Ambition by Yoshiki Tanaka

hospital. It’s sad for him, but there are plenty of people worse off. We have a duty to save our homeland, to destroy the empire, and to execute justice throughout the universe. There’s no place here for sentiment.”
    The voice resounded solemnly, speaking almost as if its owner were trying to convince himself.
    “More important is what happens next. Although Director Cubresly lives, for the next two, three months, he may as well be dead as far as his life as a public official is concerned. As for his acting replacement, Dawson, it’s bizarre that a man like him would even make full admiral, and, clerical skills aside, the men have no confidence in him. For a while at least, Joint Operational Headquarters is going to be plagued with outbreaks of confusion … meaning that there’s no reason to delay execution. Make every preparation for D-day.”
II
    That year, from the end of March through the middle of April, the thirteen billion citizens of the Free Planets Alliance did not lack for material to stir up fear and anxiety.
    March 30: Attempted assassination of Joint Operational Headquarters director Cubresly.
    April 3: Planet Neptis occupied by partial uprising of military forces stationed there.
    April 5: Armed revolt on Planet Kaffar.
    April 6: Large-scale civil war erupts in the Galactic Empire.
    April 8: Planet Palmerend occupied by rebel forces.
    April 10: Planet Shanpool placed under occupation by armed forces.

    From a place far removed from the capital of Heinessen, Yang was carefully observing these incidents.
    Although his predictions hadn’t encompassed the attempted assassination of Director Cubresly, everything else was unfolding pretty much as he had expected. Was it all right to congratulate himself for reading Marquis von Lohengramm’s hand this time?
    And yet from Reinhard’s standpoint, this was ultimately nothing more than a kind of preventive action; even if it failed, there would still be plenty of opportunity for regaining lost ground. To Reinhard, the importance of this scheme was probably down at the level of “no harm in trying.”
    And yet the whole Free Planets Alliance had been turned upside down because of it.
    Was Marquis von Lohengramm—as some claimed—a “grand master at moving his soldiers around the board”? Yang shrugged. That blond-haired kid had thrown the whole alliance into chaos without mobilizing so much as one soldier, hadn’t he?
    To say “I read your hand” after that would just feel hollow. Yang hadn’t been able to stop him, nor could he foresee how things would play out from here, aside from the likelihood of an attempted coup in the capital. Even Reinhard himself, author and director of this little drama, had probably not scripted the scenario any further than that point.
    Which meant that what happened from here on out would all depend on the abilities of the primary and supporting cast. In that case, thought Yang, w ho is it that’s playing the lead? Who’s the ringleader who’s going to pull the trigger on the coup? Guess we’ll know soon enough in any case, but I’m still awfully curious.
    On April 13, an FTL arrived from Heinessen bearing orders from Admiral Dawson.
    “Admiral Yang: Mobilize the Iserlohn Patrol Fleet, and with all possible haste quell the revolts on Neptis, Kaffar, Palmerend, and Shanpool,” he said.
    “In all four places?”
    Yang, unsurprisingly, was taken aback by this. He had expected a mobilization order to come down sooner or later but only for one site. He had been sure that the fleet at Heinessen would be mobilized to deal with the other three.
    Yang pressed his concern: “That’s going to empty out Iserlohn Fortress for quite some time. Are you all right with that?”
    “At present, the empire is in a state of full-scale civil war. The danger of them attacking Iserlohn with a large force is exceedingly small. What I ask of you, Commander Yang, is that you fulfill your duties as a soldier without worry or