Endurance Read online

  And then there had been his fourth sortie—or more properly, his escape from the mother ship after it had taken a hit. In defiance of its name, the “immortal” Amәrәtāt had fallen prey to fusion missiles and broken in half across its center. Both pieces had exploded separately. After Julian, nearly engulfed in the huge, expanding fireball, had at last escaped into empty space, a walküre had appeared in front of him. He had been just a fraction of a second faster in pulling the trigger that blew it to pieces. The walküre’s enemy-detection functions had been severely impaired by the ball of fire at Julian’s back. Although he had been victorious, his recharging aboard the mother ship had been incomplete, which meant that his energy reserves were still nearly depleted. With despair clouding his dark-brown eyes, he had turned to look at the monitor, staring at it as he held his breath and gave a nervous laugh. Countless points of light had appeared from the direction of Iserlohn Fortress, forming a rapidly expanding wall of light.

  On the bridge of the battleship Triglav, the comm officer stood up and shouted, “Reinforcements have arrived! Reinforcements have arrived!” He considered it his duty to show a bit of an overreaction and drum up morale among his comrades.

  And the effect was spectacular. Cheers rose up, and countless berets flew into the air. To inform allied vessels, and at the same time rub their enemies’ faces in it, EM signals whose interception was fully expected went racing across the comm channels of the FPA forces.

  Meanwhile, the imperial forces were in shock. Operators aboard every vessel had gone pale in the face as they stared into their monitors, paralyzing their commanders with reports that bordered on screams.

  “Over ten thousand?!” the commanders groaned. “That’s not even a contest!” The word “withdraw” was flashing brightly in their minds. They had not lost the part of their reason that calculated advantage and disadvantage, and they had just enough flexibility to sound a withdrawal when the answer came up “disadvantage.” The imperial fleet’s own reinforcements would not be long in coming, but they lacked the huge force strength of the enemy, and more importantly, it was almost certain that once they themselves had been wiped out, it would be their reinforcements’ turn to be destroyed separately. Eisendorff, setting an example for the others, began the retreat.

  “The enemy has lost the will to fight and is taking flight. Shall we pursue?”

  On the bridge of the battleship Hyperion, Lieutenant Frederica Greenhill awaited instructions from their dark-haired commander.

  “No, let them go,” Yang said.

  If the imperial force retreated and their allies were saved, then the goals of this mobilization had been achieved. It would serve no strategic purpose to surround and annihilate a numerically inferior enemy force that didn’t want to fight, nor would it give him any pleasure as a tactician to do so. The main reason he had brought such a large force out in the first place had been to scare off the enemy without fighting.

  “In that case, Excellency, shall we recover those whose ships have been destroyed and head back together as soon as emergency repairs are completed?”

  “That’ll be fine. Oh, and to prevent something like this from happening in the future, we should probably deploy a few surveillance and relay satellites in this area as well.”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll see to it right away.”

  Merkatz looked on with gentle approval as Frederica briskly executed her commander’s instructions. Even in his long record of service, he couldn’t remember many aides as competent as she.

  “Also, about Sergeant Julian Mintz—”

  As Frederica prepared to give a new report, she saw the outline of Yang’s body appear to stiffen just slightly.

  “He’s returned safely.” Looking on with warmth as the strength drained out of Yang’s shoulders, Frederica continued. “He destroyed three walküren and one cruiser.”

  “He destroyed a cruiser? In his very first battle?” It wasn’t Yang who had spoken; it was the commander of fortress defenses, Walter von Schönkopf, who had come aboard saying he wanted to see the results of the new recruits’ training. He was also Julian’s instructor in marksmanship and hand-to-hand combat. Frederica nodded, and he clapped his hands together, looking pleased.

  “That kid is all surprises. He’s a natural at this. Not even I got to show off that much on my first outing. I’m actually kind of worried about just how much he’ll grow in the future …;”

  “What are you talking about?” said Yang. “All he’s done is blow through a lifetime’s worth of good luck in one go. If he ends up taking a light view of battle now, this won’t have been good for him. The real test starts now.”

  Yang had intended to speak with the attitude of a strict instructor, but when he saw Frederica and von Schönkopf’s faces, he knew right away that he could claim no success in that. Their faces seemed to be telling him, You really don’t have to try so hard.

  It was in this manner that Julian Mintz concluded his first combat outing.

  He had emerged alive.

  While the fighting that erupted in the Iserlohn Corridor in January of Space Era 798—or Imperial Year 489—was large in scale, it actually concluded as nothing more than a border skirmish.

  Admiral Yang Wen-li, commander of Iserlohn Fortress and the man responsible for the FPA military forces in the conflict, had returned the fleet to the fortress right afterward, making no attempt to escalate the fighting.

  On the imperial side, Karl Gustav Kempf was responsible for security in this region of space. Although Kempf apologized for failing to wipe out the enemy, the military’s supreme commander, Imperial Marshal Reinhard von Lohengramm, had waved the matter away, saying, “In a hundred battles, we can’t expect a hundred victories. You needn’t apologize for each and every setback.”

  It would have been one thing if the loss had been in a huge battle with the fate of the nation hanging in the balance, but Reinhard, in his other role as imperial prime minister, had to devote most of his time and energy to improving domestic affairs and expanding his own power base. He didn’t have time to spend harping on a localized battle that had little strategic or diplomatic significance.

  Reinhard had turned twenty-two, and both a shade of melancholy and a ruler’s dignity had been added to his natural comeliness, giving him a presence of late that called to mind that of some demigod. To the soldiers, his was a presence worthy of awe—awe made of the same stuff as religious faith. One of the reasons for that was the manner in which he lived.

  After his sister Annerose had moved out, Reinhard had vacated the estate in Schwarzen and moved into military officers’ housing. True, it was a house built for a high-ranking officer, but for a lord who ruled over twenty-five billion citizens and several thousand star systems, it was positively frugal. It had a study, a bedroom, a bathroom, a living room, a dining room, and a kitchen, as well as a private room for a personal attendant—and that was all, aside from accommodations for his security detail, located in one corner of the garden.

  “This is too modest for one serving as imperial prime minister. I’m not suggesting extravagance, but don’t you think something that would display your authority a little more is in order?”

  Such comments were naturally heard in Reinhard’s circles, but a faint, indifferent smile was the only answer he ever gave.

  Poverty of desire when it came to material goods was one point where Reinhard and Yang Wen-li’s natures intersected. Though his soul hungered after glory and earthly power, these things didn’t take tangible form. Power, of course, promised material fulfillment. If he had wanted to, Reinhard could have lived in a marble palace, had beautiful women in every room, and owned gold and precious jewels piled as high as his waist, but doing so would have only made him an unseemly caricature of Rudolf the Great. Rudolf had been a man with an irresistible compulsion for manifesting his vast, incomparable power as material riches. In addition to Neue Sans Sou
ci Palace, the pinnacle of his magnificence, he had kept wide manor houses and hunting grounds, countless chamberlains and ladies-in-waiting, paintings, sculptures, precious metals, gemstones, a private orchestra, personal guards, extravagant passenger ships for touring the empire, portrait artists, wineries …; Rudolf had monopolized the best of everything. Aristocrats had crowded in around him, holding up before their delighted faces whatever baubles his large hands threw their way. In a sense, they had known their place quite well, living in subjection to a giant—the first to make himself despot of all humanity—in a manner more like slaves than like cattle. The only reason they hadn’t wagged their tails for Rudolf had been that they’d lacked them. From time to time, Rudolf would bestow beautiful women from his harem on his courtiers. Because these women usually came with manor houses, titles, jewels, and more, the courtiers would accept them gladly and go to boast to the other nobles of the favor they had found in the sight of His Imperial Highness.

  Reinhard, at present, lived completely divorced from such spiritual rot. There was not a soul alive who could show Reinhard to be anything other than a creative and enterprising statesman, no matter how deeply they might despise him.

  “Two things are essential for getting people to trust in the system: fair courts and equally fair taxation. Just these two.”

  In these words, Reinhard demonstrated that he had a gift for ruling the nation as well as for waging war. Even if both of his essentials had sprung from the same well of personal ambition, he was nonetheless giving voice to exactly what the multitudes were longing for.

  While Reinhard was pushing forward tax reforms and working to establish fair criminal and civil codes, he gave sprawling manors that had once belonged to the old aristocracy away to farmers free of charge and freed the serfs on those manors. The mansions of many of the nobles who had been wiped out after aligning with Duke von Braunschweig’s camp were opened to the public and became hospitals and public-welfare facilities. The aristocrats had kept their paintings, sculptures, chinaware, and precious metal craftworks all under lock and key, but now these things were appropriated by the state and placed in public museums.

  “… Lovely gardens are trampled underfoot by mean fellows of low birth, thick carpets bear the stains of muddy shoes, and canopy beds where only the noble were once permitted to lie are now sullied with the drool of filthy children. Now this once-great nation has fallen into the hands of half beasts, incapable of comprehending either beauty or nobility. Ah, that this disgraceful and wretched spectacle were but a single night’s ill dream …;”

  With anger and hatred dripping from the tip of his pen, one of the aristocrats had written thus in his journal after being stripped of his wealth and privilege. The nobles had refused to so much as consider the fact that the bountiful lifestyle they had enjoyed up till now had been thanks to an unjust societal system, supported by the labor and sacrifices of “mean fellows of low birth.” Nor did it occur to them that their failure to reflect on that system had undermined the ground beneath their feet and brought about their fall.

  As long as his enemies were those longing only for glories past, Reinhard would have no need to fear them. The most they could possibly do was launch plots against society or terrorist attacks, and outside of the proaristocracy extremists, such tactics would find no support or backing among the people.

  At present, the people were on Reinhard’s side, and they were watching the former aristocrats like hawks, eyes burning with hostility and thirst for revenge. Their former rulers had been shut up inside an invisible cage.

  Reinhard’s hands of ruthless reform extended not only into the financial and legal systems, but into administrative organizations as well. At the Ministry of Domestic Affairs, the Bureau for the Maintenance of Public Order—that infamous executor of imperial policy that had long dominated the public and suppressed independent thought—was shuttered after nearly five hundred years. Bureau chief Heidrich Lang was placed under surveillance by von Oberstein, and all thought and political criminals—with the exception of terrorists and radical proponents of republican government—were released. A number of newspapers and magazines that had previously been banned were also given permission to resume publishing.

  Special financial institutions that had been exclusive to the nobility were abolished and replaced with Farmer’s Safes, which provided low-interest farming loans to freed serfs. “Reinhard the Liberator!” “Reinhard the Reformer!” The praises of the citizenry swelled ever louder.

  “Duke von Lohengramm isn’t just skilled on the battlefield—he really knows how to ingratiate himself with the public, too,” whispered Karl Bracke, a VIP in the “knowledge and civilization” movement who was helping Reinhard with his reforms, to his comrade, Eugen Richter.

  “That’s true. He may well be trying to win favor with the people. Still, the old aristocratic regime wouldn’t have done even that. All they ever did was unilaterally squeeze the people for everything they were worth. Compared to that, this is without a doubt progress and improvement.”

  “Still,” said Bracke, “Can you really call it progress if it doesn’t lead toward self-rule by the people?”

  “Progress is progress,” said Richter. A mild note of irritation lurked in his voice, directed at Bracke’s dogmatism. “Even though a powerful authority above is what’s pushing this, once the public has been given greater rights, he can’t just suddenly take them away again. Right now, the best option for us is to back Duke von Lohengramm and propel these reforms. Don’t you agree?”

  Bracke nodded, but there was something in his eyes that was neither satisfaction nor agreement …;

  II

  Tech Admiral Anton Hilmer von Schaft, the imperial military’s commissioner of science and technology, was a fifty-year-old man who held doctoral degrees in both engineering and philosophy. His hairline had retreated to the top of his head, but his dark-red whiskers and eyebrows were thick and fluffy. With a reddish nose, a plump, rounded body, and the sheen of a well-nourished baby, he might at first glance be mistaken for the proprietor of a beer hall.

  However, the glint in his eye was no mere barkeep’s. R&D skills aside, rumor had it that this tech admiral had reached the position he held today not only through raw talent, but also through combativeness in driving out bosses, leapfrogging over colleagues, and holding back subordinates. It was also said that his ambition was to become the first imperial marshal in history to reach that rank as a military scientist rather than as a fleet commander or operations advisor.

  On the day that von Schaft paid a call to the Lohengramm admiralität, Reinhard had just finished his morning’s work and was in the middle of eating lunch. He scowled when he heard the name of the visitor. During von Schaft’s past six years of lording over the Science and Technology Commission, he had maintained his position and privileges by making full use of political power—all the while achieving little aside from the development of directional Seffl particles. Reinhard certainly wasn’t fond of the man.

  More than once, Reinhard had considered dismissing him and reshuffling the lineup at the Science and Technology Commission. Over the last six years, however, those regarded as competitors to von Schaft had been driven to the sidelines without exception, while von Schaft’s supporters had monopolized all the important posts within the commission. To be sure, Reinhard could have dismissed von Schaft and reorganized his faction, but doing so would have certainly caused numerous disruptions in the day-to-day operations of the organization. There was also the fact that von Schaft had long shown a willingness to cooperate with Reinhard, and not with the boyar nobles only.

  So in short, Reinhard wanted to cut von Schaft loose but had thus far been unable to find a good enough reason to do so. He was quietly having his people search for a replacement, while biding his time to see if von Schaft might make some huge blunder or get caught mixing public and personal business. Still, von Schaft was just one man,
and there was little room in Reinhard’s busy schedule to spend on his disposition. The state of the empire desperately called for the constructive side of Reinhard’s genius.

  On that day as well, Reinhard’s afternoon schedule was packed with meetings with various high-ranking domestic officials slated to explain a number of thorny issues relating to such things as property rights over lands formerly owned by the aristocracy, rules at the planetary level regarding taxation and police judiciary powers, and the reorganization of central government offices. Because these were matters for the imperial prime minister, Reinhard had to leave the admiralität after lunch and go to the office of the prime minister. Although he could have simply said the word and had those high-ranking officials come to the admiralität, something either fastidious or stubborn in the young man refused to make things easier for himself in such matters.

  “I’ll see him, but for fifteen minutes only.”

  Von Schaft, however, had other ideas about that. Hoping to enthrall the young imperial marshal, he launched into a long, impassioned monologue that disrupted Reinhard’s schedule, forcing those officials to wait on their young ruler at the prime minister’s office.

  “… So in other words,” said Reinhard, “you’re saying our military should construct a fortress, which would serve as a stronghold for our forces directly in front of Iserlohn?”