The Family and the Fishing Net

October 486 I.C., Iserlohn Fortress

At first, Mittermeyer had thought that the posting he had been sent to on Iserlohn was an unexpected blessing, but as he grew used to it, he realized exactly why it had been chosen as a punishment. While Reuenthal was assigned to the relatively sedentary Iserlohn stationed fleet, Mittermeyer was constantly on patrol. His fleet was on a crushing schedule: three weeks of patrol, one week in port for repairs and resupply. This was not a usual patrol schedule. Most patrol fleets rotated on and off with less regularity, following a one month out, two weeks in schedule, and traded roles with one of the other stationed fleets every few patrols. The speed at which Mittermeyer was expected to complete his patrol route left his crews exhausted and on edge, and the little time they had to recuperate in port was taken up entirely by trying to get supplies loaded into his fleet as quickly as possible. He was often understaffed, always under-provisioned, and felt like there were no moments when he could catch his breath.

It was, indeed, a punishment, but one that he took on the chin as best he could. If the intent was to wear him down so much that encountering a rebel fleet lurking in the corridor was enough to get him killed, Mittermeyer was at least confident that he wouldn’t allow that to happen.

He was pulling back into Iserlohn in mid October, limping as much as a fleet of ships could limp, having encountered a larger than normal rebel patrol near the mouth of the Iserlohn corridor. The scuffle had been fiercer and longer than usual, the rebel fleet not wanting to turn back into their own territory, as if afraid that Mittermeyer would pursue them. He wouldn’t have, of course. There was no value in that. Still, the rebel fleet wouldn’t retreat until they had lost an unacceptably large number of their ships. Mittermeyer’s fleet had come out better, a state which he attributed more to the foolishness of the enemy commander than his own skill. But his fleet still needed repairs, and resupply, and he knew that as soon as he came back to Iserlohn, he would be given a date for going out again in just a few days, his damaged ships and half-filled munitions notwithstanding.

With his flagship docked safely inside Iserlohn’s glittering shell, Mittermeyer released all but the most essential of his staff for a much-needed twelve hour leave. Although they would need all the time that they could get to put the fleet back in shape to ship out again, there was no way he could ask anyone to continue functioning under these conditions without giving them at least a slight reprieve. He needed one, too.

His first order of business was to find Reuenthal, which was not a particularly difficult proposition. Reuenthal tended to only have a few haunts, chiefly a few of the nicer bars on Iserlohn itself, and his own flagship, the Ostberlin . It was even easier than usual, this time, because Reuenthal must have heard that Mittermeyer’s fleet was coming in, and had sent Mittermeyer a message, telling him which bar he would be waiting in. Mittermeyer tried not to look like he was rushing to get there, though he felt his own usual impatience gnawing at him as issue after issue delayed him leaving the Westberlin — people needing him to sign urgent requisition orders, some issue with routing the back half of the fleet to a different port space on Iserlohn, things that he usually handled with aplomb but which now grated on his nerves to the point where he had to restrain himself from snapping at the last adjutant who caught him just as he was heading down the Westberlin ’s ramp into the fortress.

But eventually, he made it through Iserlohn’s many long, winding corridors to the officers’ lounge where Reuenthal had set himself up for the evening. He was seated alone at a table, near one of the windows that looked out over the bustling concourse below, where off-duty soldiers entertained themselves. The street was crowded and loud, but this lounge was quiet, with soft music piped in just enough to dampen the sound of a few captains playing pool over in the corner. Reuenthal had a tablet in front of him, and was idly working on something even as he took sips from the beer in his hand. He didn’t notice Mittermeyer come in, so Mittermeyer had the pleasure of walking up behind him, then putting his hand on his shoulder to alert him to his presence.

Reuenthal tensed, then relaxed when he saw who it was. “So, you made it back safe and sound from patrol after all.”

“Sorry I’m late,” Mittermeyer said. “I was held up.”

“You’re not late at all,” Reuenthal said. “I’m perfectly capable of occupying myself.”

“What are you working on?” Mittermeyer asked as he slid into the seat across from Reuenthal.

“Seeckt wants to do more fleet-wide training exercises.”

“Not a terrible idea, all things considered.”

“No,” Reuenthal said. “Anyway, he asked me to put together a potential plan for some war games.”

“What are you planning on doing?”

“It depends on how much Stockhausen is willing to participate,” Reuenthal said. “It would be stupid to play a wargame of fortress defense without the fortress participating, but Stockhousen hates Seeckt, so I doubt it will happen.”

“I see. You have an alternate plan, I assume?”

“Of course. We’ll take half the fleet out at a time and do some basic movement exercises. The premise of the war game will be that we detect and stop an enemy fleet before they even come anywhere near the fortress.” Reuenthal shrugged. “As good of a game as any.”

“True,” Mittermeyer said. “How have you been?”

“The same as ever. You know that nothing much happens around here. I hear you got into a scrape, though.”

“Not too bad,” Mittermeyer said. He got a drink, then went over the encounter that he had had at the mouth of the Iserlohn corridor, filling Reuenthal in on some of the more interesting tactical details. “We’ll have to take a walk after this so I can show you the state of some of my fleet.”

“Oh?” Reuenthal said, his mouth quirking in a small smile. “Did the Westberlin get hit?”

“No,” Mittermeyer said. “But it’s going to be the devil to try to get some of this damage repaired before we head back out again at the end of the week. I’d like to get your thoughts on what I should call the highest priority, since you have an up close and personal view of what the repair work schedule looks like.”

“I’ll be happy to take a look,” Reuenthal said. They both knew that this was just an excuse to allow Reuenthal on board the Westberlin . Although sharing a posting, almost, with Reuenthal was one of the few things that made Mittermeyer’s punishment bearable, it was quite difficult to sneak around and see Reuenthal in private, much more difficult than it would have been if both of them were on Odin. Security on Iserlohn was fairly tight, and both of their flagships, which had their rooms, were fully staffed with people at all hours of the day. If they weren’t careful, their relationship would not escape notice, and both of their falls from grace would be swift and unpleasant. The extra effort that it took to maintain the secrecy was more annoying than the lie itself, at least at this moment. Still, he couldn’t complain. Having their postings be this close together was the best he could hope for.

“Hear anything interesting from Leigh, lately?” Mittermeyer asked.

Reuenthal gave a quick glance around the room, then dropped his voice low enough that no one was likely to overhear him. “Only that Braunschweig is having him rearrange all his resources.”

“To where?”

“Did you ever go to Geiersburg Fortress?”

“No,” Mittermeyer said.

“Braunschweig’s family heavily financed it, when it was initially built,” Reuenthal said. “He seems to be preparing to make it the base of his operations.”

Mittermeyer nodded. “Interesting.”

“I suspect that Muckenburger is going to stay as neutral as possible, and is going to keep Iserlohn out of the conflict. He can do that, seeing as it will be the only point to stage a defense from if the rebels come knocking.”

“You think they will?”

“If I was— what’s his name, their secretary of defense, Trunicht— I’d be watching like a hawk for the Kaiser to die,” Reuenthal said. “Even if there was a successor lined up, if Ludwig was alive, that transition period would still be the weakest that fleet leadership’s been in thirty years.” He shrugged.

“I don’t like the sound of any of this,” Mittermeyer said.

“No?”

“No offense to Leigh, but I don’t know if I like the idea of being stuck here at Iserlohn just watching Braunschweig and Littenheim go at it.”

Reuenthal tapped his chin. “Stuck is an interesting word for it.”

Mittermeyer raised an eyebrow. “Dangerous talk.”

“Let’s hope the Kaiser doesn’t die for a while yet,” he said after a second. “We might get reassigned before then.”

Mittermeyer sighed. “No— if the idea is that Iserlohn would be neutral, there’s vested interest in keeping us assigned here. Braunschweig’s extended family still hates me, his trade with Leigh notwithstanding. And I’m sure he thinks that you’re too volatile to be let out into the rest of the galaxy. Muckenburger won’t move us.”

“It’s not as though I have any love in my heart for Littenheim,” Reuenthal said. “But I suppose the situation would be different if Leigh wasn’t working for Braunschweig.”

“Maybe it’s for the best,” Mittermeyer said, shaking his head. “If the rebels do decide to attack Iserlohn, everyone here can look like heroes without getting our hands too dirty.”

Reuenthal chuckled. “I never expected Leigh to be the one to need to dirty his hands.”

Mittermeyer frowned. “I feel bad about getting him tied up in this. He’s done me more favors than I can count— I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to repay him at this point.”

“He did always take his duty as your mentor more seriously than he should have. Maybe it’s for his own good,” Reuenthal said with a smirk. “It was a waste for him to be at the IOA.”

“I don’t think he saw it that way.”

“I’m sure he understands the benefits to his current position,” Reuenthal said. “Even if he doesn’t like to think about them.”

“I keep wondering exactly what he said to Braunschweig. What was the deal he made?” Mittermeyer shook his head and finished his beer.

Reuenthal’s smile was tight. “I think Leigh is keeping a lot close to the chest for now. I’m sure he proposed some sort of plan to Braunschweig, promised him success, but I don’t think he would risk telling that plan to anyone else.” Reuenthal hesitated. “His plans for Geiersburg might even be misdirection. That’s the kind of thing that Leigh would do.”

“Misdirection how?”

“I don’t know,” Reuenthal said. “And I suppose it all depends on how much Braunschweig is willing to listen to him anyway.”

Mittermeyer laughed. “Oh, it’s true that nobles love nothing more than to hire the most qualified advisors and then refuse to listen to them.”

“Next time you see Leigh, you can probably at least get him to complain about that. And maybe that will give us some indication on how much money we should bet on Braunschweig.”

“If only for Leigh’s sake…” Mittermeyer shook his head.

“He’ll be fine.”

“How do you know?”

“I have more confidence in him than you do, apparently.”

“Maybe,” Mittermeyer said.

“He’s probably in more danger from Braunschweig than he is from Littenheim,” Reuenthal said.

“Isn’t— fuck— doesn’t fucking Ansbach work with Braunschweig?”

Reuenthal laughed. “Yes.”

“Gods above.”

“I think at the very least Braunschweig has vested interest in his staff not murdering each other.”

“I hope so.”

Reuenthal finished his drink. “You wanted to show me how bad your fleet looks?”

“Oh,” Mittermeyer said. “Right.” And he smiled at Reuenthal.

They left the lounge together, and then made a bit of a show of walking through the landing area together, Mittermeyer pointing out some of the worst damage to his front line ships. At the end of the tour, they stood in front of the Westberlin , at the bottom of the ramp, several of the junior officers and enlisted men milling around or performing minor repairs to the huge front sensor array on the battleship.

“If you’ve got a moment, I can give you my opinions on what you should prioritize.”

They both knew this was pretense. “Of course. Though I shouldn’t be making you do any extra work.”

“Hardly, Mittermeyer,” Reuenthal said. “Since you’re the one who’s been running back and forth through the corridor while I get to sit tight here.”

Mittermeyer chuckled, then gestured up the ramp. Reuenthal followed him into his flagship. Luckily, since Mittermeyer had allowed everyone to have leave, the corridors were mostly empty, and they passed directly by his office without going in, and made their way instead to his suite.

Finally, in there, they could relax, at least for a moment.

Mittermeyer’s suite was relatively small— space being at a premium on battleships— but it had a separate bedroom and living room area, with a couch and a dining table and writing desk off to the side.

“You really are the only thing that makes this posting bearable,” Mittermeyer said, turning to his cabinet to get glasses of whiskey for the both of them.

“I’m sure you’d be just fine without me,” Reuenthal said. He took the offered glass and raised it. “To your week back in port.”

“Hah,” Mittermeyer said. “Prosit.”

He watched Reuenthal drink, his eyes closed in something approaching pleasure as he tipped his glass back. Mittermeyer’s gaze lingered appreciatively on his slender fingers and jaw.

It was difficult, when out on duty, to put thoughts of Reuenthal away. His patrols were so rapid that it felt like as soon as he had finished pushing the disappointment of leaving Reuenthal out of his mind, on the return half of the trip he slipped unintentionally into the delicious anticipation of seeing him again.

Niggling at the back of his mind was the guilt that it was much easier to keep Eva out of his thoughts, since he had no idea when he would see her next.

Seeing Reuenthal regularly did something indescribable and potent to his mind, made him feel like a student again, with all thoughts of home distant and unpleasantly vague, and Reuenthal right there, so physical in front of him.

He sipped his own drink. Reuenthal opened his eyes as he brought his glass back down, now mostly empty, and saw Mittermeyer watching him. The smile that settled on his face was languid, and he took a half step closer to Mittermeyer.

“Do you have leave scheduled any time soon?” Mittermeyer asked.

“I haven’t requested it,” Reuenthal said. “I don’t know if any of my requests would be approved, anyway.”

“Ah,” Mittermeyer said.

“Why do you ask?”

“Was just wondering. Mostly just figuring if I’ll come back from patrol one week and find you’ve been sent back to Odin for a mandatory vacation.” This wasn’t quite true. The thought had flashed briefly across Mittermeyer’s brain about how pleasant it would be if they could take their leaves at the same time, go somewhere where they wouldn’t have to steal each other’s company an hour at a time, but then he realized that this was impossible. Even if their leaves coincided, Mittermeyer had duties on Odin concerning Eva.

“No, I doubt it,” Reuenthal said. “You’re more likely to find that I’ve been assigned patrol duty.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course.” And Reuenthal stepped closer still. Hastily, Mittermeyer finished his drink and put the glass down on the table so that he could, at last, put his hands on Reuenthal’s waist. Reuenthal chuckled at that, reached behind Mittermeyer to put his own glass down, and then leaned forward to kiss him.

He had missed this so much. It was difficult to think about anything, except for the feeling of Reuenthal’s lips on his, and the way even the air, when he hitched a breath in, suddenly tasted like his mouth.

Reuenthal’s hand tangled in Mittermeyer’s hair, almost pulling on it, and Mittermeyer nipped at Reuenthal’s lips in exchange, causing him to make a soft, needy noise, his other hand digging into Mittermeyer’s uniform.

Mittermeyer pulled him back towards the bedroom, and Reuenthal easily followed. They didn’t bother turning on the light, but light spilled in from the living room, plenty to see by, and Mittermeyer gave one glance at his bedside table, confirming that he had remembered to put away in the bottom drawer the photograph of Eva that usually had a place of honor there. It was as much for his sake as it was for Reuenthal’s.

Afterwards, they lay in the dim bedroom, Reuenthal’s head against Mittermeyer’s shoulder, both of them knowing that they had to get up, and neither of them wanting to.

“There’s something I should tell you,” Reuenthal said. His voice was light, in a way that never boded well, but he was too relaxed for whatever it was to be truly bad news.

“Now?” Mittermeyer asked.

Reuenthal chuckled a little. “Now that I have you in a compromised position.”

“What is it?”

“You’re not going out on patrol again at the end of the week.”

“What? That’s what the schedule I was given has me doing.”

“I’m aware,” Reuenthal said. “But I have been told—”

“Who told you?”

“You’ve met Leigh’s friend, Oberstein.”

“Yes,” Mittermeyer said, frowning.

Reuenthal must have heard the distrust in Mittermeyer’s voice. “He has access to some of the schedules. He says that you’re going on leave at the end of the week, and your fleet is trading out with Commodore Forster, at least for the next few patrols.”

“And when was anyone going to tell me this?”

“I’m telling you now,” Reuenthal said. “But command was probably going to tell you, oh, right as you had gotten all your ships ready to imminently depart.”

“In order to make a fool of me.”

“Probably,” Reuenthal said. “All part of the punishment, I’m sure.”

“And how long will my leave last?”

“Probably the most inconvenient length of time possible,” Reuenthal said. “And I’m sure you won’t be told it’s over until you need to rush back out to Iserlohn.”

Mittermeyer sighed. “Thanks for the warning.”

“You’re welcome.”

“How come Oberstein told you this?”

“If at all possible, he has even less love for the command around here than you do.”

“Great,” Mittermeyer said, relaxing back onto his pillow. “Eva will be pleased, at least.”

“I’m sure,” Reuenthal said, voice now tight. This had been why he had waited to tell the news— because as soon as this future fell into place, Mittermeyer’s thoughts slid towards Eva, and guilt, and home.

“Thank you for telling me,” Mittermeyer said.

“You’re welcome,” Reuenthal said, though his jaw was tense.

October 486 I.C., Odin

Late October in the capital on Odin vacillated between brisk and dreary on a basis that felt almost hourly. It was such a system shock to Mittermeyer, who had spent the last few months in the sterile and weatherless confines of ships, that when he stepped out into the drizzling rain outside the spaceport, with Eva on his arm, he just stood for a moment and tilted his face to the sky, letting the water trail down his nose and slip underneath the collar of his uniform.

“Darling,” Eva said, shaking her head and trying to get him to huddle under her umbrella, “you’re going to catch a cold.”

“Just hold on a second,” Mittermeyer said. The water was icy and invigorating. He shook his head like a dog, then smiled ruefully and shared Eva’s umbrella for the walk to their car.

“Of all the things you’d miss being in space,” she said, “I didn’t know it would be the rainy weather.”

“I miss plenty.” He nudged her shoulder, and she laughed. “But you go months without seeing rain— you know, it’s like the first snow of the year. Don’t you want to go out in it?”

She laughed. “Only if I can have hot chocolate afterwards.”

“Another luxury I don’t think I’ve had in space.”

“I’ll make some for you when we get home.”

“Oh— you are too good for me, Eva,” Mittermeyer said. They had reached the car, and his small amount of luggage fit neatly in the tunk. As Eva closed the trunk with a bang, Mittermeyer caught her arm.

“You want to drive?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “I want to kiss you.”

She laughed, then stood on her tiptoes, one arm still awkwardly maneuvering the umbrella to keep them as dry as possible, though it was a foregone conclusion for Mittermeyer to be soaking. Mittermeyer grabbed her waist and kissed her there in the rain, in front of all the people going into and out of the spaceport, thinking mostly about how good it felt to kiss her, and only a little about everything else.

“I’m so glad you’re back, Wolf,” she said finally, half-mumbling it into his mouth, breathless.

“Let’s go home,” he said, stroking her hair and smiling at her.

In the car, with the radio down very low as Eva pulled out of the parking lot, she said, “I took next Friday off work,” she said. “We should probably go see your parents.”

“That’s a long drive.”

“I know,” she said. “But it’s the equinox, so we should probably make an effort.”

“Is it, really?”

“Forgotten when all the holidays are, you’ve been in space so long,” she said with a laugh.

“I’m surprised they gave me leave this soon, honestly,” Mittermeyer said. “They usually make you wait at least six months at a posting before you’re allowed to request it.”

“Hmm,” she said. “Maybe it’s a reward, for doing such a good job.”

Mittermeyer laughed. “The only reward for good work is more work, sometimes.” He hadn’t told her that he was being punished. Although in his letters and calls home he had described his posting accurately— he wasn’t going to lie to his wife, especially when it concerned how long it would be before she could expect to see another letter from him— he had done so with a cheerfulness that had thoroughly disguised how unusual his schedule was, and how miserable.

“Well, I certainly am counting it as a blessing that you’re here. Have you scheduled your trip back out yet?”

“No,” Mittermeyer said. “I don’t know exactly when I’ll be recalled. It depends on how long the repairs take, I think.”

“Your friend, Captain Leigh, asked to tag along when we go visit your parents, by the way.”

“What?” Mittermeyer asked. “Why in the world would he do that? I was under the impression that he didn’t actually like mom that much.”

“He says he needs to do some historical research close by— I think he just wants to get out of paying for a hotel.”

Mittermeyer chuckled. “Well, sure, he’s welcome to come. I’ll let him know, if he can take the Friday off as well. Do you see him often?”

“Every couple weeks or so,” she said. “Mostly when Maggie invites me somewhere. Not that often.” Her tone was odd, in a way that made Mittermeyer glance over at her.

“Everything alright with Baroness Westpfale?” he asked.

“Oh! Yes, she’s great,” Eva said. “I just— for a moment I was worried that you thought I was spending too much time with Captain Leigh.”

“You and Leigh?” The mental image flitted briefly across Mittermeyer’s brain, and it was so comical that he almost laughed aloud. “I’ve never worried about you like that, you know.”

She glanced away from the road for a second and flashed him a grateful smile. He looked away, out the window. He could reassure her, but that almost made things worse, the instant that he remembered that he was a guilty party. He would have absolutely no right to complain, if—

And he tried to put the thought out of his mind. He had no right to complain about anything that Eva did while he was gone. He had no right to complain about anything that Yang and Reuenthal did. He had no right to worry about the Baroness Westpfale aggressively flirting with his wife whenever they were in a room together. The lie sat heavily in his stomach as they pulled into the parking area of their apartment building, but he didn’t let it show on his face as he gathered up his suitcase and practically bounded up the flight of steps to their second story home.

The apartment was large, as apartments went, and charmingly decorated, with great care given to selecting the art on the walls and the rugs on the wooden floors. It was, Mittermeyer knew, not as luxe as the homes of most rear admirals in the Imperial fleet, but that was because the vast majority of rear admirals were nobles with family homes and wealth. It was home, though, at least marginally more so than his cabin on the Westberlin . And it was good to be back.

“Take off that uniform,” Eva said. “You’re so soggy. Did you want hot chocolate?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mittermeyer replied. Eva vanished into the kitchen, and he went into the dark bedroom, pulling his uniform off over his head as he went.

All of his things were right where he had left them, but his clothes smelled unfamiliar as he pulled an old tee shirt out of his dresser drawer. All his uniforms on the Westberlin smelled like the ship: acrid gunmetal, recycled air, the industrial detergent that everyone used. He hardly noticed it, and if he did, it was because he was with Reuenthal, smelling it underneath his cologne, his head on Reuenthal’s shoulder, his nose in Reuenthal’s hair.

But Evangeline always tucked sachets of dry pine needles in the drawers, and burned sandalwood candles, and used fabric softener that smelled like lavender, and this lingered in the soft fabric beneath his fingers.

When he walked back out into the living room, he found that Evangeline had already prepared two hot mugs, and had sat down on the couch. She held one out to him, and he took it, smiling, but didn’t sit down.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he said truthfully as he looked at her. “It’s so strange being back.”

“Wolf…” she said, and stretched her hand out to him. “Come here.”

“One second.” He just wanted to look at her, the way she seemed to exist so naturally on the couch: a pleasant space without him in it. This was her world, and it felt like he would have to do something deliberate, to cross out of the world of ships and Reuenthal and punishments and secrets and into her cozy space. She wanted him there. She was inviting him in, smiling at him so gently.

He put down the hot chocolate on the coffee table, having not actually drank any of it, then walked towards her. She smiled at him still as he hesitated above her, and then he sank down to the floor, sitting at her feet. She laughed at him, and he rested his arms on her knees, looking up at her.

“What are you doing?” she asked, but touched his face with two fingers, tracing his cheekbone and then tucking some of his hair behind his ear.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Wouldn’t it be more comfortable for you to sit up here?”

He just kept smiling— an expression that he knew was on the verge of dopey— and she twirled her fingers through his hair. “Maybe being in space so long has made me ridiculous,” he said.

“What’s ridiculous about you?” she asked.

“How much I love you.”

Her expression, already tender, melted into adoring. “Maybe being alone here has made me ridiculous, too.”

“I don’t think there’s anything ridiculous about you,” he said.

“But there is.”

“What?” he asked, enjoying playing out the game.

“How much I love you!”

“You’re right,” he said. “That is ridiculous.”

She laughed. “Gods, I really have missed you.”

“I’m here,” he said. “I’m here.”

She stroked his cheek. “I’m glad.”

He leaned into the touch, and her thumb brushed over his lips, a sensation that made goosebumps rise on his bare arms. He pulled his right arm off her lap, and when he slipped his hand under her long skirt and brushed her calf with just the tips of his fingers, she shivered.

“Wolf…” she said, breath catching as he slid his hand up her leg, stopping at her thigh, just feeling the heat of it— the soft and living way she twitched under his touch. He looked up at her, met her eyes, wide and beautiful and blue.

Since Mittermeyer’s parents didn’t have any objection to Yang tagging along for their holiday visit home, they picked him up outside his apartment on that blustery Friday. Yang had bags under his eyes, and he yawned even as he smiled at the Mittermeyers.

“You look terrible, Leigh,” Mittermeyer said, but grabbed Yang’s arm in a warm half-embrace.

“You look all right, though,” Yang said. “I see Iserlohn hasn’t been treating you too badly.”

Mittermeyer laughed. “Yeah, I’ve been surviving. Glad to be home, though.”

“I can imagine. Got your luggage?”

“Just this,” Yang said, hefting a day bag. “Thanks for letting me tag along.”

“No problem,” Mittermeyer replied. “It’s pretty shameful that you don’t own a car, though.”

Yang made a funny face and said, “I’ve forgotten everything they tried to teach me at the IOA about vehicles.”

Mittermeyer popped the trunk and let Yang put his things away, and they both got back into the car. Eva was driving, and Yang greeted her as he stretched out on the back seat. “Morning, Eva,” he said.

“Hi, Hank,” she said.

“I hope your parents don’t mind me coming,” Yang said, actually sounding a little chagrined.

“No, they like you,” Mittermeyer said.

“If you say so.”

“So, what is this historical research you have to do?” Mittermeyer asked. “Is it for your next book?”

“I don’t know if I should write another book,” Yang said. With a weird tone, he said, “Kaiser Friedrich told me to publish the one I have, but I haven’t really— I don’t know what to do with it. I mostly just wrote it for me.”

“Have you tried sending it out to be published? Got an agent or anything?”

“No,” Yang said. “I don’t know the first thing about publishing. If it had been a military history book, I could have published it through the fleet, but it’s not…” He shrugged.

“Have you read it, darling?” Eva asked.

“Oh, yeah, ages ago,” Mittermeyer said. “It was good.”

“Send me your manuscript,” Eva said. “I’ll see if any of the editors at my work want to take a look at it. I’m friends with a few of them.”

“I really couldn’t impose—”

“Don’t be stupid, Leigh,” Mittermeyer said. “Don’t let the thing sit in your drawer forever.”

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll send it to you.”

Eva smiled triumphantly.

“You didn’t actually answer the question of what your research is about, though,” Mittermeyer pointed out. He watched in the rearview mirror as Yang rubbed his hair in that familiar nervous tic.

“I just want to go see a graveyard,” he said. “It’s a little silly, honestly.”

Mittermeyer laughed. “Okay.” But he decided to free Yang from his discomfort at the topic. “How has working for Braunschweig been?”

“Different. I got used to the way things were at the IOA, so it’s strange being his staff officer.”

“I hear he’s been consolidating his forces.”

“Mittermeyer—”

“Yeah?”

“I can’t talk about it.” And Yang’s voice was both flat and uncomfortable. He looked out the window with a somewhat grim expression. “I’m sorry.”

“Would you talk about it with Reuenthal?”

“No,” Yang said. “I really— I’m sorry. It’s…”

“I get it,” Mittermeyer said.

“I might be able to, later.” It was a peace branch offering, but Mittermeyer didn’t need it.

“It’s fine, Leigh. I’m not your commanding officer.”

Yang tried to break the tension. “Yeah, you outrank me by a mile, sir.”

Mittermeyer cringed. “Please, I’m on leave. And if you start saying things like that, I’ll be forced to take up Reuenthal’s position of egging you into getting promoted.”

“I’ve got enough to worry about without becoming a flag officer.”

“It’s not so bad,” Mittermeyer said. “It got me out of engineering, at least.”

“If you say so.” There was a moment of silence.

“But you didn’t tell me how it actually has been to work for Braunschweig. He treat you alright?”

“Yeah, it’s been very professional,” Yang said. “I don’t think anybody in that camp really likes me, except maybe Elizabeth, but…” He shrugged. “Nobody’s tried to kill me, and I think I’ve made myself useful enough that they’ll keep me around.”

“Well, ingratiating yourself with the future Kaiserin is a good thing,” Eva said. “What’s she like?”

“Smart,” Yang said. “Takes after her mother more than her father. Likes to ride horses. She has a bit of a temper, but she’s usually pretty reasonable about what she gets mad at.”

“And why do you think she might like you?”

“I try not to treat her like her father’s puppet,” Yang said, with an air of finality. He changed the subject. “How has Reuenthal been?”

“Oh, fine,” Mittermeyer replied. “Mostly bored, I think. He’d rather be out on patrol than stuck at Iserlohn arranging drills for his fleet.”

“Makes sense. How is patrol?”

Mittermeyer glanced at Eva, who was following the conversation but not interjecting, and realized that he wasn’t going to be able to describe things to Yang without Eva learning about his punishment. “Fine, I suppose,” Mittermeyer said.

“What route were you running?”

“We had a three weeks out, one week in schedule,” Mittermeyer said.

“Oh, so only out to like—” Yang consulted his mental map of the corridor— “Van Fleet?”

“No,” Mittermeyer said. “We were going all the way to rebel territory.”

“In three weeks? They really are punishing you.”

“Punishing?” Eva asked.

“It was fine,” Mittermeyer said. “Don’t worry about it, Eva.”

“Hank doesn’t seem to think it was fine,” Eva said. “That isn’t normal? Hank— what is normal?”

“Oh, er…” He had inadvertently stepped into a minefield. “When I was with Admiral Merkatz we had five weeks to go that far,” Yang said. “But most patrols don’t go out to the end of the route. They’re usually on a four-two schedule.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Eva asked.

“I did tell you my schedule!” Mittermeyer protested.

“And you told me it was fine.”

“It is fine. My men are very good. We were making great time.”

“But it’s a punishment.” Eva’s voice was flat. “You should have told me—”

“A punishment is getting put in jail,” Mittermeyer said. “This is just what happens when your superiors don’t like you.”

Eva frowned. “I would like to know if you’re being mistreated, or if I need to worry about your superiors having it out for you.”

“You don’t need to worry about it,” Mittermeyer said.

“I want to.”

“You want to worry?” He crossed his arms.

“Yes, I do,” Eva said.

“There’s nothing that you could do about it, so I just don’t want to make you—”

“If I was being mistreated at work, wouldn’t you want to know? Even if there was nothing you could do about it but worry?” she asked, cutting to the core of the problem with her hands tight on the wheel. “I love you, Wolf, and I don’t want to be lied to to spare my feelings.”

“It really was fine, Eva,” Mittermeyer said quietly. “The point is to take it on the chin and not complain.”

Eva shook her head, then let out a rush of breath. “I don’t understand you, sometimes.” She reached over and punched the radio, flooding the car with music and ending the conversation.

It was true that Mittermeyer’s parents were fine with having Yang around. Yang wasn’t a perfect houseguest by any means, but his mother liked that Eva liked him, and so it was acceptable to bring him around. Reuenthal would have been a different story, Mittermeyer thought, but the one time that Reuenthal had come to visit was not something that he was ever looking to repeat.

Dinner was a pleasant and cheerful affair, but Yang kept yawning, and the dark circles under his eyes made him look almost pitiful, so Mittermeyer’s mother had tucked him up in the guest bedroom immediately after dinner. Evangeline had gotten a phone call from a friend in town and so had gone off to visit with her for a little while, and his father had a pressing work issue that needed to be dealt with, so this had left Mittermeyer alone with his mother, sitting at the kitchen table with no avenue for escape.

She had brewed them a pot of coffee, and the steaming mug sat between Mittermeyer’s hands as his mother bustled through the room with a bit of a relentless nervousness, picking up objects and moving them, even though they had been quite fine where they were.

“I swear, your friend fell asleep as soon as he sat down in the guest bed,” she said. “Didn’t even take his clothes off.”

“That’s Leigh for you,” Mittermeyer said.

“Remind me again why he wanted to visit?”

“He writes history books as a hobby— he needs to get photographs of a graveyard a little ways from here, apparently.”

“Hunh,” she said. “When will he go do that?”

“I’ll take him tomorrow morning, if that’s no trouble.”

“No, of course not.” She wiped down one of the counters, although it was already perfectly clean. “How have you been, Wolf? Honestly.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Work is difficult, but not anything I can’t handle.”

“You lonely out there in space?”

He laughed, though it probably wasn’t the right tone. “Mom, I’m so busy I don’t have time to think about myself. Trust me.”

She made a noise of assent. “I imagine it’s difficult to be away from home for so long at a time.”

“It’s the way things are in the fleet. I would say that Eva could move to Iserlohn, but she would say no to that.”

“Have you asked her?”

“We had this argument with Barbarasturm already, mom. We don’t need to go through it again.”

“You don’t think she would have a different answer, after what happened then?”

Mittermeyer frowned, but his mother wasn’t looking at him, instead lifting up the burners on the stove and fiercely scrubbing underneath them. “I felt guilty for even asking before. She has a career that she likes, and a life in the capital. I’m not going to take that away from her just so I can see her one week of the month when I’m not out on patrol. Life on Iserlohn isn’t…” He shook his head.

“Do the other officers bring their wives?”

“Some of them.” He paused, then added, “More of them bring their mistresses.”

“Wolf.”

“What?” he asked, splaying out his hands. “It’s true.”

His mother sighed. “Is Eva alright with you being away so much of the time?”

“She knew what she was getting when she married a career officer,” Mittermeyer said. “And Iserlohn is far better of a posting than Barbarasturm, or Kapche-Lanka was. It won’t be forever.”

“Nothing is,” his mother said. “She wouldn’t say it, so I will: I hope you retire from the fleet.”

“No,” Mittermeyer said. This was just rehashing an old argument.

“You’re not going to go much farther in it than you already have, and I think that now is the time in your life to focus on what’s important— your family.”

“Eva supports my career.”

“But I’m right that you won’t get much farther.”

“That’s not necessarily true,” Mittermeyer said. “I’m a rear admiral and I’m not even thirty— that kind of fast promotion shows real promise.”

“But you’re not a noble, and you made trouble. I don’t think…” His mother was right, but Mittermeyer was never going to admit it.

“The next time the rebels try to come through Iserlohn, you’ll see,” he said. “I think that I’ll be able to clear my good name.”

“Wolf,” she said, then shook her head. “That’s the kind of talk that gets people killed.”

“I’m careful, mom,” he said.

“If you get out of the fleet now, it would be very easy for you to get a career elsewhere— you could do well in engineering.”

“Mom, no.”

She put the stove burner covers back down with clangs, one by one. “Every day I worry that I’m going to get a call telling me you’ve been killed, you know.”

Mittermeyer stood up, walked over to his mother, and put his hand gently on her shoulder. “I’ll be fine, mom,” he said. “I promise.”

She wiped her hands on the dishtowel and then smiled at him. “I pray that’s true. Even a post on Odin would be better…”

“Unfortunately, that’s not the kind of thing you get to pick,” Mittermeyer said with a laugh.

“Eva would appreciate it if you tried.”

“I’m sure,” Mittermeyer said. “Probably after the kaiser dies, everybody’s posting will get reshuffled. I can hope I get a lucky posting from that.”

His mother nodded. “Before you went to Barbarasturm, Eva called me and told me she thought she might be pregnant— were you trying?”

“Well,” Mittermeyer said, flushing. “We weren’t not trying.”

His mother smiled. “I would like a grandbaby, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “Eva wants a baby— I don’t know if it would be fair to her to leave her alone for so long…”

“Now you see my side of things.” His mother’s voice was a tad too triumphant for Mittermeyer’s liking.

“If Eva really does get pregnant, then I’ll think about retiring,” Mittermeyer said. Though he thought it might be better to get Eva to move to Iserlohn, in that case.

“Good,” his mother said. “Good.”

“I’m not making any promises.”

“If I might ask— what made Eva think she was pregnant before?”

“She missed her period, and took a pregnancy test that came back positive,” Mittermeyer said. “But it must have been defective, because…” He shrugged. “Nothing ever came of it, anyway.”

“I see,” his mother said. “I hope we hear some good news soon.”

“Yeah,” Mittermeyer said. “We’ll see.”

By the time that Mittermeyer was able to beg the excuse of taking Yang to see the graveyard, he was very ready to escape his family. Yang could tell he was growing antsy, and helped by asking loudly when would be a good time for the both of them to go visit. It was mid afternoon by the time they were able to leave.

The graveyard that Yang wanted to see was about a half hour drive away, closer to the center of the district, in a richer area than Mittermeyer lived. He hadn’t been here very often, so he relied on the car’s navigation for directions. They finally pulled in to the parking lot of the graveyard, and Mittermeyer parked the car, then turned to Yang. “Want me to come with you?”

“The alternative is sitting in the car,” Yang pointed out. “Up to you.”

Mittermeyer nodded and hopped out. It was an unseasonably warm day, and sunny, but all the trees in the graveyard were bare regardless, so it was a strange sight. The headstones stretched up a hill, and then disappeared out of sight on the other side.

“What names are you looking for?” Mittermeyer asked as they walked. “We could split up and cover more ground.”

“It’s alright,” Yang said, and didn’t answer the question. He kept glancing down the rows, mainly heading towards the fenced in areas where individual families kept their plots. “Thanks for bringing me here.”

“Not a problem at all,” Mittermeyer said. “I recall that last time you visited my family, I had to beg you to be a buffer.”

Yang chuckled. “Did I ever tell you— I overheard your parents talking about that at your wedding.”

“What, really?”

“Yeah,” Yang said. He kicked up some leaves as they walked. “They were worried that I was going to cause problems for you.”

“They can’t leave well enough alone, can they?”

“I think they’re alright,” Yang said. “They care about you a lot.”

“I know.” Mittermeyer looked away. “What did they think you were going to do?”

“Oh, I think they thought that you and I had something going on.”

Mittermeyer looked at Yang, who smiled a little. “Seriously?”

“Just chalk it up to them being paranoid,” Yang said. “I don’t think you were actually doing anything that looked suspicious.”

“I don’t know what gives them those ideas…”

Yang just rubbed his head. “I don’t know.”

“Did you know— Eva told me she was worried that I thought you had something with her.”

Yang stopped, alarmed. “I would never—”

“I’m aware, Yang.” It was the luxury of being totally alone in this graveyard that allowed Mittermeyer to address him by his real name. Yang smiled.

They continued on through the graveyard in silence, with just the wind rustling through the bare branches overhead, and their feet crunching on the few dry leaves on the stone path through the graves.

Yang leaned over the fence on one of the family plots and said, “Oh, here it is.” Ungainly, he clambered up over the fence so he could hop down into the enclosed area, where grass grew far taller than the surrounding zone. Mittermeyer followed him over, then bent down to look at the nearest stone. It read Hermann von Leigh, and then dates.

“This is what you came here for?” Mittermeyer asked, laughing.

Yang had a strange expression on his face as he stepped between the stones, reading their names studiously.

“Here’s the grandfather I was named for,” Yang said, pointing to one of the newer stones. Mittermeyer walked over to take a look at it.

“What?” Mittermeyer asked. He read the name aloud. “Heinrich von Leigh.”

“Hank is a derivative of Heinrich,” Yang said. His tone, while joking, belied some kind of strange feeling.

“Did you pick your name to have real relatives?” Mittermeyer asked.

“No,” Yang said. “A friend of mine— Boris Konev— he made it up as a joke. It just sounds almost like ‘Yang Wen-li’ when you say it fast.” He shook his head. “That was a million years ago, now.”

“What did you want to come here for?” Mittermeyer asked. “Just curiosity?”

Yang sank down to his knees, and brushed some of the leaves and detritus away from the bottom of Heinrich’s stone. “I guess. I don’t know.” He fiddled around with something in his pocket. Mittermeyer was silent and waited for him to say something more, which he did. “I wanted to see my dad’s grave, on Phezzan,” Yang said. “But I can’t go back to Phezzan, and it’s just a stone, anyway— he’s not even buried there. So, I don’t know…” He trailed off. “This is as good a place as any. I’ve stolen their names, I guess I can come and talk to their graves.”

“What did you want to talk to them about?”

Yang pulled out the thing in his pocket that he had been fiddling with. It was a small wooden box, and he tossed it to Mittermeyer, who caught it deftly and then opened it, revealing a beautiful little engagement ring. The central red stone glittered in the waning autumn sunlight.

“Should I propose to Maggie?” Yang asked.

Mittermeyer hesitated. “I can’t believe you’re asking my advice.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t ask yours.”

“I think the situation is a little different,” Yang pointed out. He wasn’t looking at Mittermeyer, and was instead just running his finger over the letters carved in the marble headstone, tracing the ‘von Leigh’ over and over.

“Do you want to marry her?”

“I think it would solve some problems.”

“That doesn’t really answer the question,” Mittermeyer said. He could understand Yang’s cageyness. “Forget about Reuenthal for a second— if everything with me and Eva had never happened, would you be marrying her?”

“I probably would have already,” Yang said. “I mean…” His fingers skipped along the gravestone. “Maggie’s great.”

“You love her?”

“Well, yeah,” Yang said. “It’s not the same— you get that, right?”

“Yeah,” Mittermeyer said. “I do.”

“She’s the closest friend I have on Odin, and I’ve done things for her that— well.”

“I don’t think doing things for people is enough to get you to marry them,” Mittermeyer pointed out. “You’ve done too much for me.”

“Maybe,” Yang said. “But, I don’t know, it’s different with her.” He seemed at a loss for words. “It’s like any room she’s in is brighter. More exciting. Maybe that’s a bad thing, and she’ll give me a heart attack someday.” He laughed. “But she likes me around, and I like to be around her.”

Mittermeyer waited to see if Yang would say anything more. When he didn’t, Mittermeyer asked, “And what about Reuenthal?”

“I don’t think anything will fundamentally change. I mean, Maggie doesn’t care. Making things official will change more how other people see us than how I see Maggie.” He shrugged. “I told Count Mariendorf— we look better together than we do apart— even though both of us are, you know.” He trailed off.

“Yeah,” Mittermeyer said. “I guess you should, then.”

“Okay,” Yang said. He fell silent.

“What would your dad have said?”

Yang shook his head. “I have no idea.” The melancholy in his voice was almost painful for Mittermeyer to listen to. He crouched down next to Yang, and handed him back the box with the engagement ring. Yang turned it over in his hands. “I have no idea what he’d think of me now.”

“You don’t think he’d be proud of you?”

Yang rubbed the back of his head. “I don’t even think he’d recognize me.”

“I bet he’d be proud of you,” Mittermeyer tried to say.

Yang shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter.” But his voice indicated that it clearly did. He shook his head. “I think— in his way, he wanted me to be happy. He’d probably tell me to marry her for the money, though.”

Mittermeyer laughed aloud, and Yang glanced at him, then smiled.

“Yeah, I guess that is pretty funny. It’s probably what he’d say, though. He really… He knew the value of the dinar.”

“Gods, Yang,” Mittermeyer said. “You’d better listen to your old man, then.”

Yang rubbed his head. “Yeah, maybe.” He stood, then slipped the ring back into his pocket. “Thanks for taking me out here,” he said.

“No problem,” Mittermeyer said. “Any time.”

He was seized by the need to throw his arm around Yang, like he had when they were students, and he did, catching Yang unaware enough that he stumbled under the half-blow, but he relaxed when Mittermeyer patted his shoulder. They contemplated the von Leigh family plot for a minute more.

“Think you’d be buried here?” Mittermeyer asked. It was a joke, if a morbid one.

“No,” Yang said. “I think an empty grave in the fleet cemetery is the best I can hope for, at this point in my career.”

“Don’t get killed under Braunschweig,” Mittermeyer said. “I can tell you that wouldn’t be worth it.”

“I’ll try,” Yang said. “Besides, they wouldn’t want a stranger in here buried with them.”

“I guess.” He thought for a second about offering to pay for a grave on Phezzan, with Yang’s real name on it, if the worst came to worst, but he decided against it. There was no point in being that morbid. He simply resolved to do so, because it seemed like the kind of thing that Yang would want. Mittermeyer could do that much.

They were silent for a second more, then Yang turned. “I’ve been spending too much time in graveyards, recently.”

“That’s your own fault for doing so much historical research.”

“I suppose it is,” Yang said. He clambered back over the fence, and Mittermeyer followed. They walked slowly towards the cemetery entrance.

“It’s a pretty ring, by the way,” Mittermeyer said. “How much did you spend on it?”

“Nothing,” Yang said. “Count Mariendorf gave it to me.”

“Hunh,” Mittermeyer said. “That’s nice of him.”

“Yeah.” Yang shook his head. “It really was.”