Sunset

by Yoshiki Tanaka

  The assault ship Istria seized the opening. Braving a wall of U-238 rounds from Brünhild herself, she slammed into the imperial flagship’s underside. By the time the dull tremors died down, powerful electromagnets held Istria tight against Brünhild’s hull, and caustic oxidizing agents had opened holes in the two walls that separated the ships.

  It had been six years since Brünhild was constructed and brought into service as Reinhard’s flagship, but this was the first time that the beautiful maiden’s fair skin had been marred by the enemy.

  The time was 0155.

  II

  For the Imperial Navy, the physical shock of this event paled in comparison to the psychological one. They had allowed enemy soldiers to board the fleet flagship and infiltrate Imperial Headquarters itself. After a moment of stunned regret, however, the imperial forces exploded with fury, vowing that not a single one of these lawless rebels would leave the battlefield alive.

  Amid urgently blaring sirens, Brünhild’s crew armored themselves for hand-to-hand combat, snatching up carbon-crystal tomahawks and ion beam rifles. Some even ran through the bridge with hand cannons until they caught the eye of Brünhild’s captain, Commodore Seidlitz.

  “Idiots!” he roared. “This is the flagship. No heavy arms are to be used!”

  He then turned to his second-in-command, also in charge of defense, Commander Matthäfer, and ordered him to repel the intruders.

  Some confusion was apparent in the imperial chain of command at that point. This was due to the overlap of organizational structure between Brünhild as a warship and the Imperial Headquarters she carried. For a short but crucial period, debate raged over whether combat within Brünhild should be commanded by headquarters or by the ship’s own command structure. Glancing at the internal monitors, Müller noticed Julian Mintz among the fearless intruders. He gasped in shock. The youthful commander of the Iserlohn Revolutionary Army had made himself part of the boarding party? Müller quickly conveyed this to Mittermeier, who stormed off to take action. But, just as he was about to leave the room—

  “Wait!”

  The fierce admonition from the kaiser’s finely wrought lips froze Mittermeier and Müller where they stood. Even from his sickbed, Reinhard’s intensity could overwhelm these accomplished military men.

  “Neither of you are to intervene. Leave things as they are.”

  “Mein Kaiser, if I may, there can be no doubt that this assault is an attempt on Your Majesty’s person. Admiral Müller has confirmed that the commander of Iserlohn’s military is among the intruders. We cannot simply ignore them.”

  But the kaiser only shook his golden-haired head a fraction. “Any man worthy to inherit the mantle of Yang Wen-li will have remarkable courage to show, even if his wisdom does not match that of his predecessor. What was his name?”

  “Julian Mintz, Your Majesty,” said Müller.

  “If this Mintz can overcome the resistance of my soldiers and reach me, it would only be fair to recognize his valor and accept his demands on equal footing.”

  “Mein Kaiser, in that case—”

  “If, on the other hand, Mintz cannot make his way here without relying on the mercy of the autocrat or the assistance of his ministers, he will have no right to demand anything. Nothing shall begin until he shows himself in my presence.”

  Reinhard closed his eyes and mouth, seemingly exhausted. His porcelain-white visage was tinged with blue, like alabaster in starlight. It did not diminish his beauty in the slightest; it only revealed his lack of vitality.

  Mittermeier and Müller exchanged a wordless look. Mecklinger let out a small sigh. The kaiser’s position seemed self-indulgent to them. If he wished to meet Mintz, what need was there for bloodshed first?

  “What should we do, Marshal Mittermeier?”

  “Well, Admiral Mecklinger, I see no choice but to obey His Majesty’s orders. We remain, after all, his subjects.”

  “But that may mean shedding needless blood in the hours to come.”

  “We can only pray that Admiral Müller’s republican acquaintance reaches the kaiser soon enough to prevent that. However unusual the circumstances surrounding this meeting, if it takes place it might eliminate the need to shed blood ever again.”

  If that were so, the violence that had preceded it would have at least some meaning. Bloodshed was a tragedy, but, apparently, an unavoidable one—only blood had been able to wash away the poison and pus that had built up over the five centuries of Goldenbaum rule.

  Perhaps, Mittermeier thought suddenly, the kaiser demanded blood as proof that the republicans truly valued what they sought. If so, he surely would not accept any less ferocity of spirit than he had always shown himself.

  Another small explosion reverberated, and guards hurried off. Perhaps a crowd of enemy soldiers would kick down the door of Reinhard’s sickroom and force their way in. If that happened, Mittermeier would do whatever was necessary to protect the kaiser, even using his own body as a shield if it came to that. He had not forgotten the words of his old friend Oskar von Reuentahl the previous year: Take care of the kaiser.

  Not long after realizing that he had fallen victim to the Iserlohn fleet’s cruel deception, Wittenfeld was informed by an operator that the kaiser’s ship was under threat. That he mustered the Black Lancers and turned back to assist the kaiser without the slightest hesitation is testament to both his indomitable fighting spirit and his loyalty.

  Wittenfeld ordered a volley of cannon fire to clear away the insolent wolves prowling around Brünhild, but at that the operator on the Königs Tiger blanched.

  “Sir, I cannot fire. Brünhild might be harmed.”

  “Those cunning—”

  Wittenfeld ground his teeth. Orange hair in disarray, he glared at the screen with bloody murder in his eyes. An ordinary man would have curled up on the floor in despair, but not Wittenfeld. Instead of collapsing, he made a decision of terrible import.

  “Fine. If that’s the way it is, we can at least crush the rest of that army of traitors. Let’s make sure that even if those republicans come out of Brünhild triumphant they won’t have a home to return to.”

  Inaction was the one thing Wittenfeld could not bear. Roaring at the top of his voice, he ordered the Black Lancers back into the fray. They brandished blades of rage and loathing as they descended on Iserlohn’s ships.

  By 0210, tactics and strategy had already become irrelevant. “Kill them all” was not an operational directive but, to put it bluntly, fanning the flames. Even members of the Black Lancers who, following the demise of the Fahrenheit Fleet, had joined only recently, willingly obeyed. Had Yang Wen-li been living, he might have nodded to himself at this evidence of how powerfully Kaiser Reinhard had captured the hearts of his troops.

  The von Eisenach fleet on the left wing saw the Black Lancers’ wild rush, but made no attempt to join it. Von Eisenach’s wordless orders were, perhaps, even crueler than Wittenfeld’s. The von Eisenach fleet fanned out along an arc from six to nine o’clock, as viewed from the imperial side, preparing to reward any Iserlohn ships that had fled the Black Lancers with concentrated cannon fire from the flank. They did not enter the battlefield, lest the fighting turn into close combat, which might have actually given the Iserlohn forces the advantage.

  Thus was Wittenfeld freed of all restraints on vengeful assault. The Black Lancers charged Iserlohn’s fleet and, notwithstanding the vast damage they suffered from Merkatz and Attenborough’s concentrated cannon fire, broke through its defensive lines by brute force. By this time, the Iserlohn fleet already lacked the numbers to withstand this ferocious assault. Seeing the danger, Merkatz ordered a retreat. And that was the moment a mass of light tore open the hull of his flagship Hyperion.

  An enormous spear of energy pierced the energy-neutralization field and cracked the hull. The cracks spread and widened in every direction, belching pillars of
heat and light both inward and outward.

  A gale swept through the ship.

  III

  Fire and wind and smoke raced through Hyperion’s corridors at high speed, tearing walls loose and snatching up soldiers and equipment in a mad tempest. A series of smaller explosions—secondary, tertiary, quaternary—erupted along the wiring conduits. Hyperion was gripped by fever and convulsions of fatal intensity.

  Wiliabard Joachim Merkatz lay half-buried under debris that had fallen from above. Three of his ribs were broken, and one had punctured his spleen and diaphragm. The wound was terminal.

  “Your Excellency! Admiral Merkatz!”

  Bernhard von Schneider swam doggedly through the nightmare of smoke and flame and corpses to Merkatz’s side. Von Schneider had fractured ribs on his right side and the ligament in his right ankle was torn, but the pain of these injuries did not even enter his awareness as he dragged the commander he loved and respected from under the mountain of debris.

  Merkatz was still alive, and even conscious, although his time on the final landing before oblivion would be brief. With some difficulty, the seasoned general sat up on a floor now soiled with blood and dust and oil and grease, looked his faithful lieutenant in the eye, and spoke with perfect calm.

  “Did Julian and the others get inside Brünhild?”

  “It appears they were successful. But, Your Excellency, we must prepare to escape this—”

  “They were successful? Then I can go with no regrets.”

  “Excellency!”

  Merkatz lightly raised one hand to quiet the young man’s raging emotions. On his lined, blood-smeared face, there was something akin to satisfaction.

  “I fall in battle with Kaiser Reinhard! I could ask for nothing more in death—you must not try to hold me back. An opportunity like this may never come again.”

  Von Schneider was speechless. He had known that his beloved commanding officer had been seeking the proverbial hill to die on ever since his defeat in the Lippstadt War. He had known, but he had always hoped that Merkatz would nevertheless live out his full allotted span.

  “Forgive me, Your Excellency. I hope I was not a burden on you.”

  “Come now, it wasn’t such a bad life. I had the chance to try my—what was the phrase?—foppery and whim against the kaiser himself. You have suffered much for me, but now you are free…”

  Merkatz was sixty-three years old. He had more than twice as many years of experience in the military as Reinhard and Yang combined. But this, too, was now in the past, and he breathed his last with von Schneider by his side. The last great admiral of the Goldenbaum Dynasty had ended his life as a member of the Revolutionary Army.

  When word of Merkatz’s death reached Dusty Attenborough, the vice admiral doffed his black beret and offered up a short, silent prayer. Merkatz had died on the same date as Yang Wen-li, who had greeted him as an honored guest. Attenborough could only hope that they would find each other in the afterlife, and discuss military history and tactics over drinks.

  Pulling himself together with some effort, Attenborough put his beret back on his head. He glanced toward the screen and noticed a young female pilot staring up at Brünhild’s suffering.

  “Worried, Corporal von Kreutzer?”

  He did not specify what she might be worried about, as no fewer than three individuals closely connected to her were in the boarding party: Poplin, her superior and teacher in the art of fighter combat; von Schönkopf, her biological father; and Julian Mintz, who was not quite her lover.

  Karin responded with a hard smile, but said nothing aloud. The young revolutionary did not press her further.

  Aboard Brünhild, Iserlohn’s infiltrators had established what might be called a bridgehead. The boarding party, which had the Rosen Ritter regiment as its core, advanced toward Reinhard’s chambers and the bridge, efficiently mowing down enemy soldiers as they went, but presently they came up against a tougher defensive formation.

  “Looks like the imperial guard have turned up!”

  “You mean ‘graced us with their august presence.’ Don’t forget, this is the personal guard of His Majesty the Kaiser.”

  “They’re just mannequins in fancy dress from Neue Sans Souci.”

  This ungenerous assessment found supporters among the speaker’s colleagues, but the reference was unfortunately dated, as Kaiser Reinhard did not, of course, reside in Neue Sans Souci Palace.

  “Hey, you [unprintable] Neue Sans Souci trash! Don’t you have a ballroom to guard or something? You should’ve stuck to what you’re good at—flipping up the skirts of society ladies with those bayonets of yours!”

  The reply was a torrent of beam fire. Shafts of light came in by the dozen, exploding against the walls and floor and bouncing off mirror-coated shields to turn the world into a whirl of madly dancing gemstones. Naturally, the Rosen Ritter returned fire, and the shootout ended in around 100 seconds. As they slowly recovered their vision, they saw imperial troops approaching with tomahawks and bayonets at the ready.

  In moments, a violent melee was underway.

  The air filled with screams and the clang of metal on metal. Blood sprayed from sliced-open arteries, painting abstract crimson canvases that stretched from wall to floor.

  The imperial troops were hardly mannequins, but neither were they any match for the ferocity of the Rosen Ritter. The “Knights of the Rose” were descended from refugees who had fled the old imperial society, and they deployed every brutal technique at their disposal, swinging tomahawks, thrusting with combat knives, slamming elbows into weak spots, and stabbing with bayonets.

  Tomahawks clashed in showers of sparks. The gleam of combat knives gave way to the luster of spurting blood. The combat was primitive—rending, slashing, punching, kicking, splitting, and finally ending in a retreat on the defensive side. Iserlohn’s boarding party advanced over bodies and blood, but the imperial side quickly regrouped and sought its next chance at slaughter.

  Von Schönkopf turned to Julian, who stood beside him. “We’ll hold them off,” he said. “You go see the kaiser. Talk to him, or respectfully send his head flying—make history as you see fit.”

  Julian hesitated. How could he sacrifice von Schönkopf and his men in exchange for an audience with the kaiser? He knew he was being sentimental, but he was still reluctant to accept von Schönkopf’s proposal.

  “Don’t misunderstand what matters here, Julian,” von Schönkopf said. “Finding the kaiser and negotiating as equals is your duty. Our job is to arrange things to make that possible.”

  Von Schönkopf suddenly seized Julian by the shoulders and leaned close enough for their helmets to touch.

  “Do you know the one thing I’m still mad at Yang Wen-li for? Not getting away alive last year, after Blumhardt gave his life to protect him. ‘Miracle Yang’ or not, he shouldn’t have fumbled that one.”

  It seemed to Julian that the weight of von Schönkopf’s sorrow was palpable even through their two helmets.

  Von Schönkopf straightened up. “Poplin, Machungo, you go with Julian. The three of you together should add up to one decent fighting man, after all.”

  “Hear, hear,” said Captain Kasper Rinz. “This is Rosen Ritter-occupied territory. We don’t need weaklings like you dragging us down.”

  “You see how it is,” said von Schönkopf with a smirk. “The Rosen Ritter are an exclusive group. They’d prefer it if outsiders sought their fortune elsewhere.”

  Julian made up his mind. He could not let von Schönkopf and Rinz’s gesture be in vain, and above all he did not want to waste time.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll see you later. Just make sure you survive.”

  “Oh, I intend to,” von Schönkopf said. “I have something new to look forward to now—turning into a stubborn dad and crashing my daughter’s wedding. Now get going. There’s no time.” />
  “Thank you,” Julian said. Shaking off all sentimentality, he broke into a run, fast as a young unicorn, with Poplin and Machungo close behind. Von Schönkopf watched them leave, then shifted his gaze. He saw a figure reflected in a subordinate’s helmet, leveling his beam rifle at Julian’s back. Without even turning, von Schönkopf drew the blaster at his hip.

  What happened next could only be described as magic. Without even turning, von Schönkopf fired the blaster behind him from under his other arm. The imperial soldier was dead before he hit the ground. Cries of rage and astonishment rose from the imperial army, while the Rosen Ritter whistled in admiration.

  “Excellent shot, Admiral von Schönkopf.”

  “I’ve always wanted to do that. One of my childhood dreams.”

  As von Schönkopf laughed, a beam of light grazed his nose and plunged into the floor. He leapt back and adjusted his grip on his tomahawk, ready for the next bloody battle.

  IV

  Von Schönkopf’s tomahawk sliced through air and flesh in silver arcs. Blood spurted upward, and shrieks and bellows reverberated off the ceiling. He seemed less an emissary of death than death itself—and the kind of death idealized by supporters of military rule, at that: the glorious demise recorded in human blood.

  It was the first time von Schönkopf had wielded his tomahawk inside an enemy ship since meeting Marshal Oskar von Reuentahl in single combat three years earlier.

  “Bah!” he muttered. “If I’d fought three minutes longer then, von Reuentahl’s head would’ve been mine. Then I could have set those heterochromatic eyes in my shield like jewels.”

  Sounding like a bronze-age warrior, von Schönkopf shook the blood off his tomahawk. Too much, however, had already dried fast to the blade; it did not recover the same silver gleam as his armor. He knew that the weapon’s dark red coating was the color of sin, but this did not sap his destructive power. He hacked his way through the enemy, cutting them down, sweeping them aside, sending countless men to a hell he would soon follow them to.