Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Vol. 04: Stratagem by Yoshiki Tanaka

Author:Yoshiki Tanaka
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: VIZ Media, LLC (HAIKASORU)
Published: 1984-10-31T00:00:00+00:00

III

News that Julian Mintz was to leave Iserlohn Fortress, and Yang stay behind with it, came as no small surprise to Yang’s staff officers. When Yang’s academy mentor, Alex Caselnes, caught wind of the report, he grabbed hold of his old charge during lunchtime at the admirals’ mess hall.

“So you finally plucked up the nerve to get rid of Julian? I must say I’m surprised.”

He sounded more rhetorical than caring.

“There was nothing I could do about it—National Defense Committee’s orders. Besides, I was also sixteen when I left my father and enrolled at the academy. Maybe it’s time he went out on his own, too.”

“An admirable view, but how will you get on without Julian around?”

This time, Caselnes sounded genuinely concerned, which irritated Yang even more.

“Lieutenant Greenhill asked the same thing. Why does everyone think I’ll be lost without him?”

“Because it’s the truth,” averred Caselnes with such lucidity as to leave no room for objection.

Even as Yang was scrambling for an effective counterattack, Caselnes asked him to bring Julian over for dinner. Once Julian left for his new post on Phezzan, such opportunities for fraternization would be lost.

If anything about Yang gave Caselnes and von Schönkopf cause for resentment, it was how unusually straightforward he became when lecturing Julian. From where Caselnes stood, the one being lectured was a more upright man than the one doing the lecturing.

“Only people without common sense make the mistake of proselytizing others by appealing to common sense.”

“That’s right, because children don’t obey their parents, but they emulate them. It’s pointless just talking about it.”

Listening to their conversation, Yang felt quite out of place among these self-professed keepers of common sense. At least Caselnes ran a harmonious household, although if you asked Yang, it was the wife, not the husband, who wore the pants. But he saw no reason to be treated like some irrational person by the likes of von Schönkopf, who at three years his senior was still a bachelor and was the very embodiment of the caliph from One Thousand and One Nights.

With more important business demanding his attention, Yang wasn’t in the mood for this kind of verbal jousting. Joint Operational Headquarters had requested that Yang appoint a guard to accompany Julian to and on Phezzan, and this he could not neglect.

Yang agreed with Frederica Greenhill, who nominated Warrant Officer Louis Machungo for the job. He was an upstanding man who’d served as Yang’s personal security guard, and Rear Admiral von Schönkopf gave written guarantee of his loyalty and strength. He was sure to counsel and protect Julian well. Almost all military officers stationed on Phezzan were undoubtedly of the Trünicht persuasion, and Yang’s sense was that, in the “enemy territory” of the commissioner’s office, Machungo would be Julian’s only and most trustworthy ally.

The chief resident officer acted as captain, and under him were six officers and eight attachés in the so-called military attaché division. The chief resident officer held the third highest position in the commissioner’s office, after the commissioner himself and his secretary.

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