Fait Accompli

August 487 I.C., Cahokia-III

Yang didn’t have time to look back at Annerose von Müsel on the ground as Kircheis dragged him away. Kircheis wasn’t any gentler than the Rosenritter had been, and Yang struggled to keep on his feet. At least his haste was due to an abundance of care, rather than a lack of it.

When they had gotten far enough away that they couldn’t see any of the Rosenritters through the red-sand haze of the air, Kircheis slowed enough to pull Yang down into a hiding place. They took shelter momentarily behind the wreckage of an Imperial tank, one that had been hit by enough of a concussive blast to rip its top off and slide it sideways down a sand dune. Yang and Kircheis crouched in a tiny pocket its descent had formed in the terrain.

Kircheis scooted behind Yang and said, “Hold still, sir, I’ll get you out of the ties.”

Yang waited obediently, and felt Kircheis manhandle his arms for a minute, managing to cut through the tie with a piece of sharp debris from the tank they were sheltered beneath. He shook the tension out of his arms.

“Thank you, Kircheis,” Yang said. “I appreciate it.”

Kircheis flipped the visor of his helmet up so that Yang could see his expression, the death’s-head giving way to Kircheis’s pale and worried but very much alive visage. Yang did the same, though this revealed to Kircheis still-wet blood streaked down his face, and made Kircheis look at him with wide-eyed conceren. During their landing, such as it was, he had hit his head on the floor hard enough to bloody his nose. He wasn’t sure if it was broken, but its ache was among the least of his concerns.

“Are you alright, sir?” Kircheis asked. Now that they had stopped running, he seemed to be in more pain than Yang was. He was hugging his left arm to his chest, and he spoke with an unusual short wheeze of breath.

“Fine, Kircheis,” Yang said. “Are you?”

“I’ll live, sir.”

“That’s good.” Yang peeked out from their hiding place into the swirling red air. A tank blast landed somewhere nearby, enough to shake the ground and crumble some of the sand from the edges of their little shelter. “Living is— good.” He finished his sentence rather lamely. There wasn’t much more that could be said.

“What should we do?”

On his elbows, Yang looked out into the fray. Indistinct figures ran by, heading in different directions and then vanishing into the dust. Tank fire boomed in the distance, amid yelling and gunblasts. It was pure chaos. Even if Yang had a radio from which to issue commands, he wasn’t sure if there remained an organized force to follow them. Here in this inner zone, it looked like it was every man for himself, after Ansbach’s soldiers began abandoning their tanks.

“Ansbach,” Yang said. “We need to find him.”

“How, sir?” Kircheis asked. He crawled next to Yang to look out from their hiding spot and winced as he moved. Yang suspected he had broken something, and he wished he had a way to help him.

He closed his eyes for a moment, thinking back through the haze of years to his time at school, the days when he had faced Ansbach in the simulation games. Ansbach had never been the type to run, like Yang had. This disaster of a scenario was not one that suited his play style. It didn’t suit anyone, of course, but especially Ansbach. He had preferred very tight, deliberate movements. The way to defeat him was to knock him off balance, even if by just chipping away at one flank of his fleet, and by not giving him an opportunity to stop and reorganize, he would be unable to stop his carefully arranged attack plan from spiraling out of control. Of course, it had been years since Yang had played him last, and in that time, he was sure to have changed.

It was the tanks in the center of the fray whose crews had abandoned their vehicles first, Yang saw. Ansbach must be trying to form a defensive line with the outer vehicles, trying to keep the bulk of the Rosenritter’s forces from being able to crush them inwards before they had taken up a defensible position at the ship. Ansbach, who hated to retreat, would be with them giving orders from his tank radio until he couldn’t anymore.

“He’ll be at the front,” Yang said. “Or close to it. Holding the line.”

“Yes, sir.” Kircheis’s voice wasn’t very confident, but he retained faith in Yang, more than Yang really deserved. “If you stay here—”

Yang shook his head. There was no reason for them to split up. Yang had no desire to die hiding in this precarious foxhole, and he couldn’t justify sending Kircheis to Ansbach alone. The situation was too desperate for him to even make a light comment about it. He just laid his hand on Kircheis’s good shoulder. Kircheis nodded. Without a word, they scrambled out of the hole in the dune, orienting themselves towards the front of the battle by the way the abandoned tanks were facing.

They stumbled over bodies on the ground, Imperial soldiers. Kircheis didn’t hesitate before picking up two rifles from the corpses, handing one to Yang.

“I can’t hit the side of a barn,” Yang said, but took it and slung it over his shoulder anyway.

Rosenritter on foot approached through the haze. Kircheis dragged Yang behind an abandoned tank and heaved himself up on the treads so that he had an overlooking perch, He aimed and fired, downing the pair of Rosenritter without hesitation. Yang leaned his head on the tank and closed his eyes.

“Come on, sir,” Kircheis said.

They stumbled forwards. Some of the tanks they encountered now were still filled with crews, though this made things more dangerous, because the fire was fiercer in this area. They had to duck and weave and avoid the Rosenritter soldiers, and Yang was pathetically out of breath, barely able to keep his balance on the sand. Only the lighter gravity of the planet was keeping him from keeling over.

The tanks that were still able to move in front of them had bunched up. In a coordinated movement, the hatches of the rear row of tanks popped open, and the crews began to scramble out and run backwards. Ansbach must have just issued an order for this section to retreat. Leaving the abandoned tanks in a tight line like this would make it harder for the Alliance soldiers to push their own vehicles through, buying the people taking the ship time.

Yang flagged down one of the retreating soldiers, yelling after him, “Hey! Where’s Ansbach?”

The soldier pointed further down the line, then kept running. Yang and Kircheis headed in that direction.

Ansbach’s command tank, unremarkable save for the white Braunschweig family crest painted on its side, appeared through the gloom. The ground was being rocked by more and more tank blasts, and it seemed like every few steps, Yang and Kircheis had to shelter behind an abandoned vehicle or fall to the ground to avoid whizzing overhead fire. At least there were fewer soldiers on foot that they needed to avoid here. No one else was stupid enough to run through this strip of land, unless they were abandoning their tanks to run to the ship.

Further ahead, the line ceased to be much of a line: the Alliance vehicles were mired amidst the Imperial tanks. The area where Ansbach’s command post was stopped was the furthest extent of purely Imperial vehicles in a cohesive unit. After that, things frayed out. Tanks that were still able to move were trying to gain some semblance of a formation, but it was hopeless. Yang could see that from even his limited view on the ground.

He scrambled up the backside of Ansbach’s tank, clinging onto the ladder for dear life, and then banged on the porthole on the top until a soldier opened it. Yang, with his visor up, was instantly recognizable, and the soldier let him down into the cramped and dark interior. Kircheis swiftly followed. The tank was not pressurized, so they could enter quickly. Everyone was wearing their suits and helmets inside.

Ansbach was in the rear, his visor flipped up, speaking into a radio and looking at a flickering green display, one that only showed the positions of the tanks that remained functional. It was dire. He looked up at Yang, and an inscrutable expression crossed his face.

“How the hell did you get here?” he asked. It was a question that carried the implication that Yang had been presumed dead in its delivery, but Yang ignored that.

“Do you think I’d forget where you usually placed your command token?” Yang asked.

Ansbach scowled. “Sit down and don’t bother me,” he said, turning back to his map. Yang leaned on the wall of the tank, which was rocked by a nearby blast. He listened as Ansbach tried to issue some orders to the tanks in front of them. Ansbach’s voice stayed even, but his whole demeanor was one that acknowledged that this venture was futile.

Before he could say anything else into the radio, Yang said, “You need to retreat and get to the ship. This isn’t a defensible position.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Ansbach snapped, seemingly before he could stop himself. For a man who was usually so controlled, it startled both of them. “What did you come here for? Both of us being here—”

Yang closed his eyes, tilting his head back against the wall of the tank. “You won’t leave unless there’s someone here to take your place on the line, and you need to go. You’ll be able to arrange a defense of the ship, and you’ll survive.” Yang’s smile was grim. “You know I can’t return to Odin without you alive, Cartier.”

Ansbach, at Yang’s use of his first name, tensed. “You want to be a martyr so badly. Someday, someone’s going to let you.”

Yang said nothing in response to that, though Kircheis looked between him and Ansbach, clearly sensing that something deeper was passing between them, and not comprehending it. Ansbach hit the broadcast button on the radio, and said, “This is Captain Ansbach. I am transferring command of the forward line to Captain Leigh.” He cut the transmission quickly and stood.

“You’ll have to go on foot,” Yang said. “There’s no way for a vehicle to get through.”

Ansbach ignored him, and instead retrieved his rifle and axe, checking the energy pack of the first and attaching the second to the holds on his back. Yang sat down at his former position and took stock of what remained of the line while Ansbach prepared to leave. Ansbach had been having the crews abandon their tanks in onion-like layers, but Yang was already thinking of more effective strategies, to save as many of the outer tank crews as possible. As he began issuing orders of his own, Ansbach stood below the tank’s entrance hatch.

“Get to the ship as quickly as possible,” he said.

Yang just nodded.

Ansbach pushed open the tank’s hatch and climbed out, followed swiftly by his own assistant, and he vanished into the swirling red sand, the hatch clanging shut as he slid off the tank’s side.

Kircheis fit himself in among the tank’s crew, looking out the front view to survey the ground in front of them, watching the inexorable crumbling of their line. For Yang, the world shrank to containing just the map and the radio as he calmly issued orders. He asked for the tanks that remained in line to push forward and provide covering fire for the crews that had been stranded outside the main formation, to allow them to abandon their vehicles and escape. He did his best to rescue as many of those forward tank crews as he could, though it wasn’t ever going to feel like enough. All of this happened very quickly, and the Alliance vehicles were closing in.

Kircheis made his way to the back of the tank. “Sir,” he said, “We will need to move, or we’re going to be—”

At that moment, the radio crackled to life. “This is Captain Ansbach. I’ve established control of the Hercules , all remaining units proceed to the ship…”

Yang tuned out the rest of his instructions, nodding at Kircheis. He gave a regretful look at the map, looking at the tanks who were still stranded out beyond help, and issued his last few commands, ending with echoing Ansbach’s order to get to the ship if possible. He didn’t wish them luck out loud, but he thought it.

He followed the tank crew out, one of the soldiers laying across the top to provide some paltry covering fire as they departed.

The haze in the air was less now, some of the sand beginning to clear. While this made their journey more treacherous, now that the Rosenritter could see and shoot at the fleeing Imperial soldiers from further away, it made the huge bulk of the ship easier to find, and the ground easier to traverse. Getting to the front of the line had felt like crossing impossible miles of distance, but now that they could move in a straight path, the journey was shorter.

Although the Rosenritter continued shelling the ground that Yang was running across, the majority didn’t pursue on foot, and their vehicles couldn’t get through the line of abandoned tanks. This meant that most of those who were able to get away from the very front of the line were likely to make it to the ship, including Yang and Kircheis.

Yang had not gotten a good look at the ship on their way out of it the first time, and so as they ran towards it, buried half in the sand, his eyes couldn’t help but follow the gouge it had left in the earth as it crashed, and the equivalent scar on its belly. Still, its engines had an ember-glow far overhead, showing that it still had power, and its whole structure hadn’t caved in. And it still towered above the soldiers, tiny in comparison, who ran to take shelter in the mouth of the beached whale.

As Yang and Kircheis scrambled hand over hand up the sand dune that formed up at the base of the ship, the sand crumbling beneath them as they went, soldiers at the top were yelling at them to hurry. Yang hastened as much as he could, though he kept sliding backwards down the sand, feeling like he was moving at a crawl.

There was a great groaning of metal from the ship, and the sand started quaking, little rivulets of grains making resonant patterns under the force of an overwhelming and bone-deep vibration. It shook Yang to his core, and he could barely stand upright.

Ahead, Kircheis yelled, “Captain Leigh!” and stumbled back down the dune, grabbing Yang’s arm to haul him up the sand. The tremors grew worse and worse, and the ember-glow of the ship’s engine became more like a second sun in Yang’s peripheral vision.

Even as Kircheis dragged him up the slope towards the open maw of the loading bay, Yang craned his neck to look down at the soldiers still running as fast as they could across the killing field, towards the ship that was straining to leave them behind.

The ship was shaking sand off its sides, and it struggled to rise, giving Kircheis just enough time to pull Yang onto the diamond-textured metal of the slumped open loading ramp, the soldiers manning the door keeping it extended as long as possible, to give the chance for as many of the men to make it onboard as they could. Ten, fifteen more people made it in the scramble. Anyone who fell, who slid back down the hill, was left behind. The Hercules gave one final groan and wobbled into the air, the ship’s gravity engine winning its battle against the planet. Grains of sand, caught in the distortion field of the ship’s engine, rose and swirled with it, a shimmering waterfall as the ship lifted from the ground.

Yang watched from the top of the ramp, wind brushing through the loading bay and almost knocking him off his feet. Kircheis clung onto him to keep him upright and safe inside the ship. Soldiers still on the ground outside fell to their knees, looking up at their last hope departing.

The relief Yang felt for having made it onto the ship was hollow, watching the figures below grow smaller and smaller as they rose into the air. The mechanism that closed the bay doors finally kicked into action, the gears fighting against sand trapped in their teeth and against the wind that rocked the ship.

“Sir, we should go to the bridge,” Kircheis said.

Yang nodded, and they went.

The interior of the ship was relatively undamaged, save for the few places where stray blaster fire had singed the walls, and a few doors that the Rosenritter had cut open on their way through the ship. The hallways were crowded with people, though. Six ships had come in, and now all of their remaining passengers were crammed onto one. The losses had been steep, of course, but there were still so many survivors sitting slumped against the hallway walls, exhausted and defeated, looking hardly any different than the corpses, except for the way that they pulled their feet in to let Yang and Kircheis pass.

The bridge was a hive of activity, Ansbach standing in the center of it, watching a console that showed the ship’s status, half the systems lit up red. Ansbach saw Yang come in out of the corner of his eye, and he looked up at him.

“You made it,” Ansbach said. His voice was dull and flat, and he turned away from Yang as soon as he walked over. “The duke wouldn’t like to see me return without you, either.”

“Why did you take off?” Yang asked, studying the console. The ship was barely fit to fly. In fact, with the gouge on the ship’s bottom, they couldn’t move laterally very well, and were directly ascending. Instead of finding a safer place to land, Ansbach was bringing them up into space.

Yang held his helmet loosely, and turned it over and over as he looked at the status display. Dried blood was still smeared across his face, cracked and itchy now. He was feeling the day hit him, and he couldn’t help but connect to the display of the ship’s systems, the unsteadiness and pain in his legs matching the flashing warning that their lower control surfaces had been damaged.

Ansbach’s hands tightened into fists, and Yang watched his thumb fiddle with his heavy jeweled ring. “Did you think I’ve forgotten what you would do?” he asked. His voice was bitter. “That is your strategy, right? Retreat, instead of defending a fixed position?”

Yang looked away, but had to answer. “Yes.”

“We’ll wait in orbit until someone can come relieve us,” Ansbach said after a second, his tone businesslike again. “The structure’s too damaged for us to use the corridor properly.”

Yang nodded and said nothing.

Ansbach tapped the console. “The radio logs show we picked up a broad-spectrum ansible distress signal sent out by the mine, after the crash. The rebel fleet will be in the corridor soon enough. I sent a request to Iserlohn command for aid as well.”

Yang nodded again.

“Do you not have anything to say about that?”

“What is there to say? If Iserlohn command picked up the rebel fleet distress call, they would have sent out a fleet to meet them. They were probably already on their way before you sent your request.” Yang looked down at the computer console. “If we have enough oxygen and food to wait for a few days, there’s nothing we can or should do, aside from hiding within the system, if we can.”

“We’re taxing the engines to just get to orbit. I wouldn’t risk it.”

“Fine. And the oxygen?”

“We probably have leaks,” Ansbach said. “Given the landing. I’ve sealed off the lower decks, and we’ll monitor the situation. Once we see where the leaks are, we can send crews to patch them. We probably have enough to survive a week, maybe a little longer.”

A brief silence fell between them. Yang rubbed the back of his head. “I’ll… go find places for everyone to stay. Triage and…” He trailed off. There wasn’t anything else they had to discuss, though Yang was sure they would later.

“Go,” Ansbach said.

It took many hours to get the ship into some semblance of order. The worst part was compiling a list of who the survivors were, and differentiating between ‘dead’ and ‘missing’ as much as possible. But that was required for an accurate headcount, and that was required to figure out how to feed and sleep this many people, on a ship designed to hold a quarter of their number. At least the bays which had once held tanks were empty, and so makeshift sleeping areas could be laid out for all the soldiers.

The medical suite on the ship was overwhelmed. Though most of the people who had made it back on board were able to walk under their own power, there were plenty of injuries, some severe.

Rations, they at least had more than enough of, though passing them out to everyone proved to be another task that took more effort than anticipated.

Yang, who was never good at this kind of organization to begin with, was thankful beyond words for Kircheis’s steady presence. Even though he was surely more exhausted and injured than Yang was, he was calm and collected, and did not utter a single word of complaint, though Yang would not have held it against him if he had.

It seemed to Yang that Kircheis did not want to leave his side, even after all of the most urgent problems had been solved, and the ship was settling down into its first groaning, painful night. The vessel had been judged structurally sound enough to not disintegrate as it sat in orbit, but that didn’t mean that the odd moans that its frames made as they shifted against each other, the popping and pinging of metal settling into new configurations, was any less disconcerting when mixed with the sighs of the tired and injured.

Yang eventually ordered Kircheis to stop following him around. “Kircheis,” Yang said. “I’m relieving you of duty. Go to bed.”

“Sir,” Kircheis said. It wasn’t a refusal, but it wasn’t his usual quiet acquiescence, either. “You should, too.”

Yang rubbed the back of his head. “At least take a shower,” Yang said. “Even if you won’t sleep, I think everything’s taken care of enough that it will hold for now. And if it doesn’t, there’s nothing you or I can do about it.”

“Yes, sir,” Kircheis said.

Yang watched him head off down the hallway, and then he decided to take his own advice. The ship’s plumbing on the lower decks had been shut off to fix leaks caused by the crash, but the upper decks still had running water. It therefore was the privilege of officers to take showers.

He finally peeled himself out of his dirty armor and stood under the hot water. The blood from his nose had worked its way all down his chest, caking itself onto his skin. It sloughed off pink and spiraled down the drain.

Yang leaned his head on the wall of the shower stall. His nose was tender to touch, and the dark circles blooming under his eyes were more bruises than exhaustion. All he could do was stand in the water and breathe until he calmed himself.

Everything had gone so wrong, and he felt responsible for it, as the architect for this plan in the first place. It might have been simply bad luck that had caused the plan to collapse before it even started, but that didn’t make him feel any better about the dead, or those left behind on Cahokia, sure to be prisoners of the Rosenritter by now. He tried to keep his thoughts on the present: he had survived, the Rosenritter were planning to leave this planet as soon as their distress call was answered, Braunschweig would still likely get to keep Cahokia… He had even so far succeeded in preventing a massacre of the civilian workers in the Alliance mine, for whatever little that meant, since he had succeeded in that goal by losing spectacularly. If no one arrived to evacuate the Rosenritter,that would be a different story, but— he scrubbed at his hands and tried not to feel glad that dealing with them would be someone else's duty.

The heaviest thought was that he couldn’t help but wonder if this was a portent of things to come.

All his planning had come to nothing. And this had been six ships of soldiers against one regiment, on a tiny, inhospitable, remote planet. What did that mean for his ability to orchestrate a war for the control of the entire Empire?

He kept his eyes closed and tipped his face into the beating stream of water. It bounced on his painful nose. He had always known that there were no guaranteed successes. He had to keep that in mind. Hindsight was perfect, of course. He could have asked Braunschweig to send a larger force, though that would have presented its own dangers; he probably should have had their ships return to space rather than providing a ground base; and even if he hadn’t done that, there must have been some way to stop the assault on the ships. But it was useless to think about all of that now.

He felt nebulously bad about Kircheis, as well. He hadn’t anticipated how painful it would be to see his student take on the responsibilities of a soldier, especially for his sake. Yang pressed his palm into his eye, trying to free himself from the memory of Kircheis shooting the Rosenritters. The image hovered in the forefront of his mind, swirling red dust when he closed his eyes.

Today had certainly been the first time that Kircheis had killed anyone, and Yang thought of Kircheis’s reluctance to leave him and go to sleep. He remembered back to years ago, when he had briefly been given his first command under Merkatz— Merkatz had seen how rattled he was and had made sure he would be alright.

If anything, Yang’s guilt for forcing Kircheis into the situation should have motivated him to take responsibility immediately, rather than pushing him away. Even if this was one more thing that Yang felt bad about, it was at least something he could still rectify. He shouldn’t let it fester.

He finished showering, dressed in a clean uniform, and retrieved the bottle of brandy he had stashed away from his footlocker. It had been securely wrapped in among his clothes, so it was undamaged despite the hard landing. He carried it and two mugs down to Kircheis’s room and he knocked on the door.

Kircheis pulled the door open. He, too, was damp from the shower, but he hadn’t dressed completely yet. He was wearing pants, but no shirt. Looking at him, Yang could imagine that was because it would be painful for him to raise his arms over his head: his left side from hip to shoulder was a mass of darkening bruises. He was surprised to see Yang, and seemed torn between saluting and reaching for his discarded shirt on his bed.

“May I come in?” Yang asked, holding up the bottle.

Kircheis nodded, and shuffled sideways so that Yang could enter, shutting the door behind him. There wasn’t anywhere in the tiny room to sit, except for side by side on the little bed. Yang unfolded the fold-down desk, deposited the mugs on it, and silently poured drinks for the both of them. He handed one to Kircheis, who drank it before Yang could even say a word.

“I came to apologize,” Yang said, twisting his own mug in his hands.

“For what, sir?”

“I leaned on you today harder than I had any right to.”

Kircheis offered him a smile, though it was tired and thin. “Don’t worry about it, sir.”

Yang was silent for a moment, tipping his brandy back and forth in his cup. “How are you feeling, Kircheis?”

“Fine, sir,” Kircheis said. This, although delivered in Kircheis’s usual pleasant, even tone, was the baldest lie Yang had ever heard him tell. He was stiff as a board, sitting next to Yang on the bed. If Yang nudged him, he might whole-body topple over, from how tightly he was tensed.

“You should have the ship’s doctor look at that,” Yang said, nodding at Kircheis’s bruises.

“I’ve had worse, sir.” He stared ahead of himself, at the photographs that Yang now noticed taped to the wall. “There’s nothing you can do for bruised ribs, and the doctor has more urgent cases.”

Yang nodded silently. After a second, which stretched long and awkward, Kircheis understanding that Yang had more to say, he said, “Kircheis— ah— Siegfried—”

Kircheis looked over at him, eyes widening in something approaching alarm.

“I’m not very good at this, am I?” Yang rubbed the back of his head. In a rush, before Kircheis could say something to reassure him, Yang said, “I want to tell you that you did well, because you did more than I had any right to expect of you. I expected it of you— asked it of you— because I know how capable you are, but I hate that I did. I— I don’t want to thank you for killing for me.” He closed his eyes for a moment, seeing the red sand, bodies crumpling to their knees. “It’s a hard thing to ask of a subordinate, and a worse thing to ask of a friend.”

“I know,” Kircheis said. He looked at Yang, and the look communicated all that Kircheis was kind enough to leave unspoken between them: he followed Yang because Yang was the kind of man who did not want to ask him to kill. Yang tried not to shy away from his gaze, though it was almost painful. Kircheis relented after a moment and turned away. He looked at the photos on the wall again, at the picture of Martin Bufholtz, and said, “It’s terrible to be a soldier, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Yang agreed. Now that he had said what he needed to, and Kircheis understood, Yang relaxed, if only a little. Enough to drink his brandy, anyway. He looked at the photographs, too. “Fraulein Hilde will be glad that we’re coming home early.”

Kircheis nodded and sipped his drink.

The third photograph on the wall was a familiar one: the young Kircheis and the two Müsel siblings. “That woman sure is something,” Yang said, pointing at the picture.

“I didn't know that she was, before now. I wish I had known,” Kircheis said. He seemed unable to put into words what he really felt about Annerose. Yang couldn’t blame him.

“The universe is a small place. I’m sure you’ll see her again sometime.”

“I hope not,” Kircheis said. “I don’t like being her enemy.”

“Of course.”

“What did she say to you, before I arrived?”

“Oh, nothing much,” Yang said. “She asked me about our mission, and I asked her about some of her regiment’s recent adventures. The last I heard of them, Muller told me they had secretly escorted an important refugee off Phezzan. She wasn’t very keen on answering my questions, though.” He shrugged. “We didn’t have much time to chat. I would have liked to have spoken with her under better circumstances.”

“Yeah,” Kircheis said, a little choked.

“I would have done things very differently if I had known the Rosenritter would be there.”

“There was no way for you to have known.”

Yang smiled ruefully. “No, there wasn’t. That’s the problem with life. You’re always operating off of incomplete information.” He looked at the photograph again. “Even if I couldn’t do anything differently, I would have warned you that she’s in that regiment.”

Kircheis shifted, his tone accusatory. “You knew she was a Rosenritter, sir?”

“Muller, on Phezzan, mentioned it,” Yang said. “It hadn’t come up as relevant before now.”

He was surprised at how annoyed Kircheis was. “I would have appreciated knowing.”

Yang gave him a sidelong look. “In this circumstance? Yes. But I thought we agreed that—” He shook his head.

“It’s better for me to not be involved and invested? Right.” Kircheis said, voice unusually dark, and finished his cup of brandy.

Yang was silent for a moment. “If you want to see my correspondence with Muller, I will show it to you. I trust you.”

Kircheis looked down into his empty cup. “May I say something, sir?”

“You don’t have to ask permission.”

“It’s not just about you trusting me, sir,” Kircheis said. “It’s also that—I know you have secrets, and I know that you have to keep your plans to yourself, in order for them to work—I have to trust you to tell me what I need to know, and make all the pieces work together. And I do trust you.” He looked away from Yang. “If that’s what you need from me, I can be the tool that fits the pieces together, and I don’t even have to know what the pieces are. That’s—I understand how it works, to be someone’s subordinate. But I don’t understand you, Captain Leigh. There’s a difference between a subordinate and a friend, and for all that you say, I don’t know which I can be for you. It’s not easy to be both.”

Softly, Yang said, “You think I don’t keep secrets from my friends, Kircheis?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t, sir.” He wasn’t looking at Yang; he was looking at the photograph of Martin on the wall.

Yang was quiet for a moment. What surprised him was not that Kircheis was frustrated with him now, but that Kircheis had been so willing to trust him without the power of any of the secrets that bound him to others. What was there to him outside of that? Yang couldn’t see it. Some squirming thought in the back of his mind wondered if Magdalena would even be content to marry him if he hadn’t been the holder of her secrets.

It seemed to Yang that he was not a person, he was a cutout in the universe into which knowledge fell. Only the outline of him was visible, like a black hole revealed by starlight warping around his gravitational lens. Even those who knew him only knew him in part, and the shadows in his depths must have seemed to them all the darker for the light on the parts of him that they could see.

“What do you want to know, Kircheis?” Yang asked finally, looking down at his knees.

Kircheis was startled. “Sir, I don’t—” He cut himself off and fell silent.

“It’s alright,” Yang said. “Ask.”

It took a moment for him to compose his question. “Why did you become a soldier, sir?”

The affection Yang felt for Kircheis in that moment was so strong, he developed a lump in his throat. “It’s a silly story,” Yang said.

“That’s alright, sir.”

“Well, you know I was born on Heinessen,” Yang began, refilling both their glasses.

“I didn’t, sir.”

Yang smiled. “My father was a merchant ship captain, operating between Heinessen and Phezzan. He and my mother divorced when I was very young. He never could keep a wife— she was his second— he always seemed happy enough without one, anyway. I lived with my mother on Heinessen until I was five, and then she died, and after that I lived with my father on his ship, except when we stopped on Phezzan.”

He described his father’s love of art, the life on the ship that was always having some mechanical difficulty or another, and his childhood friends. He told Kircheis about how the engine of his father’s ship had exploded, making it not even valuable as scrap, and how he would have been responsible for the ship’s debt as someone who benefitted from the loan, as was the law on Phezzan.

“But a little while before that, my friend Boris Konev, he had talked me into taking the IOA entrance exam as a joke. It was to help him get out of summer school, but I think he might have just been curious about the test, and wanted a friend to take it with him. Anyway, we took the exam together. I was accepted.” He shrugged. “So, when my father died, and I needed to escape the creditors, I had a new life that I could slip into. I’ve been here since.” He hadn’t mentioned his real name, and Kircheis didn’t ask.

“Oh,” Kircheis said. Of all the stories in the world, he probably hadn’t expected that one.

“I’ve always been good at beating a tactical retreat,” Yang said. He ran his hand through his hair. “I had to work hard to justify it to myself, because…” He looked off into space. “I am a soldier, and that’s a tool designed for killing, and put into the service of the crown.” He let out a breath. “It’s days like this when I think maybe the universe would be better off with me in some Phezzani workhouse—”

“No, sir,” Kircheis said. “What about El Facil?”

Yang’s smile was halfway to a grimace. “Well, I try to do what I can. No one’s ever going to tell me if the harm I do outweighs the good. But I try to be a tool with blunted edges, pointed in the right direction.”

“When all of this is over…” Kircheis began.

“Cahokia?”

“No, when Kaiser Friedrich’s successor takes the throne.”

“Mmm.”

“What are you going to do?” Kircheis asked.

Yang leaned back on his hands. “There are easier questions you could have asked me, Kircheis,” Yang said. He glanced at him. “Questions with definite answers. I’m afraid you’ll think less of me when I tell you that I don’t know.”

“No, sir, I don’t.”

They sat in silence for a second. Yang considered filling up his cup with more brandy, but decided against it. Instead, he said, “You really should get some sleep, Kircheis,” and heaved himself to his feet.

This time, Kircheis was more amenable to the suggestion. “Yes, sir,” he said.

Although he was exhausted, Yang’s sleep was fitful, and he ended up getting back out of bed just a few hours after he had gotten into it. Without anything better to do with himself, he headed to the bridge. The ship was quieter now, a ghost town of sorts, with many of the lights dimmed for third shift, and all the soldiers tucked away in their makeshift quarters.

The bridge wasn’t empty, of course. There were the usual members of the crew manning all of the consoles, but also Ansbach, sitting in the central chair. He was leaning heavily on the armrest, and Yang could tell he hadn’t slept at all. The coffee in his hand did nothing to disguise his exhaustion, though it was a natural feature on his already sallow face. He followed Yang with his eyes as he entered the bridge. Yang ignored him momentarily, and walked around to the rest of the staff, getting the ship’s status and saying a few words of encouragement or greeting to them. He ended up in the center of the room and sat on the nearest console, facing Ansbach.

“You can’t stay awake forever,” he said. “I’m not sure why you’re still here.”

Ansbach just glared at him.

“But if you’re going to be awake, we should talk,” Yang said.

“What is there to talk about?” Ansbach asked.

Yang gave him a look. Ansbach reached down and activated the privacy barrier that surrounded the center chair, allowing them to speak in private. Yang felt the tingle of modulated air pass over his skin.

Yang wrapped his arms around his knees as he sat on the console. “What are you going to say to Duke Braunschweig about this?”

“You’re making a lot of assumptions, thinking that we’ll even make it back to Odin.”

“I think we’re out of the worst danger at this point,” Yang said. “Unless the ship is less stable than you thought it was when we took off.”

Ansbach took a sip of his coffee, making a face. “I was referring to the rebel fleet on its way. If the fleet from Iserlohn command doesn’t meet them in time, we will be dead, sitting here.”

Yang shrugged. “There’s nothing we can do about that, so we might as well plan to arrive back at Odin.”

“So you want to focus on the things you believe you can control?” He scoffed.

“I’d like— ah, nevermind.” He hugged his knees more tightly. “I can’t stop you from doing anything. I just thought it would be easier for both of us to present a unified front.”

“And you think I’m interested in that?”

“I hoped so, since I’m not dead. It wouldn’t have been difficult for you to blame all of this on me if I was.”

“Your redheaded sub-lieutenant wouldn’t have let me lay a hand on you.” Ansbach was vitriolic, but there was no real force behind his implied threat. “I’m surprised that he didn’t accuse me of splitting up because I thought that you would want your chance to kill me.”

Yang looked at him. “Is that the reason you had me stay at the ships?”

Ansbach gave a rough half laugh but didn’t answer the question.

“I didn’t ever tell him you tried to kill me,” Yang said. “If that matters any. I didn’t want to poison the well.”

“How kind of you.”

Yang shrugged. “Regardless, here we are. What are we going to do when we get back to Odin?”

“You know Muckenburger and the Kaiser better than I do,” Ansbach said. “Will they let Braunschweig have the planet even if we’re crawling back home with our tails between our legs?”

“If Braunschweig is willing to present it as a fait accompli,” Yang said. “If he puts more ships in the system, more people on the planet, right away, then…” He trailed off. “He did have the Kaiser’s blessing before, in a way. They can’t really evict him.” Yang scratched his head. “Braunschweig is the one who will determine how much he’s willing to invest in this scheme. And you know him better than I do.”

“A fait accompli,” Ansbach repeated. “Would be easier to present it like that to him if we kept a force here.”

“Heh, I don’t think we have anywhere close to the resources to seize the base down there at this point, let alone build our own.”

Ansbach looked over Yang’s shoulder, towards the large display at the front of the room. The red ball of Cahokia loomed large, sunrise just cresting along one edge. “No, we don’t.”

“So.”

“I don’t know why you’re asking me what to do,” Ansbach said. “It’s not like I have any power here. He sent me to make sure you didn’t fuck this up. It’s my responsibility, as much as it is anybody’s. My head’s on the line.”

“I’ll take responsibility,” Yang said.

“Oh, fuck you, Leigh.” They were silent for a second. Ansbach finished his coffee and grimaced into his cup. “If Braunschweig can keep the planet, he won’t care about six ships,” he said. “It won’t matter to him at all. If they leave” —he nodded at the surface of the planet— “we can say we succeeded at forcing out the rebel fleet, and that he should feel free to set up his base on the planet.”

“He’ll buy that?”

“Do you have something better to say?”

“No.”

“Then this is what we’ll work with.”

It was, admittedly, a plan that meshed with Yang’s typical way of thinking. Putting a spin on things was easy enough.

“It almost makes it easier that we lost,” Ansbach said. “Fleet command will understand that our little building outpost project was never meant to stand up to a regiment that we hadn’t known was there.”

“Yeah,” Yang said. “I guess.”

“Have you ever lost before, Leigh?”

“Not enough to kill me,” he said. “I try not to hope for more than that.”

“I don’t understand what game you’re playing here,” Ansbach said.

“It seems to me like we’re well past the point of games, if it ever was a game with you and me.”

“Why would you volunteer to take the blame?”

Yang shrugged. “Braunschweig gets rid of me— that’s about the worst that could happen. It might be better for me if he did. And if we agreed on what we were going to do beforehand, it would let me know what to expect, at least.”

“I’m supposed to believe you would be content to go back to whatever hole you crawled out of? Without having profited off His Lordship’s trust in any way?”

“I didn’t want to be here,” he said. “You know that as well as I do. If I had been trying to orchestrate my way into Duke Braunschweig’s good graces, rather than having to sell myself into his service, it would have looked a lot different.”

Ansbach made a dismissive noise.

Yang tilted his head. “I’m not a complicated man,” he said. “I don’t have plans. When you look at me, you see all that there is to see.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well, I could ask you about what your plans are. But I probably wouldn’t put much stock in anything you said either, so I guess we’re even that way.”

Ansbach was about to say something else when there was a commotion outside of their privacy screen, one of the men sitting at the consoles standing up and motioning to them. Ansbach dropped the shield of air, letting the normal humming and beeping soundscape of the bridge back in.

“Sirs,” the man said, “there’s an ansible transmission from one of the Iserlohn fleets. They’re requesting to speak to Captain Leigh.”

“Me?” Yang asked, rubbing his head. He glanced at Ansbach, whose brow furrowed. “Whose fleet is it?”

“Rear Admiral Mittermeyer’s, sir.”

“Ah.” That explained it. He shrugged at Ansbach, who continued to glare, then hopped off the console and wandered over to the communications station.

It was a voice only transmission, and it was half garbled with static. “This is Captain Leigh,” Yang said.

“Glad to hear your voice, Captain Leigh,” Mittermeyer said. Even through the hiss, Yang could hear the warmth in his greeting. “I was told you had some trouble.”

“I won’t lie and say that we haven’t. You’re calling because you’re headed this way?”

There was a momentary silence. “My orders are to intercept a rebel fleet in the corridor,” Mittermeyer said. “My fleet is in the best position to do so.”

Yang could read between the lines of that statement easily enough: rescuing Yang was not among Mittermeyer’s orders. Mittermeyer was obviously calling to see if he should disobey or not.

“I’m always happy to waste bandwidth on a social call, if that’s all this is,” Yang said. “I assume you’ll pass through here on your way back.”

“Yes,” Mittermeyer said. “It shouldn’t take too long to deal with the rebels.”

“Well,” Yang said, “we’re not going anywhere. I look forward to seeing you.”

“I’ll make it fast.”

“Don’t rush on my account,” Yang said. “As long as the whole rebel fleet doesn’t end up in this starsystem, I don’t anticipate any more trouble.”

“That’s good.” There was a pause. “I dropped to sub-light to talk to you,” Mittermeyer said. He had likely also dropped to sub-light speeds at the last moment before needing to course change to rescue Yang or not, but they both left that unsaid. “I’d better get moving if I want to catch the rebel fleet.”

“I’ll see you in a while, then. Thanks for checking in, Rear Admiral,” Yang said. “Stay safe.”

Mittermeyer laughed. “You too, Leigh.”

The garbled transmission ended, leaving nothing but an empty static hiss. Ansbach, who had been listening, made a face.

“You think I can order a rear admiral to divert his whole fleet for one ship?” Yang asked, raising his eyebrow at Ansbach.

“What would have happened if I had been the one to answer the call from your underclassman?” Ansbach asked.

Yang just shrugged.