Desolation

by Yoshiki Tanaka

  “What do you intend to do, sir?” he asked. “They may have left the Yang Fleet, but can we really offer an unconditional pardon to the bandits who seized Iserlohn Fortress and resisted the kaiser?”

  His views were not unreasonable, but no purely military solution was available. “Realistically, we can’t arrest over a million people,” said von Reuentahl. “We also have to consider the hearts and minds of the former alliance itself. It would be foolish to give their unease room to grow.”

  In the end, von Reuentahl’s instructions were as follows: The transports carrying the so-called seceders would be permitted to land at Heinessen Military Spaceport No. 2. The civilians and noncombat personnel among the seceders would be given full freedom and would be recognized as subjects of the empire within the year. Enlisted troops and lower-ranking officers would be allowed to return home as well, but would have their names recorded first as a precaution.

  Finally, higher-ranking officers and officials of the Revolutionary Government of El Facil would be added to a registry containing names, addresses, and fingerprints, and be required to present themselves once a month to the authorities to renew their registration card until the empire had formally carried out their punishment.

  After deciding on these measures, a new discovery made von Reuentahl sink back into deep thought: there on the list of senior officers was the name of Vice Admiral Murai.

  This was a man who, in his role as Yang Wen-li’s chief of staff, had earned high praise for his leadership both on the battlefield and back at headquarters—and yet now he had left Iserlohn entirely. What was more, reports indicated that he had volunteered to lead the seceders, and that his actions had been the deciding factor convincing many to join their ranks.

  “Do you suppose he gave up on Iserlohn after the death of Yang?” said Bergengrün. “I’m not naive enough to believe that human sentiment is eternal, but it makes me uncomfortable to see it change this dramatically, even in another.”

  “Do I suppose he gave up?” replied von Reuentahl. “Recall the end of the Lippstadt War, Bergengrün. Why did the kaiser knowingly allow an assassin to enter his presence? There’s an example worth keeping in mind, wouldn’t you say?”

  Bergengrün had no reply.

  Three years earlier, upon the death of Duke von Braunschweig, leader of the confederated aristocratic forces, von Braunschweig’s confidant Ansbach had dragged his remains before Reinhard. This apparent act of disloyalty to the duke had in fact been part of an attempt on Reinhard’s life—one which ultimately led to Siegfried Kircheis throwing himself between Reinhard and his would-be assassin, martyring himself for his friend’s future.

  “Should we take this Murai fellow into custody, then?”

  “We don’t need to go that far. Just put him under surveillance as a precaution.”

  In any case, von Reuentahl was not inclined to punish the seceders too heavily. On the contrary, his calculation at that time was that praise for Yang Wen-li would sharpen the criticism among the former alliance citizens against those who had deserted the cause after Yang’s death.

  Among the seceders who poured into Heinessen was a certain man claiming to be an upstanding civilian from Phezzan. He was young, perhaps thirty years of age, with an active air and a cynical expression.

  This was Boris Konev, proud independent Phezzanese merchant and old acquaintance of the late Yang Wen-li. He was flanked by his administrative officer Marinesk on one side and his astrogator Wilock on the other. The Domestic Safety Security Bureau could have hung the three men up like rugs and beaten a good two or three miles of mischief out of them.

  “So, the free merchant planet of Phezzan is going to become the empire’s home base, under the direct control of His Majesty the Kaiser. This is why it doesn’t do to live too long,” said Konev, although he was more circumspect regarding Heinessen, whose soil they were treading on at the time.

  “Still, Captain,” Marinesk replied with apparent thoughtfulness, “that means Phezzan’s going to be the center of military operations and hooked up to the galactic economy and transportation networks too. That Kaiser Reinhard’s more than just another warlord to think that far ahead.”

  “That’s what’s so annoying. A man as handsome as that should be satisfied with looking good. Leave a little brains and bravery for the rest of us.” As he spoke, Konev’s hostile gaze was directed toward a poster for a memorial ceremony for Yang sponsored by the governorate. “I don’t care for our new governor-general much either. He’s aiming for at least two or three levels of political effect here—”

  Suddenly Konev shut his mouth. His eyes were now following four or five men in gray uniforms who had just passed in front of the poster.

  Marinesk looked back and forth between Konev and the men. “What is it, Captain?” he asked.

  “What is it? You were on that worthless rock Terra with me last year, weren’t you? I saw one of those men in that creepy underground temple. They called him the bishop or archbishop or something.”

  Wilock’s black eyes shone. “Which means they might be the ones who ordered Yang Wen-li’s assassination,” he said.

  “Exactly. The men who actually did the deed were just a bunch of living weapons. Whoever set events in motion is off toasting their success somewhere as we speak, I bet.” Konev stamped his foot with anger.

  The three Terraists transported to Iserlohn had never talked, although it was unlikely that men like them, fringe figures within the church, had been trusted with any great secrets in the first place. Yang Wen-li was an enemy of the faith and we eliminated him in accordance with divine will, they had insisted, demanding only martyrdom. Extremely harsh questioning by Captain Bagdash had revealed nothing more, and the question of what to do with the men had become a topic of some debate among Iserlohn’s leadership.

  After discovering Yang’s body, Julian had let his fury explode, hacking at the assassins in a mire of gore. When it came time to formally sentence them to death, however, he hesitated, and as the days passed with the matter still undecided, the Terraists killed themselves one by one. Two bit off their own tongues, and the third beat his head in against the wall of his cell.

  “That Julian’s got a good head on his shoulders, but he needs to loosen up a bit,” said Konev. “He won’t beat the kaiser with ideals and good sense.”

  “You always say that, Captain. But he’s doing a good job for a youngster. Just trying to complete what Marshal Yang began is impressive enough.”

  “He can’t use Yang as his manual forever. Yang’s dead. And, frankly, he didn’t choose the best way to die, either. If he’d fallen in battle with the kaiser, that’d be one thing, but…”

  “It’s hardly his fault. Blame the Church of Terra.”

  “I do! That’s exactly why we’re following these guys.”

  The gray-clad group entered the back streets, and Konev and his crew followed them through the winding lanes for a good twenty minutes. Finally the men vanished into the rear entrance of a private home. After waiting for what seemed like long enough, Boris approached the high stone walls. Running his gaze across the nameplate, he let out a low chuckle.

  Job Trünicht.

  This sprawling building had once served as the official residence of the alliance’s High Council chairman. It had been waiting here quietly since, and now its master had returned with a new position

  “Looks like we can expect a pretty good show here on Heinessen. I think I’ll stay awhile to watch.”

  III

  Julian Mintz knew all too well how unprepared he was for his new position, and how undeserving of it. He fell far short of Yang Wen-li not only in the obvious area of experience but also in terms of talent and capacity. All he could do was keep asking himself “What would Marshal Yang do?” and muster all his powers of memory and understanding in search of the answers. Yang had left him so unexpectedly and so soo
n.

  “Good people, fine people, killed for no reason. That’s war. That’s terrorism. That’s where the sin of both ultimately lies, Julian.”

  Julian understood this. No—he thought he understood it. But it was still hard to accept. It was hard to bear the knowledge that Yang Wen-li had been pointlessly murdered by ignorant, reactionary terrorists. Was his own longing to find meaning in that death a tacit recognition of the efficacy of terror? Was it just another example of how the living co-opt the dignity of the dead for political ends?

  But, Julian thought. We need Yang. If we are to protect the tender shoots of democracy he left to us, we need his help, even from beyond the grave.

  A democracy, but one forced to rely on loyalty to individuals. This paradox had bedeviled Yang during his life, and following his death it was stronger than ever. Both Frederica, his wife, and Julian, heir to his military and political thought, saw no way to ensure that his ideals took root in the real world except by projecting a false image of Yang’s own life. With all but a fraction of the galaxy unified under the autocratic rule of Kaiser Reinhard, the only way the ideals of democratic governance could withstand the triumphant march of the empire was to become the ideals of Yang Wen-li, Hero, Champion of Democracy.

  The “individual as personification of democracy” that Yang had sought urgently but ultimately unsuccessfully in life had been found by his inheritors. It was the late Yang Wen-li himself.

  A historian of a later age wrote:

  “Alexandor Bucock and Yang Wen-li were both renowned admirals who had supported the Free Planets Alliance in its final age, but the meanings of their deaths were entirely different. Bucock’s demise was the end of democracy, as symbolized by the collapse of the political entity that was the Free Planets Alliance. Yang’s death was the rebirth of democracy’s spirit—a new democracy not bound by the framework of the old alliance. Or, at least, his successors thought this a real possibility. Indeed, if they had not thought so, they could hardly have withstood the situation in which they found themselves. Yang Wen-li was to them not only undefeated but immortal…”

  Amid his grief for Yang and his hatred for Yang’s assassins, Julian realized something.

  When Marshal Yang left us, he was still undefeated. No one ever beat him. Not even Kaiser Reinhard…

  Would that be some small comfort? Julian recalled Frederica’s words, and felt a small but barbed thorn within his breast. “I wanted him to live. Even if he lost every battle he fought!”

  Yang Wen-li now existed only in records and recollection. But, conversely, despite his death, those recollections remained a rich harvest, those records eternal. His trajectory of undefeated victory, from El Facil to Astarte, Iserlohn, Amritsar, and finally Vermillion, would stand forever. Perhaps the inheritors of the Lohengramm Dynasty, oppressing the entire galaxy, would seek to mythologize their founder by eliminating the historical facts that impinged on his divinity. But not even the Goldenbaum Dynasty had been able to hide the monstrous deeds of Rudolf I. Whatever victories the sword enjoyed over the pen were temporary at best.

  Julian had once suggested to Yang that he draw on his battlefield experience to write a book on military tactics.

  Yang shook his head vigorously. “Absolutely not,” he said. “In strategy, there are rules and approaches that are more correct than others, but tactics go well beyond theory. The right strategy leads to victory, but it’s only victory that lets us see, in retrospect, that a tactic was right. No military leader with any brains would pin their hopes on tactical victories to win back strategic advantage. More to the point, they wouldn’t include the hopes of those victories in their prewar calculations at all.”

  “Why don’t you put that in the book, then?”

  “Who can be bothered? You can write it if you like. Make sure you add plenty of praise for me—that’d be nice. How about ‘He was a quiet man of intelligence and charm’?”

  Yang had always deflected the conversation with jokes when it turned toward him.

  Julian also recalled something Yang had told him about revolutionary strategy the day after they’d reoccupied Iserlohn.

  “We chose the path of occupying Iserlohn Fortress, but that wasn’t the only choice we had.”

  Instead, Yang explained, they could have kept the Revolutionary Reserve Force on the move, building democratic structures of governance wherever they went. Instead of relying on a single base of operations, they could have made the entire galaxy one giant mobile outpost, and swum in a “sea of the people.”

  “That might even have been better. Perhaps I was the one obsessed with the fantasy of Iserlohn, not the Imperial Navy.”

  It was not strong enough to be called regret, but Yang did seem wistful over the idea. Placing before his guardian what must be the nth-thousandth cup of tea he had made since joining the Yang household, Julian asked the almost too obvious question: “What stopped you from doing that?”

  He was sure that Yang would have chosen the best option possible, so the question was what had forced Yang to abandon this strategic philosophy and take the next-best path.

  “Money,” said Yang with a rueful smile. “You have to laugh, eh? As long as we stay in Iserlohn Fortress, we can make our own rations, weapons, ammunition, whatever. But…”

  But if they left Iserlohn and began to wander, supplies would be a regular, unavoidable necessity. They had been able to make use of an alliance supply base during the Vermillion War, but that option was no longer available. Whatever they received from now on would have to be paid for—and they had no capital. Simply seizing what they needed was not an option. They had no choice but to fortify themselves somewhere they could be self-sufficient. If their military resources had been sufficient, they could have stormed the Imperial Navy base at Gandharva, taken its supplies, and then changed course, but the Yang Fleet had not obtained resources like that until it had taken Iserlohn.

  “Tactics are subordinate to strategy, strategy to policy, policy to economics. That’s just how it is.”

  Whatever strategy Julian and the residents of Iserlohn took now had to be long-term. Kaiser Reinhard, the Lohengramm Dynasty, and the Galactic Empire had merged into a single threat. Constant awareness of the direction of Reinhard’s political and military strategy would be their first task.

  But if the situation did not change for the better during Reinhard’s reign, any nascent republic would have to face down and negotiate with his successor. What that entailed would, of course, depend on whether Reinhard married and produced an heir or not; and in the latter case, a different response would be needed depending on whether a new unifying leader emerged following a short struggle for supremacy, or whether chaos and division were prolonged.

  A computer could simply output INSUFFICIENT DATA—PREDICTION NOT POSSIBLE and abandon its responsibility, but a human did not have that luxury. It was vital to gather more information, which was one reason Julian had sent Boris Konev to Heinessen.

  On one of his regular visits to Frederica’s office bearing a pile of reports and approval requests, he found her drinking tea. Something about her color worried him.

  “You must be tired, Frederica.”

  “Oh, a little. But at least I understand now. Working on a project based on your own ideas and taking care of matters within the authority granted to you are two very different things…”

  She took a sip of her tea and sighed heavily.

  “I’ll just have to craft my own principles for action as I go. And so will you, Julian.”

  “Yes. That’s absolutely right.”

  A tremendous realization riding in a tiny boat of recollection came to Julian. He felt something akin to awe at the sheer amount of mental work Yang Wen-li had gotten done in his life, between napping and drinking tea and breaking his record losing streaks in 3-D chess.

  Julian’s memories of Yang’s words and deeds were va
st, but they would never be added to again. He himself would have to put them in order, systematize them, and guide himself by the results as he strove to fulfill the responsibilities that had come to rest on his shoulders.

  On another day when youthful vitality and exhaustion struggled within both his spirit and flesh for dominance, he had just finished mechanically consuming his meal in the cafeteria when a paper cup was placed before him.

  “Drink this.”

  Julian blinked. He could not immediately credit the favor he had been shown. Standing before him was Katerose “Karin” von Kreutzer. The paper cup was full of a liquid of a color somewhere between black and brown. Its pungent smell declared it to be neither coffee nor tea.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  The mysterious drink’s flavor also defied his expectations. The change in his expression seemed to melt the thin layer of ice encasing Karin as she watched.

  “It’s not supposed to taste good,” she informed him. “It’s medicine. An old Kreutzer family remedy for fatigue. Ingredients and preparation method strictly kept secret. For the comfort of the person drinking it.”

  Karin’s indigo eyes moved to the side, away from Julian’s gaze. The population of Iserlohn Fortress was only a fifth of what it had been during its heyday three years ago. Those who lived there rarely found themselves faced directly with another person.

  “This place sure feels empty now that everyone with any sense has left, doesn’t it?” said Karin.

  “You didn’t leave.”

  “Unfortunately for you, I don’t like moving house. And I respect Frederica too much anyway. I want to help her.”

  Julian was warmed by her determination. It was these words, rather than the Kreutzer family remedy, that melted his fatigue like frost in the sun.

  “Obviously,” Karin continued. “Any woman who could look at her and not want to help is barely a woman at all.”

  “The same goes for men, too.”

  Julian immediately wondered if this was a misstep, but rather than reacting with indignation, Karin apparently chose to ignore him. She put one finger to her well-formed chin.