When they did realize it, a wave of terror instantly engulfed the entire fleet. Waagenseil, too, seeing at once that his strategy had failed, desperately ordered a retreat. It was at exactly this moment that the Wahlen Fleet arrived on the battlefield. When the report reached Julian, he licked his parched lips unconsciously.
The fleet’s formation was solid and devoid of obvious weakness, as if reflecting the character of Wahlen himself. He had charged into the corridor after learning via distant Phezzan that Waagenseil had engaged. Creating a pincer formation to trap the Iserlohn forces from both sides was another fundamental imperial strategy.
In one past battle, Yang Wen-li’s innovative strategy of placing a disguised supply fleet before the main combat fleet had left Wahlen sipping from defeat’s bitter chalice. Only Yang could have pulled that off; Wahlen was a veteran commander of expansive abilities, against whom standard military doctrine was all but useless. This was even truer in a case like the present one, when the forces under Julian’s control were small in absolute terms. To compensate for this, Julian would need to reposition his forces rapidly; above all, Thor’s Hammer would be indispensable. But in order to use that weapon, he would have to convince the imperial forces that they had a good chance of trapping the Iserlohn fleet in a pincer formation. This was why Julian had been so preoccupied with controlling the movements of his fleet. Yang had been able to leave this to Fischer, but Julian had been forced to do it himself. In a bittersweet irony, the fact that Iserlohn’s forces were so reduced since Yang’s time was exactly what made it possible for Julian to keep the whole fleet straight in his mind.
Like sheep scattering before the storm, Waagenseil’s ships broke ranks and attempted to flee. The Iserlohn forces paid them no heed, beginning an exchange of fire with the Wahlen fleet instead. But Iserlohn’s ships could not withstand Wahlen’s ferocious return fire for long, and soon they began their retreat.
Had the battle continued for another hour, Wahlen would undoubtedly have surrounded the Iserlohn fleet completely and sealed their doom. But, of course, Julian had no intention of continuing the battle. The goal was simply to lure the Wahlen fleet within range of the Hammer, just as they had done to Waagenseil’s ships.
Wahlen divined these intentions, but elected to enter the danger zone anyway to cover Waagenseil’s withdrawal.
If I can just get close enough to Iserlohn Fortress while the weapon is still charging…
This was the idea on which Wahlen staked all his hopes, and at first it seemed that his wager had paid off. At his command, the front ranks of his fleet charged toward the Hammer’s blind spot at a speed that would have impressed even the Gale Wolf himself.
And then beams of light by the hundreds pierced the imperial forces’ left flank.
A chain of explosions flared down the ranks of the fleet, momentarily turning it into a vast dragon of light writhing in the void. Warships were rent asunder, cruisers reduced to balls of flame, destroyers scattered in every direction. When the operator’s hapless cry of “Enemy incoming at nine o’clock!” reached the bridge of Salamander, Wahlen could only groan wordlessly in response.
The incoming detachment was led by Merkatz, and had been lurking in space extremely close to Iserlohn Fortress, which was a blind spot for the Wahlen fleet’s search systems. It had not gone unnoticed by the Waagenseil fleet, but they were so desperate to retreat that warning Wahlen had not been high on their list of priorities. With communications so thoroughly jammed, it might have been pointless even to make the attempt. Still, given Wahlen’s unstinting efforts to help the Waagenseil fleet withdraw to safety, the consideration they showed in return was a paltry sum indeed.
Retaining his composure, Wahlen took control of the situation, reconstructing the crumbling formations of his fleet and preventing the total destruction of his forces even in the face of Merkatz’s ferocious assault. However, he was forced to abandon all hope of further combat. His ships were now at fully at the mercy of Thor’s Hammer.
Wahlen ordered the ships under his command to exit the Hammer’s firing range at full speed, and it was a rare thing indeed for an order to garner such earnest response. Gripped by terror, they desperately brought their vessels around and began to flee.
But Thor’s Hammer was already fully charged. At 2015, Vice Admiral Walter von Schönkopf, who had command of Iserlohn’s defenses, raised his right hand, formed a blade with his fingers, and swept it down.
For a few moments, the imperial troops may have hallucinated the grim reaper throwing off his cloak and swinging his great sickle. That illusion was soundlessly shattered by a mass of white light of truly monstrous ferocity. On bleached viewscreens, the imperial ships became a mass of dark shadow-pictures, swallowed up in an instant by the frothing torrent of light. Some vaporizations were instantaneous, some explosions lasted for seconds; the carnage continued, scattering globes of light across the darkness of space; just outside the main blast zone, wave after wave of brutal energy buffeted ships with terrifying force.
Two hundred seconds passed, and Thor’s Hammer roared again. A column of light, this silent roar pierced the infinite darkness, destroying thousands more ships. Tumbling balls of flame collided with allied vessels behind them, tearing them in two; these halves spun off in different directions, taking out still more allied ships. The dazzling dance of death and destruction spread through the void, and continued to expand.
“Get out of there, please! Run!”
In the commander’s seat aboard Ulysses, cold sweat chilled Julian’s heart. His nerves were not woven from steel wire, and he could not remain impassive in the face of death in such vast quantity. He would have been even more shaken, even more disgusted with himself had he been granted a vision of the imperial troops who had escaped immediate death—had he seen the crewmen who were blinded by the flash, who staggered through ships engulfed in flames before new explosions ruptured their abdomens, who called for their mothers as they died in agony, gore and organs spilling from their wounds…
At 2045, Wahlen ordered a full withdrawal.
Even as the battle descended into slaughter, he managed to retain the judgment required of a senior imperial admiral. When he was satisfied that there was no hope of victory, and that the Waagenseil fleet had successfully vacated the battlefield, he gathered his surviving vessels into a new formation and did the same.
Of this engagement, Julian later wrote the following:
In a sense, the laws of the galaxy operated fairly in this case. Defeat was dealt to the side able to accept it with dignity. In this battle, at least.
He respected Wahlen as an enemy. And while respect for the enemy may itself be paradoxical—hypocritical even—the fact remains that those who show such respect are evaluated more favorably than those who do not. Perhaps this is proof that military figures are judged by standards that are themselves the product of paradox and hypocrisy.
At 2140, after confirming the complete withdrawal of the enemy, Julian returned to Iserlohn Fortress.
“We just kicked the kaiser right in the shins!”
It was not clear who shouted this first, but cheers exploded in response, and a mass of black berets with white five-pointed stars danced in the air. The festivities on Iserlohn were already in full swing. It was the first time since Yang’s death that the republic had achieved a military victory over the empire. The empire’s losses were estimated at four hundred thousand souls. That this was at best a minor victory was indicative of the irredeemable cruelty of war.
Though the goddess of victory had favored him with a flirtatious smile, Julian had no innocent grin of his own with which to answer. Tactically, he had been victorious. He assumed that the operation had had the desired political effect as well: they had shown the republicans in the former alliance territories that Iserlohn was unbowed. Bagdash and Boris Konev were eagerly planning covert missions to spread the word.
But what about the strategic side of things? A tactical victory by the weaker side would only spur the stronger side to seek vengeance. It was difficult to imagine Kaiser Reinhard accepting his “kick in the shins” with good grace. Lightning would flash in his ice-blue eyes, no doubt, and he would order his entire fleet to strike Iserlohn down. This was what Julian was waiting for, just as Yang had in his time. But could Julian attain the same legendary invincibility that Yang had? One victory demanded another from the victor, and then another. Endlessly, greedily, until that victor’s death.
“What’s on your mind, Julian?”
Karin’s light-brown hair swayed as she leaned closer to peer into his brown eyes. Julian was slightly flustered. He had known von Schönkopf’s daughter for some time, but every time he encountered her he felt emotions rise anew within him.
“We won that battle,” Julian said. “But what happens next? Maybe I worry too much.”
“I don’t see any problem. If you’d lost, that would have been the end of it. But you won, so you can fight again. Next time, let’s kick the kaiser right in the heart.”
Whether she meant to be or not, Karin was like a psychoanaleptic drug for Julian, easing his mind and restoring his mental balance. He let out half a laugh, nodded, then looked around the room. Realizing who he was searching for, Karin answered his unspoken question.
“Frederica went to report our victory to Marshal Yang. She’ll be back in time to give a speech.”