V
Julian, Poplin, and Machungo continued to push forward, leaving bloody footprints on Brünhild’s exquisite white floors. The flaxen-haired youth was at the center of their party, with the ace to his left and the giant to his right.
Two years ago, the three of them had gone up against the fanatics at the Church of Terra’s headquarters in a firefight followed by hand-to-hand combat. As an ensemble, they played trios so dangerous to foes that even the Rosen Ritter paid them a grudging respect. Their sheet music was written in blood, and the shrieks of their foes were marked fortissimo.
After passing through several floors, they emerged in a place like a hall into which hostile enemy soldiers poured, too numerous for even them to handle. Wordlessly, they ran in another direction as fast as they could.
Intense fire came from behind them. The three of them hit the floor, rolling to cling to the walls and dodge the blaster bolts. As soon as there was a break in the barrage, they leapt out and ran for it. Five or six armored enemy soldiers appeared before them. They closed the distance rapidly, but just before tomahawk met tomahawk they were fired on from behind again.
“Machungo!” Julian heard himself cry. What he saw should not have been possible: Machungo’s shoulders were lower than his own. The man had fallen to his knees. His broad, muscular back was covered in dozens of blaster wounds, and there was so much blood it was as if he wore a red board like a backpack. He had used his own body to protect his two companions from the hail of bolts.
Machungo looked at Julian. A faint smile appeared on his lips, and remained there as he sank heavily to the floor.
Julian charged the enemy before them, smashing his tomahawk into the top of the ceramic shield held by one soldier. The instant the shield was slightly lowered, Poplin leapt forward as if wearing winged sandals and swung his tomahawk horizontally along the shield’s upper edge, striking a powerful blow at the point where the enemy’s helmet joined his armor. Vertebrae crunched and the soldier’s body flew off to the side.
Julian and Poplin dove through the gap they had thus created. Their rage and grief at the loss of Machungo drove their duet to new heights of bloody ferocity. In theory, Julian understood perfectly what the blood he shed meant. In practice, emotion overwhelmed reason, and it could not be denied that he sought targets solely to satisfy his hunger for vengeance.
Running shoulder-to-shoulder through the gates of bloodshed, Julian and Poplin saw a new figure appear before them. A young man, perhaps the age of Poplin himself, in the black and silver uniform of a senior officer. In one hand the man held a blaster.
Poplin did not know it, but this was Commodore Günter Kissling, head of Reinhard’s personal guard. Green eyes stared daggers at Kissling’s amber ones. Kissling slowly began to raise his blaster.
“Go, Julian!”
With this short, sharp shout, Poplin shoved Julian from behind. Julian was less running than flying across the floor as Kissling’s blaster swung in his direction. A combat knife flew from Poplin’s hand toward Kissling’s face. Kissling arched his back and used the barrel of his blaster to knock the knife away. The knife bounced off the floor. As it gleamed, Poplin leaped at Kissling and knocked him over. The blaster flew from Kissling’s hand, and the two young officers began to grapple on the floor.
Finally Poplin managed to get on top. “Don’t underestimate the master of flyball fouls, my mannequin friend,” he said.
In the next instant, the “mannequin” had reversed their positions, pinning the intruder to the floor. They continued to roll across the floor, struggling ferociously.
Julian’s memories were confused. He separated from Poplin, clashed with several enemies, passed through corridors and climbed stairs. Finally, he arrived at a door, which opened before him. He stumbled through, just barely managing to keep his balance as he looked around the spacious room.
When his memories and senses were put back in order, the first things Julian became aware of were his breathing and his heartbeat. His lungs and heart felt ready to explode. Every muscle and bone in his body groaned, pushed to the limit. His helmet had been sent flying off to who knows where, leaving his flaxen hair exposed. Blood trickled from a wound on his forehead.
Was he in the kaiser’s private chambers? There was no hint of machinery; on the contrary, the room was appointed in an exquisite classical style. The floor was not metal or ceramic; it was carpeted, which clashed oddly with his armored boots.
Two senior officers in black and silver uniforms stood motionless, staring at Julian. One of them was familiar: Senior Admiral Neidhart Müller, who had come to Iserlohn around a year ago to convey the kaiser’s respects at Yang Wen-li’s funeral. Who was the other, more slightly built officer?
When Julian heard Müller address his colleague as “Marshal,” he immediately knew who the man was. Only three men had received that title in the Galactic Empire’s Lohengramm Dynasty. This man clearly was not Paul von Oberstein, with his bionic eyes and white-streaked hair. Nor was he von Reuentahl, who was dead. That left only Marshal Mittermeier, the Gale Wolf, greatest admiral in the Galactic Empire. Julian wondered if he should introduce himself, then chuckled at the strangeness of the idea.
Julian staggered and sank to one knee, supporting his body on his tomahawk. Like his armor, the axe was smeared with blood, and Julian’s sense of smell was long since overloaded with the stink of gore. Blood had gotten into his right eye, dyeing half of his world red, and Julian had begun to feel the call of the void.
Mittermeier and Müller began to move at the same moment. Then came a voice from the throne.
“Let him come. He has not reached me yet.”
The voice was not loud, but it seemed to reverberate throughout Julian’s entire sense of hearing. It was a voice with the power to dominate—the voice of one who could make the very galaxy his own. Even ignoring its musical ring, there could be only one man in all humanity with such a voice.
When Yang Wen-li had become unable to walk one year ago, the reason had been blood loss. If Julian suffered a similar fate, it would be due to fatigue instead. But he pushed stubbornly on. He could not collapse in front of Kaiser Reinhard. He pushed his quivering knees straight and rose to his feet. The champion of democracy would never bend the knee to an autocrat. He took a step forward and his knees began to falter; another step and his back began to fail. He repeated the process, over and over, until he finally stood before Reinhard.
“By Your Majesty’s leave, I will stand for our discussion.”
“Let us begin with your name.”
“Julian Mintz, Your Majesty.”
Julian gazed on the golden-haired kaiser, who received him seated on a high-backed sofa. His right elbow was on the armrest, and his chin was propped up in his right hand; his left leg was crossed over his right, and his ice-blue eyes were fixed on the man who had violated the sanctity of his flagship.
“And what is it you have come here to propose, Julian Mintz?”
“If Your Majesty wishes it, peace and coexistence. If not…”
“If not?”
Julian smiled weakly. “If not, then something else. I can say, at least, that I did not come here to offer submission. I…” He paused to calm his ragged breathing. “I am here to advise Your Majesty on the medicine that will be needed to restore the Lohengramm Dynasty when it is worn and tired and old. Please listen with an open mind. I am sure Your Majesty will understand then. Understand what Yang Wen-li hoped to win from you…”
Julian heard his voice receding. A veil came down over his vision, and was then doubled, and tripled, before emptiness invaded his consciousness. Julian fell to the floor like a powerless statue. A deep, heavy silence filled the room like mist.
Reinhard straightened up in his seat. “A bold presentation,” he muttered, although with no apparent anger. “Here to advise me? And yet, Müller, he is the second man to faint after reaching me.”
“Indeed, Your Majesty.”
“Call my doctors. They cannot help me now, but perhaps they can help him. And, Mittermeier, let us accept a part of Julian Mintz’s proposal and end the fighting. Anyone who has survived to this point deserves to go home alive.
The frozen senior officers sprang into urgent action. Müller summoned the medics, and Mittermeier took the telephone from the marble table and called the bridge.
“This is Marshal Wolfgang Mittermeier, commander in chief of the Imperial Space Armada. I call to convey orders from His Majesty the Kaiser. Cease all combat immediately. His Majesty wills peace!”
Had those words gone out a minute later, two more of Julian’s friends would have been erased from the galaxy. Olivier Poplin and Kasper Rinz saw the gates to the afterlife close before their very eyes. Neither was still able to stand by that point, but as they lay wrapped in the stench of gore, they heard the words crackle from speakers above them.
“Cease all combat immediately! His Majesty wills peace.”