Ambition (30 page)

He went and ordered the sortie, ignoring Fahrenheit’s advice.

The nobles’ fleet emerged from the fortress, lay down a blistering volley of cannon fire, then charged forward, the noses of their vessels lined up in a row. They were trying to overwhelm the enemy through sheer force.

Reinhard countered with three ranks of gunships equipped with high-output, high-caliber beam cannons, which launched continuous volleys at the oncoming enemy vessels.

The aristocrat forces had no lack of fighting spirit. They launched persistent attacks in waves, pulling back each time they took damage, reforming their ranks, then charging ahead once again. As the number of these assaults and ensuing failures mounted, as the nobles’ backs were driven up against the wall—that fighting spirit seemed somehow even admirable.

At last, Reinhard instructed a swarm of high-speed cruisers he had been holding in reserve to launch a counterattack at maximum battle speed.

His timing was impeccable. Six times, waves of confederated forces had surged forward, only to break on an unyielding shore and drain back out once again. Physical and mental exhaustion had begun to set in on their crews.

Worse still for the aristocrats, the cruisers had been placed under the command of Senior Admiral Siegfried Kircheis.

Reinhard had given his redheaded friend the most important role in this battle. Ordinarily, he would have given the order directly, but with his tangle of emotions still unresolved, he had relayed it through von Oberstein this time.

At the mere mention of Kircheis’s name, soldiers in the aristocrats’ forces became unable to hide their horror. Such was the terror that the young, undefeated admiral was already beginning to strike in the hearts of his enemies.

“You’ve nothing to fear from that redheaded whelp! This is the perfect chance to avenge Marquis von Littenheim!”

But try though the commanders did to raise morale with such cries, it amounted to nothing more than empty bravado. The high-speed cruisers that Kircheis commanded ripped into the nobles’ forces with overwhelming speed and ferocity, and then Mittermeier, von Reuentahl, Kempf, and Wittenfeld joined the fray as well. Reinhard’s fleet had gone on all-out offense, building rapidly on the advantage won by Kircheis and securing victory almost instantly.

A transmission arrived for von Reuentahl as he was pursuing the fleeing enemy ships. It was from Baron Flegel, one of the enemy commanders. When the baron appeared on-screen, he admitted his defeat but at the same time brought his ship about and issued a challenge to von Reuentahl, requesting a one-on-one duel to the death between their respective battleships.

Von Reuentahl coolly replied, “Don’t be absurd. Bark and growl all you like, but we have nothing to gain by fighting defeated enemy remnants on equal footing.”

He cut the transmission and continued his advance, flying right past the battleship from which Flegel’s gauntlet had been thrown.

After von Reuentahl, Fritz Josef Wittenfeld—leader of the Schwarz Lanzenreiter regiment—was next to appear in front of Baron Flegel. Contrary to his aggressive reputation, though, not even Wittenfeld would respond to Flegel’s insane challenge. The victor had been decided already, and fighting on with enemies already resigned to death would, at this stage, be nothing more than a useless waste of soldiers’ lives.

“That’s enough,” said Captain Schumacher, one of Flegel’s staff officers. “Please stop this.”

Schumacher could hardly bear to watch as his commander ranted madly at the screen. “No one is going to duel with you,” Schumacher said. “It would be meaningless to them. More importantly, we should be grateful to still be alive. We can escape now to some other place and start making plans for our comeback.”

“Silence!” said Baron Flegel, swatting aside his subordinate’s counsel. “What do you mean, ‘grateful to still be alive’? I have no fear of death. There’s nothing for us now but to fight to the last man and die beautiful deaths, as nobles of the empire have throughout our glorious history.”

“Beautiful deaths?” Schumacher laughed, but his smile was bittersweet. “If that’s what you have to say, I can see why we lost. All that does is put a pretty face on your own failures and let you wallow in some kind of tragic-heroic fantasy.”

“W-what did you say … ?!”

“Enough, already. If it’s a beautiful death you want, go right ahead and die one yourself, but leave us out of it. Why should we go along with this and throw away our lives over your self-centered fantasy?”

“Insolent dog!” the baron cried. He tried to draw his blaster but clumsily dropped it to the floor. He scrambled to pick it up, then took aim at his staff officer’s chest.

Before he could fire, however, Baron Flegel’s body was pierced by energy beams fired from multiple sidearms.

His uniform riddled with holes, the baron took three, then four wobbling steps. His wide-open eyes seemed to gaze not on his subordinates but on lost days of glory that would never come again. When he tumbled to the floor, several of those there saw his lips moving, but not one of them could catch his final whisper: “Hail to the empire.” Captain Schumacher knelt down beside him and closed the baron’s eyelids with his hand. The soldiers who had just fragged their commanding officer gathered around him.

“Sir, what will you do now?”

The soldiers trusted in the clearheaded staff officer.

“It’s probably too late for me to join Marquis von Lohengramm’s camp. I’ll go hide out in the Phezzan Land Dominion for a while. Then I’ll think about what to do next.”

“Can we come with you?”

“I certainly don’t mind. But if there’s anyone who doesn’t want to, please let me know. You’re all free to do as you wish, whether it’s allying yourselves with Marquis von Lohengramm or going back to your homeworlds.”

At last, the battleship that was once the property of Baron Flegel departed the battlefield under a new commander, and its battle-worn, battle-scarred hulk disappeared into the depths of space.

On another vessel, a different drama had unfolded. A junior officer had looked on with a cold, hard expression as his ship’s captain had argued for self-destruction and mass suicide. Without a word, he had drawn his blaster and blown the captain’s head off.

“That’s treason!” the first officer had shouted—just moments before being shot to death himself, his hand still on his sidearm. He collapsed atop the captain’s corpse. By that time, crisscrossing flashes of scintillating gunfire were already being exchanged throughout the vessel. The crew had split into two factions—officers and ordinary soldiers—and open battle had broken out between them.

And that was hardly the only vessel where armed clashes had started between soldiers and high-ranking officers. Those of common birth—low-ranking officers, junior officers, and soldiers—refused at the last moment to accompany the boyar nobles on their road to self-destruction.

On one ship, a captain who had long abused his soldiers was thrown headlong into the fusion reactor while still alive. On another, two high-ranking officers who had never been particularly popular among the rank and file were forced to fight each other bare-handed until one was dead. The winner was then ejected from the air lock into hard vacuum. On still another vessel, a soldier who had acted as a spy, informing the captain of his colleagues’ words and deeds, had a rope tied around his neck and was dragged across multiple decks before being shot and killed.

With the madness of battle acting as a catalyst, the anger, the discontent, and the grudges that had been building up for five hundred years finally boiled over. The aristocrats’ vessels became scenes of mutiny, internal strife, and mass lynchings.

The many ships that were overrun by their soldiers stopped their engines, heaved to, and hailed Reinhard’s fleet, saying, “We lay down our arms and humbly beg your leniency …”

There was one ship, however, where the thirst for revenge was so strong that soldiers forgot to transmit a message of surrender—it exploded in a hail of cannon fire from Reinhard’s fleet. Another opened fire on its fleeing comrades, signaling through action its intent to switch sides.

In the moment that defeat became a certainty for the aristocrats’ forces, the bill came due for five centuries’ worth of uninterrupted decadence under an unjust social system. There was no one else to blame; it was simply the tragic result of their own actions.

“It’s just as Fräulein von Mariendorf predicted,” Reinhard said, watching the screen on the bridge of the flagship
Brünhild
. “The anger of the rank and file against officers of noble birth will be one factor in my victory. A splendid bull’s-eye, milady.”

“To be honest,” said von Oberstein, “I didn’t think this standoff would end any time this year, but now matters have been settled surprisingly early. At least insofar as these brigands and usurpers are concerned.”

“Brigands and usurpers,” Reinhard murmured coldly. Because of his victory—because of the boyars’ defeat—the empire’s official records would show that the term he had coined for them was just. To judge the defeated was a right naturally granted to the victor, and Reinhard intended to make robust use of it.

Had Reinhard been the one vanquished, they would have given him that notorious appellation, along with an ignominious death. From that perspective, there was no reason to hesitate in using his authority.

“The enemy before us has lost its power already. Presently, you’ll return to Odin to make preparations against the enemy behind us.”

Reinhard’s suggestion was brief, but von Oberstein understood it perfectly. “As you wish.”

The next battle would take place not in space but in the palace, where conspiracy would replace the beam cannon as the weapon of choice. It was going to be a battle no less gruesome than those fought between vast fleets of warships.

A triumphant enemy fleet and utter despair were arrayed in front of Merkatz’s fleet, blocking his way back to Gaiesburg Fortress.

Merkatz stepped into his private room, pulled out his blaster, and stared at it. This would be the last implement that he used in his lifetime. Merkatz tightened his grip on it and was just pressing its barrel up against his temple when the door opened and his aide came running in.

“Stop that, Your Excellency. Do show some respect for your own life.”

“Lieutenant Commander von Schneider …”

“Forgive me, Excellency. I unloaded the energy capsules earlier for fear you might try something like this.” In von Schneider’s hand was the dull sheen of the capsules.

With a wry smile, Merkatz tossed the useless blaster onto his desk. Von Schneider picked it up.

The small screen in his private room was showing vivid scenes of the aristocrat fleet, already defeated and now on its way to destruction.

“This is how I imagined things would probably turn out. Now it’s all come true. All I was able to do was move this day back just a little.” Merkatz turned to look at his aide. “At any rate, when did you pull out those capsules? I never even noticed.”

Saying nothing, von Schneider opened up the barrel and showed it to Merkatz. Capsules were still lodged inside. Merkatz’s lips came apart slightly. “You tricked me. You’d go that far just to tell me to live, Lieutenant Commander?”

“Yes, sir. I would, and I did.”

“Live to do what? I’m the commander of a defeated force, and from the standpoint of the new authorities, an irredeemable brigand. There’s no longer any place in the empire where I can survive. If I were to surrender, Marquis von Lohengramm might forgive me, but even I know what shame is to a warrior.”

“If you’ll pardon my saying so, Your Excellency, Marquis von Lohengramm does not yet rule the entire universe, and narrow though our galaxy may be, there are still places in it where his reach does not extend. Please, leave the empire so you can stay alive, and make plans to strike back against him someday.”

“… You’re telling me to defect?”

“I am, Your Excellency.”

“Since you’re talking about making a comeback, I take it our destination isn’t Phezzan. That means it’s the other option.”

“Yes, Excellency.”

“The Free Planets Alliance …” Merkatz said to himself. That name had an unexpected ring of newness to it. When he had thought about the alliance in times past, he had always ignored the fact of what it was, using by default the traditional term “the rebel entity.”

“I’ve been fighting those people for more than forty years. I’ve seen a lot of my subordinates killed, and killed just as many of theirs. You think they’d accept someone like me?”

“I suggest we rely on the illustrious Admiral Yang Wen-li. I hear he’s a broad-minded person, if a little eccentric. Besides, even if he refuses, we’ll only be back to square one. And if it comes to that, you won’t be dying alone.”

“Idiot. You stay alive. You’re not even thirty yet, are you? With your talent, Marquis von Lohengramm would take you on and treat you well.”

“I have no hatred for Marquis von Lohengramm, but I’ve made up my mind that only one admiral will be my commanding officer. Please, Excellency, make up your mind.”

Von Schneider waited, and at last his patience was rewarded. Merkatz nodded and said, “All right. I’m in your hands. Let’s try Yang Wen-li and see what happens.

Gaiesburg Fortress was on the verge of death. Its outer shell was scored by cannon fire. Within, a steady roar of confusion and disorder did not merely reign—it exercised dictatorial powers at its whim.

Duke von Braunschweig, leader of the nobles’ confederated military, was calling out weakly, “Commodore Ansbach … Where is Ansbach?”

Several officers as well as rank-and-file soldiers were moving about nearby, but they all ran away without sparing a glance for the despondent aristocrat. They had been driven to the final option and had no concern left to spare for anyone else.

“Commodore Ansbach!”

“I’m here, Your Excellency.”

That duke turned around and saw his loyal confidant standing there. Several subordinates were with him as well.

“Oh, so that’s where you were. I didn’t see you in the prison, so I’d thought you’d escaped already.”