V
0920, May 31.
The Battle of Shiva, having reached peculiar impasse, appeared, as it were, suspended in a sluggish backwater of time. Cannons roared, firing shots that turned ships into fireballs, and more and more dead were produced, but all with a strange lack of dynamism. It was as if the energies of both life and destruction were somehow being prevented from full combustion.
At the rear of the Imperial Navy forces was a unit that was as yet entirely unharmed: the fleet commanded by Neidhart Müller, the “Iron Wall,” known for keeping his head in a crisis. Having received no orders from the kaiser to engage the enemy, Müller could only sit on the bridge of his flagship Parzival watching the swarms of light flicker on the screen.
“Admiral Müller, we did not come to this battlefield to eat lunch. My men are eager to enter the fray and give the republicans a taste of our cannon.”
The hot-tempered young staff officer was almost at boiling point. Müller raised a hand slightly to restrain him.
“We cannot simply act without orders from His Majesty,” Müller said. “We have no choice but to wait for instructions from headquarters.”
That said, Müller did recognize how peculiar it was that such orders should not have been received yet. A shadow of confusion spread its tiny wings in his sandy brown eyes. The kaiser Müller knew would have already ordered him to go around and attack the enemy from the rear, or at least on their flank, would he not? Given the vast difference in numbers, such a tactic would have been more than feasible. Still, as things stood, Müller, like von Eisenach, could only wait.
Disruptions and discontinuities were affecting the Imperial Navy’s coordination to a degree that was far beyond subtle, and this granted Iserlohn’s fleet breathing room that they should never have had.
Müller’s disgruntled staff officers sat down to yet another “lunch,” while over in the Iserlohn camp, a ball of confidence with green eyes that flashed like dancing sunlight was docking his single-seater spartanian in the fleet flagship Ulysses. He leapt out of the cockpit, gave some hurried instructions to the mechanics running up to service the craft, then grabbed a comm handset off the wall and called the bridge.
“Julian? I’ve got news I think you should hear.”
“What is it, Commander Poplin?”
“I picked up a strange transmission out there. I was hoping to report it and get a decision on what to do.”
“Well, if you’re willing to share it,” Julian joked, but moments later his youthful expression had grown sharply tense. Muddled communication between enemies and allies had provided Poplin with a piece of intel: the single, shocking phrase, “Kaiser’s illness.”
Had the kaiser succumbed to some infirmity? Would Reinhard von Lohengramm’s dazzling drive and vitality, his extravagant battlefield achievements unparalleled in the history of war, be lost to mere sickness? Julian could not believe it. Nor did he want to. He felt something akin to the sweeping, furious sense of unfairness that had gripped him when Yang Wen-li was slain by terrorists. Reinhard, he thought, was not the kind of person who should be felled by malady.
But he must not rush to conclusions. Even if Reinhard had taken to his sickbed, it was not necessarily terminal. It might be nothing more than a cold. Yang Wen-li had always said, “If I die, it’ll be of overwork. Chisel it on my tombstone, Julian: ‘Here lies an unfortunate worker killed by his job.’ ” Then he would wander off for a nap. Kaiser Reinhard had a dozen times the diligence of Yang, and his medical dictionary probably lacked even an entry for “playing sick.”
Julian called his staff officers to the bridge. Merkatz and Attenborough had already come to Ulysses by shuttle, a situation brought about by disrupted communications and the peculiar quagmire that the battle lines had become.
When Poplin shared his news, a silence fell on the assembled group. This was broken by Walter von Schönkopf, who made an audacious proposal: that Iserlohn send soldiers to the imperial flagship Brünhild and slay the kaiser.
“It was a great pity that we let Marshal von Reuentahl escape with his life during the Battle of Iserlohn three years ago. If we could take the head of Kaiser Reinhard himself, that would put us well into the black again.”
Von Schönkopf’s tone gave the impression of a man discussing apple picking on a farm.
If the kaiser was confined to his sickbed, it should be more than possible to confuse the Imperial Navy. If, during that confusion, they could get close enough to Brünhild, the imperials would be loath to attack them for fear of harming Reinhard. It would be more a gamble than a stratagem, but if they let this opportunity pass, they might never have another.
Julian’s heart contracted as he wavered. Finally he turned to a man more than forty years his senior. “Admiral Merkatz, what do you think?” he asked.
The admiral once hailed as a pillar of the Imperial Navy gave the matter earnest thought. Finally, in a calm, analytical voice, he offered his conclusion.
“If we simply keep fighting as we have been, we can most likely avoid losing this battle. The Imperial Navy’s movements are unusually sluggish. When we fall back, they do not seem to pursue us. However, if we survive this battle and return to Iserlohn, our forces will be more diminished than ever, so that our next battle will be far grimmer.”
Merkatz closed his mouth, having no more to say. Von Schönkopf nodded vigorously and clapped his hands together. “It’s decided, then,” he said. “We board the beautiful Brünhild and claim the kaiser’s head.”
“Die, kaiser!” chorused several of the young staff officers.
“Then I’m going too,” said Julian.
Von Schönkopf raised his eyebrows. “Just a moment. We’re talking about manual labor. The commander in chief of the whole fleet shouldn’t muscle in on a chance for us workers to earn some overtime. Take a leaf out of Yang’s book—pull your beret down and take a nap in the commander’s chair while we handle it.”
Julian ignored the joke. “Either I go too, or I refuse permission for the whole operation. And my goal is to negotiate with Kaiser Reinhard, not murder him. Don’t get that wrong.”
Von Schönkopf thought silently for a few seconds, still grinning wryly. Then he gave in to his young commander’s insistence.
“Okay, Julian. Whoever gets to the kaiser first can do what they like with him—start a polite conversation, or bring a tomahawk down on his head and turn that golden mane into one big ruby.”
“Another thing,” Julian said. “I have every intention of coming back alive, but the Imperial Navy may have their own ideas about that. If they end up swallowing me…” His eyes met those of a young revolutionary. “…I designate Vice Admiral Attenborough as the next commander of the Revolutionary Army. Of course, this means you’ll have to remain behind on Ulysses, Admiral. Take good care of her.”
The startled Attenborough protested, but he himself had granted Julian the power to give such orders. In the end, he had no choice but to accept them.
The prospect of hand-to-hand combat had the Rosen Ritter regiment like a volcano on the verge of eruption. Julian, Poplin, Machungo, and several others joined them in the preparation room. As they were all putting their armor on, one of the regiment members raised his voice.
“This is the biggest stage we’ll ever play on, admiral. Let’s leave a mountain of corpses and a river of blood they’ll speak of for generations.”
Von Schönkopf grinned, smoothing down his hair with one hand. This grin, like crystallized invincibility, was the most reassuring thing he could offer his regiment.
“No, one corpse will be enough,” he said. “As long as it’s Reinhard von Lohengramm’s. That’d make it the most beautiful and valuable corpse in the galaxy, of course…”
Von Schönkopf’s gaze shifted to a lone girl, about seventeen, in a pilot suit with her flight helmet under her arm. With hair the color of lightly brewed tea and lively eyes of violet, she truly made a striking impression. Ignoring several overlapping whistles of admiration and curiosity, Katerose von Kreutzer marched up to the flaxen-haired youth she was here to see and stared right into his dark brown eyes.
“Be careful, Julian. You’re always the reasonable one, but you can trip yourself up sometimes. That’s why everyone watches out for you.”
“Even so, you aren’t trying to stop me.”
“Of course not. What kind of man would let a woman stop him from doing something like this? How could he protect his family if worse came to worst?”
Karin pressed her lips together tightly, visibly irritated that her powers of expression were insufficient to the moment.
“Stay close to Walter von Schönkopf. My mother said that as long as he has his feet on the ground—or the floor—there’s no man you can count on more.”
Karin’s eyes met von Schönkopf’s. The thirteenth head of the Rosen Ritter regiment looked at the girl who had inherited his genes with interest, then smiled.
“Can’t say no when a beautiful woman’s doing the asking, eh?” he said to Julian, slapping him on the shoulder. Then he smiled at his daughter again. “Karin, I have a request for you too, if you don’t mind.”
He spoke the name she preferred to go by casually, but it was the first time he had ever used it. Unable to muster even a thousandth of her father’s composure, Karin’s face and voice stiffened and her whole body went tense. “And what might that be?” she asked.
“By all means, have your grand romance,” he said. “But wait until you’re twenty to have kids. I’ve got no interest in becoming a grandfather while I’m still in my thirties.”
The armored men surrounding them roared with laughter as Julian and Karin blushed together.