Until now, Emperor Reinhard had always had more apathy than tolerance for religion. Naturally, he could no longer remain indifferent about the Odin sect, which, regardless of goals or methods, had a mind to disavow his very existence. He’d never failed to reward his enemies with more retribution than they deserved. The only reason he’d been so generous this time around was another matter altogether—one left for his private consideration only.
Among Reinhard’s subordinates, anger and hatred toward the Church of Terra was much more violent among civil officials than soldiers. Foreign campaigns had come to a standstill because of his control of Phezzan and the Free Planets Alliance’s surrender. And while the age of civil officials had arrived and that of the military had been eclipsed, if the new emperor were to be overthrown by terrorism now, the entire universe would spiral into conflict and chaos, and the guardian of universal order would be lost to them forever.
And so, on July 10, an imperial council was convened, even as the fate of Earth, or at least that of the church, was losing its grip on the future.
I
WHILE THIS BLOODY INTERMEZZO was reverberating around Emperor Reinhard’s person, in the Free Planets Alliance capital of Heinessen, now a protectorate of the Galactic Empire, “Miracle” Yang Wen-li was living out the pensioner’s lifestyle he’d always wanted. Or so it seemed.
Even though he was exalted as Emperor Reinhard’s most worthy opponent, Yang had never once, from the beginning of his life, desired to be a military man. He’d only enrolled in the Officers’ Academy in the first place because the tuition had been free and it had offered courses in his true interest, history. Since the moment he’d first put on his uniform, he’d been pining for a chance to take it off. After pulling off the unthinkable El Facil Evacuation eleven years back, one medal and promotion after another had made the uniform heavier. And now, at the age of thirty-two, he had finally been able to retire.
Yang’s pension, as befitting his status, was an atonement for the many allies and many more enemies whose blood had been shed under his watch. The very notion pierced his soul, and it was all he could do to put himself at ease now that his desire from twelve years ago had been granted at last. Yang brazenly left behind memos to that effect: The thought of getting paid for nothing is almost shameful. On the other hand, getting paid for not killing people seems like a more proper way to live, or at least a happier one. But any historians biased against him ignored these sentiments.
Commodore at twenty-eight, admiral at twenty-nine, and now marshal at thirty-two. Under more peaceful conditions, these achievements would have seemed like the daydream of a mental patient. To him, being called the alliance’s greatest, most resourceful general alive was nothing short of history’s greatest misappropriation of adjectives. Nearly all the alliance’s military successes over the past three years had been pulled from his black beret like the magician’s proverbial rabbit. That the alliance itself had bowed to the empire didn’t necessarily work to his advantage, and so he couldn’t help but fret over this historic turn of events.
Immediately after his retirement, Yang got married and set up house on June 10 of that year. His bride was twenty-five-year-old Frederica Greenhill, who’d worked as Yang’s aide while on active duty, ranked lieutenant commander. She was a beautiful woman with golden-brown hair and hazel eyes and had been only fourteen years old during the escape from El Facil. She had never forgotten that seemingly inept black-haired sublieutenant, now an intergral part of her reality. Yang had known how she felt about him but only this year had felt emboldened to reciprocate. Even then, their signals had gotten crossed more than Frederica would’ve liked.
The wedding was a modest affair. The main reason behind this choice was that Yang hated lavish ceremonies. He was also worried that an extravagant wedding would appear to be an ideal pretext for former alliance leaders to congregate and hatch some dire plot. Arousing the Imperial Navy’s suspicion at this point would be extremely unwise.
Any big to-do would also necessitate inviting domestic and foreign bigwigs, which meant that Yang would need to endure drawn-out speeches from people whose company he didn’t particularly enjoy. Worst of all, he would have to invite the galactic imperial commissioners and others who now held high positions in the alliance government. All of this was more trouble than it was worth.
As a result, among Yang’s old subordinates, of those still on active duty, he invited only Vice Admiral Alex Caselnes. The rest were all retired and in hiding on Yang’s orders.
On the day of the ceremony, his bride looked unbelievably beautiful. Yang, as ever, looked like an immature scholar, despite the great pains he’d taken with his uniform, and his closest allies took every opportunity to remind him of that.
“A regular princess and the pauper,” chided Caselnes in response to Yang’s grumbling over his tuxedo. “If only you’d bitten the bullet sooner, you might’ve gotten by just fine with your military uniform, like me. Looking at you now, I’d say the uniform suits you better after all.”
Even in uniform, Yang somehow looked more like a boy than a soldier, and so he didn’t think it made any difference in the end.
Vice Admiral Walter von Schönkopf, former commander of the Rosen Ritter fleet and commander of fortress defenses at Iserlohn under Yang, mixed his own verbal cocktail of cynicism and regret: “You’ve escaped a military prison, only to march yourself into the cell block of marriage. You’re an odd duck, Mr. Yang.”
To which Caselnes responded, “Odd isn’t the word. One week of married life has enlightened him to something he never learned in ten years of bachelorhood. I suspect he’ll sire a great philosopher one day.”
Yang’s Officers’ Academy lowerclassman, the retired Dusty Attenborough, agreed and threw his own meat into this roasting. “The way I see it, Yang got the best of the spoils of war in his new bride. Fitting for our ‘Miracle Yang,’ seeing as she lowered herself to his level and all.”
Yang’s ward, the seventeen-year-old Julian Mintz, shook his flaxen, longish-haired head to this round of criticism.
“Admiral, it amazes me that you could lead such people to victory. They’re all backstabbers, if you ask me.”
“How do you think I got to be this way in the first place?” quipped Yang, as only a person of character would do. “Resolve has to come from somewhere.”
Those in attendance demanded that Yang and his bride kiss, and he approached her like a man on drunken legs. For just a moment, Julian flashed a pained expression at Frederica’s vivacious, beautiful face. First, because he’d held a vague longing for her for quite some time. Second, because he would be leaving the planet Heinessen that very night to embark on his own new journey. And while the latter was by his own choice, it was only natural that his emotions should run rampant in his young heart once he was ten thousand light-years away from the people he loved. Any loneliness he’d ever felt before would now be magnified to cosmic levels.
Yang’s interlocutors left after the wedding. Julian, too, bid his farewells to the newlyweds and took his leave of the young bride and groom before they set out for the lakes and marshes of their mountain honeymoon. After ten days in a secluded villa, they returned to begin their new life in a rented house on Fremont Street. Because Yang’s prior residence, the house on Silverbridge Street, had been official military housing, naturally he’d had to move out when he’d retired.
Thus, Yang seemed to have turned the first page of his ideal life. But the reality of it was not as sweet as he’d imagined, for reasons of both his own and others’ making.
Combining the pensions of Marshal Yang and Lieutenant Commander Frederica, although less than what would have been given to royalty and titled nobility, was enough to guarantee them more freedom of activity and material surplus than they knew what to do with. Even so, pensions were provided only when the government finances existed to do so, and in that regard the state of things was
deteriorating beyond their control.
The alliance’s new administration, of which João Lebello was prime minister, had been bankrupted by the war. Because of a security tax being loaned to the empire in accordance with the peace treaty, they needed to improve their financial situation toward funding the rebuilding effort. There was much to be done, but for now they were focusing on the short term. The administration expressed its determination for financial reform by restructuring the power system as follows:
Those holding public office faced average pay cuts of 12.5 percent, and Lebello himself relinquished 25 percent of his salary. Whereas before there’d been nothing but wind and rain outside Yang’s window, now that the alliance had taken the scalpel of reduction to soldiers’ pensions as well, that damp wind had crashed through the glass and chilled him to the bone.
A former marshal’s pension cut was 22.5 percent, that of a former lieutenant commander 15 percent. Yang understood that this disparity reflected their ranks, but that did nothing to stop him from feeling that his ideal of getting paid without having to wage war had already been trampled on. He wasn’t dead to money, but he’d never had the experience of having more money than he knew what to do with. Either way, he knew its worth well enough. Yang had never been one to work harder just to increase his earnings, and future historians were right in at least one respect when they described him as “someone who had no interest in making money.”
Even so, putting their pensions together didn’t guarantee the most comfortable life after all. But the fact that Yang’s retirement had become oppressive had nothing to do with money, but rather with a certain unease lingering just beyond the surface of his new life.
The first signs were already appearing during their brief time in the mountains. Every time Yang went fishing for trout in the lake, threw wood into the fireplace to stave off the chill of high-elevation nights, or bought fresh milk from the local farmstead, he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching their every move.
II
In May of SE 799, year 490 of the old Imperial Calendar and year one of the New Imperial Calendar, the Bharat Peace Treaty was put into effect. In accordance with Article 7, the imperial high commissioner was to be stationed in the alliance capital. His duties were to negotiate and consult with the alliance government as proxy for the emperor, but his carrying out of inspections in accordance with the treaty gave him the power to interfere with domestic affairs, making him closer to a governor-general.
Helmut Lennenkamp’s appointment to this important office was evaluated thusly by the man known as the “Artist-Admiral,” Ernest Mecklinger.
“At the time of appointment, he was far from the worst choice. But over time, he has become the worst. Now everyone will suffer the consequences of this decision.”
Helmut Lennenkamp was a sullen middle-aged man, his dignified mustache rather out of place among the rest of his features. But he was a sound tactician who’d racked up medals in all types of battles, and by all accounts lacked nothing when it came to organizing troops. He was, for a time, Reinhard’s superior when Reinhard was lieutenant commander, and had an especial dislike for “that golden brat.” Aware of this critique, Reinhard was magnanimous enough to make sure that Lennenkamp was treated fairly, to the extent that no one talked about him behind his back. His name was therefore included in the list of candidates drawn up by the Lohengramm Dynasty’s founder, much to no one’s surprise.
Lennenkamp was blessed with many virtues—among them loyalty, a sense of duty, diligence, impartiality, and discipline—and his subordinates relied on him with appropriate respect and trust. As the subject of a volume in a series of imperial commissioner biographies, he would’ve received much praise. But from anything other than a military perspective, his lack of Oskar von Reuentahl’s flexibility and Wolfgang Mittermeier’s open-mindedness, his tendency to chase helplessly after both his own virtues and the virtues of others, and the incompatibility of his temperament as a superior military man and a human being—all of this would need to be recorded as well.
Lennenkamp was backed by four battalions of armed grenadiers and twelve battalions of light infantry when he commandeered the high-class Hotel Shangri-La in the center of Heinessenpolis to set up his executive office. Although Admiral Steinmetz’s grand fleet was holding down the Gandharva star system, being stationed in what had been enemy territory until just yesterday with that much military force was unimaginable for a coward.
“If those alliance bastards want to kill me, let them try,” he’d said of the situation, raising his shoulders defiantly. “I’m not immortal, but in the unlikely event that I should die, then the alliance dies with me.”
A “great military” was Lennenkamp’s ideal, and for him it wasn’t so far-fetched to think he might achieve it. He believed in superiors who had affection for their men, men who in turn respected their superiors, and comrades who trusted and helped one another without resorting to injustice or insubordination. Order, harmony, and discipline were his most cherished values. In a sense, he was an extreme militarist, one who would surely have counted himself a loyal follower of the Goldenbaum Dynasty’s founder Rudolf the Great, had he been born in that time. Of course, he didn’t have the inflated ego of a Rudolf von Goldenbaum, but Lennenkamp didn’t use his lord as a mirror to see himself from an objective point of view.
On Lennenkamp’s orders, Yang Wen-li was being surveilled by the Imperial Navy as a potential threat to national security.
Yang was increasingly irritated at having to report his destination and planned time of return every time they went out. Whether on active duty or retired, the government kept tabs on its highest-level officers. This was to be expected. And yet, the Imperial Navy had never given him any indication of being prison wardens. Rather, their surveillance was something the alliance government had suggested to the Imperial Navy. And while it was understandable that the alliance government would go to great lengths to keep such a close eye on Yang without giving the Imperial Navy any excuse for its interference, Yang wanted nothing more than for them to get it over with.
Yang complained to his new wife, wanting to know what pleasure they got out of tormenting a peaceful, harmless man like him, although anyone who knew the full score would never have bought into his claims of innocence. He’d supported Julian Mintz’s trip to Earth, planned the escape of Admiral Merkatz and others banished from the empire, and had carried out not exactly anti-imperial but certainly un-imperial activities, and so it was bold of him to play the role of hapless prisoner.
On that point, Frederica kept silent. In her opinion, it was in his favor that he’d earned the suspicions of the Imperial Navy and compromised the position of the alliance government.
“In that case, go ahead and be as lazy as you want.”
Yang nodded happily at his wife’s advice. Living peacefully, quietly, and idly suited him just fine. Yang had every reason to enjoy his indolence. And so, he began to spend each day lazily, even carelessly, quietly disregarding even the most obvious signs of surveillance.
One day, Captain Ratzel, in charge of monitoring Yang, gave a report to his superior.
“Marshal Yang lives a quiet life. I see no reason to believe he’s stirring up anti-imperial sentiment of any kind.”
Lennenkamp’s response was cynical, to say the least:
“He has a beautiful bride and food on his table. I can’t say I’m not jealous. An ideal life, wouldn’t you say?”
Lennenkamp put a high value on hard work and serving one’s country, and saw no merit in someone who’d once held important military office throwing the responsibility of defeat into a closet of forgetfulness and living out the rest of his life on a comfortable pension without a care in the world. A man of Lennenkamp’s common sense and values couldn’t wrap his head around Yang Wen-li. Something just didn’t add up, and he was determined to get to the bottom of what he saw to be myste
rious behavior.
Yang had forced Lennenkamp to swallow the bitter medicine of defeat on two occasions. If Yang had been a man possessed of any militaristic virtue, then Lennenkamp’s chagrin might have been balanced by his respect for a superior enemy. But unfortunately for both parties, they were all too often opposite sides of the same coin, and so duty compelled Lennenkamp to keep one eye over his shoulder at all times.
To Lennenkamp, it was all camouflage. Yang Wen-li didn’t seem the type to be content in living out the life of an idle pensioner until he was old and decrepit. Surely, in his heart, he was harboring a long-term plan to restore the alliance and overthrow the empire. His normal daily life was nothing more than a ruse to gloss over that fact.
Lennenkamp’s opinions toward Yang were myopic, the viewpoints of a quintessential patriot soldier. Paradoxically enough, Lennenkamp had forced his way through the marshlands of his prejudice and the dense forest of his misunderstanding to reach the gates of truth, before which he now stood, his hands itching to push them open.
But his subordinate lacked his level of conviction. Either that, or he wasn’t nearly as jaded. If Reinhard had made a mistake in choosing Lennenkamp, then Lennenkamp had made a mistake in choosing Ratzel. As the captain was monitoring Yang, he courteously delivered the following message:
“To Your Excellency, Marshal, this must come as an inconvenient and irritating development. But I am at the whim of my superior and, as a petty official, am obliged to obey. Please accept my sincerest apologies.”
Yang waved his hand slightly.
“Oh, please, think nothing of it. We’re all slaves to our paycheck. Isn’t that right, Captain? I was the same way. It’s more than a piece of paper; it’s a chain that binds.”
Captain Ratzel needed a few seconds to grin, partly because of Yang’s poorly constructed joke and partly because Ratzel’s sense of humor wasn’t all that developed to begin with.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Volume 6 Page 7