoping to get within hailing distance of Reinhard’s flagship Brünhild.
Back on Hyperion, Walter von Schönkopf spoke sharply to Yang.
“Commander, I have something to say.”
Yang turned around and lightly shrugged his shoulders.
“I know what you want to say, so keep it to yourself.”
“If you know, then let’s proceed as planned.”
Von Schönkopf’s eyes were burning as he pointed at the main screen.
“Ignore the government’s orders and launch an all-out assault. Do that, and you’ll have taken control of three things: Duke von Lohengramm’s life, the universe, and history as we know it. Man up! Press on, and you’ll pave your own road through history.”
When he closed his mouth, the calm after the storm gripped everyone on the bridge of Hyperion. People followed the sound of each other’s breathing, trembling from the elevation of their own pulses. Von Schönkopf had said something he shouldn’t have said. As a child, he’d fled the empire with his grandparents to become a man of high stature, climbing up on his own abilities and merits to the rank of vice admiral in the Alliance Armed Forces by the age of thirty-five. With all eyes on him, he’d plucked a forbidden fruit from its branch.
But how sweet that forbidden fruit was, filled with the nectar and aroma of conquest, hegemony, and glory. Not only Yang, but also those around him could almost taste it.
Yang was uncomfortably silent. Not the calm after a storm after all, but what Frederica Greenhill likened to sunlight during Indian summer. Yang didn’t break open the cage of that silence so much as gently push it open with his words, by which he deepened Frederica’s convictions.
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