The Battle of Valhalla

October 488 I.C., Geiersburg Fortress

Admiral Merkatz and Count Mariendorf had, thankfully, not been present at Braunschweig’s execution of the prisoners, but both of them had heard of it from someone other than Yang, so the mood when they met the next morning was somber.

Yang didn’t want to talk about it.

They met over breakfast, on Merkatz’s temporary flagship docked in Geiersburg, in his personal dining room. There wasn’t much personal about the place. The dining table and chairs they sat at were expensive real wood, but there was no other decor, just bare walls. The three silently ate for some time, the clinking of dishware the substitute for conversation.

“Have you spoken to the duke?” Merkatz finally asked. It wasn’t clear which of them, Count Mariendorf or Yang, he was addressing.

“Not today,” Yang said.

“I’m meeting with him at ten,” the count said. “After that, I expect I’ll be leaving.”

“Already?” Merkatz asked.

“There’s no reason for me to stay,” Franz replied. “I have a job to do, and travel isn’t fast.”

“There’s no reason to stay around here, anyway,” Yang said. “Though I’m sorry you’re going.”

“I’m not a military man,” Franz said. “I wouldn’t be useful to you, even if I was here.”

“No,” Merkatz said, “you might be. The duke is far more likely to take the advice of a peer than he is to take anyone else’s.”

“I’m hardly his peer. My estate is small, compared to his. Leigh is equivalent to me, in that respect,” Franz said. It was intended as a joke to lighten the mood, but neither Yang nor Merkatz laughed. “Are you certain he won’t listen to you?” he asked Merkatz.

“On military matters, he will defer in part. The duke is aware of his own shortcomings when he wants to be— he wouldn’t have recruited capable advisors if he wasn’t. But this is not going to remain a military matter for long, if everything goes well.”

“Are you headed directly for the capital?”

Yang and Merkatz glanced at each other.

“Yes,” Merkatz said. “It’s where Littenheim is certainly going to be going, and there’s no reason to give him an advantage of entrenching himself in that system if we can avoid it.”

“And you agree?” Franz asked Yang.

Yang ran his hand through his hair. “There are other things that we could do, but if we can defeat Littenheim quickly, then it will be better for everyone. Doing anything other than confronting him would be delays that wouldn’t win us more than they would cost.”

“And—”

“You can ask if you think we will be able to beat him,” Yang said. “I’m not offended by the question.”

“It’s not one my daughter would ask,” Franz said with a bit of a chuckle.

“She should,” Yang said. “I’d always give her an honest answer.”

“And do you think you’ll win?”

“Littenheim has far more ground troops than we have— Braunschweig’s ground forces are committed to his estates” —and Cahokia, but Yang didn’t mention that— “so we’ll be at a disadvantage if it becomes a land battle. In space, I think we’re better off.”

“Will it become a land battle?”

Yang shrugged. “Littenheim knows his weaknesses and strengths better than I do, so if he decides he can’t win in space, he’ll force it to become one. But there’s plenty of good reasons to stay off of Odin.”

“Does Littenheim care about those reasons?” Franz asked. “I know one of them is concern for the people of the planet, but I recall you telling me that the commander he recruited— High Admiral Ovlesser— I think you described him as ‘not gently weighing the scales of human life.’”

“He’ll care that he’s opening a second front battle,” Yang said. “If either Littenheim or Braunschweig wins decisively in space, Lichtenlade could probably be convinced to surrender to the victor. But if that doesn’t happen, he’s not going to let Littenheim walk into the capital and do as he pleases.”

“Do you agree with this assessment?” Franz asked Merkatz.

“Yes,” Merkatz said in his gruff voice. “It’s vital that we win quickly and decisively before any troops land on Odin.”

“I almost feel like I should wait to leave, to see the outcome,” Franz said. “If it is decisive, there won’t be a point in making the rounds for supplies.” The silence from Yang and Merkatz told him enough. He wiped his hands on his napkin. “That would be too easy, of course.”

“Decisive will need to mean complete annihilation,” Merkatz said. “This is a battle for his own future— and he either wins or dies.”

“I can’t say I know much about him personally,” Mariendorf said. “I don’t think I’ve ever spoken more than five words to him. Is that really going to be his stance?”

Yang looked into his empty teacup. “He’s correct in thinking about it that way. I don’t think the duke would accept his surrender.”

“No, he wouldn’t,” Merkatz said. “If the two of them didn’t hate each other quite so much, maybe it would be less personal for both of them. As it stands, I don’t think there’s anything that could cause them to set aside their differences, and that’s only going to become more true after they meet in battle.”

“I see,” Franz said.

Yang leaned back in his seat and looked up to the sky. “You couldn’t have avoided hearing the way Littenheim has tried to set up this fight as a battle for the soul of the country.”

“I try not to pay attention to gossip.”

“I think you and I are in agreement on that,” Merkatz said. “He can’t even make his accusations outright.”

“Oh, I see,” Franz said, catching Merkatz’s meaning immediately.

“Regardless if the accusations are true,” Yang said, “if Littenheim says that Braunschweig is a petty tyrant who kills anyone who stands in his way, it means that Littenheim’s believes Braunschweig can’t be stopped, compromised, or reasoned with, other than through complete destruction.”

“I’m surprised he’s not describing it as wiping out a stain on the Goldenbaum line,” Franz said.

“I think that would come too close to challenging the line itself,” Yang said. “But maybe he’ll get there, if this stretches on long enough.”

“Do you think it will?”

“I hope not,” Yang said.

Merkatz spoke up. “Littenheim will do anything to prolong the fight. Where there’s life, there’s hope, as they say. I don’t know what he’ll do if he ends up desperate.”

“The duke would do the same, wouldn’t he?” Franz asked. “Fight to the last man?”

“Yes,” Yang said. “But I think we have a better position than Littenheim overall, so that won’t be our problem.”

“Even without ground troops?”

“Yes,” Yang said, and his voice was assured enough that Franz nodded. “We’re in a better position. It’s just a position that will cost time and lives to win from.”

“There’s no position that wouldn’t,” Merkatz said.

Count Mariendorf put down his coffee. “Is there anything you’d like me to say to the duke before I go?”

Yang glanced at Merkatz again, but Merkatz just said, “I’m a soldier. I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to involve myself in the duke’s politics.”

“I don’t think he’d listen to anything you could say,” Yang said. “He didn’t listen to me.”

“You’re lucky he values you. He doesn’t usually tolerate anybody trying to get in his way,” Merkatz said.

“I should have tried harder.”

“No. And don’t try at all, next time. Save your efforts for where they can do some good.”

Yang frowned. “Even if I agreed with you, I doubt I’d be able to stop myself, sir.”

“I’ll be there, next time. Leave it to me.”

“I’ll speak with the duke,” Franz said. “I’ll see if I can make it so that there isn’t a repeat of last night.”

“How?”

“I might remind him that my daughter is about the same age as Elizabeth, and I think for her own happiness, it would be better if she didn’t have to witness her father behaving like that.”

“And you think that will work?” Yang asked. “He did it deliberately.”

“Like you, I have to say something .” He wiped his hands again and stood. “This will be a difficult alliance to hold together if everyone has to fear Duke Braunschweig’s unreasonable whims. And it will start to look like Littenheim is correct in his insinuations. I’ll remind him of that, too.”

“Fearing the leader’s whims has been the nature of this dynasty for almost five hundred years,” Yang said as he stood up, which made Merkatz shake his head. He put down his own cup and stood as well.

“Commodore, we should meet again later to talk about what forces we’re leaving at Geiersburg, and what our deployment is going to look like.”

“Yes, sir,” Yang said. He glanced at his watch. “At twelve?”

“Fine,” Merkatz said. “Count Mariendorf, if I don’t see you again before you leave, good luck.”

“Thank you,” Franz said. He shook Merkatz’s hand. “Good luck to you, as well. I suspect you’ll need it more than I will.”

“Perhaps,” Merkatz replied.

Yang and Count Mariendorf headed out of Merkatz’s flagship together. The count was quiet for a minute, until they were almost off the ship.

“You’re right that this has been the status quo for five hundred years,” he said. “But I was under the impression that you aimed to somehow improve that.”

“Did Hilde tell you that? Or is it just that you think I’m a little too much of a republican?”

“I don’t need my daughter to tell me everything.” He smiled at Yang.

“I like to think that I’m doing something that will eventually make the universe a better place,” Yang said. “Duke Braunschweig makes that more difficult than I’d like.”

“He does.”

“You don’t think you’ll have trouble convincing people to join him, do you?”

“That depends. If you win decisively enough the first time you meet Littenheim, that will go far in convincing people that they should back the ultimate victor.” They crossed the ramp out of Merkatz’s ship into Geiersburg’s bays. Soldiers streamed all around them. “Duke Braunschweig is very lucky that his counterpart is equally charismatic— this would be much more difficult if Littenheim was more beloved than he is.”

“That’s by design,” Yang pointed out. “Neither of them are great speakers or military men on their own. Back when Prince Ludwig was alive, Friedrich wouldn’t have let someone who could conceivably gather support against him marry one of his daughters.”

“No, only someone who could murder him,” Franz said, rather grimly.

“You think Duke Braunschweig killed Prince Ludwig?”

“His recent behavior has not demonstrated that it would be unthinkable,” Franz said. He looked over at Yang. “But you must not think he did.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I find it hard to believe that you’d want to support him for the throne, if he was that eager to commit regicide for it. Whoever killed him made civil war unavoidable— and I know you. You wouldn’t have wanted that.”

Yang frowned, and scuffed the textured metal of the floor with his toe as they lingered near the exit to the bay. No one was in hearing range now, all the soldiers busy at work and rushing towards and away from the great ships. There was a part of Yang that wondered— if he had told the Kaiser the truth, if war could have been averted, if an heir could have been named immediately. Perhaps millions of lives would have been saved. But Yang hadn’t done that.

“No, I wouldn’t have wanted to start a civil war,” Yang said. “You’re right.”

“But?”

Yang cocked his head and looked over the count’s shoulder. “Prince Ludwig’s life wasn’t worth more than that captain yesterday,” Yang said. “Braunschweig is eager to kill for the throne— I don’t know if it matters who.”

The count put his hand on Yang’s arm. “Hank—” And then he cut himself off. Even if no one was listening, it was far too dangerous to discuss Yang’s loyalties out in the open, and that dangling question was what the count wanted to ask about.

“I still think that there can be a better future,” Yang said. “This is where I need to be, to make that happen. I think it’s still worth it, even though…”

“You’ve changed. Ten years ago, you wouldn’t have said that.”

“Why do you think so?”

“Admiral Merkatz told me about what happened at El Facil.”

“Oh.” Yang ran his hand through his hair. “I apologize for lying to you back then.”

“No, I— I understand why you did. You’re not the only one who’s changed over these years.”

“Thank you, sir.” He smiled. “You’ll have to tell Hilde that you know. She’ll be relieved.”

“She knows?”

“I told her the first time I saw her after getting back to Odin. I’m afraid I’ve been trying to make your daughter a rebel this whole time.”

“There may be worse things to be in this world.”

“I don’t think it’s true that I’ve changed, though, sir.”

“No?”

Yang splayed his hands. “I’ve had a lot of practice making compromises, in the hope that something good would come of it down the line. El Facil was just the first time that turned out to be true.”

Franz studied him for a second. “The first time?” he asked.

Yang wasn’t sure what to say to that. “Well, I don’t know, sir.” He looked away. “The first time I felt like I was doing good for the world, and not just myself, and making excuses for it.”

Franz squeezed Yang’s arm. “Hank— if you’ll let me say something—”

“Please, sir. Of course.”

“I suspect you won’t listen to me, but not only has your presence been invaluable in my life, and in many others, I’m sure— but your life and happiness is worth something for its own sake. I hope you remember that, no matter what else happens.”

It was uncomfortable to listen to Franz say this, and when Yang tried to take a breath to respond, he realized his throat was thick with emotion. “Please don’t sound like you’re saying goodbye, sir.”

“I don’t want to be,” Franz said. “But be careful. Don’t—” And he cut himself off.

“I’ll try,” Yang said.

Although there was a great rush of activity on Geiersburg before the fleet headed out, the living area where the Braunschweig family was staying was quiet. Yang, though he had no right or official reason, headed there, on an errand of saying one last goodbye.

When he rang the bell on the Braunschweig family quarters, he was surprised to see Princess Amarie open the door. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been.

“Commodore Leigh,” she said, “what brings you here?” For once, her hair was down around her shoulders, and she was wrapped in a delicate shawl. It made her look more fragile than usual.

“I was hoping to get the chance to overstep my bounds once more, before I left.”

“Is that so?”

“Is the Kaiserin around?”

“No,” Amarie said. “She’s with her fiancee, in the gardens. Supervised, of course.”

“Ah.”

“What was it you wanted to say to her?”

“Goodbye, mostly,” he said.

“Come in, Commodore. You don’t need to stand in the hallway.” She held the door open, and Yang stepped inside the lavish quarters, his footsteps suddenly quieted by an elaborate rug. “Can I offer you a drink?”

“No, thank you,” Yang said. “I should be getting back soon. We’re not that long from heading out.”

Amarie nodded, but poured herself a drink from the decanter sitting on the coffee table. She sat down on the green velvet couch, and gestured for Yang to take a seat across from her, with his back to the huge, glass-fronted bookshelves and cabinets.

“And why was it that you wanted to say goodbye? It is overstepping your bounds, as you said.”

“Princess, against my better judgment, I care about your daughter as a person, rather than just as a head to wear a crown,” Yang said. “I was hoping to make sure she’s doing well.”

She was silent for a second, then she said, “My husband told me about the last meeting you had with my father.”

“What about it?” He watched her tip her glass back and forth.

“Were you really my father’s friend, in the end, Commodore?”

“No,” Yang said. “And I’m sure it’s just as impossible to be your daughter’s friend. But I did care about your father, in the way that I could, and I care about her.”

“I see. And you hoped to reassure Elizabeth, and tell her that her father will return victorious?”

“No,” Yang said. “I don’t like making overconfident predictions.”

“Then what would you say to her?”

“I’d tell her the plan, if she wanted to know it. I know you don’t approve, Princess.”

Amarie tapped her fingers on her glass. “It’s not that I don’t approve. This isn’t my world, Commodore, and it’s not hers. I wouldn’t be assured by you telling me about how you plan to conquer Iserlohn Fortress, and I doubt she would be, either.”

“I didn’t know you knew about that.”

“It may not be my world, but I’m not stupid, or blind. From the day my husband tried to petition my father for an outpost in the corridor— there’s only one thing that could possibly be for.”

“Ah.”

“I know you have some sympathy for us,” Amarie said, “though I’m not sure I appreciate the sense of pity.”

“I don’t know if anyone could pity you.” It was funny— she reminded Yang very strongly of Reuenthal in that moment, though the two of them were as different as people could possibly be. They had some of the same cold grace, though, and the same hatred of being seen as weak.

“Oh, they could.” Although she hadn’t actually drank anything from her cup, she put it down on the table before her. “You don’t like giving overconfident predictions, but you understand what will happen if my husband loses this war.”

“May I give you some advice, Princess?”

“How could I stop you?”

“If things look like they’re going badly, get to Phezzan.”

She laughed. “Oh, the worst thing anyone could do is prolong the inevitable. I despise false hope.” She looked in his eyes, and Yang wanted to squirm away. “If Littenheim has any sense, he’ll send a few ships to wait just out of range of this fortress— if any little convoy starts fleeing to Phezzan, it will be hunted down. As soon as my husband’s fleet leaves, we’ll be trapped here, with whatever few ships he sees fit to give us. And don’t tell me that this fortress is defensible— we’re sitting in it right now.”

“In a situation where there is a fleet that can launch from Geiersburg, it is much easier to defend,” Yang said. “We were able to capture it by preying on the weaknesses of the situation, not the fortress itself.”

“We?” she asked, very pointedly.

“Then let me put it bluntly: I don’t know if a different commander would be able to take this place.”

“And when Littenheim has won, and he brings the whole brunt of his forces against me here? Even if I could be a prisoner forever, I have no doubt that everyone else here would rather surrender than be entombed with me.” She pointed behind Yang, to the bookshelves and drawers that he was sitting in front of. “Third drawer, if you please, Commodore.”

Yang twisted on the couch and leaned far over the back to pull open the heavy wooden drawer of the cabinet. Inside was a small jewelry box, which he pulled out to sit on his lap. When Amarie said nothing, he lifted the lid, finding small, unmarked bottles of pills.

“You’re welcome to take some with you, if you like. I have more than enough,” she said. “I’m told the pinks are only a sedative, but you take it at the same time as the blues so that you’re peacefully asleep when the poison takes effect.”

“And did you offer these to anyone else?”

“Who else would I offer them to?”

“Herr Vering, maybe. Or your husband. Or Ansbach, since you’re offering them to me.”

“Ansbach was the one who got them for me,” she said.

“You trust him quite a bit.”

“He’s been a loyal man for many years. I notice these things— that’s a skill of my world.”

“Is that why we’re talking now?” Yang closed the jewelry box and put it back in the drawer.

“You prefer your sidearm?” she asked, watching him.

Yang splayed his hands. “I don’t carry a sidearm. I gave mine to my lieutenant, and he’s back on Odin. I prefer not to die.”

She shook her head. “You are a strange man, Commodore. I should have given you the same gift for your loyalty that I gave Ansbach a few years ago. Pity I only had one.”

“I don’t need any gifts,” Yang said. “I’m a very simple man.”

“You didn’t like my father’s gift to you, either.”

“He was too generous.”

“No, I don’t think that’s it,” she said. “You don’t like gifts, because they might mean something.”

“And what would it mean?”

“That you might actually be the loyal man you pretend to be, Commodore.”

Yang frowned. “I should go.”

“Good luck to you,” she said. “I hope we see each other again.”

November 488 I.C., En route to Valhalla Starzone

There were a few routes to Odin from Geiersburg Fortress, all of which were about equal length, but they narrowed down to one trunk as they came towards Valhalla starzone. Odin’s location as the capital planet had been chosen for this reason: this singular entry point made it very defensible, even from enemies within the Empire itself.

Braunschweig’s fleet’s journey to Odin was safe until they reached this last branching point. Until that point, there was no one chasing them or blocking their path, simply because it would have been too difficult to predict which of the many routes Braunschweig would take. But when they reached the main line on the map, although they kept plowing ahead, their navigators kept their eyes fixed to their instruments, eyes peeled for any kind of deviation in the track that they were following.

The tension rose higher and higher as they approached Odin. Even Braunschweig, a man known for his confidence, took to pacing back and forth on his command dais. Travel was always long and difficult to bear, and things had been tense on their way to Geiersburg, but not knowing where the enemy was going to approach from made it worse by a thousandfold.

Yang was lucky to be awake and on the bridge when the first signs of trouble appeared. In a normal battle, this might have been a communications blackout, but here, the alarm was raised by the chief navigator.

“Sirs, I’m getting a signal of obstructions along the path,” he said. “I don’t know what it is— could be asteroids, or a gas cloud—”

But everyone’s mind immediately went to the only place it could: Littenheim had arrived at Odin first, and had blocked the path. It was either ships or mines, but as they approached closer, they could see that the mass wasn’t quite enough for ships. Littenheim had been here, and had filled the path behind him with mines. If their ships tried to fly through them faster than light, they would be torn to shreds, as they would be if they tried to pass their ships through the solid bulk of a planet. But even if they slowed to sublight speeds, they would be vulnerable to the mines, and would have to clear the field before they could head towards the planet.

Braunschweig convened his advisors to discuss what they were going to do about it, though it was clear that he had already made up his mind from the moment they all sat down in his wardroom. Braunschweig sat imposingly at the head of the table with his nephew, Baron Flegel, on one side, and Ansbach at the other. Also in attendance were Yang, Merkatz, and the unfortunate Hans von Vering, who sat next to Flegel uncomfortably.

“We don’t have much of a choice,” Braunschweig said. “We need to clear the mines to get to Odin. And as quickly as possible. The question is only of how. Can we get away with a long narrow passage, or do we have to clear the majority? Gentlemen?”

“May I say something, sir?” Yang asked.

Braunschweig’s nose wrinkled. “Yes.”

“I don’t think we should spend our time clearing the mines,” Yang said.

At first, the room was quiet, and then Flegel laughed. “And how do you think we get to Odin, then?”

“Well, sir, look at it this way— do we know where Littenheim is?”

“On the other side of those mines, Leigh,” Braunschweig said. “He wants to wear us down, and have time to entrench himself. That is generally what mines are used for.”

“But what would he get out of that?” Yang asked. “Sir— right now, this is the only path to Odin, right? He’s essentially cut off his own supply lines— and the entire population of Odin with him— if he’s hiding behind there. It’s like he’s invited us to starve him out. It doesn’t make sense as a strategic choice.”

Merkatz spoke up. “Do you think that Littenheim believes we will starve him out? I believe he’s expecting us to clear the mines, and this is just buying him time. He couldn’t have arrived here too long before us. An extra few days would be to his advantage.”

“He does expect us to clear them, sir,” Yang said. “But I don’t think he’s waiting for us on the other side.”

“And why not?” Merkatz asked.

“This seems designed to waste our time.”

“I think we’re all in agreement there,” Ansbach said.

Yang pulled a pad of paper from the center of the wardroom table towards himself and started drawing a diagram on it. “Look,” he said, “the most important thing to understand is that Littenheim’s goal right now is not Odin itself. He doesn’t care about defending the capital from us— he wants to crush us. If we’re too fixated on getting to Odin, we lose sight of the bigger picture.”

Yang sketched a line on the paper: their forces, the mines, Odin. Then he continued. “Look at this: we’re trapped in a narrow little corridor— just like Iserlohn— with, right now, a wall on one side of us. If we start wasting our time clearing the mines, and Littenheim comes up behind us, we will be completely encircled, and won’t be able to retreat either out into space or down towards Odin.” He shook his head. “Littenheim doesn’t need to care about his position in space around Odin— he already has us walking into the perfect trap.”

“That’s a very interesting story, Commodore,” Flegel said, in his most dismissive tone. “But there’s no evidence for it to be true.”

“Baron Flegel is correct,” Braunschweig said. “And, contrary to Commodore Leigh’s assertion, Odin is valuable. If Littenheim controls the capital, he controls the perception of this war.”

Yang glanced over at Merkatz, hoping for support, but Merkatz said nothing.

“You’re friends with Count Mariendorf, aren’t you, Commodore?” Vering asked.

“Yes,” Yang said.

“Then you should know how important it is to have something to use to gather support among the lesser nobles, the industrialists like my father— they’re the people who will keep us able to fight.”

Yang was losing this argument. “Mines and ships aren’t symbolic,” Yang said. “Littenheim needs to defeat us if he wants control. If he’s smart—”

Braunschweig laughed. “He’s not. That’s your problem, Leigh. You’re a little too clever.”

Yang frowned and slumped back in his seat. He lifted his eyes just once. Ansbach didn’t look back at him, but was studying Yang’s scribbled diagram.

After the meeting, which devolved into a long discussion about the best way to clear up the mines, Yang caught Merkatz on his way back to his shuttle.

“Sir!” Yang called. Merkatz stopped and waited for him in the hallway, though he waved for his own aide— some young man named Schneider— to go ahead to the shuttle.

Yang was out of breath when he caught up to Merkatz.

“Are you going to try to ask me to change my mind about where Littenheim’s fleet is, Commodore?” Merkatz asked.

“No,” Yang said when he had caught his breath. “But— why?”

Merkatz looked at him sidelong. “For once, I find myself in agreement with the duke’s strategic thinking.”

“Yes, sir,” Yang said, though he couldn’t keep the disappointment out of his voice.

Merkatz never showed much emotion, but he took pity on Yang. “Commodore, if it was you and me in the corridor, and we encountered the rebels doing this, I would believe that there is some kind of trick involved. But the duke knows his opponent far better than I do— and I have to agree that he has never shown much creativity, in the years I’ve heard his name.”

Yang frowned. “Even if Littenheim isn’t creative— he’s been recruiting talent.”

Merkatz raised an eyebrow. “And is he any more likely to listen to that talent than the duke is?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“I know Admiral Ovlesser,” Merkatz said. “He’s a very direct man. If he’s coordinating, there won’t be any tricks.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Lieutenant Commander Vering is right, as well. We need a victory at Odin— in Valhalla.”

Yang nodded.

“You’ll be with the duke, at least, and in the rear, since he has no interest in clearing mines himself. Does that ease your mind any?”

“Some,” Yang said. “Just as long as we can react quickly.”

“I’ll admit it eases my mind,” Merkatz said. “But I hope nothing comes of it.”

“Enjoy your cleanup duty.”

“I will, thank you, Commodore,” Merkatz said with his wry voice.

The procedure to clear out a minefield, especially one as widely spread as the one blocking their path, was a slow one. It involved ships proceeding as carefully as they could through the dangerous area, sending out jets of directional zephyr particles, which they would then ignite with the ship’s guns once the gas was far enough in front of them, creating a ball of flame that would swallow up the nearby mines. Before the invention of directional zephyr particles, the process had been much slower: bomb attracting decoys had needed to be sent to clear a path through. That was costly in terms of resources as well as time, and a fleet the size of Braunschweig’s might not have even carried enough decoys to clear a path. At least zephyr particles could be manufactured on the engineering ships, even if the process was time consuming.

Yang didn’t want to leave the bridge, feeling tied to it by the impossible-to-dismiss fear of an ambush, but even he had to sleep sometimes. And Braunschweig, who also spent much of his time in his position of authority, could only tolerate so much of Yang (and Hans von Vering, for that matter), so Yang couldn’t lurk there as much as he might have preferred.

He and Vering ended up in the same place quite often for this reason. Yang got the sense that Ansbach thought that Yang should babysit him (or should be tortured by having to deal with him), so when Yang wandered off the bridge to go take his dinner, or sit in the officers’ lounge, Ansbach would quickly dismiss Vering to go do the same. And when Vering left, Ansbach would give Yang a signal to go follow him and make sure he was not in trouble.

Vering wasn’t even a troublemaker, so it all seemed quite pointless. In the times Yang watched him, he mainly sat around and drank, and would try to get the other officers to gamble with him. They rarely took him up on the offer, but he never seemed to grow tired of asking. He was a sore winner and a grumbling loser, though he had so much money to throw around that he should hardly have missed it when he did lose. Yang supposed it must be the principle of the thing for him, but it made him quickly run out of willing opponents on board the ship, even when he offered to bet over things other than cards: the outcome of a chess match, or darts. It was almost painful to watch him continue to try to recruit friends in this way, since it never worked.

It was strange— Yang had always liked people that he felt he could give a helping hand to, and Vering certainly was in this category, but Yang struggled to find much affection or even sympathy for him. It was unfair to the young man, of course. There was plenty about his situation that was deserving of sympathy: he was out of his depth, and, like Elizabeth, was being used as a tool of the older generation. And Yang often found himself friends with people whom nobody liked— he could see immediately through Oberstein’s cold and awkward demeanor to a person whom Yang could respect and enjoy the company of— but there seemed to be very little to Vering to like. And he made no effort to like Yang, either. For this reason, Yang, and Yang alone, was spared being asked to play cards. He might even have taken Vering up on the offer out of pity, if he had asked. But he never did, no matter how much time they spent in the same place.

This was why, when the alarm finally came, as Yang had known it would, he and Vering were alone in the officers’ lounge, sitting as far away from each other as they could get. Yang had arrived first, and had positioned himself near the faux fireplace to read a book in the plush armchair there, which meant that Vering was at the other side of the room, drinking a beer and playing a game of solitaire on one of the tables, pointedly not looking at Yang. When the wail of the alarm pierced the air, he jumped, knocking his beer with his elbow, and it fell to the floor and shattered, foam and glass going everywhere.

He stood in a hurry, then clearly didn’t know what to do with himself once he had stood, looking back and forth between the mess on the floor and the door, where the visible alarm flashed red.

“What’s going on?” Vering asked. He might not have been asking Yang specifically, but since Yang was the only person in the room, it was up to him to answer.

“I assume we’re getting ambushed,” Yang said. He tucked his bookmark into his book, then tossed it on the side table. “Come on. Are you coming to the bridge?”

“I—”

Outside the lounge, they could hear pounding feet in the corridor as soldiers ran past, all headed for their duty stations. Yang’s nonchalance was unfeigned when he walked to the door and held it open for Vering. There was something about the breaking of tension that made him slip into a cool decision-making mode. He would feel the horror of it all later, but for now, he could keep his wits about him. It all broke down into simple, clear steps that he could take: get to the bridge, assess the situation, come up with a plan. Walking through a sequence of events, one following another, no matter where they led, gave Yang a strange clarity and calmness that other people seemed to lack.

Yang escorted Vering to the bridge. Ansbach was already there, as was Braunschweig, of course. Yang was relieved that Baron Flegel had, with his section of the fleet, been assigned mine-sweeping duty, and was not on the flagship. The bridge was frantically busy, and Yang pulled Vering over to Ansbach to get an update on the situation.

“How much time do we have before they get here?” was Yang’s first question.

“They didn’t drop sublight until they were on top of us,” Ansbach said. “Thirty minutes to contact, I think.”

“Is that good?” Vering asked, naked fear in his voice.

“It’s better than if we were already being shot at,” Yang said. “Has Merkatz started moving the fleet?”

Ansbach pointed towards the front of the bridge, where the display showed the positions of each individual section of Merkatz’s fleet buried among the mines. They had scooped out a cavity in the center of the minefield, but this had been done by spreading the fleet, and now that cleared area looked less like a victory, and more like a death trap. If the fleet did not carefully maneuver back into position, they would obliterate their own flanks by running them into the mines, without Littenheim’s fleet firing a shot.

What they needed was time, time to get Merkatz’s fleet out of the minefield, time to organize into a defensive line— but that was what they did not have. They had a small section of the fleet outside the minefield, Braunschweig’s “rear guard”, and with it, they would need to fend off Littenheim for as long as they could. With them were about half of the engineering ships, the ones generating zephyr particles, which rotated in and out of the minefield in shifts as their tanks refilled. It was this little detail that Yang’s mind seized on.

“Does the duke already have a plan he wants to enact?” Yang asked. There was no point in bringing up his idea if the duke was already settled on something.

“No,” Ansbach said. “What are you thinking?”

“Can we retreat right to the mouth of the minefield, and use our FTL, just for a moment, so we move faster than they’re coming at us?” Yang asked. “It buys us a little more time, and gets us closer to our allies.”

Ansbach looked skeptical. “It’s dangerous to do that so close to the mines.”

“Our formation out here is small enough that I’m not worried about overshooting the mark, and we’re in one of the transit lanes— not in the gravity well of a star. That makes it a lot easier.” Yang said.

Ansbach nodded slowly.

“And, while we do that, send all of the zephyr gas we have out in front. It won’t go too far, but if we’re backing up, Littenheim will end up closer to it than we will. It might break up their front line, or at least give us a little more time.”

Ansbach thought about it for half a second, then nodded sharply and turned away to go relay the plan to Braunschweig. Yang was fine with this— it was easier if he did it.

“This is crazy,” Vering muttered under his breath. “This is—”

“Please get a hold of yourself,” Yang said. “Here. Come talk to Merkatz with me. I’m sure he already knows what needs to happen, but let’s make sure we’re on the same page.” He pulled on Vering, who had gone all pale and sweaty already, though a single shot hadn’t even been fired. Yang led him like a puppy over to the communications console, where he asked the radioman to get in contact with Merkatz.

Yang saluted as Merkatz’s fuzzy image appeared on screen. “Sir,” Yang said.

Merkatz squinted into the camera, and saw Vering looming behind Yang. “I assume you have a contingency plan, Commodore?” Merkatz asked.

Now wasn’t the time for apologies— and Yang just nodded, getting to the point. He briefly explained what the rear guard was going to do.

“You’ll need to arrange the fleet behind us while we hold the line,” Yang said. “Will you have enough space to move?”

“We’ll make it work,” Merkatz said. “And when they arrive?”

“It will be up to you and your fleet, sir,” Yang said. “All you can do is try to break through. When you’ve formed up, take a spindle formation. We’ll hold them off until then, and when you’re ready, we’ll get out of the way so you can punch through. You might even be able to herd them back into the minefield— or if you can’t, just retreat in the other direction.” He didn’t really need to explain this to Merkatz, but he said it for the sake of the listening Vering, and Merkatz’s aide, standing at his shoulder.

“You don’t have any tricks? No secret plan to lead the mines like a pied piper into the enemy fleet?” Merkatz’s voice was tonelessly gruff as always, but he smiled, maybe an attempt to put Yang’s mind at ease.

“I’m not a magician,” Yang said. “Just a tactician. And if I had anything like that up my sleeve, we wouldn’t have been wasting all our time with zephyr particles.”

“Very true. Do you expect Littenheim has a…”

Yang felt the telltale twitch of gravity as the ship’s engine worked to compensate for movement. As the ship engaged its faster than light engines, the picture of Merkatz warped and shifted and broke apart, leaving nothing but a smear of static and a tuneless buzz, which Yang stared at for a moment before looking up at Vering, who was clutching the back of a chair with white knuckles.

“How can he joke at a time like this?” Vering asked.

“Sit down, Lieutenant Commander,” Yang said. “Calm down.”

Although Yang’s words had the effect of making Vering angry, a red face was an improvement from a pale one, so Yang considered it a success. He stalked away from Yang, and went to go haunt the other side of the bridge, though Yang realized that Ansbach was right, and that he did need an eye kept on him. Yang watched him out of the corner of his eye, even when he went to talk to Braunschweig directly about the specifics of their fleet movement.

They dropped back to sublight speeds almost immediately, then began the complicated process of turning their ships around. Luckily, there was still a few minutes before Littenheim’s fleet came within firing distance, and in that time, Yang received reports about how Merkatz’s fleet reorganization was going. It was slow, because any too-quick movements within the minefield could set off a chain reaction of destruction, but the fleet was coming together. If Braunschweig’s “rear guard” could hold the line for even forty minutes— thirty minutes— then Merkatz’s fleet could form a spindle, and break through Littenheim’s line. All they had to do was keep the fleet from forming up to pin Merkatz within the minefield.

The enemy ships were visible now, or at least they were on the peak magnification on the screen at the front of the bridge. Tiny swarms of light, almost like stars, but coming closer, faster and faster. The analysis of the data pouring in confirmed what Yang had already guessed about Littenheim’s fleet: it was slightly smaller than Braunschweig’s in number, by a few thousand ships. Surprisingly, there weren’t many bulky transport ships among their number, but perhaps that shouldn’t have been a surprise: Littenheim had arrived here first in time to put up the minefield, so all his many thousands of ground troops might already be on the other side, headed to Odin. If their ships were useless in a fight, there was no reason to keep them involved. He wondered where they would wait to meet up with Littenheim’s main fleet, if they were hiding, how many of them there were, and what kind of defenses they would encounter if they did try to land on Odin.

For Yang, it was this logic puzzle which kept him in the ideal state of distraction and focus. If he didn’t have something to think through, his eyes would settle vacantly on the ships ahead, and it would begin to weigh on his heart. Some other people on the bridge were not lucky enough to have this train of thought to chase. Vering stood, staring at the screen, slack jawed.

It didn’t surprise Yang that he was having this reaction. After all, Geiersburg, for all it had been a victory, had taken the fearless wind out of many people’s sails. And in that battle, they hadn’t fired shots of their own, for the most part. It hadn’t been fleet on fleet like this, and it was completely different to watch the enemy approach than it was to do the approaching.

Looking at Vering, Yang asked himself if he was afraid. He couldn’t find an answer, or he didn’t want to.

The ships came closer.

“How long until they enter our zephyr cloud?” Braunschweig asked.

“Forty seconds,” the radar operator said.

“Are we in firing range of that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are we out of range of the gas?”

“Affirmative, sir.”

Although it felt to the onlookers that Littenheim’s fleet should slow as they approached the invisible danger, they plowed directly into the cloud, unaware of its presence.

“Fire!” Braunschweig ordered.

The bright beams that lanced out into space felt like the first real shots of the civil war. This was against their true opponent, meeting him in battle for the first time.

Since the zephyr particles were so dispersed in space, it took an unusually long moment for the chain reaction to ignite the cloud, but then it did, blooming like a rose, consuming the first few rows of Littenheim’s fleet.

The chaos, too, took a moment to unfold. Ships still accelerating behind the explosion began to change course as quickly as their hukling masses would allow, pitching and rolling to avoid the debris of the disabled ships that had been caught in the blast. This spoke to poor management of a hodgepodge fleet more than anything— clearly Littenheim’s fleet was not disciplined enough to maintain formation at all cost. The effects of the front lines breaking ranks traveled backwards, until the cameras on the Berlin could no longer pick out the movements of individual ships in the crowd. The movement of the fleet slowed: a commander must be yelling at them to get back in line.

Yang’s trick had done its work at least, bought them a little more time. Every second that they could gather would mean more of a chance for Merkatz to form his own lines.

But the disorder among Littenheim’s fleet hadn’t lasted long, and though they had momentarily slowed, they did not stop their advance, even as Braunschweig’s ships fired again and again.

The wall of ships moving towards them soon overwhelmed the zoom of the cameras. Though the camera backed out further and further, the ships still somehow managed to fill the entire screen, no matter how many times the magnification was reduced.

They couldn’t retreat, but if they didn’t move, they were sitting targets for the enemy’s guns, so it was no surprise that Braunschweig ordered their paltry rear guard forward, focusing their fire and trying to open a weak spot in Littenheim’s line for Merkatz. Yang glanced behind himself at the display that showed Merkatz’s position— painfully slowly, the ships were gathering together.

As the actual battle began, Yang stopped paying attention to Merkatz’s progress. All he could do was watch what was happening in front of them. The outside world, though seen through cameras, became a confusing jumble, ships coming close to each other, swerving away, fire streaking out, bright flares when ships were hit. The soundscape was disjointed from the image— like watching a silent movie in a theater— the only sounds to accompany the death-scenes of ships in front of them were the inrushed breaths and choked exhales of the onlookers on the bridge of the Berlin .

The flagship was under fire, but the navigator kept them safe from the worst of it, and their shields deflected some, though the power draw of doing so made the whole ship’s gravity shudder underfoot.

Even though he wasn’t in command, and there wasn’t much more he could do in his advisory position, Yang didn’t lose track of the battle situation. Braunschweig, to his credit, wasn’t making mistakes when he directed the focus of fire of his ships, and tried his best to keep them in a position where they wouldn’t be picked down. But even if he didn’t make mistakes, there were no good choices he could make, no orders that would win the day. Their rear guard was two thousand ships against Littenheim’s force five or six times greater than that.

When the ship directly to the right of the Berlin exploded under concentrated fire, the blinding light of its engines giving way briefly blacked out the flagship’s cameras, leaving the bridge blind to the carnage outside. Most people tensed, waiting for a blow that they wouldn’t be able to see coming.

Yang, able to tear himself away from watching for the first time, scanned the bridge and realized that Hans von Vering was missing.

This was a problem. There were only so many places it would make sense for a panicked Vering to go, and at least one of them would be a certain death sentence. Though Braunschweig probably wouldn’t mind if Vering did something to get himself killed, it would be a major problem for Count Mariendorf’s efforts to recruit allies. The elder Vering would not take kindly to his son’s death, and would have the power to tear the Braunschweig alliance apart financially.

Yang left the bridge just as the cameras regained power and a flickering image of the outside world reappeared overhead. The chaos of the fight would continue, regardless of Yang’s presence. He couldn’t affect the battle one way or another at this point, but he could make himself care about Hans von Vering.

The hallways of the ship were strangely quiet, now that everyone was at their battle stations. The only evidence that the ship was even under attack was the occasional shudder of the gravity engine, either from moving the ship or deflecting a blow. It was a disconcerting sensation, but it made it very easy for Yang to cross the entire length of the ship.

There in the rear were the shuttles, including the one reserved for Braunschweig’s personal use. They all sat nestled in their launchpads in the small bay, unattended at the moment. Surprisingly, Vering had already managed to break into Braunschweig’s shuttle: Yang could see him through the front window, sitting at the helm and looking completely overwhelmed. His movements were erratic as he poked at the buttons in front of him, presumably trying to get the ship to launch.

He didn’t notice Yang until he climbed the steps up to the shuttle door, leaned over the handrail sideways, and rapped on the front window. Vering didn’t stop what he was doing, and maybe even redoubled his efforts.

It should have been Ansbach here instead, Yang thought. Ansbach almost certainly knew the code that would open the shuttle door. Yang had to resort to yelling, hoping to be heard through the thick glass.

“Let me in!” he said.

Vering could hear him. He shook his head wildly.

“I know the launch code!” Yang yelled. “I can help you!”

Vering hesitated for a moment, then yelled back, “Why?” His voice was so muffled, Yang only barely understood him, half through the movements of his lips.

“I want to get out of here!”

Vering ignored him again and went back to pushing buttons on the console for a minute, or at least hovering his hand over them. Yang couldn’t see if he was making any progress with launching the shuttle. Yang banged on the window again. “I can help you launch it!”

At this moment, the ship’s gravity fluctuated again, and Yang lurched, almost falling over the railing. He clutched it until the ship stabilized, and when he looked back up, Vering had gone even paler.

“Come on,” Yang pleaded. “Open the door.”

And, miraculously, Vering did. The door of the shuttle slid open, and Yang stumbled inside and closed it behind himself. He took a seat in the copilot’s chair at the front of the shuttle, then leaned back and sighed, draping his arm over his face.

“The launch code!” Vering demanded, then hissed in a breath as the ship was rocked again. “The launch code!” he said again a second later, and Yang lifted his arm off his face to realize that Vering was pointing his sidearm at him.

“Put that away,” Yang said. Vering didn’t lower the gun at all, and his finger itched towards the trigger.

“Tell me what the code is!”

Yang dropped his arm back over his face. “I don’t know it. Don’t you think that if I knew it, I’d also know how to open the door myself?”

Vering made a sound that was halfway between a whine and a snarl. Yang was probably closer to death in that moment than he had been in many years— Vering was perfectly capable of shooting him, and possibly willing, too. But Yang didn’t move, didn’t lift his arm to look, and just waited.

“Put the gun down,” he said after a moment.

“No.”

“You’re not going to shoot me, so I don’t know why you need to keep pointing it at me.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Stopping you from killing yourself, or getting yourself killed,” Yang said. He held out his other hand blindly. “The gun, please. Well, actually, the energy pack. You can keep the gun.”

Nothing was placed into Yang’s hand, but he heard Vering slump down into the seat next to him.

“We’re going to die,” Vering said.

“Maybe,” Yang replied.

The ship rocked again.

“I can’t get out of here.” Vering’s voice was almost completely overtaken by panic.

“No. And if you did, this is interstellar space. This shuttle can’t get you back to Odin, even if you didn’t get shot down.”

“Shut up.”

“Alright.”

“I don’t want to die,” he said, choking on the words.

“That’s good,” Yang said. “Yeah. That’s good. I don’t want to die, either.”

When Yang lifted his arm to look at the boy, he found Vering sobbing with his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking as he tried and failed to get enough air with each breath.

They sat together in Braunschweig’s shuttle, feeling the ship sway and rock, otherwise oblivious to the world outside. They sat there until Merkatz’s fleet broke through Littenheim’s line, and pushed them back into the minefield, where they used a failsafe to disable their mines, and retreated to Odin. But Yang wouldn’t learn of this until many hours later.