Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Volume 7

by Yoshiki Tanaka

He murmured these words as if in warning against his own optimism, and as he was speaking, an officer announced the presence of a visitor.

  The visitor was General Volker Axel Büro, a staff officer of Imperial Space Armada commander in chief Mittermeier.

  Under the command of redheaded Siegfried Kircheis, Büro and Bergengrün had once competed with one another for fame. During the Battle of Amritsar and the Lippstadt War alike, they had fought with their respective columns side by side. With Kircheis’s unexpected death, his flagship Barbarossa had lost its honored master and been berthed in the spaceport on the imperial capital, while his team of staff officers had been broken up and reassigned to various scattered posts. But even though the sections they were affiliated with now differed, that did nothing to erode their memories of surviving life-or-death battles together.

  Büro met with Bergengrün in a separate room, and encouraged his old friend, informing him that the kaiser would most likely deal generously with von Reuentahl, and that Imperial Marshal Mittermeier had pledged his full cooperation.

  “I’m grateful to hear it. Still, Büro…” As he lowered his voice, thunderheads concealing flashes of lightning were scudding across Bergengrün’s expression. “It was because of the minister of military affairs’ meddling that I lost my senior officer, Admiral Kircheis. He was young, but he truly was a great commander. If I were to lose a second senior officer in the space of two or three years because of that same Marshal von Oberstein, my life would be the epitome of both tragedy and comedy.”

  “Wait a minute, Bergengrün….”

  Before his old friend’s eyes, Bergengrün breathed out a heavy, hot breath. “I know what you’re going to say, Büro—my duty is to calm Marshal von Reuentahl and see to it he doesn’t boil over. And I’ll put all my strength into doing that. However, if Marshal von Reuentahl incurs a punishment that greatly exceeds what his crime calls for, I won’t be able to let that go.”

  Even though he knew that no one else was in the room, Büro couldn’t help glancing around at their surroundings.

  Imperial Marshal von Reuentahl had taken a woman into his private home who was from the family of Count Lichtenlade—that rash action had been the start of all this. But now, at a time when Yang Wen-li and his associates had retaken Iserlohn Fortress and unity and cooperation were needed from the entire imperial military, people were rebuking the secretary-general of Imperial Military Command Headquarters over a blunder in his personal life, and talking about it as if it were directly connected to high treason. Büro could well understand the feelings of hatred his old friend had toward that.

  Ever since the unexpected death of Siegfried Kircheis, a little fire of dissatisfaction and hostility toward von Oberstein had been burning away inside Bergengrün, and he had been unable to put it out. On that day, in September of year 488 of the old Imperial Calendar, an assassin’s hand cannon had been aimed at Reinhard, and its discharge should have been prevented not by Kircheis’s body, but by the barrel of his gun. After all, up until that day, he alone had been permitted to bear arms at Reinhard’s side, and his marksmanship had been outstanding.

  It had been von Oberstein who had viewed Kircheis’s going about armed as an unfair privilege, and advised its revocation. Reinhard had also been at fault for listening to him, but he had regretted what he had done; in contrast to that, von Oberstein was cool and indifferent, and to this very day Kircheis’s old subordinates couldn’t help feeling indignant toward him.

  Back on Planet Phezzan, separated by a sea of stars, Imperial Marshal von Oberstein, the minister of military affairs, was unable to detect the hostility of Bergengrün and his compatriots. Though even if he were to detect it, it was unlikely he would change his attitude or policies in any way.

  It was Heidrich Lang who had cultivated mere rumors of von Reuentahl’s “rebellious intent” until they had borne the fruit of a personal interrogation by the kaiser. Von Oberstein had been watching in silence as Lang, with depraved relish, had lavished great quantities of water and fertilizer on that irresponsible gossip. Von Oberstein had not encouraged him in this enterprise, nor had he tried to prevent him; rather, he had simply observed, as a teacher might observe the performance of a bumbling disciple. Perhaps he might have said that von Reuetahl’s fall would be one acceptable outcome, and if he didn’t fall, he simply didn’t. Still, simply giving his tacit approval to Lang’s actions likely meant he would find no favor with the rest of the admiralty, or with Mittermeier in particular.

  Such was the thinking of his subordinate, Anton Ferner. Another possibility was that by concentrating all the admirals’ antipathy, hostility, and hatred in himself, the minister of military affairs was serving as a shield for the kaiser. Von Oberstein certainly never let words to that effect slip his tongue, though, so this might have amounted to nothing more than Ferner’s interpretation, as it would have been difficult to ascertain in the first place whether von Oberstein had even thought of such considerations. From the outset however, the sight of Lang, who was not even affiliated with the Ministry of Military Affairs, ensconcing himself here on Phezzan while cozying up to von Oberstein like a trusted advisor had hardly been pleasant for Ferner. Nevertheless, it didn’t show at all in his attitude. After all, he was not the owner of such a clear and straightforward value system either.

  When Lang came to report that Marshal von Oberstein had finally undergone questioning from the kaiser himself, von Oberstein turned the cold light of his artificial eyes toward him. In spite of the joy Lang felt inside, he kept his face downturned, and it seemed as if he were speaking to the desk rather than to von Oberstein’s stern face. When he finished his report, von Oberstein spoke for the first time.

  “Lang.”

  “Er, yes…?”

  “Do not disappoint me. Your duty is to be vigilant for domestic enemies in order to ensure the peace and security of the dynasty. It would be outrageously disloyal of you to falsely accuse a hero of our nation’s founding over a personal grudge, and thereby weaken the dynasty’s foundations. Do bear that in mind.”

  “I’m well aware of that, Your Excellency. Please, set your mind at ease.”

  Von Oberstein was not furnished with X-ray vision. On Lang’s face, bowed so low that he was facing the floor, was a small amount of sweat, and a strange steam of incongruity seemed to hang about him. In a space where not a soul was watching, his face seemed as though it were made up of inorganic pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

  “ ‘…There is no concrete evidence by which we may conclude with confidence that Heidrich Lang was trying to move things along with dangerous intent from the start. It is presently believed, however, that the outlines of his ambition appeared at the beginning of NIC 2, though they were as yet still indistinct. His intent was to stoke conflict between the minister of military affairs, Marshal von Oberstein and the secretary-general of Imperial Military Command Headquarters, Marshal von Reuentahl, and by taking advantage of their struggle, rise to become the chief of all vassals in the empire…’ Today, this is considered outrageously farcical thinking, and not even worthy of comment. As everyone knew, Lang was no famous, undefeated admiral with countless achievements to his name like von Reuentahl. Nor was he a capable advisor like von Oberstein, who had long been eliminating the enemies of lord and state by means of intrigues and careful management of the military. Lang was a mere conspirator, and nothing more than the chief of a dishonorable secret police. History, however, instructs us with countless real-life examples of how untalented and narrow-minded conspirators often push individuals of vastly greater talent or nobility than themselves into bottomless mires, sinking not only their opponents but also the very possibilities of their generations…”

  The man who would later leave that record, Senior Admiral Ernest Mecklinger, had at this time received orders from Reinhard, and was presently moving the entire force given him as rear guard commander in chief toward Iserlohn. It was his job to
restrict both the offensive and defensive activities of Yang Wen-li, who had stolen back Iserlohn Fortress. If Yang invaded imperial space, he was to hold Yang off, and if he headed for what had once been Free Planets Alliance space, he was to attack Yang from the rear. It is fair to say his was a most important mission.

  While it appeared as though Reinhard had exploded with anger, and was moving massive military forces based on emotion, his ice-blue gaze was taking stock of the military situation in every quarter of that vast expanse of space. And that was something that Yang Wen-li had already surmised at Iserlohn Fortress.

  IV

  On the night before he departed the imperial capital, Mecklinger had dinner with two of his colleagues, Kessler and Wahlen.

  By this time, Mecklinger’s assistant, as it were, Vice Admiral Lefort, the rear guard chief of staff, had already gone up to his orbiting battleship, where he was awaiting Mecklinger’s arrival. The empire’s military forces were overwhelmingly superior to those of either the Alliance Armed Forces or the Yang Wen-li faction, but from Mecklinger’s point of view, that posed a bit of a problem in terms of the distribution of military forces. Kaiser Reinhard had nearly all of his top advisors arrayed across a vast swath of space that stretched from Phezzan into Free Planets space, and at present his subjugation of the alliance appeared to be a complete success. But meanwhile, within the even vaster borders of imperial space, the imperial capital of Odin— seemingly cast aside by the young conqueror—was being defended by Senior Admiral Kessler, and Mecklinger was being deployed to the region of the Iserlohn Corridor. Soon enough, Wahlen would likely also receive orders for his first mobilization since his punitive strike on Earth. In the original territory of the Galactic Empire, it seemed unavoidable that military forces would be spread thin.

  Just before their after-dinner coffee, Kessler asked Mecklinger the following question:

  “I’m a little bit nervous about this, Admiral Mecklinger. It’s well and good for the kaiser to move his imperial headquarters to Phezzan, but what does he intend to do with this planet? There’s someone very close to His Majesty here.”

  “You refer to His Majesty’s elder sister, Admiral Kessler?”

  Kessler doubled as commissioner of military police and commander of capital defenses, but he was not a fleet commander, and ordinarily would have never been referred to by the title of “Admiral.” His colleagues, however, didn’t dwell on such formalities, and he himself enjoyed being called such.

  “That’s right,” he said. “Her Majesty the Archduchess von Grünewald. Her.”

  Senior Admiral August Samuel Wahlen hesitantly posed a question of his own: “The kaiser and the archduchess are brother and sister, but they haven’t met with one another since that happened, have they?”

  That referred to the death of Siegfried Kircheis in September of year 488 of the old Imperial Calendar. That tragedy had been the occasion for then countess Annesrose von Grünewald’s move to a mountain villa in Froiden.

  A shared concern floated in the air above the table between these three famous admirals.

  The kaiser had no heir. There was only one person in the whole universe who shared his blood: Archduchess Annerose von Grünewald. That lady had monopolized the affections of her younger brother the kaiser and the admiration of everyone at court, but now she lived a quiet life at her villa in Froiden, and never used her bloodline as a shield to interfere in affairs of state. The kaiser had asked his sister often to come and live with him at the old imperial palace of Neue Sans Souci, but Annesrose had continued to refuse; all Reinhard had been able to do was send a minimal security detail to ensure her safety.

  It was a truly ominous and extremely disrespectful thing to imagine, but in the event that the kaiser departed this world with neither an empress nor an heir, it might be Annerose who would save the Lohengramm Dynasty from dismantlement and collapse. If they followed existing policy and moved the central hub of all of space to Phezzan, Odin would be demoted to just another backwater planet. In such an event, it followed that its security forces would be decreased as well. In order to maintain with greater certainty the security of Archduchess Annerose von Grünewald, it would clearly be best if they could have her move to Phezzan. It would also be better luck than Kessler could have asked for if he himself were able to move closer to the throne in the process.

  “Still,” said Mecklinger, “that kind of thinking seems to have things backward. First, we should put someone forward to the kaiser to be empress. Then there won’t be any issues regarding the dynasty’s continued existence.”

  Mecklinger smiled, but the other two grimaced in reply. That was in fact the biggest problem; though their young lord was possessed of incomparable physical beauty himself, love affairs were, for now at least, alien to him. Had he so desired, he could have buried himself in the kaleidoscopic blossoms of the inner court. Nevertheless, no matter how his vassals might fret, this was a problem that could only be solved by the inclination of Reinhard’s own heart.

  “I just remembered something!” said Kessler. “Speaking of problems, how about the one with Karl Bracke?” The name was that of a cabinet member occupying the seat of minister of civilian government. Known since the days of the old empire as a crusader for the advancement of knowledge and civilization, he was an aristocrat who had foregone the use of “von” before his surname, and together with Eugen Richter, the present minister of finance, had cooperated all along with Reinhard’s reform politics.

  “Do you believe Minister Bracke has something against the kaiser?”

  “He isn’t keeping his dissatisfaction to himself. Just the other day, he apparently vented to his staff, ‘Every year, he orders these pointless mobilizations, consumes the national budget on warfare, and swells the ranks of the dead beyond all reason.’ Though it does seem he’d had a bit to drink at the time.”

  “The treasury is still in pretty stable condition, isn’t it?”

  “ ‘If he would stop going to war and focus on domestic politics, it would be more stable,’ he says. There’s truth in that, but to me, it seems problematic if his careless remarks end up aiding anti-kaiser reactionaries.”

  Wahlen fell into thought, supporting his chin somewhat awkwardly with his artificial left arm, while Mecklinger tapped his fingers on his coffee cup as he might the keys of a piano. “If I were to give free rein to my imagination, I’d say that someone with disquieting intentions might be backstage, putting forward Bracke as his proxy. And while it would be an outrage to comment right away on what to do about him…”

  “At any rate,” said Kessler, “Minister Bracke is a cabinet member appointed by the kaiser, so there’s really nothing we can do about him. But backstage…That’s right—what if some of those Terraists were slithering around back there?”

  Speaking as though the church were a family of serpents, Kessler drew his broad shoulders up in a cringe to display his revulsion.

  “When you think about it,” Kessler continued “if there are any surviving fanatics from the Church of Terra out there plotting revenge, me and Admiral Wahlen, as enemies of their sect, are sure to have our names on their hit list.”

  “Well then, does that mean if we go, we’ll go together?”

  Wahlen had started to laugh off that comment, but not completely succeeding, his face took on a sharp, bitter expression. At the time when he had brought military force to bear against the Church of Terra’s headquarters, he had been assaulted by a Terraist assassin, and had forever lost his left arm as a result. For having carried out his mission while enduring unexpected disaster, Wahlen’s reputation for fortitude and coolheadedness had only improved, but that appraisal would not make his lost arm grow back.

  An old-fashioned clock chimed ten. Along with being a prose poet, a pianist, and a watercolor painter, the master of this estate, Mecklinger, was also a collector of antiques. He was a handsome gentleman with a neatly trimmed
mustache, who during the Lippstadt War had immediately raced into art galleries and museums whenever occupying enemy territory, protecting works of fine art from the flames of battle. Kessler had teased him for this.

  “That art collector routine of yours has really gotten obnoxious. I can’t help but wonder if you’re going to start collecting the kaiser’s and Yang Wen-li’s military histories before long.”

  Mecklinger had thought about that very seriously.

  “Iserlohn Fortress was supposed to be impregnable until Yang Wen-li opened his bag of magic tricks. However, he caused it to change hands as easily as possession of a fly ball does. If that can be called art, then it’s surely unsurpassed.”

  “But still, I don’t think there’s anyone else who can imitate him.”

  “He’d never stand for it,” said Wahlen. “Still, when you think about it, he is a praiseworthy man, even if he is our enemy. With just that tiny force, he’s taking on our empire’s entire armada, and is keeping us so busy it’s wearing us out.”

  There was a weighty truth in Wahlen’s voice. This was because in the previous year, he himself had been driven to a massive defeat by Yang’s ingenious scheming. Naturally, he had an unspoken determination to not let it happen again.

  As the evening wore down, Kessler became the first to leave. He had to go and listen to a subordinate report on the movements of Job Trünicht, one of the subjects whom he had under observation.

  Kessler’s stance toward Trünicht, former head of state of the Free Planets Alliance was, to put it nicely, to politely try to ignore him. Intelligence had come to him through multiple channels that Trünicht had been abhorred by Yang Wen-li, to the point that he found himself sympathizing with an enemy admiral he had still never laid eyes on. In his position, Yang Wen-li had to respect the fundamentals of the majority rule system known as democracy, but Kessler had been able to live free of the sort of ambivalence that Yang had fallen victim to, and because Kessler was in temperament even more rigid than Yang, there was no way Trünicht’s sweet words and treachery were ever going to hold any attraction for him. In his eyes, Trünicht was nothing more than a dishonorable thief of a politician. In order to steal authority, he had taken advantage of flaws in the democratic form of government, and in order to steal his own personal security, he had taken advantage of the very decline and fall of the nation itself. After departing for imperial space with his family and fortune, he had left behind ravaged governmental institutions and dumbstruck supporters.