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.