Proclaim Liberty to the Captives

February 795 U.C.

Like the Ostberlin, they were able to walk right on to the Falke. They needed to map out a few landmarks: where the prisoners were being held, where the bridge was, and where they could hide. The bridge was easy enough to locate. As expected, it was on the forward mid level of the ship, right along the main hallway.

The prisoners were a different story, and Reinhard grew increasingly wary as he and Fredrica wandered through the ship, trying to look purposeful so as not to attract attention, but there was only so purposeful that one could look while wandering. Eventually, though, they made their way to the far rear lower level of the ship, where they passed a door marked “Hold A”, guarded by several heavily armed guards. Reinhard and Fredrica walked past quickly, without further investigation, but knew that was almost certainly what they were looking for. Probably, there was more than one hold full of prisoners, but locating even one would be enough, Reinhard thought.

Feeling armed with that knowledge, they set about finding a place to hide. The good thing about ships, Reinhard found, was that they were all full of interesting and small spaces in which a person could remain undetected.

They ended up in the center of the ship, in the engineering section near the engine, which was quite empty, since the ship wasn’t running. It was a space with a few unique advantages. For one thing, there was an abundance of small passageways and crawlspaces that led underneath the engine and connected the opposite sides of the ship. (Though, that close to the engine, the sensation of artificial gravity grew odd, confusing the idea of up and down when one crawled through the tunnels.) The engine room also, unlike most other parts of the ship, had direct communication to the bridge, and so it was very easy for Reinhard and Fredrica to hear what was going on as they slunk around. And, due to the acoustics and relative emptiness of the space, it was easy to hear footsteps when someone was approaching.

They made their base of operations a large equipment closet, walls covered floor to ceiling with tools, floor stacked with giant spools of extra cabling, and the whole back wall hung full of the heavy protective suits that would be used if the engine itself needed maintenance. That was especially nice for Reinhard and Fredrica, because if someone entered the closet, they could fully hide themselves in among the suits. No one ever did, though.

It took four days before anything about the situation changed. This gave Reinhard and Fredrica plenty of time to construct a plan, but also was one of the most stressful and uncomfortable four day periods of Reinhard’s life, creeping around to steal food out of the enlisted men’s rec room during the night, crawling away through the passageways under the engine with his haul, sneaking to the nearest bathroom when he could, waiting breathlessly in the closet whenever anyone walked past, listening to the muffled talk of the crew. The tension on the ship was almost unbearable, both on Reinhard and Fredrica’s end, and for the crew of the Falke. They overheard increasingly uncomfortable conversations between the crew, and everyone seemed to be on a hair trigger, wanting to escape this region of space. They heard some discussions about a search being on on the base, presumably for them, upon the discovery of the lieutenant and enlisted man that they had killed and trapped, respectively. But no one searched the bowels of the Falke very thoroughly. Even as the tension grew among everyone, including the voice of the captain during his daily address over the ship’s intercom, the ship stubbornly did not move.

One of the greatest windfalls that they had during their waiting was when the master sergeant, in the increasing anxiety aboard the ship, came down and inspected the engineering section weapons locker, yelling at the technicians down there to be prepared and quizzing them on how to open it and what the procedures were. Fredrica memorized the key code. That night, when the watch had just gone past, they slipped out of their hiding place and raided the weapons cache. They didn’t think they had the ability to carry the huge battle axes through the ship (and Fredrica was not practiced in using one), so instead they grabbed all the cans of Zephyr particles that they could, along with all the spare energy packs for the blasters.

Reinhard was actually asleep when the situation finally shifted. It wasn’t clear what woke him up: the feeling of the stardrive engaging beneath him, the sound of the all-hands alarm blaring on the intercom, or Fredrica shaking his shoulder while he lay on the floor of the closet hidden behind the heavy duty maintenance suits. He came to consciousness immediately, sitting up straight and wiping his hand across his face.

“Are you ready?” he asked Fredrica, though perhaps she should have been asking that question of him.

She nodded. “I wish we weren’t splitting up.”

“We don’t have a choice.” Reinhard stood, shaking out the stiffness from his legs, then offered her a hand to stand as well. “We don’t have time to change the plan, anyway.”

They had thought it through very carefully, and prepared well, and it seemed like the ideal solution, but that didn’t make it feel any better to have to split up. It would have been nice to have Fredrica cover his back. But they each had a task to do. He gathered his sidearm and the bag that he had put together, an unassuming canvas toolbag that had been in the closet, filled now with makeshift grenades: the Zephyr particle canisters, tied together with disassembled blaster energy packs, with two bare wires taped to the sides of the cell. When twisted together, they would get hot enough in about half a second to ignite the flammable gas that the canister could release. They had both found a variety of useful tools in the maintenance closet, including a plasma cutter, which Reinhard took along as well. It was a slow thing, but if he needed to cut the lock on a door, it was required.

Reinhard was going to free the prisoners in the hold, while Fredrica was tasked with remaining in the engineering section and disabling the ship as much as physically possible. Both tasks would be vital and they had to be done simultaneously, so there was no way they could stay together.

“Good luck,” Fredrica said, and grabbed Reinhard’s hand. He squeezed hers for a second.

“I’ll be back,” Reinhard said. “Don’t get caught.”

“I won’t.”

They could hear footsteps outside the closet door, running by, but then there was a moment of silence in the corridor, or at least an absence of the sounds of people underneath the blaring all-hands alarm, so Reinhard cracked the door open, peered out, then exited, jogging down the hallway, trying to look like he belonged, should anyone see him. He knew his disguise was far less than perfect, at this point-- he was filthy from crawling around the ship, he hadn’t bathed in days, and his already ill-fitting uniform was wrinkled to oblivion. And the whole force here probably knew to be looking for someone in a stolen lieutenant’s uniform with long blonde hair. But the hallways of the ship were dark, and all of the crew were rushing about trying to get to their posts, so no one paid him any attention.

He remembered the path down towards the hold, but he stopped before he got to the corner, and listened. There wasn’t any conversation, nor were there any sounds of movement, but he was sure that the guards were still there. It would be beyond stupid for them to abandon their post, even-- especially-- during a battle.

Reinhard pulled one of his Zephyr particle canisters from his bag, pulled the release tab, and held down the activation button with his thumb. With his other hand, he carefully pinched and twisted the bare wires together on the blaster energy pack, leaving a scorched part on his thumb and index finger. Then, as quickly as he could, he tossed the whole assembly down the hallway and ran. He didn’t get very far.

Half a second later, he was knocked to the ground by the intense wave of heat and expanding air. His ears weren’t ringing, but the whole world sounded like a dim roar. He was lucky his stolen uniform wasn’t made of nylon or it would have melted to his skin. Even still, he felt his back scorch through the cloth. It was painful, but he had no choice but to ignore it. He picked himself up off the ground and ran back towards the hold, pulling out his sidearm as he did and holding it in front of him.

The two guards that had been at the door were on the floor, not moving. From the state of their skin, and the way that rancid-fumed embers remained smoldering on their uniforms, they were dead, or would be soon. He ignored them and turned his attention to the door, which was made of sterner stuff than human flesh.

The keycode panel was melted off, so Reinhard pulled the plasma cutter out of his bag and began sawing the door open, carving just a swathe around the lock. He realized his hearing had mostly recovered when he heard the sound of yelling and pounding feet. He dropped the plasma cutter back in his bag for a second and prepared another one of his Zephyr particle grenades. He had four left.

Without looking to see how many people were coming, Reinhard threw the contraption as hard as he could, and dove back behind the corner he had come from. There was another burst, and again, he felt the wave of heat, though it was less intense this time because he was further from it. Clutching his gun, he returned to the door. No more footsteps could be heard, so he held the plasma cutter in his left hand and his gun in his right, trying to get the door open as fast as possible. He completed his sq uare cutting around the lock, then kicked the door open. It swung inwards, revealing a whole mass of people, about two hundred in the long room, looking at him with a wide array of expressions on their faces. They were all handcuffed and seated on the floor, with the cuffs attached to the wall behind their backs.

“Cadet von Müsel?” one of them said, and Reinhard recognized the voice as Fredrica’s CO for the summer program, Commander Swift. “I thought you were dead.”

“It’s obvious that I’m not,” Reinhard said. He walked towards the wall, looking at how all of the handcuffs hooked on to the wall in a long line, most likely by very strong electromagnets. Reinhard considered his options, then asked, “You’re engineers. If I cut the live wire inside this wall, will it kill me?” He held up his plasma cutter.

“I’m sure they have it on a safety--” someone said, and that was all Reinhard needed to hear. He jammed the plasma cutter into the wall, slightly above the horizontal line where the handcuffs attached, then pulled it slowly down, a new, acrid smell of burning plastic filled the air. After about a second of cutting, a huge shower of sparks exploded out of the wall, and Reinhard dropped the plasma cutter as his muscles contracted wildly, his whole left arm burning and twitching. He shook it for a second, the sensation and pain momentarily distracting him like nothing else had, but then he realized that he had succeeded, and people were being freed from their cuffs.

“Who’s in the best shape, here?” Reinhard asked as everyone scrambled to their feet, stiff after having been kept sitting for so long.. “There’s probably only enough weapons for a few of you.” He was thinking about the guns that belonged to the guards and those who had come charging down the hallway. If they were even still functional after the explosions, that still did not give nearly enough for everyone to have one.

A few men raised their hands. Reinhard jerked his head at them, leading them out into the hallway and indicating that they should find weapons on the corpses, which they did, leaving Reinhard with a group of about ten armed people.

“We’re going to engineering first,” Reinhard said. “And from there, we’ll take the bridge.”

“Why engineering?” Swift asked.

“Because that’s where Fredrica is,” Reinhard said. “She’s hopefully killed bridge control of the engine by now. Let’s go.” Killing bridge control of the engine was essential, because it would allow Reinhard and his group to take control of the ship’s power from the bridge. They would be able to, at the very least, prevent the Falke from flying away from the approaching Alliance forces.

Reinhard and his newly armed group headed down the hallway. The rest of the freed soldiers followed after them, which was fine, because there would be more weapons in the engineering cache that they could seize when they got there. Reinhard led the way. Everyone seemed to be accepting of his authority, even though he really had the least on-paper authority of anyone.

They encountered resistance when they went, much more than they had when it was just Reinhard in his stolen uniform. They had a vicious firefight coming around one corner. Reinhard, in the lead, narrowly avoided getting shot in the head, but the man standing behind him was not so lucky, and he slumped, dead, against the wall. Reinhard ducked back down behind the corner, peeked out, and fired his blaster a couple times, receiving fire in return. They were facing down a group of about ten people. In the narrow hallway it was chaotic and difficult, but their side had the advantage of the corner for slight cover, so three minutes of exchanging fire later, the last few imperial soldiers ran, and Reinhard and his group chased them, while the unarmed band behind him picked over the dead for weapons before following. The people they were chasing ended up going in a different direction than the engineering section, so Reinhard let them go.

When they had cleared a path to the engine room, Reinhard could hear a commotion inside, but the door was locked. The person who had the plasma cutter came forward, then and got to work destroying the lock. It took so long, and Reinhard stood there, clutching his sidearm, feeling real fear for the first time that, inside, Fredrica was in danger.

They kicked the door open and ran in, immediately under a hail of blaster fire. Reinhard ducked to the ground and took shelter behind a computer bank, peeking up over it to see what was going on, and firing off shots when he could. He was scanning the room for Fredrica, too, though it was hard to see anything in the emergency lighting interspersed with flashes of blaster fire. At least one benefit of the situation was that there was no hand to hand: because he had stolen all of the Zephyr particle canisters from the engineering weapons stock, they couldn’t use them.

Through the chaos, Reinhard heard a high voice scream once: Fredrica. He dove out from his cover and ran towards the sound. In the confusion, his imperial uniform saved him once again: although he was running further into the room, no one wanted to take the chance of shooting one of their own side.

He couldn’t see all of Fredrica, but he knew it was her. Her lower half was hanging out of an access hatch in the ceiling of the engine room, her legs swinging wildly as she kicked at the man who was trying to drag her down. The hatch opened to one of the many tunnels that they had found and used to creep around before now, and where they had agreed that she would cut the wires that connected the engine control to the bridge. Thankfully, there was no way for the imperial crew to get a lethal shot at her upper body or head, still hidden in the tube.

Reinhard shot the man without hesitation, freeing Fredrica, who immediately pulled her legs back up, vanished for a second, then turned around, her eyes barely visible. They widened when she saw Reinhard firing across the room at someone. She raised her own gun and shot at a man further down the room, who had Reinhard in his sights. She hit him square in the chest and he went down.

Reinhard shouted up at Fredrica above the noise, “Did you cut the bridge controls?”

“Yes!”

“Did they transfer engine control to down here?”

“I think so!” She shot at someone else and missed. Reinhard was sheltering now in between two structural pillars in the crowded room.

Some of the chaos was beginning to die down, at least momentarily. The freed Alliance soldiers had gotten the upper hand, and were now picking off stragglers, leaving bodies scattered across the engine room. Reinhard cautiously made his way toward the control console for the stardrive, and Fredrica dropped out of her tube to follow him, covering his back as he began to investigate, moving through the computer menus as fast as he could, trying to find the one that would power the stardrive down completely. Steering was still controlled at the bridge, but the engine power itself was controlled here, since Fredrica had cut the main cableway and control had been transferred. He found the command and pressed it without hesitation, feeling the immediate shift in gravity in his stomach as the ship’s engine began to power down. It would take a while to fully stop, but this was the most he could do to disable the ship for the moment. This was good, because it was probably removing them from the field of battle, but it also made the whole ship a sitting duck. They now had to take control of the bridge and its radio, or else the Alliance ships that were surely outside would shoot them out of the sky, and all of this would have been worse than useless.

“I need a group to stay here and make sure the engine stays off! The rest of you, arm yourselves and come with me. We need to take the bridge, now!” Reinhard yelled.

“I’m coming with you,” Fredrica said.

“Of course.” It hardly felt like it needed to be said. She had had his back, and he was glad.

To their credit, the Alliance soldiers reorganized themselves quickly, leaving a small group behind in the engine room, the rest following Reinhard and Fredrica. The battle only grew more confusing as they pressed through the hallways towards the bridge. They met more and more resistance, but the slowly decreasing gravity of the ship made movement difficult for anyone who was not nimble and adaptable enough to take advantage of it.

Reinhard was very adaptable, though, and by time the gravity was half of what it was usually, he was taking running leaps that brought him shockingly close to the enemy, pushing off walls in the tight corridors, and using his momentum to his advantage to position himself for a shot, then move out of the way of returning fire more quickly than should have been possible under normal circumstances. Fredrica was holding her own, too, able to quickly find her bearings and strategically fire on the more coordinated members of the ship’s crew. The two of them worked together in easy synchronization, exchanging glances in the moment that let them each know what they needed to do.

They reached the bridge, which was completely locked down, but it was a matter of minutes to cut open the door, while their group fended off attacks from either side of the hallway that they were standing in. They had originally numbered about two hundred, but had lost about three dozen people along the way, though the surviving group had been able to arm themselves and were now much hardier than they had been at the start.

The door to the bridge was finally broken open, and those directly in front of it were caught in an immediate storm of gunfire, several going down. Reinhard was prepared for this, though, and he threw one of his remaining Zephyr bombs into the room and pulled the door shut. The explosion from inside was almost instantaneous, and when Reinhard opened the door again, he saw that its effects were catastrophic to the people on the bridge. The wave of fire hadn’t killed everyone, but it had wounded them all, and many were stumbling around, burned or blinded. Since the artificial gravity on the ship was down to almost nothing, the bomb had gone off high in the air, which meant that more people were injured than were dead.

“Restrain them,” Reinhard ordered. “I need someone at the radio, and someone else steering. Find the captain. If he’s alive, I want him as a hostage. Get someone on navigation. I want the gravity back on.”

People obeyed him without question, moving through the bridge and tying up and confiscating the arms of the imperial soldiers who were now almost hovering in the air, the gravity being so low.

“Someone give me intercom control,” Reinhard said. “Where is it?”

“Over here, sir,” someone said, and Reinhard moved towards the indicated control panel. It would have pleased him to be called sir, if he had had time to give it any thought.

“Someone give me eyes on the battle situation. Are we in the direct line of fire, here?” He trusted everyone to rearrange themselves appropriately to respond to his commands. Fredrica was taking on an organizing role across the room, directing people into consoles where she thought they might have the best chance of succeeding, and generally coordinating the capture and identification of the wounded bridge crew they were taking prisoner. She waved at him and pointed at one of the officers: the captain, who was still alive. Excellent.

Reinhard took the microphone for the ship intercom while he waited for the real radio to get figured out, and while someone else tried to pull up the radar images of the current battle situation.

In the imperial language, speaking crisply and clearly, “Crew of the imperial ship Falke. Your ship is now under complete control by the Alliance. We have taken your captain hostage. If you lay down your weapons and surrender, staying exactly where you are, no harm will come to you. If you resist, you will be killed. I repeat, your ship is under my complete control. Lay down your weapons and remain where you are, and you will be treated fairly.”

It would have to do.

He fiddled with the console to address specifically the engineering section of the ship, this time in the alliance language. “We have control of the bridge. Get the stardrive back online as soon as it’s finished cycling. Forget the wait period. I want gravity now.” He felt the first touches of gravity return, pulling everyone gently down to the floor, but it was a slow process.

By this point, someone had gotten the battle situation up on the big screen. They were relatively lucky, it seemed like, in terms of their positioning. Since Reinhard had managed to take out the stardrive, they had fallen to the very rear of the imperial battle lines, and were in no danger of taking fire from the Alliance ships, of which there were about five hundred.

Reinhard immediately noticed that something very strange was going on with the battle situation. The imperial forces were moving extremely tightly together, which put them at huge risk of crashing into each other, though none of them had, which spoke to good control on the commodore’s part. It was a formation like they were planning to break through the Alliance forces, but instead they were moving “sideways” and “down”, maneuvering the whole battlegroup to put the base in between the two forces. The base had not yet been destroyed, which was… odd. As the Falke was drifting without power, that left them stranded on the outer edge of the imperial battlegroup, pushed further to the outside and left nowhere near the rest as they moved behind the base. No one was firing directly at them, probably because since their guns had stopped as well, they were certainly being classed as a disabled vehicle and thus not worth bothering with, but Reinhard did not like their position, not at all.

The alliance fleet was forced to move closer, spreading out around the base to try to flank the imperial group on all sides.

Reinhard saw the plan. He grabbed the intercom mic again. “I need engine power, immediately! I don’t care if it strains the drive, we need to move! Now!”

“What’s going on?” Fredrica asked, coming up next to him. Reinhard pointed at the screen.

“He’s baited a trap.”

“Full stardrive power in thirty seconds, sir,” a voice over the intercom said.

Reinhard planted his feet on the floor and held on to the chair of the radio console. “Whoever is steering this ship, get us away from the base-- break through our own line if you have to, just get us out of here.” As he said that, he felt the churning of the stardrive beneath him, and his knees almost buckled as far heavier than normal gravity shoved him into the floor: the effect of straining the drive.

“Get me on the radio with our fleet,” he said. “Have to warn--”

The radar image showed their little ship moving away. Whoever was steering it did a good job of slipping them through the crack in the lines where the Alliance hadn’t quite closed around the imperial battlegroup, which was turning tail and breaking through the encirclement. They took fire, but no direct hits, and they flew away from the base at the maximum speed that they could manage.

“I’m raising our fleet now, sir,” the man at the comms said.

“Give me--”

But it was too late to warn the Alliance ships that were closest to the base. The several nuclear bombs that Commodore Reuenthal had planted around the base’s structure went off all at once, obliterating the base and about a hundred of the closest ships. With the bright flash that destroyed their radar images, Reinhard couldn’t see what happened to the imperial battlegroup, but he assumed they were running as far and as fast as they could, still with a smaller force than the now-wounded Alliance fleet.

There was a moment of stunned silence around the bridge as the radar image slowly came back to the big screen and everyone processed what had just happened. They were all lucky to be alive. If they had moved fifteen seconds later, they would have been caught in the blast radius.

Reinhard stayed focused. “Do you still have the Alliance on the radio?”

After a second, the man at the radio said, “Yes, sir.”

“Put me through.”

“Yes, sir.”

Reinhard fought the heavier than usual gravity so that he could get into a position to speak over the radio to whoever was in charge of the Alliance fleet.

“Come in, Alliance fleet,” Reinhard said. “This is the destroyer Falke, currently under the command of…” He didn’t exactly know what to say here. Well, his pride wasn’t going to let him say anything other than his own name, so he did. “Free Planets Alliance Command Academy Cadet, Reinhard von Müsel. I have taken control of this ship and freed the base station crew who were taken prisoner. Please respond.”

There was a long moment of silence, and Reinhard thought about repeating his message, but then the radio came to life and said, “This is Rear Admiral Carlos Corbaccho. Where is the base commander, Captain Hargrave?”

Someone leaned towards Reinhard and whispered, “He’s dead, sir.”

“Captain Hargrave is dead,” Reinhard said. “I don’t have the details.”

On the screen, Reinhard watched as several Alliance vessels moved forward to surround the Falke. Reinhard’s natural instinct against such things wanted to protest, but he obviously wasn’t going to give the command to sail away.

“What is the actual status of your ship?” Corbaccho asked.

“I ordered the crew to surrender, though when you board you may encounter armed resistance. I currently have the bridge and the engine room under control; the condition of the rest of the ship is unknown. I have approximately one hundred thirty armed base crew, though there may be more prisoners in the other holds of this ship. There are many wounded imperial crew who require urgent medical attention. The ship can move under its own power, though the stardrive has been strained.”

“We are going to board your ship. Please remain where you are.”

“Understood, sir,” Reinhard said. “I’ll give another warning to the original crew to stay put. And I’ll open the docking mechanism.” He signalled for the person on the ship status control station to do that.

Reinhard made another announcement to the crew, warning them to stay put and to lay down their weapons again. There was a heavy thump throughout the whole ship as the closest Alliance ship docked with the Falke. Reinhard tensed and waited, unable to monitor the status of people coming up through the ship. Fredrica sidled up beside him.

“Good job,” she said.

“You too.” He looked at her. “Are you going to take some credit?”

“I will when whoever’s coming gets here,” Fredrica said. “It would be confusing for me to jump in on the radio.”

Reinhard laughed a little and surveyed the room. He walked over to the Falke’s captain, who was seated on the ground, awake, and watching the bridge with an uncomfortable frown on his face. He didn’t appear to be fatally wounded, though his whole right side was badly burned. “I apologize for taking over your ship, Captain. I can assure you that you and your men will receive medical treatment as soon as possible.” He spoke in the imperial language.

“I’m sure, Cadet,” the man said with a stiff voice.

“I won’t be a cadet for much longer,” Reinhard said. “But it is Alliance policy to treat prisoners well.”

He didn’t have much more time to discuss things with the captain, because he heard shouting from the hallway outside and he turned to see a group of armor suited Alliance soldiers making their way into the bridge. They readied their axes as Reinhard stepped forward, even though his only visible weapon was his sidearm, which remained holstered at his hip. For the first time, his imperial uniform was doing him a disservice.

“I’m Reinhard von Müsel,” he said, standing in front of them. “Who is in charge, here?”

“Lieutenant Commander Richards,” one man said, stepping forward and pulling up his mask so that his face was visible.

“Then I turn over this ship to you, Lieutenant Commander Richards,” Reinhard said. “What are your orders, sir?”

Richards looked around at the bridge. “Cadet Müsel,” he said, “Do you know the location of Cadet Fredrica Greenhill?”

Reinhard pointed at her, while she was standing examining the ship status console, and Fredrica noticed the action and came over. She saluted. “What can I do for you, sir?” she asked.

“I’m glad to see that Cadet Müsel kept you safe,” Richards said.

Reinhard frowned. He had been willing to take credit for himself, but he wasn’t willing to let other people assume Fredrica was incapable. “If you’ll excuse me for saying so, sir, but Cadet Greenhill saved my life, and deserves half the credit for this rescue.”

Fredrica turned to him with a surprised smile. “We worked together,” she said. “But regardless of credit or blame, I am very glad that this is over.”

“Indeed,” Richards said, clearly confused by this interaction. “Well, I’ve been instructed to escort her directly to Rear Admiral Corbaccho’s flagship, the Minnesota.”

“Shouldn’t you take care of the wounded, first?” Fredrica asked, looking around. “I don’t need--”

“I’m sorry, miss, but those are my orders.”

“Cadet, sir,” Reinhard interrupted.

“What?”

“She’s not a ‘miss’, she’s Cadet Greenhill, sir.”

“Yes, well, Cadet Greehill needs to be escorted to the Minnesota.”

“Alright. You should come, too,” she said, glancing at Reinhard.

“I only have orders to send you back, Cadet Greenhill.”

“I’d prefer to have him with me, sir,” Fredrica said. “And he would like to make a report to Rear Admiral Corbaccho.”

Truthfully, Reinhard wouldn’t have minded staying on this ship and assisting in whatever cleanup efforts there were, but he also would prefer not to be separated from Fredrica, so he didn’t argue.

“I suppose it won’t kill anybody if you come,” Richards said. “Jackson, Sandovsky, Pietro, Jiang-- take these two back to the Blackstone. If anything happens to them, I’m killing you myself.”

“Yes, sir,” one of the other suited men said. They formed around Reinhard and Fredrica in a protective bubble. Reinhard was tempted to roll his eyes. He and Fredrica had seized the whole ship; he hardly thought he needed an escort. But he didn’t protest, and he bid a reluctant mental goodbye to the Falke, which he had grown both familiar with and attached to over the past few days, even if it had been under weird circumstances. His fingers brushed the door frame as he walked off the bridge. The sentimental part of him hoped the ship wouldn’t be destroyed for scrap.

They were given rooms on the Minnesota, after they had both briefly spoken to the rear admiral. He hadn’t been that interested in talking to them, and had mostly suggested that Reinhard and Fredrica both write down accounts of what they had done and what had happened. Reinhard didn’t know what they were going to use this kind of evidence for (and he suspected that a lot of it didn’t actually look good for him, even if it had had a good end result) but he wasn’t going to lie in an official record, so he resolved to do it as truthfully and carefully as he could, when he got the chance.

He spent a long time in the shower, getting days worth of filth and blood off of himself. His back was burned, worse than a bad sunburn but not enough to require medical treatment, so the cool water of the shower had been both painful and a relief. He didn’t think it would scar, but it was already blistering. He put on the clothes that had been given to him. There weren’t any cadet uniforms around, and he wasn’t technically a soldier at all, but they gave them each a regular Alliance uniform, just without a rank pin. There were worse clothes that he could be wearing, he supposed.

They were given instructions not to go to the communal dining halls, which made Reinhard feel like he was under house arrest, but his annoyance at that was forgotten when he got real, hot food for the first time in several days delivered to his door, and he ate it without any complaint whatsoever.

Someone knocked on his door as he was brushing his teeth. “Come in,” he called.

Fredrica pushed the door open. “Were you going to sleep?” she asked as he emerged from the tiny bathroom, toothbrush still in his mouth.

“Not yet,” he said. “I was going to write up the events while they’re still fresh in my head.”

“May I stay here with you while you do it?”

“Of course,” Reinhard said. “You want the desk, or the bed?” He put his toothbrush away.

She sat down on the bed. Her facial expression and body language were melancholy, and she stared at Reinhard as he took out a pen and paper from the desk drawer and began writing. He was annoyed by the lack of computer, because he was used to typing things out and being able to edit as he went. His personal computer and phone had been destroyed when Condor Base had been exploded, though, so there was no getting those back.

Fredrica watched him, and he read his first several sentences aloud to her. “Do you think I should start when we got onto the C-108, or should I give background information on what she was doing?” he asked. “Or should I start when the communications blackout happened?”

“I don’t know,” Fredrica said. “I don’t think it matters.” She sounded very unhappy.

“What’s the matter?” Reinhard asked.

“You’re going to tell me I’m being stupid.”

“For what?”

“I can’t stop thinking about that first man I killed,” she said. “I close my eyes and I’m watching it over and over.”

“Hm, yeah, I can see how perfect memory could be a disadvantage in that case,” he said. “It’s okay.”

“What do you mean, ‘it’s okay’?”

“You killed him for me,” Reinhard said. “I’m very grateful.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I killed him.”

“So?”

“I know it’s war, and I know that I didn’t have a choice…” Her voice broke a little bit.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Reinhard said, “When the base blew up, it took about a hundred ships with it. Seven hundred crew apiece, that’s seven thousand people.”

She turned away slightly. “It doesn’t make me feel any better, no.”

“I’m sorry,” Reinhard said.

“You don’t feel bad?”

“I did what I had to do,” he said. “It’s not like I enjoy it, but I’m not going to beat myself up over it. When we meet again in Valhalla I’m sure it will all be even between us.”

“Do you really believe that?”

Reinhard shrugged. “Not really, but it’s the thing that one says.”

“Are you really that cold about it?” she asked.

“Does it change your opinion of me?” He leaned his head on his hand and crossed his legs, not quite relaxed, but casual.

“I don’t know.” They looked at each other. “Does this change your opinion of me?”

“No.” Reinhard paused. “I already knew that you were a capable person. It doesn’t surprise me that you were able to do what you needed to do, when the situation arose. I respect you very much.”

“I know.” She didn’t quite look at him. “You knew that I would be able to kill someone?”

“Nobody knows until the moment it has to happen,” Reinhard said. “But I wouldn’t have been your friend if--”

“You only want to be friends with people who have the ability to kill?”

“I’m friends with Jessica, and I don’t think she would kill anyone,” Reinhard said. “But she’s not a soldier. You are.”

“I bet my dad thought I would just do administrative work.”

“That would be cowardly,” Reinhard said. “If you’re going to order others to kill with a pen, you should also be able to kill with a gun.”

“I’m glad you don’t think I’m a coward.” She didn’t sound happy, though.

“I never thought that about you.”

“Did you know you would be able to kill someone?” she asked. “You shot that lieutenant, just, like, without hesitating.”

“Of course I did,” Reinhard said.

“How did you know that you could?”

“Did I ever tell you about the night Annerose and I left Odin?”

“No. I didn’t want to pry.”

So Reinhard told her the story of how he had almost shot his own father, how holding the gun made him feel, how he would have done anything to keep Annerose safe. “I think I knew I could do anything that I had to.”

“And you really don’t feel bad?”

“How I feel shouldn’t make any difference. But not really, no.” He saw her face crumple a little. “I’m not saying that you feeling bad is wrong-- I don’t think you’re worse for it-- I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what to say to comfort her, and everything he did say seemed to be coming out just slightly wrong, or was being interpreted wrong, because her face kept twitching, and in the dim bedroom light, tears were visibly sparkling on her eyes.

She was sniffling a little at this point, and he wasn’t sure what to do. So he switched seats to be next to her on the bed, and tentatively wrapped his arm around her shoulder. They had just spent four days in very enforced closeness, often with one of them falling asleep on the shoulder of the other as they sat on the floor of their closet hideout, but this was different and strange in its intentionality. Fredrica didn’t seem to notice his hesitation, and she leaned forward into him and sobbed onto his shoulder as he rubbed her back.

Their arrival back on Heinessen was, to put it mildly, odd. They came in to the military spaceport and were hustled onto shuttles down to the ground in a weirdly secretive manner. Reinhard hadn’t even been allowed to call Annerose (or his mother) and he was feeling deeply annoyed about that. It was as though they were existing in an information blackout bubble, as Reinhard and Fredrica had also been kept away from the news that would have come in to the ship as soon as they were within decent radio distance of Heinessen.

Reinhard didn’t take the restrictions and babying well at all, and he was grouchy at the random crew members of the Minnesota as they tried to shuffle him from place to place. Fredrica seemed increasingly nervous as they landed, and was digging her fingernails into her knees as they sat in the shuttle. Reinhard leaned towards her and whispered in her ear, “It’s okay.”

“We’re in so much trouble,” she said back, barely audible over the roar of the descending shuttle’s engine.

Reinhard frowned a little. He didn’t think that they were, but the whole situation was uncomfortable and strange. It wasn’t just Fredrica who was engaging in nervous physical habits, though; Reinhard had his locket out and was rubbing his thumb over the front of it.

When they landed, the shuttle they were in taxied into a hangar rather than towards the main airport concourse. They got out, and there was a military car with tinted windows waiting for them.

“Can someone please tell us where we’re being taken?” Reinhard asked one of the soldiers as he and Fredrica got into the car. “If you’re not going to let us go home, I would at least like to know the reason that we’re being detained.”

“You’re not being detained,” the man said. “But your presence has been requested at the military affairs headquarters.”

Reinhard nodded, and stared out the windows of the car silently during the ride. Heinessenopolis proper was about half an hour away from the airport, and the buildings grew taller and the traffic thicker as they approached. Although Reinhard had spent a lot of time in the city, and indeed had lived there with his sister for a summer, he mainly approached by train, so he was unfamiliar with the car route, and it surprised him when the military affairs headquarters finally came into view. Their driver pulled them around the back, presented identification at the checkpoint gate, then drove them down into the underground parking lot.

Again, they were surrounded by a whole cadre of soldiers and led up through the building’s elevators to one of the highest floors, taking back routes and avoiding the most public areas. Reinhard kept trying to look down the hallways, hoping to see Annerose (since she worked here), but there was no sign of her. Eventually, they arrived at their destination, the office of Chief of Staff Admiral Greenhill. One of their escorts knocked on the door.

“Come in,” Greenhill said from inside, and the door opened.

“Sir, your daughter and Cadet von Müsel,” one of the soldiers said. Reinhard bit his tongue. It really wouldn’t do anyone any good for him to remind everyone that Fredrica was also a cadet. She and Reinhard both saluted the admiral, and he saluted back.

“You may go,” he said to the escorts, who headed out, closing the door behind them.

As soon as they did, Admiral Greenhill’s professionalism was gone, and he crossed his office in long strides and wrapped his arms around his daughter. She buried her face in his shoulder and hugged him back, half laughing, half crying for a second as he ran his hand over her head as if to confirm that she was really there, and alive. Reinhard watched this with a feeling of detachment. Really, he was most annoyed that he was being denied his similar reunion with Annerose, who was probably in the building somewhere.

Greenhill pulled away from Fredrica after a moment, and then said, “Here, please, take a seat.” He gestured to the chairs in front of his desk.

Fredrica wiped her eyes on her sleeve as she sat down, and she smiled somewhat apologetically at Reinhard, who gave a small shrug while Greenhill was turned away, walking behind his desk. He sat down and looked across at the two of them.

“It’s rare that I find myself in a position of not knowing what to say.” He absently shuffled a few papers into a stack on his desk. He looked at Reinhard. “First of all, from the bottom of my heart as a father, and with my utmost sincerity as a soldier in the Alliance fleet, thank you.”

“For what exactly are you thanking me?” Reinhard asked cautiously. “You should know that… Cadet Greenhill… and I worked together. It is unfair to her to say that I protected her.” He squinted his eyes a little. “In fact, it would be more fair to say that the plan that I-- we-- came up with put her in grave danger.”

Fredrica looked at him, then looked down at her lap. “It’s not Reinhard’s fault,” she said. “Don’t blame him.”

“Blame him for what?” Greenhill seemed legitimately confused by the dynamic between the two cadets. “You’re not in trouble.”

“The impression that we’ve been given is that we are,” Reinhard said, rather flatly. “Since we have been denied news access, had our movement restricted, and I have not been allowed to contact my family. Not even my sister, Lieutenant von Müsel, who works in this building. Also, our sidearms were confiscated.”

“Did you really think you were going to be allowed to keep that?” Fredrica asked, her annoyance at him overcoming the weird tumult of emotions that had previously been in her voice and face.

It was clear from the expression on Admiral Greenhill’s face that Reinhard was already giving him a headache. He tried to tone it down. “I’m sorry, sir. If we’re not in trouble, could you please explain what our status is?”

Greenhill folded his hands. “That is the question of the hour, isn’t it?” He reached into his drawer and pulled out a folded newspaper, which he unfolded to reveal the first page. There was a picture that had clearly been taken from security footage stills from on board the Falke, showing Reinhard in his filthy stolen imperial uniform, with Fredrica right behind him, bursting onto the Falke’s bridge, guns drawn. Reinhard couldn’t help but notice how much of a mess he looked: his hair, which had been braided in two long tails, was coming wildly apart, and he was visibly unwashed, even in the photo. Still, he thought that the expression on his face was a good one. Vanity satisfied, he looked down at the article headline, “CADETS RESCUE BASE STAFF, COMMANDEER IMPERIAL DESTROYER” and the subtitle, “The daughter of Admiral Greenhill and the number one student at the FPA Command Academy, a former Imperial refugee, heroically rescued the entire staff of Condor Base, a starship construction facility near the Iserlohn corridor, after it was attacked and boarded by an Imperial fleet, page 1. How they did it, in their own words, page 2.” It continued from there. Reinhard lifted the corner of the paper to peek at page two, and saw his school photo from the previous year, and the text of the report he had written and passed along. He winced; it hadn’t been his finest hour of prose, and he would have written it far differently if he had known it was going to be published verbatim in a newspaper.

“The entire issue is devoted to this,” Greenhill said. “And I would say that this is representative of almost every news outlet on Heinessen, and probably everywhere else, as well.”

Fredrica was rather pale. “How did anyone find out about this.”

“I have my suspicions,” Greenhill said. “Regardless of the chain of command of the perpetrators, someone working in the information department here released everything to the media. It’s a leak larger than I’ve ever seen in my entire career working here.”

“What do you mean by everything?” Reinhard asked.

“All of the interviews with the imperial POWs, the entire log from the Falke’s critical event recorder, the reports from the base crew, your reports…” He took the newspaper back. “Everything that the media could possibly want to spin this into the biggest circus on this side of the galaxy.”

“I see.”

“It’s a very, very delicate situation we find ourselves in,” Greenhill said. “First of all, you aren’t technically members of the Fleet. You aren’t even a citizen.”

“Yes, sir,” Reinhard said.

“So it’s not actually possible or legal for me to order you to respond to the press in certain ways. You could make a fortune tomorrow if you wanted, going on television shows, and you could probably go into politics and win a small election by a landslide.”

“I have absolutely no desire to be either a useless spectacle or a politician, sir,” Reinhard said.

“You still plan to enlist in the Fleet when you graduate, then?” Greenhill asked.

“Sir, if you don’t mind me saying so, I felt that this was the most-- second most-- well, one of the most-- worthwhile things I have done in my life thus far. I don’t see myself as wanting to live life as a civilian. I didn’t before, and this hasn’t changed my mind.”

“And you, Fredrica?”

She glanced between her father and Reinhard. “I want to continue,” she said firmly. “You know I do.”

He nodded, an unreadable expression on his face. “I anticipated that you might.” Again, he reached into his desk and pulled out two small boxes, placing them in front of himself. “As I said, it’s a delicate situation. You’re still students, which… Perhaps the last year of schooling will not be the most valuable, but I think it would be a poor image to take it from you, especially as you are both at the top of the class. You do need to be officially recognized in some capacity though, so…”

He pushed the boxes towards them, and Reinhard took his and opened it. It was the pin of a lieutenant commander. Fredrica picked up the pin and turned it around and around in her hand, as though she couldn’t quite believe that it was real.

“You would normally receive a commission as a second lieutenant. Normally, double promotions are reserved for those who were killed in action, but there’s no rules against commissioning someone in at a higher rank. Luckily, since both of you will be receiving the same commission, we avoid some of the accusations of favoritism that might result from you being my daughter.”

“I’m very grateful, sir,” Reinhard said.

“You may keep those, but please do not wear them until you actually receive your commission.”

“Of course, sir.” He closed the box and slipped it into his pocket.

“And, although the promotion is almost guaranteed, I hope I do not have to warn you that your final year at the Academy could change things.”

Reinhard resisted the urge to make a face. “I am capable of being a well-ordered cadet, sir. And so is Cadet Greenhill.”

“Good. You deciding to remain in the Fleet does solve a few of the headaches that might have been caused if you were to leave it, but this is, all around, still not an ideal situation.”

“What do you mean by that, sir?” Reinhard asked.

“All of this was leaked to the media because someone thinks that they can use you. You, especially, Cadet von Müsel, lack the protection of having my name. I advise you to be very careful with those who wish to associate themselves with you. I don’t think it’s too early for me to say that you’re a rising star; don’t let people drag you down.”

“Yes, sir,” Reinhard said.

Greenhill looked them both over. “Aside from that,” he said. “Are you both all right?”

“I’m fine, sir,” Reinhard said.

“I’m okay,” Fredrica said. “You don’t have to worry.”

“I can’t help it,” he said. “I never expected, when Commodore Cazerne asked my permission to rearrange your summer--”

“I told you not to mess with it!” Fredrica huffed.

“Well, it was Cazerne,” Reinhard said.

“Regardless, I never expected that I would be putting you in danger. I know you say that you did not protect Fredrica, but I’m still very grateful that she had someone there she could rely upon.”

“I relied on her just as much, sir.”

“But I can’t help but be indebted to anyone who would help my daughter.” He turned to Fredrica. “Fredrica, please invite Cadet von Müsel to dinner this Sunday.”

“What? Dad!” He raised an eyebrow at her. Fredrica was clearly suffering under the awkwardness of the situation. She cringed a little, but said, “Reinhard, please come to dinner this Sunday.”

“I’d be happy to,” Reinhard said.

Greenhill stood, and so Reinhard and Fredrica both followed him up. He reached out a hand for Reinhard to shake. He had a grip that was just as crushing as Fredrica’s had been, that first time they shook hands. “Thank you again for your good work, Cadet von Müsel.”

Reinhard nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

“I won’t keep you. Your sister is waiting for you downstairs. I am sure that we will be seeing a lot more of each other, from now on, anyway.” He had a slight smile on his face, and he looked at Reinhard rather like one might look at a prize horse.

“I hope so, sir. It’s been a pleasure to meet you.”

“Indeed. Goodbye, Cadet.” He let Reinhard out of his office, where there were other soldiers waiting to escort him to Annerose.