Ambition (22 page)

“Is anyone there?” Lieutenant Rinser called out, sitting on the floor. His third such attempt yielded a feeble response, and a small-framed figure came staggering over to him.

Rinser raised his eyebrows. Underneath the disheveled golden hair was a face—only that of a boy—caked with blood and ash.

“What’s a boy your age doing in a place like this?”

“… I’m a student. I was on my way to Garmisch Fortress for assignment as a cabin attendant.”

“Ah, I see. And how old are you?”

“I’m thirteen—or will be in five days.”

“The world really must be ending when mere children start showing up in war zones.”

The lieutenant breathed a sigh and, realizing it
wasn’t
the end of the world, knew that his and the boy’s wounds needed attention. He indicated where there was a first aid kit and had the boy bring it to him.

After numbing his pain receptors with a cooling spray, he disinfected the wound and wrapped it in protective gauze. The boy’s bruises and abrasions, along with his first-degree burns, showed that fate had been on his side. The boy gasped at the single screen that had managed to avoid being damaged.

“It looks like the enemy is approaching.”

“Enemy?” said the lieutenant warily. “Just who is this enemy? The ones who did this to us are—”

As he stood up, struggling for balance, Rinser activated the emergency signal system and pushed a green button.

“I hereby surrender. We have injured on board and seek asylum in the name of humanity.”

Humanity
. The lieutenant curled his lips. If rescuing the enemy was humanity, then what did you call killing your own comrades?

“Are you going to surrender?”

“You disagree, boy?”

“Please don’t call me ‘boy.’ I do have a proper name. It’s Konrad von Moder.”

“Well, that’s a coincidence. I’m Konrad, too. Konrad Rinser. If the young Konrad thinks that surrendering is out of the question, then what do you propose we do instead?” said the elder Konrad derisively.

The boy’s face went red with embarrassment.

“I don’t know. I would feel sad to surrender, but it’s not like we can fight, either. I’m lost.”

“Then leave it to me,” said Rinser, awkwardly opening a bottle of rubbing alcohol with his remaining hand. “I’m fourteen years older than you, which comes out to fourteen more years of wisdom and experience. Not that any of that wisdom helped me to see my own commander’s true colors.”

The other Konrad watched—half-amazed, half-worried—as the young lieutenant tipped back the rubbing alcohol like a bottle of wine.

“Hey, don’t you look at me like that. Medicinal purposes only. It’s never failed me yet.”

The sound of a buzzer overlapped with the end of the lieutenant’s sentence. Relief had come.

Enemy relief.

Though Marquis von Littenheim had made his escape to Garmisch Fortress, his fleet had been almost completely destroyed. Among his fifty thousand ships, three thousand had hightailed it to Garmisch, while five thousand, after fleeing the battle zone, had scattered to random locations. Eighteen thousand had been annihilated, while the remainder had been summarily captured or had surrendered. Marquis von Littenheim’s disgraceful hit-and-run against allied ships had dampened the morale of his men.

Kircheis had Garmisch Fortress surrounded and was hastening preparations to take it by force when a single POW requested an audience. The young officer, still in his twenties, had yet to be fitted with an artificial hand, and the right sleeve of his uniform dangled loosely.

“I believe I can be of use to you, Your Excellency,” Lieutenant Rinser said by way of introduction.

“How so?”

“I suspect you already know. I am a living witness to the fact that Marquis von Littenheim killed his subordinates to save himself.”

“I see. So you were aboard one of the supply ships.”

“My arm was blown off in the attack. I say we show this,” he said, holding up the stump of his arm, “to the men in the fortress.”

“I take it your loyalty to Marquis von Littenheim was blown off with it?”

“Loyalty?” Rinser’s voice took on a cynical key. “That word has a beautiful ring to it—but one too often abused out of convenience. I think this civil war is a good opportunity for all of us to reconsider the value of loyalty. Now millions of people will see that certain kinds of leaders have no right to demand the loyalty of their subjects.”

Kircheis acknowledged the lieutenant’s point. To be sure, loyalty had never been a thing to be given unconditionally. It was necessary for its recipient to be worthy of it.

“Very well, then. I hereby request your cooperation. Send an FTL to the men of Garmisch asking for their surrender.”

“Understood …”

Complicated feelings gleamed in the lieutenant’s eyes.

“If even five men within the fortress share our sentiments, then Marquis von Littenheim’s head will have already rolled.”

Garmisch Fortress held its collective breath. Its commander, Marquis von Littenheim, was overwhelmed by fear and looming defeat. Furthermore, he had descended into a spiral of shame over his own behavior and his loss of face regarding von Braunschweig, and had taken to the bottle for solace.

It had been half a day since Marquis von Littenheim’s escape when a single warship that had managed to escape Kircheis’s pursuit at last approached the fortress, and a lone officer appeared before the marquis.

The officer’s head was wrapped in a blood-soaked bandage, and a body—in truth, the upper half of one—was slung over his right shoulder.

This hulking officer walked up the silent corridor, for the guards dared not call out to him, and stopped before the sentries before speaking.

“I am Commander Rauditz of the Wesel sniper battalion. I wish to see Marquis von Littenheim.”

The sentry leader swallowed audibly.

“I would be happy to intermediate, but with that filthy, bloody body, I can’t allow you to …”

“Filthy, you say?!” The commander’s eyes flared with menace. After a breath, his harsh words resounded throughout the hall. “Filthy! These are the remains of the marquis’s loyal subject! This was my subordinate, who risked his life battling the enemy so that the Marquis could escape.”

Daunted by the lieutenant’s resolve, to say nothing of the corpse, the guards parted as Rauditz stepped forward.

The door opened to reveal Marquis von Littenheim’s figure seated at the other end of a table.

“What are you doing here, you impudent fool!”

The tabletop was a veritable forest of wine bottles and glasses. The marquis’s skin had lost the tautness and luster of the day before, his eyes were now dark and bloodshot, and even the edge in his voice had dulled.

“Private Paulus … this is Marquis von Littenheim, the man you threw your life away for. Reward him with a kiss of gratitude for his loyalty!”

Before he had even finished, the commander threw Paulus’s body with all the strength he could muster at their commander.

Having no time to dodge, Marquis von Littenheim held out his arms, catching the soldier’s body out of reflex.

With an indecipherable scream, Marquis von Littenheim toppled from his luxurious seat to the floor. Realizing the dead soldier was still in his arms, he let out a rather different kind of scream and heaved the body aside. The commander guffawed loudly.

“Kill him! Kill this ingrate now!” Marquis von Littenheim cried.

The lieutenant held his ground. On his face, caked with dried blood and oil, his lips contorted into a strange smile in defiance of the blasters aimed at him …

The crewmen of the bridge directed their attention to the main displays.

The silver globe of Garmisch Fortress floated in the centers of both viewscreens. A section of the outer wall erupted in a white flash, followed by eruptions of dull but massive beams of red and yellow light.

“It exploded.”

The operator had only stated the obvious, but the men nonetheless watched the image before them in a stupor.

“That’s near the command center.”

Lieutenant Rinser lowered his voice for some reason.

“I see. Very well, then.”

Kircheis did not want to squander the opportunity afforded him. He ordered his entire fleet to surround and bombard the fortress before dispatching landing ships and armed soldiers.

What little resistance they met with was sporadic. The soldiers, bereft of their will to fight, disregarded officers’ angry roars and forfeited their weapons in succession. Commanding officers, too, realizing the futility of any resistance, held up their hands in surrender.

Kircheis occupied the fortress—or, rather, the three-fourths of it spared from the explosion. Not even Marquis von Littenheim’s corpse was recovered, scattered in all directions as it had likely been by an inferno of combusted Seffl particles.

In one fell swoop, the nobles’ confederated forces had lost their second-in-command and a third of their military strength.

“The aristocratic forces are big on spirit, small on strategy.”

So the heterochromatic Oskar von Reuentahl had once said.

Hot-blooded imbeciles, all of them
—a harsh evaluation, to be sure, but one that the battles fought thus far seemed to be confirming with the large number of military successes he and his comrades were scoring.

Even so, when battling with enemy forces in the Schan’n-tau Stellar Region, von Reuentahl had discovered something unexpected that forced him to change his thinking.

Hot-blooded as ever
. And yet, he couldn’t help but recognize that they were efficiently organized and cleverly controlled. Von Reuentahl had repelled three waves of enemy aggression but was amazed by their tenacity and the cohesive coordination with which they launched their offensive. The losses incurred were greater than expected, and for von Reuentahl, the time had come to deliberate.

Von Reuentahl understood right away that a change of command was behind the enemy’s newfound efficacy, as it was likely Merkatz who now stood on the front lines. Outside of him, there was no one else among the aristocrats’ confederated forces capable of mobilizing troops so effectively.

Which meant that von Reuentahl was at a disadvantage only so far as a difference of military strength was concerned. He may not have been a visionary, but he could rightly assess the capabilities of his adversaries.

“Should we withdraw?”

Deciding to retreat when one should: also the mark of a great commander.

Even abandoning Schan’n-tau was, strategically speaking, not much of a problem. It wasn’t an indispensable tactical stronghold but only a blip on his expanding radar of influence. Though he wouldn’t mind folding his cards in this instance, von Reuentahl hesitated to make any snap judgments so that he might better make a lasting psychological impression on his opponents.

After a string of defeats and withdrawals, acquisition of the Schan’n-tau Stellar Region would give the appearance of victory to the confederated aristocrats. The latter’s esprit de corps would rise, and they would meet their next battle riding its wave. Pluck and spirit could often overcome an opponent’s careful planning and lead to victory; history was full of examples.

A malicious smile appeared suddenly in the brooding von Reuentahl’s blue and black eyes.

“Very well, we’ll withdraw. Schan’n-tau’s not worth the lives it would cost to defend. We’ll leave the recapture to Marquis von Lohengramm.”

If a superior officer lost a sector occupied by a subordinate, the superior officer would completely lose face. On the other hand, if a sector occupied by a subordinate were to be rescued by a superior officer, the end result would prove the superior officer to have abilities far beyond those of the subordinate. The superior officer would likely be irritated by the temporary setback, but if he said, “It’s beyond my ability. Please show me the true worth of your tactics,” that would inflate the superior officer’s pride and leave a great impression in the long run.

So von Reuentahl had reckoned. Since an overwhelming victory was not to be hoped for, that seemed the wisest course of action. It wasn’t a calculation that your average headstrong, self-interested military man could have come up with.