Give Me a Place to Stand, and I Will Move the Stars

February 795 U.C.

Reinhard was enjoying his summer on Condor Base, which was a huge facility in the starzone of the same name. The base was the only inhabited part of the starzone, constructed inside a huge asteroid within the asteroid belt between the first and second planets of the system, one terrestrial and one a gas giant. Condor Starzone was enticingly close to the Iserlohn corridor, about the closest that one could get to the front lines during these student postings. While Reinhard was thrilled at this prospect, Fredrica, who had been assigned with him, was less so. It wasn’t that she was afraid, but they were further out even than El Facil, which held unpleasant memories for her, so she had started off their summer in a strange mood.

The base was a construction facility for new starships, pulling in ore from the asteroid belt, processing it into the huge metal frames and sheets that made up starships, and assembling them from their component parts. It was a huge place, and up to a hundred ships were in some stage of construction there at once, from those that were nothing more than frames arranged like ribcages, to those that were undergoing their readiness trials to be deployed, with their full complement of equipment and weapons.

Reinhard and Fredrica were the only two rising senior cadets on the base, though there were two other juniors, whom they vaguely recognized and were friendly with when they ate together in the massive base cafeteria. Though Reinhard had complained about the food during his first posting, it was even worse here. In his first summer, he had still been within the Heinessen starzone, where food didn’t have to travel very far. Here, they were on the frontier of frontiers. Nobody else complained about it, though, so he kept his opinions to himself and considered that perhaps he simply had a more refined palate than his classmates.

Although he and Fredrica were technically assigned to different aspects of work, their COs had decided that they would get more benefit out of pooling their expertise and time, so Reinhard and Fredrica found themselves working together more often than not, a situation that both of them appreciated. They usually spent their mornings doing desk work with Fredrica’s CO, Commander Brandon Swift, tracking the build schedule of each ship in the base. After lunch, they took the long walk to the other side of the base, where Reinhard’s CO, Commander Xi Longfan, had them go out and inspect the work that was being done on the ships.

It was challenging and interesting work, made more challenging by the variety of it. Reinhard and Fredrica were both usually exhausted by the time their afternoon shift ended, enough that they generally retreated after dinner to one of their rooms and relaxed, rather than (in Reinhard’s case) needing to burn off extra energy in the gym.

They were in Reinhard’s room tonight. Usually they were fairly discreet when one of them visited the other-- although Reinhard knew the other cadets on the base speculated that they were a couple, there was no reason for them to get in trouble for inappropriate behavior. He wasn’t sure if they would get in trouble for that, but there was no reason to make people believe something untrue, regardless. He was amused by the rumors more than anything, though Fredrica was less so.

“What are you working on?” Fredrica asked him as he lay on his bed, typing an occasional note into his computer, punctuating long periods of thoughtfully staring into space.

“Post for my website,” Reinhard said. “About the benefits and disadvantages of having starship production centralized versus distributed.”

“If you’re not careful, people are going to figure out you’re in the Fleet.”

“So?”

“Well, do what you like.”

“You can read it when I’m finished and tell me if you think I’m being too obvious.”

“I always do.”

“True.” Reinhard looked over at her, sitting at his desk. She was also writing something. “And what are you doing?”

“Writing a letter to my dad.”

“How is he?”

“Fine, I think.”

“You don’t sound like you’re enjoying it.”

“I don’t like writing to him, because he’s always paranoid about me.”

“I see.”

“Does your mom do that to you?”

Reinhard laughed. “No, definitely not. And I don’t mind if Annerose fusses.”

“That’s different, I guess.” She sighed a little, then typed out maybe two more words into her note.

“Just make it impersonal.”

“Then he’d think that something is actually wrong.”

Reinhard flipped some of his long hair out of his face. “Maybe he knows something that you don’t.”

“Like what?”

“What if, while we’re here, the Fleet tries another push through Iserlohn.”

Fredrica grimaced. “That would not be good.”

“Why not?”

“I’m hesitant to say that it’s impossible, but it seems like a waste to throw people at that corridor over and over with nothing to show for it.”

“Oh, I agree,” Reinhard said. He rolled over onto his back, put his arms underneath his head, and crossed his legs. “I could take Iserlohn.”

“And I could move a planet with my own hands if I had a long enough lever,” Fredrica said. “Don’t be full of yourself, or I’ll go to bed.”

Reinhard laughed again. “Alright, alright.”

“Are you looking forward to the next set of readiness trials for C-108 tomorrow?”

“Of course.” He wasn’t lying. The ship was in its final stages of completion, and tomorrow it would be taken out of its dock for the first time and have its stardrive performance measured. Although it was not the most thrilling thing to do-- fly out into empty space and then turn around and come back-- it was at least going out. Reinhard had come to like the sensation of the stardrive beneath him, though the same couldn’t be said for Fredrica, who merely tolerated it.

“I am, as well.” She sighed and closed her computer. “Maybe I should save my letter writing for after that, and then I can have something to actually discuss.”

“Good idea.” Reinhard rolled onto his side to look at her. “We’ll be going out there, on a fully made up ship, but without a real crew. It seems like a situation that’s easy to take advantage of.”

Fredrica looked over at him. “Are you implying that since we’re so close to the Iserlohn corridor you want to steal a ship and head back to the Empire?”

Reinhard was immediately annoyed with her and sat up sharply. “I’ll thank you not to insult me.”

“It was a joke.”

“In poor taste.”

“I’m aware that if you stole a ship you’d go use it against the Empire,” Fredrica said. “But we are not going to do that.”

Reinhard crossed his arms and looked down his nose at her.

“And what would you do to stop me?”

“Good night,” she said, and headed out.

Reinhard fumed. He didn’t understand where the conversation had gone wrong. Perhaps Fredrica was just in a bad mood from trying to write to her father, but that didn’t mean she had to be annoyed at him for no reason. He had been friends with her for several years, and did not understand her half the time.

Reinhard was still annoyed with her the next day, when they both met up at the dock to board the C-108 for her readiness trials. They didn’t speak to each other. Fredrica smiled at him, but Reinhard glanced at her and then ignored her. He could hold a grudge for a little while, at least.

They boarded the ship with the rest of the dozen or so test crew and took the long walk through its long and empty length doing pre-launch inspections, before finally ending up at the bridge. The C-108 was a destroyer, unnamed until it was assigned to a fleet, but it had a full array of weaponry. For the duration of the test, Reinhard was sitting at the fire control station, simply because that was where the available seat was. Frederica was next to him at the radar and targeting station. Neither of them, of course, would be using their consoles for anything, but Reinhard spent some time memorizing the layout and recalling from his practical courses how one would operate the station, if it came down to it. Their actual duties during the readiness test were to record and report on data from various sensors that had been placed around the ship, and were being fed into a laptop that sat in between them. When the stardrive was activated under different conditions, it would cause various parts of the ship to measure different relative gravities. If the stardrive exceeded the allowable level of variation, the ship would fail the readiness test and need to be returned to dock.

The test went well at first. They left the dock and cleared the base’s safety radius before beginning the ramp up to lightspeed and then FTL. They travelled several light-hours away from the base, then turned the drive off for a mandatory reset after prolonged stress test. Turning the drive completely off was a long process that ships almost never underwent, since the drive also provided the artificial gravity within the ship. Over half an hour, they all waited patiently and felt progressively lighter and lighter, until a single touch would have sent them out of their chairs and towards the ceiling. After a ten minute waiting period, Commander Xi gave the order to turn the stardrive back on. Everyone waited for the slowly increasing feeling of gravity, but it never came. When it became clear that the stardrive was not working properly, Reinhard and Fredrica shared a minute look, Reinhard’s previous annoyance forgotten in this new excitement.

Xi pursed his lips and ordered the maintenance crew to go down to the stardrive and investigate.

“Sir, may Cadet Greenhill and I go as well?” Reinhard asked.

Xi gave his assent, so Reinhard and Fredrica followed the maintenance crew down toward the center of the ship, to where the stardrive sat dead and quiet. It was a huge mass of machinery, traversing the entire center axis of the ship, with everything else oriented around it. The maintenance crew immediately started hooking in to the debug terminal that would give them access to the stardrive on a deeper level than what was available to the bridge crew. Reinhard watched over their shoulders as they investigated.

“Commander, I’ve got the terminal open now, it looks like the drive never got the turn-on signal. Try sending it again?” one of them said into the communications hub on the wall.

“Acknowledged.” There was a brief pause, then the radio came to life with Xi’s voice again. “Any change?”

“No, sir.”

“Will it power on from where you’re standing?”

“Give me the command and I’ll try it. But I’ll bet if it does turn on you won’t have control.”

“Try it.”

“Acknowledged.”

The tech typed in a long string of commands into the terminal. Reinhard caught Fredrica also watching, and he raised an eyebrow at her. She had a photographic memory, so it was nice to know that, should the improbable occasion arise, she would probably be able to repeat this series of commands.

“Oop,” the tech said. “We’re live.”

Reinhard felt the sudden twisting of gravity in his gut, and began falling slowly to the floor. “What was the problem?” he asked.

The tech scratched his head. “I’m guessing it’s a wiring issue. The diagnostic says all the connections are fine, but the proof is in the pudding, isn’t it.”

The radio came to life again. “Good job on the fix. How long until we’re at full power?”

“Half an hour’s standard for startup. The problem isn’t really fixed,” the tech warned. “We can try to isolate it now.”

“No point,” Xi said. “I’m going to call in to base for a tow. It’s against SOP to fly with a failed drive.”

“Well, it’s not the drive that’s the problem.”

“We’ve failed the test, so we’re getting a tow. You might as well come back up. At least we have gravity.”

Reinhard glanced at Fredrica, then the maintenance tech. “Can I?” he asked, gesturing to the radio. The tech moved aside.

“Commander,” Reinhard said.

“What is it, cadet?” Xi’s voice was rather annoyed.

“If it’s not an urgent thing that we’re needed on the bridge, I think it would be a valuable learning experience to investigate the problem while we wait.”

There was a moment of silence, and Reinhard could just picture Xi sighing heavily before turning on the radio again. “Fine, investigate all you want, but we’re getting a tow back.”

Reinhard grinned a little. “Better than waiting around doing nothing.”

“You’re not wrong about that,” the tech said, seemingly relieved about not having to return to the bridge. “Like I said, I would put money down on it being a wiring problem. We can get started tracing the leads. You got a utility kit?” Reinhard and Fredrica both nodded. “I’ll show you the coaming where the cables are. You’ll have to open it up.”

So that was what they did, as the gravity grew heavier and heavier around them. They pried open ceiling tiles to reveal huge bundles of cabling. A quick visual inspection was enough usually to confirm that everything was in order in each section.

The trickiest part came when they had to traverse through the narrow ladderway, barely wide enough for Reinhard’s shoulders, going up between two floors. But it was there that Reinhard, with Fredrica below him handing him up his tools very carefully, discovered the problem. Inside the coaming, inside the bundle of wires, a screwdriver had nestled itself inside the bundle, managing to somehow scrape open the protective sheath around one of the wires. Bare metal made contact and shorted it out.

“Is this a live wire?” Reinhard asked. “Can you unplug it so that I can pull this out?” He squeezed back down the ladder so that Fredrica and the maintenance tech could see the problem.

“Well, would you look at that,” the tech said. “Xi will be happy to know it’s a simple fix. Won’t have to tear the whole ship apart, even if we are getting a tow back.”

It didn’t take long to repair the wire, once the problem was discovered, and so satisfied, the whole group returned to the bridge.

“You’re still getting that tow, sir?” the tech asked Xi. “You have drive control now.”

Xi barely glanced at him. “Glad it’s fixed.” But he didn’t sound glad at all.

“Is there another problem, sir?” Reinhard asked.

It was obvious that there was, but Xi didn’t have the time of day for Reinhard. He was leaning over the shoulder of the crewman at the radio console. “Raise them again.”

“There’s just too much interference,” the radio man said.

“Can we get them with the regular radio?”

“It will be hours before we get a reply. If you want me to, I will send a message that way.”

Xi rubbed his cheek and straightened, returning to his seat. “Keep trying the ansible.”

“Will do, sir.”

Reinhard sidled up beside Xi. Although he was aware that his questions sometimes grated on the man’s nerves, he also had things that he needed to know. “We’re having communications interference, sir?”

“It is probably nothing. These things happen,” Xi said. “But yes.”

“But if it’s intentional jamming?”

“Cadet, paranoia doesn’t suit you. Natural phenomenons, stellar flares, micro black holes-- those are responsible for more communications interference than all enemy jamming has ever produced.”

“Then you should send a regular radio signal, right?” Reinhard knew he was pressing his luck. Xi was probably quite reluctant to send out a regular radio signal, on the off chance that this was enemy jamming, because a regular radio signal would reveal their position.

Xi turned away from him and towards the man who had been with them down in the stardrive. “You fixed the issue?”

“Some debris knocked a wire out, most likely when we were without gravity. It’s all fixed now.” He gave Xi a pointed look that Reinhard did not miss. “You can fly us back, if you don’t want to wait for a tow.”

“That’s not SOP,” Xi said again, though there was strain in his voice.

Reinhard glanced around the bridge. No one was paying attention to him except for Fredrica, so he gave her a little hand signal, and the two of them slipped out into the hallway.

“What’s going on?” Fredrica asked immediately.

“You heard him. Communications blackout.”

“Are we going to wait here?” Fredrica asked.

“How long do you think we can wait? There’s a couple different scenarios that I’m seeing.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s a natural blackout. It ends in a couple hours, we call base, we get a tow home.”

“Okay.”

“But I don’t know if it is that. If we wait around for the blackout to end, we’ll definitely be too late. If we use regular radio, we’ll be too late AND we’ll give away our position.”

“So you think we should fly back in?”

“Xi has to make that choice. But yes. We should.”

“Why doesn’t he want to?”

“Right now, the base knows where we are. SOP says that we need to stay in approved locations in case we do lose power and radio, so that we can wait for rescue. We basically have lost power and radio, though not really, so I can see why Xi is being paranoid.” Reinhard bit his finger. “But.”

“But.”

“If there’s an enemy heading towards the base, we can’t just sit here.”

“And what are the odds that it is?”

“I don’t know. Blackouts are normal, but we’re so close to the corridor, and--”

“My dad is paranoid,” Fredrica said.

“Xi needs to make that call,” Reinhard said.

“What will you do if he doesn’t?”

Reinhard narrowed his eyes. “Are you with me, or against me, Fredrica?”

“Get yourself under control,” she snapped. “This is why I’m asking that question.”

“We’re still cadets. They can’t court martial us.”

“Reinhard!”

The door to the bridge opened. “What are you two doing out here?” the tech asked.

“Nothing,” Reinhard said, and went back inside the bridge, sitting back down at his weapons console, with Fredrica next to him. She kept looking over at him nervously. Reinhard sat like a coiled spring, and his fingers made occasional twitches towards the weapons controls, as though there were an enemy there to fight. There wasn’t, so all he could do was wait.

The tension on the bridge was ratcheting up by the minute, and Xi began pacing back and forth. After about half an hour of the occasional confirmation that there was no change in status from the communications blackout, Xi said, “Von Müsel, switch places with Browning.” Browning was the man in charge of the radio and ansible communications.

Reinhard’s back stiffened. “Yes, sir.”

“You understand how to operate the radio, correct?”

“Yes, sir.” What was more important, and apparently a question that Xi did not need to ask, was if Browning had the ability to operate the weapons console.

“Cadet Greenhill, please give up your place to Sanfei.”

“Sir, I’m sure I--” Fredrica began to protest, but then saw the look on Xi’s face and stopped. “Yes, sir,” she said, and relinquished her seat. She came to stand behind Reinhard, looking over his shoulder.

“Did you want me to send a message, sir?” Reinhard asked.

“Not now, Cadet,” Xi said. Reinhard was frustrated to realize that he had been told to switch seats into a useless position only because he would have argued harder than Fredrica would about being kicked out of any seat to begin with. His frustration was tempered only slightly by the fact that Xi seemed to be prepared to take the course of action that he wanted him to take.

Xi sat down in the captain’s chair, leaned his head on his hand and closed his eyes for a second. After a long moment of silence he said, “Cadet von Müsel, please make a note in the log that I am breaking procedure under my own authority. Note the reason as being that I believe the base to be in dang-- in a position where it will be unable to send a tow.”

“Yes, sir,” Reinhard said. “Is that all?”

“For now, Cadet,” Xi said. “Mannu, please plot our course back to base. Do not strain the drive.” He paused. “Actually, put us half a light second outside of the base’s safe zone.”

“Yes, sir.” And, a few seconds later. “Course plotted.”

“Forward,” Xi said, dropping his hand down. The stardrive engaged with its twisting feeling, and the ship lept faster than light through space.

The trip back was quiet and tense. Xi went between his various staff and spoke to them in low tones. He had the ship engage its anti-radar protections, as well as putting various weapons into their activated mode. There was only so much the ship could do with such a tiny crew, but it would be more than nothing. Xi seemed to be avoiding Reinhard and Fredrica until near the end of the journey, when he stood in front of the two of them.

“Cadets, out of an abundance of caution, I would like the two of you to go into one of the escape pods and wait a safe distance away from base.”

“What?” Reinhard asked, immediately affronted. “You want us to abandon ship when you already only have a dozen crew?”

“I am ordering the two of you to wait in an escape pod until the situation becomes clearer.”

“Why?”

“Because you are not soldiers, and thus it is my duty to keep you out of harm’s way.”

“But we are, sir,” Fredrica said.

“No, you are students. I’m not here to coddle your egos. Are you going to cooperate or are you going to argue?”

“Either we’re soldiers and must obey your orders, or we’re civilians and don’t have to,” Reinhard said. “Sir.”

“Are you going to cooperate, or am I going to have to order someone to waste their time escorting you into an escape pod? We’re arriving back at base in ten minutes, so make up your mind.”

“Reinhard,” Fredrica said. “Let’s go.”

“No,” Reinhard snapped. “I can be useful here.”

“Spaceman Chesterfield,” Xi said, his patience wearing out. “Please escort Cadet von Müsel and Cadet Greenhill into escape pod Alpha-Fourteen.”

Reinhard stood from his seat, his face red. “Fine.” He realized he wasn’t going to win this fight, at least not against the entire rest of the crew of this ship. He stalked off, arms crossed, escorted by Chesterfield and followed by Fredrica.

They entered the escape pod, Reinhard very reluctantly, and strapped themselves in as Chesterfield sealed and locked the door.

“You shouldn’t have argued with him,” Fredrica said. “Now he’s going to be pissed at you for the rest of the summer.”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course I am.”

“You’re operating under the assumption that there’s going to be a ‘rest of the summer’ on the base to go back to.”

“We still don’t know what’s going on.”

“If it was a natural blackout, it would have almost certainly ended by now.”

“You weren’t trying to raise the base over the ansible while you were at the comms post.”

“But it would have been SOP for them to raise us once the blackout ended on their side.”

“You’re convinced that the base is under attack?”

“So is Xi.”

“So what are we going to do?”

Reinhard bit his finger and said nothing.

“You have a plan,” Fredrica said.

“And why should I share it with you, since you wouldn’t let us stay on the ship where we could actually participate in the battle?”

“You think there’s going to be a battle? Also, for the record, if you hadn’t run your mouth, we could have just pretended to get into the escape pod, and stayed on board. You earned us an escort.”

“If Xi just wanted to visually confirm that the base was under attack, he would have let us stay on the ship, because then he would have run. Dumping us into space is…” Reinhard frowned. “Well, if he survives and you don’t, your dad will probably break his neck himself.”

“Don’t say that!” Fredrica snapped.

“What else am I supposed to say?”

“Tell me what your plan is.”

Reinhard turned as much as he could in his seat towards the tiny command panel of the escape pod. It had very limited controls-- barely enough to avoid crashing into major obstacles. The thing had only a tiny amount of fuel and little thrusters. At least it had a good screen and telescope for them to see the battle. No ansible, of course, but they did have standard radio. Minor anti-radar capabilities. In the back there were trunks of one-size-fits-all spacesuits, first aid kits, and several weeks worth of rations. The escape pod wasn’t useless, but it was inferior to being on a ship. Reinhard had already been formulating his plan in his mind from the minute that Xi had forced him to vacate the bridge, but he considered it very carefully before he said it out loud to Fredrica.

“They’re going to drop us half a light second out,” Reinhard said. “We might be able to get to the base.”

“You’re insane.”

“Do you want to do something or not?” he asked.

“I’m literally going to kill you.”

“Try.”

“Shut up!”

Their conversation was interrupted by the pod launching out of the ship, whipping them into their seats at an acceleration of 10Gs. Reinhard’s vision blacked out momentarily, and his ears were ringing when he came to. On the screen, he could see the C-108 growing smaller and smaller as it began accelerating again towards the base, leaving them drifting aimlessly in space, mostly towards the base, but knocked off at a slight angle due to the way they had been launched.

Reinhard turned towards the controls console again. The first thing that he did was turn on the highest magnification possible on the telescope, aiming it towards the base. What he saw made his blood run cold. Imperial ships were swarming the base. Tiny pinpricks of light indicated that the base was fighting back with all it had, but it was clear that it wasn’t going to last much longer.

“Oh my God,” Fredrica said, hands tightening against her seatbelt straps.

“Do you agree with me now?” Reinhard asked. “I don’t think anyone is going to come to rescue us.” And, besides, he had no intention of waiting for rescue. If he was holding out for rescue, at best, they would need to wait for someone in Fleet central command to realize that the base had been attacked, then come to investigate, a process that could take a long time. And that was assuming that the imperial ships didn’t detect their little escape pod and shoot them out of the sky.

“What’s going to happen to everyone there?” Fredrica asked, her voice quiet.

“The same thing that happened on El Facil,” Reinhard said, which was a low blow indeed. Fredrica paled still further. “We have a decent starting velocity, since I think the C-108 barely dropped out of FTL to get rid of us,” Reinhard continued. “We’ll get near the base in about...” He worked out the math in his head, using rough estimates when he didn’t have real information. “Fifteen hours, if we nudge ourselves back into the right direction.”

“That’s so long.”

“It will give us a chance to look at the situation, at least.” He stared grimly at the screen, watching the battle that was taking place. “We can use the pod’s fuel to slow us down enough that we can get out.”

“And what will we do when we get there?” Fredrica asked.

“That depends on what the situation looks like.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“They’re probably going to take prisoners,” Reinhard said after a long moment. “If we can sneak onto the base and free them…”

He knew that this was a non-plan, but Fredrica was nodding along, as he had suspected she would. Fredrica had escaped El Facil, and he knew she was spending the rest of her life trying to make up for what happened to the people who didn’t. If she related the situation they were in now to the one she had been in then, she would go along with anything Reinhard said. He didn’t even have to push too hard; all he had to do was make the connection visible.

“All right,” Fredrica said after a moment. “Do it.”

Reinhard nodded. Carefully, he took control of the pod’s thrusters and released a tiny bit of their precious fuel to change their angle. The action still shoved him and Fredrica both hard sideways, but they were on course towards the base. “We’ll just have to wait until then,” Reinhard said.

It was an excruciatingly long trip. Neither of them spoke much, and they took turns sleeping. Reinhard investigated the suits in the back and nibbled at some of the dry rations. The fight around the base hadn’t lasted for much longer. They couldn’t see very clearly, but they had seen a massive explosion that looked like a ship coming apart, a little off the side of the base. Reinhard hoped that it hadn’t been the C-108, but he suspected that it was. Eventually, the tiny sparks that indicated an exchange of fire subsided completely, and the dark shadows of the imperial ships surrounded the base completely.

That was the situation they were flying into. Reinhard had to assume that, since they hadn’t just destroyed the base outright, they were taking prisoners, and also probably combing through the computer systems for information. He was sure that the base would be destroyed eventually, as he couldn’t see any reason for the imperials to hold onto it. But scouring the base for people and information would take time, probably at least thirty hours, so they were going to make it “in time.”

When they came just outside the base enough that Reinhard was worried that their pod’s fuel emissions would be detected if they got closer, he fired their thrusters hard backwards to slow them down, forcing them hard into their seats for a couple of minutes and taking them from a gallop to a veritable crawl. It was almost painful, this slow, slow final approach. When they were about twenty kilometers out, Reinhard and Fredrica helped each other put on their suits. They could have done it themselves, but there was an unspoken mutual comfort in having someone else come around behind and check all the seals and tighten all the straps on the propulsion pack.

Before Reinhard put his helmet on, he took one last look at the situation on the screen, and explained the path he thought they should take to Fredrica, who nodded silently. “Are you ready?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

He put his helmet on, completely obscuring his face, and she slid hers on as well. Reinhard checked the seals of her helmet again, and she did a final look at his, and then they both squeezed into the rear airlock. It took a long time for the chamber to empty, and the sound of his own breathing in his helmet raised the already high feeling of tension.

He made the hand signal to Fredrica to get ready, then he opened the outer door. They hoisted themselves along the outside of the escape pod, clinging hand over hand to the holds that lined its sides, until they had positioned themselves beside each other. Fredrica reached out her hand to him, but Reinhard gave the hand signal for no-- it was better that they didn’t hold hands for this, because they risked sending themselves into a spin. Still, he was glad that he couldn’t see Fredrica’s face through her helmet when he did that. He crouched and lined himself up, settling his feet hard against the side of the escape pod, and Fredrica did the same.

He held up a hand, counted down, three, two, one, then swung his arm violently down like a commander giving the order to fire, and the two of them kicked off the side of the pod together, sending themselves sailing towards the base.

They had propulsion units on their backs, but it was better to not waste any of their very limited fuel. Reinhard’s field of view was limited, so he could barely see Fredrica beside him, and since they couldn’t use radio, there was no way for them to communicate. It was good that she had at least ended up moving in his same direction, but Reinhard’s push-off had been stronger, so he ended up in front of her after a while, completely unable to look behind himself to see her. It was a long journey.

He drifted closer and closer to the base, coming in on the side where the ships in the very first stages of construction were lined up like the ribs of giant whales. He had floated in between them before, when he had been out on inspection, but they were eerier in the darkness, with the work lights turned off, the whole scene lit only by the stars and the lights that the imperial ships cast around. And during those times, he had had the constant chatter of the radio in his ears. Now he felt more alone than he ever had, as he slipped inside and was dwarfed by the huge metal frames.

He fired his jets to slow himself and control his journey. Fredrica came up beside him, and Reinhard was relieved. He pointed towards the nearest emergency airlock into the base, nestled behind one of the huge metal beams. They aimed themselves towards it, slowed down as much as they could, then gently collided with the metal walls of the side of the base, each scrambling for hand and foot holds. They didn’t seem to have been spotted.

Reinhard pointed at the access panel, and Fredrica pulled herself towards it. He could picture, though he could not see, her squinting expression as she recalled the code that wouldn’t sound the emergency open alarm. She keyed it in, and they both waited with bated breath for the door to open. There was a good chance that all the codes had been disabled, but, no, there was the door sliding open. They hauled themselves inside with relief, then closed the door and waited for the air to cycle again.

The relief of being back in a place with artificial gravity, and not floating untethered in space was great enough that it almost made Reinhard feel as though the hard part was over. The hard part, though, had just begun.

When the airlock finished cycling, they stumbled out into the dark corridor and immediately removed both of their helmets. Fredrica dragged him down the hallway slightly, into a closet where they wouldn’t be seen, and they removed their cumbersome space suits.

“What now?” Fredrica asked.

“If we sneak towards the main control center, we might be able to find out where they’re keeping everyone,” Reinhard said.

Frederica nodded. They slipped out of the closet and crept through the dark hallways, listening carefully for any sounds of footsteps. The whole place was very empty, which was definitely a good thing. The base wasn’t hugely populated to begin with, and now that all of the personnel had probably been taken prisoner aboard one of the imperial ships, it was even quieter.

As they headed towards the main hallway that connected this section of the docks to the rest of the base, they heard footsteps. Reinhard held up his hand, and they both flattened themselves against the wall and listened. From the sound of it, there were two people walking past, speaking in the imperial language.

“So Heinemann told me that he had put it all somewhere around here, so I figured I’d report it to you so we don’t, ya know, get in trouble for looting. The commodore’d have our necks.”

“I’m glad that you made the right choice, but do you actually know where Heinemann put the bottles?”

“He just said in a closet in this hallway.”

“I’m going to need a drink when we finish with this.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we’re finding the bottles, then, sir, isn’t it?”

“You’re killing me, Chensburg.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

Reinhard glanced at Frederica, held up two fingers, and gave her a look. She hesitated, then nodded. The footsteps came closer to the intersection. Reinhard held up three fingers, two, one, then ran forward, followed by Fredrica on his heels.

They ran out into the intersection, startling the two imperial soldiers who were walking there. Both were young, and one was wearing a lieutenant’s uniform, while the other was an enlisted man. Reinhard tackled the lieutenant, who didn’t even have time to reach for his sidearm. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Fredrica start wrestling with the enlisted man.

Reinhard came at the lieutenant from the side, so his knees crumpled sideways, and the two of them crashed into the far wall of the hallway, rather than him dropping all the way to the floor. Reinhard wrapped his arms around him, preventing him from reaching for his gun, and then smashed his skull as hard as he could into the other man’s nose. The man reeled backwards for a second, sliding along the wall, and Reinhard loosened his grip for just a second, enough to reach down and grab the gun himself. The lieutenant regained his senses enough to know what Reinhard was doing, and he flailed his arms and tried to push Reinhard off, but Reinhard’s fingers were already firmly gripping the weapon, so he let himself be shoved backwards, gun in hand. He had a quarter second to process the situation as the lieutenant lunged at him. Reinhard flicked the safety off the blaster, raised his arm without conscious thought, and shot the lieutenant in the head.

The imperial soldier crumpled to the ground, falling forward with his momentum, and Reinhard stepped out of the way. He turned his attention to Fredrica, who was trying to wrestle the gun out of the hand of the enlisted man, clinging onto his arm and avoiding him being able to point it at her, though not really winning the fight.

Reinhard aimed his gun at him, too, and Fredrica saw and yelled, “Reinhard!”

The sound of her voice and the feeling of the gun in his hand reminded Reinhard so strongly of the moment that he had almost killed the deer that he didn’t immediately shoot. The man who was wrestling with Fredrica saw him and his face paled.

In the imperial language, Reinhard said, “Drop the gun.”

The enlisted man did, and the gun clattered to the floor. Fredrica immediately kicked it far down the hallway. “Take off your uniform,” Reinhard demanded. When the man looked at him dumbly, Reinhard said, “Now!”

So he did, pulling off his shirt and pants and dropping them to the ground, leaving him in only his undershirt and boxers.

“Fredrica, I know you know the closet lock codes,” Reinhard said, not looking at her and keeping his gun trained on the now shirtless man. “Open the closest one.”

Fredrica jogged a little way down the hallway and opened the maintenance closet. “Go,” Reinhard said, gesturing the man forward. He walked slowly, looking down at the dead lieutenant with fear in his eyes. When they got to the closet, Reinhard said, “At least you’ll have plenty to drink.” About thirty bottles of alcohol that had been clearly looted from the commissary were stashed inside the closet.

They shut the man inside there, and then Fredrica locked the door with the code. “What now?” she asked, voice barely above a whisper. Reinhard didn’t respond to her, but walked back down the hallway. Fredrica picked up the second gun as they passed.

Reinhard grabbed the dead lieutenant by his arms and dragged him heavily a little way down the hallway, ducking back into the closet they had changed out of their spacesuits in. He pulled the lieutenant’s uniform off, then changed into it. Fredrica got the idea and did the same with the enlisted man’s uniform.

It wasn’t a perfect disguise by any means. For one thing, Reinhard’s uniform had a line of blood on it down the back collar. He tried to cover it with his hair as best he could. The uniform was loose on him. In Fredrica’s case, the pant legs were far too long, and the shirt did little to disguise her chest. But it was better than nothing.

“If we run into anyone, I’ll do all the talking,” Reinhard said. It was an obvious statement, since Fredrica didn’t speak imperial well at all, but she nodded anyway.

Reinhard had to fight back his instinct to walk sneakily, and instead walk confidently down the hallways. They would attract more attention if they looked suspicious. Reinhard was a stranger to false confidence, but he was not a stranger to real confidence, so he tried to wear that on him like a cloak as he strode into a hallway where several enlisted soldiers were standing around talking. He ignored them and continued on towards the central hub of the base, encountering more and more people on the way, everyone intent on their own hurried business.

They approached their destination, and Reinhard said, in one less populated hallway, speaking in imperial, “You wait here.”

“Yes,” Fredrica responded, pitching her voice down as much as she could. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been life or death. He didn’t want to abandon her, but he also didn’t want to bring her into the central control room, where there was likely to be much more scrutiny. He hoped whoever was in charge of this operation didn’t have a good memory for who the junior officers under his command were supposed to be; Reinhard probably stood out as a stranger. For the first time, he cursed his wild mane of long hair. Vanity might cause his death. No matter.

Fredrica moved to the side of the hallway, where there were big windows looking out on the half-constructed ships. She leaned forward on the rail that separated them from the hallway, crossing her arms in front of her chest. Reinhard whispered under his breath as he walked by, “Stay safe.”

She gave a quick nod.

Reinhard walked the rest of the way to the control center, entering with no trouble. The whole place was swarming with imperial soldiers, most of whom ignored him completely. The thing that captured Reinhard’s interest immediately was the status screen at the front of the room, which usually showed the various activities and schedules going on around the base, but now showed a map of the local space, showing a good sixty or so ships positioned around the base in a wide ring. They were helpfully labeled both with the ship’s name and commanding officer. Reinhard picked one ship and CO to pretend to belong to, one of the ones that was fairly distant out: the Grausames Mädchen, under Commander Barre.

There were five ships docked to the base itself. One of them, the Ostberlin, had a small flag on it, and “Commodore Reuenthal” above the name of the ship’s captain.

Reinhard stood on the edge of the room unobtrusively for a moment, just listening to the chatter.

“I swear that the next person who radios asking when we’re leaving is going to make me lose my damn mind,” the lieutenant sitting at the comms position said to his neighbor, an ensign.

“Can’t blame them for wanting to know,” the ensign said.

“I think we all have the same question. But that doesn’t mean that they have to ask it over and over. I don’t get the feeling that the commodore likes us sitting here.”

“Do you get the feeling that he likes anything?”

The lieutenant laughed, then sighed as he heard something in his headset and said, “Yes, sir. No, there’s no update. Yes, sir, I will let you know as soon as we receive word. Yes, I’ll relay that message to him.” He killed the radio and said, “See, I’m going insane.” He made an even deeper frown as the computer spat out a written message, printing it onto a piece of paper, which he picked up and examined for a second.

“You’ll survive.”

“Hey, you want to be the bearer of complaints?” The lieutenant held up the paper.

“To who from who?”

“To the commodore, from Captain Voster.”

“Gods above, I do not.”

The man at the communications panel turned around in his seat, scanning the room. His eyes settled on Reinhard, who was still looking up at the big board. “Hey, lieutenant,” the man at the radio said. Reinhard was half startled by the direct address, but since he had been following the conversation,

“Yes?” Reinhard asked cautiously. The man put a kind of evil smirk on his face.

“You busy with anything?”

“I was going to report that--”

“Great,” the radio lieutenant said, cutting him off, which was a kind of relief. “Two birds, one stone. Can you take this to Commodore Reuenthal when you make your report? It’s from Captain Voster.” He held out the written message. Reinhard took a few steps forward and grabbed it.

“Sorry to make you run errands,” he said.

“It’s fine,” Reinhard replied. “Where is the commodore?”

“Last I heard, he was waiting in his office on the Ostberlin.”

“Waiting?”

“For the order to let us get out of here,” the comms lieutenant said in a huff. “That you and I and everybody else want to hear so badly.”

“Alright. I’ll go there, then.”

“Very grateful.” The comms lieutenant looked at him. “Which ship are you from?”

“The Grausames Mädchen,” Reinhard said. “I came over on a shuttle because Commander Barre wanted to find out when--”

“We were going to leave?” the ensign supplied.

Reinhard shrugged, an exaggerated display of shared frustration.

“Well, glad I’m not you,” the comms lieutenant said. “Good luck with that.”

“Should I be more worried about bothering the commodore, or going back to Barre without any updates?” Reinhard asked, trying to add realism to his disguise.

“Hah, the commodore’s fine, but he will be annoyed if you take too much of his time. Just hand him the paper and get out.”

“Thanks,” Reinhard said.

“Well, you’re the one doing me a favor. You should get going. You know where the Ostberlin’s docked, yeah?”

“I can find it,” Reinhard said. He knew his way around this base better than these people did, certainly. He headed out, back down the hallway. Fredrica was waiting exactly where he had left her, and they shared a momentary glance of relief as she fell into step behind him.

Once they were out of sight of other people, in the empty hallways heading towards the docks on the other side of the base, where the Ostberlin was parked, Reinhard said, in the Alliance language, under his breath so that only Fredrica could here, “We’re paying a visit to the commodore.”

“What?” she hissed.

“I have a message to give him.” He held up the paper he had been given.

“Reinhard!”

“I’m not going to get another opportunity like this,” he said. “Should I kill him?”

“And then what would you do? Idiot.”

“I--” They had to stop their conversation as they turned a corner into another hallway, where there were a group of people standing around and talking. They were ignored completely, and they continued until they reached the docks, where he and Fredrica walked directly past the guard and onto the ship.

Ships were all basically laid out the same, even between the Empire and the Alliance, so it wasn’t that much trouble to follow the main hallways towards the bridge. Once again, he told Fredrica to wait for him, this time having her duck into one of the toilets and hide out as Reinhard went onto the bridge.

The commodore wasn’t there, and so Reinhard saluted instead to the captain of the ship. “Sir, I have a message for the commodore from Captain Voster.”

He was directed to a hallway outside the commodore’s office, which was in an area below and behind the bridge, accessible by a set of steps leading down away from the main dais portion of the ship. Imperial ships spent a lot more time on aesthetics than Alliance ships did, Reinhard was coming to realize, which seemed to be at a small cost to practicality.

Reinhard was about to knock on the door to the office, but then he heard voices inside, and so he stayed as still and quiet as he could to listen. He could barely make them out.

“I can’t believe that you’re wasting military resources and airtime to call me,” someone said, very muffled, in slightly accented imperial. “And I’m a busy person, you can’t just demand I pick up during the school day.”

“Do you actually have anything better to be doing with your time?” This voice was much clearer, so Reinhard assumed that it was the commodore speaking.

“Of course not,” the muffled voice said with a laugh. “And even if I did, I’d make time for you. How’s life on the front?”

The commodore’s frown was audible in his voice. “Idiotic, as usual.”

“Why, what’s happening now?”

“Muckenburger came up with this plan to give Admiral Whithorse a victory and get him back into everyone’s good graces, but Muckenburger seems to have forgotten that there’s a reason that Whithorse fell out of everyone’s good graces in the first place.”

“What is he doing now?”

“Let’s see, Leigh, if you were deciding to run a blitz action, score a bunch of cheap but ultimately meaningless points, what would be the last thing you’d want your units to do?”

“Lose spectacularly against easy targets?”

“We avoided doing that, at least.” The commodore’s voice was dry.

“I didn’t expect that you would lose.”

“Great, we seized a starship construction facility. But instead of just having us destroy it, Whithorse wants me to sit here and hold it.”

There was a moment of silence. “How many ships do you have?”

“Sixty.”

“Not very many.”

“It’s a matter of time before four hundred Alliance destroyers start breathing down my neck.”

“Do you have permission to abandon if they do show up, at least?”

“Not yet.”

“So you’re calling me to say your goodbyes?” The voice on the other end of the call was sardonic rather than worried.

“No, I’m calling you because I’m frustrated and am not going to take it out on anyone here.”

The person on the other side of the call laughed. “At least you can admit to that.”

“How are things with you?”

“They’re fine. Things are the same as they always are.”

“When are you going to ask for a transfer out of there? You could have it at any time you wanted, and a promotion, too.”

“Why would I want to leave?”

“I was under the impression that you had ambitions, Leigh.”

“You think I’m not accomplishing what I need to, here?”

“I have no idea what you think you’re accomplishing.”

“I’m at least trying to teach a generation of students not to go perform useless actions that will get them all killed.”

The commodore let out a little bit of a laugh. “And it’ll take fifteen years for that to bear fruit.”

“My laziness makes me patient, as well.” There was a very muffled sound from the other side of the call, and then Leigh said, “Who is it?”

A completely inaudible response.

“Should I hang up on you?” the commodore asked.

“No, it’s fine, it’s just one of my students. Come in, Kircheis.”

Reinhard’s breath caught in his throat, and he clutched the forgotten letter in his hand so hard that he nearly tore it apart.

“I should hang up on you.”

“Don’t be rude, Reuenthal,” Leigh said. “I’m going to send Kircheis over to you when he graduates, well, either to you or Mittermeyer, so you might as well meet him now. Come here. Kircheis, this is a friend of mine, Commodore Reuenthal.”

“Sir,” Kircheis said. His voice through the several layers of muffling, and years of distance, sounded nothing like what Reinhard had remembered, but all the same, there was a quality to it that made Reinhard sure that he was hearing his friend, and not some distant relation or stranger. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Commander Leigh does know how to pick promising students,” the commodore said, voice neutral. “I’m sure it is a pleasure for me, as well.”

“All right, all right, I’ll stop forcing you to socialize with cadets,” Leigh said. “You can hang up on me if you like.”

“I probably won’t be able to talk to you again until I’m out of here,” the commodore said.

“Good luck, then.”

“Thank you.”

The call ended. In the sudden silence of the hallway, Reinhard remembered that he had an actual task, though he felt that he couldn’t go through with his half-baked idea of killing the commodore, or even taking him hostage. The tenuous connection to Kircheis that this man had inadvertently provided raised him enough in Reinhard’s estimation that he wouldn’t knock on the door, pull his sidearm from his holster, and shoot the man dead. Instead, he just took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

“Come in,” the commodore said.

Reinhard pushed the door open. The commodore was a young man, not yet thirty, with short dark hair and a tall frame, and he was standing a little ways away from his desk, looking at a screen on the wall that showed the current positions of all the ships in his battlegroup. Reinhard stepped in and saluted crisply. He took the opportunity to examine the board as well, seeing that one of the other ships that was currently docked was highlighted. The Falke-- was that where the prisoners were being kept?

“What is it, Lieutenant…?”

“Von Müsel, sir.”

“Have I met you before?”

“I don’t believe so, sir,” Reinhard said.

“Hm. Well, what is it?”

“Captain Voster has a message for you, sir,” Reinhard said, and held out the piece of paper.

“Let me guess: he wants to know when we’re leaving?”

“Yes, sir.”

The commodore took the paper, momentary annoyance flashing across his face. “You don’t need me to give a response. I’ll get in contact with him personally.”

“Yes, sir.” Reinhard saluted again and turned to go. The commodore actually followed him out, which was an uncomfortable sensation, but their paths diverged once they reached the bridge, and Reinhard escaped back into the main part of the ship unscathed.

He found Fredrica in the bathroom, and leaned against the door to keep it shut so that no one could interrupt their quiet conversation. Fredrica had not been wasting her time while hiding in the bathroom-- she had broken open the first aid kit on the wall there and had used the roll of bandages to flatten her chest, which improved her disguise significantly.

“I think I know where the prisoners are,” Reinhard said. “And I think I have a plan.”

“Did you kill the commodore?”

“No,” Reinhard said. “I didn’t do anything. But I learned things while I was in his office.”

“Where are the prisoners?”

“On the Falke, which is still docked.”

She nodded. “What’s your plan?”

Reinhard quickly explained the situation that the imperial ships here were in-- how they had been ordered not to leave, which meant that Alliance ships would eventually show up to fight them. “If we can get on the Falke, and hide until then, when the moment is right, we might be able to take control of the ship and--”

Fredrica nodded. “Okay.”

“No other questions?” Reinhard was surprised.

“We won’t be able to make a plan until we figure out what’s at our disposal,” Fredrica said. “Let’s just go. The faster the better.”

Reinhard nodded, then stepped away from the door so that they could leave the bathroom, and the Ostberlin itself. He felt a little more comfortable back on the base, though it was an illusion brought on by virtue of knowing his way around. He could tell that Fredrica was suffering-- every time someone looked vaguely in their direction she stiffened minutely, trying to resist walking faster and giving them away.