Ambition (17 page)

While Ofresser had not set his hopes so high as to expect a hero’s welcome and cheers of adulation, the circumstances that greeted him upon his arrival at the confederated military’s home base of Gaiesburg were nonetheless outside his expectations.

When he sent the transmission telling of his safe return, the comm officer had reacted with utter shock, and when the shuttle put into port, it was immediately surrounded—not by beautiful women carrying bouquets of flowers, but by heavily armed soldiers.

“And you would be Senior Admiral Ofresser, who fought so valiantly at Rentenberg?” The man speaking in these affected tones was Commodore Ansbach, architect of the plan to escape Odin and said to be Duke von Braunschweig’s right-hand man.

“Can’t you tell by looking?” Ofresser said, irritated.

“I’m only making sure. Our leader awaits, so please, come this way.”

From there, the hero of Rentenberg was conducted to a wide and spacious auditorium. Rows of officers and soldiers who were seated there turned their gazes toward him, but there was no warmth to be found in any of their eyes.

At the top of the steps leading up to the stage was a gorgeously fashioned chair, in which Duke von Braunschweig was sitting. He wore a haughty demeanor, although there was also something awkward about it, as though he were some sort of emperor in training.

“It’s good to see you’ve returned alive and well, Ofresser.” The tone was clearly one reserved for interrogations. “Those who were chief among your subordinates have, to the last man, been publicly executed. So why have you alone returned here alive?”

“Executed?”

Ofresser’s mouth fell open wide. His jaws were filled with false teeth; just like the scar on his cheek, they were proof of a fighter who had lived through the purgatory of hand-to-hand combat. Angry shouts mingled with mocking sarcasm hit the face of the dumbfounded, slack-jawed senior admiral.

“You boneheaded oaf! Take a look at this!”

Video footage began to play on a screen on the wall. Ofresser gave a low growl. Familiar faces were lined up in a row. This was the scene of their public execution by Reinhard’s forces at Rentenberg Fortress. Overwhelming emotions of terror and defeat showed in those faces—faces that one by one became empty holes in the instant the laser beams pierced their brains.

“How about it, Ofresser? Have you nothing to say for yourself?”

But Ofresser was still speechless.

“I think that you alone have returned to us alive because you’ve betrayed us and sold your conscience to the golden brat. Shameless dog! What did you promise him? To bring him my head?”

Across Ofresser’s craggy countenance, there suddenly spread an expression of fury and understanding, and he opened his mouth once again.

“A trap! This is a trap! You idiots! Can’t you see that?”

It was less a cry that a roar. The officers and soldiers who had been forming a human wall around him jumped backward as though pressed by some unseen energy. Several hands reflexively reached for the blasters on their belts.

“Shoot him!” cried von Braunschweig. “Shoot him dead!”

That order summoned chaos instead of calm. Although blasters were quickly drawn, everyone knew the danger of firing in the middle of a crowd.

The flash of a monstrous fist caught one of the soldiers on the jaw. With a grotesque sound, his lower jaw broke, and the soldier went flying through the air.

The rampaging giant roared the words “This is a trap!” again and again as he charged toward Duke von Braunschweig, who was seated at the top of the stairs. Even if he had only meant to get the man to listen, it certainly didn’t look that way to others. Commodore Ansbach’s orders rang out, and a few dozen soldiers moved to stand between the duke and Ofresser. Blocking his way forward, they swung the barrels of their laser rifles down on the bare-handed giant. It was a literal beatdown. Skin split, blood splattered, and the sounds of new depression fractures rang out. A normal man would have collapsed, or possibly even died on the spot. But Ofresser’s charge wasn’t even slowed. Knocked off their feet, crying out in pain, soldiers tumbled down the stairs in an avalanche.

Spitting saliva mixed with blood onto the floor, Commodore Ansbach got back to his feet. He had been one of the ones knocked down. Smoothing his disheveled hair with one hand, he drew his blaster with the other.

The commodore approached Ofresser, steadying his breathing, though there was no unsteadiness in his footsteps. The senior admiral-turned-blood-splattered colossus leveled the dull light of his gaze upon this new enemy, and then, with a growl, reached out for him with thick, massive arms. With a light backstep, the commodore dodged out of the way, then quickly pressed the barrel of his sidearm against his opponent’s ear. He pulled the trigger.

Accompanied by a flash of light, blood burst out from the ear on the other side of Ofresser’s head.

Rippling convulsions ran through Ofresser’s huge form. When they subsided, that huge, lifeless mass of muscle stood unmoving for a few seconds, as though supported by the hands of some unseen god, but at last fell forward onto the stairs. When his forehead struck the corner of a step, a hollow sound rang out, the final chord of a gruesome capriccio. As they surrounded the body, no one said a word for a time.

“That traitor!”

At last Duke von Braunschweig began slinging invective in a loud voice, though a thin veil of terror yet clung to his face.

“He gave himself away in the end—how dare that rabid dog try to harm me …”

Commodore Ansbach cleared his throat. “So you say, but did he really intend to betray us?”

“It’s a little late to be asking that. If that’s what you think, why did you shoot him?”

Ansbach shook his head, again messing up his just-straightened hair.

“That was to protect the life of Your Excellency the Duke. Still, it’s possible, isn’t it, that he rampaged out of shock at finding himself under suspicion and because he realized—as he himself said—that he was caught in a trap.”

“Possibly. But what of it if he did? He’s dead now, and will never carry a tomahawk again. Even if he did it because he’d betrayed us, even if he was trying to do me harm, drawing distinctions at this point is meaningless.”

“Understood. In that case, then, how do you wish to explain this incident? I mean, we’re talking about Senior Admiral Ofresser’s cause of death …”

A series of riots would, to the order and discipline of the confederated noble military, have been highly ignominious, and so Ansbach, wondering aloud, asked indirectly if it might be best to smooth things over with a story about him dying of illness.

Duke von Braunschweig rose from his chair. Displeasure was plain to see in his face and in his movements. His nerves had always had little elasticity, and now it looked like they were ready to snap at any moment.

“Even if we did ‘smooth things over,’ that doesn’t mean we could get away with hiding this. Ofresser was executed for the crime of betraying his comrades. Transmit that to all forces.”

Their leader departed, his every step a kick against the floor, and when he was gone, Ansbach shrugged one shoulder and ordered the soldiers to carry away the body of that giant who in life had been praised for his daring and feared for his brutality. The vacant eyes of the dead man seemed to glare at Ansbach. In a tired-sounding voice, he murmured, “Don’t give me that resentful look … I don’t know what’ll happen tomorrow, either. It may well be you will give thanks in Valhalla that you could die before today was over.”

The commodore shuddered. He himself had heard an oddly prophetic ring in those words.

The aftereffects of this incident were great. Ofresser was supposed to have been at the head of the pack in despising Reinhard. If even he had turned traitor, who was there among them who could be as faithful and unwavering to the very end? As the nobles exchanged untrusting stares with one another, some of them even began losing faith in themselves …

At the news of Ofresser’s horrific death, Reinhard’s mood brightened ever so slightly. It was a just reward for a man who had insulted not only himself but also his sister.

Reinhard named Vice Admiral Dickel commander of Rentenberg Fortress, made it a base for his own forces, and once again set about planning the operations to advance on and attack Gaiesburg.

Just one aftereffect lingered among Reinhard’s forces. Admirals von Reuentahl and Mittermeier remembered that mountain of corpses in Corridor Six every time they saw fricassee and, for some time after, grew nauseated when it was served.

At first, Yang had intended
to ignore the upheaval in the Shanpool Stellar Region, make straight for Heinessen, and use blitz attacks to pound the main force of the Military Congress for the Rescue of the Republic into the sand. After all, cut the roots, and the branches and leaves will wither.

What had caused Yang to change his mind and decide to hit the enemies in the Shanpool Stellar Region first was his realization that through use of guerrilla tactics they could disrupt communications and supply lines between the Yang Fleet and Iserlohn. If he were the Military Congress’s commander for the Shanpool Stellar Region, he would flee when the suppression force came at him and pursue it when it departed so as to strike at its rear and its supply lines. By repeating this pattern as many times as possible, the enemy regiment would be worn down. He wasn’t about to stand for somebody doing that to him.

“But the enemy’s commander isn’t Yang Wen-li,” said Julian, and asked him if he wasn’t just worrying over nothing.

To which the dark-haired commander grinned and replied, “He might turn out to be the
next
Yang Wen-li.”

After all, everybody started out as a nobody. Who had ever heard of Yang Wen-li before El Facil? Yang said as much to Julian and added: “If this was peacetime, I’d still be a nobody. A historian still gestating in his eggshell—I wouldn’t have even hatched into a chick yet.”

Yang was speaking of the life that he longed for. In the present day, those who didn’t know his name were on the way to being the minority, yet still Yang couldn’t abandon the wistful desire to be a mere scholar. Praises were being sung about him as a great and undefeated admiral, but to Yang more than anyone, that was just a virtual image projected on a wall by lens and mirror.

It was his interest in historical figures and events that made Yang want to be a historian. The ridiculous thing to him was that now he himself was becoming an object of interest and research. The Galactic Empire, Phezzan, and his present enemy, the Military Congress for the Rescue of the Republic were all studying Yang’s tactics. Not only that, there were even a number of planets (starting with Heinessen), where books and videos about him were being published, full of irresponsible content and bearing frivolous titles like
Studies in Leadership Through the Eyes of Yang Wen-li
;
Strategic Thought, Tactical Thought: Yang Wen-li’s Four Battles
; and
Profiles of Modern Genius III: Yang Wen-li.

The shining modern hero.

“That Yang Wen-li fellow sure is a great guy. You’re lagging awfully far behind for somebody with the exact same name.” Yang would remark sarcastically like this to his not-even-remotely-great-looking self in the mirror.

“But you really are a great man,” Julian said fervently.

“How do you figure that?”

“Normally, you would surely have lost control of yourself a long time ago, become overconfident, and lost the ability to make objective decisions.”

Yang had had his head cocked to one side when he’d asked that last question, but now, unexpectedly, he frowned.

“Don’t tell me that to my face. Feels like I’m gonna slip up and believe you. I’ll be like, ‘Oh really? I’m a great man?’ ”

After that, he put on his serious face and preached Julian a sermon: You shouldn’t praise those above you to their faces very often. If they’re too soft, you’ll make them conceited and ruin them in the end; and if they’re too hard, they might end up avoiding you ’cause they think you’re trying to curry favor. You have to be cautious …

“Yes, sir,” said Julian. “I understand.” Yet inwardly, he thought there was something strange about that fretful and uncharacteristically hackneyed lesson.

Yang had just turned thirty and wasn’t even married yet, but here he was lecturing Julian as if he were his father.

On the very day that Shanpool fell, Commander Bagdash of the Department of Military Intelligence, having made his escape from Heinessen, arrived by shuttle to meet with Yang. Yang began the attack to retake Shanpool on April 26 and, after three days of combat, liberated it from the rebel forces.

It was not an especially interesting battle. Unless a planet had a large population and heavy armaments like Heinessen, the landing—or rather, drop—operations had a fixed pattern that didn’t leave a lot of room for commanders to show off their individual styles. First, space supremacy was established in satellite orbit. Then, after destroying the enemy’s antiair radar and air-defense weaponry using spaceborne attacks, the ground troops were shuttled down to the surface under the protection of escort ships and fighter craft capable of atmospheric maneuvers. Finally, coordinating closely with one another, the space- and land-based forces took control of the targeted points.

Still, it was likely thanks to the outstanding tactical skill of von Schönkopf, commander of the ground battalions, that they were able to conclude the operation in just three days. An ordinary commander might have taken a week or more. Von Schönkopf’s plan had been to secure strategic points using concentrated firepower, then connect them to one another with laterally deployed armored vehicles, forming lines. Then, by advancing those lines, the area under his control would be expanded.

Later, after that tactic had been in use for a full day, the enemy began to adapt and figure out a way to respond. That was when von Schönkopf suddenly switched to a different attack pattern, making a blitzkrieg straight-line advance on the enemy’s stronghold from one of the points already secured.

The rebel units were unable to adapt to this sudden change from the lateral to the frontal. Although the leadership barricaded themselves inside buildings of the Alliance Armed Forces’ district command center where they had made their home base, the outcome of the battle was already decided, since they had already been cut off from more than half of their military forces. After two hours of shooting and hand-to-hand combat, Captain Marron, commander of the rebel unit, put his blaster in his mouth and pulled the trigger, and those who remained raised a white flag.

“Outstanding work,” Yang said, complimenting von Schönkopf upon his return to the flagship
Hyperion
. He was shocked to see countless lipstick marks all over the face, hands, and uniform of his ground forces commander. He could just picture the wild enthusiasm of the locals after being liberated from more than half a month of living in fear.

“Well, I’ve got to enjoy the perks,” von Schönkopf said with a grin—and that was the state of affairs when Commander Bagdash made his appearance.

Once his identity was confirmed, Bagdash was escorted to the bridge right away. Everyone was starving for information from the capital, but the right to ask the first question resided with Yang, who would later occupy the head of the table in the meeting room.

The question Yang asked as everyone was looking on intently was “Who have they executed?”

Bagdash replied, “People have been arrested, but at least as of now, there have been no purges. I don’t know what they’ll do in the future, though.”

“I see …”

“More importantly, Admiral, I’ve come with some intel. The Eleventh Fleet has thrown in with the coup faction and is headed this way as we speak.”

At this, there was a collective gasp. Yang, saying nothing, motioned for Bagdash to continue.

“The commander, Vice Admiral Legrange, is apparently hoping for a head-on, straight-up, decisive battle. He won’t be using any tricks.”

With no particular note of sarcasm, Yang murmured, “Well, thank goodness there will be no tricks,” and opened the floor to his subordinates to ask their questions.

While being peppered with inquiries from Fischer, Murai, and the rest, Bagdash kept glancing around the room as if he were searching for someone. Finally, he said to Yang in a casual tone:

“Your aide Lieutenant Greenhill seems to be absent …”

“Her position being what it is,” Yang said, “I left her back at Iserlohn.”

“
Aagh!
”

Everyone reflexively turned their heads to find that von Schönkopf had spilled coffee all over his chest.

“Oh well,” he said. “There go my kiss marks … Excuse me for a moment.”

Maintaining eye contact with Yang as he spoke, von Schönkopf exited the meeting room.

Julian was standing out in the hallway. Although he lacked the credentials to go inside, he could usually be found somewhere within earshot of Yang.

“You wouldn’t know where Lieutenant Greenhill is, would you?” asked von Schönkopf.

“She went to the infirmary,” Julian replied. “She said something about having a headache since this morning … It’s a shame she couldn’t be here.”

Psychological exhaustion, most likely.
With a nod, von Schönkopf headed off toward the infirmary.

When he tried to enter the infirmary, a petite nurse took one look at his dirty field uniform, vividly colored with lipstick and coffee stains, and came forward, skewering him with a look of outrage.

“I believe Lieutenant Greenhill’s here.”

“She is, but you’re not coming in here in that filthy outfit.”

The nurse, who didn’t even come up to von Schönkopf’s shoulders, stood barring his way with a decisive bearing, but then another voice called out and rescued the commodore from his embarrassment.

“I don’t mind. Please, Commodore von Schönkopf, come in.”

The nurse silently let him through, although she didn’t look happy about it.

Still wearing her uniform, Frederica was lying on a couch, but she stood up right away. Von Schönkopf, wishing silently that he could see her in a dress sometime, briefly explained the situation.

“… And as for Admiral Yang, he smells something fishy, too. The arrival of escapees these days is just a little too perfectly timed. When the admiral practically said as much, I deliberately spilled coffee on myself and shouted, so Bagdash shouldn’t have seen everyone’s surprised expressions. But I wonder if you might have some idea who he is.”

“I met Commander Bagdash one time. Five years ago, in my father’s study. He was expressing dissatisfaction with the current political order.”

Frederica’s reputation for extraordinary powers of memory was widely known.

“I see. He must have been worried that you would remember something, Lieutenant Greenhill. Seeing as he’s an operative for the coup faction.”

Apparently, even Admiral Greenhill—the leader of the coup faction—didn’t have all that many people he could count on for a mission like this. The plan was probably to murder Admiral Yang early if Frederica’s memories put Bagdash under suspicion. If such a thing were to happen in the midst of combat with the Eleventh Fleet, the Yang Fleet would be wiped out, and the coup d’état would succeed. Even if Bagdash lost his life, the life of an assassin was a small investment.

Von Schönkopf cared not a whit whether the Free Planets Alliance was saved or destroyed, but if Yang were to perish, the unfolding of history from that point forward would certainly lose some of its charm. Easily and without reservation, von Schönkopf made a decision.

It was just before dinner when Yang asked von Schönkopf, “Is Commander Bagdash coming?”

“He’s sleeping now.”

“Did you do something to him?” Yang’s tone suggested that he foresaw the answer.

Von Schönkopf winked and said, “I used a special sleeping agent. He shouldn’t open his eyes for the next two weeks. With military intelligence types, even if you lock them up, you can never let your guard down as long as they’re awake. It’s best we have him sleep until this next battle is over.”

“Thanks for your hard work.” Yang’s words of gratitude came mingled with a wry smile.

Under these tense circumstances, the calendar turned to May. The Eleventh Fleet was steadily closing a distance of more than three thousand light-years of interstellar space. On this point, the veracity of Bagdash’s intelligence had been confirmed.

Yang brought his fleet forward as far as the Doria system, where it spent its days collecting and analyzing intelligence. On May 10, a destroyer that had gone out to reconnoiter as far as the approaching Elgon system discovered the presence of a large fleet of warships. After sending out an emergency transmission, its communications broke off. Although it was still the eve of the battle, the first sacrifice had been made. Yang’s mind was racing from one thing to another. He felt confident that they could win even in a head-on clash, but he was waiting on a certain report to come in from reconnaissance ships he had concealed at strategic points throughout this vast region of space. If the Yang Fleet didn’t win this fight quickly and thoroughly, it would only become harder to lop off all the tentacles of this conspiracy.