Pao Lin—commander in chief of the alliance military—was a womanizer, a heavy drinker, and a glutton, and although the statesmen of the alliance—who placed great importance on an ancient and puritanical simplicity of lifestyle—were apt to cast a cold eye on his behavior, the man was a genius when it came to tactics and strategy. Yusuf Topparole—his chief of staff, who assisted him in this work—was also known as “Griping Yusuf,” for he was constantly crying foul in matters large and small, saying, “Why do you have to give me such a hard time?”
Topparole, however, was also a precise and accurate theorist who might well have been called a living, breathing computer. Both men were still in their thirties when—on the outer fringes of the Dagon system—they conducted the greatest envelopment operation in history, annihilating the enemy and becoming the greatest heroes of the alliance since its founding.
For the Free Planets, this was an occasion for material expansion. When malcontent elements within the Galactic Empire learned of the existence of an independent power resisting the hegemony, they fled the empire in droves. Seeking a home where they could live in peace, they came flooding into the alliance.
In the three centuries following Emperor Rudolf’s death, the establishment—firm as it had once been—had become somewhat more lenient, and the influence of the Bureau for the Maintenance of Public Order, which had once spared no effort in oppressing the people, had faded as well. Voices of discontent within the empire were growing louder.
The men and women who flowed into the Free Planets Alliance were accepted in a spirit of “he who comes shall not be turned away,” but not all of these people held to republican ideals. Among this number there were even some aristocrats and members of the imperial family who came, having been on the losing side of court intrigues. With such people being allowed entry, and with the Free Planets growing too quickly, it was an inevitable progression, perhaps, that the nature of the alliance should begin to change more and more.
The Galactic Empire and the Free Planets Alliance had been in a chronic state of war since first contact, but from time to time they were visited by periods of uncertain peace as well. A product of this was the Phezzan Land Dominion. This was a sort of city-state in the Phezzan star system, which lay almost exactly between the two powers. It was under the sovereign rule of the Galactic Emperor and paid tribute to the empire, but when it came to its internal affairs, it was almost entirely self-governing—above all, in that it was permitted to have diplomatic relations and trade with the Free Planets Alliance.
The Galactic Empire, in making itself out to be the singular, absolute ruler of all humanity, did not acknowledge the existence of any legitimate authority outside the sphere of its influence. In official documents, the Free Planets Alliance was not referred to by its formal name; “the rebel entity” was written instead. The alliance’s military were “rebels” as well, and the chairman of the High Council (the alliance’s head of state) was “that deplorable rebel warlord.” With state regulations such as these in place, diplomacy and trade with the alliance should have been out of the question, but Leopold Raap—a powerful merchant of Terran birth—was possessed of a passion that might be called extraordinary, and drove forward the establishment of this most peculiar dominion. With petitions and persuasion—and above all, very large bribes—the matter was decided.
Representing the dominion was the landesherr, or domain lord, who as vassal of the emperor ruled there in his name, oversaw commerce with the alliance, and occasionally even played the role of diplomat. By monopolizing foreign trade, the dominion accumulated massive stores of wealth, and small as it was, its power became impossible to ignore.
It would be untrue to say that no one ever worked for amity between empire and alliance. Manfred II, who was enthroned in IC 398 (SE 707) was one of Emperor Helmut’s numerous illegitimate children. After slipping through the clutches of assassins, he came to spend his early childhood in the Free Planets Alliance and grew up in a more liberal atmosphere.
Because of this, it appeared that his enthronement might soon bring about peace and fair trade between the two powers, as well as political reform within the empire. However, these hopes soon came to nothing, as this young and popular emperor was assassinated within a year, and relations between the two powers immediately cooled. Manfred II’s assassin was a reactionary aristocrat, but there is also a compelling argument suggesting that behind the scenes, the hands of Phezzan were at work, seeking to preserve its monopoly on the right to foreign commerce.
And so at the close of the eighth century SE and the fifth century IC, the Galactic Empire—undisciplined and uncontrolled simply because of its immense size—and the Free Planets Alliance—having lost the ideals of its founding period—continued on with their struggle mainly out of inertia, with Phezzan in their midst. According to the calculations of certain economists, the relative national power of the three states was as follows:
The balance of power was precarious.
Moreover, the total population of humanity, which had numbered three hundred billion at the height of the Galactic Federation’s prosperity, had by this time plummeted to forty billion, due to the long years of chaos.
The distribution was twenty-five billion living in the empire, thirteen billion in the Free Planets, and two billion in Phezzan.
“It would be nice if something would work out, but it doesn’t look like it will.”
That was a statement that described the situation nicely.
What turned that situation on its head was the appearance of one young man on Odin, the third planet of the Valhalla system. Named after the chief deity of Norse mythology, Odin was the hauptplanet to which Rudolf had relocated the capital of the Galactic Empire. The name of that young man of icy beauty and fearless countenance was Count Reinhard von Lohengramm.
Reinhard von Lohengramm’s last name was originally Müsel, and in IC 467 (SE 776) he was born into an impoverished family that was aristocracy in name only. Reinhard’s life changed when he was ten years old, and Annerose—his elder sister by five years—was taken away to the inner palace of Emperor Friedrich IV. Reinhard, a youth with golden hair and ice-blue eyes, became lieutenant commander of a division of imperial guards at age fifteen, receiving accelerated promotions thanks both to his own talent and to Annerose’s favor with the emperor.
When he reached the age of twenty, he received the title of Count von Lohengramm and was promoted to the position of senior admiral in the Imperial Navy. This sort of extreme personnel management is typical of dictatorships, but with rank also comes responsibility. Had he been a noble of fine ancestry, there would have been no great need to prove himself, but because Reinhard was nothing more than “the little brother of the emperor’s favorite,” he had no choice but to do so.
At almost the same time, the Free Planets Alliance gained a new strategist. This was Yang Wen-li, who was born in SE 767 and enlisted at age twenty. Yang Wen-li had never aimed for a career in the military, and if a series of coincidences hadn’t pushed him in the right direction, he would have reached the end of his life not as a creator of history, but as a spectator.
“There are things you can do and things you can’t do.”
That was Yang’s pet philosophy. Toward fate, he had a much more passive disposition than Reinhard, but on the other hand, he had great adaptability and inventiveness. Even so, he remained uncomfortable with war and the soldier’s job of prosecuting it, and for the rest of his life, the military authorities were never free of his requests to “chuck my rank and retire.”
At the start of SE 796 and IC 487, Reinhard led a fleet numbering twenty thousand vessels on an expedition. His goal was to bring the rebel forces—who so audaciously referred to themselves as the Free Planets Alliance—to heel, and through that achievement establish his own personal position.
The alliance’s military had organized a fleet of forty thousand ships to intercept him. One of the staff officers in that fleet was named Yang Wen-li.
Count Reinhard von Lohengramm, was twenty years old that year, and Yang Wen-li was twenty-nine …