Dawn by Yoshiki Tanaka Page A

young, but at the very least, he’s on his way to being ‘great.’ He’s a threat to alliance forces, and to the old power structures in the Imperial Navy, he’s most likely a threat as well.
    Yang crossed his arms the other way and savored what small satisfaction he could in the thought that he was probably sitting right in the midst of history’s current.
    Even during that interval, the state of the battlefield was changing moment by moment.
    Kärnten and Patroklos had exchanged fire, but amid the confusion of battle, they had moved apart, with neither having delivered a killing blow.
    Yang shifted his gaze to the simulated-battlefield model that the tactical computer displayed on his monitor. Simplified shapes showed the distribution and condition of both forces.
    Backward rippling motions were occasionally running through the alliance fleet, but overall the display showed the imperial force’s advance and the alliance force’s retreat.
    Those movements were gradually increasing in velocity. The empire advanced, the alliance fell back. The tiny, reverse-propagating ripples vanished, and the more the simulated image was simplified, the more the effect was amplified. To most anyone’s eyes, the empire appeared ready to take victory by the hand, and the alliance defeat by the tail.
    “Looks like we’ve won,” murmured Reinhard.
    Meanwhile, Yang was also nodding toward Lieutenant Commander Lao.
    “Looks like it’s going to work,” he said, not vocalizing his relieved Thank heavens!
    What had been worrying Yang was whether or not the ships on his own side would follow their instructions. He had confidence in the planned operation itself. At this point there was no longer any way to win. It was, however, still possible to finish this without losing. But that could only happen if the other ships followed the plan.
    There were no doubt obstinate squadron commanders who scorned the idea of obeying a young and inexperienced commander like Yang, but in the absence of any other effective battle plan, there was little choice but to accept Yang’s orders. If the desire for survival motivated them more than any sense of loyalty, though, Yang had not the slightest objection.
    A hint of puzzlement began to appear on Reinhard’s face.
    He stood up from his seat, put both hands on the command console, and glared up at the overhead screen. Irritation was beginning to boil up all through his body.
    His allies were advancing, and his enemies retreating. Hit by the frontal breakthrough attack, the alliance’s fleet was being split to the left and right. The scenes on the screen, the simulation that the tactical computer was reconstructing on his monitor, the status reports coming in from the vanguard—all were describing exactly the same situation.
    Yet even so, a sound of distant thunder was beginning to rumble faintly in the back of his mind. He became aware of a sick feeling eating away at his nerves—the kind you get right before you realize that some dirty trick has just been played on you.
    He put the fist he’d made with his left hand up against his mouth, resting his teeth lightly on his index finger’s second joint. And in that instant, for no reason whatsoever, he intuited what his enemy had in mind.
    “No!”
    That low cry, drowned out by the shouts of operators, reached the ears of no one.
    “Their force has split apart to port and starboard! They’re—they’re going to rush past us along both flanks!”
    Amid a shocked stir, Reinhard cried out for his red-haired adjutant. “Kircheis! We’ve been had. The enemy wants to separate on both flanks and come around on our back side. They’re using our frontal breakthrough against us. Damn them! ”
    The golden-haired youth slammed his fist down against the command console.
    “What shall we do? Reverse course and intercept?”
    Kircheis’s voice had lost none of its cool self-possession. That had a calming effect on the nerves of his momentarily enraged