Ambition (4 page)

He couldn’t believe that they were seriously aiming to recapture Earth militarily and restore its lost glory, but …

“I just don’t understand it,” Yang murmured with an unintentional grimace. “What is Phezzan thinking?” Then, amused at himself, he thought ruefully,
I’m worrying too much over nothing—it’s hardly certain that Phezzan has anything to do with this Terraism movement at all
.

They arrived back at Yang’s official residence, and wanting a drink to help clear his exhaustion, Yang called out to Julian.

“Can you get me a brandy?”

“We’ve got some vegetable juice, but …”

After a pause, Yang said, “Now listen here, you think inspiration comes from vegetable juice?”

“What matters is how hard you’re trying.”

“Gah! Where’d you pick up an expression like that?”

“Everyone on Iserlohn is my teacher.”

Yang growled as the faces of the venom-tongued Caselnes and von Schönkopf rose up in his mind.

“I should’ve given your boyhood educational environment a little more thought.”

Julian smiled and reminded Yang it was “just one glass” as he brought him his brandy.

The party was an improvement, at least when compared to the ceremony that had preceded it.

Although the humorless, rambling speeches from politicians, financiers, and high-ranking bureaucrats continued, there was predictably little hysterical content here.

At Iserlohn as well, parties were held for the purpose of military-civilian relations, but as the one ultimately responsible for them, Yang insisted on doing things in his own personal style. When asked to give a speech, he would say, “Everyone, please enjoy the party,” and with that be done with it. In both the military and the private sector, there were many notable persons who loved giving speeches, but when
Yang
did that, the other dignitaries had no choice but to shorten their speeches as well.

“Admiral Yang’s two-second speech” had become an Iserlohn specialty.

The black-haired admiral, having become a hero of legend while yet young and alive, was even at this party an object of curiosity to certain ladies of celebrity and was forced to use his mouth for purposes other than eating and drinking all evening.

“Admiral Yang, why don’t you wear your medals?”

“Well, those things are heavy, so when I’m wearing them, I end up tilting forward when I walk.”

“Oh my, oh my!”

“My ward tells me I look like an old man walking around with my spine crooked, so …”

The ladies laughed pleasantly, but the one who was telling them this was not having such a great time. He was merely making a compromise because this was part of what he was paid for.

In a corner of a ballroom spacious to excess, Julian had found himself a seat, and with nothing else to do, was watching the crowd as people walked back and forth. All of the ten thousand in attendance were people of renown, and if it were called a magnificent sight, a magnificent sight was what it was.

The alliance’s head of state, High Council Chairman Trünicht, was there. Renowned as a master of flowery rhetoric, Yang hated the man so deeply that he would turn off the solivision whenever he appeared on it. Perhaps wisely, Trünicht seemed to be avoiding Yang as well.

Eventually, Yang slipped out of the ring of ladies and walked quickly toward Julian.

“Julian, I think it’s about time we snuck out of here.”

“Yes, sir, Admiral.”

All of the preparations had been laid out in advance. Julian went to get a bag that had been left with the attendant at the front desk, while Yang went to the bathroom and changed into some nondescript civilian clothes. His dress uniform went into the bag, and then the two of them walked right out of the building, with no one the wiser.

Mikhailov’s Restaurant—though to call it that strained the principle of truth in advertising—was a modest food stall that was open for business all day at the entrance to Courtwell Park, located in a corner of downtown where there were many blue-collar laborers.

Poor couples with little of anything except youth and dreams would come there to buy food and drink, and then sit talking on benches beneath the security light. It was that kind of place.

When things were busy, the hardworking Mikhailov—who even in his military days had been a cook—didn’t pay attention to the faces of each and every customer. So when the peculiar combination of an old man, a young man, and a boy came to his counter—there was also the fact that the lighting was dim—he paid them no mind either.

The three of them ordered fried fish, fried potatoes, quiche, and milk tea, then sat down together, occupying one of the benches fully, and began to eat and drink. It was a three-generation picnic. After all, none of the three had eaten very much at the party …

“Whew, it’s a pain in the neck to have to sneak off to a place like this just to talk without being seen,” said the eldest of the three.

“I enjoyed myself quite a bit,” said Yang. “Took me back to my days in Officers’ Academy. We’d rack our brains back then coming up with new ways to break curfew.”

If they had realized that the old man was Admiral Bucock, commander in chief of the FPA’s space armada, and the young man was Admiral Yang Wen-li, commander of Iserlohn Fortress, both the proprietor Mikhailov and the other customers would have been speechless. The two military leaders had ducked out of the party separately in order to meet up in this place.

There was something about a light meal of fish and chips that stirred feelings akin to homesickness. In his days at Officers’ Academy, Yang would sometimes slip out of the dormitory with his partner in crime Jean Robert Lappe to sate their adolescent appetites with cheap, delicious food from stalls like this one.

Oh man, I shoulda called it quits after the wine,
he’d been thinking. Yang had ordered schnapps, and no sooner had he stepped out of the bar than he’d taken a hard fall on the sidewalk and found himself unable to move. The proprietor had called Jessica for him, and she had rushed over and dragged him into the back of the bar, so as not to be seen by their stern instructors. She had treated his injuries there.

“Jean Robert Lappe! Yang Wen-li! Wake up! Sit up straight! Who knows what’ll happen if we’re not back in the dorms by sunrise!”

The coffee that Jessica had brewed for the two hungover youths, in spite of being black, had tasted oddly sweet …

That same Jean Robert Lappe had been killed in action last year in the Battle of Astarte. Jessica Edwards, who had been engaged to marry him, had since been elected as a delegate for the Planet Terneuzen electoral district and occupied a seat in the National Assembly, where she was now in the vanguard of the antiwar peace faction.

Everything changed. As time continued to march onward, children became adults, adults grew old, and the things that could never be undone only multiplied.

The voice of the old admiral interrupted Yang’s reverie.

“Well, nobody is going to recognize us here. Let’s hear what you have to say.”

“All right, then,” Yang said slowly, after washing down his umpteenth fried fish stick with milk tea. “It’s possible we just might see a coup d’état in this country before long.”

He spoke in a nonchalant tone, but it was enough to bring the old admiral’s fingers to a sudden midair halt en route to his mouth.

“A coup?”

“Yeah.”

That was the conclusion Yang had reached. He explained plainly, but in great detail, his insight regarding Marquis Reinhard von Lohengramm’s intentions, as well as the fact that whoever ended up starting it would probably not realize they were being manipulated by Marquis von Lohengramm. Bucock acknowledged his points and nodded.

“I see. Quite logical. But does Marquis von Lohengramm really believe a coup can succeed?”

“Even if it fails, that’s fine with him. Because from his standpoint, all that matters is that our military be divided.”

“I see.” The old admiral crushed his empty paper cup in his hand.

“Still,” Yang continued, “Before you can foment a coup, you need to convince the ones doing it that they can succeed. That means coming up with a detailed plan to show them—one that at a glance seems highly doable.”

“Hmm.”

“A localized rebellion, unless it was quite large-scale and accompanied by a chain reaction affecting other regions, wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance of shaking the central authorities. The most efficient method would be to seize the capital from within. Especially if they can take the authorities hostage as well.”

“That’s certainly true.”

“But the bottleneck there is that the center of political power is also the center of military power. If an uprising is faced with a stronger, better-organized military force at the moment it breaks out, it’s going to fail. Any success it did have would be short-lived.”

Yang tossed the last hunk of fried potato into his mouth before continuing.

“Which creates a need to organically combine the seizure of the political hub in the capital with localized rebellion.”

Sitting at Yang’s side, Julian’s eyes were gleaming as the young commander’s theory unfolded before him. This was the result of mental wrangling that had gone on in his head for months.

“In short,” said Bucock, “they have to scatter the capital’s military forces. To do that, they’ll sow rebellion on the frontier. There’ll be no choice but to mobilize the military to put it down. But their real aim will be taking the capital while we’re gone. Hmm. If all went well, it’d come off pretty as a picture.”

“As I said before, though, it doesn’t have to succeed as far as Marquis von Lohengramm is concerned. As long as the alliance is filled with division and turmoil—and can’t interfere in the empire’s internal conflict—he will be able to achieve his objectives.”

“He thinks up the most troublesome ideas.”

“For the ones who actually execute them, yes. But it’s not like a lot of labor’s required of the one making them.”

To that indomitable golden-haired youth, Yang figured this kind of thing was nothing more than a game played after meals to help ease his digestion.

“I don’t suppose you can tell me who’s involved in this plot, can you?” said Bucock.

“That’s what you call a no can do.”

“So in short, a coup d’état will probably break out shortly, and you’re saying I have to stop it before it starts.”

“Once it’s broken out, you’ll need a lot of military force and a lot of time to put it down, and that will leave scars. But if you can stop it before it starts, the whole thing can be settled with a single company of MPs.”

“I see. That’s a heavy responsibility.”

“And there’s one other thing I’d like to ask.”

“Yeah?”

Yang unconsciously lowered his voice, drawing the old admiral in.

Seated just a little removed from them, young Julian couldn’t hear what was said. He felt a little disappointed, but if it was something that was all right for him to hear, Yang was sure to tell him eventually. What he had heard thus far was enough by itself to set his heart racing.

“All right,” said Bucock, nodding firmly. “I’ll see that it reaches you before you depart Heinessen. Of course, it’s best if something like that doesn’t come in handy.”

Yang blew into the empty paper bag that the fries had come in, inflating it, and then slapped it with his hand. It burst with a loud pop, startling the people nearby.

“Sorry for all the trouble, but with things as they are, I can’t just carelessly take this to others.”

Yang tossed away the wadded-up paper bag, and a hemispherical robocleaner zoomed off after it, trailing the melody of a song that had been popular twenty years ago. Bucock tossed his bag toward the robocleaner too, rubbed his slightly protruding jaw, and stood up.

“I guess that’s it, then. Let’s leave separately. Take care.”

After the old admiral had disappeared into the city night, Yang and Julian also got up.

A thought suddenly occurred to Julian as he was walking next to Yang toward the taxi stand. Were the people plotting this coup d’état meeting somewhere out of sight right now, discussing their plans in secret?

When Julian mentioned that to Yang, Yang smiled with amusement.

“You bet they are. With better food than we’ve got and a lot more serious looks on their faces.”

It was a windowless, spartan room, devoid of any furnishings expressive of its owner’s personality. The illumination was dimmed to the point that the faces of the ten or so men sitting around the meeting table were indistinct.

“All right, let’s go over it one more time. On April 3 of the standard calendar.”

A red point shone in the lower-right-hand quadrant of the star chart. Soft whispers were exchanged among the men.

“The distance from Heinessen is 1,880 light-years. It’s located in the middle of the Fourth Frontier District and has a spaceport, a supply collection center, and an interstellar transmissions base. April 3, don’t forget. The leader of the uprising in this sector will be Mr. Herbay …”

The dark silhouette of the man whose name had been spoken nodded slowly.

“The second attack will be on Planet Kaffah, on April 5. That’s 2,092 light-years from Heinessen, located in the Ninth Frontier District …”