Dawn (18 page)

When do we leave for the battlefield, I wonder,
thought Yang.
The director must have another seventy days or so left in his term. And being that he’s aiming for reappointment, that means the operation to take Iserlohn will have to be completed before then. If we assume thirty days needed for the operation itself, then it looks like we’ll be leaving Heinessen in forty days at the latest.

Trünicht was unlikely to oppose these personnel decisions for the operation. This was because surely there was no way to take Iserlohn with only half a fleet, and when the mission ended in failure, he would be able to dispose of both Sitolet and Yang publicly. He might even raise a toast, saying that Yang and the others had dug their own graves.

Once again, Yang was going to be unable to drink tea brewed by Julian for a while. For him, that was a bit of a shame.

Iserlohn.

That was the name given to this vital stronghold of the Galactic Empire. Located 6,250 light-years from the imperial capital of Odin was Artena, a star in the prime of its life, originally a solitary sun with no planets of its own. It was its astrographical importance that had led the Galactic Empire to construct in its orbit an artificial world sixty kilometers in diameter for use as a base of operations.

When the galaxy was viewed from directly “above,” Iserlohn appeared situated near the tip of a triangular region where the Galactic Empire’s influence was reaching out toward the Free Planets Alliance. This entire swath of territory, a difficult region for astrogation, was the interstellar graveyard known as “Sargasso Space,” where the founders of the Free Planets Alliance had once lost many of their comrades. Later, this bit of history, which imperial VIPs found most satisfactory, had even played a role in strengthening their resolve to build a military stronghold in this region from which to threaten the alliance.

Variable stars, red giants, irregular gravitational fields … through dense concentrations of these, there ran a narrow thread of safety, and Iserlohn was sitting right in the middle of it. To travel from the alliance to the empire without passing through this area meant using a route that went through the Phezzan Land Dominion, and use of that route for military operations was problematic to be sure.

The Iserlohn Corridor and the Phezzan Corridor. Statesmen and tacticians of the alliance alike had taken pains to find out whether a third route connecting the alliance and the empire could be discovered, but defects in their star charts and interference both seen and unseen from the empire and Phezzan had long frustrated those intentions. From Phezzan’s perspective, the very worth of its existence as a middleman trading post was at stake, and the discovery of a “third corridor” was not something they were going to stand idly by and let happen.

Because of this, the realization of the Alliance Armed Forces’ plan—summed up in the words, “We’ve gotta invade imperial territory!”—was dependent on the fight to capture Iserlohn. Across four and a half centuries, they had dared six times to launch large-scale attacks to take the fortress, and repulsed every time, these failed attempts had birthed the imperial military boast, “The Iserlohn Corridor is paved with the corpses of rebel soldiers.”

Yang Wen-li had twice taken part in operations attempting to topple Iserlohn. He had been a lieutenant commander at the time of the fifth operation and a captain at the time of the sixth. Twice he had witnessed massive fatalities and had come to know the stupidity of trying to push through on sheer force alone.

We can’t take Iserlohn by attacking from the outside,
Yang had thought in the midst of a fleet set to flight.
But given that, how could we do it?

In addition to being a fortress, Iserlohn harbored a fleet fifteen thousand ships strong. The commander of the fortress and the commander of the fleet were both full admirals. Could there not be some kind of opening there they could take advantage of?

Count von Lohengramm’s recent incursion had also used Iserlohn as a forward base of operations. No matter what, Yang had to topple this ominous military stronghold of the empire. And moreover, he had only been given half a fleet to do it with.

“Frankly, I didn’t think you’d accept this mission,” Rear Admiral Caselnes said as he thumbed through a troop organizational document. They were in his office at Joint Operational Headquarters. “The chairman and the director are both counting on this for their own respective reasons … Surely you can see through the both of them.”

Sitting in front of him, Yang just smiled and didn’t answer. Caselnes slammed his papers down on the table loudly and looked with deep interest at his underclassman from Officers’ Academy.

“Our forces have tried
six times
to take Iserlohn, and six times we’ve failed. And you’re telling me you’re gonna do it with only
half
a fleet?”

“Well, I thought I’d give it a try.”

The eyes of Yang’s former upperclassman narrowed ever so slightly at this answer.

“So you do think there’s a chance. What are you gonna do?”

“That’s a secret.”

“Even from me?”

“Getting to act all high and mighty about it is what makes you appreciate this kind of thing,” Yang said.

“You got that right. Let me know if there’re any supplies I can ready for you—I won’t even ask for a bribe.”

“In that case, one imperial warship, please—you ought to have one that’s been previously captured. Also, if I can get you to ready about two hundred imperial uniforms …”

Caselnes’s narrowed eyes opened wide.

“What’s the deadline?”

“Within the next three days.”

“… I’m not gonna ask you for overtime pay, but you’re at least treating me to a cognac.”

“I’ll buy you two. And by the way, I’ve got one more request …”

“Make it three. What is it?” Caselnes asked.

“It’s about those
extremists
called the Patriotic Knights.”

“Oh yeah, I heard. That must have been awful.”

Since Julian was going to be at home by himself, Yang requested that arrangements be made for military police to patrol the neighborhood in his absence. He had thought about leaving the boy with some other family, but it was unlikely that Julian, the household’s commanding officer whenever Yang was out, would have stood for it. Caselnes said he would see to it right away, then looked at Yang again as though he had remembered something.

“Oh yeah, the high commissioner of Phezzan—lately he’s been awfully curious about you.”

“Oh?”

The special entity known as Phezzan held an interest for Yang that was a little different from what it held for others. That dominion had been the creation of a great merchant of Terran birth named Leopold Raap, but many things about his background and source of funds were unclear. Had someone for some reason caused Raap to create the entity known as Phezzan? Yang, having tried and failed to become a historian, thought about things like that as well. Naturally, though, he had not spoken of this to anyone else.

“Looks like you’ve caught the interest of the Black Fox of Phezzan. He may try to scout you.”

“I wonder if Phezzan tea is any good?”

“Flavored with poison, most likely … Incidentally, how is the planning coming along?” Caselnes asked.

“Things that go according to plan are pretty rare in the world. That said, I can’t rightly not make one.”

So saying, Yang departed. A mountain of work was waiting for him.

It wasn’t just that the ships and personnel of the Thirteenth Fleet numbered half what was usual. Most of its officers and soldiers were surviving remnants of the Fourth and Sixth fleets that had been defeated so soundly at Astarte; the rest were new recruits lacking in combat experience. An up-and-coming rear admiral their commander may be, but Yang was still just a twenty-something kid … and seasoned admirals’ words of surprise, shock, and derision had reached his ears:
It seems a babe not yet out of diapers intends to beat a lion to death barehanded—that should be fun to watch. If you’re forced into it, you’re forced, but to go willingly—oh, dear!

Yang didn’t even get upset.
You’d have to be one heck of an optimist to not have doubts about this operation,
he thought.

The only one who had taken up for Yang was Vice Admiral Bucock, commanding officer of the Fifth Fleet. An unsociable, white-haired admiral seventy years of age, he was known as a stubborn individual with a short temper. When saluted by the likes of Yang, he would return a disinterested salute with a suspicious look in his eye that all but said, “Where’d this greenhorn come from?” At the White Stag—a club for high-ranking officers—his fellow admirals had been using Yang and the Thirteenth Fleet as fodder for jokes when that “scary old man” had said, “I hope you all don’t end up with egg on your faces later. You might just be looking at a redwood sapling and laughing at it for not being tall.”

They had all fallen completely silent. They had remembered the capability that Yang had displayed at Astarte and in battles prior. At the words of the elderly admiral, their group mentality had dissipated. The admirals had drained their glasses and gone their separate ways, an awkward feeling in the chest of each from having said something they couldn’t quite patch over …

Yang, to whose ears that story had found its way, had made no particular effort to thank Vice Admiral Bucock. He had known that if he did attempt such a thing, he would be laughed to scorn by the white-haired admiral.

Though the admiralty’s opposition had subsided for the time being, the overall situation had not taken that much of a turn for the better. The gloomy fact solemnly remained of the hybrid half fleet, composed of defeated survivors and green recruits, that was heading off to attack an impregnable fortress.

Yang put a great deal of thought into the selection of his executive staff. For his vice commander, he chose Commodore Edwin Fischer, a skilled, seasoned officer who had fought well in the Fourth Fleet. For chief staff officer, he chose Commodore Murai, a man lacking in originality but possessed of a precise and well-ordered mind. For assistant staff officer, he named Captain Fyodor Patrichev, who had a reputation as a good fighter.

Yang would get commonsense advice from Murai and make use of him as an advisor for ops planning and decision making. Patrichev he would have yelling at and encouraging the troops. And of Fischer, Yang wanted the fleet run steadily and soundly.

I think I can be satisfied with the postings so far, but it wouldn’t hurt to find an aide-de-camp,
Yang thought. He put in a request with Caselnes for an “outstanding young officer” and a communiqué arrived later that said, “I’ve got just the person. Graduated salutatorian from Officers’ Academy in 794—one heck of a better student than you. Presently assigned to the Data Analysis Department at Joint Operational Headquarters.”

The officer who appeared before Yang shortly thereafter was a beautiful young woman with hazel eyes and golden-brown hair that had a natural wave; even a simple black-and-ivory-white military uniform looked pretty on her. Yang took off his sunglasses and stared at her fixedly.

“Sublieutenant Frederica Greenhill reporting. I’ve been assigned to work as aide-de-camp to Rear Admiral Yang.”

That was her introduction.

Yang put his sunglasses back on to hide his expression, thinking there must surely be a black, pointy tail hiding in the back of Alex Caselnes’s uniform slacks. The daughter of Dwight Greenhill, assistant director at Joint Operational Headquarters, Frederica had a reputation as one who possessed astonishing powers of memory.

And so it was that the personnel assignments for the Thirteenth Fleet were decided.

Officially, this voyage was to be the new fleet’s first large-scale maneuver, to be held in a backwater star system in the direction opposite that of the alliance’s empire-facing border. They departed from Heinessen using 50-C pulse-warp navigation, headed in the direction opposite that of Iserlohn, and after continuing for three days, recalculated the route and executed eight long-range warps and eleven short-range warps, finally entering the Iserlohn Corridor.

“Four thousand light-years in twenty-four days. Not bad,” murmured Yang. But it wasn’t just not bad; the fact that this hastily assembled, prefab fleet had been able to somehow reach its destination without a single ship going missing was downright praiseworthy. Of course, this success was all due to the experienced hand of the vice commander, Commodore Fischer, lauded for his masterly performance in the operation of the fleet.

“The Thirteenth Fleet has an expert on that, so …” Yang would say, leaving relevant matters entirely up to Fischer. When Fischer said something, Yang would only nod approval.

Yang’s mind was focused on one thing only: how to capture Iserlohn Fortress. When he had first revealed his plan to the fleet’s three executive officers—Fischer, Murai, and Patrichev—they had been at a loss for words.