Sunset Page 3

  It was not without precedent. The Nguyen Kim Hua Plaza disturbance of the previous year, also known as the September 1 Incident, had seen a memorial service on Heinessen deteriorate into a riot that had killed thousands. It had seemed at the time like the dying convulsions of democratic republicanism; Wittenfeld had dismissed it as the “twitching of a corpse.”

  Did this new unrest, 150 days later, herald that corpse’s reanimation? At the time, no one could say. Even Wahlen was uncertain, but he did not sit on his hands. He moved at once to suppress the rioting, and his swift and judicious measures met with immediate success.

  Among the countless disturbances and riots that had broken out, seven in ten were quelled that very day. Within three days, that figure had risen to nine in ten. But that still left a handful that continued to smolder.

  At this stage, Wahlen partially opened the military storehouses in an attempt to win back the hearts of the people. He also sent a report to Phezzan. But immediately afterward came an incident that not even the empire’s leadership on Phezzan could easily dismiss. Late at night on January 30, an unknown actor deleted a vast quantity of data stored at Phezzan’s Bureau of Navigation.

  The bureau was thrown into chaos. Its staff tried to resolve the matter in secret, but this proved impossible. Unanswered inquiries from military and merchant vessels piled up, arousing suspicion and finally forcing the bureau to bear the shame of revealing the truth.

  As a military commander, Reinhard grasped the gravity of the situation at once. He flew into a rage, demanding that the bureau chief take responsibility. Fortunately, however, the blow to the bureau did not prove critical. At Marshal von Oberstein’s direction, all the navigational data stored at the bureau had been input to the Ministry of Military Affairs’ emergency computers at the end of the previous year.

  The emergency computers had only limited memory available, which had been filled to capacity during the backup. This meant that part of the navigational data had to be deleted and was now lost. Nevertheless, von Oberstein’s actions ensured that the empire was spared a loss it would not have been able to recover from.

  Protecting the loss of the Bureau of Navigation’s data was von Oberstein’s finest achievement since the founding of the Lohengramm Dynasty—at least in the eyes of some later historians. Certainly, it was a great achievement; only someone who believed wars might be won without information could believe otherwise. Reinhard was not so foolish, which was why he had been able to crush the mighty Lippstadt Coalition of Lords and conquer the galaxy.

  Reinhard gave strict orders from his honeymoon villa that von Oberstein’s contribution be recognized and the full truth of the incident uncovered. Senior Admiral Ulrich Kessler, commissioner of military police, was given responsibility for the latter task. Having no wife or family, he more or less moved into military police headquarters to give the investigation his full attention.

  Could some surviving faction of Phezzan loyalists have intentionally sought to interfere with the flow of imperial supplies? This was the suspicion shared by the empire’s entire security apparatus. Kessler acted aggressively, and within two days of receiving his orders he had arrested the man who had deleted the navigational data. The trap he laid was simple: suspecting that the culprit was an employee of the Bureau of Navigation itself, Kessler invented a story about an informant, then arrested the true culprit when he lost his nerve and tried to flee. Two million imperial reichsmark were found in a secret bank account belonging to the man. Brutal interrogations began, with truth serums prepared.

  Five hours after his arrest, the suspect talked. What he said startled even the military police who were questioning him. He had been paid the vast sum and given instructions to commit the crime, he said, by a man named Adrian Rubinsky.

  V

  “Adrian Rubinsky?!”

  The name of the last landesherr of Phezzan sent shudders through the empire’s leadership. Rubinsky had been in hiding ever since Phezzan had permitted the imperial forces passage to execute Operation Ragnarok. They had never doubted that he still lurked underground somewhere, seeking to plant seeds of destruction in the order brought about by the Lohengramm Dynasty. Now, it seemed, his activities had partly emerged into the light.

  “The Black Fox of Phezzan! I’ll skin his hide and use it to sole my boots; that way, I can tread on it every day. Just let him show himself!”

  Wittenfeld seemed angry enough to roll up his sleeves and start brawling on the spot, but even a fleet commander as bold and devoted as he was powerless against acts of sabotage targeting economic and distribution networks. “Not even a volcanic eruption can turn winter into summer,” as Mittermeier put it. Rather than daring military operations, what was needed was careful and patient judicial investigation.

  “What if we offer Deputy Minister Lang a pardon in exchange for his help on this case? Now that Lang knows Rubinsky was using him, he hates the man. He’ll be doubly motivated, both to prove himself useful to us and to settle his private grudge.”

  Some voiced such proposals, but others protested strongly.

  “That doesn’t make any sense. How can we preserve the justice of the law if we pardon one crime to pursue another?”

  The harshest critic of the proposals to pardon Lang was Kessler himself. His arguments were convincing on both logical and emotional grounds, and the voices suggesting that Lang be pardoned soon fell silent.

  As he pursued the case, Kessler began to harbor a grave and unpleasant suspicion. What if Rubinsky and the Church of Terra were secretly connected, and working together to undermine the new dynasty?

  In fact, Kessler was not the first person in the empire to nurse this suspicion. That honor belonged to von Oberstein. As the Lohengramm Dynasty’s first minister of military affairs, he was often the target of criticism despite his ability and the contributions he made. One reason for this was what was viewed as his uncompromising commitment to secrecy. It was true that he did not appear to place much importance on public communications. Nor did he work to win the understanding or cooperation of others. Unlike Lang, however, he did not hoard information for private gain. His trust in others appeared minimal, but neither did he rate himself too highly. He remained a taciturn and uncooperative man right up until his death, never speaking about himself.

  Kessler’s investigation was no exception. Through it all, von Oberstein kept his counsel, an inorganic glint in his bionic eyes. To glean anything at all from his expression seemed, to outside observers, quite impossible.

  The disturbance in the order of the former alliance territory had effects in unexpected quarters. Voices began to be raised in favor of using the full force of the Imperial military to construct a system whereby the former alliance territory would be utterly dominated—and furthermore of eliminating the republican forces still clinging to Iserlohn Fortress.

  This position was based on the idea that the Heinessen Uprising could not have taken place had the republicans of Iserlohn Fortress not maintained their independent foothold.

  “A sunflower always turns to face the sun. We must recognize that republicans in the former alliance territories are that sunflower, and Iserlohn the sun. This leads directly to the conclusion that Iserlohn must be destroyed”—such, in the end, were the arguments that were made.

  Admiral Ernest Mecklinger wrote this paragraph because there was indeed one man who expressed his opinion this directly. That man was the famously ferocious Fritz Josef Wittenfeld, commander of the dreaded Schwarz Lanzenreiter fleet—the Black Lancers.

  “We must strike Iserlohn!” Wittenfeld insisted. “Are they not the greatest obstacle to the unity and peace of the new empire? Even Rubinsky’s scheming ultimately depends on the military might of Iserlohn.”

  Though simple, Wittenfeld’s arguments often captured the essence of affairs. Here, too, they had an odd persuasiveness.

  “What does His Majesty intend to
do about Iserlohn? Will he crush them utterly? Or will he choose coexistence?”

  This question already clouded the thoughts of the empire’s admirals. They sensed complex emotions within Reinhard regarding the republicans of Iserlohn Fortress, quite distinct from his reason, intellect, ambition, and strategic insight. Though no longer among the living, Yang Wen-li, that great enemy commander, still cast a long shadow over Iserlohn.

  A strategist without peer in all of history, Reinhard had all but completed a political and military unification that did not depend on access to the Iserlohn Corridor itself. This suggested that Iserlohn Fortress might be isolated from the social system that unified all humanity—pushed to the periphery at a civilizational-historical level. Accordingly, it would be enough to simply seal the entrances to Iserlohn Corridor and leave those who lived there to their devices, but Reinhard found this an unsatisfying proposition.

  In the end, the psychology and actions of the Lohengramm Dynasty had been inclined toward militarism since its founding. Only the elimination of the republicans on Iserlohn would do to prevent future worries. Wittenfeld and the hard-liners he represented were growing more influential in the empire’s administration, expanding from their core within the military. Though presumably not intended as protest against them, the disturbances in transportation and supplies across the Neue Land—which was to say, the former alliance territory—also seemed to worsen by the day.

  Wahlen spared no effort to contain the situation, but military force alone could not effect a complete solution. Wittenfeld acknowledged that, but insisted that allowing violence to go unpunished would only invite disrespect for the new order. “We must draw the line somewhere,” he said.

  However, while Wittenfeld’s position had many supporters, it also had its detractors. Those opposed to suppression purely through military force openly voiced their objections.

  “Force of arms is not a panacea. It is true that His Majesty’s military prowess has expanded the holdings of the empire. But if the disturbances and unrest in the Neue Land do not end, that expansion will become no different from a gaping hole in our midst.”

  This criticism from Karl Bracke, secretary of civil affairs, was acerbic but not unfair. Nor was Bracke some irresponsible rabble-rouser. As a politician, he promoted civilization and enlightenment, and had contributed greatly to developing the empire’s social policies and improving the well-being of its subjects. In his willingness to criticize even the kaiser he was second only to von Oberstein.

  Furthermore, the empire’s troops also seemed weary of the chaos war wrought. Reinhard’s reforms, conquests, and unification were supposed to have freed them from a century and a half of pointless strife. In fact, however, even after defeating the Free Planets Alliance, the military had been deployed against Iserlohn, and that had been followed by the Reuentahl Rebellion in which so many had died. There was no shortage of officers and enlisted men who felt that enough was enough.

  “There is something to what Bracke says. Furthermore, if troops are deployed, the kaiser might go with them, exposing His Majesty to unnecessary risk.”

  “As I hear it, Yang Wen-li left his wife a widow barely a year after marrying her—and he himself only spent two months out of his military uniform. What kind of fate is that for a great commander?”

  It was not preordained, of course, that Reinhard’s fate would mirror Yang’s. Nevertheless, as his ministers and senior officers reflected on the heroes throughout history who had died young, an unpleasant premonition gripped the very cells of their hearts. They could not banish from the drawer of memory the mysterious fevers that had hounded him in the period immediately after his coronation. They shared an unspoken agreement that close attention should be paid to the kaiser’s health.

  Reinhard himself was still in Ferleiten Valley with his new bride. The young autocrat would be twenty-five that March, and, physical condition aside, his mental energies appeared to need no period of rest at all. Put bluntly, he felt no joy at the prospect of relaxation. His interest never left military matters and politics. He did not even have any hobbies to speak of. This is one of the reasons he is viewed not as a king but as a conqueror.

  “Even when fishing in the river, His Majesty seemed intent on landing not trout but the galaxy itself,” said his bodyguard Emil von Selle, although this must be discounted to some extent as the testimony of a worshipper. Elegant pastimes simply held no appeal for the golden-haired kaiser.

  “Fräulein—I mean, Hilda—I have responsibilities as a ruler that I must fulfill. I will not leave immediately, but it is more than probable that I will depart on a journey of conquest before you are delivered of child. Will you forgive me?”

  Reinhard posed this question to his bride as they sat before the fireplace in their villa one night. The formality of his speech had not lessened with their marriage, which was one stark difference from how he had treated his great friend Kircheis.

  “Of course, Your Majesty. As you wish.”

  The kaiserin’s reply was short, but came without hesitation. Hilda knew that Reinhard’s spirit could not be tethered to the ground. This was something that might have escaped her four years ago, when she was merely dauntless and sharp-witted and had yet to enter the kaiser’s service. But those four years with Reinhard had not only deepened her understanding of him, they had helped her grow as a person herself.

  I

  THUS, IT SEEMED, the man who had subjugated the entire galaxy was not even permitted a week of rest. What, then, of those rebels who, like mantises brandishing their scythes against an oncoming chariot, defied him?

  Above all, it was the Iserlohn Republic openly proclaiming resistance to Reinhard’s authority, armed with an equivalent political philosophy and an independent military. The leader of that military was six years younger than Reinhard, and would turn nineteen that year. This was the age at which Reinhard had become a full admiral of the old empire. On the other hand, Yang Wen-li, who eventually made his name as a brilliant front-line commander for the former Free Planets Alliance, had at the age of nineteen still been an unremarkable student at officer’s school.

  Julian Mintz found himself somewhere between the two in terms of experience and popular support. He had become a sublieutenant at the age of eighteen, but this made him an outlier in the history of the alliance. However, the chief reason that Julian had risen to lead the revolutionary forces was the fact that he was the ward of Yang Wen-li, viewed as having loyally inherited his foster father’s martial philosophy and skill. Later generations had the luxury of knowing that this evaluation was substantially correct, but for the people of that age, the unknown elements were too great. For this reason, large numbers left Iserlohn in disillusionment.

  Whatever his talents, Yang Wen-li had been no clairvoyant, and the same was true of Julian. His view of humanity was not an omniscient one transcending space and time, which meant that his judgments had to be based on information gathered in vast quantities from every quarter and analyzed with methodical impartiality. Two things were to be most avoided: wishful thinking, and the halting of the intellect in the name of “intuition.”

  The year before, during the Reuentahl Rebellion, Julian had displayed a hint of his feel for strategy by granting the Mecklinger fleet passage through Iserlohn Corridor. Now, with disturbances breaking out on Heinessen and across former alliance territory, his powers of judgment and decision-making would be tested again. How would he respond to their cries for relief?

  If the uprising on Heinessen sought the restoration of democratic republican governance, the Iserlohn Republic could not simply sit and watch. If their hesitation left the agitators vulnerable and ultimately led to their defeat, the former alliance citizens would lose all faith in the Iserlohn Republic.

  But could Iserlohn win if it went to war? Could the full might of the republic prevail over the vast Galactic Empire? The glorification of fruitless sacrifice i
n the service of ideals had no place in the martial philosophy that Julian had inherited from Yang. They carried on not to simply honor the ideals of democracy but to keep the flame of democracy alive.

  Coordination with republicans in the former alliance territories was fundamental to Iserlohn’s military and political strategy. If such coordination could be realized, there would surely be benefits. However, political wishes and military desires are often at cross-purposes, as Julian had experienced several times.

  “What would Marshal Yang do?”

  Julian had asked himself this at least a thousand times in the past six months. It seemed to Julian that Yang—who had been Julian’s foster parent and teacher before his death last year at the age of thirty-three—had never once made the wrong decision. The truth was somewhat different, but then Julian had been Yang’s disciple longer than he had been his successor. And one of the many things he had learned in his years by Yang’s side was the importance of evaluating the enemy fairly.

  Kaiser Reinhard von Lohengramm of the Galactic Empire was, for Julian, an enemy whose greatness was almost inconceivable. How could Julian place him within the stream of history?

  For example, Julian had once encountered a composition in an imperial military propaganda magazine, written by a young boy for his father when the latter was away on a military expedition:

  Yesterday, my dad left to crush the enemies of His Majesty Kaiser Reinhard. He told me, “I’m going with His Majesty to fight for galactic peace and unity. Make sure you take care of Mom and your sister.” And I promised I would.

  The Lohengramm Dynasty had been undeniably militaristic, at least in its formative period. As for the common people, militarism often takes the form of passion and group identification. The empire’s subjects were fervent supporters of the golden-haired youth who had saved them from the corruption and injustice of the Goldenbaum Dynasty.