Mittermeier wondered if illness was weakening the kaiser in mind as well as in body. At the same time, he could not banish the uneasy idea that faltering mental energy might be the cause rather than the result of the kaiser’s fever. The doctors had declared it a case of overwork, but was this merely the reason they had come up with to avoid counterarguments, after proving unable to discover any other reason?
But if so, why was the kaiser ill? Mittermeier had only vague theories. Or, rather, he intentionally stopped his thinking in that area before getting too far. Even for the bravest admiral in the Imperial Navy, the prospect of pursuing the true cause of the kaiser’s illness was horrifying. Compared to this terror, the concrete manifestation that was the illness itself was almost beneath notice.
Under the circumstances, even the perceptive Mittermeier never considered the possibility that Yang Wen-li might be assassinated by a third party. The same was surely true of von Reuentahl. Thus stood things on the imperial side.
V
2350, May 31. Bridge of the cruiser Leda II.
Following dinner with Romsky and the other government representatives, the military contingent was relaxing in Leda II’s officers’ club, the Gun Room, before turning in.
Yang was in a good mood. He was a terrible 3-D chess player, despite his fondness for the game, and had not won a game against anyone in two years, but tonight he had beaten Blumhardt twice—once barely, once handily.
“I didn’t think I was that bad at the game,” said Blumhardt.
Yang glanced sideways at his grumbling opponent as he sipped his tea. He had brewed it himself, and its “better than coffee, at least” flavor reminded him of the priceless treasure he had in Julian. He had been out of contact with his ward for several days now and was finding himself rather bored and not a little uneasy.
Julian and the rest of Yang’s staff were still desperately trying to reach Yang, of course. But magnetic storms at several points along the corridor and even stronger artificial barriers had made that impossible.
“Well, I’d better hit the sack before this mood wears off,” Yang said. He rose to his feet, acknowledged a round of salutes, and retired to his cabin. The officers reported this to Romsky’s secretary and then settled in for a game of poker.
By the time Yang had showered and gone to bed, it was 0025 on June 1. With his slight tendency toward low blood pressure, Yang was not quite an insomniac but did have trouble sleeping, so he always kept a horror novel and pen and paper at his bedside. For the past couple of days his sleep had been particularly shallow for some reason, so he also had sleeping pills on hand. Perhaps corpuscles of nervousness were seeping into the corridors of his psyche after all.
Yang had no strategy whatsoever prepared for his meeting with Kaiser Reinhard. His companion Romsky was far from skilled at diplomacy, so Yang would bear no small responsibility for the outcome of the talks, but the only place he had any interest in matching tactics against the kaiser was the battlefield.
He took a sleeping pill and listlessly read a few pages of his novel.
At 0045 hours, he yawned once and was just reaching for his bedside lamp to turn it off when his hand stopped short. His intercom was ringing. He answered, and Blumhardt’s audibly tense voice filled his ears.
The curtain had risen on the first act of the mysterious drama about to engulf Leda II.
The ship had received two messages. The first reported that Andrew Fork, formerly a commodore in the alliance, had escaped his psychiatric hospital and, driven by a loathing so obsessive it had crossed over into the realm of madness, was planning to assassinate Yang Wen-li. What was more, the armed merchant vessel stolen by Fork had been spotted in a nearby sector. This message had been followed by a report that the Imperial Navy had dispatched two destroyers to meet Yang partway.
Lieutenant Commander Rysikof, Leda II’s captain, had put the ship on alert. At 0120, a merchant vessel appeared on-screen. At 0122, it opened fire on them. Before Leda II could return fire, however, two imperial destroyers appeared behind the intruder and utterly eliminated it, along with its crew, with a burst of concentrated fire.
The destroyers signaled a request to open communications, so Rysikof had a channel opened for them. The video was fuzzy, but Leda II’s crew saw a man in what looked like an imperial officer’s uniform report that the imperial side had learned of the plot against Yang.
“We have taken care of the terrorist,” he said. “You are safe now. Since we will be escorting Your Excellency directly to His Majesty the Kaiser, we request permission to board and speak face-to-face.”
“The leader of our delegation is Chairman Romsky,” said Yang. “I will abide by his decision.”
Romsky’s judgment was in accord with what might be expected of a gentleman. He gladly granted their rescuers permission to lay aboard.
“Yes, Andrew Fork…”
Patrichev half emptied his enormous lungs in a prolonged sigh.
“He always was a sour, arrogant, unpleasant fellow,” said Blumhardt dismissively.
Patrichev’s voice had more sympathy. “A brilliant man, but reality refused to accommodate him,” he said. “Any problem susceptible to formulas or equations he could solve in short order, but he was ill-suited for life in the real world, where there is no instruction manual.”
Yang remained silent. He had no interest in commenting. He bore no responsibility for Fork’s self-destruction, but it left a bitter aftertaste all the same. He also suspected there was more to the story—how had someone banished from society as a madman gotten hold of a ship and a crew of sympathizers to attempt his act of terror? But the sleeping pill Yang had taken before being dragged out of bed again was starting to take effect. His concentration was faltering; he could not maintain close analysis.
One of the imperial destroyers set about docking with Leda II. Hatches extended from both ships and then connected, creating a pressurized passageway between the two ships. Yang’s officers watched this procedure on-screen from the Gun Room.
“Is this really necessary?” asked Soul. Yang shrugged. Romsky had made his decision. It was already awkward enough that Yang’s invitation had come before Romsky’s as a government representative. He felt that he had forgotten, if only temporarily, the procedures of democracy, and he had decided as a result to prioritize Romsky’s authority and prestige. Yang viewed the doctor as a fundamentally good man, untouched by intrigue or jealousy. The following somewhat cynical testament was recorded for later generations:
“Yang Wen-li was certainly not satisfied with Romsky, but he supported him out of unwillingness to allow anyone with a worse personality to grasp the reins of power. He considered Romsky’s weakness to be the extent of the things he could smilingly permit.”
At 0150 hours, docking procedures were complete and imperial officers appeared in the passageway between the two ships. The look of disappointment on their faces as they surveyed those assembled to welcome them aboard Leda II was due to Yang’s absence. Romsky’s aides, emphasizing the priority of diplomacy and foreign relations, had asked Yang and the other military representatives to wait in their chambers until called. Yang, for his part, had no interest in arguing about such a minor issue. What was more, that damned sleeping pill was really starting to take effect. If Romsky would take care of the tiresome glad-handing, so much the better.
But this was not how the men in imperial uniforms interpreted the scene. They assumed that Yang must have sensed danger and gone into hiding. As Romsky smiled warmly, ready to offer gratitude for their “rescue,” the barrel of a blaster was pointed in his face. The second act of the drama had begun.
“Where is Yang Wen-li?”
The menacing question seemed to exasperate Romsky more than it surprised him. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but surely you understand that it isn’t polite to wave guns around. Put that away.”
; This response did not escape criticism in the years to come. “There is no point in politely explaining etiquette to a dog,” one commentator argued. “Instead of words, Romsky should have thrown a chair at their faces.”
The soldier suddenly lowered the blaster to Romsky’s chest and fired, but his aim was poor. The shot grazed the doctor’s lower jaw to bore through his upper throat. His cervical vertebrae and spinal column were destroyed, and he collapsed wordlessly to the floor. His face still bore an expression of the mildest surprise.
Romsky’s aides screamed and fled. Blaster fire followed them, but not a single shot made contact. The assassins may have calculated that the fleeing aides would lead them to Yang.
At 0155 the panicked aides reached Soul and Blumhardt, who recognized the gravity of the situation in the aides’ faces before a word was spoken. Blasters in hand, the officers began barricading the door of the Gun Room with furniture. There was a storm of footsteps outside and a dozen or more blaster bolts flew into the room.
The shoot-out had begun.
Romsky’s killer was shot right under the nose by Soul, dying instantly. Whether his participation in this dishonorable act of terror was driven by religious beliefs or materialistic desires remained forever mysterious as a result.
The enemy was less disciplined in their fire than Blumhardt and the other officers, but they compensated for this with sheer volume. The officers who had been urging Yang to stay down realized that they would have to change course.
“Run, Commander!”
Blumhardt and Soul both shouted the words at the same time, their voices mingling with the enraged screams of the assassins, the din of blaster fire, and the chaos of chairs and bodies falling to the floor. Blumhardt dropped three of the enemy with expertly placed shots, then shouted at Yang again.
“Run, Commander!”
But where?
Yang shook his head. The fact that he was fully clad, from black beret to half boots, was impressive enough for a man who saw no virtue in personal promptness.
Patrichev reached with an arm at least twice as thick as Yang’s own and seized him by the shoulder. He dragged his stunned superior officer to the rear exit, all but heaving him over his shoulder like firewood, then threw him out into the corridor beyond, slammed the door, and turned to stand with his back defiantly against it.
Patrichev’s enormous frame was skewered by half a dozen beams of charged particles. The gentle giant, who had supported Yang as his staff officer since the founding of the alliance’s Thirteenth Fleet, looked down with supreme calm at the holes in his uniform, already splattered with blood. Then he turned his gaze to the men who had shot him and said, “Cut it out. Don’t you know that hurts?”
The unhurried composure of his voice, as if he had left his sense of pain behind in bed that morning, terrified his assailants. Their reaction came two seconds later. Patrichev was battered with screams and blaster fire. Now with too many holes in the broad surface of his chest to count, he sank slowly to the floor.
Patrichev’s bulk now blocked the door, which had presumably been his intention. The assassins set about the difficult task of moving him, and Blumhardt and Soul took the opportunity to bombard them with blaster fire. By then they were the only two still fighting against the intruders, but they were startlingly effective.
The assassins concentrated their loathsome fire first on Soul, piercing him through below his left clavicle. The blaster bolt missed his heart and lungs, but when he staggered back he hit his head against the wall and fell over, unconscious.
The possibility of revenge against the young officer who had already shot five of their comrades dead surely tempted the assassins, but loyalty to their original goal was their priority. A handful of assassins trampled over Soul and the spreading pool of his blood as they ran from the room.
VI
At 0204, a fifth ship took the stage. Most of the original passengers on Leda II were dead or wounded, and the ship itself was all but under the control of the intruders. As a result, one of them was first to notice the warship now filling the screen.
“Unidentified ship closing fast!”
The ship may have been “unidentified” to the intruders, but its origin was far less obscure than their own. It was Ulysses, arriving at top speed with Julian Mintz and his rescue party aboard. Julian’s intuition that Yang would be in a sector where communications were scrambled or cut off had proved correct.
One of the destroyers hurriedly began to come around, but Ulysses’s cannons had already locked on to their target. A slight difference in angle and output divided victor from defeated and quick from dead. The destroyer was pierced by three spears of light and erupted into a ball of dull-white flame, returning everyone aboard it to their component atoms.
This took care of one of the enemy ships, but Julian and his crew could hardly fire on the other while it was docked with Leda II. The two ships hung together like twins united by hate. Ulysses approached and made contact with Leda II, then used a concentrated spray of acid to open a passage.
Their initial reward was blaster fire. Shots flew wildly, leaving afterimages like blue thread on their retinas.
The assassins still had the numerical advantage. Their leader had devoted most of the organization’s people to this plot. But the men who now surged from Ulysses into Leda II were veterans under the command of Walter von Schönkopf himself, and their rage and fighting prowess dwarfed the faith that sustained the assassins. The hand-to-hand combat that followed the shoot-out was like a pack of wolves warring against carnivorous rabbits. The assassins were more brutal, but before long even the fanatics who had held off the empire on Terra fell one by one to the gore-smeared floor.
Von Schönkopf looked down at one of the defeated assassins soaking in blood and hate at his feet. “Where is Marshal Yang?” he demanded sharply.
The man did not reply.
“Tell me!” von Schönkopf shouted.
“Gone,” spat the fallen intruder. “Gone from this world forever.”
Von Schönkopf kicked in the man’s teeth. He could not don the guise of a gentleman: his fury was too extreme in both quality and quantity.
“Julian, go and save the commander! I’ll be right behind you after I mop up here.”
Julian did not need to be told. With startling nimbleness given the armor he was wearing, he broke into a run. Machungo and four or five other armored men followed him.
Even as his anxiety reached near-critical levels, Julian held on desperately to the single thread that might lead them to a miracle. They had found Yang’s ship before communications had been reestablished. They had come this far. There was hope. Their efforts would surely be rewarded! Wasn’t Ulysses a lucky ship? And hadn’t he arrived here on Ulysses?
The man Julian was searching for was wandering, confused, through an unfamiliar sector of the ship. Every so often he would pause with folded arms before starting to walk again. His ability to flee a band of assassins without running around in terror was one of the things that set him apart from other people. He was, of course, trying to determine where he might be safe.
Yang was sincerely glad that he hadn’t brought Frederica or Julian. Oddly, it did not even occur to him that his own life might be extended had they been there to sacrifice themselves. Relief that he had not gotten them mixed up in all this took precedence. Even now, he was only wandering around because his subordinates had thrown him off the battlefield, such as it was.
If asked if he wanted to die, his response would have been, “Not especially, no,” that added “especially” being an example of what made him unique. The problem with dying was that Frederica would be left alone. She had truly given him her all, first as his aide for three years, and then as his spouse for one. She was happy just to have him around, so he wanted to stay in good health and be there for her as long as he could.
0230
hours. At this moment Yang and Julian were only forty meters apart. But those forty meters included three layers of wall and a looming fortress of machinery. Lacking X-ray vision, their reunion was prevented.
“Marshal Yang!”
Julian fought as he ran, and as he fought he kept up the search for the most important person in his life.
“Marshal Yang! It’s Julian! Where are you?”
He was down to three companions: Machungo and two others. Two lives had been lost in the maelstrom of close combat. The enemy never ran; every time they encountered a new one, fighting broke out again. Who knew how much precious time was being wasted this way?
0240. Yang stopped in his tracks. The voice calling him had sounded very close.
“Yang Wen-li?!”
The call was neither question nor request for information. It was simply a reverberation manifesting an intention to fire. When the man who had spoken pulled the trigger, the act was like a convulsion, as if his own voice had galvanized him into action.
A bizarre sensation pierced Yang’s left leg like a rod. He staggered back against the wall. The sensation took form as first weight, then heat, and finally a pain that spread to fill his entire body. Blood was pouring out of him as if being sucked out by vacuum pump.
They hit an arterial plexus, Yang concluded with peculiar coolheadedness. If not for the pain corroding his field of consciousness, he could almost have been watching solivision. By contrast, the man who had shot him screamed in terror and exultation, dropped his blaster, and disappeared from Yang’s sight like a frenzied shaman.
“I killed him! I killed him!”
Listening to the cracked, off-key voice fade out of hearing, Yang removed his scarf and bandaged his wound. It was already a flowing spring of blood, staining both of his hands bright red. Compared to the blood he had shed in his life, however, it was nothing.
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