Ambition (12 page)

“I wonder,” said Bucock. “Looks to me like you’re justifying an illegal power grab with pretty words like
restoration
and
sacred charge
and
passion
and so on.”

The old admiral’s poison tongue cut deep into the officers’ sense of pride, stinging them sharply. Voices rose up in anger.

“Admiral Bucock, we want to be as gentlemanly about this as possible, but for my part, I can’t help thinking those last words were crossing the line.”

“Gentlemanly?” Bucock’s laughter rang out in the room, filled with sarcasm. “From the days when human beings were crawling around on all fours right down to this very afternoon, people who break the rules using violence have never been called gentlemen. If that’s what you want to be called, though, you’ve got the power now, so while you still have it, I recommend you get some somebody to write you a new dictionary.”

Fury was rippling up from the officers like a heat mirage. With a glance, Greenhill held its ignition in check.

“We could talk all day, but I don’t think we’re going to find any common ground. We only ask history to be the judge of the decisions we’ve made.”

“History may have nothing to say to you, Admiral Greenhill.”

At that, Dwight Greenhill, chairman of the Military Congress for the Rescue of the Republic, looked away.

“Take him to another room. We mustn’t lack for courtesy.”

Heinessen’s strategic points were under the control of rebel units.

Joint Operational Headquarters, Science and Technology Headquarters, and the Space Defense Command and Control Center, as well as the High Council Building and the Interstellar Communications Center, had fallen into the rebel units’ hands with hardly any bloodshed. Even Admiral Dawson, acting director of Joint Operational Headquarters, had been confined.

However, the ultimate object of the attack—High Council chairman Job Trünicht—was nowhere to be found at his office. He was believed to have escaped by way of a secret passage for use in emergencies and had disappeared underground …

Yang felt like he had a pretty good understanding of how what we call the fates are intrinsically mean-spirited, like old witches.

It was being hammered home to him now, though, that this was just his feeling. Had the fates been furnished with minds and personalities, this was the point where he would have wanted to raise his voice in complaint, saying, “Come on! You’ve never been
this
mean before!” That, of course, was impossible. Fate was coincidence combined with countless accumulated wills, not some kind of transcendent entity.

But having to do battle with Frederica Greenhill’s father so he could protect the authority of a man like Trünicht!

Yang had lost track of how many dozens of laps he’d walked through his private rooms. When he came to himself, young Julian Mintz was standing by the wall, staring at him intently. Yang could see a worried gleam in those dark-brown eyes. Unable to be of help to Yang, the boy was feeling frustrated and powerless.

But what to do next was a decision only Yang could make, and nowhere in the world was there anyone with whom he could share that. Breathing out a sigh, Yang forced a happy-go-lucky smile.

“Julian, get me a glass of brandy. After that, can you get my executive staff together in the meeting room in about fifteen minutes?”

“Yes, sir. Right away.”

“Also, call Lieutenant Greenhill for me right quick.”

The boy left the room at a run.

If it were all right to not make decisions when he didn’t want to, he would be living
la vie en rose
. Although the ancients had said it adds flavor to life when things don’t turn out the way we’d like, this time around, the spice seemed a little too hot.

Frederica Greenhill appeared two minutes later. She wore a calm expression, but there was no hiding her sickly complexion. Yang had his own way of resigning himself to his role here: Having lost his father at age sixteen, he had enrolled in the Department of Military History at Officers’ Academy after searching for a school where he could study history at no cost. He’d had absolutely no desire to become a soldier, so in a way, he viewed what he had to do now as the tab coming due for his self-serving choice.

But for Frederica, this was like being caught in the sort of thought experiment people used to try to prove the absurdity of gods. She was being put in the position of having to become her own father’s enemy. It was a harsh thing for a young woman of twenty-three.

“Lieutenant Greenhill, reporting.”

“Ah. You’re looking cheerful.”

With that, Yang had really put his foot in his mouth. As for Frederica, she also seemed at a loss as to how to respond.

“What is it you need me for?”

“Right … I’m getting the staff together for yet another meeting, so I’d like you to handle the prep and run the controls.”

Frederica looked taken aback.

“I—I thought I was going to be relieved of my duties as your aide. I came here expecting that …”

“You wanna quit?”

Yang’s tone of voice at that moment was rather curt.

“No, but …”

“If you’re not there for me, I’ll have a rough time of it. I’ve got a terrible memory, and I’m no good with that awful control panel, either. I need a competent aide.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll carry out my duties, Excellency.”

For just an instant, he was able to see through her businesslike expression and catch a glimpse of laughter and tears churning underneath.

“I appreciate it. Go on ahead to the meeting room.”

There were other ways he could have phrased that, but for Yang, it was the best he could manage.

When he left his room, he ran into von Schönkopf in the hallway. The empire’s former citizen saluted and smiled at his superior.

“It seems you haven’t fired Ms. Greenhill.”

“Of course not. Why would I when I can’t find anybody who could do the job better?”

“You’re avoiding the issue,” von Schönkopf replied, although it was rude of him to say so.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, sir, it’s just that … well, I’ve been wondering about a number of things … such as what she thinks of Your Excellency. From the standpoint of a subordinate.”

“Well, what do you think about me?” Yang said, assaying a clumsy escape.

“Hmm, I don’t rightly know, to be honest. You’re pretty much a mountain of contradictions.” Von Schönkopf looked back at his superior’s disappointed face with a friendly smile. “What makes me say that? First of all, there’s not a man alive who hates the stupidity of war as much as you do. Yet at the same time, there’s no one better at waging war than you, either. Am I wrong?”

“What do you think of Marquis Reinhard von Lohengramm?”

“That it’d be fun to have a go at him.” This outrageous pronouncement came from the empire’s former citizen without the slightest hesitation. “I think that if you were both operating under equivalent conditions you’d probably beat him.”

“Hypotheticals like that are meaningless,” Yang said.

“I know that, sir.”

Tactics was the art of moving troops so as to win on the battlefield. Strategy was the art of preparing conditions that allowed one’s tactics to be used to their utmost potential. Accordingly, von Schönkopf’s supposition was irrelevant to realities on the ground, as it had ignored the element of strategy in war.

“At any rate, let’s move on to the next point. You have an awareness that runs straight down to the bone of just how out of whack
the FPA’s current power structure is—in terms of both its capabilities and its morals. Yet in spite of that, you’ll do everything in your power to save it. That is a huge contradiction.”

“Let’s just say that ‘perfect’ is the enemy of ‘good.’ I certainly recognize that the alliance’s present authorities are ‘out of whack.’ But take a look for yourself at the slogans put out by that Rescue of the Republic thingie. Are those guys not worse than what we’ve got now?”

“If I must answer …” said von Schönkopf, eyes brimming with an odd light, “I say we
let
these Military Congress buffoons purge the current regime. Thoroughly and completely. In any case, they’ll expose their own shortcomings in due time afterward and lose control of the situation. At that point, you ride in, expel the cleaning staff, and take power as the restorer of democracy. That’s what I would call ‘better.’ ”

Dumbfounded, Iserlohn’s young commander stared at his subordinate. Von Schönkopf was no longer smiling.

“How about it? Even if it were only a formality, as dictator you could safeguard the practice of democratic government—”

“ ‘Dictator Yang Wen-li,’ huh? Any way I turn that, it just doesn’t sound like my style.”

“Being a soldier wasn’t your style, either, originally. Yet here you are, doing it better than anyone. You’d probably be pretty good at dictatorship, too.”

“Commodore von Schönkopf.”

“What is it, sir?”

“Have you shared your thoughts on this with anyone else?”

“Of course not.”

“Glad to hear it …”

Saying nothing more, Yang turned his back on von Schönkopf.

Following along five or six steps behind him, von Schönkopf smiled just a little. Was Yang even aware that there were no other high-ranking officers in the service who let their subordinates speak their minds as freely as he did? It was a pretty hard job, serving as von Schönkopf’s commanding officer.

There were many civilians living within Iserlohn, and their anxieties had been heightened by news of the coup d’état at home and the civil war that had erupted in the empire. One such individual noticed Julian when he had gone out to a civilian residential district on an errand for Yang and asked him whether there was really any chance of winning.

The young man looked fixedly at the face of the one accosting him and then, chiding him for his panic, answered with confidence and spirit.

“Admiral Yang Wen-li doesn’t fight battles that can’t be won.”

In no time at all, this exchange became renowned throughout Iserlohn. “Admiral Yang doesn’t fight battles that can’t be won.” Indeed, victory was the man’s constant companion. Therefore, he was sure to win this time as well. At least on the surface, civilian anxiety had been calmed.

Yang, who heard about what had happened later, confirmed the facts of the matter with Julian, then spoke to him in a teasing voice.

“I hadn’t expected it, but you’ve even got talent as a PR spokesman.”

“But what I told him wasn’t just a bluff, it’s a fact. Isn’t it, Excellency?”

“Uh, yeah. This time, anyway.”

Julian couldn’t help thinking that his guardian’s brow had furrowed ever so slightly.

“Sure hope it always works out that way …”

When Julian went out to practice piloting one of the single-seat fighter craft called spartanians, Yang called for Commodore von Schönkopf.

Yang had decided to split the fleet under his command into a high-speed mobile unit he would command himself and a rear support unit built around supply and defensive firepower functionality. However, he was still wondering to which unit he would assign von Schönkopf. This he consulted the man himself about, and decided ultimately to place him as a staff officer at his own side.