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  Reinhard had succeeded in fomenting among the common man a hatred for the Goldenbaum Dynasty’s elitist despotism, and leavened it with a fresh enmity toward the Free Planets Alliance.

  “Down with the remnants of the high nobles! Don’t let them take over again! Protect the rights of the people!”

  “Down with the high nobles’ coconspirators, the so-called Free Planets Alliance!”

  Within a week’s time, these slogans were on everyone’s lips. Although Reinhard had played a part in drawing them out, they grew on their own. By his declaration of war, Reinhard hadn’t necessarily urged his people into action in any direct way. If anything, he would have preferred to conceal the fact that the Free Planets Alliance had passively allied with the high nobles, so that it might seem a more deliberate act. Above all, he would have covered up his own complicity in the plot to abduct the emperor. The people harbored their own sense of danger. Social and economic justice had been snatched right out of their hands, and they couldn’t help but fear restoration of the privileged class.

  For the first time in a while, Admiral Neidhart Müller of the Imperial Navy showed his face at the Sea Eagle admirals’ club on the first Saturday of September. That morning, having just been released from a long hospital recovery, Müller had finished his speech to Reinhard’s council, received his notice of return to active duty, and then gone straight to the club where his comrades were sure to be hanging out. He was the best of the Imperial Navy’s admirals and, apart from Reinhard, the youngest. He was also a bachelor and had no need to rush back to his official residence.

  “I was starting to think I’d be chained to that hospital bed forever. Hope you weren’t too worried about me.”

  He smiled as Mittermeier and von Reuentahl stood up from the small poker table to welcome him. The Gale Wolf ordered a coffee from the academy student working as the club’s waiter and offered Müller a seat.

  “I still had a hard time getting discharged. Hearing all that talk of the ‘order of one hundred million people and one million ships’ was just the kick in the pants I needed.”

  “It’s spreading like wildfire,” said Müller, taking a seat. “But is it the only way to mobilize the people?”

  Von Reuentahl had a twinkle in his heterochromatic eyes.

  “Well, it’s quantitatively possible. But in coordinated practice, that’s a different story. First, there’s the problem of supply. It’s not easy feeding a hundred million people.”

  “Practice is always harder than theory.”

  Mittermeier was well received. Vexed by repeated delays and interruptions in supplies on the front lines, they knew all too well that war wasn’t manageable on paper alone. It was difficult to express the magnitude of their anger and regret whenever they saw mountains of provisions spoiled by neglect, after plans of production were thwarted by lack of transport. Provision shortages had caused them to abandon preciously fortified bases and return home more times than they cared to admit.

  After a few conversational rounds, von Reuentahl got up and bid farewell to his two comrades. Watching his sleek figure as it disappeared through the door, Müller smiled at the Gale Wolf.

  “I hear that Admiral von Reuentahl has taken a new lover.”

  “Looks that way,” answered Mittermeier with a wry smile, but his expression told of far less mundane thoughts behind it.

  It was clear to see that von Reuentahl was a philanderer, but he also had the unusual quirk of being a serial monogamist. Although none of his relationships had ever lasted long, whenever he made a woman his partner, his mismatched eyes never looked another woman’s way. Maybe it was for this reason that the women he’d so indifferently tossed aside still believed his heart belonged to them, and so cases of resentment were surprisingly few and far between. Not that he cared what the other men thought of him.

  “Von Reuentahl has indeed changed girls.”

  “It’s been five months already.”

  Mecklinger was the literatus of the group and was prone to writing cynical phrases like “Last year’s flowers shall not be this year’s flowers” in the margins of his notebook. Of course, von Reuentahl never paid any mind to cynicism or criticism. Mittermeier knew his comrade’s debauchery was the result of the severe trauma of his mother gouging out his right eye, but he wasn’t about to go spilling that secret. As far as that incident was concerned, he could only obscure the situation with vague statements like “Any woman who falls in love with him is just as bad as he is.”

  “Why do women cling to their pillows during a thunderstorm anyway?”

  He’d once asked this question with a straight face. Even Mittermeier was stumped.

  “I assume because they’re scared,” was all he could muster.

  Von Reuentahl disagreed.

  “Why would they cling to their pillow when they could cling to me? Do you think a pillow’s going to save them?”

  Although it was useless asking for a rational explanation, as with military tactics, the young admiral with heterochromactic eyes insisted on rationality.

  “That’s how women are. It’s pointless to ask. They don’t even know themselves.”

  Mittermeier yielded. He couldn’t hold a candle to his comrade’s conquests off the battlefield. At any rate, he had a family at home, but at that time von Reuentahl wouldn’t recognize the authority of a married man.

  “Don’t put on airs. There’s no way you understand women better than I do.”

  From there, the atmospheric pressure began to drop.

  “I understand Evangeline. Evangeline’s a woman.”

  “Your wife doesn’t count.”

  “And how is it you know such things?”

  Putting down his beer mug, von Reuentahl lowered his voice.

  “It’s always Evangeline this and Evangeline that. Do you enjoy being tied to one woman? All it does it limit your options. I don’t get it.”

  To say these conversations between commanders praised as the best and brightest of the Imperial Navy were lacking in dignity would be an understatement. The last one had apparently turned into a fistfight. Not that they remembered anything about what had transpired. Witnesses, too, kept their mouths shut, and so the next day they could only guess as to why their bodies hurt all over.

  “With Admiral von Reuentahl hogging all the merchandise, there aren’t enough beautiful women to go around,” said Mittermeier without the least bit of spite, and took a sip of the coffee brought over to him by the student waiter. There were rumors that he’d gone through a bad breakup in his sublieutenant days, but he just smiled quietly, and in an incongruous manner, neither confirming nor denying those rumors. Of the young man who would come to be known as “Iron Wall Müller,” it was a different side to fame on the battlefield.

  II

  Initially, seventeen names attended the Supreme War Council held on September 19 at the Lohengramm admiralität: Imperial Marshal Reinhard von Lohengramm; his chief aide Commodore von Streit; secondary aide Lieutenant von Rücke; chief secretary Countess von Mariendorf; senior admirals von Oberstein, von Reuentahl, and Mittermeier; and admirals Wahlen, Müller, Fahrenheit, Lutz, Kessler, Wittenfeld, Mecklinger, Steinmetz, Lennenkamp, and von Eisenach.

  Kessler was responsible for maintaining public order in the capital, and in that capacity had been asked about his involvement in the emperor’s defection. He had been slapped with a warning and a pay cut and had been placed under temporary house arrest, but that had been lifted and his formal seat restored.

  The Imperial Navy’s entire armada was on full standby for first launch, and if given the order by Imperial Marshal von Lohengramm, a grand fleet numbering approximately 150,000 warships, big and small, could be at the planet Odin within twenty-four hours.

  Reinhard’s tall, elegant figure took the seat of honor. His golden hair glistened luxuriously like a lion’s mane as he received the
salutes of his admirals.

  “I’ve gathered you all here today to hear out your opinions concerning these rebels calling themselves the Free Planets Alliance and a concrete method of reprimanding them using military force.”

  So prefacing the meeting, Reinhard made his important, if also detached, declaration.

  “But first, let me tell you my plan, which is to not worry about taking down Iserlohn Fortress as we have in the past, but to use another corridor as our route of invasion. To put it simply, we will be invading alliance territory via the Phezzan Corridor. Phezzan will renounce its political and military neutrality, and join our camp.”

  For a moment, a voiceless commotion stirred the air in the conference room. Reinhard signaled gently with a hand for order.

  The admirals glued their eyes to the door, each making an expression in accordance with his respective character.

  Standing next to the captain of Reinhard’s personal guard, Günter Kissling, was a very familiar face: Phezzan’s commissioner, Nicolas Boltec.

  “He has agreed to help us. Not without compensation, of course.”

  After formally introducing Boltec to all present, Reinhard suppressed all skepticism. Reinhard had made a secret pact with the vigilant commissioner. Seeing the advantage of Boltec using every means possible to grant the Imperial Navy passage through the Phezzan Corridor, Reinhard would dismiss Landesherr Rubinsky as soon as he received Boltec’s appeal and would seat him as Rubinsky’s replacement. Although Reinhard hadn’t said as much, it didn’t take long for the admirals to put it all together.

  “You mean to say he’s selling out his own nation?” asked Wittenfeld, only thinly veiling his disgust for Boltec.

  The commissioner sympathized and made a pained expression.

  “With all due respect, the only thing I’m selling is Phezzan’s nominal independence. This action says nothing about Phezzan’s true intentions or profits. By doing away with such a useless formality, Phezzan stands to gain substantially.”

  “Dress it up however you like. You’ll find a reason to sell your parents or betray your friends eventually.”

  “That’s enough, Wittenfeld.” With that, the golden-haired imperial marshal dulled the brave admiral’s sharp tongue. “If not for his cooperation, we’d have a difficult time fitting our fleet through Phezzan’s doors. I fully intend on repaying his assistance with commensurate remuneration and courtesy. I’ve gathered you all here today to hear out your opinions, of course. What say you, von Reuentahl?”

  “Pardon me for saying this, but I’m not so sure about putting our unconditional trust in a scheming Phezzanese,” asserted von Reuentahl with polite indifference. “As soon we’ve passed through the Phezzan Corridor and invaded alliance territory, if they decide to change their tune and seal off the corridor, we’ll be sitting ducks. Without knowing the layout of enemy territory, we’d be putting our supplies and communications at too great a risk, don’t you think?”

  Wittenfeld objected. “Von Reuentahl’s worries are only natural, but even if Phezzan resorted to such cowardly measures, wouldn’t we have enough brute force to put them in their place?”

  “Are you saying we’d have the fleet reverse course through the Phezzan Corridor?”

  “Yes, Phezzan’s military strength is no match for ours. I’m sure we could frustrate their schemes adequately enough.”

  “And if the Alliance Armed Forces attacked the moment we turned our backs, what then?” asked von Reuentahl. “That would put us at a disadvantage. Not that I think we’d lose, but we can’t overlook the sacrifice.”

  The soldier reciting this conservative theory had often been unable to escape the slander of being a coward, but neither was there anyone in the entire Imperial Navy who could cause von Reuentahl to incite such rejections from others. Wittenfeld was glum yet silent, and none of the other admirals were willing to dispute him. Reinhard opened his mouth.

  “Von Reuentahl’s remarks make sense, but I fully intend to invade the alliance through the Phezzan Corridor. Assuming that the Iserlohn Corridor is our only route of invasion, reducing the scope of our own strategic choices would reproduce the folly of the Alliance Armed Forces, which paved the way to the fortress with the corpses of their men. It’s by human design that we cannot pass through the Phezzan Corridor, not some law that has existed since time immemorial. We’re under no obligation to share in the alliance’s illusions. Passage through the Phezzan Corridor is our best option, if only because it grants us the element of surprise.”

  Reinhard looked around, making sure his point was getting across before he continued.

  “Now then, first we’ll advance our troops in the direction of the Iserlohn Corridor, just as they expect. Far more troops than were moved under Kempf and Müller this spring. This will, of course, be a diversion.”

  Reinhard’s white cheeks were flushed. It was neither politics nor subterfuge, but strategy and tactics that filled his prodigious self with exaltation.

  “With the alliance’s focus concentrated on Iserlohn, our main force will pass through the Phezzan Corridor on its way to invading alliance territory. Yang Wen-li is at Iserlohn. Any of the alliance’s other military forces and commanders aren’t worth our breath.”

  “It is, I think, as you say,” said the Gale Wolf, looking slightly doubtful, “but there is the matter of Yang Wen-li. We must consider the possibility that he’ll make the long haul from Iserlohn to retaliate against our main force’s movements.”

  “In that case, we should attack Yang Wen-li from the rear, making him a martyr for his democratic cause.”

  To Reinhard’s proud declaration, most of the admirals made expressions of assent, but von Oberstein was staring into space with his artificial eyes.

  “Do you think it’ll be that easy?” said von Reuentahl.

  Wolfgang Mittermeier shot him a glance. For one so blunt, it was unlike him to give in to anxiety. No one seemed to notice.

  “I would like to make it go well.”

  Whether consciously or not, Reinhard had nimbly engaged von Reuentahl’s remarks, forcing a transparent smile to his elegant lips. From past to present, those who harbored hatred for Reinhard and denied his abilities hardly recognized the beauty of that smile.

  “As would I.”

  The young heterochromatic admiral smiled in kind. Mittermeier loosened the belt of nervousness constricting his heart. Immediately after Karl Gustav Kempf had died in battle at the Iserlohn Corridor, von Reuentahl had surprised Mittermeier by voicing his distrust for Reinhard. The next day, he’d joked it was the alcohol, but although Mittermeier was sympathetic toward that excuse, he couldn’t prohibit a vague anxiety from patrolling his inner streets. Von Reuentahl didn’t like holding grudges, nor did he like letting other people in on them. At least he could be content in knowing he’d never spoken or acted out of turn.

  “And what shall we call this grand operation?” asked Müller.

  Reinhard smiled with satisfaction. He threw up a lock of his golden bangs, speaking almost musically.

  “I dub it ‘Operation Ragnarök.’ ”

  “Ragnarök?!”

  The admirals muttered to themselves. The reverberations of that name made them tremble with perverse excitement. If these long-serving, brave soldiers had for one moment feared the demise of planetary civilization as they knew it, neither could they imagine a more perfect name for their conquest. The name itself guaranteed success, or so their momentary delusion assured them. They knew the journey ahead wasn’t going to be easy, and soon their faces grew stern, but their ambition and ardor as soldiers in troubled times was revived. That much was real.

  The admirals spoke up in succession. Each demanded participation in this unprecedented operation, knowing his name would be forever written into the final chapter of the Free Planets Alliance’s 250-year history.

  III

 
After the admirals had adjourned, Senior Admiral von Oberstein stayed behind to go over details of their next meeting.

  “We’d do well to err on the side of caution as far as Boltec is concerned, Your Excellency.”

  Reinhard lifted his shapely eyebrows.

  “At least Boltec will be easier to keep under control than that Black Fox, Rubinsky.”

  “Granted, but suddenly we have a different problem on our hands. Namely, whether Boltec will be able to keep Phezzan under control. He’s capable enough as an assistant but is otherwise nothing more than a shrewd mouse siphoning the power of a black fox.”

  “Are you saying he lacks the ability to rise above the others?”

  “I’d be just as troubled if he had too much ability. But if he can’t muster enough power to suppress all those dissidents, he’ll end up standing in the way of our fleet.”

  Reinhard dismissed his chief of staff’s pessimistic opinion with a laugh.

  “We might as well expect him to have that level of power. However much he has, he’ll have to run around like mad to keep those dissidents down if he’s going to hold on to his position and authority. Naturally, he’ll be the target of hatred and opposition. If I take care of him myself before things get to that point, then I can effectively handle whoever replaces him. And without fear of how others might react.”

  “I see, so you’ve thought ahead that far?”

  The artificial-eyed chief of staff made no effort to hide how impressed he was.

  “Forgive me. I should never have doubted for a moment. Please, proceed however you see fit.”

  Von Oberstein’s admiration meant nothing to the elegant imperial marshal. His thoughts were already somewhere else.

  “This is how I’m thinking we can use him once we’ve subjugated the Free Planets Alliance. Don’t you think so, Chief of Staff?”

  “I do.” Von Oberstein nodded. “There will surely be those who desire the position of secretary-general of the alliance in support of the new empire’s authority and military power. Shall we seed a candidate now?”