October 488 I.C., Odin

Even though it was the middle of the night, the Braunschweig house was in total chaos when Yang arrived. He wasn’t surprised by that, but it was one thing to expect it, and another thing to see it in the flesh. It was pouring rain outside, though that didn’t stop Braunschweig’s small personal contingent of soldiers and large staff of servants from running back and forth on the lawn. They were removing all the most essential items from the house and putting them out front in rows. Everything needed to be loaded onto Duke Braunschweig’s personal ship, the Berlin , which should soon be en route from the airfield at which it was moored. All the house’s lights were on, and they illuminated the normally perfect lawn as the running of people back and forth tore the grass into muddy pits.

Ansbach stood in the rain, half yelling to direct the movement, and half speaking urgently into the phone that he kept squeezed between his ear and his shoulder so that he could have both his hands free to point and carry things. As Yang walked up the driveway, Ansbach stomped over to one soldier emerging from the house. The soldier had stacked two heavy boxes on top of each other, and Ansbach took the top one before it toppled over and fell. Lopsidedly, he carried it over to its correct spot on the lawn. When he put the box down, he looked up and saw Yang. He hung up his phone call.

“You’re here,” he said.

“Did you think I wouldn’t be?” Yang asked.

Ansbach looked behind Yang at the car that was swiftly departing the Braunschweig house. “Just you?”

“My wife is going to stay with her mother for now, and I sent Lieutenant Kircheis to go find Count Mariendorf. It’s just me.”

“Fine,” Ansbach said. “Are you prepared to go?”

Yang shrugged. Every plan he written had been either already put into action, or was too late to enact now. He didn’t have much in the way of possessions that he needed to take with him. It was strange— he had arrived on Odin with nothing but the clothes on his back once, and it seemed like he was about to leave it in almost the same fashion.

“You’re wanted inside,” Ansbach said.

“About what?”

“Her Majesty is apparently wondering where you are.”

Yang resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the title for Elizabeth. “She hasn’t been crowned yet.”

“You’d better watch your mouth,” Ansbach said, but there wasn’t enough venom in it— he was too distracted, and the idea of Elizabeth as the nation’s first kaiserin probably felt just as alien and funny to him as it did to Yang, albeit for different reasons.

Yang hurried inside, though it was far too late to stop himself from being soaked, and he dripped his way through the house. For all the chaos outside, the interior, with all its dark wood, was still trapped in the quiet stillness of the night, once Yang left the front hall and headed towards the duke’s office. He passed the library, and saw that the door had been propped open, so he glanced inside as he walked by— and then stopped in his tracks when he saw Elizabeth standing alone by the window, watching the chaos outside through the curtains of rain. He knocked on the door to get her attention, and then came in.

“I was told you were looking for me,” he said.

She didn’t turn around immediately, but she could easily gauge his relative lack of formality by his tone. “You’d better bow,” she said. “My father will make sure of it.”

“But will you make sure, Your Majesty?”

She did turn around, then. He still didn’t bow.

“Where is Fraulein Mariendorf?” she asked.

“Why do you want to know?”

She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment. “Bring her here.”

“No,” Yang said.

“No? I’m not sure you’re in the position to refuse orders, Commodore Leigh.”

Perhaps it was for the best that they were having a confrontation immediately. If Elizabeth wanted to flex her authority, Yang was a safe person for her to test it on. Ordering her father around would not get her far, and they both knew it.

“Why do you want her here?” Yang asked. “I’m certain that her father believes she will be safer remaining on Odin, rather than traveling with either him or yourself.”

“Am I not allowed to have my advisors?” she asked.

“If Fraulein Mariendorf arrives under her own power, I doubt anyone would have an objection to her staying,” Yang said. “But your father would not jeopardize his alliance with Count Mariendorf by dragging his daughter onto the front lines for your sake. Nor would I.”

She wrinkled her nose in childish, obvious displeasure, but she didn’t argue. She was probably tired and still in mild shock, since it was the middle of the night and it would take some time for her to really grasp her new station. This was what prevented an argument, Yang was sure. But he wouldn’t push it too far.

Just a little further.

“May I ask a question, Your Majesty?”

“Fine.”

“What matters would you expect her to advise you on while we head out into space?”

Her gaze became a glare. “What does it matter to you?”

“I hope that I might be able to serve as a poor substitute for Fraulein Mariendorf, since I’ve been her teacher for many years.”

She curled her lip. “You’re my father’s advisor, not mine.”

“May I say one more thing, Your Majesty?”

She was silent, which Yang took as permission.

“I’ll say to you the same thing I said to your grandfather more than once. I am a servant of all the people of the Empire— and by the transitive property, that makes me your servant too, even if only a humble one.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “If that line worked on my grandfather, it won’t work on me.”

“Well, if there is any opportunity for me to be useful to you, I hope that you do not hesitate to tell me. There are some benefits of being your father’s advisor.”

“Such as?”

“Since he controls my paycheck, he at least knows the value of taking me seriously.”

This unexpected joke made Elizabeth laugh. “You hardly need a paycheck. My grandfather took care of that for you.”

“I don’t work for free,” Yang said, and his affrontedness was only half-feigned. “I said I’m a servant, not a slave. There’s dignity in getting a paycheck— my father impressed that on me at a very young age.”

She shook her head and turned back to the window. “I’m afraid I will simply lack for pleasant company,” she said.

“Herr Vering is not enough company for you?”

“He lacks the feminine grace to make good conversation. At least least enough to entertain me until it’s safe to return home.”

“When I next see Fraulein Mariendorf, I’ll be sure to pass along that you think she’s a good conversationalist.”

“You do that,” Elizabeth said. “I’m sure she’d appreciate the compliment.”

There was something in her voice that made Yang change his mind immediately, but he still gave her his placid smile. “Are you ready to leave?” he asked

“It hardly makes a difference if I’m ready,” she said. “We’re leaving regardless.”

“That’s true,” Yang said.

“Are you ready, Commodore Leigh?” There was more in her voice than simple concern for him— in fact, there was none of that at all.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Yang said. He tried to put as much calm honesty into his voice as he could, even if calm and honest were not things he had felt for a long time. Even if her tone was one of demanding answers about strategy, and about victory— Yang could see how small she was, standing at the window. She was half his age, and she would come out of this with either half the galaxy on her shoulders, or dead. She could keep her voice cool, but he suspected that she wanted reassurance, of the kind she might have wanted from Hilde. He could give her that. “We’re ready.”

She nodded, and that was a dismissal. He slipped out of the library.

Yang ended up caught in the flurry of activity around the Braunschweig manor for quite some time. He had texted his various allies who remained on Odin during his car ride to the Braunschweig house, but since he was sending warning messages to so many people, he hadn’t had a chance to call anyone other than Kircheis. Yang slipped away from where Duke Braunschweig was surveying the scene from the front hall, sneaking down the back of the house and out towards the yard where he had once spoken with Ansbach, down near the servants’ hall. There was no one there, since all of the servants were hurriedly engaged in getting the house ready to leave, and so Yang had some privacy there in the very early hours of the October morning. He stood beneath the lip of the roof, and the bulk of the house made sure the wind didn’t toss the drops at him.

He shivered in the cold, and rubbed his hands together before he pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Reuenthal’s number with shaky hands. The adrenaline from having woken up in the middle of the night had long since worn off, and it was tiredness that quavered Yang’s limbs now. Reuenthal picked up on the second ring.

“Where are you?” Reuenthal asked, before Yang could even say a word.

“The Braunschweig house,” Yang said. “We’ll be leaving the planet as soon as the duke’s ship arrives.”

There was a moment of silence from Reuenthal. In that empty space, Yang had to wonder what he was thinking. Well, he didn’t have to wonder. He knew Reuenthal well enough. Reuenthal didn’t want to stay on Odin, but there was no way he could come with the Braunschweig family.

“Can you tell me where you’re going?” Reuenthal asked.

“Geiersburg,” Yang said. “Most of the duke’s pledged-troops” —those that could be called upon by the crown— “are stationed there. We’ll meet up with his forces he’s calling up from his own lands, and then we’ll take the fortress as a base.”

“And then you’ll return to Odin with a fleet?”

“I hope so,” Yang said. “I don’t want to do anything else if we can help it. But it depends on how it all goes. I’m sure that this will be our first stop.”

“Will I be able to join you then?”

It was a simple question, but it didn’t have a simple answer. “If we can get to the ground, then it will all be over. If we can’t—” There wouldn’t be any way for Reuenthal to get off the planet, nor any reason for him to do so. They both knew that.

“What do you want me to do?” Reuenthal asked. There wasn’t any rancor in his words at being refused, but the calmness of Reuenthal’s voice was often deceptive.

“Lieutenant Kircheis has a lot of information, and he’s staying on Odin, I think. Unless he gets here in the next five minutes,” Yang said, trailing off into mumbles.

In the sky, visible now through the rainclouds, Yang could see a distant light growing larger and closer— Duke Braunschweig’s personal ship, breaking through the fog. He shook himself out of his reverie watching it.

Yang continued. “Meet up with him and Oberstein. I don’t know what’s going to happen on Odin enough to plan for it entirely, but… he has what I’ve given him, at least.”

“Fine,” Reuenthal said.

“Reuenthal—”

“Leigh.”

“Please stay safe,” Yang said. “Before anything else. Please.”

There was silence again from the other end of the line. This time, Yang had no idea what Reuenthal was thinking. Or if he did, he didn’t want to put words to it.

“Should I get in contact with Mittermeyer?” Reuenthal finally asked. “Tell him to meet you?”

“No,” Yang said. “At least not yet.”

“Why not? He has ships, unlike me.”

“Half-built ones,” Yang pointed out. Mittermeyer had been shuffled off Odin early in the summer, his duties changed to include overseeing the building of the first few ships in a new class, at a shipbuilding station far from Odin. This posting had annoyed Muckenburger, since it was a real thing for Mittermeyer to be working on, but Admiral Schaft, Mittermeyer’s direct superior, had assigned him there when the previous holder of the position had retired. Mittermeyer hated it, predictably. But even if Muckenburger was annoyed, it wasn’t like Mittermeyer’s micro-fleet of under-construction ships could do much.

“He would want to be useful to you.”

Yang closed his eyes. The ship in the sky was coming closer and closer. He could hear the drone of its engines now. If Mittermeyer stayed out of things, no matter what the eventual outcome of the civil war was, he would live through it. But Reuenthal wouldn’t like that answer, and neither would Mittermeyer if he heard it.

“I don’t want him to come to Odin,” Yang said. “There wouldn’t be any benefit in it— if anything, it would be a waste of a surprise element we might need later.”

“Fine,” Reuenthal said.

“This shouldn’t take too long.”

“Oh? You expect to win quickly?”

“I’d like to,” Yang said. “But even if I don’t— there’s only so long either side can sustain a full force, especially if everything has fallen apart around the Empire. It can’t go on more than a year. If it does, even if we’re still fighting it out, we’ll be too weak to fend off the rebels. And they’re going to be waiting for that.”

Reuenthal made a non-commital noise.

“If it gets that bad,” Yang said, “hopefully I will have Iserlohn, and can make a deal.”

“You probably shouldn’t be talking so loudly.”

Yang glanced around— he was still totally alone in the yard, but now the ship was right overhead, slowly descending down to the front of the Braunschweig mansion.

“I should go,” Yang said.

“I won’t keep you.”

“If I can, I’ll contact you when we’re back at Odin,” Yang said. “I’ll do my best.”

“Did I say that you wouldn’t?”

“Oskar—”

Silence from Reuenthal’s side.

Yang looked around again. The ship’s lights on the other side of the house were catching on the falling raindrops and illuminating the sky to an eerie, almost daylight brightness. “I love you,” Yang said.

He could hear Reuenthal breathing. “Isn’t your phone still tapped, Hank?”

Yang smiled, despite everything. “I don’t think I care anymore.”

“Then goodbye, Wen-li,” Reuenthal said, almost quietly enough that Yang couldn’t make out the name. He felt an overwhelming warmth in his heart, enough to make it hard to speak through the choke of emotion rising up through his throat. By the time he had figured out what he wanted to say to Reuenthal, he had hung up.

The journey to Geiersburg Fortress was not particularly long. The fortress was about halfway between Duke Braunschweig’s owned territory and the capital, further back into the heartland of the Empire, away from the Iserlohn and Phezzan corridors. Throughout the journey, Duke Braunschweig was in very high spirits, and this was a contagious feeling for some of his family members. Baron Flegel seemed cheerful, anyway. Of the two women on board, Princess Amarie and Kaserin Elizabeth, it was impossible to tell if their smiles and laughter in the presence of the duke were sincere. Both of them were very good actors.

For his own part, Yang ended up in a little informal cadre made of three people: himself, Admiral Merkatz, and Count Mariendorf. Both the count and the admiral had joined Braunschweig at his house before his ship departed, having made arrangements to do so beforehand.

Count Mariendorf and Admiral Merkatz knew each other from simply being in the same general social sphere, but they both knew Yang better, so he found himself in the odd position of being looked to by two people he respected. Yang would have invited Ansbach into this little circle, but Ansbach was glued to the duke’s side, a position that Yang did not envy in the least. It wasn’t clear that Ansbach would have accepted such an invitation, anyway.

In any event, the duke’s cheer didn’t quite make it as far as Count Mariendorf and Admiral Merkatz. Both of them were serious men, and found it difficult to laugh at a future that they couldn’t see. Yang couldn’t help but agree with them. The civil war, even if they won easily, would have a human cost that weighed on him heavily.

Both men were concerned about their families back on Odin, though they didn’t speak of it much. Hilde had remained behind, as Yang had known she would, even if she had wanted to come. Merkatz’s wife had gone to stay with his daughter and son-in-law’s family, who had a country home. Yang said that so far away from the city, there probably wouldn’t be too much chaos, which seemed somewhat reassuring to Merkatz, though this was hard to tell— he always had such an unflappable facade.

Although Merkatz still outranked Yang significantly, now that he was a flag officer, it was easier for them to speak as relative equals. Merkatz had always respected Yang’s tactical abilities, but now they spent long hours poring over Yang’s plans, both for Geiersburg and for the larger civil war. The only thing that Yang held back from Merkatz was the plan for Iserlohn. He suspected that Merkatz would have ideological trouble going through with it, if it wasn’t of dire need. There was no point in bringing up something that looked like a defeatist plan early.

Braunschweig’s ship Berlin met up with his small contingent of vessels that had come from his home territories. Yang considered it very lucky that the Berlin had been able to make it away from Odin without being chased or hunted down by any of Littenheim’s allied ships. Even if the fleet that Braunschweig had managed to gather was only some thousand ships strong, it was still so much more secure than traveling alone.

Braunschweig had many soldiers under his command, but the majority were those in his personal territories, including most of his ground troops, which were required to remain where they were to prevent Littenheim from launching an attack on the Braunschweig homelands that could halt a forward advance to Odin. The remainder of his soldiers were those pledged for the crown’s use, and they were stationed primarily at Geiersburg. This would be Braunschweig’s main fighting force for the rest of the civil war, if they could join up with it.

Braunschweig appointed Merkatz to be the commander of his fleet, which reassured Yang more than anything else. Flegel had been jockeying for the position, in his needling way, but there was nothing anyone could say to deny that Merkatz had more experience as an actual commander. Flegel was promised his own section of the eventual full fleet, which appeased him a little, especially since neither Yang nor Ansbach were given ships of their own. This suited Yang fine; he had no desire to command directly.

On the last day before they made it to Geiersburg, Yang needed to speak with Braunschweig, to confirm the timeline of their planned attack. Merkatz had gone off onto a different ship which would serve as his temporary flag. The Berlin , since it was still carrying the precious cargo of Elizabeth, would need to hang back in the battle— and so Yang was serving as an unofficial go-between to coordinate everything. He got the sense that Merkatz and Braunschweig barely tolerated each other, and their working relationship would be better the less they saw of each other.

He found Braunschweig in his richly appointed lounge, sitting on one of the couches, with Baron Flegel next to him, and Ansbach sitting across from him. Ansbach looked cool and collected, but Braunschweig was leaning forward over the coffee table where there was an ornate chessboard set up. Ansbach was playing white, and it seemed that Flegel and Braunschweig were playing together as black, though Yang had to wonder how much Flegel was helping rather than hindering. The game was already well underway.

As Yang walked in, Flegel looked up and said, “Oh, good, you can help Ansbach lose.” His uncle simultaneously picked up a pawn and moved it forward two spaces.

“I’m afraid I’m terrible at chess,” Yang said. But he came to sit down anyway, perching on the arm of the couch where Ansbach sat.

Ansbach barely looked up at Yang, but a slight twitch of a frown crossed his face. For once, Yang couldn’t tell if it was because of him, or because of the move Braunschweig had just made. His hand hovered over his bishop, considering moving it back from where it was now being threatened by the black pawn, but instead he moved his knight to capture.

Flegel pointed at the board, where one of Braunschweig’s remaining pawns could take the knight. “See?” he crowed, as his uncle followed his instructions and captured.

Silently, Ansbach struck back with his bishop and took this pawn.

“What was it you wanted?” Braunschweig finally asked, not taking his eyes off the board to look at Yang.

“I wanted to talk over our plans for tomorrow, sir.”

“Mm.” The move Braunschweig made on the board, shifting one of his knights around, was inscrutable to Yang. Similarly, the move that Ansbach followed up with— castling— meant little to him. “Talk, then.”

“Sir, are you completely certain that your men in the fortress will have the ability to disable Geiersburg’s main gun?”

Flegel whispered something in his uncle’s ear, but Braunschweig had no outward change in facial expression.

“I’m certain. Does Merkatz doubt it?”

“No, sir. I just would like to be careful, before we put our entire force within range of the gun.”

“We only have a thousand ships, Leigh. I’m surprised you want to split them.” He was focused on the board, so his tone was one of distraction.

“I don’t want to split them, sir. I just want to send in radar decoys first, to see if Geiersburg takes the bait.”

“No,” Braunschweig said, without looking up from the board. “We’re moving in as quickly as possible. We’re sitting targets for Littenheim’s fleet if we don’t get into that fortress. And don’t bother telling me that this ship should remain behind by itself. We were lucky to even survive getting off Odin.”

“It shouldn’t take long to test if they will fire, sir,” Yang tried.

“And if they don’t take the bait? I said no, Commodore.”

The game was continuing, but Yang wasn’t following the moves until Flegel pointed out that Braunschweig should try to take Ansbach’s queen— though Braunschweig had just moved, and so Ansbach was presumably about to move his queen to safety. Ansbach had no reaction to this happening, and leaned back in his seat to listen to Yang. Braunschweig did the same, and so the game was paused for a moment. Now that Braunschweig was looking up at Yang rather than down at the board, he could see some of the tension held in the crease of his forehead, not quite a scowl, but almost.

“I don’t think we need any of your tricks,” Flegel said dismissively.

“If you have some other suggestion, tell me quickly,” Braunschweig said. His eyes kept flicking to the chessboard.

Yang ran his hand through his hair. “Fine, sir. If we have to go in quickly— I’m not suggesting that we stay split up, but I do suggest that as we initially enter the gun’s range, we should spread thinly, and deploy radar decoys in between our ships. When we’re still that far out, the gun can only target a tiny angle, and if it fires on us, we’ll… lose a minimum of men.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then we’ll proceed towards the fortress and group back up as we come closer,” Yang said. He was much more worried about if the gun did fire on them, but Braunschweig seemed to consider that a non-issue. Yang wasn’t sure he was so trusting.

He was sure that the fleet would not deploy. Of the sixteen thousand ships or so in the bays of Geiersburg, twelve thousand belonged to Duke Braunschweig outright. If the fortress command ordered the fleet out, then most of those ships would likely immediately join the duke. So, the fortress’s only defense was its main gun, its liquid metal armor, and its floating gun turrets.

“And we’ll take out the floating turrets as we planned,” Flegel said. “I’m sure they won’t be an issue for our Valkyries.”

“Yes, if we can get close enough to deploy them,” Yang said.

“I’m certain that we can,” Braunschweig said. “Was that all, Leigh?”

“If you don’t want to discuss alternatives, in case we are fired upon, yes.”

“We can discuss alternatives if we need to. If we’re fired on, we’ll retreat out of range and regroup”

“Fine,” Yang said. He started to get up to leave as Braunschweig turned back to the chessboard, but Ansbach stopped him.

“Give me a moment to finish this game, Count von Leigh. I’d like to talk to you about the plan to breach the fortress, once the gun turrets have been taken care of,” Ansbach said. Yang could tell this was not what Ansbach wanted to talk about— their plan for physically entering the fortress had been hashed out long in advance, and it was one of the things Yang felt most confident about.

“Of course,” Yang said, and he sat back down on the arm of the couch.

Ansbach pushed his bishop across the board, took Braunschweig’s rook. Braunschweig was forced to follow that up by using his knight to capture the bishop, since his king was in danger. Ansbach moved his queen.

“Check,” he said.

“Move your knight,” Flegel said.

Braunschweig did, without comment, and took the queen.

“You’re up in material now,” Flegel said.

But Ansbach moved his rook all the way across the board. “Mate,” he said.

“Oh, come on,” Flegel whined. It was true. Ansbach’s bishop was simultaneously pinning down the king in concert with the rook.

“Good game, my lord,” Ansbach said. Braunschweig leaned back in his seat, though still studying the board.

“Yes, good game.” Braunschweig waved Ansbach off, and together he and Yang made their way into the hallway.

“Did you want to go to your office?” Yang asked.

“No,” Ansbach said. “Here is fine. This won’t take long.” Although they got along better, these days, the scowl in Ansbach’s voice when he addressed Yang was habitual. Yang didn’t mind it.

They spoke quietly, not loud enough to be heard by anyone who might happen to pass by the corner and see them.

“This isn’t about the boarding party, is it?”

“You think we’re going to get hit,” Ansbach said flatly.

“I think it’s worth considering. I don’t personally care if we lose this war before we even fire a single shot, but I’d prefer not to be blasted out of the sky tomorrow.”

Ansbach made a derisive noise. “You need to keep your mouth shut.”

“I’d just like to be prepared for the idea that his agents haven’t managed to disable the gun.”

“If we get shot at, what next?”

“They’ll aim for our midsection,” Yang said. “Just to maximize their chance of hitting us at all, from this big of a firing distance. We should put most of our decoys in the center of our formation.”

“You don’t think they’ll bait us in closer by not firing?”

“No, I don’t think it’s likely. That’s why I figured we might be able to bait them out with decoys. Anyone in that fortress command wants to defeat us before the rank and file figure out that we’re even there. If there’s some kind of rebellion within the fortress for our side, they won’t be able to contain it for very long. They need to shoot us down fast if they want to stop that from happening. Well, if it happens anyway. I know Braunschweig sent agents there to organize something like that, but I don’t know if they’ll even be successful.”

Ansbach nodded.

“But even if nothing happens inside the fortress, I’m sure that the fortress command are aware of the possibility of sabotage. I certainly would be. They’re going to want to test their gun on us as soon as possible, so that if it’s not working, they can come up with some kind of plan. Ideally they’ll surrender, but…” Yang rubbed at the back of his head.

“You’re deluding yourself if you think they will.”

“Yeah. I know,” Yang said.

“You keep dodging the question. If we do get fired on…”

“We either wait until the fortress collapses from the inside, or…”

“Or what? Braunschweig doesn’t like waiting.”

“I don’t want to render the fortress unusable,” Yang said. “That would defeat the purpose of capturing it.”

“You are full of yourself. Tell me your idea.”

Yang looked over Ansbach’s left shoulder, down the empty hallway. In a rather dead voice, he said, “The gun can melt ships into slag, even vaporize them at close range, but the light-pressure of it isn’t enough to halt their momentum, even if they’re husks.”

“Go on.”

“We can capture a large asteroid. Sacrifice a few ships to push it. Unmanned. If they accelerate from outside the range of the gun, stay behind the rock, they can move it up to speed, maybe even keep accelerating within the gun’s range, for a while. Even if the front half gets vaporized, if it’s a big enough rock, even Geiersburg’s gun won’t be able to get through the whole thing. And if it’s pointed directly at the fortress, that kind of mass moving at speed can’t be budged by the beam gun. It will hit, and will take out whatever’s behind it. To move it, they’d have to slam their own ships into it, even to just divert it. And if they open those doors—”

Ansbach was silent for a moment. “And you think this will work?”

“Yes,” Yang said.

“Alright. I’ll make sure this ship is far back, and in one of the flanks.”

“Thank you,” Yang said. Ansbach turned to go. “One question—”

“What?”

“When did you know you were going to beat him? In the chess game, I mean.”

“I decided to win as soon as Baron Flegel walked in the door.”

Yang let out a huff of a laugh. “When should he have resigned, then?”

“Probably when I refused his queen trade,” Ansbach said. “But he never resigns. It’s not like him.”

Yang explained his alternate plans to Merkatz, who quickly dispatched a few ships to find and gather a suitable asteroid for their purposes. Although on a map, it appeared that Geiersburg was in the middle of empty space, it was situated along one of the major routes that ships could use to travel faster-than-light through the Empire, where the strings of gravity formed channels for ships’ engines to cut their ways through. Long ago— many billions of years, Yang supposed— this part of the galaxy had held a star system, or something that might have tried to form a star system. Now there was only cold rubble, sparse through space, but it was massive enough to draw those invisible lines of force closer together. And it was plentiful enough that it was easy to find a suitable chunk of rock, one that even two strikes from Geiersburg’s main gun wouldn’t be able to vaporize entirely.

Merkatz understood why Yang had wanted to have Braunschweig put this plan into place early. Geiersburg’s main gun had a range of six hundred thousand kilometers. Light could travel that distance in about two seconds, but there was no way they could use their ships’ sub-light engines to accelerate a rock anywhere close to that speed, and there was no way to use their superluminal gravity engines to push a rock in concert like that. They wouldn’t be able to drop it back down to sub-light speeds.

But the rock didn’t need to be moving faster than light. They didn’t even have to get it up to one percent of the speed of light. Yang could make do with something around 1/500th of lightspeed— six hundred kilometers per second. It was still a speed that was unfathomably fast, but it was well within the limits of the engines of their ships. If the rock was approaching Geiersburg at that speed, it would arrive in about sixteen minutes. Geiersburg’s main gun could only fully charge and fire once every ten minutes. Yang’s rock, if it was big enough, wouldn’t be vaporized in two hits. Even he could do that math. And a rock that size, solid, moving at that speed, would cripple the fortress, even if Yang aimed it to only do the most glancing blow.

He really did not want to put this plan in action, but if the fortress was firing on them with its main gun, he didn’t see much of another way to disable it, not with their tiny fleet. He couldn’t count on there being any breaking ranks within the fortress itself. Yang lacked Braunschweig’s confidence.

Even Merkatz was skeptical of their chances of not being fired on, and he made his own preparations to get out of Geiersburg’s range quickly, should they come under attack.

As the time came for their advance, Merkatz arranged the fleet. As Yang had suggested, he bulked out their visible numbers by preparing to deploy radar decoys in between their ranks.

Even though this made their fleet look twice as large, spread out in a wide band across the stars, it could still only look like a paltry two-thousand-strong fleet.

Merkatz’s contribution to the fleet arrangement, his own paranoia about being able to escape Geiersburg’s gun, was visible on the screen now. Since there was no chance that they were about to meet another fleet in battle, Merkatz could perform a rather esoteric fleet maneuver— the kind of thing that was run as a drill more than it would ever see battle.

This whole exercise was turning out to be one of playing with Newton’s laws. Before the fleet entered Geiersburg’s attack radius, they accelerated, then stopped accelerating, cruising under their momentum. Without changing their paths or their speed, Merkatz ordered all the ships to turn around. They were flying, unpowered and backwards, into Geiersburg’s territory. If they were fired upon, this would give them the maximum ability to retreat quickly, to get out of range before a second shot could go off and critically disable the fleet. They wouldn’t have to waste precious time turning around.

“Someone in Geiersburg is laughing at us right now,” Yang muttered to himself as he leaned against the wall on the bridge of the Berlin , watching the big screen at the front of the room, standing well back from Braunschweig in the main chair. Ansbach, who happened to be walking past Yang at that moment, gave him a glare. Yang returned a sheepish smile, though he didn’t really feel like smiling.

“Why don’t you go make yourself useful?” Ansbach said under his breath, pretending to look at a nearby console.

“I am useful,” Yang said.

“You’re about as useful as him.” Ansbach gave a slight nod over to Lieutenant Commander Hans von Vering, who was also standing around the bridge of the Berlin . He seemed to have little understanding of what was going on, and was anxiously moving back and forth between several operator stations on the bridge, bothering the men manning them. Braunschweig and Flegel were both watching this movement with annoyance.

“Is this your way of telling me to get rid of him?” Yang asked.

“Be delicate about it. If you’re capable of that.” And Ansbach headed back over the center of the room to report to Braunschweig.

Yang sighed and stuck his hands in his pockets, then wandered over to where Vering was haunting the poor radar operator, leaning over his shoulder and breathing down his neck to look at the dots of ships on the screen, as though they meant anything to him.

“Lieutenant Commander Vering,” Yang said.

Vering jerked up, not having realized that Yang was there. When he realized who was addressing him, he scowled a little. “What do you need, sir?” he said, with some reluctance.

“I was wondering if you might walk with me,” Yang said. “I need to speak with you.”

“About?”

“This is not a matter for the bridge,” Yang said.

Vering looked around, hoping that Duke Braunschweig or Flegel would step in to save him from needing to leave with Yang, but the duke and baron were engaged in a discussion behind the audio privacy screen, and they were paying no attention to Yang. Even if they had been, Yang suspected that they were as eager to get Vering off the bridge as Ansbach had been. Neither of them particularly liked Elizabeth’s future husband.

Even though the person giving the order was Yang , Vering couldn’t actually refuse it, so he followed Yang out of the bridge. Yang didn’t say anything as they walked through the hallways for a minute, until Vering finally spoke up, in an annoyed voice.

“What was it that you wanted to talk to me about, sir?”

“Oh.” Yang was almost startled to be addressed. He pulled his hands out of his pockets so that he could rub at the back of his head. “I just thought that Her Majesty might like your company. This is a very delicate time, and she’s never been on the battlefield before. It seemed to me that it would be prudent of you to provide her some reassurance.”

“Is she asking for me?” Was his voice hopeful?

“Well, er, she’s not really the type to ask for something like that. But if you’re going to marry her, well…” He trailed off.

“And what am I supposed to say to her?” Vering asked. “It’s not even like we’re in the middle of the action. It’s not even like there is action. We’re on the flank, and we’re not even really moving.”

“We’re moving, Lieutenant Commander.”

Vering scowled. They were coming close to the personal quarters of the Braunschweig family, and Yang had absolutely no compunctions about ringing the bell. He stood loosely, with his hands at his side, while next to him Vering was stiff, and smoothed down his light colored hair with an anxious hand. He fiddled with his uniform, and was tugging his jacket into place when the door finally opened, revealing Princess Amarie.

Vering bowed, Yang did not.

“Hans… and Count von Leigh, what a surprise to see you both,” Amarie said. Her tone was inscrutable. “I had assumed everyone in uniform would be far too busy to come pay visits.”

“Well, my job is mostly done, at this point,” Yang said. “It’s up to everyone else now. But it’s actually Her Majesty that the lieutenant commander has come to see. I’ve just been providing him an escort.”

Amarie clearly understood that Vering was about to become her problem. She smiled. “An escort? I find it hard to believe that such a thing would be necessary. Please, come in.”

“Thank you, my lady.” Yang did incline his head politely as he stepped past her into her family’s quarters.

For the interior of a ship, their quarters were luxe. There were lush green houseplants in pots and along the walls, some in bloom, which cheered the space. The furniture was heavy wood, not like the light fiberglass and plastic that was found in the staff quarters. The lights were warm, and the air smelled fresher and cleaner than the rest of the ship. At the far end of the living room area, there was a huge plate window, one that looked out over the battlefield. Elizabeth sat sideways to this view with an embroidery hoop on her lap. Her needle moved down and out of the fabric with a machine-like force and precision, continuing its motion even as she looked up at her guests.

“I thought my father considered you indispensable, Hans,” Elizabeth said. She nodded at Yang, who gave a shallow bow, then wandered over to the window to look out. Amarie sat back down on the armchair across from the couch and watched the other three with an eagle eye.

“I’ve been dispensed with,” Vering said. He sat down on the couch next to Elizabeth. “Or I’ve been told that I would provide greater value here, as your future husband. To reassure you about what’s happening.”

“We seem to be moving backwards,” Elizabeth said. “This window looks out over the aft of the ship.”

“An astute observation,” Vering said, puffing himself up. “Admiral Merkatz is doing something strange with the fleet arrangement. I’m surprised that your father allowed the Berlin to go along with it. Especially with us out in the flank.”

Elizabeth looked up at Yang, who was scanning the black sky outside for the tiny dot that was Geiersburg. “Is this your plan?” she asked.

“No,” Yang said. “Admiral Merkatz decided the specifics of the fleet movement. I only advised.” He found the tiny dot among the stars, fixed it in his vision, and pointed it out. “There’s Geiersburg.”

Elizabeth stood up from the couch, passing her embroidery off to her fiancee, who looked down at it. The picture was of a bouquet of roses, half done.

“Why are we spread out so far? In photos of other battles, I’ve never seen gaps like that in the line,” Elizabeth said as she stood next to Yang at the window. He couldn’t help but feel a little pleased that she was asking him. Not because she was the kaiserin, but because he enjoyed being a teacher.

“To the fortress, it doesn’t look like there are any holes,” Yang said. “We’ve deployed radar decoys to make our fleet look bigger than it is. They’re too small for you to see with the naked eye from here, but they look just like ships to someone looking at radar far away.”

“How long until we’re in range of the fortress?” Vering asked.

This caused Amarie to speak up. “Elizabeth, why don’t you sit down? You’re making me nervous.”

“Nervous?” Elizabeth asked. “I’m just standing here.”

Yang checked his watch. “Six minutes.”

“Commodore, may I speak with you for a second?” Amarie asked.

“Of course.”

He followed her one room over, into a private dining room, and she she shut the door behind her.

“What are you doing here, Commodore?” she asked. All pleasantries were gone from her voice.

She didn’t need him to tell her the obvious reason for escorting Vering over. “Don’t you think that the leader of the Empire should know something about how the business of the Empire is conducted?” Yang asked.

“She doesn’t need to worry about this. I don’t need to worry about this.”

It was unusual that Amarie was showing him this moment of weakness. It was unlike her. He wondered what the purpose of it was. Amarie always had some kind of purpose. She probably just didn’t want him too close to her daughter. Yang wished briefly that Hilde was here— she could have filled Yang’s role, and he was sure that Amarie would have no objection to her explaining the motions of ships.

But he tried to keep his voice gentle. “For some people, knowing what’s happening is better than being kept in the dark.” When Amarie pursed her lips, Yang added, “I’m not trying to overstep my place. But I think that the Empire is safer in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing, and she’s willing to learn. That’s a quality that I’ve never wanted to stifle in a student, no matter who they are.”

“My daughter is not a soldier, and doesn’t need to be taught to be one.”

“Then let me provide an explanation for Herr Vering’s sake, since you expect him to take on this duty for your daughter in the future.”

Amarie shouldn’t have let herself be backed into that corner. “I assume that she and I will never have occasion to be part of an active battle again.”

“I doubt that you will be,” Yang said. “It would be very stupid to put either of you in danger unless it is absolutely necessary.”

“Why are we here, Commodore?”

“Do you think that I suggested bringing you to the front lines?” Yang asked, incredulous.

“You could have suggested putting us on a different ship to hang back.”

“Ansbach tried to say that. Did you bring it up with the duke?”

Her lip curled. “You may stay. Just this once.”

“Thank you,” Yang said.

“Do not overstep your place, Commodore.”

“I won’t,” he said.

They returned to the main living area. Elizabeth was still standing by the window, but Vering had shifted to drape himself on the arm of the couch, leaning sideways to put himself as close to her as he could get without getting up. Her embroidery lay abandoned on the coffee table.

“We’re coming close to Geiersburg’s range,” Yang said as he stepped back up towards Elizabeth.

“Do they know we’re here?”

“Unless someone sabotaged all of their sensors, yes, I’m sure that they do. Even with a small fleet, we’re presenting a large enough face for them to detect. A single ship might slip by unseen at this distance, but not what looks like two thousand.”

“Will they fire at us?”

Yang was silent for a moment. “I hope not.”

“Will I be able to see it, if they do?”

“You won’t see it coming,” Yang said. “It’s a beam cannon, and light can’t travel faster than itself for us to see it before it gets here. So the first you’ll see is it hitting us.” His voice filled the silence of the room, just over the whirr of the air filters.

“It’s not visible light,” he continued. “Geiersburg’s cannon is in ultraviolet. Any light you see will be from the things it hits. The metal of the ships will glow before they’re vaporized. This window should block out the brightest parts of it. Every window on a ship has to be able to shield out a whole star’s worth of radiation. So you don’t have to close your eyes.”

She nodded, and stared out into space, at the distant dot of Geiersburg. Maybe they couldn’t actually see it from here. Maybe that was just a dim star that Yang had pointed out by mistake.

Yang checked his watch, and gave a muttered countdown to the time when they would cross the threshold. The time of entering Geiersburg’s range came and passed. The two seconds it would have taken for the beam to arrive ticked by with nothing to mark their going. The ships continued to slide under their momentum towards Geiersburg.

“Are we safe?” Vering asked from the couch, a tense three minutes of silence later.

Yang didn’t answer the question. He suddenly felt just as helpless as he was sure Elizabeth did. He wanted to be back on the bridge, where he was sure that Braunschweig, now feeling like the worst of danger had passed, would be calling up Merkatz and demanding that all the ships turn back around and accelerate towards the fortress. Just wait a few more minutes, Yang thought. Please.

He had said that the fortress wouldn’t bait them in, and he still thought that. But there was a chance that it wasn’t bait— that it was just taking longer to aim and fire than Yang had anticipated.

The gravity engines of the ship were also what made the ship’s acceleration impossible to feel from the inside, so Yang only saw the field of stars start to swing as the Berlin began turning. Ships turned slowly. Painfully slowly.

They were on the left flank, and the ship swung counterclockwise, momentarily aligning the aft-facing window with the rest of the fleet. Yang could see them all beginning to turn.

It was at that moment that a blinding light filled his entire field of view. Geiersburg’s gun, finding its target— the ships in the center of their formation becoming little suns under the onslaught.

It was silent. Yang didn’t know why he felt like it should make a noise. There was no sound except the hum of their own ship, completely untouched. Yang, despite his own advice to Elizabeth, closed his eyes.

Elizabeth stumbled forward as if struck, and steadied herself with her hands splayed on the glass of the window. Behind Yang, Vering exclaimed, “What the fuck?!”

As glow faded behind Yang’s eyelids, he still took a moment before he opened them to survey the damage.

“They can’t fire again for ten minutes,” Yang said. “We should be able to retreat.” Even as he said this, he could feel the subtle shift of gravity beneath his feet, signaling the Berlin ’s engines fighting to dampen the feeling of acceleration as the ship hurried to move. The stars spun dizzyingly outside, and Yang only caught a glimpse of the gaping hole that had been left in their formation.

“Did you tell him that we shouldn’t advance, Commodore?” Amarie asked from somewhere behind Yang. He felt dizzy. It was hard to pinpoint where her voice was coming from. Everything seemed to spinning and swirling around him.

“I did,” Yang said.

“How many ships was that?” Elizabeth asked.

“I don’t know,” Yang said. “I need to go to the bridge.”

He stumbled past Elizabeth and ran out of the room.

Even though it was chaotic on the bridge, Yang was relieved beyond words to find out that Merkatz was still alive and was coordinating the retreat. The fleet was in disarray, which meant that it took too long to get all the ships moving again. It almost took the full ten minutes of Geiersburg’s recharge time on its beam cannon, and, as they retreated, they were fired on again, a second shot that wiped out one of the straggling sections of their fleet. At least this time they kept moving out of range without needing to turn.

They finally made it well out of Geiersburg’s firing distance, and then there was time to regroup. In all, they had only lost one hundred ships —a tenth of their fleet— to Geiersburg’s attack, due to how thinly they had been spread out. It was far less of a blow than they had any right to expect, but Yang couldn’t feel happy about that loss of life. He felt guilty—he should have pushed harder for some alternate plan, one that didn’t involve charging headlong into Geiersburg’s range.

Once all the ships had been gathered, Merkatz temporarily left his flagship and came to the Berlin , where Yang met him at the shuttle bay. They talked as they walked down towards the wardroom to discuss their next steps.

“You didn’t give the order to turn around, did you, sir?” Yang asked.

“No, I did not,” Merkatz said shortly. “Duke Braunschweig gave the order. I had planned to wait at least a half hour. Time was on our side before they fired on us—we should have been patient.”

“Does the duke understand that countermanding your order cost us lives?”

“You would know that better than I.”

Yang frowned. “Yeah.”

“Your plan is already in place,” Merkatz said. “The asteroid will enter Geiersburg’s range within the next three hours.”

“Can you do me a favor, sir?”

Merkatz raised one of his bushy eyebrows. “It depends on what it is.”

“Don’t call it my plan,” Yang said.

Merkatz looked at him, then nodded.

They were at the door of the wardroom. Yang steeled himself, then followed Merkatz in.

The meeting to discuss the alternate plan was unpleasant. Flegel kept getting out of his seat and stomping back and forth across the front of the room, to deliver menacing statements about what he would do to those who had dared to fire on the true kaiserin. Braunschweig, though he was more subdued, nodded along, and let Flegel take command of the party that was going to board Geiersburg once they had gotten its doors open. Yang and Ansbach’s eyes met across the table when this assignment was given, though Ansbach swiftly looked away.

Merkatz talked through Yang’s plan without mentioning Yang, or the fact that he had put the plan into action the day before. Braunschweig nodded along to that, too.

“We should give them the opportunity to surrender, and redirect the asteroid ourselves before it arrives,” Yang said. “It would be better to not do any damage to Geiersburg if we can help it.”

“If they fire on it, we won’t be able to change its trajectory,” Ansbach said. “Even if the beam can’t vaporize the entire rock, it will likely fry the communications arrays on the ships pushing it.”

“They won’t surrender,” Braunschweig said. “Not until they’ve tried firing on it.”

This was probably true, but Yang didn’t like it. “We should warn them anyway.”

“No,” Braunschweig said. “This is war, Leigh.”

Yang couldn’t reasonably object more, so he just slid back in his seat.

This time, Yang stayed on the bridge to watch the action. It was uniquely terrible to see the huge rock on the monitors, pushed by four empty ships, their engines flaring red. With the magnification up so high, the jutting, craggy rock was visible in a horrid clarity. As their cameras tracked it, filling the whole screen at the front of the bridge, it didn’t even seem like it was moving—the only indication of its motion were the specks of stars that flashed past the edge of the video feed. It was traveling far too fast for the human eye to follow, even if it had been close enough to see. It was maybe only a hundredth of Geiersburg’s mass, probably even less, but it was dense, and that density would protect most of its mass from the beam. It was oblong, too, and the pushing ships were at the far end. The beam would have to eat through more than two kilometers of solid rock to completely vaporize it.

The bridge was a bustle of activity, with everybody looking up from their own stations and consoles to watch the rock speed towards the fortress.

“They can see it, right?” Flegel asked as the rock crossed the threshold. “They know it’s there?”

“Unless their sensors aren’t working right,” Ansbach said.

He needn’t have asked: moments later, the fortress fired. They didn’t see the beam, but they saw its effect on the rock in their magnified view: its front end glowed like it was falling through an atmosphere, and it warped and bubbled, some of it vaporizing, other parts of it just turning into rolling liquid, some of which was pushed back along the rock by the force of the expanding gas. The whole rock was now so hot that what was liquid took a long time to re-solidify.

“We’ve lost contact with the ships’ radios,” the man in charge of monitoring the ships pushing the rock said. The rock was no longer accelerating. Presumably, the heat had been so much that it had destroyed the ships, even if they had been shielded from the blast itself.

After watching the first shot, the whole bridge fell silent. The chatter ceased.

“It’s at the halfway point,” someone announced a few minutes later.

The fortress, as soon as its main gun was charged, fired again. It had just as little impact as it had the first time, though now those waiting outside of its range didn’t have eyes on the front of the rock, only the rear as it sped away from them. The rear was untouched, though lit by an unnatural glow from the other end.

“Oh, come on,” Yang said under his breath. “Please.”

He clenched his fists in his pockets. Now the camera was trained on Geiersburg. Yang hoped desperately that those in the fortress would realize what they had to do in time to actually do it. The rock was on a course to only graze the fortress, so all they had to do was nudge it a tiny, tiny bit, to make it sail harmlessly by. It would only take a few ships throwing themselves at it to move the rock enough.

At three minutes before impact, on their magnified view, they saw ships emerge from Geiersburg. First a few, then a swarm, then more and more. Perhaps a general evacuation order had been given, or perhaps everyone had decided that imminent destruction was enough to make them disobey orders and leave.

In the chaos of all the ships rising at once and fleeing from the fortress, two broke off from the crowd and sped towards the rock. They were tiny in comparison to it, like minnows beside a whale, but their engines flashed white hot, and they crashed into it with as much force as they could produce. Yang hoped that there hadn’t been any crew on those ships, but he doubted it.

It was enough, though barely.

The rock screamed towards Geiersburg and brushed the edge of its liquid metal shell. The force of that impact on the liquid metal vaporized some, and sent other wild spinning droplets glittering and careening off into space. The fortress itself shook, the perfect spherical bubble warping and vibrating and beginning to spin. Even just that tiny touch seemed to be structurally devastating to the fortress’ outer shell, but if it had hit completely, the fortress would have ceased to exist.

Now, in the space around the fortress, a chaotic scrum was breaking out between Braunschweig’s troops, many in number, and the fortress’s neutral guard. It was too messy to be called a battle, since there seemed to be no commander on either side giving orders. It was ship against ship, no one in any formation, as they all tried to dodge the ship-sized globs of liquid metal that were flying off the fortress.

Merkatz ordered Braunschweig’s fleet to advance at top speed. Now that the space around the fortress was surrounded by this fracas, and the fortress itself was in complete disarray, there was no chance that the main gun would go off again.

By the time that their fleet had made it to the space around the fortress, the liquid metal shell had stopped writing quite so much, but Braunschweig’s allied forces had won the day, and they let Braunschweig’s ships through. They sailed past a field of debris— wrecked ships, dead ships, globs of liquid metal like huge funhouse mirrors. They reflected the carnage and Braunschweig’s ship alike, distorting the view and making it appear like there were twice as many vessels in the area, peeking out past micro black holes that bent the light.

Their ships descended into Geiersburg’s bays. Even though the liquid metal appeared smoother on the surface, as they sunk down through it, their ships were pushed to and fro.

When they docked, they could see the evidence of the damage that even the glancing blow from the rock had dealt. Some of the ships that had not managed to launch in time had been knocked hard into the walls of the fortress.

Yang had not been ordered to leave the ship and board the fortress, so he didn’t. Braunschweig did, along with Flegel and Ansbach and Hans von Vering. Flegel charged out at the head of a pack of armored soldiers, and Braunschweig walked calmly behind, surrounded by his own guard. Yang watched them go, until they left the view from the Berlin ’s monitors, and then he closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair on the bridge.

They had won the day, and cost had not been too steep— though any cost tended to weigh heavily on Yang. Their losses had been more than recouped by winning Geiersburg, and the fortress itself wasn’t too damaged by Yang’s plan. Although it looked bad, it didn’t seem in danger of imminent collapse, which meant that the damage could and would be repaired. He listened to the radio chatter, hearing the occasional staticky sound of Merkatz’s voice as he ordered the cleanup and organization to begin.

Yang’s even breathing and trying to force himself to relax— he had made it through the day whole and alive— almost put him to sleep. But then he heard an unexpected voice say his name, cutting through his mental haze.

Startled, he jerked up, and found himself face to face with Elizabeth, who had made it onto the bridge. Perhaps all the junior staff who remained onboard had not felt like contradicting her when she asked to be allowed in, even if it was completely against the usual decorum.

“Sleeping on duty, Commodore”, she asked. “I should reconsider your paycheck.”

“You can dock my pay for sleeping if you want, Your Majesty,” Yang said as he hastened to stand. “But I don’t think it will make much difference,” he added with a yawn.

“Perhaps.”

“Does your mother know you’re wandering through the ship?” he aksed.

“She’s sleeping.”

“I’m jealous,” Yang said, which made Elizabeth smile despite herself. “Was there something you needed, Your Majesty?”

“No,” she said. She wandered a few steps away from Yang, tracing her hands along the consoles. “I just thought I’d like to see what’s here, while no one who will say no to a woman being on the bridge is around.”

“Look all you like,” Yang said. “It’s not particularly exciting.”

“Perhaps,” she said again. Whenever she wandered over to one of the operator stations, the man at it got up uncomfortably and let her sit down at the chair. She was very careful not to push any of the buttons, but she read the labels and looked at the displays with her trademark detached curiosity. For some reason, Yang got the impression that she was killing time.

“What are you doing here, Your Majesty?” he asked, as she circled back around the first console she had looked at and started examining it again.

“My father said that he had a gift for me, and he said he’d give it to me when I step into Geiersburg,” she said.

“Really?” Yang asked. “And what type of gift is it?”

“I don’t know. I would like to answer that question myself.”

“And you think that waiting here will get you the answer sooner than being in your quarters?”

She gave him a sidelong look. “Commodore, are you trying to get rid of me?”

“Your mother will accuse me of overstepping my bounds by letting you stay here.”

“I’ll tell her I demanded it.”

Yang laughed. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

This only made Elizabeth scowl. “Tell me to leave, then,” she said.

Yang said nothing, and so Elizabeth remained on the bridge, though she stopped feigning interest in the operator stations and instead sat down in the chair at the center of the command dais. Every soldier who walked into the bridge did a double take to see the small teenager sitting there as regally as anything. She didn’t speak to Yang much, but she listened to the radio chatter for about forty minutes, and sipped a cup of tea that someone brought her. Yang was jealous of that, too. He wondered when she would give up on waiting for her father to call her in.

He shouldn’t have doubted Elizabeth’s patience, however, because the call did come. Ansbach’s voice came over the radio. “Ansbach to the Berlin ,” he said. “Who is on the bridge?”

“Leigh here,” Yang said, answering the radio.

“Oh,” Ansbach said. “Please tell me that Her Majesty is asleep right now.” Yang could tell exactly what that tone of voice meant from Ansbach. Even if Elizabeth was not asleep, he was supposed to lie.

“She’s—”

“I’m right here, Commodore,” Elizabeth said, coming up behind Yang and taking the radio mic from his hand. “Is my father asking for me?”

There was a painful moment of hissing silence over the radio. Finally, Ansbach said, “Yes, he is, Your Majesty. He wants you in Geiersburg’s reception hall.”

“Oh, excellent,” she said, sounding almost genuinely cheerful. “I’ll come straight away.” She pressed the mic back into Yang’s outstretched hand.

“Leigh here. Is there an escort ready or do I have to find one?”

“I’ll have guards meet you at the bay. You go with her.”

“Me? Why me?” The heavy silence from the other side was enough to make Yang sigh and say, “Fine. We’ll be there in about a half an hour. Can you tell me what she’s needed for?”

“No,” Ansbach said. “I have no idea.”

So Yang escorted Elizabeth out of the Berlin , met up with the contingent of heavily armed soldiers, and walked with her through the eerily silent corridors of Geiersburg fortress. She spent the whole walk looking around intently. Yang figured she was probably trying to assess the damage, and what fights had taken place in these halls, but he wasn’t sure how much she could learn from that observation. They didn’t meet a single soul on their way to the reception hall, until there were a gaggle of similarly armed soldiers outside, who let them all in.

The reception hall was empty and large, with a small throne— or something that approached a throne— down at the far end, past a long red carpet. It was meant to mimic the halls of Neue Sanssouci, and it seemed truly ostentatious for a military fortress, but it was presumably a feature that the Braunschweig family had added during the fortress’s construction, so that when nobility came to visit, they had a suitably splendid place to hold parties. The duke was sitting on the throne, but when his daughter came in, he stood and held out his arms.

“Elizabeth, my darling,” he said. Yang never heard him so warm in greeting his daughter before, but he was in a strange mood, it seemed, riding the high of conquering the fortress.

Elizabeth trotted away from Yang up to her father, her yellow dress fluttering as she went.

Yang got out of the way, and went to stand near the wall, waiting with the other soldiers. Curiously, there was no sign of Ansbach, Flegel, or Vering.

“I see you’ve conquered the fortress for me,” she said with a smile. Her attitude was totally different now, too, matching what she thought her father might want from her. “Is this your gift?” She let her father embrace her, though even with Braunschweig’s cheer, it was a somewhat unnatural looking hug.

Her father laughed. “Well, part of it. Come here.” He ushered her to sit down on the throne, then gestured for one of the soldiers who was standing by the wall to bring over a wooden box that he was carrying. Braunschweig opened the box and revealed a crown— not the huge ceremonial one that Kaiser Friedrich had worn in pictures, of course, but a crown nonetheless. It was gold, with sparkling red stones nestled in a floral filigree. He held it up, and Elizabeth smiled at it as he placed it on her head. She touched it with two fingers.

“I’m afraid it will be a little while yet before we can crown you in Neue Sansouci,” Braunschweig said. “But this will do for now.”

“I’m sure,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s very fitting for you. I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time. Are you ready for people to bow to you as kaiserin?”

She smiled, but didn’t answer the question. Yang thought Braunschweig was asking in hypotheticals, but then he gave a signal to some of the soldiers at the far end of the room. “Bring them in,” he said loudly.

The doors swung open, and Ansbach stepped into the room first and gave a deep bow to Elizabeth sitting on the throne. “Your Majesty,” he said. “The prisoners.”

And in through the door, at gunpoint, came soldiers who had been captured while taking the fortress. These were the imperial troops, those who didn’t belong to Braunschweig, who had resisted the invasion and lived. Some were wounded, though they all could walk. They shuffled into a few miserable looking rows, enlisted men and officers together.

“You are the lucky few!” Braunschweig called out over the assembled as soon as the shuffling had stopped. “The first to greet your new kaiserin!”

There was dead silence from the crowd.

“Her Majesty is very forgiving,” Braunschweig said. “Even though you fired upon her person, and failed to welcome her with the honors that she is due, she has no desire to waste your lives. She wishes that all of you remain her loyal subjects.” He glanced back at Elizabeth, who was sitting stiff and silent on the throne. If he took her expression under consideration at all, it didn’t seem to reflect in the contents of his speech.

“If you bow today, and swear your loyalty, and join my fleet, you will live,” he said. “If you fail to do so, you will be killed, to serve as an example for anyone else who thinks that they should refuse to bow to the rightful heir to the throne.”

Yang couldn’t help but speak up. “Sir— you can’t kill prisoners of war! That’s—”

Braunschweig turned to face him, realizing he was there for the first time. “If I wanted your opinion, Leigh, I would have asked for it.”

Yang glanced at Elizabeth, but she was staring ahead of herself at the assembled crowd with a completely inscrutable expression on her face. Her lips were slightly parted, and her breathing was heavy enough that Yang could see the rise and fall of her chest.

Ansbach pointed to the nearest man in the front row of conquered soldiers. “You. Kneel and say you’ll serve Her Majesty.”

The soldier looked around nervously, first at the men next to him, then at the cold glare of Duke Braunschweig and the others.

“Now,” Ansbach said.

The soldier stumbled forward out of his line, and knelt before Elizabeth. “I serve— Kaiserin Elizabeth—” he said haltingly.

“Good,” Braunschweig said. “Get up.”

The man did, and was shuffled away into a different room by some of Brauschweig’s guards.

This process was repeated another ten or so times, enough for the first row of captives, all enlisted men, to be cleared. Elizabeth didn’t say a word during this process, and just looked on with that strange gaze. When the first officer, a captain, was pulled out of line, Yang suddenly knew that something was going to go wrong.

Yang watched as the captain was pulled in front of Elizabeth. He refused to bow, so Braunschweig’s soldiers tried to force him to his knees. Braunschweig held them off, raising his hand.

“If he doesn’t want to bow, then he can serve as an example for the rest,” Braunschweig said. He took out his sidearm, checked it over like it was a dueling pistol. “Are you sure you don’t want to pledge to serve the true kaiserin?” he asked.

“You think I’m the traitor?” the captain asked. “You don’t have any claim—”

“Well,” Braunschweig said, and raised his gun. “If that’s the way you feel.”

Although Yang fixed his eyes on Elizabeth, who watched the scene with her lips slightly parted, and her hands clutching the armrests of her small throne, he could still see as Braunschweig pulled the trigger, and the man toppled to the ground at Elizabeth’s feet, staining the carpet with blood, and spraying the captive soldiers behind him with flecks of hot gore.

“Get this out of here,” Braunschweig said, and two of his men hastened to comply, dragging the corpse away.

“You,” Ansbach said, and pointed at the next soldier in line. “Kneel.”

The soldier did, falling quickly to knees before the throne, staining his hands and pants with blood.