Stratagem Read online

  Anything that hadn’t existed since the dawn of the universe probably wasn’t going to be around for sunset. Change was the way of things. As manifested in the outstanding character of Duke Reinhard von Lohengramm, change had swept through the Galactic Empire and was now spinning its web to ensnare human society.

  “Does that mean the Galactic Empire—no, the Goldenbaum Dynasty—will crumble?”

  “It will. In fact, it already has. True political and military authority are in Duke von Lohengramm’s grip. The emperor has abandoned his country and his people. Even if the name hasn’t changed, the Lohengramm Dynasty is already upon us.”

  “I’m sure you’re right. But I wonder, is the probability of Phezzan having allied itself with Duke von Lohengramm really that high?”

  “Imagine you have three major powers—A, B, and C—and that A and B are in a relationship of mutual adversity. In this case, C’s best course of action would be to save A if A was being threatened by B, help B if B was being pressured by A, or simply prolong the conflict between A and B until both sides destroyed each other. But if A’s influence strengthened dramatically, so that even with B’s help C would find it difficult to oppose A, wouldn’t C be better off attacking B in cooperation with A?”

  “But say it did, and the overwhelmingly fortified A capped off its victory of destroying B by attacking C—wouldn’t C be heading from independence into certain doom?”

  The young, dark-haired admiral looked at the flaxen-haired boy, impressed.

  “Yes, that’s exactly right, and the crux of where I’m going with this. In offering its wealth and strategic position to Duke von Lohengramm, perhaps Phezzan will lose its independence. And how are they planning on getting out of that situation?”

  Beer in hand, Yang mulled this over.

  “Maybe Phezzan’s goal isn’t its own preservation…No, that’s too big a leap of intuition. To start with, there’s no proof whatsoever. I was thinking Phezzan intended to monopolize economic interests in the newly unified Galactic Empire, but now I’m not so sure.”

  Julian tilted his head, sending the slightest ripple through his flaxen hair.

  “If not material benefit or self-interest, might it be something spiritual?”

  “Spiritual?”

  “Ideology, for example, or religion.”

  Now it was Yang’s turn to widen his eyes. He turned the beer can around idly in his hand.

  “Religion, you say? Why, yes, that’s a possibility. Maybe I was overstepping my bounds in thinking of Phezzan as a group of superficial, logical realists. Religion, indeed.”

  At the time, Julian didn’t follow the branch of his own fine logic to pluck the fruit of reality, because he’d simply recited something he’d suddenly remembered, and so Yang’s admiration was for him more a source of embarrassment than elation. He gave a cough and confirmed the details of his assignment with the young commander.

  “If I can go to Phezzan and uncover even a fraction of their plans and strategies, in addition to determining the Imperial Navy’s movements, that would be of use to Your Excellency, right? In that case, I’m happy to go to Phezzan.”

  “Thank you. But there’s another reason why I think you should go to Phezzan, Julian.”

  “Which is?”

  “Well, how should I put this? Looking at a mountain from only one side, you’ll never grasp the whole…Scratch that. There’s something more important I’d like to ask you.”

  Yang crossed his legs.

  “Sooner or later, you can bet we’ll have to risk our lives fighting against Duke Reinhard von Lohengramm. Incidentally, Julian, do you really think Duke von Lohengramm is evil incarnate?”

  Julian was stumped by the question.

  “I don’t think so, but…”

  “You’re right. Incarnations of evil only exist in TV dramas.” Yang paused to laugh at his own observation. “If anything is evil, it’s the fact that the Free Planets Alliance aided the old imperial regime. Not only does this accelerate the flow of history, it supports the one contributing to its reversal. Perhaps history will one day portray us as the bad guys.”

  “I don’t see how that could ever…”

  “It’s not uncommon.”

  Yang tried to imagine a future in which Duke Reinhard von Lohengramm became supreme ruler and brought peace and order to the entire human race. From then on, the Goldenbaum Dynasty would be spoken of in derogatory terms, and the Free Planets Alliance as an enemy who’d stood in the way of unity. Of Yang specifically, history textbooks would say, “Were it not for him and his thirst for blood, unification would have been achieved much sooner.”

  The idea that absolute good and perfect evil existed would always be a bane to the human spirit. Harmony and compassion were impossible so long as one side thought of itself as benevolent and of its enemy as nefarious. This only justified valorization of the self over a defeated opponent, over whom rule was made manifest.

  Yang was no holy crusader ordained by God. As a military man, unjustifiable decisions came with the territory. Had he been born in another time and place, he would, of course, have walked a different path. He wasn’t one to delude himself into thinking that, just because he believed in justice, future generations would follow suit. So long as his motives were subjectively correct, their results didn’t matter. To him, this was the only beneficial way to think about it.

  Human beings weren’t built to endure the knowledge that they were evil, and they were at their most forceful, their most cruel, their most ruthless when asserting righteousness. It was only because Rudolf the Great had believed in his own righteousness that so much blood was spilled, and although it bathed his reign in crimson, it was peaceful. Or maybe he had just pretended it was. For when a crack opened in the armor of self-justification with which he had wrapped his granite tower of a body, did the enormity of it become the foundation of his ego?

  “Julian, are you familiar with the legend of Noah’s flood? It was God, not the devil, who destroyed everyone but Noah’s clan. You might say all monotheistic myths and legends verify truth by showing that God, not the devil, rules humanity through fear and violence.”

  Yang knew it was an extreme example, but one could never overemphasize the exceeding relativity of right and wrong. The best choices of which humans were capable, compared to the countless events reflected in their fields of vision, involved taking a stand for the better. And for those who believed in the existence of absolute righteousness, how did they explain the enormous contradiction inherent in the phrase “fighting for peace”?

  “So, Julian, when you go to Phezzan, see if you can’t tell the different between their sense of righteousness and ours. That wouldn’t be such a bad experience for you. Compared to that, the rise and fall of nations pales in significance. That’s the gospel truth.”

  “Even the rise and fall of the Free Planets Alliance?”

  Yang ruffled his black hair and smiled.

  “Yes, although I can only hope it lasts long enough for me to collect my pension. Even from a historical perspective, the Free Planets Alliance was created as the very antithesis to Rudolf von Goldenbaum’s political ideology.”

  “That I can understand.”

  “Constitutional government goes against autocracy, progressive democracy against intolerant authoritarianism. We advocate these ideologies as if they were natural choices and put them into practice. But if all things Rudolf are to be denied and buried at the hands of Duke von Lohengramm, I see no reason for the alliance to go on as such.”

  Julian was silent.

  “Look, Julian. No matter how unrealistic the man may be, he doesn’t sincerely believe in immortality—and yet, don’t you think it’s strange that so many idiots out there delude themselves into thinking their nations are indestructible?”

  Without answering, Julian, with the dark-brown eyes that even his
foster parent had, looked at the young admiral. Yang’s thoughts often developed beyond space and time and made use of an extreme frankness of expression, much to the exhilaration not only of Julian, but also of Frederica.

  “Julian, nations are nothing more than basic tools. Never forget that, and maybe you’ll hold on to who you are.”

  The worst sickness born in human civilization, thought Yang, was faith in one’s nation. It was nothing more than a mechanism by which to efficiently promote complementary relationships between those who lived in it. There was no reason in being ruled by tools. Or, more accurately, the majority allowed itself to be ruled by a select few who knew how to use those tools. Yang didn’t think there was any need for Julian to be lorded over by people like that. Yang didn’t say as much, but assuming he could find comfort in a life on Phezzan, Julian would be better off shedding the alliance and becoming a Phezzanese. For now, Yang was satisfied that the future was calling to Julian.

  At least my senior classmate Caselnes did something right. He brought you to me.

  Yang had intended to say this but somehow lost the substance for such words, which vanished like mist. Yang stared in silence at the unnatural twilight above them. On his crossed knees, the empty beer can and black beret seemed to cry for mercy from their handler’s numerous abuses.

  III

  News that Julian Mintz was to leave Iserlohn Fortress, and Yang stay behind with it, came as no small surprise to Yang’s staff officers. When Yang’s academy mentor, Alex Caselnes, caught wind of the report, he grabbed hold of his old charge during lunchtime at the admirals’ mess hall.

  “So you finally plucked up the nerve to get rid of Julian? I must say I’m surprised.”

  He sounded more rhetorical than caring.

  “There was nothing I could do about it—National Defense Committee’s orders. Besides, I was also sixteen when I left my father and enrolled at the academy. Maybe it’s time he went out on his own, too.”

  “An admirable view, but how will you get on without Julian around?”

  This time, Caselnes sounded genuinely concerned, which irritated Yang even more.

  “Lieutenant Greenhill asked the same thing. Why does everyone think I’ll be lost without him?”

  “Because it’s the truth,” averred Caselnes with such lucidity as to leave no room for objection.

  Even as Yang was scrambling for an effective counterattack, Caselnes asked him to bring Julian over for dinner. Once Julian left for his new post on Phezzan, such opportunities for fraternization would be lost.

  If anything about Yang gave Caselnes and von Schönkopf cause for resentment, it was how unusually straightforward he became when lecturing Julian. From where Caselnes stood, the one being lectured was a more upright man than the one doing the lecturing.

  “Only people without common sense make the mistake of proselytizing others by appealing to common sense.”

  “That’s right, because children don’t obey their parents, but they emulate them. It’s pointless just talking about it.”

  Listening to their conversation, Yang felt quite out of place among these self-professed keepers of common sense. At least Caselnes ran a harmonious household, although if you asked Yang, it was the wife, not the husband, who wore the pants. But he saw no reason to be treated like some irrational person by the likes of von Schönkopf, who at three years his senior was still a bachelor and was the very embodiment of the caliph from One Thousand and One Nights.

  With more important business demanding his attention, Yang wasn’t in the mood for this kind of verbal jousting. Joint Operational Headquarters had requested that Yang appoint a guard to accompany Julian to and on Phezzan, and this he could not neglect.

  Yang agreed with Frederica Greenhill, who nominated Warrant Officer Louis Machungo for the job. He was an upstanding man who’d served as Yang’s personal security guard, and Rear Admiral von Schönkopf gave written guarantee of his loyalty and strength. He was sure to counsel and protect Julian well. Almost all military officers stationed on Phezzan were undoubtedly of the Trünicht persuasion, and Yang’s sense was that, in the “enemy territory” of the commissioner’s office, Machungo would be Julian’s only and most trustworthy ally.

  The chief resident officer acted as captain, and under him were six officers and eight attachés in the so-called military attaché division. The chief resident officer held the third highest position in the commissioner’s office, after the commissioner himself and his secretary. All six officers were soldiers, three being field officers and three company officers. The eight attachés were low-ranking soldiers, and Yang had been entrusted to refill a vacancy among them. He sensed some underhanded dealings at work and felt uneasy about the whole thing, but since Julian had been confirmed, Yang couldn’t pass up an opportunity to surround him with other young men his age. Yang wondered if he was being overprotective, but at sixteen even Yang had never been entrusted with official business and had never left the country.

  After deciding on Machungo’s deployment, Yang turned to his next order of business: writing a letter to the commander in chief of the space armada, Admiral Bucock. Julian wouldn’t be going to Phezzan directly, but would receive official notice of his appointment from Joint Operational Headquarters in Heinessen’s capital city, whereupon he would be sent off to his new station. Yang would have Julian hand-deliver the letter himself. Although there was a possibility of the main military faction—that is, Trünicht’s drones—getting in the way, if anyone could work around that, it was the ever-resourceful Julian.

  In the letter, Yang pointed out the likelihood that Duke Reinhard von Lohengramm and Phezzan were in collusion or had at the very least joined forces after the fact to produce the emperor’s abduction. To Yang’s chagrin, the evidence was circumstantial. Still, it was favorable to assassination. An abduction was no loss to Duke von Lohengramm’s reputation. The kidnappers had taken the emperor and incompetently fled Duke von Lohengramm’s faraway system of public order. Immediately following the announcement of the government-in-exile, and with almost clairvoyant rapidity, Duke von Lohengramm had made his declaration of war. This was evidence enough of his foreknowledge.

  Duke Reinhard von Lohengramm had declared “discipline by military force” and would likely go on the offensive, backed by his unconquerable army. But Yang didn’t for one second believe that it was only under pretense of the emperor’s abduction that he would dispatch his troops. It was his foolish plan to bury the Iserlohn Corridor with the corpses of imperial officers.

  While making a show of capturing Iserlohn Fortress, he would divert his grand army and penetrate the defenseless Phezzan Corridor to invade alliance territory. And with no-holds-barred tacticians like Wolfgang Mittermeier calling the shots, even if Yang could make a quick break from Iserlohn, the planet of Heinessen would fall into imperial hands long before he arrived. Furthermore, no commanding officers of the Imperial Navy in the Iserlohn area, least of all renowned fleet commander Oskar von Reuentahl, would stand idly by as Yang withdrew from Iserlohn. In the worst-case scenario, the empire’s greatest commanders would cut him off in a pincer attack. And even if Yang could engage them, von Lohengramm, the greatest war genius he’d ever known, directly or indirectly, would be lying in wait.

  Perhaps he was thinking too far ahead, but the possibility of the Imperial Navy using the Phezzan Corridor as an invasion route was beyond disturbing. In the event that that happened, imperial forces could easily lie and use Phezzan as an enormous supply base. Also terrifying for Yang was the fact that Phezzan maintained a massive database of star maps pertaining to trade and space flight, and by appropriating it for their own use, the Imperial Navy could significantly diminish its geographical handicap.

  One hundred and fifty-eight years ago, during the Dagon Annihilation, alliance Commander in Chief Lin Pao and Chief of Staff Yusuf Topparole had lured a navigationally ignorant Imperial Navy into th
e mazelike Dagon Stellar Region, serving them grand and total annihilation on a platter. But had the invaders used precise star maps along with their fearless leadership and precisely laid-out planning, the server would have become the served.

  Yang brushed away his bangs, thinking how much more fortunate those great commanders of half a century ago were compared to him. Lin Pao and Yusuf Topparole had only the battlespace to worry about. Back then, the democratic republic abounded in vitality. Its citizens’ faith and reverence was based on a government they’d chosen of their own volition and out of a sense of personal responsibility. The government took care of its functions thoroughly, and there wasn’t a single frontier soldier who questioned the efficacy of his government.

  Military affairs could never make up for sterile politics. It was a historical fact: there were no examples of politically inferior countries achieving ultimate military success. All great conquerors, without exception, started out as talented politicians. Politics could make up for military failures but never the reverse. Military affairs were one part of politics—the most truculent, most uncivilized, and clumsiest part. Only those who’d become mental slaves to incompetent politicians and arrogant military men conceived of military power as a miracle drug.

  When Commander in Chief Lin Pao’s resounding success in the Dagon Annihilation was reported to the capital—“Get two hundred thousand bottles of champagne ready!”—High Council chairman of the alliance Manuel Juan Patricio had been playing a round of 3-D chess with National Defense Committee chairman Cornell Youngblood in a room of his official residence. Upon opening the message delivered by the chairman’s secretary, the council chairman held his breath, hardly changing his expression, and turned to the young defense chairman, who was eager for an explanation.

  “It seems those rascals have accomplished a formidable task. If this conflict is truly over, now I’ll have to call about a hundred bars and taverns on the visiphone.”